Azalin

Love him or hate him, Ailes had a massive impact on politics, politicians, and new coverage. http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/18/fox-news-ex-ceo-roger-ailes-dead-reports.html

Amateurs for sure. That's a benefit of living here - the idiots are truly idiots, not just idiots because they're annoying. Then again, I am speaking with a Californian. We probably have nothing on you guys.

Absolutely. I believe he won an emmy for that role. I always liked him in the original version of Red Dawn, too. When you take a look at his body of work, he was more prolific than you realize. 68 is too young to go in your sleep of natural causes, and I will miss him. RIP

Walt won't, at least not this season. Jessie on the other hand is much more likely IMO.

They may as well - it could be funny seeing even more "rank and file" Americans discussing constitutional amendments as if they knew what the %$^# they were talking about. Maybe we can have another kitty-hat march.

"As I remember famously with David Brooks, he was certain Senator Obama would be a great president because of the crease in his slacks." I love how you can put perspective on an issue using someone else's quote used as a throwaway line.

Ah, you're familiar with our wonderful slogan I see. This place should just be renamed The Everweird. I guarantee you that everyone in Austin who started reading that article was wondering "hey, I'll bet that was so-and-so" before they got to the part where they name them. That sort of thing ranks pretty low on the bizarre meter as far as Austin goes.

Pretty much.

Perhaps. There's just too much $#%@ being shoveled lately for me to buy into anything until I see that it's for real.

No, I haven't. I've never experienced the nuance between being fired and being employed before either. Either I was employed or I wasn't. I get all that. I believe I've gone out of my way to state that Trump brings much of this on himself. That aside, the sheer volume of the anti-Trump machine is reaching a deafening pitch, and in my opinion, has begun to drown out much of the legitimate criticism of Trump and his administration. Congressional Republicans are routinely portrayed in the news as the stereotypical 'tax cuts for the rich, throw grandma over the cliff, foreigner-hating Scrooges that want to starve children and poison the water' villains, and they're justifiably reluctant to be tied directly to Trump. You can loathe the man for who and what he is, but I would prefer he be judged honestly. There's plenty there to criticize between his policy proposals and his amateurish demeanor without the constant call for special prosecutors to investigate accusations based upon anonymous sources.

I didn't ask how someone was compromised, I asked how did Trump compromise on firing Flynn. In other words, either you're fired or you're not fired. Flynn was fired. I see no room for nuance there.

I'm not making any comparisons at all between Trump and Reagan. All I'm saying is that Trump is despised, and he's under a figurative avalanche of accusation, much of which is at this point pure innuendo. That is absolutely distracting him, and he should ignore it. My point from the very beginning has been that there's already plenty about Trump to criticize. At some point I think it's worth recognizing that an awful lot of what people are throwing fits over is likely nothing more than pure fiction, and that it's distracting republicans as badly as it is Trump.

Thank you.

That's okay. Once all college is free, then market forces will no longer be in play in making your institute of higher learning attractive to the discerning student, so their student ranks will swell once again.

Where is the concern for policy and implementation? Everywhere, that's where. It's just being drowned out by the incessant cries of "Trump bad!". I'd turn it around and ask what attempts to implement policy by him have failed? The ones that needed congressional passage to become law? I've seen him given high marks for a lot of the EOs he's signed, but aside from that and a failed attempt at repealing the ACA, I can't name much else that's been attempted. It seems obvious to me that the intent is to keep Trump on defense so that little to nothing ever gets accomplished. And how, exactly, do you compromise on firing an employee? You either fire him or you don't. He didn't do it quickly enough for you? Oh, well. Bottom line is the same: Flynn's gone.

So he did the right thing, but the SOB took eighteen whole days to do it? That certainly justifies the hysteria. How could I have been so blind?

I'm not sure what Trump did to put Flynn in the firing line aside from simply nominating him for the post. Once he learned that Flynn had lied about his dealings with Russia, Trump fired him. An accusation of poor judgement in selecting Flynn is fair criticism, but the scope and shrillness of the attacks on Trump is unprecedented. It's not just news outlets going after him; 95% of the entertainment industry, and every faction or group that allies with the left in any way are in on it. Many republicans are in on it too, but then again Trump trounced all the career republicans that sought the nomination, and a lot of them are too frightened to back him on a purely partisan basis because the target has been removed from their backs for the moment. I think Trump is worthy of criticism, but I see a huge (YUGE) difference between concern for policy and staff implementation by a newcomer to political office and the tsunami of panic-inducing innuendo that is currently passing for a national dialogue. I think too many people are being influenced by what's basically just a smear campaign.

Typical Austin Society's fine. Austin, not so much. Typical Austin. Typical Austonian. No, this is Austin. What would happen here is that the one of them ruled as being the most obnoxious will have gender reassignment imposed, then they would be forced to cohabitate as alternative partners. Unless being an a-hole becomes a protected class first.

No disagreement there. Nobody in public office is above reproach. My beef is with your response to the material B-Man has been posting. We all have our biases here, some more easily identified than others. You have yours, I have mine, and B-Man has his. I appreciate him posting links to a lot of material that I might not have otherwise seen, especially now when there is a constant and unprecedented barrage of unsubstantiated anti-Trump stories based on leaked information from anonymous sources, and an active attempt to pass them off as legitimate news. Surely nobody would say that an alternative viewpoint is something to be avoided, right?

With the continuous stream of accusations from anonymous sources we've had reported every week since the election, I think it's fair to at least question them as we hear them. Nobody here, except possibly OC, offers much support for Trump. I think it's fair for B-Man to post all this stuff - in fact, I appreciate it. That doesn't mean that I take any of it as gospel, but I do appreciate his posting it and saving me the time of digging for an alternative point of view. That said, with regard to Flynn - what's the purpose of Comey investigating Flynn's prior association with Russia which occurred before the election, before he had a chance to assume a cabinet position? Unless he committed a crime worthy of investigation, then this just comes off as another "Trump bad" smear campaign from a conglomerate of media outlets which very obviously loathes the man. I don't care who the president is or what party they belong to - activist media and agenda-driven news is every bit as bad, if not worse, than irresponsible government.

Very successfully, I might add.