How excited are you for Trump's "Ministry of Truth"?

I love it. Not one full week into his term and the Trump administration have already stood before the American people and wiped their collective ass with any semblance of honesty, objectivity or integrity.

“A government that has determined to bring a nation together so that it is once more a centre of power in the scales of great world events has not only the right, but the duty, to subordinate all aspects of the nation to its goals, or at least ensure that they are supportive.” Donald Trump 2017 Joseph Goebbels 1938.

I didn’t think it would go this far. I never vilified Trump, but now he is trying to 1984 us.I’m truly scared for the future of all things on this planet. I am so happy I never had children.

Welcome to the New World Order and a fascist America.

Incidentally, I think this is how Trump sees his Twitter account

@flutherother As forbidden?

@Sneki95 No, radio was a new technology Goebbels viewed as essential in driving home his propaganda message to the German people. Trump is using Twitter in a similar way to speak directly to the people before the media can properly analyse and discuss what he is proposing.

@flutherother Oh, you showed a radio there. It said “Error 403 – Forbidden” when I entered it. That’s why I wrote that.

Do you not realize how frighteningly biased the media has become? I first became aware of this back in the 1980s, a fairly “conservative” Reaganesque era—when the regular news showed incredible bias about the situation in the Middle-East. Israel was always the “bad guy” on the news. Everything Israel did, according to the news, was militant and hostile. It was a Christian network which showed footage of what was really happening there with the attacks. And when the Berlin wall came down, conservative media was discussing it weeks beforehand, The rest the country was completely surprised because the mainstream networks portrayed Mikhail Gorbachevof as the savior of Soviet-U.S. relations,

A more recent example might be how Hillary Clinton lost the election. For an entire year, the Media was saying Hillary had it in the bag. That Donald Trump was a joke and didn’t have a chance. Ironically, they were still saying that right up until it was inevitable on election night that there was no way Hillary could win. People were shocked. I think Hillry might have won if the media didn’t keep assuring us she had it.

There were seven or eight incidents hat have happened since the election that have been exposed as false or as propaganda by major networks such as MSNBC and CNN. As someone who has majored in journalism in college many years ago, I am appalled that major networks have taken part in such collusion and reported fake news as factual, objective truth. At least the conservative networks admit they are conservative,

The extreme emotionalism and fears propagated by the media have led this nation to hysteria over losing an election. News agencies should not be allowed to propogate and brainwash so many. In the Reagan yeas, it appeared everyone hated Reagan and that he was the enemy of everyone but “the rich” yet now many hail him as one of the greatest presidents in history. But even then, the media bias was not this rancorous.

The media has already brainwashed you. If people aren’t responsible or mature enough to see what the other side is saying, then the media should not be permitted to propagate lies.

@Sneki95 Yes, the link should take you to a German propaganda poster showing a radio.

Is that Truth or Alternative Truth?

@Yellowdog I think you meant to say ”... permitted to propagate alternative facts.” and while your thoughts may have some merit it has reached the point where I will believe the media before the Trump administration and, as has been pointed out, it has been less than a week. What does that say for their truthyness? I don’t believe I am the only one who feels like this.

Trump may be a boon for the media. When compared to him they are squeaky clean knights in shining armor.

The only people who revere Reagan are those that were influenced by the Republican propaganda machine. Reagan was a horrible president. Talk about media brainwashing.

Ah, I remember watching those Christian networks during the ‘80s. The presenters on there were practically jacking-off at the idea of a new world war breaking out over Israel. Conservative Christians only give a fuck about the Jews and Israel insofar as they need Jews in Israel in order for the end times to happen and for Jesus Christ to produce his blockbusting sequel.

Things are getting scarier by the minute. Apparently what Trump meant by clearing out the swamp was the removal of educated people.

I remember this thread (“Why did you vote for Hillary Clinton?”) from a while back where the asker mocked me for my concern that Trump would fulfill his campaign promise to appoint a Supreme Court justice who would overturn Roe v. Wade. Seems like back then most people still thought that Trump had no real intentions of doing the things he promised he would do, even the people who voted for him.

The future is bleak.

I suggest everyone consider buying a handgun. Society may resemble The Road Warrior soon.

