The Next President is...

[ClearedHot]

17 minutes ago, Prozac said:

As far as I’m aware, Hunter Biden has not been convicted of anything regarding the laptop story yet, nor was his name on any ballot in 2020. Not sure what you mean when you say it turns out to be “true”. If you mean there is in fact an ongoing investigation, sure, ok. If you mean that he did something wrong, well that remains to be seen. If he did, I hope he is convicted and appropriately punished.

There is a HUGE difference and you know it.  It is one thing for Foxnews to cover only items with a conservative slant or for MSNBC to hold a daily cry fest about Trump.  It is another to absolutely suppress information and punish or ban news agencies that try to cover the story.  It doesn't bother you that they shut down the NY Post account just for reporting the story, you see no issues there?  Seriously?

The issue is there is a story there, their are allegations about "10% for the big guy."  If that same phrase was in any text, email, message found to be related to one of Trumps kids there would be a full on investigation by every news agency out there.  Twitter and Facebook, IMMEDIATELY suppressed any mention and FALSELY as it turns out, labeled it misinformation.  Hunter is a douchebag and was not on the ballot, but the implications AND testimony from people close was purposely prevented form getting to the public by Big Tech.  it is the duty of the press to be the 4th estate, it is one thing for news agencies to have a slant for their audience, it is another for them to complicit in a cover up that sways an election.

[Pooter]

The biggest difference between a Twitter/Facebook and a Fox News is section 230. Fox is a publisher of content without section 230 protections and therefore liable and sue-able for things they say that are false, slanderous, or libelous. Any editorial style news organization falls under this category whether it be newspapers or cable news outlets.
 

Social media companies are not treated as publishers by section 230. They are given immunity from liability for third party posts on their platform. Meaning.. your aunt Karen can go off on qanon nonsense and Hillary eating babies without FB getting sued. 

So my biggest problem is not really Twitter/FB being biased one way or the other. My problem is they're acting like an editorial organization when they've been given specific protections from the government to not be an editorial organization.  
 

If Twitter wants to pick and choose which stories they ban/promote, then section 230 protections should be immediately revoked, and then Joe Rogan can sue the fuck out of them every time someone retweets a CNN horse dewormer story. 

Edited April 26, 2022 by Pooter

[Prozac]

11 minutes ago, Pooter said:

The biggest difference between a Twitter/Facebook and a Fox News is section 230. Fox is a publisher of content without section 230 protections and therefore liable and sue-able for things they say that are false, slanderous, or libelous. Any editorial style news organization falls under this category whether it be newspapers or cable news outlets.
 

Social media companies are not treated as publishers by section 230. They are given immunity from liability for third party posts on their platform. Meaning.. your aunt Karen can go off on qanon nonsense and Hillary eating babies without FB getting sued. 

So my biggest problem is not really Twitter/FB being biased one way or the other. My problem is they're acting like an editorial organization when they've been given specific protections from the government to not be an editorial organization.  
 

If Twitter wants to pick and choose which stories they ban/promote, then section 230 protections should be immediately revoked, and then Joe Rogan can sue the fuck out of them every time someone retweets a CNN horse dewormer story. 

Cogent, solid argument. So how do you address editorial content without hauling Aunt Karen off to jail? 

[Pooter]

2 hours ago, Prozac said:

Cogent, solid argument. So how do you address editorial content without hauling Aunt Karen off to jail? 

This is where you get into constitutional law and the exact difference between slander/libel and free speech. In this example Aunt Karen is a private person not acting in a professional or public capacity, so when she says "I hate Hillary and I think she eats babies," that would be constitutionally considered an opinion and protected by free speech. 
 

Alternate scenario: Aunt Karen is a Fox News correspondent and she posts on FB "it is my professional journalistic opinion that Hillary eats babies."  This would probably rise to defamation and Karen would be sueable for libel. 
 

Either way, section 230 protects FB from liability so they should leave the posts alone and let the chips fall where they may. 

[brickhistory]

"10 percent for the big guy..."

"I've paid his bills for years..."

"I don't know what Hunter does in his business dealings and don't know his associates."

- 2 x letters of recommendation for sons of PRC business partners of Hunter's.

