President Trump: Making America Great Again...

[myboynoah]

lol at you losers who think Trump is mentally ill. He's really just an asshole.

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[myboynoah]

Details emerge of Melania’s misery as first lady

“Don’t let her smile [in the photographs] fool you,” the source said. “She hates this.”

Get in line, Melania. We were here first.

[RC Vikings]

The 'Day Without Immigrants' is having an impact in the potato industry today. We have 50-60 Mexican immigrants working here at the warehouse and most everybody showed up today but a few of the packing houses in Idaho are down today.

[Jeff Lebowski]

This is good. A debate expert (former national champ) explains the tricks Kellyanne Conway uses to dodge questions in interviews.

[byu71]

This is good. A debate expert (former national champ) explains the tricks Kellyanne Conway uses to dodge questions in interviews.

I am impressed. Takes a debate expert to to keep us from being duped. Thanks for the info

[myboynoah]

This is good. A debate expert (former national champ) explains the tricks Kellyanne Conway uses to dodge questions in interviews.

Yep. We're going to start seeing less and less of her, in terms of body mass and air time.

[Walter Sobchak]

There will be some of both. Trump's overall approval ratings are already starting to tank. There is always a little bit of a time delay between events and the polls. I wouldn't be surprised if Trump's approval numbers drop into the low 30s by the end of next week.

<http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefi...proval-ratings>

The Rasmussen Reports and the Pew Research Center released wildly different approval ratings for President Trump on Thursday.

Rasmussen's daily Presidential Tracking Poll found a 55 percent approval rating for Trump among voters. But Pew Research Center only found Trump with 39 percent support — a 16 point-difference between the two polls.

Hey SU... I'm willing to put up a steak dinner predicting that President Trump will be re-elected against your prediction that President Trump will not finish his first term (for whatever reason). If neither event happens, we push.

[Walter Sobchak]

Wait... this just in. The POTUS promising "more flexibility" to Russia after the election!

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Good hell... The (former) POTUS was in bed with the Ruskies!

This one's for you buddy...

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[Topper]

I am impressed. Takes a debate expert to to keep us from being duped. Thanks for the info

Blame the television channels for booking her.

[Uncle Ted]

This one's for you buddy...

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Sh*t! Sec. Hillary let the Ruskies buy up 20% of our Uranium to fatten up her family foundation and now this! It seems everyone is in bed with the Russians. Let's nuke that damn spy ship now! They are most likely reading our brain waves and laughing at us.

[Walter Sobchak]

Let's nuke that damn spy ship now! They are most likely reading our brain waves and laughing at us.

A spy ship off the coast of Connecticut eh? Probably have picked up a lot of SNL lately. Maybe they were trying to locate Alec Baldwin so he could facilitate a defection en masse? Montana is nice they've heard.

[Uncle Ted]

A spy ship off the coast of Connecticut eh? Probably have picked up a lot of SNL lately. Maybe they were trying to locate Alec Baldwin so he could facilitate a defection en masse? Montana is nice they've heard.

We don't want any damn Russian immigrants... They will hack our email and throw our elections!

[Northwestcoug]

I streamed the press conference today while doing some less important work (no cancers were missed while I listened!). It was as bad as you would predict. The man gets high marks for trolling. But he cannot speak intelligently. He obviously relished insulting the reporters there, over and over, to their faces.

The constant media bashing was embarrassing and unpresidential (go ahead UT, find the clip where Obama did it also). But I hope this is the tipping point for all media outlets. In my world conspiracy view, Fox News and the other right-wing media (it should be said, they deserve a seat at the media table like everyone else, though they have really overplayed their 'fair and balanced' hand) have cultivated a generation of voters who simply don't trust the media when it tells them something counter to their beliefs. And now we have a presidency who openly calls reporters dishonest and liars. He is the natural result of Fox News's existence. I would hope that even Fox News can see that this won't end well, even for them. It would be great to see a united, righteous, media backlash against Trump's attacks.

[Topper]

I streamed the press conference today while doing some less important work (no cancers were missed while I listened!). It was as bad as you would predict. The man gets high marks for trolling. But he cannot speak intelligently. He obviously relished insulting the reporters there, over and over, to their faces.

The constant media bashing was embarrassing and unpresidential (go ahead UT, find the clip where Obama did it also). But I hope this is the tipping point for all media outlets. In my world conspiracy view, Fox News and the other right-wing media (it should be said, they deserve a seat at the media table like everyone else, though they have really overplayed their 'fair and balanced' hand) have cultivated a generation of voters who simply don't trust the media when it tells them something counter to their beliefs. And now we have a presidency who openly calls reporters dishonest and liars. He is the natural result of Fox News's existence. I would hope that even Fox News can see that this won't end well, even for them. It would be great to see a united, righteous, media backlash against Trump's attacks.

