US Politics/Biden Presidency (Trump-free zone)

[pete0]

42 minutes ago, Chach said:

I'm expat but follow UK news, you have drawn a massive bow there from a graphic used on Newsnight (about Corbyn wanting "incontrovertible evidence" that Russia was involved in an assassination attempt on ex Russian spies in the UK using Russian nerve agents) and them promoting the idea he's racist. Do you have anything where the BBC originate claims that Corbyn is racist?

There are literally scores of objective articles on the BBC reporting on issues with anti semitism in the Labour party presented dispassionately, far less biased that the Jewish Voice for Labour piece you've linked there., that piece analogous to the kind of ad hominem attacks on journalists that Trump makes.

I'm a liberal and to say the BBC has a Tory bias is fanciful to say the least.

 

They've edited the picture, how's that balanced, what purpose does it serve? Every week they're saying he's to blame for the antisemitism in Labour. Was there none in the party before Corbyn took over, what was BBCs coverage on it before he took over? 

Scores of objective articles don't balance a very blatant smere campaign against one man. How can you possibly claim a former Sun journalist doing the panarama isn't bias. How are the facts presented in the JVL article bias? 

[Chach]

16 minutes ago, pete0 said:

They've edited the picture, how's that balanced, what purpose does it serve? Every week they're saying he's to blame for the antisemitism in Labour. Was there none in the party before Corbyn took over, what was BBCs coverage on it before he took over? 

Scores of objective articles don't balance a very blatant smere campaign against one man. How can you possibly claim a former Sun journalist doing the panarama isn't bias. How are the facts presented in the JVL article bias? 

They specifically deny any editing of the picture and its not self evident in the picture its been edited its just a claim by Owen Jones, if you want to claim that the BBC are blaming Corbyn for antisemitism in Labour then provide a link.

How can I possibly claim a former Sun journalist doing the panarama isn't bias?

Why does being at the Sun for three years of a 40 year career in the 70's preclude you being an investigative journalist on Panorama. He has two Jewish daughters too, does that preclude him from having an interest in anti-semitism?

[Chach]

Back on topic:

Trump refused to be interviewed by Meuller despite a year of requests!

[Sibdane]

7 minutes ago, Chach said:

Back on topic:

Trump refused to be interviewed by Meuller despite a year of requests!

Because he or his advisors knew that he would slip up and say something incriminating. That's probably the only time Trump has listened to his advisors.

I'm watching the testimony right now.

[Chach]

2 minutes ago, Sibdane said:

Because he or his advisors knew that he would slip up and say something incriminating. That's probably the only time Trump has listened to his advisors.

I'm watching the testimony right now.

Me too, talk about shooting the messenger. Mueller is a Republican FFS

[Sibdane]

1 minute ago, Chach said:

Me too, talk about shooting the messenger. Mueller is a Republican FFS

He probably won't be after this!

[markjazzbassist]

17 minutes ago, Chach said:

Me too, talk about shooting the messenger. Mueller is a Republican FFS

and yet the repubs say he is biased.  you can't make this stuff up.

[Sibdane]

Can't stand Jim Jordan. He's always looking for soundbites.

[MikeO]

15 minutes ago, Sibdane said:

Can't Jim Jordan. He's always looking for soundbites.

Not watched it all but saw him, came across as a really unpleasant example of the human race; quick google found this (doubtless it's a biased view?)..

https://thebulwark.com/the-alternate-reality-of-jim-jordan-and-mark-meadows/

"If these were the days of Watergate, there would be Republicans who never would’ve used such a word [hoax] to describe Mueller’s work. There would be Republican representatives like Manley Caldwell Butler of Virginia, who said of Nixon’s offenses, “These things have happened in our house, and it is our responsibility to do what we can to clear it up. It is we, not the Democrats, who must demonstrate that we are capable of enforcing the high standards we would set for them.” Republicans like Butler had a spine. Most Republicans today don’t. So of course they can’t help but lie at the feet of a president whose boots they lick."

