@Garsco

I'm glad you raised the issue of conservative bias. The first casualty of the culture war was bound to be the truth. The question is if you are forced to fight lies with half truths. After all it is a political game and politics are dirty. Any game in which there is no referee is going to be dirty. The only referee is the courts and they cannot act until the game is over and everyone has moved on to the next.

Anyone with any sense wants to avoid a civil war. The lesson from the first civil war is you can't do so by compromise. The North keep trying to compromise with the South just as Republicans try to compromise with the Liberals. That strategy will not work. The North had to compromise because of the heavy investment by Northern banks in the South. Today it's more complicated but the first thing that needs to be done is deal with the financial institutions that benefit from Liberal policies. That includes Big Tech which is in some ways are little more than ponzi schemes like the banksters. It isn't just a matter of liberal bias in those institutions but the political entanglement with government, what people are calling corpocracy. The neo cons love themselves some corpocracy. It wasn't that much different in 1860, Lincoln was the uncouth hick, in some ways very similar to Trump. Too unsophisticated to understand how Washington worked. Lincoln eventually had to put editors in jail because they interfered with how the war was handled. The Washington establishment hated Lincoln almost as much as they hate Trump. We did almost have a civil war over Trump as Liberals essential succeeded from the constitution with the aid of the bureaucrats and the military. How close it came to a shooting war we will never know. Had the military sided with Trump and called the election fraudulent we would have had ourselves a civil war of the banana republic variety.

I have no idea what to do next but a few congressional hearings is not going to solve the problem.

@Garsco > Perhaps CNN, MSNBC, NPR and the big 3 network news presenters don’t really believe Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, Mayorcas, Butiegieg, Levine, and others on the left when they say things that are reported as news. Does that mean they’re lying when the deliver the news?

They have an incurious faith in taking those liars at their word. It seems easy to tell they are getting their "news" leaked to them from the intel community or whomever is crafting the narrative and providing it to "reliable sources" who then leak it to the Press. Biden, Pelosi, et al, just parrot what is leaked in an attempt to give it some credence.

Democracy is at stake!
The border is secure!
The economy is strong!
Inflation is temporary!
Putin is causing inflation!
It's all Trump's fault!

Pretty standard fair from the MSM and the Bidin' Adminstration

It might be good for the many people who post on this site to rethink their understanding of the word "lie." The connotation here implies intent. Those who lie must know or at least believe that their statements are false. Errors of omission, fact, or framing might indicate a certain bias, but they are not in themselves lies. Reading most MSM articles, I rarely find statements that are outright lies, although conservatives have no problem viewing them as such. I do find that their perspectives often miss key points, arguments that favor a certain perspective and the like. And there have been lawsuits brought against MSM outlets.

The Fox situation is much different. "The messages in Dominion’s filing suggest that network officials knew they were exercising editorial judgment that would lead their audience to see the fictitious election-fraud allegations not simply as newsworthy, but legitimate, which they properly understood to be irresponsible." The commentators went well beyond just parroting what someone had told them to the point of intentionally pushing what they believed to be false. All in the name of profits. Carlson and Hannity demanded that the Fox reporter Jacqui Heinrich be fired after she fact-checked one of Trump’s tweets. The network censored her over fears of losing more audience to Newsmax. At first, some Fox commentators questioned the claims of the election deniers. But as time went on, as their audience began to dwindle, they began to overtly push the "big lie" as legitimate.

Fox with its high-priced lawyers may eventually prevail, but if consciously lying to your audience about election fraud in order to keep them watching your network doesn’t meet the standard for actual malice, it’s difficult to imagine what would. The libel and slander laws would be left totally moot.

@TyKC There is something I am not getting here.

Election fraud has always been denied by the left without any curiosity to look into the allegations or simply denying them despite unexplained oddities brought to attention.

Were the ballots cast in Maricopa county, Arizona unreadable by voting machines because the ballots issued to in person voters were a half an inch shorter resulting in slow downs and long lineups discouraging voters?

