WideNine

The vast fraud narratives have been disproven over and over. Not just in this election, but in several GOP-funded studies in the past. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/study-finds-no-evidence-widespread-voter-fraud-n637776 Why should the US spend resources tilting at windmills, crafting hoops for voters to jump through to address GOP-manufactured fears? To do so, I think there would first have to be evidence of an issue that needs resolving. There is none.

A masked seated crowd. Plenty of space between groups. I did not see anything that resembled the maskless stupidity of a Trump MAGA event. Another false equivalence. Your idiot lost, you should move on.

The man lost his wife and daughter in a crash and you are right, there is no proof that the driver was drunk but Biden clearly believed he was. Folks will go to their grave believing something that cannot be proven or disproven. If it was me and I believed the rumors about the driver, I would probably carry that anger with me for quite some time. I wonder how Trump would have reacted if it was his Ivanka steamrolled by another driver? First, one should keep in mind that this was 1972... Seat belts? Breathalyzers? Standards for determining DUI's at an accident scene? Reports from the boots on the ground: "This raised eyebrows, as it may indicate that Biden lied when he implied that the driver had been drinking. According to Lou Angeli, the fireman at the scene, there was no evidence that establishes or disproves that point. Angeli said that in regards to intoxication, the driver Curtis C. Dunn was not assessed, and there was no way to determine if he had been drinking at that time since neither of the police officers had breathalyzers on their cop cars. Angeli asserted that this alleged aspect of the accident was not a lie Biden made up out of whole cloth, and that right or wrong, rumor or belief that drinking had contributed to the crash was prevalent among the community." Is this tragedy really where Trump supporters want to dig?

I have mixed feelings on this. Using tankers from Western Canada to US refineries on the West Coast are probably sufficient. I think as we embrace more hybrid and plug-in technology our investments would be better served upgrading our grids, transportion distribution networks, and provisioning cheaper electrical distribution in general. The Keystone folks applied for permits promising no significant leaks and/or spills and already have failed on that front. It is a boondoggle for a slowly dying industry that has done enough damage. We can do better as a nation. I have visited countries far more poor than the US and seen bullet trains connecting cities and cheap gb internet everywhere and look at the US and we seem to have leadership that is purposely keeping our infrastructure in the global backwaters to soak us longer.

So everyone lies ergo Trump's lies that have led to so much suffering and death are "ok". A consistent river of deflection and false-equivilencies arguments you continue to use to prop up that self-serving orange bag of dung. Thankfully more voters are a tad more selective about their trust and who they are willing to empower with the nation's highest office. Several were registered Republicans. It is so refreshing to have a President that is not a complete joke and embarassment.

Ok. So your position is that Trump is truthful, and all fact-checkers are suspect. Good luck with all that. The truth will out. So how did those election fraud lies he birthed do in court? You know, where facts and evidence were needed. I am watching you folks gradually get smaller and more desperately petty in my virtual rearview mirror.

I agree. Food insecurity is a big concern where I live, but the local schools seem to have taken that on as their core competency. Education and education resources have taken a back seat to this outreach effort and I do think that is wrong. Now, I do believe that schools are an ideal mechanism to identify and partner with agencies that should take the lead on those efforts and can even coordinate and facilitate resources at the schools to meet that need. I don't want to see any kid go hungry, but when I am told that the school does not have the resources to provide for the education of my special needs daughter, yet teachers are pulled into these other efforts, I cannot help but feel it is a misappropriation of my school tax dollars. My wife and I have been fiscally responsible and are doing OK, yet we received a 300.00 grocery voucher and bags of groceries each week - we don't need them. I am told they do not have the administrative capacity to be prescriptive with the handouts. Not knocking people in need, my daughter is friends with many of them and they are hard working good people. I just think we could better manage the taxes and support provided.

On this we can agree.

That's your argument. Then being typed "than"...maybe on a mobile device? Sorry, but that is pretty weak.

Let us know when Biden lies so much that he literally breaks fact-checkers. Who could possibly lie that much? Your boy Trump. https://www.inputmag.com/culture/fact-checkers-cant-keep-up-with-trumps-growing-lie-count-25k

Truth. Seriously a ridiculously ignorant take to think that the mess Trump left us with a year of maskless super-spreader events and reckless lack of responsible leadership. Unlike Trump, Biden would never repeatedly lie to US citizens that Covid will magically go away. https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2020/10/politics/covid-disappearing-trump-comment-tracker/ I mean the adults just wrestled the man-baby out from behind the steering wheel so they could stand on the brakes and try to steer this country away from the abyss.

Folks need to also get used to the new normal. We live in a world of global commerce from the things you buy online or at a store, to foods we eat. Those odd viruses that make the jump to people in some remote village in Africa, Asia, or South America now more than ever before can quickly spread around the globe. As a country, we need to be much better prepared and remember how much it sucks for everyone when we don't have a concerted effort to limit or stop the spread. It is the sober reality.

