The Goat Pen

"It’s kinda complicated."

Anything that you can sum up in a couple of sentences isn't complicated. It's more than likely wrong, but it's not complicated.

Also, McCain was enough of a bonehead to nominate Palin as his running mate. That was almost as egregious as Bush trying to nominate Harriett Miers to the Supreme Court. I don't think he was going to win in 2008 irregardless of who he picked as his running mate, and I get that he understood that and figured he had to role the dice on somebody so whacky that it just might work. Hell, it worked 8 years later for Trump. But still, the idea that McCain would put Sarah Palin in the position of being next in line for the presidency, however remote the chances of it actually happening were, is an indelible taint on his political reputation...

yea I agree

Palin was a pandering and desperate move and even worse for McCain, without Palin, I don't think Trump would be president.

She made it OK to imagine a community college everyday person being president, just as Obama made it OK to imagine a one term senator from a corrupt city being president

Palin paved the way for Trump to be able to speak at an 8th grade level and Obama make it OK to be president without the prerequisite selling of your soul on the beltway for 15 years.

President Dwayne Johnson will heal America’s divide

Vice President Oprah too.

I'm betting on President Tom Hanks

Snoop

The advantage for the dems that Trump presages is that most celebrities are libs. If they're halfway competent and articulate, they'll get the dem vote anyway and they're sure to get plenty of repub votes simply b/c of their celebrity. But seriously, who wants to be president? What a nightmare. If you're already well off and enjoy at least some degree of privacy, why would you want it? Most celebs are trying to stay out of the spotlight, not step into a bigger one...

I was listening to the news this morning and the report I heard just clarifies to me, how brilliant - intentional or not, Trump has made himself almost bullet proof.

The news report talked about Trump saying Google (and twitter) were bias against him. But the way they presented it went something like this

"Yesterday President Trump declared without any proof that Google was biased against him and promote negative stories. The associated press has investigated this and has determined the claims to be unfounded"

so think about that for a moment, here we have a news report that adds their own editorial about Trump - they have no idea whether he has proof or not, he's the POTUS and he has the NSA at his direction (or as much as elected official has), and this report has determined on their own that Trump is just saying this completely off the cuff - now mind you, he probably is - but probably isn't good reporting, unless there was a follow up question to the president where he is asked - do you have proof of this or what makes you believe this statement is true, then its completely irresponsible for the reporter to add commentary that the has no proof - and then this is where Trump really wins - is that the reporter has to rely on the "fake news" to justify her position in making the assumption.

My immediate reaction was - ok, Google and Twitter by their own admission are notoriously left leaning, yet they claim there is no bias - yet we know all the social media companies are in trouble for fake news stories and censoring voices, so why in the world should I believe that they are *not* pushing their own bias thru their social platforms?

and secondly, why in the world would I believe any study by the associated press that says something counter intuitive to the facts that I know?

and all of that thought process is because of Trump either directly thru accusation or indirectly by just keeping these social media platforms in a constant state of hysteria where they provide an endless supply of criticism and hate for the man and the office of the president.

I'm enjoying him bringing down these guys. I remember when Google was all about do no evil. That lasted until their first public earnings report.

I saw him saying Lester Holt monkeyed with his interview of him when the entire unedited interview can be watched is par the course. Even his “grab them by the pussy” access hollywood tape with Billy Bush - that Trump excused as ‘lockerroom talk’ - is in question because he has now gone back and said that he doesn’t think that’s his voice.

He has a history of decrying any story he doesn’t like as “fake news”. It’s just how he deals with negative, unflattering pieces. It’s not dumb, either. Because his followers are already convinced the media is making up all their stories.

read this - from CNN where the author writes about McCains Eulogy as what is wrong with politics...

