@ChaosEngine

if you are referring to the established political class,the pundit class and those with relative power and influence i would agree with your assertions.

which is pretty much what i am talking about.

if you look how ron paul was being treated by his own party and compare that treatment to sanders by the DNC,there are some glaring similarities.

while both paul and sanders have differing politics,they did align in a few areas i.e: audit the fed,citizens united,money in politics and restructuring the military to name a few.

they both had/have immensely popular grassroots support.ron paul garnering 20 million in small donations and sanders broke that record with 30 million.

they both held large rallies with high attendance.

they both had a populist flavor that appealed to their own political base.challenging the current corrupt power structures.

and they both have/had experienced a weird media blackout,even though they were/are incredibly popular with the voters.

now we can question WHY that is,but i don't think it too much a stretch to come to the conclusion that both candidates challenged the current power structures that dictate this countries dysfunctional and corrupt political system.add to that mix a paid propaganda pundit class that never challenges the current narrative,all put on display on corporate media which is owned by what? 5-6 entities? who just happen to be the biggest lobbyists in this country?

nader experienced pretty much the exact same treatment from the DNC in regards to media exposure and it went even further in his case with him being outright denied to some debates,or made to jump through almost insurmountable dictates to even get ON the debates.

so when i assert this is a well crafted and intentional practice by the parties,i do so with precedent.

because all three,nader,paul and sanders all had/have massive public support from the voters,but not their respective parties.

so when ron paul started to become a real thorn in the RNC,who did not want him anywhere near the nomination.they changed the tactic from ignoring or downplaying pauls message..to creating the "kook" myth.this was from his own party!!

nader received similar treatment,though in a different context.the establishment as a whole came out against him.

so what can we assume,based on previous tactics from these political parties in regards to sanders?when they can no longer ignore his popularity? his grassroots campaign donations? his rally attendances?

there will soon come a time when they can no longer ignore sanders and his grassroots success,and they will respond the exact same way they did with nader and paul.they will concoct a narrative that plays on peoples fears and biases and begin to portray sanders as an anti-capitalist "kook".that somehow him being a democratic socialist means the end of our civilization.just the word "socialist' makes many a republican wet their panties.

could i be wrong?
oh please god let me be wrong.
i happen to like much of what sanders is promoting,not everything,i have issues with some of what he proposes,but over-all i dig not only what he is saying but how he is going about conveying his message.

there is one huge problem if sanders gets the nod,and that is the support you mentioned.he has almost none in the legislature.which will make much of what he is trying to change in washington damn near impossible.

which will create it own political mess and just create fodder for the pundit class to ineffectually pontificate on,just so they can have a job.

i think it would be such a great thing for this country if sanders got the nomination,but the establishment has already made its intentions clear:they dont want sanders,they want hillary.the establishment does not play by the rules nor do they play nice.

playing by the rules and being decent is for the peasant class.

hope i am wrong.
i hope that every single point i made will never occur.
i hope that sanders gets the nod and things may change,because this country needs a fucking enema.
but my cynicism really struggles with that kind of hopeful optimism.

Sadly, it really doesn't matter what they call them, because the term terrorist has become meaningless. I've said this all the way back when GWB "declared war on vague abstract concept"

The definition stated earlier is not wrong, but you can use that term for just about anything. Americans were terrorists against the British when we revolted. We also had the audacity to not march shoulder to shoulder against the Brits as was the standard for every "civilized" army back then.

The only difference is who wins and who loses. if you win, you're a revolutionary. if you lose, you're a terrorist. and if you're white, you're a militia group.

This was a calculated move by the terrorists though. I think they deliberately picked some piece of shit building of no value that no one cared about and was unused, made sure they didn't kill anyone but yet still forcibly occupied it with weapons. It's a dare...it's an attempt to goad. They want the feds or police to go in guns blazing. They want suicide by cop because it will ultimately benefit them and gain sympathy for them. They took something that is completely inconsequential other than it was owned by "the gub'mint"

The Fox pundit thinks they're peaceful? armed occupation is peaceful now? Just because they haven't physically hurt anyone doesn't make them peaceful. They stopped being peaceful the instant they picked up their weapons.

Love all the usual buzzwords and sound bites from the fox pundit without any actual specifics. Once again, who specifically is this "left wing media?" They never actually say who. more accusations of "big gov't" without any specifics. They keep talking about these intrusions into our lives, but yet, can't seem to name them.

All fear, no concrete issues. Standard geriatric (that means old, bob) Fox audience.

That's not true.

Despite what politicians may say, America has no trouble financing its debt. The US bond market is at the highest demand level (lowest yield) it has ever been because the US is perceived as the best house in a bad neighbourhood.

