Guy Chamberlin

It's a no-brainer. Gabrielle Union.

Trying to catch up as the story breaks. A little disappointed in the speculation. So let me just throw this against the wall. 1) Hookers & blow 2) Ukrainian crypto-currency scam

Should we call the police?

I did not. Since corrected. Also here......https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/january-2019/texas-revises-history-education-again-how-a-good-faith-process-became-political

My mistake. I thought you were talking about corporations avoiding taxes through unenforced loopholes, shipping jobs overseas, profiting massively, and asking the middle class to absorb any burdens, costs, and risks for them. But hey, cheap t-shirts!

Will it make you feel better if I tell you it's only a slight exaggeration? https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/10/23/450826208/why-calling-slaves-workers-is-more-than-an-editing-error Or that even conservatives think Texas schoolbook propaganda goes too far? https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/january-2019/texas-revises-history-education-again-how-a-good-faith-process-became-political

Agree. Hope you'll join us in fighting the injustice, comrade.

Trump's sweeping assessment of wind power is, of course, based on a singular incident involving Trump himself. Scotland was building a wind farm next to a golf course Trump owned, and Trump thought the windmills ruined the view. So naturally he sued Scotland. And lost. The wind farm was built, energy was saved, carbon emissions were reduced and people still played golf. But Donald Trump never forgets an enemy, even if they're inanimate objects. The real takeaway is that Trump was given a national forum to remind people why he's a better President than Joe Biden and he chose to talk about windmills killing everything.

I haven't read up on it, but I'm going to guess that Critical Race Theory is controversial and flawed, but probably a better starting point for the discussion than removing the word "slave" from Texas school books and replacing it with "workers."

Not watching hasn't stopped you from offering opinions on the things you don't watch.

Most of the news coverage I've seen has involved Trump reemerging in public --- coverage Trump craves, but is also fairly relevant as it's in stark contrast to the behavior of previous ex-Presidents. Most of the opinion and speculation revolves around Trump maintaining an active role in supporting GOP candidates -- but endorsing only those most openly loyal to him. It acknowledges Trump's still formidable support among the electorate, and is highly relevant to both political parties. Joe Biden remains President of the United States and gets the vast majority of coverage. It's not like he stumbles over a word and it turns into an entire news cycle, unless you watch Fox.

Yeah. I'm not sure this makes your case. The equivalent would be Barack and Michelle Obama fist bumping on camera, then having a crew of anonymous social media supporters call it a "terrorist fist bump" to see if Fox News would take the bait, at which point the hoax would be revealed and Fox News would be embarrassed. But that's not what happened. I cited this because it was one of Fox's most craven attempts, but they have a long and continuous history of stories that start with "people are saying......" when people actually aren't saying it; it's a rightwing narrative Fox invents and amplifies to distract from actual events and news. Outrage over Obama's beige suit was another good one. Given that the 4Chan trolls delighted in co-opting the OK sign to the point where people willfully used it as intended, unaware of the hoax, doesn't really undermine the theory that there are a lot of racist pricks out there trading in racist messaging.

If by "lefty media" you mean a single poster named Acyn on Twitter, sure. I guess. If you think Donald Trump would be happy to fade away if it wasn't for this pesky liberal media, you haven't been paying attention.

Benghazi!

I think the media DID curtail coverage of Trump. Hugely. More significantly, having lost his social media access, Trump lost his own microphone. When he decides to show up for a speech at someplace like CPAC, or hold a rally to test his popularity, it's covered, but less obsessively. But I think there's been a significant uptick in the last month as the focus shifts to the midterms and way-to-early 2024 chatter, and it becomes clear that Donald Trump is the single biggest influence in either party. Trump likes it that way. His loyalists have been out in full force. Donald Trump most definitely isn't going away. The GOP has difficult decisions to make. The media didn't invent any of this.

There is some truth to this. "Not as bad as Trump" was the signature qualifier for every 2020 Democratic candidate. It was perfectly valid, but still.... The weird thing is, the American people are actually more progressive on the issues than the Democrats. From national healthcare to college tuition, to tax reform to infrastructure to abortion rights to gay rights to criminal reform, a clear majority of Americans lean to the left side of the spectrum --- especially when the issue is framed as straight-up and non-partisan as possible. Because the Democrats have been terrible at messaging and narratives and pre-conceding their positions, they've allowed GOP and rightwing influencers to create this binary universe that doesn't judge policy on individual merit or -- God forbid --- the will of the people, but as an ideology with two buckets: the America First GOP vs. the Socialist Nightmare Dems.. It's simple and highly effective. Which the Democrats aren't.

