LGP Political Discussion Thread

[eddysnake]

And I hate to say it, but the Daily Show and Colbert Report aren't exactly infalliable either. The thought that our nation's teenagers are receiving their current events from these two shows is a little loopy.

no question about it, and I think they can cover this up a little more being on Comedy Central, loopy yes, but in reality they aren't too far away from what CNN, Fox, MSNBC, etc. is putting out there

[doublem]

Let us keep our FOX News....please

You can have it.

[shafnutz05]

Don't get me wrong....I don't like EVERYTHING that is on Fox, but I can't watch MSNBC or CNN for five minutes. Although CNN is more tolerable than MSNBC. Daily Show/Colbert Report definitely both lean to the left, but they do poke fun at both sides.

As far as the Afghan decision goes, Obama rejected four different plans that his national security team put together. He has been talking about Afghanistan for almost two years, and still doesn't know what to do. Make no mistake about it....he is purposefully delaying making a decision either way on the war because of his own political concerns in getting his healthcare bill passed. As far as he is concerned, the Afghan war is a political nuisance that can wait until his top priority gets taken care of.

[shafnutz05]

Let us keep our FOX News....please

You can have it.

Thanks....to be quite honest with you, obviously I enjoy FOX because they actually report stories that are critical of the Obama Administration. But if I just want straight news, I prefer the Financial Times.

[doublem]

CNN in particular has enjoyed a long run without any competition, but the ratings show how few people take that channel seriously anymore.

And what does that have to do with content and being a "News" network? People like reality TV as well.

[eddysnake]

....he is purposefully delaying making a decision either way on the war because of his own political concerns in getting his healthcare bill passed. As far as he is concerned, the Afghan war is a political nuisance that can wait until his top priority gets taken care of.

I really hope that you are wrong and he's waiting for the right time to get out. I have a feeling that I may be doing some wishful thinking and this is farrrrrrrrr from over.

[shafnutz05]

And what does that have to do with content and being a "News" network? People like reality TV as well.

Don't get me wrong, FOX News has definitely CHANGED cable news. I won't deny that.

What I am saying is, the people that rabidly hate FOX News dismiss their rising ratings as the following

a) Americans are stupid
b) Americans like trash TV
c) All the old people in their trailers like to watch FOX because it's garbage

The reality is, the reason why FOX News is popular is because it is really the only news outlet in the entire mainstream media that reports from a center-right view. Aside from some smaller newspapers (i.e. Washington Times, NY Post), the entire media leans heavily left. In the WashPo newsroom, Obama voters outnumbered McCain voters almost 9:1. People have simply gotten tired of hearing the same whitewashed news stories coming out of the same outlets over and over again. The decline of the New York Times is another example (although some of that is partially due to the rise of the Internet as a news source). FOX News is not popular because Americans are "retarded", it's popular because it's really the only alternative to the media (besides talk radio) that reports from a different angle.

And naturally, the liberals want to use the "Fairness Doctrine" to silence both of those outlets.

[doublem]

Americans like trash TV

And this is also true. People like those type of formats. There is a reason why networks have more opinion shows than hard news. You can't really say one and not the other. Plus, its sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo boring.

[shafnutz05]

Americans definitely love trash TV, but FOX News' popularity is not because of that (if it is, it's barely a factor)

[doublem]

Americans definitely love trash TV, but FOX News' popularity is not because of that (if it is, it's barely a factor)

How do you know this? If Obama somehow turned into a neocon over night FOX would still hate him. They would hate all the Dems just for being Dems or "them dirty liberals". They keep the hate going.

[Sarcastic]

The reality is, the reason why FOX News is popular is because it is really the only news outlet in the entire mainstream media that reports from a center-right view.

You really think so? I think FOX News is popular because people generally like the network. I don't think it has to do with much else. FOX seemed to be popular even when Bush was in power, even when nobody liked him.

By the way, holy mother... you type a lot.

