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Forums - Politics Discussion - The three headed dragon against Obama

Mr Khan said:

Sometimes the little things become the big issues even when there are bigger fish to fry, but the problem is everyone has only so much energy, so much sway, hence "political capital."

Monica Lewinsky became a big stinking deal, but it was bad for the Republicans because it went nowhere and exhausted their capital.

Much the same could be said of Benghazi.

Very different situations. The Lewinsky scandal should have been about whether or not the president lied under oath and obstructed justice. He very clearly did that, but unfortunately it was a sex scandal so in the popular imagination he was impeached for a blowjob. That's why the whole thing blew up in the Republicans' faces. It didn't "exhaust their capital", it made them look like a bunch of morally outraged creeps for prying into the guy's sex life.



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badgenome said:

What am I reading? Did you just have a breakdown of some sort? You sound distraught and rambling.

- Fox News is not half of the press.

- Liberals are biased. Conservatives are also biased. Everyone is biased. I'm not sure where you're even going with that. On that note...

- If the media only cares about the AP because it's something that affects the media, then that doesn't make it the most important story in actual reality. It may or may not be, but that's incidental. That it will probably get the most attention is the result of the media being biased towards stories about the media.

- Benghazi wasn't a big deal to the majority of Americans because the majority of Americans are, to put it very charitably, not well informed. To the extent that they are informed, they're informed by... well, the press.

1No, fox isn't half the press, but their ratings are higher than every other news show. Secondly, there are plenty of conservatives outlets and media. I don't know how conservatives think the press is mostly liberal when conservatives hold sucha  huge presence.

2Based on what? The facts we have show they criticize some things and not others. On the other hand we have conservatives who criticize everything. I would conclude that while benghazi and irs is not the pres. fault, maybe the AP is. But will we be able to focus on that? Will we be able to fix it and move on? No. Why? Because apparently, those other things are huge deals that the "biased liberal media" is avoiding, so therefore, it will fall upon conservatives to throw up as much of a stink as possible to make sure we only argue about completely asinine things that should be solved by their specific institutions, and not the pres. This is only going to end in trying to pass legislation to fix the problems and CONSERVATIVES ARE GOING TO BLOCK IT, citing some such liberal agenda. This is what happens every single time.

3I don't understand your third point. Is it important or not? You said it was. Now, maybe it is, maybe it isn't? Why the fuck are we arguing about things that we don't even know the importance of? Pick a side and stick with it.

4 The way you paint a picture, the majority of Americans (who voted democrat) are uninformed, shills, biased, and probably a whole mess of other things. What's so hard about thinking that the majority of Americans simply agree that Benghazi isn't that important, and what was important was getting the economy back on track, ending the war, and equality?

What's so hard about thinking that the average person just wants a fair shot, and wants to see the country prosper?? No, it's all stupid uninformed people with biases, out to get the little guys (tea party members) and teach kids buttsex, and drugs, and take away our freedoms.

Meanwhile, the economy is up, jobs are up, country attitude has been looking more positive by the month, and we're trying to pass legislation to protect the average person from insane hospital and insurance costs and discrimination. Oh but that's all fake. It's creative math, the country is actually worse than it's ever been in 300 years. This is all smoke and illusions, and Obama is going to destroy the country with the affordable health care act, he tricked you with the economy and with this "three headed dragon" (that we can't even show he was involved in) and he'll trick you with healthcare. Fucking any reason to impede progress. God forbid we fucking hunker down and solve important problems.

I'm just done with politics. Waste of time.



theprof00 said:
badgenome said:
Mr Khan said:
If Benghazi didn't stick during the election, it isn't going to stick now. The Republicans will back off when they realize they're spending all their political capital on something that's ultimately inconsequential to their agenda (e.g. when the budget fight kicks back in at the end of summer, Benghazi will melt away, at least until Clinton starts running for president)

Probably still not going anywhere in any meaningful sense, but it would actually be more likely to stick now because (a) there's more information available now, none of which is exculpatory for the administration, and (b) the media has less reason to run interference when there isn't an election looming. The press may be a little ticked about the AP thing, too, possibly even to the point of doing their jobs for a change just to fire a shot across the bow of the USS Obama.

It's funny how conservatives say that liberals are biased, yet several times, liberals have criticized some such direction or law, while the conservatives criticize every single thing. Maybe the liberals aren't so biased. Maybe we should be looking somewhere else to find the biases.

Fox would have me believe that the entire media is obama lovers, and biased shills. Occam's Razor would tell me that issues such as bengazi simply aren't a big deal to the press( or the majority of Americans for that matter; see: election 2012), and some other issues are.