[Sibdane]

5 minutes ago, MikeO said:

Not watched it all but saw him, came across as a really unpleasant example of the human race; quick google found this (doubtless it's a biased view?)..

https://thebulwark.com/the-alternate-reality-of-jim-jordan-and-mark-meadows/

"If these were the days of Watergate, there would be Republicans who never would’ve used such a word [hoax] to describe Mueller’s work. There would be Republican representatives like Manley Caldwell Butler of Virginia, who said of Nixon’s offenses, “These things have happened in our house, and it is our responsibility to do what we can to clear it up. It is we, not the Democrats, who must demonstrate that we are capable of enforcing the high standards we would set for them.” Republicans like Butler had a spine. Most Republicans today don’t. So of course they can’t help but lie at the feet of a president whose boots they lick."

Exactly right. I honestly don't think most Republicans in the House/Senate like Trump, but a lot of their supporters do, so all they care about is getting re-elected. It amazes me how anytime a Republican gets up to talk they're raising there voice and slamming papers; basically, just trying to make a scene so they look like they're "standing up" to the Democrats. Sickening.

[pete0]

1 hour ago, Chach said:

They specifically deny any editing of the picture and its not self evident in the picture its been edited its just a claim by Owen Jones, if you want to claim that the BBC are blaming Corbyn for antisemitism in Labour then provide a link.

How can I possibly claim a former Sun journalist doing the panarama isn't bias?

Why does being at the Sun for three years of a 40 year career in the 70's preclude you being an investigative journalist on Panorama. He has two Jewish daughters too, does that preclude him from having an interest in anti-semitism?

You can see for yourself. That already denied comments about Diane Abbot, oh and protected/enabled pedophiles. 

A link? They've done a whole panarama on it. His BBC record isn't great either looking at that he's anti Muslim and BBC even said  “any attempt at a reasoned, detached, analytic or investigative programme”. About his work for them. So why hire him for a very specific piece? How is that not bias. 

2 hours ago, Chach said:

 

2 hours ago, Chach said:

There are literally scores of objective articles on the BBC reporting on issues with anti semitism in the Labour party presented dispassionately, far less biased that the Jewish Voice for Labour piece you've linked there., that piece analogous to the kind of ad hominem attacks on journalists that Trump makes.

So you say this scum fella has Jewish daughters so he's got a vested interest yet dismiss the Labour Jewish communities opinion . 

[Ghoat]

On 22/07/2019 at 12:04, markjazzbassist said:

 previous presidents before clinton did the same thing as well, i only say clinton because that was the last one i remember where it wasn't so volatile.  i am a great haggler, but i always have a price where i'm willing to make a deal.  what happened to that in politics?  

I wonder that as well - When did it come so polar and contentiously inflexible? 

I'd personally say around Clinton's lame duck period, when the Lewinsky shit started, and then the contentious result of Gore-Bush in 2000. Since then it seems that bi-partisanship and reaching across the isle has become akin to "caving in, which is absurd when you think about it. Both of CA senators are blue, do they not have any responsibility to the 1/3 of the state (10-12 million people) who are red? Texas has 2 red senators, what about the 10-12 million people in the state who lean blue? "We have a mandate" - bullshit, you have a simple majority. It's sad that it's becoming more of all-or-nothing by party lines than "how do we get something done". The media and social media are enthusiastic catalysts to the political rancor. 

[MikeO]

1 hour ago, Ghoat said:

I wonder that as well - When did it come so polar and contentiously inflexible? 