@Yellowdog

I sympathise, I really do. But don’t think for one minute that one bias is any better or more informative than the other. It’s all bias and it’s all dishonest. And, if you take a closer look, there is no ideology being promoted. Our media promotes personalities and consumerism. It the personalities and their actions happen to indirectly connect to something going on in politics, this is lost to many of the viewers who only respond to sensation. The networks know this now and therefore if it bleeds, it leads—that is the foremost criterium. This is how a person with no ideology at all gets into the White House.

If you began to first notice the “change” in the eighties, then I’m about twenty years older than you. When I began listening to the news, our “talking heads” were actuallly real journalists, highly trained in the best schools and made their bones early in their carreers jumping with the 8th Airforce into France on or about D-Day, then marching with the men into Germany. They lived with the same men from the Khyber Pass to Palermo to Anzio to Rome to Cassio and then they walked through the extermination camps in Germany and Poland. They invaded beaches and occupied islands in the Pacific with the common soldier and they toured Nagasaki and Hiroshima after those cities were vaporized by the atom bomb.

These were the people who were once delivering our news to us nightly at 5 and 6pm. They delivered it coldly, without editorializing, just the facts. Editorializing, when it was determined to be necessary by network higher management, was reserved for the last few minutes of the show and delivered by a nationally respected journalist. That part of the news segment was announced, “And now the editorial portion of this broadcast will be delivered by…” There was no doubt that this portion of the broadcast was opinion and therefore many viewers simply turned it off at that point. They weren’t interested in somebody else’s opinion, because they had their own. And at the end of every editorial, the deliverer or the network would always state clearly that this was the opinion of the journalist and not necessarily that of the network. This line of fact versus opinion was never blurred.

Even during the Communist witch hunts of the 1950’s, often at great peril to their carreers, they, like Edward R. Morrow, delivered the facts of the situation without opinion. Imagine how slowly the struggle for Civil Rights in the 50’s and 60’s would have progressed if these people had spoke their minds during the news broadcast. The editorials of the time give you a clue. The strict ethics of journalism as practiced at that time prevented this.

William S. Paley, who developed and led CBS for more than 60 years, was once asked if all the annoying advertising on his stations were necessary. He said it was and explained why. He said that advertizing paid for the news broadcasts which were the greatest expense his network had. He said he spent almost the same amount on entertainment, only for the ratings in order to attract more advertising money so he could send journalists all over the world to report back to the finest television journalists he could buy. He said it was all about the news.

Today, on every channel, on the networks or cable, what do you have? A clique of people drinking coffee in conversation discussing the news of the day like one would with a neighbor, speculating on what it all means. Or a person telling a story about what happened, with emphasis on the dramatic followed quickly by a comment or two. Never do you see straight news delivered anymore without the line between fact and personal opinion being constantly blurred. All you see is the equivalent of gossipers around the watercooler. And this has now been going on so long that most people alive today don’t know what clean news delivery is, don’t know it’s value, and don’t care.

It has come to this. We have become on of the most poorly informed democracies. And now we have one of the most poorly informed men as president. We weren’t watching what happened as it progressed and we weren’t listening to those who were watching. We weren’t vigilant as our forefathers warned us to be. And now we have a guy in the White House just like us.

Goddamn, this is good coffee.

@Espiritus_Corvus , That reminds me of the old saying that people get the president they deserve. I am ready to repent for any sin that I committed to deserve Trump.

Take a chill pill…it is merely a temporary muzzling of the EPA’s old guard until Trumps nominee for administrator of the EPA is confirmed.

The thing that is becoming ever more apparent is that the rather appalling superficial lack of substance defining Trump cannot be tolerated for 4 years. It is no longer a question of appointing competent and capable people to perform the actual work, while the know-nothing sits back and nods approvingly. Trump is the worst kind of know-nothing, unable to sit back, and already busily countermanding the sensible pronouncements of his appointees. There isn’t an hour that passes in which his beleaguered press secretary and the astonishingly quick on her feet Kellyanne Conway aren’t called on to mitigate or explain the latest indefensible Trumpism. The nightmare of problems around The blatant interest conflicts with Trump’s business tentacles threaten the certainty of near term Constitutional crisis. Meanwhile, it isn’t bad enough that Trump’s understanding of the workings of our government approximate what might be expected from a third grader, his inability to shut his mouth guarantees nonstop display of this glaring deficiency to the world. The accumulating embarrassment to the nation cannot possibly be tolerated as the executive branch is rendered a confusing and tasteless joke.

@stanleybmanly I can see you are already tired of all the winning Trump is doing

Scientists are planning a protest march against Trump’s science policies.

