Paul Brancato

Weren't LBJ and JEH neighbors and poker buddies?

Ron - FaceBook now claims they are carefully going over the wave of fake news that is inundating their website who pay FB for the privilege. Others have published lists too. It's a major problem. Of course with the Onion, which I don't find particularly funny and therefore don't read, it's easy to see it's parodied not real. Other sites, unfortunately mostly far right, are not letting their readers know that. I can't believe some of the things I read when I dig, and they are fake for sure. So is it a new form of propaganda? I can tell you this - it's dangerous. Those sites have an affect on people, most of whom unlike you are not so quick to accept that they've been had. I've got a few relatives like that. My problem is not left right. I'm actually quite respectful of differences of opinion. But one thing that I doubt many saw coming is the extreme difficulty in separating fact from outright fiction on the internet, which was supposed to be a leveler of sorts, a democratization of information. Now it's being used as a propaganda tool by some pretty nasty folks, one of whom is an important member of Trump's team. We haven't talked about Breitbart yet. It's going to take a lot of careful digging on the part of fair minded truth seekers like you and I and I think nearly everyone who posts here to stay moored to reality. 

I've already posted to my FB friends my promise that I will not post anything I haven't carefully vetted. In. In my case the news I fell for twice was fake dirt on Trump. Boy do I wish I knew who was floating that stuff around, and why. This whole subject has become a major focus of my attention. 

On 11/21/2016 at 9:17 AM, Glenn Nall said:

I didn't say or imply that you are. The sentence reads, "Your comment is unfair," (it is), "and is typical of the Democratic establishment..." - which it is. So the only real inference you can make here is that I've claimed you've made a comment that is typically one heard from the Democratic Establishment.

I would neither want to be guilty of even saying things - of even sounding like things - that are typical of the Establishment Government, left or right, if i'm not part of it.

My goal, like many of those this election, is to seek a solution, not be part of the problem. Contrary to what many of you think, there are already Democrats in Congress who will want to, and be able to, work together with the administration-to-be. I hope ya'll don't hate that too much.

Eldridge Cleaver (famous Democrat) said, simply, and i can't quote it, but - If I'm not part of the solution, I'm part of the problem.

I've seen nary even a suggestion of a solution in this thread of gripes and whining; just plain, good old-fashioned blaming - and of the Republicans, as if the Democrats are the party of angels or something.

So. your comment was unnecessary, wrong, and typical.

Eldridge Cleaver - Democrat? I'd say agent provocateur. And don't forget he became a Moony later.

Trump U. Was a good place to start. It takes more work to get media on board with substantive issues for sure.

Seems obvious that the limo took off only after SS agent Clint Hill jumps on the rear. What else should I be looking at?

Ron - you seem like a guy whose mind is open, but who can't figure out what to feed it. Try looking at the lists of fake news outlets that are finally, too late but better than never, being identified. 

4 hours ago, Ron Ecker said:

A woman runs over her husband because he voted for Trump.

“I’d forgiven him for cheating on me with both my sister and my best friend, but this was too much!”

http://worldnewsdailyreport.com/woman-runs-over-her-husband-with-an-suv-after-learning-he-voted-for-trump/

Ron - this is fake news.

Cliff - it doesn't work to talk about Trump's sexual fantasies. Didn't we see the liberal media outlets push this issue? And didn't Trump brush them off successfully? I'm not saying that women lied, I'm saying there are better issues to talk about.

an example - when Jeff Sessions is up for AG, or the Supreme Court, will the Democrats focus on the hot button issue of racism to the relative exclusion of other issues? I'm betting that's exactly what they will do, and exactly what the media will cover. And that will be a mistake. Didn't stop Clarence Thomas, who was eminently unqualified for so many reasons. It's yellow journalism no matter which side propagates it. 

Kathleen - you are not the only Trump voter here, and I'm all for diversity of opinion. But the things you bring up - new controversies about Obama, Clinton murders - indicate that you have swallowed some spiked Koolaid. In the interests of full disclosure, what do you think Trump should say to his white supremacist backers (just them, not dissing the rest at all)?

Nothing?

Send messages through his surrogates to journalists who ask that he is against racism? 

Make a public statement personally, perhaps in a joint press conference with Obama, denouncing racism and white nationalism?

And Ron, something tells me you're on board with that. 

I call it a plus. It's the people who want to live in a pluralistic multicultural country that will win this battle of ideas, and it's not a two party issue, it's a human issue. 

That was great thanks Sandy.

Tulsi Gabbard could be a star. She is smart, Charismatic, and courageous.

Gavin Newsom - same. Brilliant mind learning his chops.

Joe - agree.

as for George Bush his name should be on the chalkboard, definitely.

29 minutes ago, Glenn Nall said:

"...where a candidate won the electoral college and lost the popular vote, that candidate has never been a Democrat."

I simply didn't understand what you meant. This rephrasing explains it. Thanks.

Also. I didn't in any way "cite" 1960 as an example of anything. I was trying to prompt Cliff with some suggestions. Perhaps you "misread" it.

My point with the question was very simple, being that you can't complain about the process being faulty only when it doesn't go your way. Now that I understand the fact that the only two times this has happened went the R's way, it puts some of these complaints (whining) in more perspective. I have no problem admitting I was wrong. I was wrong. I didn't know these facts.

Nevertheless, what I do know is that the Electoral College is the system we have always used in our Presidential elections, and the reasons for it are perfectly sound. Until you (not you, the colloquial "you") get your asses beat, at least. Then reason apparently goes out the window.

If Cliff, and any others, wish to sound more credible in their arguments, I'd suggest getting the numbers somewhere close to accurate.

