USA Politics

I like that he talked to Taiwan. The "One China" policy is and always has been a fiction .. and will be more of one as more and more time goes by. I saw some semi recent polling data that the vast majority of the people on Taiwan think of themselves as Taiwanese, not Chinese. We are really at the point where they are a distinct country and a distinct culture, obviously with a common heritage to China ... but little to no desire to unify .. .I am sure what has happened in Hong Kong has probably reinforced those feelings.
 
:D

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Watch Bernie Sanders convince a Trump voter she voted for the wrong person — in less than 2 minutes

article: see link above.

Direct link to vid: https://vid.me/SSPx
With several panelists disregarding Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric and wild claims, saying Congress would reel him in, Sparks brought up the social safety net and questioned who is paying for it in the long run.

“Who’s paying for this? Who’s paying for the Medicaid? Who’s paying for the Social Security? Who’s paying for the Medicare?” she asked rhetorically. “Now, have any of you seen down on the streets that it seems as though we have become the silent minority and not the majority?”

Asked by host Hayes who she was talking about, Sparks replied, “The people who need the Medicare, the people who need the Social Security, who need the help with the education.”

That was when Sanders stepped in.

“Good point. Let’s see if we can go forward on this,” Sanders began. “I am assuming that you believe, correct me if I’m wrong, that we should not cut Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid. Is that correct or not?”

“Yeah, I believe they shouldn’t be cut,” Sparks replied.

“Do you know who is now working very hard to try to do that?” Sanders told her. “Republicans in Congress have a plan under the guise of saving Medicare and saving Social Security, making devastating cuts. That’s what the Republicans are now trying to do.”

“The other point that you made is, who is going to pay for this stuff?” he continued. “And that is a very fair point. What all of us should know is that over the last 25 years, there has been a massive transfer of wealth in this country from you to the top one-tenth of one percent. In other words, the middle class has shrunk and trillions of dollars have gone to the top one-tenth of one percent. Do you think it’s inappropriate to start asking those people to pay their fair share of taxes so we can adequately fund Medicaid and make public colleges and universities tuition-free. Is that an unfair thing to ask?”

After a pause, Sparks replied, “I don’t think it’s an unfair thing to ask. They got rich off of us, so it’s time they put back.”

“Okay, that’s what I’m saying,” Sanders replied.
 
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Yes, that's a lower-education voter. Bernie does very good, person-on-person, explaining these things.

What he doesn't do is convey that to a national mood. Bernie might have beaten Trump, but he could never have beaten Hillary in the primary.
 
Not seeing any drastic cuts. There will be if it is not reformed per the article you quoted. Raising the retirement age makes sense given increased lifespans
 
Bernie simply isn't material for today's U.S. president. I'm afraid that overall electoral body is leaning towards a person that would be a better president in a Hollywood movie than in real life. Somebody that's full of resolve, for the better or for the worse. People believe Trump is going to revive the rust belt, regardless of objective viewers pointing out that he didn't put up any meaningful idea or scheme on how to actually do it. Meanwhile Sanders is quite more realistic and sticks with politics by the ordinary people for the ordinary people. But that doesn't bode well with the show-business monster U.S. elections have turned to. I don't think people like Jose Mujica could become U.S. presidents today. And maybe they would in Monroe era. But that's a global issue, considering the turn to idiotic populism worldwide. You just need to yell the right things in front of the right group of people and you carry on with your personal agenda regardless. Putin does it, CCP does it too.
 
So maybe I'm wrong on this, but isn't Jon Schaffer pretty anti-religion? His major political issue is the fed. The only major candidate who campaigned on getting rid of the fed (afaik) was ironically the ultra-religious Ted Cruz. I wonder if Schaffer was a fan.
 
