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White House Bars NYT, CNN, and Politico from Briefing

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Re: White House Bars NYT, CNN, and Politico from Briefing

#371

Post by normaljoe »

dragonwriter wrote: post #311
tdb7893 wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of things to pulls the two parties back out from the middle again and I'm aware that practically it's not like both parties are actually centrist. Maybe I should've been more clear but my intent was saying that a two party system leads to more centrist parties than a multi-party system. I honestly think that multi-party systems might be better but I also think that two party systems aren't completely…

> Maybe I should've been more clear but my intent was saying that a two party system leads to more centrist parties than a multi-party system. It might result in more centrist parties (though I've never seen a convincing comparativr argument or evidence; median voter theorem is fine and all for the abstract idealized world it applies to but ignores pretty much every significant aspect of real-world political dynamics…

> Among democracies, degree of proportionality of representation is pretty directly correlated with popular satisfaction with government

While dual or multiple parties can affect this, the degree of representation currently in the US is currently more of detriment to finding a middle ground.

The average member of the lower house has around 650K constituents more then any senator did at our founding. The US Constitution was suppose to allow the House to grow and expand as the country did, however Congress passes a law setting the limit of members to the House almost a century ago.

If we multiply the House by 10, each member represents 65K we are still within the Constitution and will get closer to what you are stating then a complete overhaul. This has the effect of give more representation to people and makes it more likely to get to a middle ground. As an example a district votes 60% for one party in the current system results in 40% being unheard. With a 10x, keeping in mind it wouldn't really work entirely we have, 6 members that agree with the 60% and 4 members that agree with the 40%. It's not going to be that exact but hopefully you get the idea. This is going to decrease the power of each member of the lower house to state "Mandate" and force getting closer to middle ground.

In the 60/40 example it is mostly likely gerrymandered or a state with a single member in the House which results in no general election. The district is already assumed to win the general and thus the primary becomes the real election which is nominally 50% of the a general election. So in the current system 30% of the 650K in our example district effectively elect the member to House. Given typical 50% voter turnout we then can say that basically say that about 15% of of a district pick the representation. So in our example 98K are represented fully and 552K people are under represented. By scaling that back we would probably have less gerrymandered districts but even in this extreme we have 10K people vs 55K people and may even be able to increase voter turnout since a vote actually matters at this point. In my district my vote is worthless, I still vote in primary and general, but I live someplace more gerrymandered than the 60/40 it's closer to 80/20.

Re: White House Bars NYT, CNN, and Politico from Briefing

#372

Post by EduardoBautista »

gdulli wrote: post #225
ChicagoDave wrote: post #40

Well proof will come out in the mid-terms. Do most voters want this kind of leadership or not? Of course the GOP is going to contract voting rights as much as possible in the interim, so it's going to be a battle. Liberals don't vote. Will that change?

> Liberals don't vote The Democrats won the popular vote by 3 million votes, so this doesn't seem right. But for some surgical gerrymandering we might not be having a conversation about President Trump at all.

Gerrymandering affects the House of Representatives and nothing else on a federal level.

Re: White House Bars NYT, CNN, and Politico from Briefing

#373

Post by EduardoBautista »

belovedeagle wrote: post #322
gdulli wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Liberals don't vote The Democrats won the popular vote by 3 million votes, so this doesn't seem right. But for some surgical gerrymandering we might not be having a conversation about President Trump at all.

> surgical gerrymandering Also known as "state lines", a great many of which have been in place for over a century.

I don't know why you are being downvoted. Gerrymandering affects congressional districts and has no direct effect on the presidential election.

Re: White House Bars NYT, CNN, and Politico from Briefing

#374

Post by zepto »

SnowFace wrote: post #368
mwpmaybe wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. A lot of people were against it after it started, especially when it began to go south. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about statements like this: "[H]ad I been in Congress at the time of the invasion, I would have cast a vote in opposition." — Donald Trump at an education event on 8-Sep-2016[0] Considering that the vote was on 11-Oct-2002, and we have audio of Trump expressing hesitant, wis…

You're trying to put his statement into a different context now. I thought we were talking about him saying that he was totally against the war in Iraq, which he was. So we agree that wasn't a lie. > "[H]ad I been in Congress at the time of the invasion, I would have cast a vote in opposition." — Donald Trump at an education event on September 8th, 2016[0] You can't disprove a hypothetical situation that never happen…

Being against the war after it started is utterly irrelevant.

If you remove that from your defense of him, there is nothing left.

He was weakly in support of the war before it started. That is a fact.

When he says he was against the way, he says it to differentiate himself from the people who voted for it.

When he does that, he is lying.

There is no evidence whatever to support any other conclusion. Anything that comes from after the war was in progress is of no relevance.

