American Politics

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2774093]And a Happy New Year!

[B]2022 Misinformer of the Year: Tucker Carlson[/B]

[URL]https://www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/misinformer-year-tucker-carlson[/URL][/QUOTE]Medialiars aka David Brock.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2774106]Firstly, happy festive season little fella. Your one of the most fun and interesting to chat to here. A breath of fresh air in the tide of the propagandised.

Who are the oligarchs? Its those that have the political influence. Most often its the big corporates that buy political policy. Big corporates are legally obliged to be amoral bcos they must make profit above all else. That is primarily how we have arrived at this immoral global mess. Big decisions made by amoral institutions. Occassionally a person can have a big enough stake that they too can an oligrach.

COVID. Its not me that is being misled Tiny. I don't hold any of those positions listed above. My position was always it is a disease of the elderly and infirm. That was clear at the outset and the GBD was based on targetted response. There was no need to involve and ruin the lives of billions of other people.

I haven't been vaxd for 2 reasons:

1. I don't think it is necessary. I am not at risk. One of the biggest lies told was that the vax reduces transmission. We were told that we must get vaxd for the benefit of everyone. LIE.

2. I am a vegan and I will not be forced in to consuming goods that were tested on tortured sentient beings. My life is not worth more than that of any other sentient being. It is pure evil.[/QUOTE]Well, Merry Christmas to one of my favorite atheists, in cyber space for sure!

I place the blame on the politicians and the people, not the corporates. There's nothing wrong with the pursuit of profit, as long as there's competition, so that prices are low and quality is high. In Pharma, the industry we've been discussing, that's not the case. The politicians should step in and fix that, but they won't.

And who's responsible for electing the politicians? The people. There are candidates like Jeff Flake, Justin Amash and Gary Johnson, who will do and vote for what makes sense. (I lean libertarian and right of center on economic issues so that's why I'm using them as examples. I'm sure there are those out there on the left as well who vote their conscience.) We don't elect those types though.

Same with the media. We've become so divided. People don't want to hear both sides of an issue. To the extent that the corporates are pulling the strings of journalists and the like, it's to appeal to their audiences so they can charge more for advertising. Tucker Carlson was once on MSNBC, but he didn't last, because that's not what their viewership wanted to see. Similarly if Alexandria Ocasio Cortez retired, Fox News wouldn't be offering her a job. You've got half of America watching Fox News and the other half watching left-of-center news, and never shall the twain meet.

We the people get what we want and deserve.

As to COVID, again now that everyone has some immunity from infection and/or vaccination, I think we're arguing about the past. I read a quote from an immunologist/public health expert today who said the probability of the average person in the USA dying from COVID if he contracts it is now about 1 out of 2,000, about the same as the flu. He does however think COVID is a bigger threat because it's more contagious, and there's long COVID.

Anyway, thanks for clarifying why you believe what you do. It makes sense.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2774266]
I place the blame on the politicians and the people, not the corporates. There's nothing wrong with the pursuit of profit, as long as there's competition, so that prices are low and quality is high. In Pharma, the industry we've been discussing, that's not the case.

[/QUOTE]Tiny, have I ever given you my fave radioactive isotope analogy? Surely I must have, I use it often enough. Hehe. Pure lassez faire capitlaism is like one of the isotupes of a radioactive element that can only exist in space or in theory (in the table of elements and isotopes) - bcos whenever it males contact with the atmosphere on Earth, it decays in to something else instantly. Likewise, free markets immediately dissolve in to winners and losers, and as soon as one company / business starts to take the upperhand, they start to use their extra gains to exert undue influence on the market. Whether its advertising, or politictal favour, eventually law, and then war. They crush the competition and we end up where we are. Oligrachy and monopoly. A small group of winners and and ever growing nunmber of the exploited. Its called the End times of capitalism.

I trust you can see it. Hopefully given time you will appreciate its truth.

And a Happy New Year!

2022 Misinformer of the Year: Tucker Carlson.

[URL]https://www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/misinformer-year-tucker-carlson[/URL]

[URL]https://www.nationalreview.com/news/worst-media-misses-of-2022/[/URL]

[QUOTE=MarquisdeSade1;2774204]Medialiars aka David Brock.[/QUOTE]In order to "prove" what a great guy Misinformer of the Year Tucker Carlson is, your Breitbart link simply included a transcript from Misinformer of the Year Tucker Carlson's own misinformation show with zero links to substantiate his opinions.

In order to prove what a liar Misinformer of the Year Tucker Carlson is, my Media Matters link is chock full of hyper links citing the differences between the blithering misinformation spouted by Misinformer of the Year Tucker Carlson and the facts.

