[US_Politics] The Media: "Still Dreaming of Watergate"
 

Sore losers don't give up easily. The fantasy somehow persists that "bad old Russia, of course," is the real reason why the election-results map last November was a sea of red. Why, voters throughout the nation should have remembered their Duck and Cover 2 lessons from grade school, as they struggled mightily to "of course elect the correct candidate," only to be thwarted by the Kremlin.

Why, voters should have instantly been outraged as they discovered that the election results on their television screens didn't match the way that they knew they had voted! They should have been screaming at their electors to "fix things," but maybe the Russians hacked the electoral college, too. Yes, from thousands of miles away, they prevented all fifty states from discussing their election outcomes with their electors, just so "the illegitimate wrong candidate" would win, not just one but two independent voting processes.

The media, and the Democrats, are still "dreaming of Watergate," still dreaming of somehow declaring that the present President is some kind of imposter. Still dreaming of running him out of town on a pole.

Unfortunately for them, he isn't. Unfortunately for them, they can't.

Although some States foolishly adopted "paper-less" (and, "un-auditable") election systems, most did not. The votes were cast and tallied the old-fashioned way – and those results have since been audited. The electoral results also speak for themselves, with two Hillary electors defecting.

"It's over, people," except that it isn't. The visions of Madame Presidente might well persist for the next four (or eight) years, and who knows how much public money they will burn-up in the process . . .

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You've now done this in multiple threads. Please remember the LQ Rules are pretty clear on not posting if you don't have something constructive to add. That said, we're getting very near the point where political topics are going to be explicitly banned for a period of time. I was against doing this and have avoided it up until now, but the shear volume and nature of them is becoming untenable.


--jeremy

It's not a dream.

It's a nightmare.

http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/n...night-massacre

By and large, Jeremy, it has never yet become objectionable, at least to me, although I don't know how much time your moderator team is having to spend on things that I don't see. Still, political discussion needs to be "strictly on point," bringing something more to the table than just what is spewed out on the evening news. And, that takes a certain amount of work and discipline from the participants. If you feel that it's detracting from the value of the site as fundamentally a Linux resource – which it is (and, "one of the very best") – of course the prerogative is entirely yours.

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Frank, here's an example. The hyperlink you cited, to an article about the firing of the FBI Director, is ... just a hyperlink, and the article itself is simply too-dripping with hyperbole to be useful or worth reading. We could have found the same article ourselves. "So, what about it?" That's what we should be doing here, not just giving clink-links to other sites.

As for the FBI Director, I don't know why Trump retained him in the office. He had turned the FBI into a thoroughly political place. He couldn't stop talking about Hillary's e-mails, yet he also couldn't find where the leak was. He eagerly started the "investigation" that Trump's Watergate-seeking political opponents wanted, but only seemed to want to say things like, "We are authorized to say that so-and-so is under investigation." Well, Senator McCarthy did much the same thing with "investigations." The director knew how to hold "you're under investigation" over other people's heads, but he didn't seem to be investigating anything of value. And the FBI should be an agency that is scrupulously neutral, to avoid clouding its ability to investigate. Under this guy, it was "anything but."

My " old age " is showing on me again today!! This morning while waiting for a bus I saw a distressing group teenagers walking by and I felt very sorry for them!! Later I read this article by John W. Whitehead as he expressed his feelings about the " mess " our generation is leaving for our young!!

https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/...rdians-galaxy/

This is an excellent article, "Cousin." Thanks for sharing!

Perhaps this quote from Rod Serling, in the article, is a most-important thing for our lawmakers in Washington (and elsewhere) to remember: If there is anything that I hope our President Trump will teach Washington, it is "the arts of negotiation and compromise." When you spend much of your life in the halls of power, soon you don't see anything beyond it. (That's the main reason why the amount of time you are allowed to spend in those halls must be strictly limited for all offices.) When no one can make you say "aye" when you are inclined to say "nay" or vice-versa, it's easy to assume that "it's all about me," and not to consider the enormous implications of your decision either way. We have actually de-evolved our politics to the point where our Supreme Court declared that bribery is an "inalienable right" of a corporation – and that the entire Bill of Rights applies to corporations, too. That leaves nothing for some people to "negotiate" except "the price."

We can, in fact, set this nation on an entirely different course, and in so doing set an example that other nations will want to follow. For instance, we can stop trying to prop-up a "for-profit health care" system (in spite of the continued presence of "Senator HCA"), and recognize that everyone is entitled to go to the doctor or to a hospital, there to receive the best and most-unbiased care that it is possible to give them, because no one's trying to make money at it anymore. As for the "crushing student loan debt," we can simply take a chapter from the Jewish playbook and forgive 100% of that debt, driving "for-profit colleges" off the playing field and allowing our young people to spend their money on their own futures. We can demand that our armed forces stop making "all of the earth, the sky, and the deep blue sea" into "a military Command." We can throw away international trade agreements that are nothing more than "a global race to the bottom," and negotiate new ones that actually protect the national interests of all participants.

We can do all of these things, and I think that President Trump was elected from a very-decisive public sentiment that all of these things should be done, "starting right now." But the lawmakers are fighting hard, no matter what color T-shirt they wear. Protecting their own personal biases, thinking that these biases represent their constituents when in fact they represent the lawmakers' not-so under-the-table income.