Fox and Rush Limbaugh overplay it... but there is, and has been for decades a persistant liberal bias in the media, which has been shown time and time again in research studies.  This has been true since... like the 60's.

http://archive.mrc.org/biasbasics/biasbasics3.asp

Possibly the most telling Reagan... 84% of reporters voted for Carter over him.... and 54% Mondale.... 54% doesn't seem like a lot until you look at the electoral map.

 

In general, news reporters are far more likely to self report to be democratic then the average public... and also have a far more "left  wing" view of what central is.  Suggesting that the numbers are worse then even what self reproting shows.  The Pew State of the Media polls tend to show that pretty well.

Hell, various reports tend to show liberal reporters outnumbers conservative ones by 3-4X... when in reality... conservatives... even today still outnumber self identified liberals.

If you think poltiical bias doesn't effect  how you see a story subconisously, i'd say your sorely mistaken... espiecally when it's been shown a LOT of reporters mistake where the middle ground even is.

 

Fox News has actually made this worse by more or less concentraiting all the rightwing into one little area that can be ignored, as opposed to the past where they were the minority, but spread out, so everyone had to read some opposition information. 

 

But hell,  compaired to MSBNC....

http://stateofthemedia.org/2013/special-reports-landing-page/the-changing-tv-news-landscape/

 

I mean... holy hell... If Fox news is barely a news network... who knows what the hell MSNBC is supposed to be.


To think there isn't ANY liberal bias in the media, is just extremely intellectually dishonest, even if you think the bias doesn't amount to anything big.  The REAL arguement is if said bias actually amounts to anything.



Kasz216 said:
theprof00 said:

The government performs millions of actions everyday. Why would we assume that obama is specifically tied to them?
In massachusetts there was a scandal with one of the higher ups involved withcases where drugs were tested and thousands of criminals got retrials or were let go. Should we blame him for it becayse his friend is the governor?

Because they're very specific actions that the government should have things in place to detect.


As for the bolded... it's written sort of incoherently so i don't understand what your saying.

 

It sounds like a higher up government official was faking drug tests and was found out... and that said official was a friend of the govonor... but you wordered it the other way in the last sentence so i'm not 100% sure.


If that is the case... hell yeah you should blame the governor... espiecally if he apointed him there.  That's a big problem in his administration he clearly didn't have the right people in place to do the job.

1. I meant should we blame Obama.
2. How are you supposed to hold the governor responsible, when this official was clearly lying to everyone and hiding results? What are you supposed to do?

Case in point: the marathon bombers, hell, ANY criminal doing morally reprehensible deeds. The guy who kidnapped 2 girls for 8 years, etc etc. You know the one thing everyone always says? "I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS IS TRUE. HE WAS SUCH A GREAT PERSON, I NEVER WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IN A MILLION YEARS THAT HE WOULD X"
Should we hold all these people in contempt because they didn't know they were being very thoroughly lied to?
How are you supposed to check people out when everything they do is strategically planned out to keep anyone else from finding out?

If a cop one day sees a criminal with a gun, and tells him to drop is, and he does, and the cop decides "oh I'll just shoot him anyway", how the fuck are we supposed to know that this cop thought this? How are we supposed to screen cops that could potentially think this?

Again, it's a big fucking distraction. Distraction after distraction.

This three headed dragon is important? Sure it is. Let's fix the problem. It won't be that easy, I guarantee it. This will be talked about for the next three years. We will spend months upon months on legislation to fix this...for what? Because someone was doing something wrong and covering up all their tracks and we didn't predict that said person would do something like that? Fucking Obama, am I right? Fuck that guy.



Kasz216 said:

....

http://stateofthemedia.org/2013/special-reports-landing-page/the-changing-tv-news-landscape/

 

I mean... holy hell... If Fox news is barely a news network... who knows what the hell MSNBC is supposed to be.


To think there isn't ANY liberal bias in the media, is just extremely intellectually dishonest, even if you thin the bias doesn't amount to anything big.  The REAL arguement is if said bias actually amounts to anything.

Who said there isn't ANY liberal bias? I'm asking, "why are we pointing at the media and saying they don't give a shit because they're all liberals, when the media INCLUDES CONSERVATIVES".



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theprof00 said:

1No, fox isn't half the press, but their ratings are higher than every other news show. Secondly, there are plenty of conservatives outlets and media. I don't know how conservatives think the press is mostly liberal when conservatives hold sucha  huge presence.