Media Matters is about calling out the media for lies and misinformation regardless of perceived political affiliation. MSNBC's Chris Matthews has earned their Misinformer of the Year Award in the past.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2774275]Tiny, have I ever given you my fave radioactive isotope analogy? Surely I must have, I use it often enough. Hehe. Pure lassez faire capitlaism is like one of the isotupes of a radioactive element that can only exist in space or in theory (in the table of elements and isotopes) - bcos whenever it males contact with the atmosphere on Earth, it decays in to something else instantly. Likewise, free markets immediately dissolve in to winners and losers, and as soon as one company / business starts to take the upperhand, they start to use their extra gains to exert undue influence on the market. Whether its advertising, or politictal favour, eventually law, and then war. They crush the competition and we end up where we are. Oligrachy and monopoly. A small group of winners and and ever growing nunmber of the exploited. Its called the End times of capitalism.

I trust you can see it. Hopefully given time you will appreciate its truth.[/QUOTE]Hi JustTK,

I'm not a fan of government policies that allow the creation of monopolies that disadvantage consumers, which is I think what you're getting at with your criticism of laissez faire capitalism. And I'm certainly not a fan of crony capitalism. I could point to a number of countries in the developing world that have allowed crony capitalism to flourish, to the benefit of local elites, being politicians and well connected businessmen. And the working man has suffered, by paying higher prices for lower quality goods and poor service.

For the most part however, that's not the case in the USA. Health care is an exception, and the politicians should go in and bust some heads to set it right. Protectionism by the Trump and Biden administrations through tariffs and other means (e.g. the "made in America" requirements in Biden's Inflation Reduction Act) is another exception.

I'm not sure what to think about some of the big tech companies like Google, Facebook and Microsoft. Yes, they're close to monopolies, but I'm not sure they disadvantage consumers. Their existence is definitely a huge plus for the USA and the world, although I'm sure they engage in some anticompetitive practices that should be done away with.

Otherwise, the USA, largely as a result of thriving free market capitalism, is prosperous and a consumer's paradise. Companies compete vigorously. Look at retail, where you have Walmart, Costco, Target, Amazon, etc. Builders, landlords, supermarkets, hotels, restaurants, hardware stores, car dealerships, you name it --- there are lots of them in every city, and the competition keeps prices low and quality high.

Over the last hundred years, capitalism, aided by globalism and improvements in technology, has pulled billions out of poverty. And capitalism has pushed out communism and socialism in most of the world, because it works better.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2773927]Igualmente Marquis!

Well, he's extremely misleading when he says the vaccinated are more likely to be hospitalized or die. When you segregate the date by age groups, you see that people were much less likely to be hospitalized or die if they'd been vaccinated. Yeah, I'd characterize that as a lie. Tucker Carlson's the one who's telling it. See my link about Simpson's Paradox below. I'll repeat it here:

[URL]https://www.ntu.ac.uk/about-us/news/news-articles/2021/11/in-the-wrong-hands,-vaccination-statistics-can-prove-deadly-simpsons-paradox-shows-why[/URL]

He's probably wrong about the Chinese military unleashing a deadly manufactured virus on the world.

I think he's probably right, that Putin didn't blow up the Gazprom pipeline.

He's absolutely right about Sam Bankman Fried. I love Cramer's comment on CNBC: "Is he the Jay Gould of our era or is he the JP Morgan of our era." Hilarious!

And finally I agree with him about Janet Yellen and "transitory" inflation. Inflation took off when Biden's American Rescue Plan was passed back in March, 2021, and the Fed at least appears to think it's going to go on for quite a while longer.

Thanks for the link, I enjoyed reading it.[/QUOTE]The inevitable and unavoidable inflation triggered by a blessed recovery from a 2-year worldwide economic paralysis due to Trump's Pandemic and its massive jobs and global supply-chain destruction would naturally need to begin with some kind of effective economic recovery legislation. It wouldn't be about Thoughts and Prayers.

Thank you for reminding us that this great, historic recovery began legislatively with Biden's American Rescue Plan.

I might argue it began spiritually soon after the November 2020 Presidential Election results were announced. But the necessary legislation that really got the recovery up and running for real was definitely Biden's.

And the good news about that inevitable but transitory inflation that a recovery from this particularly deep and virulent Great Repub Economic Disaster would trigger is that the great strides produced by Biden's legislation in terms of jobs creation, wage growth, consumer spending, etc, is not consistent in the least with a recessionary economy and not likely to be without the Fed artificially inducing some elements of it.