These people hate Trump because they fear him.

I am of the belief that President Pence will take the oath of office within a year from today because Donald Trump will resign in order to get " a pardon " just like President Nixon did!! Of course I am just an old man without any clout or any mystical ability; but I believe that the " entrenched republican establishment " is already plotting on various ways to get Donald Trump out of the White House as soon as possible!!

Do you have any opinions about this??

My opinion is that "you're dreaming."

The media remembers when the Washington Post drove a President out of office, and they've convinced themselves that they can do it again. They despise Trump because they fear him, and maybe because he's several thousand times richer than everyone else in Washington (and he didn't get that way by being politically corrupt).

But Trump is what the American People want.

Very, very seldom do " the American people " get what they really want from any " politician " or any political party!!

I think President Pence would be even more dangerous than President Trump.

Pence knows how to behave in public.

Oh (evil grin), by the way, here are some words from a historian: http://notesironbound.blogspot.com/2...-is-third.html

Full disclosure: I trained as a historian, though I never worked as one. Our history explains our present.

A generally well-written article, but he reveals his bias when he refers to "a candidate who lost by millions of votes became President" and calls that "a Constitutional crisis." It is, of course, "the Constitution working as it was designed." A chart of US Population by State shows the "long tail" shape most clearly. The number of people who voted in California (about 11 million) exceeds the population of 43 states. Hillary's "margin of victory" (about 2 million) exceeds the population of 14 states. This is why the design of the Constitution uses a two-tier strategy in two places: in the election of the President, and in the House of Representatives itself. Without this, it wouldn't have made the slightest bit of difference if every single person in more than one-third of the States had gone to the polls at all (even if 100% of their population was somehow of voting age).

His thrust seems to me to be "to castigate the enemy, without really explaining why." He's preaching to a choir, and he knows it. I'm not sure that his appeal to "Democrats, Radicals, and Journalists" actually holds water.

Perhaps the most "radical" thing that the nation's public has ever done in a hundred years is: to elect Donald Trump. :eek:

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And I also think that you're right about Pence. People dream of him because he's what they know: "an old white guy, a professional politician, who" (they imagine) "will do what Presidents of the last forty years are supposed to do – that is to say, nothing." But they really haven't looked closely at what makes him tick. They're too caught up in their fear of the unknown.

Even some of President Trump's most ardent supporters are hoping that he " gets his act together ":
http://dailycaller.com/2017/05/14/an...rs-were-right/

I am a United States citizen and Donald Trump is our president; but I can not help but to be concerned about all of our so-called political leadership and where they are taking us!!

I fully expect that many of Trump's supporters will abandon him – then adore him – then back again. I suspect that Washington lawmakers will do the same thing. (We've already heard from several judges.)

Personally, I've been concerned for a long time. We've had what I describe as a "fossilized" government, at many levels and in many ways, for many decades. We've made a lot of very stupid policy changes – well, since Ronald Reagan's time – and torn down a lot of protections that were introduced after the Great Depression. Our lawmakers are debating a list of "pre-existing conditions" that your insurance company doesn't have to pay for // you won't get treated for // you will die of, just to save the company's stockholders their dividends. Meanwhile, they're quietly passing what Ryan called an "Obamacare Repeal bill" which doesn't repeal Obamacare and which does give insurance companies billions of dollars in so-called "premium support" without changing the previous sentence! Our kids can't go to a public college without incurring over $350,000 in debt that they cannot discharge in bankruptcy. The list just goes on and on and on. :mad:

Trouble is, if you set out to be a change agent, and no matter how you go about it, well: "bummer of a birthmark, Hal." Nothing likes to change. Especially not politics.

The thing is – the Chief Executive might be a strong leader, but he has a "Board of Directors" consisting of over 350 people who don't have "the Company's best interests" in mind, and who are not accustomed to being challenged. Trump's new job is the greatest test of his life. As a billionaire, he certainly didn't have to sign up. But – he sought it willingly, and won it fairly, and seems to be pouring all of his energy (and, business expertise and negotiating skills) into it. "Does he really know what he's getting himself into?" "Well, who really does? But he did it with eyes wide open."

When Donald Trump first appeared on the political scene, I thought he was kidding. He wasn't. :eek:

I believe that history will judge this man to be a transformational Officeholder. Many, many, many(!) books are going to be written about him, for decades to come. And, they will have a helluva lot to write about. The story will not be altogether pretty. But, it will be the story of the quest of ... and, I will say it, even though I didn't vote for him and on many points don't agree with him ... "an extraordinary man." Will they write that he succeeded in his quest? Only time will tell.

President Trump's greatest failure so for ( as far as I am concerned ) is to only assemble " loyalist followers " instead of " great thinkers " around his presidency!! Even Donald Trump's most ardent supporters are beginning to doubt him! Our country is full of very astute people; but it is a shame that our political system is so rotten and corrupt that people of integrity avoid political office like the plague!!

Real leaders assemble people around themselves that know how to think and deliberate, as John F. Kennedy did!! The only things that President Trump seems to care about are his " image " and the unbending loyalty to his every whim " that those around him must steadfastly adhere to 24/7!! Such an attitude might be great for a private company; but such an attitude is not going to do this country any good at all!!