- Photos of ol' Joe with Hunter and his business partners at a DC restaurant

- 19 WH meetings with Hunter's business partners while VP

- Hunter accompanied the VP on AF2 to trips to Ukraine and PRC.  Shortely thereafter, major business deals for Hunter in those two countries

Now some $5.2 million in unexplained income earning for Joe "Cornpop" Biden in the period from leaving the VP to becoming POTUS, including paying Hunter's business legal fees.

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2022/04/26/joe-bidens-unexplained-income-starts-to-connect-the-dots-to-his-degenerate-son-n556356

The linked site is conservative.  The facts presented are not of a political bent.  They are simply dollar amounts that haven't been explained.

[ClearedHot]

The Hunter story gains momentum and more and more details of the Fusion GPS story leak.  The Dossier Hillary paid to have built and disseminated in order to sway an election then attempt to overturn an election through impeachment.

Now emails are coming to light (below), showing how Fusion GPS, knowing the story was fake, worked with an all too willing press (NY Times, The Washington Post, ABC, Reuters), to name a few in the documents below), who lapped it up and with ZERO due diligence.  A complete failure of journalism because they were so jaded with hate.  When you think of division in this country remember it was Hillary and the DNC that drug us all through the mud with lies when we could have been focused on helping this country.

See for yourself what reporters knew and how they participated in the Russia Hoax, John Durham just revealed hundreds of emails between Fusion GPS and The PRESS.

[BFM this]

22 hours ago, Prozac said:

As far as I’m aware, Hunter Biden has not been convicted of anything regarding the laptop story yet, nor was his name on any ballot in 2020. Not sure what you mean when you say it turns out to be “true”. If you mean there is in fact an ongoing investigation, sure, ok. If you mean that he did something wrong, well that remains to be seen. If he did, I hope he is convicted and appropriately punished.

No journalist (aside from extreme fringes, and certainly nowhere in the NYP story) stated that HB was "guilty" of crimes, though they were easy to infer from the existence of the evidence.  That the evidence existed, having far exceeded the threshold of journalistic verification, was the thing that was suppressed uniformly by big tech and outright lied about by the intel community.

No big deal, right?  The question becomes "what is influence", and at what level does that influence become direct interference and outright tampering with outcomes?

Start with one of the most seemingly benign forms of "influence" that is so commonplace that it is at this point completely invisible though it is in plain sight: search bar autocomplete.  Do you think that this feature has any influence on you or your thinking?  Of course not, that's silly, besides, I use _____ (DuckDuckGo, Brave, etc.).

I'm not nearly smart enough to answer, so I'll leave you with someone who is:  Dr. Robert Epstein.

 

Edited April 27, 2022 by BFM this

[Prozac]

1 hour ago, BFM this said:

No journalist (aside from extreme fringes, and certainly nowhere in the NYP story) stated that HB was "guilty" of crimes, though they were easy to infer from the existence of the evidence.  That the evidence existed, having far exceeded the threshold of journalistic verification, was the thing that was suppressed uniformly by big tech and outright lied about by the intel community.

No big deal, right?  The question becomes "what is influence", and at what level does that influence become direct interference and outright tampering with outcomes?

Start with one of the most seemingly benign forms of "influence" that is so commonplace that it is at this point completely invisible though it is in plain sight: search bar autocomplete.  Do you think that this feature has any influence on you or your thinking?  Of course not, that's silly, besides, I use _____ (DuckDuckGo, Brave, etc.).

I'm not nearly smart enough to answer, so I'll leave you with someone who is:  Dr. Robert Epstein.

 

That’s a fair argument. But I will again posit that we have a far richer media environment than we ever have in the past. By richer, I mean more (LOTS more), not better. We have always been influenced, whether it be television networks, newspapers (Remember the Maine(?)), family, neighbors, political campaigns, etc. Conservatives really like to complain about the media environment lately and how it’s stacked against them. I just don’t buy it. There have never been more conservative media options than there are now. Fox News is as unabashedly biased in its editorial/infotainment coverage (think Tucker, Hannity, Ingraham) as anything from MSNBC or CNN and the Fox shows have the highest ratings by a large margin.  If Democrats were just steamrolling Republicans in every election you might have a point, but it seems like Republicans are holding their own just fine. If they would spend some time vetting reasonable candidates who were actually capable of governance (vs just stoking outrage over Hillary’s emails, Hunter’s laptop, Pat’s preferred pronouns, etc) they might find a few more votes (including mine) because the Dems are a mess too & their only real advantage is that they haven’t stormed the Capitol yet & they’re not pushing insane conspiracy theories. In short, stop focusing so much on the supposed outrages of the other side & tell me what you’re actually for. 

