“The day after the DNC endorsed amnesty for human traffickers, the DHS Inspector General confirms that Biden-Harris handed over ~320k unaccompanied alien children back to the traffickers. This is FAR WORSE than the 85k lost UAC previously reported by NYT”
I’ve been telling you for the last year that these fudged numbers are bogus, and always revised down. Remember this next time Harris lies about “jobs created.”
“Biden and Harris Were Cooking the Books the Whole Time! 1 Million Jobs VANISH in Downward Revision – Trump Responds to Fraudulent Jobs Numbers (VIDEO)”
“Last night, Michelle Obama said that Americans don’t deserve the right to decide who enters their country.
She says this while she lives in a gated community. A community that bussed out the illegal immigrants that were flown in there within 6 hours of their arrival.”
“Lawrence Jones DESTROYS Pete Buttigieg: “With all due respect, Mr. Secretary, the people that are being killed in places all over the country, they look like me — they don’t look like you… You guys sent the cavalry in for you guys — for your protection — but the people of Chicago don’t see that on a day-to-day basis.””
“So Joe Biden left the national stage the same way he has always stood on it: as a coward, as a bully, as a lying fabulist. His speech last night was one long paean to the aggressive, fist-shaking hate and vicious slander against his opponents that have been his trademark for the half a century he has been a giant boil on the political buttocks of the great American experiment. The man never created a penny of wealth in his life, but he did dedicate himself for 50 years to sucking at the teat of the wealth we taxpayers created. He wasted the lives of America’s service members in useless conflicts that he later claimed to oppose. He acted in the most un-American manner possible by using the courts to persecute his political opponents for the high crime of mere dissent. He made himself and his entire family wildly rich through graft and the sale of America’s foreign policy to the highest bidder. A low-IQ, ignorant plagiarist whose entire life was recounted as one long distortion and made-up story, he succeeded through sheer animal cunning and a willingness to say or do anything to advance his narcissistic self-interest. He is immoral, he is a compulsive liar, and he is evil to his rotten core.
At the very last, he had a chance to redeem himself and speak straight to America about how he was deposed in a Beltway coup, but he stayed true to his craven nature and capitulated in a shameful display of propaganda designed to appease his torturers.
In a few years, Joe will be in the ground and Jill will write her tell-all book about what actually happened when Craven Joe was forced to step aside through blackmail and extortion. The media savants will all shake their heads as if “How could we have known?” You know now. We all know now. Joe knows now. And just like that, to the bitter end, we’re supposed to believe something about Joe Biden that is obviously untrue.
Good riddance Joseph Robinette Biden, you political whore. You have damaged this country in profound and despicable ways from which we may never recover. Wherever it is you end up, I hope you suffer for your sins.”
“Obama knew. Clinton knew. Biden knew. Kamala knew. Comey knew. Brennan knew. McCabe knew. Strzok knew. Clapper knew. Schiff knew. FBI knew. DOJ knew. CIA knew. State knew. (And Fanni Willis, Jack Smith, Garland, and Alvin Bragg) They all knew (and know) Trump was and is innocent but they smeared and spied on him. And they are trying to jail him again. Worst series of gov’t abuse scandals in nation’s history. Trump is a crime victim.”
Kizzie, thanks for your response at the end of the 8-17 news/politics thread. I couldn’t decide whether to reply there or here, but chose here because I also have comments about things said on the 8-19 thread, so replying in one place rather than two seemed easier, especially if one opens additional tabs with those threads, to more easily see the context.
And there’s my first clunky sentence for today. 🙂
“…my view is that [lack of focus and being easily distracted] are not particularly matters of character, but could be detrimental to someone in the important office of the presidency. They were present even before the shooting.”
I agree that focus is important in a president, but, let’s face it, no human, IMO, is going to be well-focused at all times. That’s one reason for a president to have advisors, and wise ones at that, when the president loses focus.
Whether the president actually listens to those advisors is another matter. Sometimes it’s wise to do so, and other times not; Trump listened to Fauci and Birx, and look where that got us.
“This has probably gotten lost within all the various discussions, but often, it has not been in my own defense that I have commented, but in defense of someone else.”
