That's worth two in the bush, just so everyone is aware.

Not exactly.
They have actual evidence that many Kremlin tied agents were involved.
True, they haven't released any evidence proving Putin's personal involvement....yet.... but it's not a bit believable that this enormous government project was done behind his back. He IS personally involved with what his government is doing.

Granted, Mueller did seem to tow the Republican party line building up to Iraq, not with outright lies but by cherry picking reports and minimizing uncertainty but mostly by not correcting Bush, Rice, and Powell, which makes it even less likely he would turn 180 degrees to now outright lie and create evidence out of nothing to oppose his own chosen party, especially knowing it will come out eventually.

Also, it bears noting Mueller didn't have a part in creating any of the multiple reports, both public and classified, accusing Russia of interference, those came from numerous agencies and internal investigations by the businesses involved (like Facebook) AND from our allies intelligence agencies.

Odd, I haven't seen Mueller using any language about Russia, he's not doing interviews or releasing press statements, only indictments that in many cases are followed quickly with guilty pleas, what language exactly are you referring to?

"Witch hunt"....ahhh....so you've tipped your hand, indicating no amount of evidence will ever be enough to convince you because you believe Trump, even when he contradicts himself....except when he tells you there was clear Russian governmental interference, because he finished that sentence by saying "and others", which under a red hat means it doesn't matter, pay no attention to the Vlad behind the curtain....no collusion, no collusion, no collusion...la-la-la-la-la.

Odd, for a witch hunt, they have a whole bunch of convictions and people admitting to witchcraft. That's just not how witch hunts work.

To be fair, their reports were actually clear that they had no evidence of that, and that they had indications it wasn't true. Bush's Secretary of State and Defense Secretary ignored those reports and claimed we had evidence that was not supported by the intelligence community.....so no, it didn't happen as you suggest, but I admit that is what we were told they said.

Trump is doing the right thing. Following the law. This need to be FIXED this has been kicked down the road for decades. Politicians promise to do something then don't . They enact laws and then don't enforce. Trump is being non political and will try to fix it. Obama, Bush, Clinton all kick the can down the road as did the house and senate. Now 30+ million illegals and thousand every month coming. THIS NEEDS FIXED.

I sorry these people come from terrible places. The solution is not open boarders but to stabilize their countries. THEY need to get their shit together.


To think otherwise is foolish.

Because Libya and Syria are the same situation as North Korea, and put us on the brink of nuclear war. Fantastic logic there. While we're on it, why not bring up Iraq and Afghanistan? Clearly Bush also wanted to nuke NK.

But can you blame 'all' of the problem on Bush/Obama?

I can recall many changes in the 80's from Reagan, huge cuts to school lunch programs, and many attempts to either reduce or totally eliminate the Department of Education.

In 89, Bush Sr. and the Governors of 'every' state held a summit, where they developed some of the first goals for future changes to education. These included some of the first recommended changes to standards-based education.

During both of Clinton's terms they steamed ahead at full speed on these goals, leading to massive changes forcing standards-based education. They implemented ESEA, which was succeeded by the two later programs you mentioned.

So we clearly can't pin it to just one group, as both led the charge at one point or another. This is what I meant by my statement. Neither Liberals nor Conservatives can point a finger and say, "Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand?" They both grasped it and wielded it.

So, now as you mention, we have a climate which puts incredible importance on standardized testing. Because of this, and how the schools are funded, students are basically learning how to pass a test based on minimum standards as set by the government. Students aren't taught what they 'can' learn, but what the government thinks they 'should' learn.

I graduated in 1992, so I missed the true first wave of standardized tests. But if I had not been, I know I would have been *incredibly* frustrated at being forced to learn at a slower pace because all students needed to pass. I can almost guarantee I would have acted out, become more of a clown and troublemaker than I actually was in school, because I would have been bored to tears.

As you mention also, we have a highly media based group of children today. I agree cell phones should be not be allowed.

As far as the publishers, perhaps it is less than noble to prey upon the environment that we have currently. I can't blame them, however, because it would be akin to blaming cell phone makers for making products that children want for connectivity to social media. Like any company, they are in it for a profit. It just happens to be that currently the profit is more in tests than innovative learning tools/textbooks. They are simply doing what they have to do, like any corporation. I'm sure a lot of that includes lobbying to keep standards based education in place.

We can blame a lot of different groups, even parents. But that isn't solving the issue. I have my ideas of how to begin fixing it, which may differ from yours because I am not in the 'business' nor do I have children. I would say the following would be some baseline changes I would implement or suggest:

1. School Uniforms - It makes it harder to differentiate between children and helps against the forming of cliques.

2. A complete 180 from standards based education.

3. We have to invest more money into hiring more teachers. Smaller classes means less stress, more personal interaction, and more time for the teacher to be aware of 'problems' before they blow up.

4. Students should only be allowed to access devices owned by the school, ones that are for education and not instagram. What they have available before and after school is on their parents, but they shouldn't have it in class.

5. I will probably take some flack, but I do believe that vouchers should be allowed versus forced public school attendance. Forcing people who cannot afford private schooling to send their children to public education means you remove choice of the quality of learning. Once public schools start to even out in quality due to the aforementioned changes, then we can remove vouchers.

Kids Channel by James Roe
Sandbox for Sift Tots. This is a realm for videos that are suitable for children to enjoy. Non-kid-friendly videos that simply happen to contain a kid do not belong here.

He is intentionally posting adult content on the channel reserved for children after repeated warnings by multiple sifters and a short hobbling for the same thing. Perhaps another longer one is in order?

And because he continuously misassigns videos about racism as war on terror......