[tac airlifter]

13 minutes ago, Prozac said:

That’s a fair argument. But I will again posit that we have a far richer media environment than we ever have in the past. By richer, I mean more (LOTS more), not better. We have always been influenced, whether it be television networks, newspapers (Remember the Maine(?)), family, neighbors, political campaigns, etc. Conservatives really like to complain about the media environment lately and how it’s stacked against them. I just don’t buy it. There have never been more conservative media options than there are now. Fox News is as unabashedly biased in its editorial/infotainment coverage (think Tucker, Hannity, Ingraham) as anything from MSNBC or CNN and the Fox shows have the highest ratings by a large margin.  If Democrats were just steamrolling Republicans in every election you might have a point, but it seems like Republicans are holding their own just fine. If they would spend some time vetting reasonable candidates who were actually capable of governance (vs just stoking outrage over Hillary’s emails, Hunter’s laptop, Pat’s preferred pronouns, etc) they might find a few more votes (including mine) because the Dems are a mess too & their only real advantage is that they haven’t stormed the Capitol yet & they’re not pushing insane conspiracy theories. In short, stop focusing so much on the supposed outrages of the other side & tell me what you’re actually for. 

You are completely blinded by bias.  

[Prozac]

16 minutes ago, tac airlifter said:

You are completely blinded by bias.  

Really? Do tell. And remember to keep your own bias out of your reply. 

[tac airlifter]

1 hour ago, Prozac said:

Really? Do tell. And remember to keep your own bias out of your reply. 

Just a few of your many biased points:

-You assert republicans aren’t putting forth “reasonable” candidates, yet fail to define reasonable.  You and I likely disagree on that definition; it is arrogant to presume you arbitrate what is and isn’t reasonable.  

- you say democrats aren’t pushing “insane conspiracy theories” but they are.  Calling Glen Youngkin a white supremacist racist is in fact an insane conspiracy theory (Curious if you consider him another unreasonable republican candidate) because there is no proof.  For that matter all the talk of white supremacy is a fringe conspiracy with no factual basis.  Unlike the many factual things censored by democrats, which precipitated this conversation. 

I could go on.  You are blinded by bias while being certain you aren’t.

[ClearedHot]

2 hours ago, Prozac said:

That’s a fair argument. But I will again posit that we have a far richer media environment than we ever have in the past. By richer, I mean more (LOTS more), not better. We have always been influenced, whether it be television networks, newspapers (Remember the Maine(?)), family, neighbors, political campaigns, etc. Conservatives really like to complain about the media environment lately and how it’s stacked against them. I just don’t buy it. There have never been more conservative media options than there are now.

First, more does not mean better and I hope you can see the difference.  Notice in the chart below the vast majority of what would be considered the mainstream media organizations are well left.  Among the worst is NPR which we as taxpayers subsidize, which is simply not right.

Second, even if you gave equal credential weight to all of the sites lists, the number of left leaning sites is double what leans towards the right.

 

 

2 hours ago, Prozac said:

If Democrats were just steamrolling Republicans in every election you might have a point, but it seems like Republicans are holding their own just fine.

I would disagree mainly because the problem became FAR worse under Trump.  Under his term the Liberal media lost it's mind and went from bias to outright cheer leading and actively working for the DNC to win.  They were (and still are), active and willing participants in suppressing news stories in order to shape the election.

2 hours ago, Prozac said:

...because the Dems are a mess too & their only real advantage is that they haven’t stormed the Capitol yet & they’re not pushing insane conspiracy theories. In short, stop focusing so much on the supposed outrages of the other side & tell me what you’re actually for. 

A bit of denial and hubris here brother.  The Dems made great theater of their supposed outrage for most of Trump's term pushing a Russia Collusion lie based on a fake dossier that THEY built...all the way to impeachment in the house.  Have you forgotten the live telecast of them slowly and painfully walking the articles of impeachment over to the Senate?

They were also active participants in suppressing the Hunter Laptop story which most certainly would have impacted the election.  Again, not saying Hunter is guilty, but as has been discussed the amount of evidence CLEARLY cleared the hurdle of an honest an unbiased press investigating what happened.  Sadly the 4th estate is dead.