There are a myriad of other claims that are just denied and never investigated. The outcomes of elections often don't appear plausible such as Biden getting elected. He wasn't even a viable candidate yet recieved 15 million votes more than his popular predecessor?

The e-mails behind the scenes between Tucker and others talk about Sidney Powell and discounting her claims of election fraud or else she should present her evidence. When she didn't they were accusing her of being a fraud. She sure muddied the waters. I think Tucker et al still had doubts about Dominion and the election results.

The fact may be that State laws were changed allowing early mail in voting, ballot harvesting of which republican voters never took advantage but the introduction of those options increased the possibility of fraud.

We aren't talking about the dominion machines here but the emails between upper management in Dominion indicates their machines were vulnerable to hacking.

What about Catherine Engelbrecht and the 2000 mules documentary? It was pretty credible evidence that should have been further scrutinized. Did that get debunked or whatever happened to it? How about Facebooks 400 million dollar contribution to the democrat cause or what could the Scam - Bankrupt- Fraud investigation turn up? Was it just a money laundering scheme to direct money to the democrats? These things require serious investigation as relates to elections. Will democrats allow it?

Anyway there are suspicions around the 2020 and 2022 midterm elections when there should be none.
Everyone is not satisfied the outcome was honestly arrived at. Several laws can prevent those suspicions such as voter ID and others but democrats won't allow that. Will we see them pushing for digital ID's?

How can CNN, MSNBC, NPR, all of the MSM if there is any journalism in them at all not be curious enough to look into what they are parroting. Are they supposed to just read and parrot the narrative when their eyes, if they did look, will tell them differently? Yeah, there is no intentional lying they are just repeating the narrative they are presented with. Fifty top intel agents didn't know the Biden laptop wasn't Russian disinformation? Laughable.

Doesn't make sense to me.

@FrankZeleniuk It depends on what you mean by election fraud. It's not true that democrats are not concerned about election fraud. The SOS in most States are responsible for seeing that elections are run fairly and in accordance with State law. And they do prosecute those who commit election wrong-doing on a regular basis. It's just that we've been doing elections pretty much the same way for 200 years. If we haven't figured out how to do them fairly by now, we probably won't figure it out. There simply isn't enough evidence of widespread election fraud that would hold up in court. If you are dissatisfied with the way elections are run, the only real option is to elect an SOS that will run elections the way the legislatures want them to.

You have to understand that election workers are mostly volunteers, people like you and me, who are civic minded. They are not perfect, and mistakes do happen. Most often those mistakes are quickly corrected. That there might be an inconvenience associated with that, well, it is what it is. I can't speak for the myriad of mysterious claims by the right about supposed election fraud. These claims have been examined by the courts and found to be unfounded. I'm not sure whether or not the Dominion machines were vulnerable to hacking. But there is just no evidence that their voting machines changed votes. If that were the case, you'd think the democrats would have changed the votes, not only for president, but for other offices as well, which didn't happen since the GOP pickup seats in the House. All those people are on the same ballot. And yes, I think the 2000 mule's documentary has been debunked. I agree that dark money plays a crucial role in influencing elections. But there nothing illegal about it. If don't like it, encourage your congress people to overturn Citizens United.

Well, the legislatures are responsible for passing voting laws that comply with the constitutions of their States. It would be wrong to disenfranchise voters who cast a ballot consistent with those laws only to have their votes discounted just because some politicians don't like how it is done. I'm not sure why there is this current concern over voting laws. If the U.S. sees 60% of eligible voters vote in an election, that's a high turnout. In most elections, it's well below that. So, it's not like voters are clamoring to vote. It's hard to understand why all this election fraud is happening in a country that seems not to be so interested in voting. As far as the Hunter laptop goes, most of the MSM is just being cautious. The sources of that story were, at first, indeed dubious. It turned out that some of the information was accurate. I think the right-wing media has overplayed its hand here. I think much of what you read about Hunter's laptop in the right-wing media will turn out to be false.

