The Reign of Trump

[Animavore]

How do you investigate for media bias? What's the charge even if any is found?

There are media outlets to the left (Guardian), to the right (Fox News), central (The Economist), and crackpotted (Brietbart, Alex Jones).

[Forty Two]

So Trump doesn't want to prosecute Hillary but he does want to investigate the media for bias because, you know, there could have been far me coverage of Clinton's emails and a lot less fact checking.

It cannot seriously be contended that the media covered Hillary Clinton's negative issues more than Trump's. That's just counterfactual in the extreme. The media soft-pedaled anything to do with Hillary, and made excuses to make each new issue water under the bridge.

Just look at how they portrayed the candidates. Trump had 10,000 people at his rallies routinely, and up to 35,000 at some rallies. Clinton had sometimes hundreds and never more than a few thousand, yet the media made it seem like Hillary was swamped with adoring fans, and they would never pan around to show Trump's crowds. He even called them out on it repeatedly. Yet, if you have a few hundred people protesting AGAINST Trump, it was on the news for hours at a time.

The mainstream media was in the camp for Hillary. CNN was feeding her debate questions. Reporters were clearing their news stories with the Hillary campaign. There are instances where you can see, on video, campaign employees apparently feeding questions to reporters to ask Hillary.

If Hillary couldn't win with the media licking her ass as much as they did, then the problem is hers. They did all they could for her.

[Forty Two]

Sometimes media bias and/or collusion is a blatantly obvious thing to spot, like it was last Thursday when it came to hilariously unbalanced coverage regarding Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Quick review: The broadcast evening news programs on ABC, NBC and CBS covered allegations against Trump by several women who claim he sexually assaulted them for more than 23 minutes combined on Thursday night

But revelations in the WikiLeaks email dump of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta — which included derogatory comments by senior campaign officials about Catholics, Latinos and the NAACP, sympathy for Wall Street, advocation for open borders and blatant examples of media collusion with said campaign — got a whole 1 minute and 7 seconds combined.
Ratio of negative coverage of Trump vs. Clinton: 23:1.

In print on Thursday, it was no better. The New York Times — known as the paper of record — had 11 negative stories on Trump, including one in the sports section. But zero on Clinton/WikiLeaks.

Ratio: 11:0.

So while it's understood the Trump allegations are an easier sell because sex always triumphs over substance, 23:1 and 11:0 is a prime example of a media that has gone off the rails with no hope of redeeming itself for some time, if ever.

But oftentimes there are examples of the worst bias of them all: The bias of omission. And it can be as subtle as it is powerful.

Today's lesson comes as a poll conducted by The Washington Post and ABC News. In it, the poll asks participants 38 questions about the two candidates. And six of those questions pertained to sexual assault allegations against Trump:

Q: (AMONG REGISTERED VOTERS) There's a videotape recorded 11 years ago in which Trump talks about his sexual advances toward women. Given what you've heard or read about it, do Trump's comments on this tape make you (more) or (less) likely to vote for him for president?

Q: (AMONG REGISTERED VOTERS) Trump has apologized for his comments on this tape. Do you think his apology is sincere or not sincere?

Q: (AMONG REGISTERED VOTERS) (Men: In your experience)/(Women: As far as you know), are Trump's comments typical locker-room talk by men, or do his comments go beyond how men typically talk about women?

Q: (AMONG REGISTERED VOTERS) Do you think Trump probably has or has not made unwanted sexual advances toward women?

Q: (AMONG REGISTERED VOTERS) Do you think Trump's treatment of women is or is not a legitimate issue in the presidential election? IF LEGITIMATE ISSUE: How important is this issue in your vote for president: Extremely important, very important, somewhat important, not so important or not important at all?

Q: (AMONG REGISTERED VOTERS) Who do you trust more to handle women's rights - (Clinton) or (Trump)?

Of the 38 questions that were asked, take a guess as to how many pertained to Clinton and the many revelations in the WikiLeaks's dump of Podesta emails.

Zero.

None.

This isn't the first time a Washington Post/ABC News poll has illustrated an inability to even remotely make any attempt at balance.