[FLEA]

Quantity is a quality all of its own. Its not that conservatives can't put an opinion out there. Its that its completely drowned out if not censored by the enormous majority of liberal media. 

These organizations cooperate to do this and calling the gaslighting of conservatives for the last two decades anything close to ethical would indicate a complete lack of moral character to me. 

[Prozac]

19 minutes ago, tac airlifter said:

Calling Glen Youngkin a white supremacist racist is in fact an insane conspiracy theory (Curious if you consider him another unreasonable republican candidate) because there is no proof.  

Had to look that one up. Assume you’re referring to the stunt the Lincoln Project pulled during the election. I actually think Youngkin is exactly the type of candidate the Republicans should be pushing & while there is a lot I disagree with, I believe he is perfectly capable of good governance which seems to be a dying art on all sides. Unfortunately, it’s the Lauren Boberts, the Margarie Taylor Greenes, & the Matt Gaetzs that seem to be the rising party stars. And yes, the Lincoln Project stunt was stupid. 

[TreeA10]

Interesting numbers regarding conservative Twitter accounts. Can the minions at Twitter see what is coming?  

https://nypost.com/2022/04/27/its-about-time-to-crack-open-big-techs-black-boxes-which-suppress-conservatives/

[ClearedHot]

U.S. GDP SHRINKS 1.4%

U.S. Inflation 8.5% from March 2021 - March 2022

No worries as long as we don't have bad tweets from the orange man.

[HeloDude]

And the Dem leader of the Senate says the only way to fight inflation is to “raise” taxes.

I’ve been waiting for the start of the economic collapse (2008 style) and it looks like we just might be starting to get there.

 

[uhhello]

1 hour ago, ClearedHot said:

U.S. GDP SHRINKS 1.4%

U.S. Inflation 8.5% from March 2021 - March 2022

No worries as long as we don't have bad tweets from the orange man.

Genuinely curious as to how you think Trump would have prevented the current inflation?  

Edited April 28, 2022 by uhhello

[brickhistory]

2 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

 

No worries as long as we don't have bad tweets from the orange man.

And that, as the poem goes, has made all the difference...

[ClearedHot]

2 hours ago, uhhello said:

Genuinely curious as to how you think Trump would have prevented the current inflation?  

While I don't lay all of the blame for our current situation at the feet of the Biden Administration, I think four big factors would have been very different had Trump won the election.

Energy costs - Whatever you think about pipelines and the actual utility of the Keystone Pipeline, the Biden administration launched multiple executive orders at the energy industry which have most certainly impacted the price and availability of oil.  The narratives are all over the place but when you attack pipelines, refineries and drilling, you are going to impact the price of oil.  The administration is attempting to spin many of these issues like the 9,000 unused leases on federal land without admitting they are holding up many of those leases through lawsuits.  Both sides are guilty and there are other factors like Putin going into Ukraine but ultimately Biden's policy has caused the price of oil to nearly doubled since he took office and most of that run up occurred well before Russia launched their attack. 

Continuing stimulus - Obviously we needed stimulus and support during a pandemic, but Biden continued to dump gasoline on what most knew was a raging fire.  $1.9T in relief and payments kept people out of the workforce WAY longer than was needed.  All that extra cash without workers available to produce goods caused a huge bubble of demand to surge through the economy.  While the supply chain issues are not entirely Biden's fault, some of that blame does fall on the DNC and their unions, just look at the situation at the Long Beach Port.  Crane operators making $250,000 a year refusing to work overtime in an emergency, refusing to allow non-union workers to help in an emergency and refusing to surge the port to 24 hour a day operations.  I honestly think Trump would have federalized that operation, at least temporarily.  I hope we learned our lesson on this one.

COVID Lockdown Policy - Biden and his Uber left folks kept things closed WAY too long.  The implications have had second and third order effects all across the economy.

