Politics

[spike.t]

Democrats bet big on Texas in hope of flipping Senate seat

The Democratic Party are hoping to defeat Ted Cruz to keep control of the Senate, but it is an uphill battle.

www.bbc.com

 

[Alistair]

I think the MSM is finally acknowledging that they are becoming more and more irrelevant... viewership is currently +/- 25% of what it was just 8 years ago...

private online information sources like Megyn Kellys daily show, Shawn Ryans online show, etc.. are picking up more and more steam and in many cases have more followership than some of the more prominent and established MSM shows..

While youre never going to find an unbiased source of information/news.. I think the MSM is recognizing that they have gone way too far... at the end of the day, they are a business and have to make money... and without viewership, they will fail... so they have to start making some changes (albeit I am certain those changes are being met with much reluctance and plenty of weeping and gnashing of teeth).. and have to start at least trying to project themselves as "honest" and "fair" (whether they really are or not)... or they will go the way of the do-do bird..

I agree the moment is increasingly irrelevant, but I attribute different causes.

Personally I think it has more to do with the dumbing down of content, excessive advertising and the fact that online sources are on demand and allow you to dig as deep into a topic as you like.

I would personally say that non-trad media is if anything MORE biased than most traditional media. That's a simple factor of audience capture. Fox or CNN have their bias, but they can't be so outrageous that they only appeal to 10% of the population. They need to maintain some mass-market appeal. By contrast, a youtube talk show might be very happy capturing 1 or 2 million subscribers, so they can tailor their content (ie their bias) much more closely, and if their viewership is pretty fringe, it's in their interest to be pretty fringe themselves.

This I think is the crux of the issue. We as viewers need to be really honest with ourselves about what we want from our media.

Do we want objective truth, or do we want validation?

Most of us want the second. It makes us feel smart and comfortable to have our media confirm our preconceptions. Having ones assumptions challenged is stressful, it's uncomfortable, it can be scary. Traditional media knows this, which is why they're biased in the first place.

But to get on my soap box for a minute, it's up to us, the viewers to CHOOSE the hard path, to demand truth, even when we don't like it. Else we just end up taking the position that I hear so often "Oh CNN is totally biased, but FOX never lies." No, FOX just has a similar bias to you, the viewer, so it doesn't challenge you. That doesn't mean they don't lie.

If you watch your favorite YouTube outlet tell a story, then listen. But then go find a source that you know doesn't align with your views, you know will make you angry. Watch the same story there and listen just as closely.

Challenge their assumptions, challenge yours, see if their sources stand up and see if yours do. If something doesn't pass the sniff test, but it their opinion OR YOURS, then reject it, even if its painful.

If you want unbiased media, you have to act like it. You're the customer here, you have the power.

Sermon over!

 

[Wishfulthinker580]

 

[Wishfulthinker580]

I agree the moment is increasingly irrelevant, but I attribute different causes.

Personally I think it has more to do with the dumbing down of content, excessive advertising and the fact that online sources are on demand and allow you to dig as deep into a topic as you like.

I would personally say that non-trad media is if anything MORE biased than most traditional media. That's a simple factor of audience capture. Fox or CNN have their bias, but they can't be so outrageous that they only appeal to 10% of the population. They need to maintain some mass-market appeal. By contrast, a youtube talk show might be very happy capturing 1 or 2 million subscribers, so they can tailor their content (ie their bias) much more closely, and if their viewership is pretty fringe, it's in their interest to be pretty fringe themselves.

This I think is the crux of the issue. We as viewers need to be really honest with ourselves about what we want from our media.

Do we want objective truth, or do we want validation?

Most of us want the second. It makes us feel smart and comfortable to have our media confirm our preconceptions. Having ones assumptions challenged is stressful, it's uncomfortable, it can be scary. Traditional media knows this, which is why they're biased in the first place.

But to get on my soap box for a minute, it's up to us, the viewers to CHOOSE the hard path, to demand truth, even when we don't like it. Else we just end up taking the position that I hear so often "Oh CNN is totally biased, but FOX never lies." No, FOX just has a similar bias to you, the viewer, so it doesn't challenge you. That doesn't mean they don't lie.

If you watch your favorite YouTube outlet tell a story, then listen. But then go find a source that you know doesn't align with your views, you know will make you angry. Watch the same story there and listen just as closely.