Fox has been doing this forever. My favorite was from one of the Obama campaigns, when Michelle introduced Barack at a live event, and he winked and gave her a fist bump as he took the mike. The next day, Fox was incredulous. "What was that? " the anchors asked as they showed the clip over and over. "Some kind of terrorist fist bump?" And of course the next day it was "People are asking about this strange exchange between Barack and Michelle Obama. Is it sending some kind of coded message? People are calling it a "terrorist fist bump." It was a fist bump.

Agree. So the less pure and more preferable version allows for government checks and balances to keep Capitalism from eating itself -- and us in the process. It's what America has had basically forever. Some of us think Capitalism has been opening an excessive gap the past 30 years, and needs a corrective tune-up now more than ever. But as you surely know, even the simplest proposal to return the corporate tax rate to Reagan or even G.W. Bush-era levels gets branded with cries of socialism.

You implied that you were against the bailouts. Again, I can't tell if you're using "watered-down" as a pejorative, or if you approve a system of government checks and balances to protect taxpayers and investors from the excesses of Capitalism. Or if you're a purist who thinks several major financial institutions should have been allowed to fail in 2008 according to free market forces. If so, who do you think would have been punished the most by that free-market failure?

Yeah, train wrecks are hard not to watch, but there is still legitimate news running through all this, and it's the topic of this thread: what is the future of the Republican Party? The undisputed leader of the Republican Party is still Donald Trump, and Donald Trump got to where he is by behaving like MTG. Along with Gaetz, Boebert, and others in the next wave of Trumpism, all those train-wrecky things they say and do don't seem to hurt them. They are invited to Mar-a-Lago and sent out on tour like rock stars. Louis Gohmert, Jim Jordan and many, many other elected Republicans have said things just as wrong and stupid, and those clips and tweets get passed around, too. Every primary for the crucial 2022 midterms seems to involve a Trump loyalist saying crazy s#!t versus a fellow Republican who is afraid to distance themselves from the GOP's conspiracy minded majority. The fact that these people are allowed to advance or deny public policy will always make their idiotic and often despicable comments news. AOC and Talib get their fair share of criticism on the other end, but in terms of applicable intelligence and factual information, the Trumpists aren't even close.

Do you approve of that watered-down form of Capitalism, as in the need to punish Capitalists for profiting from de-regulation and self-inflicted excess? I'll admit, sometimes I'm unsure what you're trying to say, as you tend to move the narrative around in coy and evasive ways. I'll also admit Barack Obama let the financial establishment off the hook. Pretty much every advisor said this was the only choice to avoid fast-moving financial armaggeddon that would punish the innocent, but I think Obama often went out of the way to prove to everyone he wasn't remotely socialist. Ironic, huh.

You do realize that the "watered down form of capitalism" includes billions of taxpayer dollars aiding corporations, who lobby the same big government to help them out with tax breaks and incentives, international tariffs and copyright protections, not to mention highly profitable government contracts. The most unregulated form of Capitalism s#!t the bed with its derivative bundling addiction, and the American taxpayers -- who lost billions in devalued investments and IRAs -- were also expected to bail the rich guys out. Interestingly enough, conservatives never call this re-distribution of wealth "socialism." That's a word reserved for the $15 an hour warehouse worker getting too much unemployment compensation. I'm sure you can find someone somewhere who thinks everyone should be rewarded the same regardless of effort or circumstances, but that's not what the adults are talking about.

Rumors of Jeff Toobin's inappropriate behavior came long before he jerked off on Zoom. Many wondered how he managed to evade the first MeToo wave.

Just heard an interesting stat last week. Apparently there are 60,000 jobs available for truck drivers. That's right. Demand for truck deliveries and truck drivers is 60,000 employees short. We've waited 5 months for a bathroom fixture, and I think they're lying about the delivery time for our new dishwasher. #firstworldproblems

I honestly think your original statement was smug and childish, and you know perfectly well it was. Your attempt to explain it away is even worse.