Fed Policy - While the Fed is meant to be an independent body they do seem to follow the lead of the President.  They certainly did under Trump.  The Fed COMPLETELY missed the boat on interest rates.  They should have been slowly raising rates a year ago but they waited on perception of Biden and partially in response surging energy prices.  Now that they are late to the game they are trying to fix everything all at once.  When you signal four consecutive 50 basis point raises, the possibility of a 75 point basis raise, openly say interest rates should equal or exceed inflation and out right say the interest rate raises should be "front loaded", you again crush the economy.  Most people don't realize the impact of increasing interest rates.  Look at the report released today showing 1.4% GDP contraction, if you dig into the numbers you will see a decrease in home sales of over 1.5%.  That will further crush the economy as fewer people buy appliances, building materials and other home upgrades.  As my wealth advisor put it yesterday, they are going from creating inflation to completely putting out any fire related to the economy.  As a frame of reference the U.S. Economy went from 6.9% in Q4 2021 to -1.4% in Q1 2022.

[Prozac]

1 hour ago, ClearedHot said:

COVID Lockdown Policy - Biden and his Uber left folks kept things closed WAY too long.  The implications have had second and third order effects all across the economy.

I've got to take issue with this one.  I live on one of the bluer states and we've been pretty much open for the majority of Biden's term.  Same is true down south in Cali.  Yeah, we had mask & some vaccination mandates (ex. large events) which might've deterred a few people from participating in the economy, but by and large, the sports stadiums and concerts have been filled for a while now.  And the reality is, despite rhetoric from both the current and last admins, individual states have far more control over this than the Presidential admin.  I agree with much of the rest of your post, but I just don't understand why many continue to argue that we kept the economy shut down for so long when the reality is we were one of the first developed countries to start opening up.

[ClearedHot]

1 hour ago, Prozac said:

I've got to take issue with this one.  I live on one of the bluer states and we've been pretty much open for the majority of Biden's term.  Same is true down south in Cali.  Yeah, we had mask & some vaccination mandates (ex. large events) which might've deterred a few people from participating in the economy, but by and large, the sports stadiums and concerts have been filled for a while now.  And the reality is, despite rhetoric from both the current and last admins, individual states have far more control over this than the Presidential admin.  I agree with much of the rest of your post, but I just don't understand why many continue to argue that we kept the economy shut down for so long when the reality is we were one of the first developed countries to start opening up.

Start to open versus fully open is a big difference, especially when Blue State economies fully opened later and they have a big impact on our economy as a whole.

Not sure which Blue State you live in, assuming Washington or Oregon?  To see the damage look at New York which at Biden's urging kept mandates and closures in place the longest.  I am not 100% but weren't they the last to allow indoor dinning.  I know they were the last to end vaccine mandates to eat inside and that was this past February.

To see how the Blue States performed and their impact on the rest of the economy take a peek at this article by CNN Business (hardly a right wing source).  The punchline is policies in New York took their economy from #3 in the country to #47 and it hurt our nation as a whole.  Keep in mind New York contributes 8% to the U.S. GDP.  Deblasio and Cuomo combined to form a new a new lunacy that saw impacts beyond the city/state...it helped drag down our overall U.S. GDP.

How bad is the Empire State compared to the other 49 states?

In 2019, before Covid hit, New York had the third-strongest economy among US states, lagging only Texas and California. The state's gross domestic product — the broadest measure of economic activity — was nearly $1.8 trillion, on par with the GDP of Italy. More than $1 trillion of that came from economic activity in New York City. The state contributed more than 8% to America's overall GDP that year.

 

New York's GDP contracted by 5.9% last year, a bigger decline than the total US GDP suffered, putting it at No. 47 out of all 50 states for economic growth.

 

Why New York lags behind

more severe lockdown protocols than in many other parts of the country.

 

And the challenges don't end there: One of the components of the Back-to-Normal Index that holds New York back the most is the shortage of restaurant-goers, according to Colyar. The state is still 40% below its pre-pandemic, eat-in diner volume, while the nation as a whole is down only 13%.

 

 

[GrndPndr]

The chuckle at the end really finishes this one up for me:

 

[ClearedHot]

53 minutes ago, GrndPndr said:

The chuckle at the end really finishes this one up for me:

 

Shameful, those around him and in the cabinet have a DUTY to step forward and say something.  Dude is cognitively impaired, we all see it.  I don't want Harris as a President but this is getting scary.

[HeloDude]

3 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

Shameful, those around him and in the cabinet have a DUTY to step forward and say something.  Dude is cognitively impaired, we all see it.  I don't want Harris as a President but this is getting scary.

It’s bad.  What’s also bad is that he said he’s not concerned about a recession following the news of negative economic growth.

The midterms will be very interesting…I think it’s obvious that the GOP will have a good night, the question is how good.