Thank you for serving Doc!

Nearly half of voters, 46 percent, believe the news media fabricate news stories about President Donald Trump and his administration, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll. Just 37 percent of voters think the media do not fabricate stories, the poll shows, while the remaining 17 percent are undecided.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/ ... oll-243884

Don't ask me what the hell is wrong with the other 54%. Have to be a total idiot or total tool not to realize it by now.

I agree. Fox clearly fabricates positive-sounding news stories about Trump every day. One would have to be an idiot or total tool not to realize that by now. And there surely are some occasional anti-Trump stories that are fabricated as well, although it is hard to see why that would be necessary when Trump constantly is doing odious things right on camera or in twitter or has been caught on tape admitting to those things and then lying about it all later. Really, only a total tool could say otherwise. Even an idiot could not fail to see from Trump's own constant stream of lies, backsliding reversals of positions, and ignorant and bigoted statements that he deserves the very great majority negative press he receives.

As to the statistic cited above, it doesn't support a conclusion that the poll result means that 46% of people believe that Trump is being treated unfairly by "liberal" or "establishment" media. The question asked does not distinguish between good-faith media sources that regularly criticize Trump that are themselves unfairly thought to be making up anti-Trump stories, real fake Trump stories from Trump enemies, anti-media set-up stories circulated by pro-Trump organizations seeking to mislead the regular press into printing wrong information that is then attacked, and tool media sources like Fox and Breitbart that rely on made up facts and/or cynical, lying spin to try to excuse him or support his out-and-out lies.

Peter, it is becoming impossible to read your posts. You know nothing about what you're talking about. You clearly don't watch Fox News, and just repeat the constant leftist attacks by Media Matters and others.

Fact is as a conservative and a Trump supporter I stopped watching Fox News for several months leading up to and after the election because of their negative reporting and comments about Trump. There were a few Fox personalities whose shows I would tune into, like Hannity and Eric Bolling, but otherwise unwatchable and infuriating due to their anti Trump bias.

And notice, the names I mentioned are commentary guys, not their hard news team.

Fox Business was far more fair and positive to Trump. Lou Dobbs, Neal Covuto and Maria Bartiromo I would tune into. To name a couple.

But people like .... Shep Smith, Chris Wallace, Dana Perino, Charles Krauthammer, Karl Rove, Bill Kristol, Stephen Hayes, Jonah Goldberg, Megyn Kelly, Greg Gutfeld, Fred Barnes ... off the top of my head ... these are Fox News personalities who are supposed to be either fair and balanced hard news guys or conservative commentators who were all very negative toward Trump. "Never Trumper" types. Not to mention Fox News always has liberal commentators on throughout the day as well who of course bashed Trump. So all in all Fox News was no friend to Donald Trump leading up to the election and immediately following. They were very negative towards him.

And that is the absolute fact. You really should stop commenting on things you know nothing about. You sound like an absolute tool from Media Matters.

Fox News is more fair towards Trump now. There are still some hard news guys on there who unfairly bash him, like Shep Smith. And still conservative Never Trumpers that are hard on him, but the coverage is more fair now than what it was previously. But no other network even tries to be fair or even tries to hide their bias now. So FNS is back to being only choice in news if you want anything close to fair as opposed to liberal talking points all day long.

Did I say every Fox story was fabricated pro-Trump stuff? No. I did say that Fox puts out pro-Trump lies daily, and I stand by that assertion. (You probably disagree because your posts show that you see the main offenders at Fox as being more "fair" to Trump than those at Fox who have limits to how far they will stand behind obvious lies and intentionally misleading and deflective spin.) My point, however, was to show that any poll that asks a general question about whether the news media fabricates stories will include opinions about what the conservative news media is doing as well anything the liberal media might be seen as doing. Thus, the poll results you cite do not show that 46% of the public have concluded that Trump is being treated unfairly by receiving so much negative press.

Moreover, your personal view that Trump is being treated unfairly overall is, in my view, absolutely untrue.

Similar to what you say about my posts, your posts likewise are becoming increasingly difficult for me to read. That is because you appear so clearly wedded to justifying your unwavering support for Trump that you seem to be grasping at straws to excuse his never-ceasing bad-faith and awful behavior. It is not objectively "fair" to give Trump "credit" for "accomplishments" that are mostly not of his doing, to ignore the significant harm he actually is doing, and/or to ignore his constant lies or take-every-side of issues and then claim brilliance when one of those sides proves correct. Nor is it fair to grade him in a curve because he has no experience on how to govern and/or no skills or interest in diplomacy.