First, I agree he is a terrible speaker but I did not and will not listen to him. I can't stand his voice, his speaking style or anything he does in the public arena.

With that said, what has the media done to deserve trust? Naturally, this backlash is overkill, but why should we trust any of the media, right, left or middle? Okay, maybe we can trust the WSJ. I like its approach. A tangent I know.

As long as we are trashing our institutions, the Presidency, the Congress, we might as well destroy and remake the media. It will be soo much fun. lol.

[Walter Sobchak]

I streamed the press conference today while doing some less important work (no cancers were missed while I listened!). It was as bad as you would predict. The man gets high marks for trolling. But he cannot speak intelligently. He obviously relished insulting the reporters there, over and over, to their faces.

The constant media bashing was embarrassing and unpresidential (go ahead UT, find the clip where Obama did it also). But I hope this is the tipping point for all media outlets. In my world conspiracy view, Fox News and the other right-wing media (it should be said, they deserve a seat at the media table like everyone else, though they have really overplayed their 'fair and balanced' hand) have cultivated a generation of voters who simply don't trust the media when it tells them something counter to their beliefs. And now we have a presidency who openly calls reporters dishonest and liars. He is the natural result of Fox News's existence. I would hope that even Fox News can see that this won't end well, even for them. It would be great to see a united, righteous, media backlash against Trump's attacks.

You are right that there is a great mistrust of the media. You are wrong about the reasons.

This is still true today.

10 Years After Iraq, Media Is Still Clueless
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ben-co...b_2921273.html>

We know that governments manipulate the public in order to carry out their agendas. That’s why they have press secretaries and agencies dedicated to promoting policy and handling public perception. The war in Iraq was unique, however, because it was a manipulation so transparent and ridiculous that no one should have supported it. In an open democracy it should have been impossible to build a case to go to war with a country that posed no threat to anyone outside its borders, and showed no signs of developing a massive arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.

As people spoke out about the farcical evidence and bullying of government agencies, the case looked more and more ridiculous. Everyone knew the Bush administration’s case against Iraq was utter nonsense, yet the war went ahead anyway.

How could this have happened?

[...]

Through it all, the media would serve as complicit enablers. Their primary focus would be on covering the campaign to sell the war, rather than aggressively questioning the rationale for war or pursuing the truth behind it... the media would neglect their watchdog role, focusing less on truth and accuracy and more on whether the campaign was succeeding. Was the president winning or losing the argument? How were Democrats responding? What were the electoral implications? What did the polls say? And the truth — about the actual nature of the threat posed by Saddam, the right way to confront it, and the possible risks of military conflict — would get largely left behind.

As a result of this complicity, a majority of Americans lined up behind the president and sent thousands of troops into battle for a pointless war that caused indescribable bloodshed and misery for everyone involved. And it was all for lies told by an incompetent president surrounded by dangerous imperialists who were dedicated to projecting American power abroad no matter the cost.

The media’s complicity in helping the government sell the war should have consigned the major networks to irrelevancy afterwards. Some figures apologized for their role, some left, and some refused to acknowledge it at all. But in a mass display of collective amnesia, the major networks simply moved on from the shameful episode and continued with the same format that focuses on the horse race rather than the actual substance.

It wasn’t that the media ‘got it wrong.’ It was the the media itself that was wrong. The entire decrepit system, built on profit and ratings rather than ethics and accountability, proved to be a gigantic failure when it came to anything vaguely serious. Journalists are supposed to focus on the story behind the story, not tell you who they think is winning. A real news network would have called out the government for its baseless claims that Saddam was building WMDs. But not one did.

As the war unfolded, the establishment media continued to cheerlead from the sidelines, offering no critical analysis while American troops ransacked Baghdad and dismantled the infrastructure of the country.

[...]

It was only after Iraq literally broke apart that the media began to understand exactly what it had helped sell. But by then of course, it was too late. Iraq descended into internecine warfare while the Bush administration sat scratching its head wondering why they weren’t being heralded as liberators.

This could all have been avoided had the media done its job.

[...]

What are the lessons that we can draw from the horrific debacle?

Firstly, it must now be accepted that the old mediums are broken and irrelevant. Hoping that CNN, Fox and MSNBC will suddenly get into responsible journalism is like hoping Hollywood will stop producing movies like Big Mommas House 3. There’s money to be made peddling the inside baseball game of politics in America, and that’s their business. Shifting news personalities from one slot to another doesn’t constitute major reform in the industry, it constitutes desperation.

Secondly, it means we have to move on. The world is moving online to get its information because it’s quicker, more transparent and easier to research. News is no longer consumed passively — it is created, added to and vetted by readers themselves. Arabs with cell phones and Twitter accounts helped create a mass movement to overthrow dictators all across the Middle East, and organizations like WikiLeaks allows individuals to expose governments by downloading classified documents anonymously.

It’s a brave new world, and it’s time to tell the old institutions to pack up and go home.