[QUOTE=MarquisdeSade1;2774005][URL]https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/ftx-sam-bankman-fried-bigger-madoff-enron[/URL]

[URL]https://www.ai-cio.com/news/madoff-victims-recovery-tops-80-losses/[/URL][/QUOTE]I actually think SBF's victims will get something back, maybe 10 or 20 cents on the dollar. That's a wild guess. But yes, it will be a lot less than what the people Bernie Madoff conned have received so far.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2774034]Trump's rebranding Obama's Rapid Vaccine programs from almost 10 years earlier as "his" Operation Warp Speed was most certainly inspired by the urgent [I]need[/I] for worldwide distribution of vaccines ASAP due to Trump's own admitted creation of Trump's Pandemic in the first place.

By Trump's own admission, Trump's Pandemic would have been prevented and the world would not have had these problems if only we had gotten a [I]2 month[/I] heads up about the initial outbreak in China.

Unfortunately, and against all expert advice and dire warnings for him not to do something so stupid and dangerous, Trump made the disastrous decision to defund the CDC and removed the very officials whose job it was to do exactly that [I]5 months before the initial outbreak.[/I].

And, for sure, neither Hillary Clinton nor Joe Biden nor Barack Obama nor any other Dem would have done something as stupid and dangerous as that and produced a Pandemic requiring such rapid vaccine development.

But virtually every Repub would have and would happily do so again.[/QUOTE]Anthony Fauci, Robert Redfield and others gave the Trump administration a lot of credit for Operation Warp Speed, after Trump left office.

I don't believe there are many (any?) knowledgeable public health experts who would agree with your contention that the pandemic would have been prevented if not for Trump's missteps.

During the very early stage pandemic, the CCP was lying to the local government officials and the people in Wuhan, and persecuting doctors who were attempting to warn the public. What makes you think they would have done jack to allow the CDC to better understand what was going on? There were flights from Wuhan to Europe and the USA all the way up until January 23. By that time COVID was in Europe and there was no way to stop it from developing into a pandemic.

Biden criticized Trump for xenophobia the day after Trump instituted a ban on travel from China.

[URL]https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/yes-biden-called-trumps-travel-restrictions-xenophobic/[/URL]

Trump's a liar, everybody knows that. And a Chinaphobe. If he did indeed say that there would have been no pandemic if we'd had 2 months more notice, why would you believe him?

[QUOTE=JustTK;2774181]If you believe that's how media bias works, your not worth corresponding with. I gave you a link to a book. I would suggest you read it but I know you won't bcos you don't want anything to interfere with your wilful ignorance. But you could easily find a critique: [URL]https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/a-critique-of-edward-herman-and-noam-chomskys-manufacturingconsent-the-political-economy-of-mass-media-2168-9717-1000176.php?aid=84135[/URL].[/QUOTE]Hey, you were the guy who provided the link I mentioned. I simply looked at it and commented. If you don't want comments on links you provide [B]don't provide them[/B].

But back to Chomsky. His central thought is: "The behaviour of journalists in the mainstream media is exactly what one would expect, on average, given the power structure of the institutions in which they are employed, and it is predictable in the same sense and for the same reasons that the behaviour of the president of General Motors is predictable. In order to succeed—in order to be hired and promoted—media personnel must avoid questioning the interests of the corporations they work for or the interests of the elite minority who run those corporations. Because journalists naturally do not wish to think of themselves as mercenaries (no one does), they engage in what amounts to a form of self-deception. They typically think of themselves as stalwart defenders of the truth (as suggested by the slogan of the New York Times, "All the news that's fit to print" but when state or corporate interests are at stake they act otherwise, in crucially important ways. In short, very few of them are willing or even able to live up to their responsibility as intellectuals to bring the truth about matters of human significance to an audience that can do something about them."

What is interesting about this is that it mentions "mainstream media" and ignores all rightwingnut media, blogs and all of the rest of the drivel coming from the right. Possibly he ignores the rest because when he published [I]"Manufacturing Consent"[/I] in 1988, rightwingnut media didn't exist in its current form. I wonder if he would take them to task as well. But his central thought is still mainstream media is "fake news."

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2774341]Anthony Fauci, Robert Redfield and others gave the Trump administration a lot of credit for Operation Warp Speed, after Trump left office.

I don't believe there are many (any?) knowledgeable public health experts who would agree with your contention that the pandemic would have been prevented if not for Trump's missteps.