@Cruiser You too are going to get tired and rather quickly as the absurdities multiply and proliferate. The public will soon reap the rewards to be expected from embracing glittering but visibly shallow superficiality. Trump is right in front of YOU running the Atlantic City game on the country at large. Those of you who are complicit may feel satisfied that the rest of us are to share the fate YOU deserve. I think it’s merely a matter of weeks before the magnitude of November’s mistake becomes readily and universally apparent.

Yeah @stanleybmanly I am preparing myself for the eternal pain I am going to suffer from a balanced budget, lower taxes, more jobs, better educational system for our kids, smaller government….OOOH look…a shiny penny!!

In response to Adar’s post, which read: “Ah, I remember watching those Christian networks during the ‘80s. The presenters on there were practically jacking-off at the idea of a new world war breaking out over Israel. Conservative Christians only give a fuck about the Jews and Israel insofar as they need Jews in Israel in order for the end times to happen and for Jesus Christ to produce his blockbusting sequel…”

Actually, I was referring to the “mainstream” networks plus CNN who was reporting that Israel was firing missiles at children throwing rocks,

A Christian news network showed the truth with live footage. The children were a “human shield” the Palestinians often use to fire missiles into Israel and kill Israeli civilians. On the Christian networks, we got to see the carnage as innocent teenagers were pulled out of pizza parlors and dance halls— and the fact that missiles were being fired for over 40 minutes before Israel returned fire with superior weapons. The Palestinian children throwing rocks were a propaganda front as much as a human shield.

Since then, we’ve seen Palestine do this many times—claiming Israel bombed a hospital that was no hospital but a place where missiles were launched. We’ve seen Palestinian terrorists hide behind children and skirts of women.

I .can assure you, Darth A, that Christians DO care about Israel and the struggles of the Jews— so many Christians throughout the centuries did so much harm to them. Yet when something worse, like Naziism, shows us the true ugliness and extremes of antisemitism comes to power, we understand the true horrors of genocide and how extreme hate can go, All people with any decency would acknowledge Israel’s right to exist. Here is where I lost any thoughts of legitimacy in Barrack Obama—who doesn’t think Jerusalem is part of Israel.

Cruiser: I’m glad to see a Trump supporter on this board. To be honest, I hate the way he has spoken and things he has said especially in the early campaigning days, When I voted, it was just the lesser of two evils. But ultimately, I think he is doing what is best for America and doing it diligently and efficiently. I think the tide will turn in about eight months when we will start to see a lot of improvement in the way things work in this country.

There have been several MAJOR victories against ISIS this past week that have gone unreported by all the networks except FOX. The media has always had a left slant, but I never thought major networks would get this biased that they could stir most of the country into hysteria that resembles insanity. I’ve encountered otherwise intelligent people who seem to actually believe there will be massive deportations of legitimate, peace-abiding immigrants and normal citizens. There are those who actually believe the Russians hacked voting machines—egad! I know everyone reading already KNOWS these things—but seriously, folks, THINK about it! Could anyone think liberal bias would have ever gone so far to create national chaos in a country like the U.S.—where we were once so stable?

@Yellowdog Just to be clear I was never a Trump supporter until he got the nomination then I merely became an anti-Clinton supporter of sorts and was mentally preparing myself for another miserable years of our country and economy being further trashed by the liberals. Now that Trump unbelievably became our President I do support his efforts as his ideas and plans fit very nicely with the conservative ideas I hold near and dear and hold hope that he will make America and our standing on the worlds stage great again.

@Cruiser I have to say, as someone outside the United States, that your hopes that Trump will improve America’s standing on the world stage are getting off to a very very bad start. Do you think he even cares about America’s standing on the world’s stage? I’m also very doubtful if his ill thought out policies will do much good for the average American either.

I love how in recent weeks @Cruiser has morphed into a full on conservative characture.

*caricature

@flutherother “Do you think he even cares about America’s standing on the world’s stage? I’m also very doubtful if his ill thought out policies will do much good for the average American either.”

Trump can’t possibly do any worse than Obama did. Plus can you think of any good reason why most of our Allies are clamoring to get face time with Trump And PM Theresa May being the first world leader to head to Trump Tower tomorrow. I would say that is more than a good start. Thanks to Trump America soon will no longer be the laughing stock of the Free World.