I have noticed that, and it’s a good quality to possess. However, it can be overdone. In my opinion, you have overdone it with HRW. He’s a man with decades of experience teaching middle-schoolers; I’m sure he’s experienced the gamut of challenges that can arise from teaching kids in the throes of puberty and everything else they’re facing in life, not to mention the challenges of working with administrators who can sometimes make life difficult for teachers. (I remember him mentioning one idiot principal he’d had; I could relate — the first high school principal I’d worked under thankfully got the pink slip after my first year of teaching in that district, he was so bad. The band director at the school said the principal’s greatest talent was keeping the pop machine filled, lol.)
Anyway, HRW willingly comes to this blog as someone with very different political, social, and religious leanings than most everyone else here. I see him as being very capable of dealing with what you feel he needs to be defended from at this site. Sure, go ahead and speak up once or twice on his behalf, if you think you have to, if anyone is insulting him, or getting sarcastic or whatever, but the repeated “You’re not being nice to HRW” directed at AJ looks like you’re ascribing victim status to HRW, and that he’s vulnerable and needs protection.
I don’t see him that way at all.
“As for “telling on” AJ as in a feeling of superiority, I doubt that that is it, and hope it is not. For one thing, we address our comments to him directly, and what he says and what we say is out here for all to read.”
It’s true that you are clear about whom you’re speaking, and that what AJ says and what you and everyone else says here can be read by anyone.
However, Kizzie, you have regularly spoken here of the character or lack thereof of certain people on Facebook. You might give a summary or quote a portion of what someone else said elsewhere, and believe you are being very careful and accurate in putting forth a mystery person’s meaning, and maybe also get agreement from others here who have seen that original FB interaction, but those of us not on FB will not ever be able to get the full context of what was said, or how that fits into the talked-about person’s past comments. Because it’s not out there for all of us to read. We can’t all examine the original source materials ourselves and come to our own conclusions.
I realize we can’t possibly get the full context behind everything we read or hear. But the persistent labeling of people as this, that, or the other character trait is so tiring to me. It is probably because of my teaching background and the incessant labeling by some students of other students who struggled in areas the complainers didn’t that makes me cringe when I hear adults on the internet and IRL point out who’s who in the rude, or the polite, or the sarcastic, or the kind, or the whatever category.
It feels like there’s not only a labeling system, but a hierarchy within each. It is so very easy for us sinful human beings to point a finger of blame at others who struggle in areas we don’t as much.
The real problem, I would submit, is when we do it again and again.
I want to also address a couple of Kathaleena’s August 19, 9:02am comments on News/Politics.
“I agree that some earlier admonition may have been necessary. Now, it just seems to go on and on.”
This!!! You said in two sentences what it took me, what, a thousand words, to say?!?! LOL. Thank you. I, too often, paint the whole forest and miss the tree that says, “This is the sum of the matter.” 😉
Also from Kathaleena: “Frankly, I have felt a little too unholy, unsanctified and now too uneducated and middle class to continue commenting.”
Me too. I feel like I’m a long ways down the list of all the ideals one is supposed to aspire to. I can be sarcastic and brash — usually only inwardly. The other day when I said I don’t care what other people think of my voting choices, I almost wrote “I don’t give a flying flock what other people think of my voting choices.” Am I a better person because I didn’t utter that? (Rhetorical question.)
I’m too caught up with ranking systems — the who’s who within personality departments, if you will — and it’s not healthy to continue this way.
Mention has been made of people who have left here and/or are staying away from here because of the tone on the news/politics thread. I assume that’s a comment about AJ’s tone, but maybe I’m wrong.
I want to make it clear that I’m leaving because I personally can’t deal anymore with the finger-wagging directed at people like AJ who are bold and boisterous and whatever other label the good and kind people apply to his actions. I can be gone for weeks and months at a time, and every time I return to lurk, it doesn’t take much reading of missed threads to see more admonishing going on, sometimes prefaced by, “I have bitten my tongue in the past, but this time I just had to speak up because ………..”
AJ has sacrificed to keep this blog going for 12 years. If he could have a dollar for every time someone used the terms “polite, respectful, rude, insulting” or other personality descriptors on the news thread, he’d probably have had all his hosting and other website maintenance fees covered, lol.
This is his sandbox, so to speak, and if anyone gets sand in their eyes while here, no matter from whom the irritant came, I think the onus is on the one distressed by the environment to leave, and not say again and again and again what, in one’s opinion, is wrong with the environment in which you’re choosing to place yourself.
Love you all, but it’s time for me to go. If you see me back here at this website again for any reason, feel free to tell me to get the flock out of here. Or say it in your own much gentler words. 🙂 (I say that with no sarcasm.)