Back in May, the same two entities ran a joint poll that showed Trump leading Clinton 46 to 44 percent. But in the same poll, the Post and ABC — completely out of nowhere — presented participants with a hypothetical question:

Q: How about if the candidates were (Hillary Clinton, the Democrat), (Donald Trump, the Republican) and Mitt Romney, running as an independent candidate, for whom would you vote? Would you lean toward (Clinton), (Trump) or Romney?

Romney hadn't even hinted at that point at jumping into the race. But by splitting the Republican vote by inserting Romney, it allowed Clinton to "lead" in that part of the poll.

You can't make this stuff up.

Bias can be blatant and easy to spot.

It can, for example, be Donna Brazile — a CNN employee at the time — sharing a question ahead of a debate with the Clinton campaign. Brazile said, in an email, that such questions were sent to her in advance "from time to time." Meaning the collusion could have occurred more than once. Amazingly, CNN has refused to even open an internal investigation via an outside firm in an effort to restore confidence and credibility with its audience to track down the culprit or culprits.

That's bias and suppression with a capital B.S.

And then there are the more subtle examples, like questions inserted into a presidential poll.

Six questions for Trump as it pertains to allegations against him by a growing number of women.

Zero questions regarding Clinton's latest and biggest Achilles' heel.

If this appears like no one ever cares how this looks anymore, it's because no one does.

Journalism — it was nice knowing ya.

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/m ... it-anymore

There is nothing to investigate. And, I'm not even sure what Trump said about investigating the news. Someone might link to that. I've googled, and I can't find where he called on an investigation to be carried about about media bias. There is nothing to investigate, as I said. Media is allowed to be as biased as they wanna be.

[Tero]

...Hillary couldn't win with the media licking her ass as much as they did, then the problem is hers. They did all they could for her.

The media did what media does, sell papers and page views. The media did a fantastic job of covering outrageous Trump. Which got more of his base out to vote. People who generally do not vote.

[Seth]

The people won't. The neoliberal politicians will be sad they can't give more power to their corporate backers.

That is the same with TTIP here. I wonder if Trumpcunt actually realises he doing something positive not for America?

President-elect Trump is fully aware of that. He knows that TPP is a plot by the Chinese and other Marxist forces to subjugate other economies. He's doing it for the benefit of everyone...except the Marxists.

[Animavore]

White nationalist movement growing much faster than Isis on Twitter, study finds

Donald Trump is a prominent subject among white nationalists on Twitter. According to the study, white nationalist users are “heavily invested” in the Republican’s candidacy. Tweets mentioned Mr Trump more than other popular topics among the groups.

Republican candidate has emerged as a favourite of white supremacist leaders, such as former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke, due in part to his hard-line stance against immigration from Mexico and his proposals to prohibit immigration of Muslims from countries like Syria and Afghanistan.

...

But mentions of Mr Trump and the use of Trump-related hashtags were second only talk of the “white genocide” – the belief that the influx of non-white cultures and increasing diversity in the US are fuelling the extinction of the “white race”.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 23671.html

[Animavore]

Fuck me, it's worse than the Vatican for utterly cheap and tacky.



The adage is true, you really can't buy class.

[Forty Two]

White nationalist movement growing much faster than Isis on Twitter, study finds

That's an actual title of an article. White nationalist movement growing much faster than ISIS is growing ON TWITTER. So, the "study" found that the rate of white nationalists using Twitter is growing faster than the rate of ISIS members/followers using Twitter.

Ummm.... well... umm..... yeah. What the fuck? How common is Twitter in the Muslim world?

Donald Trump is a prominent subject among white nationalists on Twitter. According to the study, white nationalist users are “heavily invested” in the Republican’s candidacy. Tweets mentioned Mr Trump more than other popular topics among the groups.

[/quote] Who gives a flying fuck? The Communist Party openly endorsed Obama and Hillary. Does that make them communists?

I bet the use of Twitter by communists is growing faster than Twitter use by ISIS followers too....

Could it have something to do with the fact that if you go on Twitter and start talking about how you like ISIS and subscribe to the views and goals of ISIS, you might garner some attention in the First World? What the fuck kind of stupid-ass study is this?

[Seth]

my predicted headline for January
Trump announces great savings in healthcare: Insurance costs down to zero
Don't buy any insurance! You don't have to!

