DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus Who's the Old Demented Guy

As painful as it would have been I can't say I disagree.

While I won't get into some partisan argument with you I think there are things you and I, among many others can agree on here. My hope is that we once again have a golden opportunity to turn things in a new direction. Democrats are no longer the party of JFK any more than Republicans are still the party of Reagan. Both have veered off in far more extreme positions. By and large I don't think either party represents the views and positions of the average American voter. Eisenhower passed an infrastructure bill that built the national highway system and warned us about the military-industrial complex. While there were certainly differences in the political platforms during that time the extreme contrast wasn't anything that resembles what we see now.

My hope is that we are reaching the precipice which hopefully will not lead to a violent ending but rather an actual choice leading us in the right direction. We have people in politics who I don't actually agree with on everything but yet that's where I am already. I think people such as Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger on the right and people such as Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema which lean somewhat left are people I see as caring more about the country than politics. I believe all of them would be willing and able to work together in the art of compromise which could form an alliance to form a legitimate third party.

Maybe that's nothing more than a pipe dream. But I'm hoping that isn't so. The possibilities we're left with are a lot of what we're seeing now. Truth be known I actually believe people such as ourselves are far more in agreement on the direction this nation needs to head and what we would like to see than we are in disagreement. But where are we now? We're left fighting amongst ourselves trying to argue about politicians which most of them we see as terribly flawed ourselves. People we don't even like supporting. Trying to make excuses for the very things they say and do we wouldn't say and do ourselves.

Tribalism is a very hard thing for many to overcome. But when left with two very flawed choices it's either one or the other. I'm certainly in no way attached to a tribe to the point I'm not looking for a different and better direction. I don't think you are either. And we're far from being alone in that.

🔥Great post.

See, I could buy into this happening if it started in such a manner. It would need to be a really strong alliance. No screwing around for 2-3-4 elections to whither to a bunch of nameless, faceless Ross Perots.

j/c

Trump plans to sue Justice Department over Mar-a-Lago search and prosecution

The former president is seeking monetary damages from the government, which he may soon be heading, over what his legal filing called a "malicious political prosecution."

An attorney for former President Donald Trump has filed a legal notice announcing that his client plans to sue the Justice Department and the FBI for $115 million for alleged "malicious political prosecution" and "abuse of process."

The notice, a copy of which NBC News obtained Monday, baselessly accuses DOJ leadership and special counsel Jack Smith of having perpetrated a "malicious political prosecution aimed at affecting an electoral outcome to prevent President Trump from being re-elected" — a frequent accusation that Trump makes online and during campaign events.

"This malicious prosecution led President Trump to spend tens of millions of dollars defending the case and his reputation," Trump attorney Daniel Z. Epstein wrote in a notice of claim against the department. Epstein is a former Trump White House lawyer who is now vice-president of America First Legal, the legal group founded by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller.

The filing complains that the FBI's court-approved search for classified documents at Trump's Florida estate in August of 2022 was improper, as was Trump's subsequent indictment for the scores of sensitive classified documents that agents turned up during the search. Trump had pleaded not guilty.

The filing, which was first reported by Fox News, said the search violated "well-established protocol" involving former presidents and cites a Trump social media post after the search saying the government could have had the records "anytime they wanted."

"All they had to do was ask," the Truth Social post said. The filing does not mention the multiple requests from the National Archives and the Justice Department for Trump to return the records. The DOJ had also issued a subpoena for the return of such documents in May of 2022, and an attorney for Trump signed a declaration stating they had all been returned that June. The search warrant was executed after investigators got information that they had been misled.

The notice of claim maintains DOJ's "process" was "unconstitutional."

It says Smith "brought a lawless criminal indictment" that stemmed from the search in July of last year, and noted that the case was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon last month. Cannon, who Trump nominated to the bench, dismissed the case on the grounds that Smith's appointment as special counsel and the funding for his probe were illegal.

Other federal judges have rejected similar arguments involving previous special counsels. Smith is appealing Cannon's decision.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump's campaign, said the action is part of Trump's fight against the “weaponized Department of Justice" and that the criminal case against Trump "should be immediately dismissed in order to bring unity back to our Nation."

The notice filed by Trump is a necessary step in filing most civil damages claims against the government. There is no concrete time limit for a response, but if a claimant has not received a “final disposition” within six months of sending the claim, then the claimant can treat that silence as a denial and file suit. The filing suggests that the suit would be filed in the same Florida district where Cannon sits.

The filing was signed on Aug. 7, one day before the two-year anniversary of the search. The claim form says, “Failure to completely execute this form or to supply the requested material within two years from the date the claim accrued may render your claim invalid.”

The filing says Trump is seeking "$15 million in actual harm due to his legal costs in defending the Special Counsel proceedings before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida." It's unclear how much of that money came from Trump personally. NBC News has reported previously that Trump appeared to be using money from a political action committee for his legal fees.