He is terrible and, in most respects, is not getting better. He is morally bankrupt. He is an awful role model, and he is increasingly unpopular throughout the country and most of the world. That is a "fair," if not universally held, assessment of him. It is, in fact, the majority view of him in this country and, it appears, in the world. Most importantly, it is a view of Trump that is fully supported by directly observing what Trump actually says and does himself without need for (or distraction caused by) media interpretation or spin. He tells us and shows us what he is every day, and it is not good. Nothing so-called "fair" spin by his Fox apologists and others can do changes who Trump is at his core.

Finally, you should be careful about suggesting anyone else on this forum sounds like a "tool" for a particular media viewpoint. Either you are purposefully misrepresenting my points, or you are missing them because you are so zealous in your desire to justify your enthusiastic support for Trump. I do not much enjoy responding to your posts, but I feel it is important not to let poor analysis of facts and their context and misrepresentation of views against Trump go unaddressed, because that is the kind of thing that got us all stuck with someone like him as president in the first place.

But it appears no one is going to change anyone else's minds on this forum. So, I am inclined at this point to bow out of this discussion because it seems only to strain friendships without accomplishing anything of genuine value.

Peter, until you can bring some actual facts to the conversation it might be best to bow out. You come here and bash Fox News but do not cite one actual fact, not one hard news story that one of their hard news reporters has reported recently that was actually false. Yet week after week for the last couple years this happens to CNN, MSNBC, NY Times, and Washington (Com)Post. Hell, the New York Times came out after the election and admitted they were in the bag for Clinton, and had to do better in future. ... But nothing has changed.

The left wing media is so gung ho to tear down Trump that they continue to run bogus stories from one anonymous source and end up wrong time after time. This happens constantly. Barely a week goes by without a big whopper.

Not to mention ignoring stories that make Obama or liberals look bad.

For example, the Obama administration spent a great deal of time and fortune propping up the Mullahs in Iran and reaching the big deal with them. Iran has continued their nuclear program, have continued to fund terrorism, pocketed a ton of cash enriching themselves while the people suffered, and now the people have had enough and have taken to the streets. The entire deal was a huge failure and makes the Obama administration look like fools.

CNN's reporters spent more time over the weekend lighting bongs, holding joints, and reveling in pot smoke at New Years Eve celebration then they did reporting this huge story. I am not exaggerating.

You can have it. Not for me. I'm serious and a thinker. You go on thinking Trump pays Russian hookers for golden showers. I haven't time for that nonsense. I will not be lied to by supposed news. (and I am talking hard news here. Not commentary)

If you want people to ignore Fox News and conservative news sites because you don't want people getting the other side of the story or don't want people getting reports they absolutely will not see on any other network then just say so. But don't act like every other media outlet is just as biased to the left and have been doing an absolute crap job last couple years. One false report after another. But here is a newsflash for you. Trump has actually done some positive things, so Fox News actually has a positive report once in a while. Unlike other networks that spins everything he does as negative.

BTW, Peter, I'm not the least bit concerned with ruining any relationship in this conversation. I gave up on you years ago when you called me a fear monger and liar for concerns I posted about Obama. And never once did you apologize, even after I ended right on every single point.

And you've already said you don't respect anybody that voted for or supports Trump. So no need for masks here.

I don't need crap news, and I don't need crap friends.

I don't give a rats hairy ass that you do not respect people who voted for and supports Trump. I've yet to see any original thought from you in any conversation we've had here. I can go on Twitter or log onto Media Matters for two minutes and see the exact same crap you post here. I'll worry about what you think of me when you prove you have some actual unique thoughts.

Happy New Year

Hillbilly,

If you are trying to respond fairly to my posts, your reading comprehension is really quite poor. That could explain a lot. I have watched Fox news and their other politically-based shows. I have seen their "fair and balanced" coverage. It is really neither, but makes some minimal effort to be able to claim to be so. All major news outlets on the liberal side of things do at least as much to provide conservative and tea-party viewpoints. Plus, they admit when their reporters make mistakes and correct the record. With respect to your criticism on my posts, you keep setting up straw men to knock down and then criticize me for not taking the bait. And then you whine on top of it all. Don't want to be called a fear monger, don't be one or at least recognize what the term actually means and own it when you do it:

fear·mon·ger·ing
ˈfirˌməNGəriNG/
noun
noun: fear-mongering

the action of deliberately arousing public fear or alarm about a particular issue.