During the very early stage pandemic, the CCP was lying to the local government officials and the people in Wuhan, and persecuting doctors who were attempting to warn the public. What makes you think they would have done jack to allow the CDC to better understand what was going on? There were flights from Wuhan to Europe and the USA all the way up until January 23. By that time COVID was in Europe and there was no way to stop it from developing into a pandemic.

Biden criticized Trump for xenophobia the day after Trump instituted a ban on travel from China.

[URL]https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/yes-biden-called-trumps-travel-restrictions-xenophobic/[/URL]

Trump's a liar, everybody knows that. And a Chinaphobe. If he did indeed say that there would have been no pandemic if we'd had 2 months more notice, why would you believe him?[/QUOTE]He didn't say that the pandemic would have been prevented. What he said was that Donnie the Dumbass said it. [URL]https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-china-trump-idUSKCN229310[/URL] and [URL]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/28/trump-says-china-could-have-stopped-covid-19-and-suggests-us-will-seek-damages[/URL] among other sources.

And, yes, Biden criticized Donnie the Dumbass' "ban" [B]because it was xenophobic[/B]. Additionally, Donnie called it a "ban" but it wasn't. It was restrictions only and it didn't restrict everybody. Just Chinese nationals from mainland China. You could still come into the US if you were from Taiwan because everybody knows that Taiwanese have no relatives living in Wuhan, don't know anybody living in Wuhan and certainly have never had a visitor from the mainland who had ever come in contact with anybody who could have had COVID (note: sarcasm alert).

And yes, Donnie did end the program that was supposed to detect things like SARS-CoV-2. [URL]https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-04-02/coronavirus-trump-pandemic-program-viruses-detection[/URL] Of note, ""Coronaviruses were jumping easily across species lines and were ones to watch for epidemics and pandemics," she said.

The program also trained nearly 7,000 people across medical and agricultural sectors in 30 countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East to help them detect deadly new viruses on their own. [B]One of those labs was the Wuhan Institute of Virology — the Chinese lab that quickly identified SARS-CoV-2[/B], Mazet said. " Would the CDC folks in China have detected SARS-CoV-2 early? Who knows. But the simple fact that Donnie the Dumbass dismantled the program before they could have detected anything was, well, stupid.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2774472]He didn't say that the pandemic would have been prevented. What he said was that Donnie the Dumbass said it. [URL]https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-china-trump-idUSKCN229310[/URL] and [URL]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/28/trump-says-china-could-have-stopped-covid-19-and-suggests-us-will-seek-damages[/URL] among other sources.

And, yes, Biden criticized Donnie the Dumbass' "ban" [B]because it was xenophobic[/B]. Additionally, Donnie called it a "ban" but it wasn't. It was restrictions only and it didn't restrict everybody. Just Chinese nationals from mainland China. You could still come into the US if you were from Taiwan because everybody knows that Taiwanese have no relatives living in Wuhan, don't know anybody living in Wuhan and certainly have never had a visitor from the mainland who had ever come in contact with anybody who could have had COVID (note: sarcasm alert).

And yes, Donnie did end the program that was supposed to detect things like SARS-CoV-2. [URL]https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-04-02/coronavirus-trump-pandemic-program-viruses-detection[/URL] Of note, ""Coronaviruses were jumping easily across species lines and were ones to watch for epidemics and pandemics," she said.

The program also trained nearly 7,000 people across medical and agricultural sectors in 30 countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East to help them detect deadly new viruses on their own. [B]One of those labs was the Wuhan Institute of Virology the Chinese lab that quickly identified SARS-CoV-2[/B], Mazet said. " Would the CDC folks in China have detected SARS-CoV-2 early? Who knows. But the simple fact that Donnie the Dumbass dismantled the program before they could have detected anything was, well, stupid.[/QUOTE]Hey, while I'm not a fan of the federal government in general, I agree that pandemic preparedness should be a focus of our federal government. George W. Bush and Bill Gates had it right. I'm not going to defend the Trump Administration for reducing funding for that. I will note that the real Dumb Ass behind a lot of the changes was John Bolton, who Trump did eventually fire.

As to Tooms' belief that COVID was "Trump's Pandemic", that Trump was responsible for it, it's laughable. Yes, 350,000 Americans died in 2020 from COVID, before a vaccine was available. Trump should have used the bully pulpit to encourage people to use N95 and KN95 masks and to avoid super spreader events (like his indoor campaign rally.) But a lot of people died in many other countries as well. When Biden took over we had the vaccine. And since then another 700,000 Americans have died from COVID. Fewer would be dead if the Biden administration had used its bully pulpit to persuade more Americans to get vaccinated and get Paxlovid.