I'd personally say around Clinton's lame duck period, when the Lewinsky shit started, and then the contentious result of Gore-Bush in 2000. Since then it seems that bi-partisanship and reaching across the isle has become akin to "caving in, which is absurd when you think about it. Both of CA senators are blue, do they not have any responsibility to the 1/3 of the state (10-12 million people) who are red? Texas has 2 red senators, what about the 10-12 million people in the state who lean blue? "We have a mandate" - bullshit, you have a simple majority. It's sad that it's becoming more of all-or-nothing by party lines than "how do we get something done". The media and social media are enthusiastic catalysts to the political rancor. 

Same happening here, constantly at the top of the list of the Tories aims is to keep Corbyn out of number ten because it would be "bad for the country". It's not their job to keep anyone out of government, it's their job to govern to the best of their ability; Corbyn in or out of Downing Street is up to the electorate (unlike Johnson in or out but that's another argument). Do your job well and you keep it, mess up and someone else will step in.

[Chach]

18 hours ago, pete0 said:

You can see for yourself. That already denied comments about Diane Abbot, oh and protected/enabled pedophiles. 

A link? They've done a whole panarama on it. His BBC record isn't great either looking at that he's anti Muslim and BBC even said  “any attempt at a reasoned, detached, analytic or investigative programme”. About his work for them. So why hire him for a very specific piece? How is that not bias. 

So you say this scum fella has Jewish daughters so he's got a vested interest yet dismiss the Labour Jewish communities opinion . 

The irony that you are attacking a journalist who is being smeared as an islamophobe for criticising Islam, to defend a guy who has been smeared an anti semite for (from what I can tell mostly) criticising Israel is too delicious not to point out.

The BBC is a giant organisation, cherry picking a few bad outcomes does not make the whole thing rotten.

[pete0]

1 hour ago, Chach said:

The irony that you are attacking a journalist who is being smeared as an islamophobe for criticising Islam, to defend a guy who has been smeared an anti semite for (from what I can tell mostly) criticising Israel is too delicious not to point out.

The BBC is a giant organisation, cherry picking a few bad outcomes does not make the whole thing rotten.

I don't see why your laughing, there's a huge difference in ethics between corbyn and a Sun 'journalist' to start. How is an ethical person like Corbyn comparable to a 'journalist' who's already been found out for making false claims? As for being against Israel that doesn't automatically make you a racist, he not arsed what religion the people going to war are, he's arsed that people are going to war. He's a pacifist and a humanitarian. Very poor of BBC and other tory mouthpieces to not distinguish the difference to the public rather than promote a racist picture. 

I've said BBC is bias against Corbyn. I'm not arsed if they're then fair on every non-political subject as atm they are basically propping up the government with their bias being closer to North Korean propaganda than journalism. 

[Chach]

13 minutes ago, pete0 said:

Very poor of BBC and other tory mouthpieces to not distinguish the difference to the public rather than promote a racist picture. 

More unintended irony.

 

 

[pete0]

29 minutes ago, Chach said:

More unintended irony.

 

 

Surely you can muster more than 3 words and a picture that Corbyn has already apologised about. Then again maybe the BBC didn't publish the apology since they struggle to understand what one is. 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/23/corbyn-criticised-after-backing-artist-behind-antisemitic-mural

[Chach]

11 minutes ago, pete0 said:

Surely you can muster more than 3 words and a picture that Corbyn has already apologised about. Then again maybe the BBC didn't publish the apology since they struggle to understand what one is. 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/23/corbyn-criticised-after-backing-artist-behind-antisemitic-mural

Oh he apologised, well that's fine then. It probably had nothing to do with getting caught and everything to do with him being genuinely sorry.

 

[pete0]

30 minutes ago, Chach said:

Oh he apologised, well that's fine then. It probably had nothing to do with getting caught and everything to do with him being genuinely sorry.

 

Why wouldn't it? It isn't obvious to me that the mural is antisemitic on first view. Do you genuinely believe Corbyn would promote the image purposefully? 

[StevO]

Has anyone seen The Great Hack on Netflix yet? About how Cambridge Analytica got involved in the election of Trump. I’m going to give it a try tonight. 