Because it is very obviously mostly liberal? I mean, the major media outlets are all located in metropolitan areas - Democrat strongholds all - and are overwhelmingly populated by establishment Democrat types. What else would it be but left-leaning?

And there really aren't many conservative outlets at all, which is why Fox News gets such huge ratings. Murdoch has made a career of finding niches that aren't being filled, and filling them. His analysis was that a conservative network as an antidote to the monolithically liberal mainstream of the media would be a huge success, and history has proved him right. MSNBC has tried to attain relevance by being the left-wing answer to Fox, but it doesn't really work because Fox is actually the answer to the rest of the media being biased in the other direction. MSNBC is biased in the same way as the rest of the media, only more so. There just isn't really much of a market there.

theprof00 said:

2Based on what? The facts we have show they criticize some things and not others. On the other hand we have conservatives who criticize everything. I would conclude that while benghazi and irs is not the pres. fault, maybe the AP is. But will we be able to focus on that? Will we be able to fix it and move on? No. Why? Because apparently, those other things are huge deals that the "biased liberal media" is avoiding, so therefore, it will fall upon conservatives to throw up as much of a stink as possible to make sure we only argue about completely asinine things that should be solved by their specific institutions, and not the pres. This is only going to end in trying to pass legislation to fix the problems and CONSERVATIVES ARE GOING TO BLOCK IT, citing some such liberal agenda. This is what happens every single time.

Your reading of the situation seems to be that liberals are criticizing Obama on legitimate and reasonable issues because they are reasonable people whereas conservatives are "biased". Not that liberals are biased towards issues that liberals care about, whereas conservatives are biased towards issues that conservatives care about, which is the reality.

Even criticism when it comes to traditionally liberal issues, like drones or wiretapping or cracking down on whistleblowers, has been very muted compared to what it would be if there were a Republican president. Which neatly offsets conservatives bitching about things they would normally never bitch about under a Republican president.

theprof00 said:

3I don't understand your third point. Is it important or not? You said it was. Now, maybe it is, maybe it isn't? Why the fuck are we arguing about things that we don't even know the importance of? Pick a side and stick with it.

It's pretty important, sure. It's just arguably not as important as Benghazi (no one died) and perhaps not even as important as the IRS engaging in brazenly politicized behavior. But it will probably be treated as the most important of the three by the media because it's about the media. That is how bias works, see?

theprof00 said:

4 The way you paint a picture, the majority of Americans (who voted democrat) are uninformed, shills, biased, and probably a whole mess of other things. What's so hard about thinking that the majority of Americans simply agree that Benghazi isn't that important, and what was important was getting the economy back on track, ending the war, and equality?

I'm pretty sure most Americans didn't vote at all. Given how uninformed they largely are, this is probably a good thing.

Just because Obama won an election doesn't mean Americans don't care about Benghazi, or wouldn't think that it's important if they knew enough about it to have an opinion worth considering. Even if they wouldn't think it's important, that doesn't mean it's not important. Rather than presenting an argument as to why Benghazi isn't important, you point to the media ignoring it as some kind of prima facie evidence that it doesn't matter and then cite resulting general apathy (read: ignorance) about the issue as further proof, which is, needless to say, very circular reasoning.



theprof00 said:
Kasz216 said:
theprof00 said:

The government performs millions of actions everyday. Why would we assume that obama is specifically tied to them?
In massachusetts there was a scandal with one of the higher ups involved withcases where drugs were tested and thousands of criminals got retrials or were let go. Should we blame him for it becayse his friend is the governor?

Because they're very specific actions that the government should have things in place to detect.


As for the bolded... it's written sort of incoherently so i don't understand what your saying.

 

It sounds like a higher up government official was faking drug tests and was found out... and that said official was a friend of the govonor... but you wordered it the other way in the last sentence so i'm not 100% sure.


If that is the case... hell yeah you should blame the governor... espiecally if he apointed him there.  That's a big problem in his administration he clearly didn't have the right people in place to do the job.

1. I meant should we blame Obama.
2. How are you supposed to hold the governor responsible, when this official was clearly lying to everyone and hiding results? What are you supposed to do?

Case in point: the marathon bombers, hell, ANY criminal doing morally reprehensible deeds. The guy who kidnapped 2 girls for 8 years, etc etc. You know the one thing everyone always says? "I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS IS TRUE. HE WAS SUCH A GREAT PERSON, I NEVER WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IN A MILLION YEARS THAT HE WOULD X"
Should we hold all these people in contempt because they didn't know they were being very thoroughly lied to?
How are you supposed to check people out when everything they do is strategically planned out to keep anyone else from finding out?