Good. Nor do you need to, nor should you. "Healthcare insurance" is, and has always been one of the most enormous frauds perpetrated on humanity ever. It's the entire reason that healthcare is so expensive to begin with. It's a racket, a criminal conspiracy and a giant ripoff and always has been.

True, it would be cheaper for the government to contract services directly from general taxation. What choice do people really want when it comes to their health needs other than to get the most efficacious treatment for their conditions?

The question is why should anyone pay the government to "contract" anything other than national defense, postal roads, ports, forts and the very small number of other specific items and powers allocated to Congress? Government never, ever does anything at all cheaper or better than the free market. It cannot, as a function of simple mathematics. You see, when government gets involved there is ALWAYS added cost to the end user, and there is ALWAYS waste and fraud, and the service or product is ALWAYS inferior to private enterprise for two simple reasons: First, when you layer-on government bureaucracy the bureaucrats have to get paid; and second, government doesn't have to make a profit, or even break even in the enterprise because it has unlimited access to the public purse, so it can do whatever the bureaucrats wish it to do, regardless of efficiency, service, quality, quantity or any other of the many factors that make private enterprise in a free market the best economic outcome for everyone.

Socialists are simply incapable of understanding this very simple concept and they keep trying to make more government work and they keep failing utterly to do so.

We authorized the Congress to do particular things, like provide a military, not because it's cheaper or more effective to do so, it's not. We did so because there are a very small number of things that of necessity we, the People, know we must pay MORE for and suffer MORE under the yoke of bureaucracy for for reasons OTHER than their free-market economic benefits. In the case of the military, it's because an effective centrally-controlled military for defense of the nation is required, no matter what it costs and no matter what the bureaucratic burden is. Likewise with postal roads, forts, ports and the other things, like coining money, we put up with government having exclusive domain over.

Socialists, however, being nothing more than useful idiots at best fall into the logical fallacy of thinking that if a little government is tolerable, more government is better. That's just pure idiocy.

Our Founding Fathers knew full well that government is like fire: when it's kept small and very carefully controlled it can be beneficial to humanity. But if allowed to escape control and begin to exist by and for itself, like a forest wildfire raging, government becomes the most evil, cruel, destructive force ever seen by humanity, as people like Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot and Hillary Clinton prove.

Medical care is a quintessentially individual consumer demand that varies widely in it's demand and its cost depending on the individual consumer. It is not amenable to the sort of generalized power of government to provide a service or good like a highway or police force to everyone because everyone needs and consumes roughly the same quantity of those services during each transaction. Therefore, while the power of general taxation to pay for post roads, ports, armies, forts, coining money and other authorized Congressional activities is a reasonable method of funding those necessary and authorized functions of government because taxing one individual to pay for his use of a roadway or postal service is distinguishable from taxing one individual to pay for the out-of-proportion costs of providing medical care to someone else.

There is no rational justification to force one individual to labor on behalf of another individual he or she has not willingly accepted fiscal responsibility for. Even in Marxism that's simply stealing the fruits of one person's labor and giving it to another, which is as much theft as Marx claimed the actions of the bourgeoisie merchant class were theft of the fruits of the labor of the worker class merely because the employer made a profit off of that labor. In the instant case, the sick person is "making a profit" off of the labor of those forced to pay for her medical care.

I have yet to hear a socialist EVER even try to justify socialism and redistributive taxation in a logical, rational manner. The best any socialist has ever done is to whine that it's "not fair" that some people have more money than others and that therefore it's morally justifiable to take the "excess wealth" from the person who labored to earn it and give it to someone else who hasn't labored to earn it. Then they hare off into red herring fallacies and obfuscation to avoid being called to account for their inability to reason.

And that exemplifies the utter moral, logical and philosophical failure of socialism in a nutshell. It's simply indefensible idiocy and even Marxists are loath to try to justify the ideology using reason and logic.

[Animavore]

Canada's Hamilton Theatre inundated with angry Americans mistaking it for 'Hamilton'

http://www.sfgate.com/weird/article/Can ... 628414.php

Yes. Trump supporters really are that fucking stupid.

[Seth]

White nationalist movement growing much faster than Isis on Twitter, study finds

Donald Trump is a prominent subject among white nationalists on Twitter. According to the study, white nationalist users are “heavily invested” in the Republican’s candidacy. Tweets mentioned Mr Trump more than other popular topics among the groups.