Literally, US bonds have not been more in demand since the US was founded.

Chart is a bit old, it's now solidly below 1945 levels:

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2013/12/20131220_bonds.jpg

I would highly advise you to stop listening to politicians, political pundits or partisans if you want truthful information about the economy.

Because of a lack of real pressure to cut the debt beyond the politics of it, Republicans or Democrats have no real incentive and thereby no genuine interest to actually reduce the debt rather than kicking the can down the road.

So adding what is a marginal amount of debt on top of that shouldn't make a difference to them.

I would say that example is a false dichotomy. You're never going to find a case in Palestine or elsewhere in the world that someone blows themselves up purely for the religious reasons. There are clearly political and social motivations at play in every terrorist attack.

This relates directly to my main point though. Some some pundits want to use a suicide bombing in the West Bank as proof that Islam is "evil" or "dangerous" without addressing the elephant in the room--that the Palestinians are living in the world's "largest open-air prison" (to use Chomsky's words) and are resisting what they see as occupation of their lands in any way they can. It is no where near as simplistic as the "Muslims good/infidels bad cuz Koran says so" argument that some people seem to want to make.

And let's be clear, I'm not saying there aren't passages in the Koran that are being interpreted by Hamas and others as justification for the use of terrorism as an acceptable form of resistance. I'm saying this isn't unique to Islam. During the height of fighting in Northern Ireland both sides were using the Bible to justify the car bombs, assassinations, and other violence that occurred during The Troubles (another complex conflict where religious, political, and social issues intertwined). Yet I think you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who would claim that Christianity is "evil" or "dangerous" based on what went down in Northern Ireland. It is a great example, though, of how any organized religion can be mobilized to support evil acts.

Absolutely, that that was the real question there is no doubt. But, that doesn't matter. I also think that the response was perfect except that he let it aggravate himself significantly.

It is news casters' responsibility to drum up business, make names for themselves, and be provocative. This is OUR fault as consumers. We crave something. We can blame the reporter for feeding his family by douchebaggery, but it is in his job title. (Bill Mahar asks worse questions, O'Riely, etc etc. And before we argue the pundit route, there are plenty of reporters who do the same.)

On the other hand, as someone famous, it is also IN Tom Harding's JOB TITLE to be asked stupid questions. To get offended/aggravated is sophomoric. If you don't want to do your job (And it is his job, 100%. He gets paid to be a media whore, he needs to swallow it down,) then you need to stop working in that field.

"Here, let me sit in front of these media guys who are paid to ask dumb questions and personal questions so I can get publicity...hey! This guy asked me a personal question! Boohoo..."

It isn't defining other peoples relationships. It is defining something tangible based on a universal. But that's an old subject between us.

And I didn't coin the Nazi reference, nor the cockersucker one, in that those were oldie but goodies from Stewart himself as he made fun of conservative pundits, as was implied by the previous paragraph--almost spelled it out actually.

Also, you had quoted Chaos and I was saying directly to him that he had implied it was learned behavior. Now I am not sure...did you think I meant the Stewart video?

Tbh, it pains me that a result like this happened AFTER a referendum on voting reform. If more people had realised that voting for the 3rd/4th/5th party was going to result in a majority Tory government with only a 1/3 of the votes maybe less people would have listened to Labour/Conservatives propaganda.

It's pretty funny how maybe a decade ago this narrow of a win would have been reported as vote of no-confidence for any party. This time around it seemed people were so relieved to not have a hung parliament that they seem to have let the blues off the hook completely while they enact their bonkers plans for austerity without a real mandate from the people.

ps. I totally predicted the election result and I'd just like to tell all those political pundits that I am ready to accept their resignation and yes I told ya so.

Someone could have said Beetlejuice three times and it would have had about as much meaning.
Bill's right though, it's nonsense but the politicians and the pundits know that the best way to capture viewers and votes is to convince them that their way of life is under attack. That or it's radical fundamentalist Christians, in which case, yeah you're under attack.

@newtboy
At this point, you're just arguing because I don't agree.

You continue to nitpick at the semantics of my points, because -

@newtboy said: "Your points are not valid IMO.. ..when I know that's not correct, I will correct you.."

Precisely.

I saw everyone here blindly jump to the defense of an unethical "political thought pundit" (or whatever you wanna label her. Again, semantics).

I figured - 'if they actually knew the bigger picture of the matter, they would see Sark's hypocrisy. I should point that out'

Nope. You believe want you want to believe.

In this, you're just like Trancecoach or Lantern or anyone else that spins or ignores facts.

By your own admission, you don't even care about this topic.