If a cop one day sees a criminal with a gun, and tells him to drop is, and he does, and the cop decides "oh I'll just shoot him anyway", how the fuck are we supposed to know that this cop thought this? How are we supposed to screen cops that could potentially think this?

Again, it's a big fucking distraction. Distraction after distraction.

This three headed dragon is important? Sure it is. Let's fix the problem. It won't be that easy, I guarantee it. This will be talked about for the next three years. We will spend months upon months on legislation to fix this...for what? Because someone was doing something wrong and covering up all their tracks and we didn't predict that said person would do something like that? Fucking Obama, am I right? Fuck that guy.


1) Why would you blame Obama for a State government issue.  Obama doesn't pick the govonor.

2)  Maybe the govonor should have procedures so that one single person can't just lie and get away with it?  Some checks and balances maybe?   Pretty big fucking deal that there was no way to appeal DNA tests... i mean these people KNEW they weren't fucking guilty, and weren't allowed have an independent lab check their DNA?  Maybe they should use two experts one government and one private?  Or even just two different government agencies?

3) Actually there are plenty of people to blame int those kidnapping cases.  Since neighbors saw the women... and reported nothing because they just wrote it off as domestic abuse.

Which, fuck those people.  Those people deserve to have the media critisize the fuck out of them and it's sad that it hasn't already happened.

4)  Cops very much should be screened for these things... and should be taught training methods.  One or two slip through sure... however when it's a fucking huge deal like the ones mentioned, like say in Las Vegas where the cops seem to be shooting the shit out of EVERYBODY.   Yeah.... the govonor should catch some flack I think.



theprof00 said:
Kasz216 said:

....

http://stateofthemedia.org/2013/special-reports-landing-page/the-changing-tv-news-landscape/

 

I mean... holy hell... If Fox news is barely a news network... who knows what the hell MSNBC is supposed to be.


To think there isn't ANY liberal bias in the media, is just extremely intellectually dishonest, even if you thin the bias doesn't amount to anything big.  The REAL arguement is if said bias actually amounts to anything.

Who said there isn't ANY liberal bias? I'm asking, "why are we pointing at the media and saying they don't give a shit because they're all liberals, when the media INCLUDES CONSERVATIVES".


Because basically all the conservatives work at Fox News... and Fox News is a joke... while other conservaties elsewhere are generally at the position where they can't choose what they report on.

 

Who the fuck cares what Fox News says when most people don't watch Fox News.   They may have ratings that more the double MSNBC and CNN... but the cable news networks are actually still quite a minority when it comes to where people get their news from.

Believe it or not... Network Local News still rules the roost.  Hell online news sources dwarf the big 3 cable news networks.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newswar/part3/stats.html


To just how little Fox News TV hold maitnains, compare the number of people that watch Fox News vs the number of People who listen to NPR's Morning Edition.


If we're talking media share... more liberally biased organizations have quite the much larger marketshare.   Fox News likely only has the ratings it has specifically because it is more or less practically alone on an Island along with a few random newspapers and blogs.



Also, i'd point out that most of the stuff you want to focus on... is stuff that will only get worse if focused on. No matter which party gets it's way.

Both parties have outdates and silly ideas on how to sovle such problems, and such ideas often are only going to do more damage then good.

So... i'd rather government be distracted, until they're ready to look at some new ideas.

 

PS: Also, i wouldn't be looking to not blame Obama for the IRS thing, but to blame him inconjunction with Bush.  Since it looks like the reogrizations that basically allowed this to happen without anyone noticing was done under a a Bush apointee.  For this happening under his watch and being kept underwraps until enough time had passed from the election for it to blow over "or so they thought"...

that's another issue however.



Kasz216 said:
A203D said:
I'm not American so I don't know what this is about. But when I first read the title I thought it was a Game of Thrones joke. Danerys Targarian, represented by the 3 headed dragon. Lol. Evidently not the case.

Basically the IRS specifically targeted opposition political groups for tax audits and harrassment.  The Government demanded the phone records for the majority of news reporters over the last 2 month period with seemingly no justification, and without notifying the AP in the first place so it could legally question the supeona and the government lied about the cause of a terrorist act, presumibly to hide the fact that a ambassador died in an attack that they were warned about, by a group of people the president said were pacified, even after that area had been attacked multiple times before and the embassy had been attacked just a month or two before.

Thanks for the information. Sounds pretty complicated.