He's also seeking $100 million in punitive damages.

In a pending appeal of writer E. Jean Carroll's $83 million defamation verdict against Trump, his attorneys have argued the verdict should be reduced in part because the punitive damages are about four times the amount of the compensatory damages. The amount he's seeking in this case is over six times the amount of compensatory damages.

It's unclear what would happen to the action if Trump is elected president again in November, and whether he would be able to direct the Justice Department to pay what he's seeking.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/do...ice-department-mar-lago-searc-rcna166208

Rumour has it he got some botox and other work done with his down time... Botox can freeze some muscles and affect speech.

Nice post Pit.... In amongst so many posts that are bickering or point score I don't read that many, only went back after I saw the positive feedback.

I honestly don't know how to get the masses to pay enough attention to solve some of the issues we face. We all need a wake up call, but as Clem wrote in another thread, we are all guilty of sometimes being too easily distracted.... And tribalism as you refer to is rampant. In reference to another thread/topic about Trump and Musk, I actually believe regulation of.... Or holding social media accountable is a more accurate summary.... Is needed. Somehow what's shared and posted on SM needs to adhere to the same standards as printed media. Sure the genie is out of the bottle and it makes it harder, but it needs to happen. Free speech isn't Free... People and companies need to be held accountable for disinformation (lies) and anything that can remotely be considered to incite hate or discrimination.

Musk recently irked the UK amongst a bout of violent protests cts and riots... None of which were actually related to an attack that took 3 lives. Stocked by misinformation and lies.... Violence erupted and Musk tweeted somethimgike Civil War in the UK was inevitable... Was met with much angst by most politicians in the UK. Don't be surprised if the EU lead the way and show how to regulate SM. It will be met by protest by some. But just like you can't shout 'fire' in a theater.... You shouldn't be able to post (falsely) "it's the immigrants" when there is a knife attack and lives lost.

Cool. And you don't think the u.s. main stream media is biased, right?

The infotainment structure of news will not allow consensus. It is designed to maximize viewership and revenue by offering opinion which becomes partisan.

Red v Blue

Us and Them

Good v Evil.

Gone are the days of 30 minute news at 6:30 and 10 min at 11:00 pm

100% they are. Both sides.

Before Trump or After Trump?

Before Trump there was some bias, but the MSM main (not MSNBC or Fox) tried to keep a more neutral tone.

Trump changed everything. And not for the better. It can be argued that they did not go far enough, fast enough or hard enough.

And the Republican party morphed into the spineless slime that is today where a convicted felon is their leader.

Well, I disagree. But oh well.

So be it.

In terms of your post and part of my last one, I would argue that Trump was more of a symptom than a root cause. Media bias was around long before Trump and it was already trending in the wrong direction. Trump may caused that trend to accelerate, but him and his rise in politics didn't create anything new. It was all already there.

I'd argue the advent of social media, going as far back as Facebook, was the main driver. That platform, and others that came after, became an outlet to get information out faster w/ a vastness of reach never achieved before so quickly that it fostered and demanded (unfortunately) a mentality of "first to report" over content and accuracy. From there it has spiraled out of control and the attempt to control the message has resulted in so much corruption, lying, and fake actors than ever before.

Well said. I think the problem is that we can all make demands and try to stand up to request that the people in charge do stuff for us, and I have done so to senators and Congressional reps. I will say that Greg Landsman's office was actually really good about responding. Other than him, though, it was pretty clear that nobody gave a crap because they know they don't really have to compete, and if they do, it's only against one person. That goes for both Republicans and Democrats. They don't give a crap about anyone except mega donors. They know that they need just enough people to stay in office and that's good with them.

It's about shrinking competition in the politics world. I liken it to when we complain to Boeing about all the flaws with the KC-46. They could either care about the issue, or they could go, "yeah, so what!?" and since the only other option is a European company, we just have to grin and bear it.

Trump put media bias "on steroids". It became more partisan because of Trump, so no longer a symptom, a cause.

I agree with dawglover.... It was always there. I think with Trump being so polarizing and being so out there - name calling and personality over policies - it highlighted that bias more than before. But shock jock journalism and folks like rush Limbaugh existed before Trump. Maybe just louder and more obvious today. I personally think some of the ridiculous positions on the left today are a result of being too neutral on Trump on the run up to his election win... Instead of calling lies out they skirted around the issues and went softly softly. Now they have swung back too far the other way. Jmo

Yeah I think he stoked a fire that was already lit when it came to media bias. I just think that the flames have grown and are much more visible now after his rise and the changing of the guard on the Republican side.

The recent conversations in this thread actually give me some hope. Now, quick, someone call me a POS so that we can go back to the status quo.