War on Terror Channel by raven

This Channel is for the aggregation of all videos related to the "Global War on Terror"...
As defined by Wikipedia.org:
"The War on Terror (also known as the War on Terrorism) is a campaign initiated by the United States government under President George W. Bush which includes various military, political, and legal actions ostensibly taken to "curb the spread of terrorism," following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States... Both the phrase “War on Terror” and the policies it denotes have been a source of ongoing controversy, as critics argue it has been used to justify unilateral preemptive war, perpetual war, human rights abuses, and other violations of international law."

This Channel aims to become a place that will foster discussion of the war, and the numerous controversies surrounding it as well as the video material coming out of it; both in the form of News Media reports, and videos shot by the soldiers themselves.

So wait....are you saying we should overlook numerous war crimes and international kidnapping because it was done in the name of fighting an enemy we created that never posed the threat we claimed he did, but was a dictatorial asshole that killed and tortured thousands (making it ok for us to emulate him), and ignore that our actions also killed hundreds of thousands and destabilized the middle east, creating Daesh, starting numerous civil wars, now disastrously effecting all Europe?


Yes, I think you're wrong. Only a hand full of soldiers who were caught by their own stupidity of posting photos of them abusing prisoners were discharged, I don't think any high ranking officers who created and fostered the abusive practices.
https://www.salon.com/2006/03/14/prosecutions_convictions/

It wasn't a few bad apples, it was the "standard desirable practice"....a practice Bush strongly defended and Trump has said he wants to return to, and at least the 1/4 of America that brainlessly loves him agrees.
Personally, I think we should have left any American that participated in this in Iraq, especially the officers in charge...soldiers have a duty to refuse illegal or immoral orders, and ordering torture is absolutely illegal and immoral.

To be fair, I'm sure that examples could be found of media personalities praising Obama/Clinton for similar stuff that they ragged Bush Sr./Jr. for. Best example off the top of my head might be Bush's "terrible war crimes" vs Obama's "brilliant use of drones".

Now, that all comes with a big disclaimer from me. I disliked Obama's expansion of drone bombing, flip-flop in in-office stance vs campaign stance on whistleblower protection, etc. But, I'd still personally evaluate Bush's, uh, miscues as overwhelmingly worse than Obama's. All I'm saying is that there have certainly been talking heads that have been hypocritical in the other direction before.

That being said, this clip takes it to a whole other level. This isn't nuanced, this is blatant. The only rational explanation is that Fox News simply is that biased, shamelessly so (no surprise to most of us). The problem is that Fox News' audience isn't particularly swayed by rational explanations.

I think clearing that "reality distortion field" is something that takes lots of time and lots of indisputable evidence. That's why I basically hope that Trump gets plenty of leash to try (and fail) to fulfill all of his ridiculous promises and self-hype. Nothing like a pointless and decaying border wall to serve as a reminder to be careful about who's cult of personality you get sucked into...

You know he's talking about the Bush family et al right?

Hmm. I think Trump's healthcare and economic policies have consequences in human lives. War is not the only injustice.

Idk. Context is important, but then... life is meaningless and ephemeral - soon there will be nothing. It seems there is always a bigger picture to reach for to diminish somebody's argument.

I don't disagree with what Bush said about the state of politics now. If it was an anonymous comment I'd still agree with it, but it would less interesting. Perhaps it is fair to "whataboutbush" because so much emphasis was on the "who" of the comment rather than the "what". I think to the left we hope our acceptance of his comment is evidence to our impartiality. "look", we say, "we even agree with BUSH on this! Objectivity!". It seems to me to entirely be a concession to the opposition...but I can understand those who cannot abide any concession.

Sadly, he (hopefully not willfully) has missed the point of "Whataboutism" entirely. The issue is not saying "what about..." this other thing about the thing we are talking about, but rather, when you say "what about..." this thing about something entirely unrelated. As an example, from his video, If someone were to say "Jeeze, Bush really wasn't that bad", you would be fully within your rights to say "What about all the people he inadvertently killed?".

It's when you, for example, say "Trump is a lunatic" and the response is "Yeah, but what about how Hillary sold children for sex in a pizza shop" that people have a problem with. The current Republican way of handling anything tricky is to throw out some non-sequitur and hope it sticks, while never actually discussing the original topic.

Again, saying: "Hillary was the best Sec. State ever" and having some one say "Yeah, but what about Benghazi?" is perfectly acceptable and not at all what John Oliver et al. are complaining about.

On another note, the clips he showed relating to how democrats would love to have Bush back, are being interpreted without the understanding that they are being spoken in jest (ie. sarcasm). They don't really want him back they are just attempting levity in that they want to show how much they think Trump is unfit for office by saying that they would even take the buffoon back if they could get rid of him. This is not an approval of Bush, but a lesser of two definite evils thing.

It's a logical fallacy called Tu Quoque... and yeah everyone does it. And yeah it's always a dodge.
Does accepting that W said some good things we agree with mean we are ignoring his faults? I don't think so. He's an idiot and negligent war criminal AND (not but) he happens to say correct things once in a while. Both can be true. All these people like Olbermann are saying is that Trump is worse than Bush.
I don't get Scahill's pearl-clutching.

I see the fundamental difference really comes to the target of the "whatabout".

If you are talking about group A and they say "What about group B", then that is just trying to distract/deflect. For example, Trump's comments about the alt-left and alt-right.

If you are talking about Person A and B, and claiming that person B is better, "What about person B's war crimes" is not unrelated. The example of praising Bush over Trump, and Bush's history.

I am not fully convinced that people are confused by the difference, at least the folks that I deal with.

Wow that ad really doesn't beat around the bush (or tush) about what it's talking about.