6 Arrows – It was best to reply here, because with the other thread being “old” now, I would not have seen it. However, I wish we could put all of this to bed and be done with it, and I feel that some of your comment is rubbing more salt into the wound as I am trying to get over and past it.
My comments regarding HRW (which I don’t think I have made too often) have not been “You’re not being nice to HRW”, but pointing out when AJ has misread what HRW had actually written. HRW’s views are often much more nuanced than one might expect, or even in agreement with more conservative thought. At those times, it seems that AJ sometimes reads into them what he expects to see, not what is actually there.
That is what I would sometimes point out, in case HRW did not make it back to the thread. It does not seem to me that pointing out a misinterpretation is the same as saying “You’re not being nice.”
I do not intend to comment much anymore on the politics thread. But yesterday I made the mistake of watching the video that was posted at 1:33, I think, and although I tried to ignore it yesterday, it has bothered me, so here I am.
The guy in the video took a couple clips from Obama from past speeches, and I think he twisted what Obama was saying. Like what Kevin pointed out in the quote from Harris, I think that Obama was warning against what the video presented as him advocating.
But what was worse about that video was the gossip claiming that Kamala Harris is drunk most or all of the time. Unless one has actual proof (which would be difficult to get, since there are various conditions or habits that can make one appear drunk), that is risking bearing false witness. (Maybe it even is, if one does not have actual proof.)
But actually, it’s not that hard, usually. (I just didn’t have the time earlier.) Just google a good part of the quote, and posts will usually come up giving the rest of the context.
Here is the fuller context:
~ “In his comments preceding the clip currently circulating online, the former president outlined his disapproval of weaponizing disinformation, rather than supporting such action.
The full comment was as follows: “And of course, autocrats like Putin have used these [social media] platforms as a strategic weapon against democratic countries that they consider a threat. People like Putin and Steve Bannon, for that matter, understand it’s not necessary for people to believe this information in order to weaken democratic institutions. You just have to flood a country’s public square with enough raw sewage. You just have to raise enough questions, spread enough dirt, plant enough conspiracy theorizing that citizens no longer know what to believe. Once they lose trust in their leaders, in mainstream media, in political institutions, in each other, in the possibility of truth, the game’s won. And as Putin discovered leading up to the 2016 election, our own social media platforms are well designed to support such a mission, such a project.”
~”The full transcript of the speech, visible on C-SPAN here , shows that Obama said, “Leaders and dignitaries of the European Union, representatives of our NATO alliance, distinguished guests, we meet here at a moment of testing for Europe and the United States and for the international order that we have worked for generations to build.”
Later in his remarks, he contrasted “the belief that through conscience and free will, each of us has the right to live as we choose, the belief that power is derived from the consent of the governed and that laws and institutions should be established to protect that understanding” with what he described as “the alternative vision” propagated by countries like Russia. This alternative vision,” he said, “argues that ordinary men and women are too small-minded to govern their own affairs, that order and progress can only come when individuals surrender their rights to an all-powerful sovereign.” ~
@ 4:53, (we should either verify or not post/publish until we can) – Kizzie is correct (and I’m thankful she did her due diligence); checking and double-checking, it’s something that’s drilled into us — the Internet has led to all kinds of false information being shared (and usually for a partisan purpose).
Not sure how we as a nation and culture will get around all of this, but it’s important to be aware of the many “information” pitfalls we all face now.
And while I know some here have cheered on the demise of standard mainstream media, those outlets all have ethics policies (and yeah, you can get fired for violating them). They also have strict standards for corrections that must be published.
Online sources (only) are pretty much fly-by-night operations, answering only to themselves and designed to spread influence; they don’t come under what is really some needed scrutiny. (Who was it who said we all need editors? An editor, most likely 🙂 )
I heard Atlanta local Fox News make a correction to a story this morning. I don’t remember to what story, but thought to myself that it was something I’ve hardly ever heard them say.
Oh, now I remember that they said the Georgia Elections Board had been reported to have voted on something but corrected it to say it had gotten tabled to a later date.
The mainstream media enjoyed the trust of most Americans and they threw it away. They did it to themselves.
Personally I don’t read as much daily news as I used to. I’m naturally skeptical, so I’m pretty good to verify before I comment. If you are in the habit of verifying, you do build up a reservoir of knowledge on various topics. It doesn’t make you an expert but it helps develop your judgement of what is likely to be true and what isn’t. If something sounds off, it’s best to verify. That is a LOT of work if you’re diligent.