@TyKC

These claims have been examined by the courts and found to be unfounded.

Yep. I wish the people would recognize, "The issue is never the issue. The issue is the revolution." - David Horowitz

An investigation into our Prime Minister's action to invoke the Emergency Measures Act in the Trucker Convoy exonerated him. He has been called to account on ethics violations and interfering in justice procedures. In many cases it is liberals investigating liberals. I cite America's most egregious example of Democrats investigating issues as the Jan 6 congressional hearing. What a sham.

The border is secure. - Mayorkus
The Hunter laptop story has all the earmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign. James Clapper.
The economy is strong. -Joe Biden.
Etc. Etc.

All distractions from the real issue, of course.

@FrankZeleniuk I'm not sure why you think the Jan. 6th investigation was a sham. It uncovered a plot to overturn a lawful election that many of our own politicians unlawfully participated in. It was basically an attempted coup that failed. That's why most of those politicians refused to testify under oath or took the fifth. It's a sad commentary to say that none of them will ever be held accountable.

I don't think Mayorkus ever said the border is secure. He knows the problems that plague our southern border as well as anyone. To solve those problems, Congress must provide the money, lots of it, above the levels today, which they have refused to do. It's the typical Conservative playbook. Blame the other side for the things for which you are guilty. As far as Clapper goes, he was simply offering an opinion. At the time he offered it, it could have been Russian disinformation and may still be to a certain extent. This is the same thing that the Conservatives said about the Steele dossier. Although about 70% of what was in that dossier was validated and true if 30% was wrong or unconfirmable, then the whole thing was crap. That's not the way intel gathering works. The same holds here. Conservatives think that if one report from that laptop is true, then it's all true. That's also not the way it works. All presidents say the economy is good or getting better when they're in office and say it's in the tank or going south if they are running for office. This is hardly news. Trump said the economy grew faster when he was president than any time in history. Of course, that wasn't true either.

A word of advice. Conservatives need to recognize the difference between revolution and anarchy. One is necessary, the other is foolhardy. Zelenskyy is a revolutionary. Revolutionaries are courageous and have plan that inspires people. Anarchists are cowardly, have no plan and are simply out to destroy. Choose wisely.

@TyKC

I don't think Mayorkus ever said the border is secure.

Where have you been looking? Very Democrat of you to ignore these things.

[abcnews.go.com]

As to Jan 6 . The protest was just that - a protest. A protest will never succeed in overturning an election. I think protestors knew that. There is only one process for that and that is a proper investigation to allay concerns or find proof of fraud. A course of action the democrat party would not entertain. Besides that, the purpose of the Jan 6 investigation was to impeach Trump and nothing more. Another impeachment failure. It was not about

The piles of ignored information about Jan 6 by Pelosi is being released this week so there might be some info there if it hasn't all been scrubbed. What was Pelosi doing removing two republicans from the committee and replacing them with two Trump-hating RINOs?

the Steele dossier. Although about 70% of what was in that dossier was validated and true if 30% was wrong or unconfirmable, then the whole thing was crap. That's not the way intel gathering works.

The FBI offered a million dollars to Steele if he would validate it. He refused to validate any of it.

This can go back and forth forever like it has since Trump was elected.

The revolution started in 2008 when it was the campaign promise of Barack Obama AKA Barry Soetero, was "the fundamental transformation of America". Many things happened before that to weaken America, not the least of which was the education system turned into an indoctrination system, Obama pushed the transformation as far as it could.

"You just have to flood the public square with enough raw sewage; you just
have to raise enough questions; enough dirt; plant enough conspiracy theorizing
that citizens no longer know what to believe. Once they lose trust in their
leaders, the mainstream media and political institutions; in each other; in the
possibility of truth - the game's won."