That is EXACTLY what you were doing regarding Obama, before he was in office and without basis. That is why I never apologized. I was surprised that you took an objectively correct description of what you were doing so hard. And you were not correct on the merits. (I do not recall ever calling you a liar, and would not have done so without good reason. But I now see that you often jump to conclusions about what others might be implying, so maybe you misunderstood my intent. For example, that a person may sometimes repeat lies told by others believing they are true does not make the person who repeats the story in good faith a liar. But that fact does not mean the false statement of fact itself is any less a lie being circulated by the original teller with the intent to deceive the public. Trump does a lot of that with the lies he spreads to his supporters, who then pass those lies along believing that they are true. He also does that himself by re-tweeting lies of right-wing propaganda without bothering to check out the facts that seem to support his prejudices.) As to the merits of Obama's performance as president: Republicans chose to undermine Obama's efforts for bipartisan governance from the very beginning of his presidency. They were even brazen enough to say it where it got on the public record. (But they were also cynical enough to count on voters not getting it or remembering it, and by lying their way along ultimately won political power in that respect.) And yet Obama still did a hell of a lot of good for the country, and cleaned up George Bush's financial disaster and tried to clean up is fraudulently-started war on top of it all. But, as far as I know, you never came back to talk positively about any of Obama's efforts to do so or about his accomplishments. Did you ever apologize for that?

Trump's "achievements" to date are mostly things that set the country up for the same bad outcomes that prior Republican Presidents' war-mongering and pandering to big business did to lead up to ill-advised wars and financial collapse. The things he does and the policies he is implementing are, in my view (and, in most cases, in the view of a majority of the public), mostly bad decisions. Once the Supreme Court vacancy after Scalia's death was stolen by Mitch McConnell, all Trump needed to do was pick a conservative justice that anti-abortion evangelicals and anti-government Republicans in the Senate would support. That is easy stuff to do. Trump and the Republicans failed at fixing health care because they were not willing to try to do anything more than finish their prior efforts to undermine it so badly that it would collapse and they could then blame Obama. They had no plan or intent or desire to actually fix health care problems and no idea how to develop a plan. But the public saw through that and they ended up exposed and defeated - again, and again, and again. Trump meanwhile fumbled around aimlessly trying to get others to do the work he wasn't capable of doing himself. The tax bill is an accomplishment but not something that I think is worthy of celebration. It certainly is nothing like what Trump promised. But he did succeed in enriching himself and his family in the end and providing enough pork to Republican sponsors and individual Senate Republicans to buy their votes. Pulling out of the green-house emissions agreement was a wrong-headed approach. Getting rid of some regulations was good. Getting rid of others was bad. But they are not so much "accomplishments" as things he could do unilaterally and without any oversight regardless of whether they were good or bad ideas. Overall, though, he has set the table now to do in the future far more harm than good. So, yes, I am deliberately raising the alarm on a public forum about the danger Trump brings now. Because people need to wake up to that danger. So, now I am a fear monger in the sense I meant when describing what you did with Obama. But the difference is, with Trump, there is a record on hand already to show that such concerns are well-founded. Trump is dangerous because he has already shown that he does stupid and harmful things mostly because his gut instincts tell him its a good thing to stir things up with childish twitter posts and/or to change course on long-sustained diplomatic courses on the spur of the moment and without consulting expert who might warn him away from potential policy consideration land mines.

Your personal attacks on me are off base as well. I don't simply adopt opinions from the news media, although I listen to news sources to learn facts and hear competing opinions that help inform my thinking. I read conservative and liberal articles and editorials. I listen myself to political speeches and read the documents that are made available to the public. I agree more often with moderately liberal takes but not always and not on all counts. In this forum, I have shared articles I found that set forth the facts and that provide citations to proof you said you wanted to see when attacking views of posters who disagree with your view. Maybe you didn't bother to read them. I even found and posted links to an article you cited as purported proof that man-made climate change is a hoax (and to the underlying scientific paper that was being reported on) but that you didn't bother to post yourself. Was that to conceal the dubious source from which it came and/or to make it harder for readers of this forum to find the parts of the scientific study being discussed that showed that the authors of that study understand that the issue being discussed is much more complex than Breitbart and you indicated?