How much denial can someone be in?
Because of electing Drumpf, the whole world thinks you are a joke.

Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, who is admittedly a bit outspoken, not unlike Trump himself, when he was Mayor of London said:

“I think he’s (Trump) betraying a quite stupefying ignorance that makes him frankly unfit to hold the office of President of the United States. I would invite him to come and see the whole of London and take him round the city – except I wouldn’t want to expose any Londoners to any unnecessary risk of meeting Donald Trump. The only reason I wouldn’t go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump.”

Theresa May is coming to see the President of the United States rather than Trump. I’m sure she will do her best to get along with him as the UK is keen to establish trade deals following Brexit but when she smiles it will be through gritted teeth.

@Cruiser Trump CAN do worse than Obama, and for most of us whining about it now, Trump IS visibly doing worse than Obama and tells us daily that he intends to accelerate this tendency. For you with a more optimistic take on Mr. Trump, I ask you frankly, what sort of prospect is there for governing from a man when the logical reply to every 3rd or 4th sentence from his mouth is “Mr President, that just isn’t true” ?

And who refuses to be corrected. Who’s people insist that he isn’t lying, but giving “alternative facts”.

What does it say when a man is so wrapped up in his own ego that he can be readily handled and deflected from any purpose through the simple tactic of mentioning any one of the negatives in his huge catalog of flaws?

@stanleybmanly In what way is “Trump IS visibly doing worse than Obama” c’mon….back this claim up. I have 8 years of material of why and how Obama sucked big time on the worlds stage you have one week….let’s go!

Back at ya. Name one thing Obama did wrong. I will say you are mistaken, you will say you are not. Different worlds, Alternate facts.

@rojo In no particular order…Bank bailouts, big 3 bailouts, pulling our troops out of Iraq, throwing Israel under the bus, drawing red lines in the sand with Syria and rolling out a red carpet for Putin to make a laughing stock of him, the fucked up brain dead deal with Iran, unrestrained immigration, TARP, TPP, raising debt ceilings umpteen times that we are now 19+ trillion in debt, failing education, cops being assassinated, unemployment…my fingers are cramping up or I would keep typing…

We will skip the argument on whether ANY of those alleged sins is actually a failure, particularly that nonsense about Israel being under the bus with an annual direct subsidy of 3 billion dollars

. That’s a gift of 500 bucks from each American man, woman and child to people with single payer universal health care, and no worries about premiums.

But back to Trump who instead of erring through difficult policy decisions, prefers to fail in advance by promising both impossible and ridiculous nonsense which should be transparently apparent to any 9 year old. Compounding this defect, is the man’s demonstrated determination to conduct the affairs of state with an openly pathological disregard for the truth and a staggering delusional obsession with his own self importance. The man is a walking exhibition of the textbook definition of a sociopath, and a Freudian masterpiece who were he a person of moderate means might well be legally restricted to a psychiatric ward for “close observation”.

@stanleybmanly That 500 smackers per Israeli is chump change compared to the $154,000 per tax payer of national debt Obama scooted out the back door and left us with.

Suppose that 3 billion was applied to American health care premiums inTrump’s “America first” resolutions? And that 500 bucks is FROM every American. There are only around 8 million Israelis. So divide that into the 3 bil to see how they’re “making do”.

@stanleybmanly You lost me on that one…splain please or toss me some links. Those work bettah.

I don’t actually know how to post links from this phone. But google “Israel subsidies”

LOL. ” Plus can you think of any good reason why most of our Allies are clamoring to get face time with Trump ”—Cruiser

US News/ABC Australia: International expert in diplomacy labels Donald Trump an appalling human being

The Guardian: President Trump fills world leaders with fear
Financial Times: The world’s diplomats wonder how to prepare for a President Trump
Huffington Post: Trump At War
New York Times: Diplomats Aghast
The New Yorker: The Real Risk Behind Trump’s Taiwan Call
PoliticusUSA: Foreign Diplomats Express Alarm at Trump Presidency
The Hill: Foreign Diplomats on edge over Trump
The Wasnington Post: Donald Trump embraces ‘Madman Theory’
The Washington Post: The State Department’s entire senior administrative team just resigned

LOL. Cruiser, it’s like he farted and everybody left the room. The reason any leader would want face time is the same reason traffic slows down at a train wreck. To gawk at this dangerous freak.