[bh]

a) Americans are stupid
b) Americans like trash TV
c) All the old people in their trailers like to watch FOX because it's garbage

a and b are right on. Most americans that watch FOX news do so because it aligns with their right wing mantra. Same with the followers of Rush. There is no unbiased media in this country. It's all to eithor extreme and it's not hard to see who is for whom. People who generally want the truth have to wade through piles of rubbish to find the concrete facts.

[HomerPenguin]

And that's the one point I will have to gently disagree. Radical Islam (originally known as Wahabbism) has been around for centuries

There have been many varieties of "radical" Islam, although I guess it depends on what you mean by "radical," besides Wahhabism.

...but really picked up in force after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Radical Muslims hate us not because of our foreign policy,

The fall of the Ottoman Empire happened to coincide with the formation of French and British colonies all over the Islamic world, the ramping up of Zionist activity in Mandate Palestine, and the beginnings of the oil boom throughout the Middle East, bringing exploitative western energy corporations to the region as well as creating massively bifurcated societies in which the rich are incredibly rich, the poor (or the slaves in the Gulf countries that are so rich that they don't really have indigenous poverty anymore) are lucky if they can hang on to their chamberpots, and there really is no middle. The axiom that "they," whoever "they" is, don't hate us for our foreign policy would carry more weight if some of "them" didn't have good reason to hate us over our foreign policy, or if we'd ever tried changing our foreign policy and seeing what happened.

but because of our Western secularism, decadence, and classical liberalism (I support this!). Their end goal is to wipe the nonbelievers from the face of the Earth,

Really, who is this "they"?

[shafnutz05]

The reality is, the reason why FOX News is popular is because it is really the only news outlet in the entire mainstream media that reports from a center-right view.

You really think so? I think FOX News is popular because people generally like the network. I don't think it has to do with much else. FOX seemed to be popular even when Bush was in power, even when nobody liked him.

By the way, holy mother... you type a lot.

lol I know I do. I wish I could ignore politics and just be apathetic like so many Americans my age

Good point...I mean I will be the first to admit, FOX News is addicting TV. They know how to present it in an attractive way

[shafnutz05]

Really, who is this "they"?

Radical Islamists....Wahhabi Muslims, if you will. Not all, of course. Although Wahhabi Islam does happen to be the most prominent strand in Saudi Arabia, and it has a strong foothold in Iran and Libya as well.

[shafnutz05]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/11 ... -congress/

pretty funny that ACORN is playing the victim card now...they are about as corrupt as it gets. They were basically a Democrat voter-registration machine, so you know they are in it deep when the Democrat-controlled Congress strips their funding.

[HomerPenguin]

Really, who is this "they"?

Radical Islamists....Wahhabi Muslims, if you will. Not all, of course. Although Wahhabi Islam does happen to be the most prominent strand in Saudi Arabia,

Good thing they're our bestest buddies then. Of crouse, I don't think you could get very far with the idea that all Wahhabis, and they hate that term by the way, are terrorists.

and it has a strong foothold in Iran and Libya as well.

There's no "strong foothold" of Wabbabism in Iran. Wahhabism is explicitly anti-Shi'a. Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab's biggest beef was with the Shi'ites and Sufis.

[Sarcastic]

It seems the ruling Saudis don't see eye to eye with others in the ME. They are even replacing the original Koran text with newly printed copies with significant changes made, even words like "Tanks" added in (to rev up people against the West). That is obviously unacceptable in Islam. A TV program I just watched mentioned that they want to basically take charge of the entire region. Be the ultimate authority, even when it comes to religion.

Homer, you're right... that is not sitting well with the Iranians.

[doublem]

Well, this is pretty interesting? Are they really as ideological motivated as we are led to believe? Sounds like they are motivated by what everyone else is...... money? This is really a bad situation and why does no one else report this?

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091130/roston" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In this grotesque carnival, the US military's contractors are forced to pay suspected insurgents to protect American supply routes. It is an accepted fact of the military logistics operation in Afghanistan that the US government funds the very forces American troops are fighting. And it is a deadly irony, because these funds add up to a huge amount of money for the Taliban. "It's a big part of their income," one of the top Afghan government security officials told The Nation in an interview. In fact, US military officials in Kabul estimate that a minimum of 10 percent of the Pentagon's logistics contracts--hundreds of millions of dollars--consists of payments to insurgents.