Finally, it is a bit much to flatter yourself about you having original or unique thoughts that make you better than liberals and moderates in general, or me in particular. Your posts make it evident what you are and are not as a political commentator. Someone with unique or original thoughts is not what comes to mind. It was only to bring some balance to the run-of-the-mill, right-wing monologue you have been posting of late that I got back into commenting here at all. You are clearly a smart guy. But you are not any kind of objective or trustworthy arbitrator about what is fair and balanced news coverage of Trump. I fully understand that you feel the same about me. Other readers on this forum now have more than enough information from both of us to decide whether the views either of us have expressed have merit.

Let's call a truce and move on.

Wishing a happy New Year to you nonetheless.

I've mentioned it before:

TRUMP IS FILLED WITH MINDLESS DECISIONS,
EXECUTED WITH MINIMAL KNOWLEDGE
WITH POTENTIALLY CATASTROPHIC RESULTS

If trump were given a tax cut bill test consisting of 100 questions with 25% correct answers being a passing grade, do you think trump would pass the test? How about the constitution? The environment? Pick a subject! I'd like to see that high IQ trump claims he has put to the test.

My point! Does trump actually know what he's signing?

Fear-mongering you say!!!

We've got two morons arguing about whose Red Nuclear Button is bigger.

TRUMP NATIONAL ANTHEM

Yeah, yeah
That's right

We talk about your work
How your boss is a jerk
We talk about your church
And your head when it hurts
We talk about the troubles you been having with your brother
About your daddy and your mother
And your crazy ex-lover

We talk about your friends
And the places that you've been
We talk about your skin and the dimples on your chin
The polish on your toes and the run in your hose
And God knows, we're gonna talk about your clothes

You know talking about you makes me smile
But every once in awhile

[chorus]

I wanna talk about me
Wanna talk about I
Wanna talk about number one
Oh my me my
What I think
What I like
What I know
What I want
What I see
I like talking about you, you, you, you usually
But occasionally
I wanna talk about me (me, me, me, me)
I wanna talk about me (me, me)


We talk about your dreams
And we talk about your schemes
Your high school team and your moisturizing cream
We talk about your Nana up in Munci, Indiana
We talk about your Grandma down in Alabama

We talk about your guys
Of every shape and size
The ones that you despise and the ones you idolize
We talk about your heart, bout your brain and your smarts
And your medical charts
And when you start

You know talking about you makes me grin
But every now and then

[chorus]


I wanna talk about me
I wanna talk about me
Me me me me me
I wanna talk about me
Me me me me me
You you you you you you you you you you you you you
I wanna talk about me


[chorus]

I wanna talk about me
I wanna talk about me
I wanna talk about me
I wanna talk about me

Toby Keith

trump and the GOP just being trump and the GOP. We're being lead down a dark path.

T-shirts in Alaska in winter? With record-tying temps, yes

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — While much of the nation shivers in bone-aching cold, people in Alaska’s largest city are basking in warmer weather, jogging in short sleeves, ice-skating in T-shirts or walking dogs while just lightly bundled up.
Anchorage saw an official high of 44 degrees Tuesday, tying the record set in 1981 and 2011. That was warm enough for Patricia Bierer, who was visiting Alaska this winter from Montana.
https://www.apnews.com/28fc081c06554d60 ... temps,-yes

Science Says: Why there’s a big chill in a warmer world

WASHINGTON (AP) — Anchorage, Alaska, was warmer Tuesday than Jacksonville, Florida. The weather in the U.S. is that upside down.

That’s because the Arctic’s deeply frigid weather escaped its regular atmospheric jail that traps the worst cold. It then meandered south to the central and eastern United States. And this has been happening more often in recent times, scientists say. WHY IS IT SO COLD? IS THIS UNUSUAL? IS THIS UNUSUAL? WHAT’S NEXT? WHAT MAKES THE POLAR VORTEX MOVE? HOW CAN IT BE SO COLD WITH GLOBAL WARMING?
https://www.apnews.com/d7809e71d48d4439 ... rmer-world
Will trump ever learn the difference between weather and climate?
trump’s Cold-Snap Tweet Is Even More Shamelessly Stupid Than You Had First Thought. Here’s Why.