In many states they are circling the drain waiting for "front line" workers to sign up, while those that are willing do not qualify for the distribution. Don't see a motivational problem, just a supply and rollout problem. Honestly, if that other guy does not want it, get out of my way so I can.

So our kids cannot go back to "normal" lives and miss out on their parents, grandparents, and friends hanging out. This is the whining legacy of America, the country that used to be able to pride themselves on toughing out rough times? The virus really doesn't care about your comforts, your fun, your opinions, or your ability to go back to normal. It simply spreads where there is an opportunity for it to do so, it kills some, leaves some the walking wounded, and others recover. When it overwhelms an area and their healthcare resources the whole area has to go back to lock-down measures because of the lax or irresponsible efforts of the viral flat-earthers. Not sure what there is to gain by politicizing the fact that Biden (who has clearly stressed combating this pandemic) removed his mask while he delivered the nation's inaugural address well away from the masked dignitaries behind him. He is vaccinated too. Admittedly, the jury is still out on whether that prevents someone from becoming a vector for the virus, but it probably does lower the risk. Either way, what is your point? And demonizing Fauci. Why? Because of Trump? Trump, who is quite literally one of the dumbest humans I have ever heard speak about the body and medical therapies, who was advocating an unproven malaria treatment that Fox News and some hack Simone Gold promoted over and over? Trump who suggested ingesting bleach or somehow irradiating our innards with sunshine, and finally decided to turn to the expert advise of a radiologist (you know, the guys that went to school to look at x-rays, MRIs, and PET scans) for his Covid-19 strategies? Trump who did contract Covid-19 and then was treated with top-notch off-label drugs and some that were still under clinical trials for his infection as a response to a "compassionate use" exception requests by his doctors? A cynical part of me wishes his doctors just gave him 3 choices hydroxychloroquine, a bottle of bleach, or a room with some sun light and see how well he fared. Fauci, who graduated top of his class from Cornell and served under 6 presidents, was literally forced to combat Covid-19 strapped down with this level of medical and scientific incompetence. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/16/anthony-fauci-built-truce-trump-is-destroying-it/?arc404=true&utm_campaign=wp_week_in_ideas&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_ideas

I do think "conspiracy" is too grand for what Trump's campaign did. Opportunistic without a care in the world regarding campaign regulations and laws would be more fitting. If some of the most strident doubters here would just read the bipartisan Senate Intelligence report rather than just taking the twisted cliff notes of Ted Cruz, they would be better informed. Many on the outgoing staff of Obama were concerned that Trump's campaign just were not taking seriously their exposure and interactions with Russian contacts. This is reflected in the report as a bit of an excuse. That their inexperience made them more susceptible to doing something stupid like coordinating with Russia's attempts to influence the election. Does not take a conspiracy, just those that think the laws do not apply to them and a hefty amount of ignorance and ego.

I fully expected the Q-Whatever folks to all line up for their turn to join the next comet visit mass checkout. Apparently their amorphous cult had one popular hard and fast scripture - that the Biden inauguration would not take place. For a few with a shred of critical skepticism and sanity left to them they have found that the layers of conjecture and fiction are starting to unravel. They always do when they come up against deadlines, dates, and verifiable reality. Someone must have forgotten the hard and fast rule about conspiracies; To have a shelf-life they have to be things that are near impossible to prove or disprove so they can continue to evolve to avoid critical inspection. I do get the allure of having some source of mankind's issues being a cartoonish evil organization, how easy it would be to fix the world's problems if we can dumb them down to something like that - like a hero fighting his/her way to the master switch labeled "evil" and throwing it to off....the Death Star explodes and the cute furry folks celebrate. The boring and realistic truth is that most every one of us has the capacity to do selfish and destructive things while dragging others along for the ride (Trump), or rise above that selfish nature with empathy that motivates us to invest in and help others. I said most because some are truly devoid of empathy and those should never be leaders. It does not take insidious conspiracies for bad crap to happen, as falling into the QAnon tar pit proves humans can manage to screw things up quite well when like-minded folks fall out of touch with reality and find new and unique 21st century ways to literally weaponize fearmongering over social media.

There are no easy answers here. Simply tossing money at issues rarely raises the bar. Tax codes could be more equitable, but just gathering money solves little if the funds are not used strategically. We need better education and infrastructure investment for this country, but better accountability that those investments are managed well and producing the desired results. Our institutions designed to protect those investments need to be purged of their corporate capture, like the insanity of having a coal lobbyist in charge of our EPA, or corporate broadband shill in charge of the FCC. I pay a boat load of taxes where I live and watch the most wasteful mismanagement by well-meaning idiots. It's a bit of a tourist trap area. They recently installed a digital sign to tell folks how fast they are going, but you could drive around for miles and still be looking for a speed limit sign. So you basically just know how fast you are going and no idea whether it is too fast. Well you would, but the battery powering the thing went dead a few weeks ago...and yeah. I am from practical WNY blue-collar stock and I just keep shaking my head as the wasteful stuup is everywhere.