That’s rich Dj, considering your industry gave themselves Pulitzers and have yet to retract the hundreds of thousands of fake Russia, Russia, Russia stories still posted yet today which were all false and based on lies.
Trust and verify? Your industry leads the world in fake news, it ain’t just the internet.
Good catch. But now I think you see my point about how difficult it can be to verify everything you read. I’ve also DMed your link to the person who tweeted it informing him of the further context and that their post is inaccurate.
Wandering Views 
The key question: Who was Thomas Crooks working with?
LikeLiked by 1 person
“A report from the DNC’s mobile abortion truck:
25 babies lost their lives so far this week thanks the DNC’s sponsoring of a Planned Parenthood abortion van.
This is the Democrats’ depopulation agenda on full display.
Sick. Cruel. Evil.”
https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1826066059352518821?t=AvF90xz-U8W0QcM1-19X8A&s=19
LikeLike
“Obama: “We can secure our borders without tearing kids away from their parents.”
The DHS Inspector General revealed today that 291,000 children who crossed the border illegally under Border Czar Kamala are unaccounted for.”
https://x.com/TrumpWarRoom/status/1826099355180478714?t=_XH6fEOu2rtEX7HpG-NdcQ&s=19
—–
“The day after the DNC endorsed amnesty for human traffickers, the DHS Inspector General confirms that Biden-Harris handed over ~320k unaccompanied alien children back to the traffickers. This is FAR WORSE than the 85k lost UAC previously reported by NYT”
https://x.com/the_roblaw/status/1825986576100290777?t=PDhO4LL46wZvImhXSeu0eQ&s=19
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Here’s Gov. Josh Shapiro knowingly and intentionally repeating the Charlottesville lie to paint Donald Trump as a “bigot.”
@kaitlancollins – who is quick to push back on Republicans – does nothing to correct him.
This is not journalism.”
https://x.com/JohnLeFevre/status/1825892626043732312?t=gJbQihs5x6-Z27TZXoLzsw&s=19
Nope, just another Dem propagandist pretending to be a journalist.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve been telling you for the last year that these fudged numbers are bogus, and always revised down. Remember this next time Harris lies about “jobs created.”
https://x.com/RadarHits/status/1825972943664390425?t=oB8r9dKQ1LwAdRTXmPOaQw&s=19
—–
https://x.com/gatewaypundit/status/1826023666884182354?t=LNIDkgC6vUVjOuhETLt8aQ&s=19
“Biden and Harris Were Cooking the Books the Whole Time! 1 Million Jobs VANISH in Downward Revision – Trump Responds to Fraudulent Jobs Numbers (VIDEO)”
LikeLiked by 2 people
While the media gaslight you about all the “joy” at the DNC, remember this…
With video…..
https://x.com/RyanAFournier/status/1826071867855352154?t=MMHMM3oZNk9C3PdvzEls7w&s=19
It’s utter CHAOS in the streets of Chicago tonight.
Arrests happening left and right with full on attacks towards the police.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Remember in 2020 when Kamala called 545 migrant children missing parents a “stain on our national character”?
A new DHS report out today says HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of migrant kids are missing under the Biden-Harris admin when Kamala was the border czar.”
https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1826063794256359726?t=C6P1mhk3U9812qqBRHVDCQ&s=19
—–
https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1810907958940962924?t=oQrAzf7Tkwg6OkrNe6jH8A&s=19
“Whistleblower claims billions of dollars are being used to traffic children through our border.
Biden is running one of the largest child trafficking operations.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
The rules only apply to you peasants.
https://x.com/DefiyantlyFree/status/1826231951143100861?t=MZ_byuwt8Q10jevjIT2Oxg&s=19
“Last night, Michelle Obama said that Americans don’t deserve the right to decide who enters their country.
She says this while she lives in a gated community. A community that bussed out the illegal immigrants that were flown in there within 6 hours of their arrival.”
LikeLiked by 2 people
Ouch.
Sad, but true.
https://x.com/TrumpWarRoom/status/1825907866319896850?t=5H0QuBZoCEvtJm_oCyjZ6A&s=19
“Lawrence Jones DESTROYS Pete Buttigieg: “With all due respect, Mr. Secretary, the people that are being killed in places all over the country, they look like me — they don’t look like you… You guys sent the cavalry in for you guys — for your protection — but the people of Chicago don’t see that on a day-to-day basis.””