Re: White House Bars NYT, CNN, and Politico from Briefing

#375

Post by [deleted] »

SnowFace wrote: post #364
mwpmaybe wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I was totally against the war in Iraq." — Donald Trump on NBC News in 2016[0] That's a lie, and one he's repeated often. Wishy-washy, hesitant support for a thing is not the same as being totally against a thing. His assertion that he was in opposition to it from the very beginning is a deliberate, egregious misrepresentation of his past views intended to convey authority on a subject that he simply does not possess…

"Look at the war in Iraq and the mess that we’re in. I would never have handled it that way. Does anybody really believe that Iraq is going to be a wonderful democracy where people are going to run down to the voting box and gently put in their ballot and the winner is happily going to step up to lead the county? C’mon. Two minutes after we leave, there’s going to be a revolution, and the meanest, toughest, smartest,…

[deleted]

Re: White House Bars NYT, CNN, and Politico from Briefing

#376

Post by SnowFace »

zepto wrote: post #374
SnowFace wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're trying to put his statement into a different context now. I thought we were talking about him saying that he was totally against the war in Iraq, which he was. So we agree that wasn't a lie. > "[H]ad I been in Congress at the time of the invasion, I would have cast a vote in opposition." — Donald Trump at an education event on September 8th, 2016[0] You can't disprove a hypothetical situation that never happen…

Being against the war after it started is utterly irrelevant. If you remove that from your defense of him, there is nothing left. He was weakly in support of the war before it started. That is a fact. When he says he was against the way, he says it to differentiate himself from the people who voted for it. When he does that, he is lying. There is no evidence whatever to support any other conclusion. Anything that com…

> Being against the war after it started is utterly irrelevant.

It’s not irrelevant when someone claims "I was totally against the war in Iraq” is a lie. That's provably true.

> He was weakly in support of the war before it started. That is a fact.

Very weakly after he was asked the question for the first time. It’s utterly irrelevant.

> When he says he was against the way, he says it to differentiate himself from the people who voted for it.

Yes. Because those that voted for the war did not come out against it until much later, if they even did at all. He came out against it early.

> When he does that, he is lying.

Nope. That doesn't follow from what you wrote. Do you want to try again?

Re: White House Bars NYT, CNN, and Politico from Briefing

#377

Post by SnowFace »

zepto wrote: post #374
SnowFace wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're trying to put his statement into a different context now. I thought we were talking about him saying that he was totally against the war in Iraq, which he was. So we agree that wasn't a lie. > "[H]ad I been in Congress at the time of the invasion, I would have cast a vote in opposition." — Donald Trump at an education event on September 8th, 2016[0] You can't disprove a hypothetical situation that never happen…

Being against the war after it started is utterly irrelevant. If you remove that from your defense of him, there is nothing left. He was weakly in support of the war before it started. That is a fact. When he says he was against the way, he says it to differentiate himself from the people who voted for it. When he does that, he is lying. There is no evidence whatever to support any other conclusion. Anything that com…

This is actually a great example of how modern day propaganda works. One tactic to discredit someone is to combine two true statements by them that look similar to create a false statement. Case in point:

Claim 1: Trump says he was against the war before it started. In the Cavuto interview he's questioning the war, and he says he used to argue with Sean Hannity about it. Sean Hannity backed this up. There's no reason to doubt this.

Claim 2: Trump says he's different from his opponents because he came out strongly against the war before anyone else did. That's a fact and there's plenty of evidence.

Then comes the spin. The media will mix the two statements together to say Trump said he came out strongly against the war before it started. They'll use this to call him a liar. Try to find me one example of him saying he came out strongly against the war before it started. You can't, because he never did.

This is why people don't trust the media.

Re: White House Bars NYT, CNN, and Politico from Briefing

#378

Post by 1337biz »

lewisl9029 wrote: post #351
boona wrote: post #330

> He has taken to blatantly and explicitly lying about simple verifiable facts, and doubling down on those lies when challenged. I'm not saying that's not true (I'm not a Trump supporter), but what sticks out to you as an instance of him doubling down on a lie? Edit: It's disappointing to be down voted rather than being directly engaged. If you have a beef with what I said, please tell me where I've erred. I would lo…

Does "millions of illegal voters" ring a bell?

What has Jil Stein to do with that story?

Re: White House Bars NYT, CNN, and Politico from Briefing

#379

Post by 1337biz »

sklivvz1971 wrote: post #208
clamprecht wrote: post #11

For anyone who has actually watched these press briefings in their entirety: Does anyone else think these are pretty much the worst way to get to the bottom of issues? Here's how it seems to work: * The press secretary (or President, or whoever) makes a statement * He or she chooses a journalist to ask a question * Journalist asks question * Press secretary answers question in as much or as little detail as he/she wa…

It's not useless at all. Banning CNN and other relatively hostile or left leaning news corps is not really meant to protect Trump from them. After all, their readership is likely in large part against Trump already. No, the move is a warning to the news organizations who stay . It's a message that they will be kicked out if they don't push stuff that the administration likes.

I don't think that is even the issue. It is essential for him and his followers to brand media as the enemy. As long as they are angry and against him it works for him, ie his followers see any negative repirting as hit jobs by spoiled liberal journos. They don't realize that they are helping him with all the outraging.

Re: White House Bars NYT, CNN, and Politico from Briefing

#380

Post by alphabettsy »

kylewest wrote: post #254
alphabettsy wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The largest media outlets in the country being denied access to the WH Press Room?

at times there is literally one reporter in the room (MLK Bust story). I'm not arguing they should be excluded forever, just think all perspective is lost when dealing with Trump. Somehow CNN being excluded from a gaggle turns into Trump being a dictator at war with the 1st amendment. Maybe he is, and maybe this is a tiny piece of a multi-year plot. Or maybe not.

At times..but that's not what we're talking about. Why should they be excluded at all? Regardless if it's a multi-year plot or just throwing a fit, it's unacceptable. One of factors behind Trump becoming President is how much time the media spent on him because of his unusual campaign style and rhetoric, and now he wants to pick and choose the media allowed to cover him to suit his narrative and it doesn't work that way.

What I don't understand is why so many tolerate his lies.

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