"He is not praising him so much as saying we will work with people, anybody who wants to help — help stop the advantage of ISIS will be welcome in a Trump/Pence administration to do so," Conway says.

Really, Kellyanne, because this sounds an awful like praise:

"If he says great things about me, I’m going to say great things about him. I’ve already said, he is really very much of a leader. I mean, you can say, oh, isn’t that a terrible thing – the man has very strong control over a country. Now, it’s a very different system, and I don’t happen to like the system. But certainly, in that system, he’s been a leader, far more than our president has been a leader".

Maybe somebody can enlighten me (in fact, I'm sure of it) but why would Larry King ask Trump to do an interview with Russian TV? Is King linked to the station or the interviewer in some way? Seems like a really strange request (assuming it is even true).

I am not sure Mitt Romney has ever looked so presidential for the GOP then he does right now. Heck, he might still be asleep right now, but its all about options.

RichmondPhilsFan wrote:

thephan wrote:Why is the Russia ties not being worked hared to be exposed at this late date? From back in July there was this in the WaPo that seems to have rather flown under the radar:

It's mind-blowing. Yet three times a week there's a "new" story rehashing old details about the HRC email fiasco.

Why is it that Democrats are so goddamn good at the data and organization of campaigns but so bad at redirecting the narrative?

I keep quoting and deleting this response, because I feel like my take is both hot and wrong, but screw it this is the internet.

I think the media and to an extent the Democrats, are cowards. The cries of liberal media bias are a real thing, and the media tries to walk on eggshells to avoid this impropriety (even though any attempts to flip the table on FoxNews is ineffective).

CNN has started to swing back by adding the fact check to their chyrons. This is not the election, and Trump is not the candidate, to let dictate the news cycle. The news networks and the democrats need to be more vocal about this. This is a much clearer example of pay to play than anything to come out of the Clinton Foundation.

there's a hundred articles trashing Trump every day

I love when the media complains about the media not covering something

Houshphandzadeh wrote:there's a hundred articles trashing Trump every day

Yes, but it always seems scattershot. Perhaps it's because there's so much to attack him on, but there rarely seems to be an issue that he's kept to the fire on.

Like I said, I thought my take was hot and wrong.

Houshphandzadeh wrote:there's a hundred articles trashing Trump every day

About the little things, sure, but rarely do you see front page or cable headline stories about Trump's actual scandals. Such as his ties to Russia, his illegal payments to government officials, an in-depth investigation of Trump University, analysis of the working conditions in his overseas factories, etc.

It's mostly fluff that is ignored or quickly forgotten by the overwhelming majority of voters/viewers/readers (unless it's something like the Khan story, which actually stuck), and they so quickly move onto something else that it gets lost in the cacophony of negative stories about Trump's various verbal gaffes. The reason people think that the email server and/or the Clinton Foundation is a problem is because they've heard nothing about HRC from the media other than those things, so they believe that they are bigger than they actually are (esp. the Clinton Foundation stories).

That at least 97% of military personnel do not physically recoil from drumpf's bullshit is worrisome. It's like that majority who support his candidacy missed the part of their indoctrination about what their job as member of the US military was all about

I mean this Flynn guy is like a cut-rate James Mattoon Scott, directly out of Seven Days in May

Let's oversimplify and use the CiC forum the other night as a representative for the media. Hillary, rightfully gets questioned about the emails...however there's no filter from Lauer as to the seriousness of her transgression. His first question is literally 'why doesn't this disqualify you?' as if disqualification should be the assumption rather than the conclusion you reach after investigation. Further, the first twelve goddamn minutes were about the emails which you could argue as having nothing to do with a future position as CiC. She should be asked about them and should also have to answer for her Iraq war vote but the former especially is warped in such a way that john doe seeing her asked this question would reasonably think, 'Yeah, why doesn't this disqualify you?' assuming that Lauer has done his diligence and there was something truly wrong or sinister done.

Then look at Trump's questions. What in your business experience makes you qualified to be CiC? Note it's not 'you've never held public office. never dealt with foreign affairs. why doesn't that disqualify you from being president?' He gets an absolute free pass on his lie about the Iraq war when he's on record in 2003 supporting it. In 2004 maybe he gives an answer to Esquire that he opposes it after the war has been going on for 12+ months, but that's not the question. Lauer lets it go. He gives the most ridiculous question I've heard in a while in 'You've recently had security briefings. Without going into detail did anything surprise/shock you?' opening the door for his 'Oh there was one thing that shocked me, specifically one thing Obama and Hillary did.' That response is absolutely unimpeachable and it's predicated by a question that can literally not be answered with anything of value.

That's the issue in a nutshell. Hillary gets treated like the seasoned politician she is and Trump gets cursory retorts and kid gloves. I know that this is just one instance but when you have things like this and the NYTimes writeup not even mentioning Trump's praise of Putin, it starts to add up.

slugsrbad wrote:

Houshphandzadeh wrote:there's a hundred articles trashing Trump every day

Yes, but it always seems scattershot. Perhaps it's because there's so much to attack him on, but there rarely seems to be an issue that he's kept to the fire on.

Like I said, I thought my take was hot and wrong.

I don't think your take is hot at all. I think the GOP has generally been wildly successful at intimidating the media into worrying first and foremost (at least after ratings) about appearing balanced at all times. MSNBC--like Fox News before them--broke away from that awhile ago, but their programming still lacks appeal, mostly because other than Maddow their pundits are either obnoxious (Chris Matthews) or way too nerdy (Chris Hayes).