And I love this one:
The Inquirer (UK): Foreign diplomats feel pressure to stay at Trump’s hotels

Customs: May I zee your paperzz pliz?
Diplomat: Here they are.
Customs: Und vaht ‘otell vill du be shtaying at?
Diplomat: The Watergate, it’s close to the—
Customs:—Not one of our leader’zz many fine ‘otellzzzz? Mmm. Zisssss does not bode vell for you…

Taken one at a time.
Bank bailouts – necessitated by GWB F-ups, Could it have been done differently? Yes protect the people not the banks. Would any other Prez have done differently? Doubtful.

big 3 bailouts – see above, Also, had he not done so you would presently be bitching because he allowed the big US car makers to founder. Think about that.

pulling our troops out of Iraq – shouldn’t have been there in the first place trying to get out of Cheney F-up,

throwing Israel under the bus – Israel is still there and is still sucking big bucks from US. Trying to keep them from killing civilians and living up to their obligations not considered throwing them under bus,

drawing red lines in the sand with Syria – Note that the answer about a red line had to do with the question whether the Syrian government has enough controls on its stockpile of chemical weapons that such weapons would not fall in the hands of terrorist groups. A part of his statement was “We cannot have a situation where chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people.” John Boener and the rabid conservative media were the ones who decided a line had been crossed. If you take Obamas statements at face value then no line was crossed since the chemicals did not fall into the hands of terrorists. Add to that that the vast majority of the public did not and do not want a ground war so whatayagonnado or rather whoyagonnabelieve.

rolling out a red carpet for Putin to make a laughing stock of him don’t even talk to me about appeasing Putin with Trump so beholding to him.,

the fucked up brain dead deal with Iran better than another war which is what the conservatives have been after for decades. Again, better than another war.

unrestrained immigration – more people sent back, less people coming in than in previous years,

TARP occurred because congress removed the regulations keeping banks under control,

TPP, I will agree this is a bad deal for American People but good for elites,

raising debt ceilings umpteen times that we are now 19+ trillion in debt again, more thanks the to fucked up previous admin. fixing mistakes costs money and whether or not this is actually a problem depends on whether or not you see operating with a deficit as a negative. Personally, I do not; just like me borrowing money for home improvements, new car, etc.

failing education – educational system has been fucked up for decades, NCLB program of Bush did not help, only made worse, My personal belief is the problem will never be solved until we decide and agree what the purpose and goal of our educational system is.

cops being assassinated less than previous years under Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Shrub.

Unemployment is DOWN. When Bush took office unemployment was at 4.2%, when he left office it was 7.8%. This is what Obama inherited. Now unemployment is 4.7%. so, while still higher than in 2000 (and remember Bush inherited a strong economy and then left Obama with a shit storm almost depression) it is much lower than what Bush left him with.

You are gonna have to sharpen your pencil @Cruiser.

The only way Obama failed with the bailouts (both banking and automotive) was in not nationalizing the companies we had to bail out.

I would agree with that @Darth_Algar

Also, @Cruiser on the subject of deficit spending I would like to clarify that there are things we spend money on that we should not and if we did not would need to borrow less.

Think of it as the difference between me borrowing money to fix up my roof on my house and me borrowing money to fly to DC, get a hotel room, eat, etc just to attend an inauguration. The former can be justified, it prevents even further costly damages that would have to be fixed but the latter is a frivolity that I should not borrow for if I could not pay for it outright after taking care of my obligations.

This online petition to prevent Donald Trump from making a state visit to the UK has already received over one million signatures:

It reads: “Donald Trump should be allowed to enter the UK in his capacity as head of the US Government, but he should not be invited to make an official State Visit because it would cause embarrassment to Her Majesty the Queen.

Donald Trump’s well documented misogyny and vulgarity disqualifies him from being received by Her Majesty the Queen or the Prince of Wales. Therefore during the term of his presidency Donald Trump should not be invited to the United Kingdom for an official State Visit.”

Wassa matta? They afraid he’ll pinch Her Majesty’s coño?

Her Majesty is 90 years old. Do you think she’s safe? Seriously though there’s a huge amount of anger over here at Trump being accorded this honour. 1.4 million signatures and counting.

Like it or not, he’s the Head of State for the US. I fail to see why he should not be allowed an official state visit. As for Queen Elizabeth – it’s entirely her prerogative whether she wishes to meet with him or not.

@flutherother are you British? I’ll have to start reading your answers in an accent.

Yes, Scottish actually.