I agree that SM should be more regulated but it is a fine line to walk. With the constitution making fee speech a right it creates a situation as to where that line should be drawn as a very murky topic. It's quite politicized and gets attached with a very negative label any time a social media outlet makes an attempt at it. It's as if free speech gets used as a get out of jail free card that applies to everything. Then there's also the fact that SM does not present itself or claim to be news. The disinformation we see there for the most part are groups that align themselves politically with one side or the other in terms of political affiliation but not a party or candidate per say. And don't even get me started on memes. Some of the mos used and easiest form of disinformation on social media.

And since you brought up printed media, which I take you to mean actual sources that describe themselves as news, that's not what most of them are to a great extent. Most of them have a very slanted and bias way of reporting. There is some news mixed into what they're reporting but then they feel the need to tell you what that news means as well. The days are long gone when the American people are simply given the facts about anything and left to decide what that means for themselves. You can see it quite readily on TV channels that describe themselves as News Channels. Most of the days and evenings are filled with nothing more than opinion shows which by no stretch of the imagination could be described as news. They include panels of people which give their own politicized slant to everything being discussed.

The problem you describe is very real. It's a process of programming people what to think by reinforcing their preconceived notions in the same direction they already want to believe. Confirmation bias exists at all levels now. I no longer believe that there's any actual standards being enforced on what is called news anymore. It's as if the only boundaries are what they can be successfully sued for in court and sometimes if they're attorneys get it wrong, that isn't a boundary for them either.

It's a tough question to deal with. I think the low hanging fruit is to apply standards to legitimate, accredited media companies and associated personalities that post on social media, but the problem from there - which I think you are touching on - is that we then have a whack-a-mole of whackadoodle sources who emerge and still produce wide swaths of followers. The Alex Joneses, if you will.

I'd argue you're both spot-on and that the intersection of those two things are what brought us to a breaking point so quickly. "More of a symptom than a root cause" can not be stated any better. So not only do you have "first to report" as the ultimate mission (facts be damned), you have the peanut gallery proudly regaling the masses with their superior intellect. Suddenly plumbers become scientists and artists become foreign policy experts. And those who scream the loudest get the most eyeballs, again, facts be damned.

The big problem lies in the masses and their willingness to parrot the [censored]-du-jour without even caring if it's factual. And policing that is a can of worms I'm not sure can even be opened.

Let's be honest, probably 70-80% of everything we read has an aspect of "misinformation" in some shape or form, and propaganda's new name is "free speech". So who should police what and what should be sequestered? Wouldn't it be easier if people just weren't so helplessly gullible. Even if you try to apply new (old) standards to legacy media, they'll just continue down the road of nobody being an actual employee and everyone becoming independent correspondents. That way they can wash their hands of the messy results and act like they're above it -- while they profit on it 24/7.

I like the community notes feature on X. I don't really spend much time on FB anymore but I can say that I was waay turned off by the "we're gonna sequester this because it's way too scary for you to read" b.s. Especially when we've seen obvious bias from these companies themselves. I won't get into that since we're having civil conversation, but that could be a way bigger problem than the subjects and conversations themselves.

It's all bias arch. All of it. Trying to claim such bias only flows in one direction is simply delusional.

F that. I'm going to yell at Clem for starting this whole big ball of jackassery.

That is a tremendous post, and I swear I didn't read it before I posted mine. As you can see we're about 100% eye to eye on this subject.

The biggest issue that keeps the constant squabbling going on is climate change. The political climate change. When you break it all down to its essence and have discussions often it seems many often agree more than they disagree. It's not that their wishes and goals are so starkly different but more about how we think is the best, or as it stands now, the least harmful way to get there.

DL5 you POS, you don't know what you are talking about.


I think there was always bias, but that was a different take based off perspective.

What we have now is no longer bias. It is an Us vs Them situation.
You can hardly ever find an article that just presents the facts. They all have to toss shade at the other side.
Both sides do this.

The way I see it is by comparing it to a superficial flesh wound. At one point it was nothing more than a scratch that was easily treatable. But it was let go and untreated. Every time it began to itch it was scratched opening the wound up increasing it's size and irritating the wound. As infection sat in on the wound was still ignored to the point that an amputation may be needed to treat it.

It would and could have all been easily avoidable of people had simply treated it rather than continuing to scratch that itch.

I'd also like to throw in that a not-insignificant force of tweets and reactions to tweets is driven by bots and troll farms, many of which are housed by our own foreign adversaries trying to get us to tear ourselves apart from within. Prigozhin was a huge proponent of that before his plane "crashed."

Most of the issues on this board trace back to Clem, IMO.

He's a cross between Morpheus and The Oracle and we're all just part of his Matrix.

He probably should think before he opens his mouth. They could revoke his bond-flight risk

So in other words Trump is suing US tax payers. That’s where the money would come from.

