US Politics Mega-thread - Page 8531

On August 23 2017 22:46 Simberto wrote:


And who would that new free press unlimited by ideology be? Fox News? Breitbart?

On August 23 2017 22:48 Plansix wrote:
But when they do, you will just claim they are biased. Because journalists already report the news now and you don't like the content. The cycle of attacking the press is self sustaining.

On August 23 2017 22:57 Plansix wrote:
Its not the press's job to create unity. When that happens, we have the NYT and Fox News all pushing the Iraq war narrative.

On August 23 2017 22:51 Danglars wrote:

The veneer is exposed, and the underbelly is not a pretty sight. It seems everybody is confident a President can act so flippantly and narcissistically to cause real harm, but when conservative posters apply the same rational analysis to the role of the press in a democracy, everybody has trouble putting two and two together. They should've had more wisdom to know rooting for your gal will inspire backlash that is more retributive than balanced, and it should surprise nobody. From a political digest for the sense of thought process the belies this state of affairs:


The Guardian
The Federalist

I think there's reason to hope a new generation brings more unity (and thanks OnSlaught for showing the hatred of the counterprotestors and mob mentality of the Trump supporters at the rally).

On August 23 2017 11:16 Plansix wrote:
The times article about McConnell has more meat to it. The GOP needs to kiss their agenda goodbuy because they won't get shit done with Trump. Time for veto proof bills.

President Donald Trump’s approval rating has hit a new low following a week in which a majority of voters believe he did more to divide the country than unite it, a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll shows.

Only 39 percent of voters approve of the job Trump is doing in this week’s poll — conducted entirely following the president’s various scripted and impromptu reactions to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia — down from 44 percent just a week ago. Fifty-six percent of voters disapprove in the new poll, up from 52 percent last week.

Much of the decline in Trump’s approval rating appears to have come from self-identified Republican voters — 73 percent, down from 81 percent last week. By contrast, the president’s approval rating slid just a single point among Democrats and independents.

Trump’s previous overall low — a 40 percent rating — was two weeks ago.

The poll was conducted last Thursday through Saturday, all following Trump’s comments on the violence that claimed the life of a woman protesting against white supremacists and neo-Nazis, but before his address Monday night outlining his strategy for the war in Afghanistan.

With the poll going into the field five days after the violence in Charlottesville, 52 percent of voters say they have heard a lot about the events there, and half say they have heard a lot about Trump’s responses.

Despite the slide in the president’s approval rating, much of the reaction to the events in Charlottesville and his responses tracks closely with views of the president’s job performance. A 43 percent plurality of voters blame the white nationalist protesters most for the violence, but nearly as many, 36 percent, say both the white nationalists and the counterprotesters are equally to blame. Nine percent blame the counterprotesters most.

Among those who approve of Trump’s job performance, only 15 percent assign more blame to the white nationalists. Fifty-six percent of voters who approve of Trump’s job performance blame both groups equally, and another 15 percent blame the counterprotesters.

Among those who disapprove of Trump, however, 65 percent assign more blame to the white nationalists.

More respondents think Trump’s reaction to the events — condemning hate groups but also citing good and bad people on both sides of the protests — was inappropriate than those who think it was appropriate. But it’s not overwhelming: 37 percent of voters call Trump’s reaction appropriate, compared with 46 percent who say it was inappropriate.

At a minimum, however, Charlottesville was a missed opportunity for Trump, said Kyle Dropp, Morning Consult’s co-founder and chief research officer. Fifty-three percent of voters say Trump’s reaction did more to divide the country.

“Responding to national tragedies often provides presidents ground to rise above politics and demonstrate leadership,” Dropp said. “In his remarks on Charlottesville, President Trump missed that opportunity to appeal to constituencies who don’t already side with him, according to our polling. A large majority of Democrats, 71 percent, found his reaction to be inappropriate. And just 16 percent of voters overall say that his response was unifying.”

Trump is at the lowest point of his presidency, but the poll also shows — on some measures — that majorities of voters have low opinions of his character and competence. Fifty-one percent of voters say Trump is not a strong leader. Fifty-three percent say he is not moral. Fifty-five percent say he isn’t stable. Fifty-eight percent of voters call him reckless. Fifty-two percent say he isn’t honest. Fifty-two percent say Trump doesn’t care about people like them. Fifty-six percent say he can’t unite the country.

The president’s standing isn’t much better on other questions. Only 41 percent say he is knowledgeable, compared with 47 percent who say he isn’t. Just 35 percent say he keeps his promises; 49 percent say he doesn’t. Forty-one percent say he is capable, but 48 percent say he isn’t.

On Trump’s political future, only 26 percent of voters say they think he will win reelection. A narrow majority, 51 percent, say he won’t. The remaining 23 percent have no opinion.

Trump opponents are fairly confident in his ouster: 79 percent of those who disapprove of his job performance say he won’t be reelected. By comparison, 58 percent of Trump approvers think he’ll win reelection — though 79 percent of those who strongly approve of Trump think he’ll capture a second term.

Asked whom they would rather see as president, voters overall pick Vice President Mike Pence over Trump, 34 percent to 30 percent — with a 35 percent plurality undecided. But a majority of GOP voters, 58 percent, would rather have Trump as president, compared with 28 percent who picked Pence.

The poll surveyed 1,987 registered voters and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

On August 23 2017 23:54 KwarK wrote:
They need to learn how to handle PR better. If anything gets onto Twitter before your official story then the shit on Twitter is what "actually happened" and nobody will ever change the minds of most of the people who heard it.

The US navy is to relieve the commander of the 7th Fleet of duty following a series of collisions in Asia according to multiple reports.

Three star admiral Joseph Aucoin will be removed from his role, an official told Reuters.

“An expedited change in leadership was needed,” the official said, explaining the thinking behind the decision.

The Navy declined comment on any plans to relieve Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal and has since been carried by multiple US outlets.

The news comes after a collision involving the USS John McCain last week that left ten sailors missing. In June the USS Fitzgerald crashed into a cargo ship, leaving seven US sailors dead.

US navy divers have found human remains inside the sealed compartments of a warship that was hit by an oil tanker off the coast of Singapore, the commander of the US Pacific fleet has said.

Admiral Scott Swift said the Malaysian navy, which is helping with the search, had also reported finding a body. He said the US navy was in the process of establishing whether any of the remains could be identified as one of 10 sailors reported missing after the incident.

The USS John S McCain and the Alnic MC tanker collided as the warship was nearing Singapore for a routine port call. The collision tore a hole in the ship’s port side at the waterline, flooding compartments that included a crew sleeping area.

On Tuesday, ships and aircraft from an international search-and-rescue operation were still looking for the missing sailors in an area to the east of Singapore and the Malaysia peninsula near to where the accident took place.

With the ship now docked in Singapore, US navy and marine divers joined the search, moving into rooms of the ship that had been damaged and sealed off.

On August 23 2017 23:21 KwarK wrote:
Danglars, if everyone looks like a leftist from where you're standing then the odds are good that you're standing pretty far right. Consider the logical implications of the alternative. Half the press would need to be as far right as the furthest right person and the other half would need to be as far left as the furthest left person. Only then would all people see an equally divided press. The fact that you don't see them as equally divided does not show the system has failed, it shows that you're not standing above the central fulcrum.

On August 24 2017 00:16 Danglars wrote:

If everybody looks like a leftist, it might be because only 7% polled identify as Republicans, and the precipitous decline happened in the modern era. Statistics show unhappy logical implications. Science can do that sometimes.