Challenge their assumptions, challenge yours, see if their sources stand up and see if yours do. If something doesn't pass the sniff test, but it their opinion OR YOURS, then reject it, even if its painful.

If you want unbiased media, you have to act like it. You're the customer here, you have the power.

Sermon over!

Agreed.

 

[Wheels]

Comments to the Washington Post. The mental anguish of some is entertaining.

 

[Wheels]

It has been interesting watching some super intelligent life long liberals in the past couple of years realizing how bad their party has become and taking a stand against it.

 

[VertigoBE]

I agree the moment is increasingly irrelevant, but I attribute different causes.

Personally I think it has more to do with the dumbing down of content, excessive advertising and the fact that online sources are on demand and allow you to dig as deep into a topic as you like.

I would personally say that non-trad media is if anything MORE biased than most traditional media. That's a simple factor of audience capture. Fox or CNN have their bias, but they can't be so outrageous that they only appeal to 10% of the population. They need to maintain some mass-market appeal. By contrast, a youtube talk show might be very happy capturing 1 or 2 million subscribers, so they can tailor their content (ie their bias) much more closely, and if their viewership is pretty fringe, it's in their interest to be pretty fringe themselves.

This I think is the crux of the issue. We as viewers need to be really honest with ourselves about what we want from our media.

Do we want objective truth, or do we want validation?

Most of us want the second. It makes us feel smart and comfortable to have our media confirm our preconceptions. Having ones assumptions challenged is stressful, it's uncomfortable, it can be scary. Traditional media knows this, which is why they're biased in the first place.

But to get on my soap box for a minute, it's up to us, the viewers to CHOOSE the hard path, to demand truth, even when we don't like it. Else we just end up taking the position that I hear so often "Oh CNN is totally biased, but FOX never lies." No, FOX just has a similar bias to you, the viewer, so it doesn't challenge you. That doesn't mean they don't lie.

If you watch your favorite YouTube outlet tell a story, then listen. But then go find a source that you know doesn't align with your views, you know will make you angry. Watch the same story there and listen just as closely.

Challenge their assumptions, challenge yours, see if their sources stand up and see if yours do. If something doesn't pass the sniff test, but it their opinion OR YOURS, then reject it, even if its painful.

If you want unbiased media, you have to act like it. You're the customer here, you have the power.

Sermon over!

I agree with you on the principle.
But I have yet to find any utility in going out of my way to go listen to the arguments of a communist, a transgender activist or an anti-gun maniac.

On certain things my mind truly is made up.

 

[Wishfulthinker580]

It has been interesting watching some super intelligent life long liberals in the past couple of years realizing how bad their party has become and taking a stand against it.

Definitely. This guy was thoughtful and sharp.

 

[Tanks]

Why does he put stuff like this out there? It is a blatant lie. The tariffs are paid by the importer and then passed on to the consumer. He should have pointed out that the Biden administration did continue his Chinese tariffs on electronics and we have always used tariffs to protect our markets by making foreign products more expensive to buy and therefore encourage domestic production.

It does inflate the cost of those goods, but in the great scope of things do not contribute to inflation numbers due to overall percentage of those goods bought.,

 

[mdwest]

It has been interesting watching some super intelligent life long liberals in the past couple of years realizing how bad their party has become and taking a stand against it.

lots of very well thought out commentary and discussion in that video.. well worth watching..

 

[Wheels]

Definitely. This guy was thoughtful and sharp.

If I recall correctly, he took a stand against the President of Harvard in the past year when it was shown she had plagiarized much of what she had written. Ackman was a significant donor, and called for her resignation and the board to resign when they stood behind her. The media and the left came against his wife in a major way. That became his wakeup call and red pill moment. It has been interesting watching his cognitive dissonance and the 180* change in many of his political beliefs over the past few months. Ackman is definitely sharp and articulate.