@newtboy said: "I'm not interested enough in her to investigate her, and see no need."

You then have the audacity to say some shit like -

@newtboy said: "and [you] made huge leaps to assume she hates and belittles sex workers (who are prostitutes if they sell sex for money, BTW)."

So
1 - Why the FRECK are you still "debating" with me. if YOU DON'T EVEN CARE!?!?
2 - How the hell can you assert i'm jumping to conclusions, when YOU yourself are the uninformed party?! Admittedly!
3 - Do you realize that referring to a group of people outside of their preferred nomenclature is highly denigrating?

So while I could cite all my sources, what good would that do?

You've clearly already made up your mind about me & my positions

@newtboy said: "Then you go on to apparently claim rape, or people caring/not caring about rape, or perhaps people caring/not caring about other people caring/not caring about rape is a first world problem?"

And the topic itself

@newtboy said: "Gamergate WAS about "an ACTUAL very serious set of issues."

Again, all without substantive knowledge of the topic or parties involved.

THAT is the behavior of a fool. i.e. jackass, ass, asshat.

That is the exact behavior that caused you to ignore Trance, Lantern, Bobknight.

They (you) don't know what the fuck they're (you) talking about.
But yet they (you) still ride in on their high-horses to every debate.

So the rest of this is just gonna be me slappin' unsound arguments out yer hands.

Hockey is a violent sport. A lot of hockey people think that allowing fights, which in the NHL usually happen between each team's designated "goons", prevents or lessens other dirty/dangerous play that would build up with unchecked aggression that is a pretty natural part of the sport. That's an oversimplification, but one of the major justifications.

I love watching hockey. I think it is a great sport that allows for many different paths to victory -- you can have a winning team made up of fast, graceful, highly skilled players, OR cerebral, teamwork based players, OR intimidating, brute force goons. Or a mix of any/all of those.

I'm not an expert, but I'm a fan. I didn't grow up with hockey in my blood (not from Canada), but became a fan in my teens. But, I do actually see a certain amount of logic in the hockey pundits argument that fighting cuts down on other dirty play. I think that if anyone watches enough hockey, they see evidence that it is true. Maybe not quite as true as the pro-fight pundits suggest, but it is there.

Better officiating, penalties, and suspensions for the kinds of dangerous / dirty play that fighting is supposed to cut down on would help. Even though I think fighting has a place in the game, the NHL does need to evolve some more consistency in those areas.

I'm a Colorado Avalanche fan. The Avs main rival for a long time was the Detroit Red Wings, and then a former Wings player (Brendan Shanahan) became the head of player safety. His job was basically to review dirty plays or plays that resulted in an injury, and dole out warnings/suspensions/fines. He took a lot of flack for inconsistency; many people thought that in two similar incidents he might hand out a long suspension to one and a slap on the wrist to the other. But even though he was from my "rival team", I thought he did a pretty good job, and it represented a great step forward for the NHL. The thing that I thought he did really well was that for every incident he reviewed, there was always a video available on the internet showing what happened from multiple angles followed by his thoughts on it, what disciplinary action he was going to issue, and his justifications for it. Of course everyone isn't always going to agree about that kind of stuff, but he put it out in the open instead of behind closed doors.

To me, that was a big step forward for the NHL. If they continue on that path, I think it is reasonable to suggest that fighting will become less important/necessary/beneficial. But I think it will always be at least a small part of the game.

I used to be a pretty strong "doubter", if not a denier. I made a gradual shift away from that, but one strong instance of shift was when Neil Degrasse Tyson presented it as a (relatively) simple physics problem in his new Cosmos series. Before we started burning fossil fuels, x% of the sun's energy was reflected back into space. Now, with a higher concentration of CO2, x is a smaller number. That energy has to go somewhere, and at least some of that is going to be heat energy.

Still, I don't think that anything on the level of "average individual citizen/household of an industrial country" is really where anything needs to happen. Yes, collectively, normal people in their daily lives contribute to Climate Change. But the vast majority of us, even as a collective single unit, contribute less than industrial / government / infrastructure sources.

Fossil fuels have been a great source of energy that has massively contributed to global advances in the past century. BUT, although we didn't know it in the beginning, they have this associated cost/downside. Fossil fuels also have a weakness in that they are not by any means inexhaustible, and costs rise as that becomes more and more obvious. In turn, that tends to favor the status quo in terms of the hierarchy of industrial nations versus developing or 3rd world countries -- we've already got the money and infrastructure in place to use fossil fuels, developing countries can't afford the costs.