• Barack Hussein Obama. Address at Stanford University, April 21, 2022.

Sounds like you still have trust in the "establishment". Do you support his policy of destroying it?

You mention Zelensky as being a revolutionary.I suppose his rise to power and destruction of the nation could be called revolutionary. I'm not a fan of Putin but there is lot of history in Ukraine that needs to be covered to understand why he did come to power. Ukraine's government was corrupt and the guilty seized control of it. Several high level American politicians were involved with the corruption and tried to cover it up with money in the form of USAID. The obvious quid quo pro was revealed in Biden's display of prowess in his famous video, declaring Ukraine was not getting the billion dollars unless a certain prosecutor was fired. son of a bitch. He got fired.

Everything in politics today seems to be run by proxy. National sovereignty has been usurped by climate change agreements with the global network and all sorts of activism in the formation of both governmental and non-governmental organizations that answer to the global cabal are in charge. Citizens still think their national governments are running things when in fact international communists are giving the orders. It is not just happening in America but all western nations.

I think you are well informed enough to that you understand my view. So we needn't bother about all these issues. The issue is the revolution. In my view it is in progress. Ask yourself who is the agent of change and who is the agent of preservation? A preservation of the American Ideal or a march to communism/socialism?

@FrankZeleniuk Mayorkus' statement was made during the pandemic at a particular time. He was assuring people that the U.S. wasn't going to let people in who might be infected with COVID. The Biden administration kept the Trump era exclusions in place. This was not a general policy statement that he repeats all the time. I'm sure he knows that the situation at the border is not a good one. His next line was that it takes time to correct all the errors of the past. So, he clearly understood that all was not perfect and there were problems.

Jan 6th was more than a protest. High level politicians attempted to orchestrate a coup. To a certain extent the protesters were pawns, that's true. It's odd you should say that the Jan 6th investigation was only to impeach Trump. Since Trump was no longer president, the comment makes no sense. Pelosi removed the two GOPs from the committee because she knew they would be implicated. You don't put the accused on the jury. The FBI asked Steele only to confirm the parts of the dossier than remained unconfirmed. Yes, parts of the dossier were not confirmed. He knew that. They knew that. That's how intel works. If we had perfect intel, there would be nothing to discuss. That doesn't mean the dossier was completely worthless.

As far as the election deniers are concerned, their arguments are inconsistent and unconvincing. First, it was voter fraud. Dead people voting, others illegally voting. It soon became clear that that really didn't happen very often, certainly not enough to overturn an election. Then it was the election workers who were massively changing votes. Some woman in Georgia had to move out of her house because of the threats she was receiving from election deniers. But, are you really going to tell me that the 80 year old lady volunteer who checks your voter registration card at the poll is the source of massive election fraud? Please! When that didn't work, it was the voting machines that massively changed votes, although these machines seemed only to change votes for the office of the presidency and not the other offices even though they were on the same ballot. So, that claim didn't hold up. So, now the new tact is to claim that voting really is a bad way of deciding the political future of the country since it is fraught with vulnerabilities. Of course, this begs the question, if not voting, then how do we decide who governs us? No doubt Trump knows the answer to that question.

Most of the complaints of the election deniers stem from ignorance of our voting laws. The SOSs of each State are responsible for conducting elections in accordance with State law. He or she is like a Bank manager. You might see suspicious looking people running out of the bank with what looks like a bag of money. You think the bank has been robbed, so you call the police. When the police arrive, they run in and asked the bank manager if his bank has been robbed. He says no. Well, there are only three possibilities: the bank was not robbed, (ii) the bank was robbed but the bank manager didn't notice (unlikely), or (iii) the bank manager was in cahoots with the robbers (hard to prove). SOSs are like the bank manager. When they certify an election, they certify that it was run in accordance with State law. He or she is also responsible for seeing that elections are run in accordance with State law. So, if it wasn't, he or she is responsible. It's unlikely that a SOS is going to say that the election was not run in accordance with state law, since that would not be politically advantageous. Moreover, local election officials can be prosecuted for not certifying an election because, in essence, they are admitting that they did not do their jobs. Get the Picture?