The prevailing "value" of modern politics is partisanship: You are good if you are on my team. You are not just bad, but morally bankrupt, if you are on the other side. You are real if you are on my team and fake if you aren't. Anything the captain of my team says can be justified (and agreed with) because, well, they're the captain of my team. Anything the other team's captain says is wrong, by default, because they're the captain of the other team. There's no reason to listen to people on the other team. Or make friends with them. Or even be seen with them. They aren't on my team. Why would I do that?


President Donald Trump is the walking, talking epitome of the sanctification of partisanship over all our other, real, values. (Yes, the irony is not lost on me -- and should not be lost on you -- that the modern patron saint of partisanship is someone who has been, literally, a Democrat, an independent and a Republican all within the last decade or so.)This is a man who has declared, repeatedly, that the mainstream media is the "enemy of the people." .A man who said his Democratic opponent in the 2016 election should be jailed. A man who has called elected officials of his own party who disagreed with him "incompetent," "weak and ineffective" and "so bad," among many other things

"When you read that last sentence, you understand why McCain was so openly critical of Trump, and why Trump disliked McCain in turn. McCain believed in the idea of public service as a noble -- flawed, but nonetheless noble -- profession. That the reason you got into politics was to find ways to do good, not for yourself but for the broader populace. That the most important lesson to always, always, always remember is that we all have a lot more in common than we have differences on. That focusing on that common humanity was at the essence of how politics should work. It wasn't about what team you were on. It was about what good you wanted to do -- and for whom. "

------------

noticed what I italicized? The author , whose story is about partisanship leads with Trump decrying an admittedly biased press as being the enemy of the people.

I get that if I am in the business of reporting news - the food on my table and the roof over my head depends on my ability to report the news in a fashion that is profitable for my employer - I should be concerned of any elected public official who says I am the enemy of the people. That said, you don't win favor by constantly crying out that Trump is a bad man in every article you write. You want balance in an article about partisanship? Then why isn't there one mention of Schumer, Pelosi, Reid, Lewis, Walters or Guiterrez? Nope, this was a partisan piece where the author introduces the idea that conservatives are unyielding, John McCain was a saint for being a reach across the aisle leader and Trump, along with the people that support him are whats wrong with American politics

fuck that reporter and his roadmap to fix what is broken. There is a reason why the Senate, House and White House are all republican in an era of a "liberal" majority in America.

Obama's "there are consequences to the election " speech is how we ended up there.

[tweet]1035140587425542144[/tweet]

I saw the slate thing yesterday. My thoughts on the photo are 1) a laptop in the background doesn’t mean he is using it other than to have a staffer pull up something for him and 2) I couldn’t care less either way whether he is computer savvy or not. It’s a silly slate story that should be put with “he takes a bath never a shower!” idiocy.

Certainly not like Hillary used them...


How does he Tweet then?

I guess Slate doesn't know phones are computers now?

A phone is a computer!

Not mine...

"There is a reason why the Senate, House and White House are all republican in an era of a "liberal" majority in America."

Republican gerrymandering?

hedge wrote:"There is a reason why the Senate, House and White House are all republican in an era of a "liberal" majority in America."

Republican gerrymandering?

only in North Carolina

again, the danger of the biased news expected to report honestly about themselves....


A new study about Google News shows that while everyone gets the same results, five liberal news organizations “alone” made up 49 percent of the total recommendations from the respective experiments. The five were The New York Times, CNN, Politico, The Washington Post and HuffPost.

The study, written by Columbia University PhD candidate Efrat Nechushtai and University of Oregon Shirley Papé Chair in Emerging Media chair Seth Lewis, set to be published in the journal “Computers in Human Behavior,” stated only 14 news organizations "made up 79% of the total number of news recommendations suggested to searchers.”

Discussing the study with Wired, Lewis said, “Yes, Google News is dominated by mainstream news. If you consider mainstream news to be left-leaning, you will have concerns about the results you get from Google News. There’s no question about that.”

Trump is an idiot. Admit it and move on. Ya elected a dumbass.

he's a useful idiot though