What NCL Holdings is most notorious for in Kabul contracting circles, though, is the identity of its chief principal, Hamed Wardak. He is the young American son of Afghanistan's current defense minister, Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak, who was a leader of the mujahedeen against the Soviets. Hamed Wardak has plunged into business as well as policy. He was raised and schooled in the United States, graduating as valedictorian from Georgetown University in 1997. He earned a Rhodes scholarship and interned at the neoconservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute. That internship was to play an important role in his life, for it was at AEI that he forged alliances with some of the premier figures in American conservative foreign policy circles, such as the late Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick.

The real secret to trucking in Afghanistan is ensuring security on the perilous roads, controlled by warlords, tribal militias, insurgents and Taliban commanders. The American executive I talked to was fairly specific about it: "The Army is basically paying the Taliban not to shoot at them. It is Department of Defense money." That is something everyone seems to agree on.

For the most part, the security firms do as they must to survive. A veteran American manager in Afghanistan who has worked there as both a soldier and a private security contractor in the field told me, "What we are doing is paying warlords associated with the Taliban, because none of our security elements is able to deal with the threat." He's an Army veteran with years of Special Forces experience, and he's not happy about what's being done. He says that at a minimum American military forces should try to learn more about who is getting paid off.

[doublem]

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut/49 ... hard_to_do" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It's only two pages. About time.

So for example, you have the four largest banks in America--and that is Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, and Citigroup--now issue one out of every two mortgages.... They issue 2 out of every 3 credit cards. And, we get calls every single day, from people who have seen their interest rates double, despite paying their bills on time. So you have these large banks charging people 25, 30 percent interest rates which is just unconscionable. And I think the fact that you have four large banks issuing 2 out of 3 credit cards clearly contributes to those outrageously high rates. And then you have 4 out of every 10 bank deposits in the country being held by these four institutions.

[Sarcastic]

Yup. They are raising interest rates. I was going to post about that, actually. I thought Obama took care of that. Thought we'd be treated by banks like human beings. Guess not. I see this as another Obama failure. Shaf's going to be SO happy.

http://www.comcast.net/articles/finance ... k.Lending/
A quarterly survey by the Fed found that many banks expect to increase rates, reduce credit limits and raise annual fees for both prime borrowers — those with sound credit histories _as well as more risky "non-prime" borrowers, who have tarnished credit. Banks also expected to raise minimum credit scores for non-prime borrowers, the Fed said.

And this.
http://www.comcast.net/finance/forwhati ... crackdown/

[Sarcastic]

By the way, back to healthcare. Did anyone catch this?

http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-ge ... .Overhaul/
At its core, the measure would create a federally regulated marketplace where consumers could shop for coverage. In the bill's most controversial provision, the government would sell insurance, although the Congressional Budget Office forecasts that premiums for it would be more expensive than for policies sold by private firms.

So Obama promised to provide healthcare for every citizen. Now he's saying it's really for 96%. I don't know who the other 4% are. But his idea seems to be to simply force all people to sign up with the insurers. I feel like we've been duped. I guess some of the restrictions seem nice, but I still don't see anywhere where this bill addresses the biggest problem which is cost of healthcare. I also don't see where the bill would stop these companies from denying procedures to people.

[DelPen]

Don't forget the jail time if you refuse to get coverage or pay the heavy fines if you don't.

[dagny]

[youtube][/youtube]

This is fantastic!

It's the best simplified illustration of what we've been trying to convey, that I've ever seen.

How do I download it? How do I put it on my facebook?

[Guinness]

[youtube][/youtube]

This is fantastic!

It's the best simplified illustration of what we've been trying to convey, that I've ever seen.

How do I download it? How do I put it on my facebook?

It is good, isn't it? I've posted it a couple of times as just a link to video on my fb. I don't know how othewise to save yt video locally, I'm afraid.