 

[mdwest]

whether tariffs are effective or not is a point of argument that no economist or side has ever definitively won..

personally I think the Trump tariffs (that have been not only continued under Biden.. but Biden has actually added to) are much ado about nothing... a big red herring that had minimal impact on the economy under either administration comparatively to all of the other factors at play..

while tariffs are measurably up.. how much "up" they are is a serious point of argument, because there are different ways of measuring.. some say theve risen to as much as 8% across all goods imported into the US.. others argue that the real number is less than 3% (a huge swing and difference)..

whats key to understand is... tariffs are nowhere close to what they have historically been in the US.. prior to Smoot-Hawley tariffs were imposed on as much as 60% of all goods imported into the US.. until about 1980 tariffs were still being imposed on as much as 10% of all goods imported.. since 1980 they have hovered +/- 5%... so whether you believe they are now at 8% or now at 3%.. the variance really isnt all that significant..

Another key thing to note is.. the govt is screwing us no matter which side of the aisle you are on this one.. The point of Smoot-Hawley was to reduce the cost of tariffs on the consumer because the US Congress got a great idea and imposed an income tax on citizens instead.. rather than tax us on what we consume, they'd tax us on income.. which was supposed to fix the great depression while the fed govt continued to be funded..

well.. here we are 90 years later.. we're still paying income tax (at higher rates than originally designed).. and we're still paying tariffs (which were supposed to largely go away)...

 

[Alistair]

I agree with you on the principle.
But I have yet to find any utility in going out of my way to go listen to the arguments of a communist, a transgender activist or an anti-gun maniac.

On certain things my mind truly is made up.

Eh, you don't have to agree with them. But I find it's helpful to understand the reasoning, a good starting point for some constructive discourse, and right or wrong, they represent the views of many people. Understanding their point is a good starting point to understanding why, and how you might influence those people.

And hey, very, very rarely they raise a point that you have no reasonable answer for, that makes you examine your own position in depth. That can be a healthy thing, for growing the strength of your own argument, or revising your own position.

I've never met a person completely without insight, experience or some value. I'm also not arrogant to claim that my positions are unassailabe or universally, totally correct.

 

[BSO Dave]

Have you considered that your unquestioning faithfulness is equally boring? As I readily admitted in my post, Vance has been a real surprise - Trump not in the least.

LOL... If I truly bore you so badly, why do you always reply to my posts?

I'm happy to justify my support for Trump... He's not the guy most of us may have wanted, but he is the guy we got thanks to YOUR republican party. Instead of pissing and moaning about it, I choose to support the guy we got for two main reasons that have nothing to do with unquestioning faithfulness to anyone:

1) Trump policies were good for this country, and will be again...

2) ANY democratic alternative is unthinkable... Every single elected democrat holding office right now is either a radically insane socialist, or they are spineless capitulators who are too weak or fearful to retake control of their party.

In regard to my "unquestioning faithfulness" for Trump, you must not actually read much of what I say here, or what my true positions are... If I was indeed unquestioningly faithful to any individual or any doctrine, I would be party affiliated... As an independent, I can look at Trump through the lens of policy, and past accomplishment... My renewed support for him is not emotionally based... Your disdain for him is... Your relentless TDS and constant references to him as being a terrible candidate IS boring because it accomplishes nothing at this point... It also happens not to be true...

Perfect men do not exist, and if we only voted for men of unwavering morality and perfect character, we would never have elected any POTUS to this point... One of many differences between us is that I cast my vote considering all the factors and I personally put more weight on policy over personality... If the reverse consideration makes you morally superior to me, I can live with that just fine...

Unless I have missed something, about 95% of your criticism and rejection of Trump is character based. So, tell me with the exception of what you fear Trump may or may not do in Ukraine, what Trump policies do you feel have failed this country so miserably that it supports your assertions that he is a terrible candidate?

 

[BSO Dave]

the D party doesnt have much of a choice but to play to their whims, or they lose more centrist seats to more people that are following in comrade bernies footsteps..

The so-called leaders of the party have definitely played into their whims, but why? The reality is that their efforts to expand their tent has backfired on them, and they have lost control of the asylum...

To your other point of them not having much of a choice, I disagree... There is ALWAYS a choice and those choices have consequences... If Trump does indeed win this election, those consequences will finally have been realized by the few formerly sane and reasonable dems who chose to pander, capitulate, and forfeited control...

 

[Newboomer]

Yes sir!… Just like the California tidal wave to Texas.

“Look at this place with low taxes, high quality of life and low regulation…. Now we just need to make it like the shit hole we escaped from!”

Ditto for Nevada.