Very intelligent media observers have been saying this for quite some time, but it's become incredibly obvious during this campaign cycle. The mere fact that clowns like Katrina Pierson, Jeffrey Lord, Kayleigh McEnany, Scottie Nell Hughes, et al., are allowed on your television should be enough to confirm this hypothesis.

JUburton wrote:Let's oversimplify and use the CiC forum the other night as a representative for the media. Hillary, rightfully gets questioned about the emails...however there's no filter from Lauer as to the seriousness of her transgression. His first question is literally 'why doesn't this disqualify you?' as if disqualification should be the assumption rather than the conclusion you reach after investigation. Further, the first twelve goddamn minutes were about the emails which you could argue as having nothing to do with a future position as CiC. She should be asked about them and should also have to answer for her Iraq war vote but the former especially is warped in such away that john doe seeing her asked this question would reasonably think 'Yeah, why doesn't this disqualify you?' assuming that Lauer has done his diligence and there was something truly wrong or sinister done.

Then look at Trump's questions. What in your business experience makes you qualified to be CiC? Note it's not 'you've never held public office. never dealt with foreign affairs. why doesn't that disqualify you from being president?' He gets an absolute free pass on his lie about the Iraq war when he's on record in 2003 supporting it. In 2004 maybe he gives an answer to Esquire that he opposes it after the war has been going on for 12+ months, but that's not the question. Lauer lets it go. He gives the most ridiculous question I've heard in a while in 'You've recently had security briefings. Without going into detail did anything surprise/shock you?' opening the door for his 'Oh there was one thing that shocked me, specifically one thing Obama and Hillary did.' That response is absolutely unimpeachable and it's predicated by a question that can literally not be answered with anything of value.

That's the issue in a nutshell. Hillary gets treated like the seasoned politician she is and Trump gets cursory retorts and kid gloves. I know that this is just one instance but when you have things like this and the NYTimes writeup not even mentioning Trump's praise of Putin, it starts to add up.

This is a really good post.

JFLNYC wrote:

JUburton wrote:Let's oversimplify and use the CiC forum the other night as a representative for the media. Hillary, rightfully gets questioned about the emails...however there's no filter from Lauer as to the seriousness of her transgression. His first question is literally 'why doesn't this disqualify you?' as if disqualification should be the assumption rather than the conclusion you reach after investigation. Further, the first twelve goddamn minutes were about the emails which you could argue as having nothing to do with a future position as CiC. She should be asked about them and should also have to answer for her Iraq war vote but the former especially is warped in such away that john doe seeing her asked this question would reasonably think 'Yeah, why doesn't this disqualify you?' assuming that Lauer has done his diligence and there was something truly wrong or sinister done.

Then look at Trump's questions. What in your business experience makes you qualified to be CiC? Note it's not 'you've never held public office. never dealt with foreign affairs. why doesn't that disqualify you from being president?' He gets an absolute free pass on his lie about the Iraq war when he's on record in 2003 supporting it. In 2004 maybe he gives an answer to Esquire that he opposes it after the war has been going on for 12+ months, but that's not the question. Lauer lets it go. He gives the most ridiculous question I've heard in a while in 'You've recently had security briefings. Without going into detail did anything surprise/shock you?' opening the door for his 'Oh there was one thing that shocked me, specifically one thing Obama and Hillary did.' That response is absolutely unimpeachable and it's predicated by a question that can literally not be answered with anything of value.

That's the issue in a nutshell. Hillary gets treated like the seasoned politician she is and Trump gets cursory retorts and kid gloves. I know that this is just one instance but when you have things like this and the NYTimes writeup not even mentioning Trump's praise of Putin, it starts to add up.

This is a really good post.

It is.

And I know that jersey is laughing his ass off right now over a bunch of liberals decrying media bias, but I'm not talking about media bias... I'm talking about media being bad at its job. Instead of being a skeptical, critical watchdog, as an industry it is chasing the sensational over the substantive, constantly seeking the "BREAKING NEWS" (who doesn't laugh when the "breaking news" story is a scheduled press conference), and constantly providing a platform for unchallenged spin-via-proxy. There are exceptions, but very few.

To your point, RFP, about the media fearing being seen as unbalanced, I'm reminded of Krugman's favorite line about the issue. He contends that the fear is so rampant that if the Pubs came out with a statement that the Earth is flat, the headline would probably be: "Republicans May Have a Point."

Hit the pause button for a minute and say that JH is either a super good guy working his beliefs in a semi-friendly place, or insane. I have been saddened that he has had to endure this cycle because the betrayal in the form of his party's candidate is just publicly crushing his soul. I do want to thank him for his continued input. We will take him off suicide watch in 2017.

Here's a huge surprise: WikiLeaks release excludes evidence of €2 billion transfer from Syria to Russia

http://www.dailydot.com/layer8/wikileak ... 2-billion/

thephan wrote:Hit the pause button for a minute and say that JH is either a super good guy working his beliefs in a semi-friendly place, or insane. I have been saddened that he has had to endure this cycle because the betrayal in the form of his party's candidate is just publicly crushing his soul. I do want to thank him for his continued input. We will take him off suicide watch in 2017.

What if Trump wins?

There are two standards. Krugman had a good piece about how this how we ended up with Bush.

JFLNYC wrote:

thephan wrote:Hit the pause button for a minute and say that JH is either a super good guy working his beliefs in a semi-friendly place, or insane. I have been saddened that he has had to endure this cycle because the betrayal in the form of his party's candidate is just publicly crushing his soul. I do want to thank him for his continued input. We will take him off suicide watch in 2017.

What if Trump wins?

Republicans rejoice because they get everything they ever wanted.

pacino wrote:There are two standards. Krugman had a good piece about how this how we ended up with Bush.

The whole piece was one long subtweet of the NYT politics desk.