After seeing The Uncivil War:Brexit I’m suspicious of any election now, so I can’t wait to see this to see the extent of the corruption we are living with. 

[MikeO]

Another day, same old same old.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-49141521

[Chach]

15 hours ago, MikeO said:

Another day, same old same old.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-49141521

Can only imagine how feral this coming election is going to get, Dems need to quickly coalesce around the candidate with the best chance of beating him.

[Matt]

Even if he lost, I don’t see him actually stepping down

[MikeO]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-49207451

America's 2nd or maybe 3rd rated president (Bush Jr?) in the "stupid" table, nobody could trump Trump mind.

[Ghoat]

On 27/07/2019 at 15:15, StevO said:

Has anyone seen The Great Hack on Netflix yet? About how Cambridge Analytica got involved in the election of Trump. I’m going to give it a try tonight. 

After seeing The Uncivil War:Brexit I’m suspicious of any election now, so I can’t wait to see this to see the extent of the corruption we are living with. 

Not seen the Great Hack, but I'd be curious to hear your thoughts after watching

[StevO]

21 hours ago, Ghoat said:

Not seen the Great Hack, but I'd be curious to hear your thoughts after watching

It’s worth a watch. After watching it I think Facebook needs to really be held accountable for its interference, even if it was outside companies they still allowed it to happen on their platform. 

The election of Trump should be void, as should the Brexit referendum. 

Cambridge Analytica admitted that their collected information was so powerful it could be considered “weapons grade”. If you are not a military at war I don’t see how any company needs weapons grade information. 

They also influenced ten, I think it was ten, other elections around the developing world before they were involved in Trump and Brexit. 

The lies and fear they spread to manipulate people to vote, it’s terrifying. I didn’t know hardly any of this stuff had happened, but that’s the idea. They spread hate directly into your Facebook page, so only you see it. Any you aren’t going to talk about it with people who are not like minded, so it all becomes very secretive. 

In the Trump election Cambridge Analytica claimed to have 5000 data points on every American, collected through your Facebook movements and a series of questionnaires that we’re aimed at being fun. Like find out your real personality with this quick test, and it looks like a bit of a joke but really they are gathering intel for an election.

They only had to target three states to win the election, and in reality it came down to needing to swing 70,000 votes in these states to get Trump elected. They filled people’s Facebook with hate and lies and it worked. 

There was an investigation into Cambridge Analytica by the UK government, they declared that there might never be an honest, open and fair election ever again. 

If you watch The Great Hack and the Uncivil War you might come away from them thinking democracy is finished, it’s a scary thought for me. 

[Matt]

2 minutes ago, StevO said:

It’s worth a watch. After watching it I think Facebook needs to really be held accountable for its interference, even if it was outside companies they still allowed it to happen on their platform. 

The election of Trump should be void, as should the Brexit referendum. 

Cambridge Analytica admitted that their collected information was so powerful it could be considered “weapons grade”. If you are not a military at war I don’t see how any company needs weapons grade information. 

They also influenced ten, I think it was ten, other elections around the developing world before they were involved in Trump and Brexit. 

The lies and fear they spread to manipulate people to vote, it’s terrifying. I didn’t know hardly any of this stuff had happened, but that’s the idea. They spread hate directly into your Facebook page, so only you see it. Any you aren’t going to talk about it with people who are not like minded, so it all becomes very secretive. 

In the Trump election Cambridge Analytica claimed to have 5000 data points on every American, collected through your Facebook movements and a series of questionnaires that we’re aimed at being fun. Like find out your real personality with this quick test, and it looks like a bit of a joke but really they are gathering intel for an election.

They only had to target three states to win the election, and in reality it came down to needing to swing 70,000 votes in these states to get Trump elected. They filled people’s Facebook with hate and lies and it worked. 

There was an investigation into Cambridge Analytica by the UK government, they declared that there might never be an honest, open and fair election ever again. 