Obama was making those remarks to alert us to the threats that people like Trump pose to the country. Those were not his policies. He made those remarks long after he was president and long after Trump was president. Obama didn't have a policy of destroying the country. Trump did. And no, I don't support it.

The former Ukraine president was a Putin puppet. And yes, not only did the U.S. support his removal, so did many other counties, in particular, our NATO allies. Yes, there were Americans involved keeping the former president of Ukraine in power. In particular, Paul Manafort.

@TyKC

Mayorkus' statement was made during the pandemic at a particular time.

Deflection. He has said it many times, at hearings, at press conferences, in interviews.

Ok. You are a diehard socialist. Got it.

What does "the fundamental transformation of America" mean to you?

@FrankZeleniuk It's fairly clear that America is transforming into an authoritarian state, governing based on power rather than the fundamental principles on which the country was founded. Such principles as all men are created equal, endowed with certain unalienable rights. The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are under attack. It's one thing to criticize the country for not living up to those ideals. It surely falls short. It's quite another to say that those ideals are wrong. White supremist and other undemocratic forces on the right are on the rise in America. Their primary message is that the fundamental ideals on which the country was founded are wrong. Jan. 6th was an attempt to take over the government by force rather than by consensus, rationalized by unfounded claims of election fraud. There continues to be movements in States that would make election laws less consensual and more authoritarian.

Trump is an authoritarian who refuses to accept the way our government has worked for over 200 years. Biden is a temporary reprieve in the railroad train toward an authoritarian state. He's not an authoritarian. That's why Trump and his allies constantly brutalized him in the Press. According to them, he can do no good, makes bad decisions on an hourly basis, is clumsy and demented. But they rarely call him an authoritarian, except when it is politically expedient to accuse him of being what they are, because he would then be exactly the type of person they think should lead the country. He just made a trip to Ukraine at great personal peril to himself and the country, yet all you read in the right-wing Press is how he stumbled off some red carpet in Poland. He's gotten more legislation passed than any president since FDR, yet you would know none of this if all you tuned into was Fox News.

The transformation plays out on social media on a daily basis. Social media sites grapple with what posts should be allowed on their sites. Some of the postings on those sites by white supremist and other authoritarian groups, are in directed contradiction to the principles upon which the country was founded. Some media sites have decided to not allow some those comments. The white supremist groups view this as censorship and an afront to their first amendment rights. My view on this is that we should let them have their say and hope that rational people will see it for what it is. The main issue is whether to allow comments that what promote a violent response or ones that directly or indirectly advocate violence.

Yes, this is the transformation of America and its not in a good direction.

@TyKC Well, thanks for those thoughts.

Now what is socialism and how does it compare to America's system of government?

@FrankZeleniuk Well, there are a billion definitions of socialism. But, in general, it's the idea that the means of production should be controlled by the collective. In that sense, the country was partly socialist from the beginning since the collective has a say in who governs them. And the government has the job of conducting programs and funding them through taxes collection. I know many conservatives dispute this. But there is little doubt that the U.S. Constitution gives the government the power to collect taxes and to use that money for the public good of the collective. The only debate is what should the government be responsible for and what should it stay out of. On the other hand, to the furthest extent possible, the government should allow people to seek their own profit and not interfere with the right to do so. So, there are limits to the social responsibilities of government. Our government is not socialist in that regard. This used to mean that a person would make the effort to become competent in some skill; plumbers, electricians, roofers, lawyers, doctors, accountants and entrepreneurs that ultimately benefited the collective. Somehow the whole thing has turned into malignant profiteering and consumptionism, profit for profit's sake and consumption for consumption's sake.