As morning temperatures across the U.S. broke records Monday―residents of Watertown, New York, woke up to minus 31 degrees Fahrenheit and temperatures plunged to minus 19 degrees in Des Moines, Iowa―many other parts of the world were warmer than usual. Huge sections of the Arctic were among the areas that saw temperatures well above average, according to the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, which compares daily temperature anomalies to a baseline of data from between 1979 and 2000.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/201 ... heres-why/
Trump plan to shrink ocean monuments threatens vital ecosystems, experts warn

Ryan Zinke has recommended three major marine monuments be reduced to allow greater commercial fishing, prompting anguish from environmental groups

The Trump administration’s plan to shrink four land-based national monuments has provoked howls of anguish from environmental groups, Native American tribes and some businesses, such as the outdoors company Patagonia.Ryan Zinke, the secretary of the interior, has recommended to Donald Trump that three sprawling marine monuments, one in the Atlantic and two in the Pacific, be either opened up to the commercial fishing industry or reduced in size, or both.
“These ‘blue parks’ harbor unique species, a wealth of biodiversity and special habitats,” said Jane Lubchenco, the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration between 2009 and 2013. “They are undersea treasures. https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ment-trump
trump’s Pick to Run 2020 Census Has Defended Racial Gerrymandering and Voter Suppression Laws
The census will determine redistricting and voting rights enforcement.

In June 2011, the North Carolina legislature hired Thomas Brunell, a professor of political science at the University of Texas at Dallas, to produce a report that would help defend the state’s new redistricting maps. The maps, approved by the Republican-controlled legislature, concentrated black voters, who tended to vote Democratic, into as few districts as possible in order to maximize the number of safe Republican districts. Under the Voting Rights Act, North Carolina had to get Justice Department approval for any voting changes, and so it asked Brunell to provide a justification for the maps. Brunell argued that clustering black voters into a few districts was necessary to maintain their political influence.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/201 ... sion-laws/
Trump administration scales back penalties for nursing homes

About a month after his inauguration, Donald Trump spoke at CPAC and assured conservatives, “We will not answer to donors or lobbyists or special interests.” With the benefit of hindsight, the president’s rhetoric sounds almost cruel. The New York Times reported the other day, for example, on the Trump administration targeting protections for nursing home residents at the request of the industry. The Trump administration is scaling back the use of fines against nursing homes that harm residents or place them in grave risk of injury, part of a broader relaxation of regulations under the president. The shift in the Medicare program’s penalty protocols was requested by the nursing home industry.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show ... sing-homes
Analysis: Trump's true priorities revealed in holiday news dumps

The tax cut bill wasn't the only Christmas gift that President Donald Trump gave billionaires and big businesses. Trump kept giving his members new reasons to celebrate. While cable news fixated on how much he was golfing - NBC reports that Monday was Trump's 91st day at a golf course as president - his political appointees back in Washington worked overtime to deconstruct the administrative state, eviscerate several of Barack Obama's signature achievements and roll back significant environmental protections.
1. Overturning key regulations on fracking:
2. Weakening the rules that were designed to prevent another Deepwater Horizon spill:
3. Declaring open season on migratory birds:
4. Reinstating mining leases for Ivanka Trump's landlord:
5. Letting nursing homes off the hook when patients suffer in their care:
6. Civil servants may not get a bonus because the rich got a tax cut:
7. Undercutting enforcement by waging a war of attrition against the bureaucracy:
8. Reneging on a federal commitment to fund a major infrastructure project:
9. Firing all the members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS:
10. Maneuvering behind the scenes to "sabotage" the Census:

[ SEE LINK FOR DESCRIPTIONS ]
http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc ... story.html
Fusion GPS Founders Blast Republicans' Russia Investigations

The founders of opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which commissioned Christopher Steele to compile intelligence reports about President Donald Trump's ties to Russia, said what the former British spy discovered "shocked us." In a commentary for The New York Times posted Tuesday, Former Wall Street Journal reporters Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch blasted congressional Republicans for "chasing rabbits" amid a growing criminal inquiry into Russian meddling in the presidential election.
https://www.newsmax.com/Politics/fusion ... id/834783/
Sally Yates: Trump's DOJ tweet 'beyond abnormal'

Sally Yates
✔
@SallyQYates
POTUS on 12/28: “I have the absolute right to do what I want with the Justice Department.” Today he slanders career DOJ professionals as “deep state,” calls for prison for a political opponent, and tries to sic DOJ on a potential witness against him. Beyond abnormal; dangerous
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... d-abnormal

Need to Impeach

JOIN 4,040,742 AMERICANS

BE PART OF THE FIRST 5 MILLION

Donald Trump has brought us to the brink of nuclear war, obstructed justice, and taken money from foreign governments. We need to impeach this dangerous president. Sign on now.

[ The live ticker keeps rolling; My family voted when the count was about 1.5 million. Over the holidays, the count rose by .75 million. ]

https://www.needtoimpeach.com/

Your welcome Joe.