LikeLiked by 2 people
https://x.com/CynicalPublius/status/1825883645795565796?t=cMzNfCQYupLTMByXYW3qKA&s=19
“So Joe Biden left the national stage the same way he has always stood on it: as a coward, as a bully, as a lying fabulist. His speech last night was one long paean to the aggressive, fist-shaking hate and vicious slander against his opponents that have been his trademark for the half a century he has been a giant boil on the political buttocks of the great American experiment. The man never created a penny of wealth in his life, but he did dedicate himself for 50 years to sucking at the teat of the wealth we taxpayers created. He wasted the lives of America’s service members in useless conflicts that he later claimed to oppose. He acted in the most un-American manner possible by using the courts to persecute his political opponents for the high crime of mere dissent. He made himself and his entire family wildly rich through graft and the sale of America’s foreign policy to the highest bidder. A low-IQ, ignorant plagiarist whose entire life was recounted as one long distortion and made-up story, he succeeded through sheer animal cunning and a willingness to say or do anything to advance his narcissistic self-interest. He is immoral, he is a compulsive liar, and he is evil to his rotten core.
At the very last, he had a chance to redeem himself and speak straight to America about how he was deposed in a Beltway coup, but he stayed true to his craven nature and capitulated in a shameful display of propaganda designed to appease his torturers.
In a few years, Joe will be in the ground and Jill will write her tell-all book about what actually happened when Craven Joe was forced to step aside through blackmail and extortion. The media savants will all shake their heads as if “How could we have known?” You know now. We all know now. Joe knows now. And just like that, to the bitter end, we’re supposed to believe something about Joe Biden that is obviously untrue.
Good riddance Joseph Robinette Biden, you political whore. You have damaged this country in profound and despicable ways from which we may never recover. Wherever it is you end up, I hope you suffer for your sins.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
“We are going to build a darker, hipper, sneaker-wearing labor movement”
By darker she means less Whites.
Open racism at the DNC from this shrieking union boss”
https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1825720482517364847?t=PBMnb47wbjswtdPzPc0j4w&s=19
That’s also not at all shocking. She just said the quiet part out loud.
LikeLike
“The DNC crowd chants, “Do something!”—totally oblivious to the fact that their party has been in charge of the country for the last 3.5 years.”
https://x.com/VigilantFox/status/1826104496927420833?t=upYhqistgTL9hpnbyLym8Q&s=19
—-
They spend a lot of time raging about the state of things, but never mention that it all happened on their watch.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“How bad are hate speech laws in the UK? Saying “it’s OK to be white” can result in a harsher sentence than child pornography.
@abigailandwords found numerous cases in which UK judges jailed thought criminals while letting actual criminals off the hook.
The list is shocking.🧵”
https://x.com/aaronsibarium/status/1825977695361994875?t=Cvf2tsntAKSs_gRto9RIcA&s=19
Dems would love to do the same here.
Click the link and read on….
LikeLiked by 1 person
Enjoy the fudgey goodness….
https://x.com/zerohedge/status/1826267457570644211?t=YDQO4sQ_7ofAAc2cqA_CCg&s=19
“This is the biggest negative revision to payrolls since the global financial crisis.
Crucially, it took place in an election year and was meant to pad the numbers, making the economy appear much stronger than it was”
—–
And who did this?
Kamala and Joe.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh no. Gov. Kemp will be so shocked to hear this… 🙄
https://x.com/JDunlap1974/status/1826161334041399798?t=NZ5tCyFMkotYHHc7QY5aBw&s=19
“Georgia’s election board now admits to violations of election law in 2020. It’s over for the election fraud deniers.”
LikeLiked by 2 people
“Did You Know:
4 prosecutors came forward revealing pressure from the top to charge Derek Chauvin’s fellow officers, after the FBI met with the medical examiner
The case was then ordered by the governor to be handled by AG Keith Ellison
That governor’s name?