He contextualized that very, very well. We have leaned into cynicism and negativity for quite some time now. There is quite a blanket of hopelessness. It is definitely lazy and lazy is what you get when you don't demand anything out of our parties. Fear and anger are reptilian instinct driven forces. Nobody acts rationally when they are driven by fear and rage, but they act convincingly and are extremely difficult to convince otherwise. That is exactly where we are resting right now. Until we examine ourselves individually and call out those politicians who employ those tactics ubiquitously, we will stay on the hamster wheel.

Probably hoping to be declared mentally unfit to stand trial. Might be his best defense. Concerned about his mental grip myself.

Meta kills off misinformation tracking tool CrowdTangle despite pleas from researchers, journalists

Facebook and Instagram parent Meta Platforms has shut down CrowdTangle, a tool widely used by researchers, watchdog organizations and journalists to monitor social media posts, notably to track how misinformation spreads on the company’s platforms.

Wednesday’s shutdown, which Meta announced earlier this year, has been protested by researchers and nonprofits. In May, dozens of groups, including the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council, Human Rights Watch and NYU’s Center for Social Media & Politics, sent a letter to the company asking that it keep the tool running through at least January so it would be available through the U.S. presidential elections.

“This decision jeopardizes essential pre- and post-election oversight mechanisms and undermines Meta’s transparency efforts during this critical period, and at a time when social trust and digital democracy are alarmingly fragile,” the letter said.

CrowdTangle, “has been an essential tool in helping researchers parse through the vast amount of information on the platform and identify harmful content and threats,” it added.

In March, the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation sent Meta a similar letter asking it to keep the tool, which was available for free, functioning until January. That letter was also signed by several dozen groups and individual academic researchers.

“For years, CrowdTangle has represented an industry best practice for real-time platform transparency. It has become a lifeline for understanding how disinformation, hate speech, and voter suppression spread on Facebook, undermining civic discourse and democracy,” the Mozilla letter said.

Meta has released an alternative to CrowdTangle, called the Meta Content Library. But access to it is limited to academic researchers and nonprofits, which excludes most news organizations. Critics have also complained that it’s not as useful as CrowdTangle — at least not yet.

Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, said in a blog post last week that the company has been gathering feedback about Meta Content Library from “hundreds of researchers in order to make it more user-friendly and help them find the data they need for their work.”

Meta said Wednesday that CrowdTangle doesn’t provide a complete picture of what is happening on its platforms and said its new tools are more comprehensive.

Meta acquired CrowdTangle in 2016.

https://apnews.com/article/meta-cro...acebook-977ece074b99adddb4887bf719f2112a

I don't think I could argue you on that one even if I wanted. My response was centered on Trump's influence (I know, shocker...) in all this. It's definitely not just 1 person/thing that has gotten us to this point, as you explained.

And while I won't disagree with you there, I think it's hard to disagree that he was the main driver in the amount of, intensity of and rapidity of its escalation. There is a difference between factors that help create a situation and the overriding factors that help create a situation.

Donald Trump - "But I really, I watched Sheldon sitting so proud in the White House when we gave Miriam the Presidential Medal of Freedom," he said. "That's the highest award you can get as a civilian. It's the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor, but civilian version, it's actually much better, because everyone gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they're soldiers. They're either in very bad shape because they've been hit so many times by bullets, or they're dead. She gets it and she's healthy, beautiful woman."

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-draws-fire-remarks-medal-honor-recipients/story?id=112883414

OOPS! Trump Accidentally Hands Kamala Harris And Gavin Newsom A Major Compliment

The former president's latest attempt at an insult quickly backfired.

Donald Trump made a number of false, outrageous and just plain awkward claims during Thursday’s rambling and unfocused media event at his New Jersey golf club.

In one unusual moment, he accidentally praised two figures he typically attacks with slurs and insults: Vice President Kamala Harris and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Trump attacked their home state of California and said the two “destroyed” San Francisco.

“San Francisco y’know was a great city 15 years ago, now it’s considered almost unlivable, you can’t live there,” he said. “What they’ve done to it is a shame, and she’s gonna do the same thing to our country.”

Just one problem with that claim: The “great city” of 15 years ago was led by Newsom and Harris, and had been for years.

Newsom was the city’s mayor from 2004-2011, and Harris was a district attorney for that same period. Newsom in 2011 was elected lieutenant governor, and eventually elected governor, while Harris went on to become state attorney general, U.S. senator and vice president.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-kamala-harris-compliment_n_66beb998e4b04090eac4a662

When you claim that a city was a "great city" until AFTER Newsom and Kamala LEFT office it almost sounds like an endorsement. Is he trying to rig the election for Kamala by giving her such a compliment? Or is he demented and had no idea what he was saying?