All of this makes me think that 2 things need to happen:
A) Governments need to encourage the development of energy sources etc. that move us away from using fossil fuels. Tax breaks to Tesla Motors, tax incentives to buyers of solar cells for their homes, etc. etc.
B) If scientists/pundits/whoever really want people to stop using fossil fuels (or just cut down), they need to develop realistic alternatives. I'll bring up Tesla Motors again for deserving huge kudos in this area. Americans (and in general citizens of developed countries) have certain expectations about how a car should perform. Electric cars have traditionally been greatly inferior to a car burning fossil fuels in terms of living up to those expectations, but Tesla threw all that out the window and made a car that car people actually like to drive. It isn't just "vaguely functional if you really want to brag about how green you are", it is actually competitive with or superior to a gas-engine car for most users/consumers (some caveats for people who need to drive long distances in a single day).

We need to get more companies / inventors / whoever developing superior, functional alternatives to fossil fuel technologies. We need governments to encourage and enable those developments, NOT to cave to lobbyist pressure from big oil etc. and do the opposite. Prices will start high (like Tesla), but if you really are making a superior product, economy of scale will eventually kick in and normalize that out.

Outside of the consumer level, the same thing goes for actual power production. Even if we did nothing (which I would certainly not advocate), eventually scarcity and increased difficulty in obtaining fossil fuels (kinda sad that the past 2 decades of pointless wars 95% driven by oil haven't taught us this lesson yet, but there it is) will make the more "green" alternatives (solar, wind, tidal, nuclear, whatever) more economically practical. That tipping point will be when we see the real change begin.

Apparently there's yet another Gruber video. (There could be a Gruber Film Festival!)

("OMG!") Fox gets flack for, you know, exposing Democrats like Pelosi, but it's she who now claims that she doesn't know who Gruber is, despite invoking him many times in the campaigning for the bill's passage.

At least Gruber tells the truth about ACA just being another tax on "the people."

“So basically it's the same thing,” he said. “We just tax the insurance companies, they pass on higher prices that offsets the tax break we get, it ends up being the same thing. It's a very clever, you know, basic exploitation of the lack of economic understanding of the American voter.”

That's the truth also about, "tax the rich," or "tax corporations." Corporations will just pass on the cost to "consumers." Tax anyone always means tax "the people." But the masses of "the American voter," like voters anywhere it seems, or at least the "progressive ones," for whatever reason don't understand that. There is no "free" government service. No "free" education. No "free" housing. Someone will pay for it and more likely than not those at the bottom will pay for it.

EDIT:
There's at least 7 Gruber videos now.

"It’s one thing for Americans to suspect that their President lies to them. It’s quite another to hear a key Obama adviser boast of it." (Videosift pundits disagree, of course.)

From the Washington Post :

"Obama also insisted repeatedly that the individual mandate “is absolutely not a tax increase.” In a 2009 interview with ABC News, George Stephanopoulos pressed him on it no less than five times. He even read Obama the definition of “tax” from Webster’s dictionary. Obama was adamant: “My critics say everything is a tax increase. . . . I absolutely reject that notion.”

"Then, after Obamacare passed, his administration cynically turned around and argued before the Supreme Court that it was in fact a tax. At one point, Justice Samuel Alito asked Obama’s solicitor general, Donald Verrilli, “why do you keep saying tax?,” drawing peals of laughter."

"The reason he called it a tax is because — as Jonathan Gruber now admits — members of the Obama team knew all along that it was a tax. They intentionally deceived Americans about it because if they had called it a tax, Obamacare would never have become law."

* * *

All of these videos, of course, make little difference to the partisan Democrats, not unlike partisan Republicans when they get exposed. But they do make a difference with the "independents" who decide elections: the ones who can vote one way or the other. So the Democrats can expect for this to continue until the next election.

Good things to know: The "anti- commandeering doctrine."
Know the laws of the land.

I think it's because comedians are starting to get more attention than the pundits and they don't like anybody horning in on their action. For that matter I sometimes find comedians and what they say to be more truthful and even honest. Comedy isn't always just telling jokes, it can also be a way of broaching subjects that otherwise might be considered too painful or even outright taboo for many people, if you can keep them laughing they are less likely to punch you in the face.

I also wondered that. I love Bill, but he's a comedian, not a reporter or even pundit. His viewpoint should not be news unless it creates some real 'news'.
I find it odd how often the right wing pundits and representatives want to 'debate' with a comedian and their statements lately instead of arguing with other 'pundits' or reps that aren't joking.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/didnt-eric-holder-go-bankers

These pundits would be screaming for his head on a platter if Holder happened to be appointed by a republican or was white. American political TV shows rivals the Kardashians in the mindless bullshit department.