Tim Walz”
https://x.com/JackPosobiec/status/1826006575489962200?t=j5d__v_fdob0Qn2SGQ9LPA&s=19
LikeLiked by 2 people
Truth.
https://x.com/TomFitton/status/1826232669975285948?t=d2M999Q7w9c9U65uU9l7Vg&s=19
“Obama knew. Clinton knew. Biden knew. Kamala knew. Comey knew. Brennan knew. McCabe knew. Strzok knew. Clapper knew. Schiff knew. FBI knew. DOJ knew. CIA knew. State knew. (And Fanni Willis, Jack Smith, Garland, and Alvin Bragg) They all knew (and know) Trump was and is innocent but they smeared and spied on him. And they are trying to jail him again. Worst series of gov’t abuse scandals in nation’s history. Trump is a crime victim.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Kizzie, thanks for your response at the end of the 8-17 news/politics thread. I couldn’t decide whether to reply there or here, but chose here because I also have comments about things said on the 8-19 thread, so replying in one place rather than two seemed easier, especially if one opens additional tabs with those threads, to more easily see the context.
And there’s my first clunky sentence for today. 🙂
“…my view is that [lack of focus and being easily distracted] are not particularly matters of character, but could be detrimental to someone in the important office of the presidency. They were present even before the shooting.”
I agree that focus is important in a president, but, let’s face it, no human, IMO, is going to be well-focused at all times. That’s one reason for a president to have advisors, and wise ones at that, when the president loses focus.
Whether the president actually listens to those advisors is another matter. Sometimes it’s wise to do so, and other times not; Trump listened to Fauci and Birx, and look where that got us.
“This has probably gotten lost within all the various discussions, but often, it has not been in my own defense that I have commented, but in defense of someone else.”
I have noticed that, and it’s a good quality to possess. However, it can be overdone. In my opinion, you have overdone it with HRW. He’s a man with decades of experience teaching middle-schoolers; I’m sure he’s experienced the gamut of challenges that can arise from teaching kids in the throes of puberty and everything else they’re facing in life, not to mention the challenges of working with administrators who can sometimes make life difficult for teachers. (I remember him mentioning one idiot principal he’d had; I could relate — the first high school principal I’d worked under thankfully got the pink slip after my first year of teaching in that district, he was so bad. The band director at the school said the principal’s greatest talent was keeping the pop machine filled, lol.)
Anyway, HRW willingly comes to this blog as someone with very different political, social, and religious leanings than most everyone else here. I see him as being very capable of dealing with what you feel he needs to be defended from at this site. Sure, go ahead and speak up once or twice on his behalf, if you think you have to, if anyone is insulting him, or getting sarcastic or whatever, but the repeated “You’re not being nice to HRW” directed at AJ looks like you’re ascribing victim status to HRW, and that he’s vulnerable and needs protection.
I don’t see him that way at all.
“As for “telling on” AJ as in a feeling of superiority, I doubt that that is it, and hope it is not. For one thing, we address our comments to him directly, and what he says and what we say is out here for all to read.”
It’s true that you are clear about whom you’re speaking, and that what AJ says and what you and everyone else says here can be read by anyone.
However, Kizzie, you have regularly spoken here of the character or lack thereof of certain people on Facebook. You might give a summary or quote a portion of what someone else said elsewhere, and believe you are being very careful and accurate in putting forth a mystery person’s meaning, and maybe also get agreement from others here who have seen that original FB interaction, but those of us not on FB will not ever be able to get the full context of what was said, or how that fits into the talked-about person’s past comments. Because it’s not out there for all of us to read. We can’t all examine the original source materials ourselves and come to our own conclusions.
I realize we can’t possibly get the full context behind everything we read or hear. But the persistent labeling of people as this, that, or the other character trait is so tiring to me. It is probably because of my teaching background and the incessant labeling by some students of other students who struggled in areas the complainers didn’t that makes me cringe when I hear adults on the internet and IRL point out who’s who in the rude, or the polite, or the sarcastic, or the kind, or the whatever category.
It feels like there’s not only a labeling system, but a hierarchy within each. It is so very easy for us sinful human beings to point a finger of blame at others who struggle in areas we don’t as much.
The real problem, I would submit, is when we do it again and again.
I want to also address a couple of Kathaleena’s August 19, 9:02am comments on News/Politics.
“I agree that some earlier admonition may have been necessary. Now, it just seems to go on and on.”
This!!! You said in two sentences what it took me, what, a thousand words, to say?!?! LOL. Thank you. I, too often, paint the whole forest and miss the tree that says, “This is the sum of the matter.” 😉
Also from Kathaleena: “Frankly, I have felt a little too unholy, unsanctified and now too uneducated and middle class to continue commenting.”