I think you were saying that some secrets have to be maintained and that some do not. Never thought Gitmo was a secret, or if it was it was a pretty poor one. I am not baiting you, folks may have an objective moral view that can conflict with our national self interests. It is not black in white, nor is it an organized nefarious thing, but liberties can slip away a bit at a time. I am also pretty pragmatic that if you are not completely off the grid then your privacy is mostly an illusion. A better example of the moral dichotomy I mean above is that there is plenty of evidence that those that worked on our Manhattan Project reached out and facilitated transfers of secret material to the Soviet Union. Did they hate the US, were they spies and traitors? I tend to think that they may have been very smart pragmatic scientist who felt that having all that destructive power in the hands of one nation would not bode well for the US as a nation or the world. Power corrupts and absolute power... Considering we had already used said weapons in a conventional war with Japan, one may say that there could have been some merit to their line of thinking. I understand the arguments that those ended the war early. I have also read that Japan was on the verge of surrender. Mostly conjecture for historians to argue over at this point. It is just food for thought about where folks draw the line regarding patriotic duty and duty to personal moral conscience. I do think that is an interesting subject.

I was thinking of such a long list, was picturing Chevy Chase's Christmas vacation rant about his boss but think I will just go with: 1. Worst President ever.

I actually like Wallace. He is a great interviewer and when pressed by his colleagues on who he voted for he told them that it was not their business and he votes for the man not the party. To each their own, so not trying to convince folks to feel the same way. I do think that he is one of the last few that give them a shred of credibility and he called Trump on his Covid-19 lies during a rare interview that Trump allowed. It had him all rage-Tweeting later about how the standards had fallen at Fox... you know, because someone there told him he was making stuff up.

Fox News has doubled-down on the dumb. Ratings are down and they are getting set for a 4-year run of sensationalizing conspiracy theories with more hate and disinformation to get their viewership back up. There is a MAGA herd of hurt folks out there ripe for the pickings too. It was already tough for real journalists to practice objective journalism on their platform where for years the actual news-worthy segments lost more and more air-time to loud -mouth opinion purveyors whose opinions were delivered as if they were actually vetted news. There are quite a few conservative journalist that I respect that have jumped ship over the years for just this reason. I see this trend on some left-leaning sites too and it is frustrating for those that appreciate good investigative journalism. My news feeds on my phone are chuck full of opinion pieces. Too many do not differentiate those from facts or news. Kind of wish I had a better way of filtering those out I would rather get the facts and come up with my own opinions. https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/news/fox-news-fires-a-dozen-staffers-including-political-ed-chris-stirewalt/ar-BB1cTZ8P

You are right in that I was not reading through your entire post. Guilty as charged. My compromise is that all those that advocate and participate in riots and violence should be held accountable, but that the laws and jurisdictions dictate that there will be differences in how that accountability is assessed and legally remediated. Also, the simple adage that two wrongs do not make a right. You press Trump supporters and his followers, as well as GOP enablers regarding their role in an unprecedented insurrection and riot and rather than face and address that event they immediately go into the equivalency-mode of deflecting to riots events in cities across the US. Each event has their own dynamics, accountability, and legal and moral liability. They likely also have different requirements to ensure they are prevented in the future. That is why I continue to stand by my belief that it is a false equivalency.

Nothing is free, but why are you so opposed to the idea of free (universal) healthcare? Are we not already subsidizing a extremely profitable for-profit healthcare industry via taxes paid into Medicare and Medicaid? Aren't their lobbyist successful at keeping rates for drugs and services many times more expensive here in the States than the same products elsewhere? Is our current higher deductibles, lower coverage, insurance bureaucratic hoops and aversion to pay, and federal over-subsidized programs providing us with better healthcare than countries that have simply streamlined their subsidizing and rate negotiations? Let's take a look at how well our healthcare system is working... https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/quality-u-s-healthcare-system-compare-countries/ It is funny to me how gullible folks are. You look at the quality of healthcare of countries that have universal coverage compared to the US and see we actually pay top-dollar for suck while both sides of the isle have members lining their pockets from big Pharma and other healthcare lobbyist to ensure the current system that allows gouging the citizens of the US continues. Having worked for big Pharma I actually know how much they despise the way the EU pools their money and negotiates lower rates on what can be charged for comparable drugs and procedures. Just because the current system benefits a few, you buy into the "America has the best healthcare" lie, and go along with the spooky music and drama they feed you when folks try to envision a way off the treadmill of fail. Just maybe other countries are doing it better for less money...food for thought.

Should qualify this as one of many vaccine conspiracy hoaxes and not the first micro chip nonsense, but read this in Popular Mechanics and it cracked me up. The sinister schematic that was being passed around below by these Q-Anon aficionados was actually the schematics for (and I quote), "a totally bitchin’ Boss Metal Zone MT-2 guitar pedal, meant for shredders summoning the sounds of the devil from their six-strings."

So for argument sake do you believe that nations like the US need to maintain levels of secrecy around certain programs or operations? Are you equating secrecy classifications such as those pertaining to the above as your "deep state"?