If you watch The Great Hack and the Uncivil War you might come away from them thinking democracy is finished, it’s a scary thought for me. 

It s all part of the game. These things were only leaked to fulfill the overall goal 

[Ghoat]

9 minutes ago, StevO said:

there might never be an honest, open and fair election ever again. 

That is the terrifying thing. I am not a conspiracy guy, never have been. Occam's Razor > all to me. But the sheer amount of data we willingly share, let alone we we unknowing share is pretty frightening really. It used to be "Big Brother" that was the worry, but now it's "Somebody Else's Brother they don't even know about" - and social media is their playground.

We have discussed this in other threads, but it's becoming really hard to know what is truth, be it from the media, or social media in general. We're human, we all have some bias. But it's difficult to keep your guard up to that when you are exposed to information. Hell, you can take 2 different "historically correct" history books on an event and come away with 2 different understands of what actually happened - because author's have bias. Ditto writers and producers of shows like The Hack and Uncivil War. You just hope it's of the unintentional sort, and not started with conclusion in mind, and selectively using or bending the data to that end. I'm certainly not smart enough to always know the difference. 

I'd like to think I have a healthy degree of skepticism. If I read or see something that fits what I generally feel, or want to believe/wish were true, I'm going to try to do some research into it, before I store it away or "accept it" -ditto if it's something I don't want to believe. Social media makes otherwise intelligent people stupid. They forward/retweet someone else's opinion as fact, or worse, lie as a fact -because it "fits". And that's exactly what what these "Hackers" know and count on. Sensationalize or make some shit up, scatter it to a few different places with accounts repeating it, and there you go.

At this point, I think there is little doubt our 2016 was fucked with. But how much? By whom, and to what end? It's pretty damned scary, especially as our electorate becomes more polarized, and increasingly intellectually lazy - prone to emotional reactions instead of a logical deliberation.

[StevO]

49 minutes ago, Matt said:

It s all part of the game. These things were only leaked to fulfill the overall goal 

Wasn’t even leaked, Cambridge Analytica put it out there to get more business. Just the backlash shut them down.  

[Sibdane]

2 minutes ago, Ghoat said:

That is the terrifying thing. I am not a conspiracy guy, never have been. Occam's Razor > all to me. But the sheer amount of data we willingly share, let alone we we unknowing share is pretty frightening really. It used to be "Big Brother" that was the worry, but now it's "Somebody Else's Brother they don't even know about" - and social media is their playground.

We have discussed this in other threads, but it's becoming really hard to know what is truth, be it from the media, or social media in general. We're human, we all have some bias. But it's difficult to keep your guard up to that when you are exposed to information. Hell, you can take 2 different "historically correct" history books on an event and come away with 2 different understands of what actually happened - because author's have bias. Ditto writers and producers of shows like The Hack and Uncivil War. You just hope it's of the unintentional sort, and not started with conclusion in mind, and selectively using or bending the data to that end. I'm certainly not smart enough to always know the difference. 

I'd like to think I have a healthy degree of skepticism. If I read or see something that fits what I generally feel, or want to believe/wish were true, I'm going to try to do some research into it, before I store it away or "accept it" -ditto if it's something I don't want to believe. Social media makes otherwise intelligent people stupid. They forward/retweet someone else's opinion as fact, or worse, lie as a fact -because it "fits". And that's exactly what what these "Hackers" know and count on. Sensationalize or make some shit up, scatter it to a few different places with accounts repeating it, and there you go.

At this point, I think there is little doubt our 2016 was fucked with. But how much? By whom, and to what end? It's pretty damned scary, especially as our electorate becomes more polarized, and increasingly intellectually lazy - prone to emotional reactions instead of a logical deliberation.

Great post.

I agree that information (or disinformation) is getting harder to dissect. I'm completely flabbergasted that parody sites even get attention as truth, because people refuse to read the fine print if it fits their agenda.