MOVED DERAIL -- so what news DOES matter, anyway?

“Okay, that's fair. So you find it interesting? Discuss. “


“I have no problem with either the OP or Christine's objection to it; both are fair game under forum rules.

But I admit to being especially interested in hearing Mikey pontificate on the topic. “


Pontificate eh? Well, lets see. First off I'm not a professional pontificator nor do I have any training or experience being a pontificist. And really, I have no interest in joining a Murder of pontificatori scavenging putrid flesh from the middle of the road. With that out of the way.

I note that this happened in Australia I also note that there is no mention of the gentleman's emigration status, or his marital status.

No mention if this guy has a dog, or children, or a wife or husband (legal or otherwise) for that matter.

What dose this tell me? This story, with only relevant facts, was not written by American journalist.

Which reminds me! In all the rush of crazy events this last week or two, I forgot to get back to you on the famous Memo, which I gather you DO think is important!  My apologies! I'll take care of that later today.

Thank you Cass. I felt awful for soiling Opty's thread with talk of politics.
I'm really sorry for doing that to your thread Opty

The pearl-clutching soiled it, not the political talk.

Okay. Mikey, what I understand you to be saying here is that you don't give a shit what dishonest and/or icky things Trump and his circle did. What you care about, and why you continue to support Trump is because you believe the two major parties, the DNC and RNC, are all-powerful and corrupt, and that this is resulting in people like you not being well off.



Let's assume, for purposes of my response, that all of that is true. I'm at a loss to figure out how voting for Trump -- much less defending him no matter what -- fixes this problem. I submit it does exactly the opposite.



Trump is not some everyman who ran for a third party that will bust up your alleged monopoly. He is a billionaire who ran under the banner of one of your two heinous monopolies and co-opted its power for its own purposes.



Moreover, not only is he not disassembling the alleged monopoly – he and his cronies are actually CEMENTING all of the power in one party and indeed, in one branch of government. They’re disintegrating any remaining checks we had to one party and/or one branch running amok with power.

We increasingly have ONE GUY ruling everything via executive orders and essentially answering to nobody. The cabinet is full of know-nothing sycophants, Congress is sitting on its hands and whistling, and Trump is doing everything he can to demolish the free press and institute his own state press that will report only the “news” he likes.


Maybe you like the current results Trump is implementing, I dunno. But consider that the other “monopoly” you don’t like will sooner or later gain power, and just might do things with it you don’t like.


Many of us would strongly agree with you, to one degree or another, that the two party system has gone awry and needs some adjustment.  
E.g., Don would totally concur with you on the monopoly of the two major parties and the unfitness of any one person or entity having too much power with the One Ring. But his response is entirely consistent with his views – he supported a third party candidate who promised to reduce the size and power of the federal government and overreaching by the executive branch. If more people did that, we’d have more competing views and the two parties wouldn’t have such a monopoly.



Hell, I’m on board with that, too. I don’t believe in supporting one party no matter what. I believe in supporting the best person running, and to holding him or her strictly accountable. I lean Democrat for a bunch of reasons, but I have voted for third party candidates and Republicans when I like them best.

Here, I voted for Hillary (despite having plenty to pick on with her) partly because I thought she was the most experienced of the lot (and despite my many criticisms of her, I think the GOP take on her is freaking insane), and because Trump was IMO so awful he had to be stopped and she was the best shot at it.


However, I openly criticized her, and had she won, I’d be screeching bloody murder every time she overstepped her authority or did something hinky. Unfortunately, Trump supporters are not doing that. They, like the GOP-controlled congress and the right-wing press, are giving him a total pass no matter how outrageously he oversteps his power, how much he lies, how ugly he acts, how chaotic he gets.


I get tired as hell of people saying “but Hillary!” Yeah, I have problems with her, too, but FFS, there is not one area where you can criticize her where Trump isn’t a thousand times worse. Seriously. If you want to play the “but Hillary!” game, we can do it in another thread, and I’ll be glad to counter any accusation you have against her with why Trump is worse.


Hell, I can totally understand why you might not want to vote for her. Fine. But why on earth vote for someone worse? And hello, he is not some righteous little guy with a third party that will take down the alleged two party monopoly. He’s a fucking billionaire with a blatantly obvious track record of corruption, grift, and lying, who is concentrating power with one side of the alleged monopoly, indeed in one branch, and stacking the deck in favor of billionaires and his own goddamn family!


(aside -- It absolutely kills me that people ranted about the Clinton and Bush "royal families" and yet are all on board with Trump's blatant nepotism -- especially given how woefully unqualified his family members are for the positions he put them in.)

How on earth does that help the alleged “two party monopoly”? How on earth does that combat corruption?
It doesn’t do either – in fact, it does exactly the opposite.




IMO, our very best defenses against corruption are (1) to defend the integrity of our voting system, (2) to defend our system of checks and balances to prevent any one branch or any one person from gaining too much control, (3) to defend our free press to ensure that the actions of the politicians we elect are known to all of us so that we can judge accordingly whether they are doing their jobs in an honest and upright way, and (4) to demand accountability of our politicians when they do not live up to their oath of office.

And that's exactly what Trump is working to pull down.  He doesn't care at all that Russia actively interfered in our election. He rules by executive order and does his level best to stomp on the power of Congress and the courts.  He does everything he can to discredit the free press and talks repeatedly of muzzling it. And his supporters and the GOP are doing nothing to hold him accountable.

This isn't how we get an honest system that answers to the voters.  This is how we get dictatorships.

Not really, What I'm trying to say is that the Executive and the Legislative branches of government are icky and dishonest. The judicial arm, as far as I can see, are not quit so bad...yet.
And no, most economic situations are a local thing in my view




No I never implied that.





New boss, just like the old boss



Are you implying I'm not consistent in my political views?






[/b]Are you aware Cass that my state, Oregon, voted for Bernie? The point being that you have this nasty habit of implying "you're ether with us, or you're with the terrorist". Gets kind of old




The rest of this is just no We've been doing it your way for 200+ years. Look where we're at now. #notpretty

Because I don't agree with you?