Mosh said:
So maybe I'm wrong on this, but isn't Jon Schaffer pretty anti-religion? His major political issue is the fed. The only major candidate who campaigned on getting rid of the fed (afaik) was ironically the ultra-religious Ted Cruz. I wonder if Schaffer was a fan.
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It's hard to know. A lot of those hardcore libertarian conspiracists either at some point take a sudden religious turn (e.g. Alex Jones) or were religious but didn't put the issue in the foreground (Ron Paul, Dave Mustaine). I wouldn't be surprised if Schaffer joins their ranks. He wouldn't see a problem, since born-again Christians aren't an institution the way churches are. It's all about personal faith, man.
 
How fake news became trending....
https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilve...-trump-misinfo?utm_term=.ilwrxX0zk#.dhg769bJn
How teens in the Balkans are duping Trump supporters with fake news
BuzzFeed News identified more than 100 pro-Trump websites being run from a single town in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

“This is the news of the millennium!” said the story on WorldPoliticus.com. Citing unnamed FBI sources, it claimed Hillary Clinton will be indicted in 2017 for crimes related to her email scandal.

“Your Prayers Have Been Answered,” declared the headline.

For Trump supporters, that certainly seemed to be the case. They helped the baseless story generate over 140,000 shares, reactions, and comments on Facebook.

Meanwhile, roughly 6,000 miles away in a small town in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, a young man watched as money began trickling into his Google AdSense account.

Over the past year, the Macedonian town of Veles (population 45,000) has experienced a digital gold rush as locals launched at least 140 US politics websites. These sites have American-sounding domain names such as WorldPoliticus.com, TrumpVision365.com, USConservativeToday.com, DonaldTrumpNews.co, and USADailyPolitics.com. They almost all publish aggressively pro-Trump content aimed at conservatives and Trump supporters in the US.

The young Macedonians who run these sites say they don’t care about Donald Trump. They are responding to straightforward economic incentives: As Facebook regularly reveals in earnings reports, a US Facebook user is worth about four times a user outside the US. The fraction-of-a-penny-per-click of US display advertising — a declining market for American publishers — goes a long way in Veles. Several teens and young men who run these sites told BuzzFeed News that they learned the best way to generate traffic is to get their politics stories to spread on Facebook — and the best way to generate shares on Facebook is to publish sensationalist and often false content that caters to Trump supporters.

As a result, this strange hub of pro-Trump sites in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is now playing a significant role in propagating the kind of false and misleading content that was identified in a recent BuzzFeed News analysis of hyperpartisan Facebook pages. These sites open a window into the economic incentives behind producing misinformation specifically for the wealthiest advertising markets and specifically for Facebook, the world’s largest social network, as well as within online advertising networks such as Google AdSense.

“Yes, the info in the blogs is bad, false, and misleading but the rationale is that ‘if it gets the people to click on it and engage, then use it,’” said a university student in Veles who started a US politics site, and who agreed to speak on the condition that BuzzFeed News not use his name. .... read on: source

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Particular comments under article I long suspected:
Person A:
I've always suspected that far right-wingers are more gullible than those on the left... plus I already knew that many of them aren't educated enough to know about reliable sources. It's amazing how many of them I know that base their opinion on "facts" that are, at best, sketchy. As someone who identifies as a conservative, it's terrifying to think that this may be what people think of me as well.
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Person B:
It's the exact same story on the left. Someone will post something that's obviously false or extremely misleading and it catches like wildfire. I see no distinction here. The biggest difference I see is that the "legitimate" right wing media (like Fox News) pushes fake news more vigorously.

An example recently is this: "GOP Rep. Jason Chaffetz Reported To FBI For Using Potential Illegal Private Email Server" -- The "proof?" He had a gmail address on a business card!
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Person C:
Except it isn't the exact same story. As this article points out, the same bloggers tried progressive stories and simply didn't get the same traction as they did posting false Trump stories.

I think this probably says less about differences in relative gulllibility, and more about the fact conservatives tend to be older and less sophisticated about online sources. I also think the fact that so many conservatives already believe batshit things (Obama is a secret Muslim, Clinton killed Vince Foster, etc.) that additional batshit "facts" simply reinforce a narrative that they have already bought.
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Funny video, but holy shit that comment section is toxic. Full of "women belong in the kitchen" and "liberals ruin Western civilization" crowd.
 
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