Me too. I feel like I’m a long ways down the list of all the ideals one is supposed to aspire to. I can be sarcastic and brash — usually only inwardly. The other day when I said I don’t care what other people think of my voting choices, I almost wrote “I don’t give a flying flock what other people think of my voting choices.” Am I a better person because I didn’t utter that? (Rhetorical question.)
I’m too caught up with ranking systems — the who’s who within personality departments, if you will — and it’s not healthy to continue this way.
Mention has been made of people who have left here and/or are staying away from here because of the tone on the news/politics thread. I assume that’s a comment about AJ’s tone, but maybe I’m wrong.
I want to make it clear that I’m leaving because I personally can’t deal anymore with the finger-wagging directed at people like AJ who are bold and boisterous and whatever other label the good and kind people apply to his actions. I can be gone for weeks and months at a time, and every time I return to lurk, it doesn’t take much reading of missed threads to see more admonishing going on, sometimes prefaced by, “I have bitten my tongue in the past, but this time I just had to speak up because ………..”
AJ has sacrificed to keep this blog going for 12 years. If he could have a dollar for every time someone used the terms “polite, respectful, rude, insulting” or other personality descriptors on the news thread, he’d probably have had all his hosting and other website maintenance fees covered, lol.
This is his sandbox, so to speak, and if anyone gets sand in their eyes while here, no matter from whom the irritant came, I think the onus is on the one distressed by the environment to leave, and not say again and again and again what, in one’s opinion, is wrong with the environment in which you’re choosing to place yourself.
Love you all, but it’s time for me to go. If you see me back here at this website again for any reason, feel free to tell me to get the flock out of here. Or say it in your own much gentler words. 🙂 (I say that with no sarcasm.)
Love,
6
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Seriously, I have never heard “flying flock” used before. How have I never heard that? I suppose because I live in the south.
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6 Arrows – It was best to reply here, because with the other thread being “old” now, I would not have seen it. However, I wish we could put all of this to bed and be done with it, and I feel that some of your comment is rubbing more salt into the wound as I am trying to get over and past it.
My comments regarding HRW (which I don’t think I have made too often) have not been “You’re not being nice to HRW”, but pointing out when AJ has misread what HRW had actually written. HRW’s views are often much more nuanced than one might expect, or even in agreement with more conservative thought. At those times, it seems that AJ sometimes reads into them what he expects to see, not what is actually there.
That is what I would sometimes point out, in case HRW did not make it back to the thread. It does not seem to me that pointing out a misinterpretation is the same as saying “You’re not being nice.”
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I do not intend to comment much anymore on the politics thread. But yesterday I made the mistake of watching the video that was posted at 1:33, I think, and although I tried to ignore it yesterday, it has bothered me, so here I am.
The guy in the video took a couple clips from Obama from past speeches, and I think he twisted what Obama was saying. Like what Kevin pointed out in the quote from Harris, I think that Obama was warning against what the video presented as him advocating.
But what was worse about that video was the gossip claiming that Kamala Harris is drunk most or all of the time. Unless one has actual proof (which would be difficult to get, since there are various conditions or habits that can make one appear drunk), that is risking bearing false witness. (Maybe it even is, if one does not have actual proof.)
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💦🦆
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Well then it should be easy to prove Kizzie. Go find the whole Obama speech and post it if you feel he’s being misrepresented.
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“Freudian slip of the century from a speaker at the DNC “black caucus” meeting:
“We got 70 days to act right… After 70 days, we can go back to acting crazy.”
https://x.com/greg_price11/status/1826307605490512299?t=86a4ttYOW6MU0LO3GFoUdg&s=19
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“Michelle Obama says her parents were “suspicious of folks who took more than they needed.”
She has 3 houses and a $160 million dollar net worth.”
https://x.com/theMRC/status/1826098269417582761?t=UG0gNsggqRNCEUXBvFoglw&s=19
——
https://x.com/JordanSchachtel/status/1826242858669801771?t=EukhQ8WD6in6xWmFjRN_bA&s=19
“DNC speakers last night:
Jack Schlossberg: son of Caroline Kennedy. Will inherit around $100 million.
Gov JB Pritzker: family founded Hyatt Hotel chain. His inherited wealth is around $3.6 billion.
Doug Emhoff: worth >$10 million”
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Re: 4:29 – That is hard to do when it is merely a couple clips from videos. The onus should be on the ones making and sharing the post.