Republican candidate has emerged as a favourite of white supremacist leaders, such as former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke, due in part to his hard-line stance against immigration from Mexico and his proposals to prohibit immigration of Muslims from countries like Syria and Afghanistan.

...

But mentions of Mr Trump and the use of Trump-related hashtags were second only talk of the “white genocide” – the belief that the influx of non-white cultures and increasing diversity in the US are fuelling the extinction of the “white race”.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 23671.html

Fallacy. That white racists favor Trump does not mean that Trump, or Trump supporters, favor white racists any more than the fact that the New Black Panther's support for Hillary meant that Hillary was a New Black Panther supporter.

These sorts of smears are beyond ignorant drivel.

[Seth]

Fuck me, it's worse than the Vatican for utterly cheap and tacky.

The adage is true, you really can't buy class.

The actual point is that Saddam built his palaces with stolen money and on the blood and bones of murdered Iraqis whereas Trump built everything with free-market economics and both stimulated the economy and gainfully employs tens of thousands of people in doing so.

Your personal tastes, and your judgement of his tastes in decorating are utterly irrelevant and are a manifestation of nothing more than socialist envy and jealousy. Moreover, you don't live there, you don't have to patronize a Trump hotel, and you don't have to pay for it, so how about you shut the fuck up and mind your own business.

[Tero]

Why contract healthcare? It's obvious. The bigger the pool of patients you bring to health care/ insurance the more leverage you have with rates.

If you bring the 1% of the sickest patients to the table, who wants those?

It's like capitalism! Like Trump!

[Tero]

Fights UK windfarms near his golf course via his presidency
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/bu ... p?t=314231

[Seth]

Why contract healthcare? It's obvious. The bigger the pool of patients you bring to health care/ insurance the more leverage you have with rates.

If you bring the 1% of the sickest patients to the table, who wants those?

It's like capitalism! Like Trump!

Nonsense. The bigger the pool of patients the more the care costs for everyone. You see, in the "insurance" scam the client of medical care providers is NOT the health care end user, ITS THE INSURANCE COMPANY. Therefore, the economic forces are as between the provider and the insurance company, NOT the provider and the end user. Now, so long as the end user is free to pick and choose an insurer, or no insurer, the insurer has to make sure that the provider provides services that satisfy the end user and the model works, albeit more expensively for most people than necessary. This forces the insurer to balance premiums with services offered in order to achieve the dual goals of keeping customers and controlling costs.

But with Obamacare (ie: government-mandated "insurance") government MANDATED that insurers provide all sorts of services to the end user that individual end users might (and in many cases would never) make use of, like maternity services for men. This destroys the ability of the insurers to control costs by picking and choosing what services are being offered to end users, forcing them to cover those services no matter what, which induces the providers to raise the rates because the insurer MUST pay for those services to be available whether they are used or not. This creates the spiraling inflation of costs to the insurer, who must raise rates to sustain profitability. When the time comes, as it has, that insurers can no longer induce people to buy insurance at the inflated rate and costs spiral out of control the insurers stop making a profit and then they exit the marketplace, leaving the end user with fewer, or no options for getting the mandatory insurance coverage, or leaving them at the mercy of a single provider who charges outrageous rates they cannot afford.

You're quite right about the 1%, although I think it's actually between 5 and 10% of the very sickest patients who consume something like 80% of health care dollars. Nobody wants them. And why should anybody want them? They are an economic drain on the system and people simply are not willing to spend THEIR health-care dollars paying for some unknown individual's misfortune or bad life decisions (like smokers with cancer). And why should they?

You have not stated any rational justification as to why I, or anyone else, should be compelled to pay for unlimited (or any) health care for the sickest of the sick who are, by and large, about to die anyway. The biggest consumers of health care are elderly people and they don't usually live more than a year or two longer despite having enormous sums of other people's money spent on them.

Everybody dies. Everybody. Why should you be compelled to extend someone else's life at the cost of your economic sustainability and YOUR medical needs in the future?

Why should I spend a fucking dime paying for your health care? I don't know you, I don't give a flying fuck about your health and I've got my own economic needs to attend to. Your health is your own, just as your life is your own, and you can live and die on your own without robbing me, thank you very much, and no socialist has ever provided a logical, reasoned argument as to why it should be any other way, ever.