As to tax collection, the government is woefully bad at it, not helped by conservative politicians who support policies that make it more difficult to collect taxes. The Trump tax law simply raised taxes on the middle class while making it easier for the rich to avoid paying taxes either through loopholes or outright evasion. I pay way more in taxes under the Trump law than I did previously. So, 1/3 or more of government programs are funded by deficit spending. So, the government borrows money from private banks so they can fund some of their programs. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that this is little more than a sophisticated Ponzi scheme designed to enrich bankers and the expense of the collective. The banks should be nationalized immediately. We're the only advanced country in the world that has not nationalize their banking system. The government underwrites the banks anyway, so why have private banks or private insurance companies for that matter? If the government is going to run programs, they need to take control of financing of them and be held accountable for it. The only danger is that if the country went authoritarian, then then dictator would simply loot the treasury as Putin does in Russia.

As to their programs, no doubt the government does not get involved in things it should and gets involved in things it shouldn't. Why we subsidize private companies is beyond me. If we are going subsidize them, why don't we just nationalize them? The government subsidizes a myriad of private companies - oil, gas, farms, automotive, airlines and aircraft manufacturers, even the social media companies that conservatives love to hate. On the other hand, the government has responsibility for the collective socialist programs like security, border protection, ports of entry, police and fire services, infrastructure, roads, bridges, water, sewer, healthcare, retirement, education, environmental protection etc. All of these are socialism, for the benefit of the collective.

Our military is the largest socialist institution in the world. It is ten times bigger than any other military in the world. It's morphed into a semi-private all volunteer organization which mostly spends its time fighting proxy wars, where the goal isn't to win the war, but to extend it for as long as possible so as to enrich the bankers who provide the funds through deficit spending so that we can fight the war. I'm sure I don't need to provide examples. It's the biggest rip-off of the collective in the history of Mankind. This is not socialism. It's corruption, driven by an unhealthy relationship between government and the private sector.

The policing policies in the country are abject failures. Other countries don't seem to have these problems. The "more is better" policy modeled after the military hasn't worked. We incarcerate more people by far than any other country. We have 5% of the world's population and 25% of the incarcerations. And our crime rates by any modern standard are abysmal for any country with a stable government. Moreover, in many communities, the relationships of police with the collective have become adversarial. Instead of being the keepers of the peace, the police are viewed as the problem and not the solution. Policing is indeed socialism. We would not want private police. But its failures are driven by corruption.

Our healthcare systems are failing. We are the only advanced country with a private healthcare system. Perhaps such a system could be justified if it was cheaper and resulted in better outcomes. But that's not the case. Here in America, we pay at minimum three times the rate that other countries pay for healthcare and our outcomes are not better and sometimes worse. Of course, the conservative argument is that we pay less in taxes. But that's not the case. 20% of national budget goes to healthcare, primarily to healthcare providers. It's billions of dollars and it's a major rip-off of the collective. This is not socialism. It's corruption.

Finally, the government's job is to see to it that whatever services they provide, those services get equally distributed to the collective. I won't dwell on the failures in this area from the separate but equal policies in the South to the unequitable funding in education. This is socialism, badly tainted by corruption.

No doubt the government has not lived up to the ideals it proclaims to the citizens. But that doesn't mean the ideals are worthless. They act as benchmarks to hold the government accountable. The subsidizing of private companies has put the government in the business of picking winners and losers instead of just calling balls and strikes. It has perpetrated the largest unequitable distribution of wealth in the history of the world. The country is spiraling into a fascist authoritarian State perpetrated by wealth and power being in the hands of fewer and fewer people and not to the benefit of the collective. Hence, it is not so much that we are moving toward a more socialist State or even a more capitalist one. There will always be a demand for social programs adjudicated by the government. We are actually spiraling toward fascism driven by a corrupted system, where ultimately the power will reside in the hands of an authoritarian dictator. The problems in the country are not a result of the type of economic system that we have. We have always had a hybrid socialist system, partly capitalist system trying to work together. The problem is corruption.