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This goes nicely with Tychicus’ first post and question.
https://x.com/nypost/status/1826355470853976563?t=WwyJXPhBB3JMbkhGcbyp2g&s=19
“Trump shooter Thomas Crooks had encrypted messaging accounts in Belgium, Germany, New Zealand “
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Researching every little detail can be hard, huh?
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If one wants to present the “news” in an accurate way, then one either looks into those things or doesn’t post.
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But actually, it’s not that hard, usually. (I just didn’t have the time earlier.) Just google a good part of the quote, and posts will usually come up giving the rest of the context.
Here is the fuller context:
~ “In his comments preceding the clip currently circulating online, the former president outlined his disapproval of weaponizing disinformation, rather than supporting such action.
The full comment was as follows: “And of course, autocrats like Putin have used these [social media] platforms as a strategic weapon against democratic countries that they consider a threat. People like Putin and Steve Bannon, for that matter, understand it’s not necessary for people to believe this information in order to weaken democratic institutions. You just have to flood a country’s public square with enough raw sewage. You just have to raise enough questions, spread enough dirt, plant enough conspiracy theorizing that citizens no longer know what to believe. Once they lose trust in their leaders, in mainstream media, in political institutions, in each other, in the possibility of truth, the game’s won. And as Putin discovered leading up to the 2016 election, our own social media platforms are well designed to support such a mission, such a project.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/fact-check/clip-of-obama-criticizing-the-use-of-disinformation-to-threaten-democracies-take-idUSL1N2ZS1GG/
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Here is the video:
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As for the second quote. . .
~”The full transcript of the speech, visible on C-SPAN here , shows that Obama said, “Leaders and dignitaries of the European Union, representatives of our NATO alliance, distinguished guests, we meet here at a moment of testing for Europe and the United States and for the international order that we have worked for generations to build.”
Later in his remarks, he contrasted “the belief that through conscience and free will, each of us has the right to live as we choose, the belief that power is derived from the consent of the governed and that laws and institutions should be established to protect that understanding” with what he described as “the alternative vision” propagated by countries like Russia. This alternative vision,” he said, “argues that ordinary men and women are too small-minded to govern their own affairs, that order and progress can only come when individuals surrender their rights to an all-powerful sovereign.” ~
https://www.reuters.com/article/world/false-claim-obama-rejected-democratic-ideals-by-saying-that-ordinary-men-and-w-idUSKBN22U2AH/
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@ 4:53, (we should either verify or not post/publish until we can) – Kizzie is correct (and I’m thankful she did her due diligence); checking and double-checking, it’s something that’s drilled into us — the Internet has led to all kinds of false information being shared (and usually for a partisan purpose).
Not sure how we as a nation and culture will get around all of this, but it’s important to be aware of the many “information” pitfalls we all face now.
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And while I know some here have cheered on the demise of standard mainstream media, those outlets all have ethics policies (and yeah, you can get fired for violating them). They also have strict standards for corrections that must be published.
Online sources (only) are pretty much fly-by-night operations, answering only to themselves and designed to spread influence; they don’t come under what is really some needed scrutiny. (Who was it who said we all need editors? An editor, most likely 🙂 )
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I heard Atlanta local Fox News make a correction to a story this morning. I don’t remember to what story, but thought to myself that it was something I’ve hardly ever heard them say.
Oh, now I remember that they said the Georgia Elections Board had been reported to have voted on something but corrected it to say it had gotten tabled to a later date.
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The mainstream media enjoyed the trust of most Americans and they threw it away. They did it to themselves.
Personally I don’t read as much daily news as I used to. I’m naturally skeptical, so I’m pretty good to verify before I comment. If you are in the habit of verifying, you do build up a reservoir of knowledge on various topics. It doesn’t make you an expert but it helps develop your judgement of what is likely to be true and what isn’t. If something sounds off, it’s best to verify. That is a LOT of work if you’re diligent.
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That’s rich Dj, considering your industry gave themselves Pulitzers and have yet to retract the hundreds of thousands of fake Russia, Russia, Russia stories still posted yet today which were all false and based on lies.
Trust and verify? Your industry leads the world in fake news, it ain’t just the internet.
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Kizzie,
Good catch. But now I think you see my point about how difficult it can be to verify everything you read. I’ve also DMed your link to the person who tweeted it informing him of the further context and that their post is inaccurate.
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