Biden's a believer in the vaccine, masks and testing. But boy was he ineffective when it came to implementation. Only about 36% of Americans over 65 have received the bivalent booster. There should have been masks and test kits in every American's Christmas stocking a year ago, when Omicron kicked off. He was a day late and a dollar short.

You'll undoubtedly reply that Republicans were the ones who were less likely to get vaccinated and wear masks. Well, if the current dumb ass in the White House (I'd argue the current and last three occupants were all dumb asses) were a little more bipartisan instead of viewing his job as our country's Divider In Chief, maybe some Republicans would have been more receptive.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2774333]The inevitable and unavoidable inflation triggered by a blessed recovery from a 2-year worldwide economic paralysis due to Trump's Pandemic and its massive jobs and global supply-chain destruction would naturally need to begin with some kind of effective economic recovery legislation. It wouldn't be about Thoughts and Prayers.

Thank you for reminding us that this great, historic recovery began legislatively with Biden's American Rescue Plan.

I might argue it began spiritually soon after the November 2020 Presidential Election results were announced. But the necessary legislation that really got the recovery up and running for real was definitely Biden's.

And the good news about that inevitable but transitory inflation that a recovery from this particularly deep and virulent Great Repub Economic Disaster would trigger is that the great strides produced by Biden's legislation in terms of jobs creation, wage growth, consumer spending, etc, is not consistent in the least with a recessionary economy and not likely to be without the Fed artificially inducing some elements of it.[/QUOTE]Carry on with the propaganda. Most nonpartisan economists who follow this believe the American Rescue Plan, which received "0" Republican votes, worsened inflation, and we would have been better off without it. You can put some Democrat economists in that camp too, like Larry Summers and Jason Furman.

[B]Bidens American Rescue Plan worsened inflation. The question is how much.[/B]

[URL]https://www.vox.com/23036340/biden-american-rescue-plan-inflation[/URL]

Inflation in goods and services has risen faster than wages since the American Rescue Plan was passed. The workingman slips farther and farther behind.

It's going to be interesting how you explain the Biden Recession of 2023, given that your analysis of the American economy only considers one variable, which political party the President belongs to.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2774459]

What is interesting about this is that it mentions "mainstream media" and ignores all rightwingnut media, blogs and all of the rest of the drivel coming from the right. [/QUOTE]I don't really understand what you mean. Mainstream media means all channels of media that dominate our airwaves due to heavy corporate sponsorship. That includes all the large right wing nutjob news channels such as MSNBC, CNN, Fox, Bloomberg. All of them. The book has been update since its initial publication.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2774525]Carry on with the propaganda. Most nonpartisan economists who follow this believe the American Rescue Plan, which received "0" Republican votes, worsened inflation, and we would have been better off without it. You can put some Democrat economists in that camp too, like Larry Summers and Jason Furman.

[B]Bidens American Rescue Plan worsened inflation. The question is how much.[/B]

[URL]https://www.vox.com/23036340/biden-american-rescue-plan-inflation[/URL]

Inflation in goods and services has risen faster than wages since the American Rescue Plan was passed. The workingman slips farther and farther behind.

It's going to be interesting how you explain the Biden Recession of 2023, given that your analysis of the American economy only considers one variable, which political party the President belongs to.[/QUOTE]The "propanganda" is yours as you cherrypicked your own source. It's amazing what one so often finds when they follow the links planted below the biased monger forum analysis. Here's one embedded link within where the case is made that the stimulus plan saved the US economy.

[URL]https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2022/05/02/inflation-rate-biden-stimulus-blamed/9578452002/?gnt-cfr=1[/URL]

And from your source it says:

"Some economists with lower-end estimates still argue that it's a mistake to put too much blame on the American Rescue Plan, which in their view was just a minor contributor to inflation. The White House shares this view. A senior White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there were other potential explanations for differing core inflation rates in the US and Europe, and that arguments blaming Biden's stimulus were merely correlational.

The US also stands out from other countries in a more favorable way: It had a quicker and stronger economic recovery in 2021. That indeed seems to be partly because of the Biden stimulus spending."

Underline the last point. Therefore it's complicated, and personal opinions are involved, as there's no way to know with certainty what all would have happened had we done much less or nothing. One point is very clear though, inflation has been a worldwide phenomenon, and all the posturing on that front lost the Repubs another seat in the senate while realizing an embarrassing pink trickle in the house.

Anyway I'm glad you guys still have so much time on your hands to try and decipher how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. I just got back from Colombia where I rang the bells of many beautiful, curvaceous 20 somethings. Life is grand and I will return soon. Wink.

[URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URAqnM1PP5E[/URL]