Glenn - I suggest we try to look at the electoral college not from a sour grapes prospective but historically.You say the reason are perfectly sound, even though I am sure you know that the term 'popular vote' is distinctly American. Elsewhere it is simply called 'the vote'.

i saw an interesting segment on this recently. It seems that Alexander Hamilton offered an amendment to abolish the electoral college, even though it was he that came up with the idea in the first place. His reasoning was interesting. He had conceived of it as a kind of check and balance against an electorate that might make a choice that the wise men in the electoral college could nullify if they found it unacceptable for some reason. He never thought it would become a robotic rubber stamp. He wanted electors to be able vote their conscience if they, from their educated elite positions they deemed it necessary. If there is an historian reading this that knows the subject and thinks I have it wrong, I'm all ears.

if the electors are just robots without a shred of independence, the only thing left to look at is why it is fair or not. I saw a figure recently that illustrates why I think it is unfair. Were California to receive a proportional number of electoral votes based on population to a small state like Wyoming for instance, which I believe gets 3 electoral votes, it would get not 53, but 199 votes. 

So what is the perfectly sound reason you speak of? Is it to give rural states more relative say?

13 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

 

You bet!  I have a copy of Bush League kicking around here somewhere.

The underground So Cal artist Bad Otis Link put them out on his Rigomor Press. 

He did the original set of Murderers! collector's cards in '89-'90, raised a ruckus, and the Most Hated was the follow-up.

All the artists and I were from California, but the Most Hated set made the biggest splash in New York.

Al Goldstein gave us a review in Screw!

The New York State Legislature barred anyone under 18 from buying either set, even tho there are zero cuss words and zero dirty drawings.

Donald Trump's in it, so is David Duke, Ted Nugent and Rush Limbaugh.

And Lee Harvey Oswald.  That was the beginning of my JFK interest.

Around 1994 the distribution network supporting our efforts collapsed, sadly.

I love the format!

 

Clearly Trump is a perfect subject and title for a set of cards. It's been so many years now and I'm too lazy. Of course back then we didn't have the internet so research was much harder.

Guess we have something in common Cliff. Who published the cards?

21 hours ago, Michael Walton said:

Comparing Wecht and Vince with Baker is like...well, there's just no comparison.  Like Chris said above, Wecht is an esteemed medical person and is basically one of us, knowing based on the his own eyes and his evaluation of the medical evidence that there was a conspiracy.

Meanwhile, no writings, no photos, no nothing from Baker about her supposed encounters with LHO.  And now Ms. Brown above is saying Ruby told her to be a vanilla girl when Brown asked her why she didn't reveal herself to Garrison. Well, well - how convenient that Baker is mentioning yet another person who's in the grave.

I mean, where does the ridiculousness end here?

That's astounding. Jack Ruby told her to be vanilla girl. She never stops.

i stand by my comment that good researchers should do what they can to avoid her conference. Yes I get that they have the same publisher. No it doesn't make their research somehow worthless. I wouldn't paint them with the same brush. But to attend a conference where a self promoting xxxx is running it, and then to be polite and not confront her or say how you really feel when you get the lectern, is - what? Don't even know the right words. It's a damn shame that researchers have to make a decision to look the other way because it directly affects their income.

Ron - it's funny, but voter suppression is real and deliberate. Democrats these days just don't do the things Republicans do to limit the vote. It's a very cynical ruse.

5 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

In 2000 the brother of one candidate forced 90,000 mostly Democrats off the voter rolls in Florida, thus insuring his brother's victory.

In 2016 the Republican head of the FBI announced a renewed investigation into a Presidential candidate even though he knew there was nothing to it.

These are two examples of egregious voter suppression.

Voter suppression is anti-democracy, and only one party engages in it.

Exactly right

Harry Reid is too late. Clinton's campaign decided it was in their best interest not to talk about the emails, rather than confront the accuser. They were wrong. Why do you think they made that strategic choice? It made them look like they were defending the indefensible. As Cliff says, the Republicans declared war a long time ago, and this move by Comey was really aggressive. Giuliani practically came in his pants thinking about it. So the response was not strong enough. Trump handled the accusations against him with flat out denials and threats. I thought the Democrats overplayed their hand on the sexual stuff, at the expense of any meaningful exploration of his businesses, including Trump University, which to me seems like the biggest scandal. 

So here we are. Harry Reid suddenly grows balls. The Demos seem to be reorganizing towards the progressive wing. They need a healthy transfusion of young blood. Perhaps the best thing that will come out of this mess is a new wave of political activism. Be the change and all that. 

Cliff - ? - come on. Were you stuck watching Fox News?

Jim - did you exonerate Comey?

You will. Suggest you listen to her. I was open at first, and read the book you got your info from. I think you have good intuition. I've read and appreciated a lot of your posts. Haslam wrote an interesting book which he amended for his second addition after Baker interjected her personal story. The differences between the two made me think she had seen an opening and found a sucker. That's my intuition. Now she is supported by a publisher and organizes and speaks at conferences. She makes a living doing this. I am sure others with personal knowledge will post here soon, like Pamela Brown. I think she is a disaster for the research community, and if it weren't for financial ties to the same publisher I believe all of the writers would jump off her ship. 

Cliff - no Fox, CNN on Sunday morning, very little MSNBC. I've been politicized since early childhood and can smell bs a mile away. My criticisms of Clinton do not come from the right wing, the witch hunt, emails, Benghazi etc. It was not the progressives fault that she lost. I think the article on fake news is very enlightening. I heard some really creepy things from a few posters on FB. I'm still debating with some well meaning relatives who got lost in the right wing bubble. But seriously, DiEugenio is not the enemy. Let me ask you - where do you live? Did you support Clinton or Sanders in the primary?

Cliff - of course Comey did something unthinkable and unforgivable. It might have swung the election her way if he hadn't but I've come to doubt that.