Posts Made By: James Brown

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

"A bipartisan Senate report released Tuesday affirms the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusions that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election in a far-ranging influence campaign approved by Russian President Vladimir Putin and aimed at helping Donald Trump win the White House."

"The report rejects Trump’s claims that the intelligence community was biased against him when it concluded that Russia had interfered on his behalf in the election. It says instead that intelligence officials had specific information that Russia preferred Trump in the election, that it sought to denigrate Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton and that Putin had “approved and directed aspects” of the Kremlin’s influence campaign."


https://apnews.com/article/d094918c0421b872eac7dc4b16e613c7

You are intentionally missing the point.   A majority of Democrats believe that Clinton would have won but for Russian collusion and interference.   Do you still believe that?   I imagine you did at one point.   No report, including the one you cite, supports the conclusion that Trump's victory was illegitimate.   The big lie was not about Russian meddling on the fringes.  Russian meddling always happens on the fringes and has never affected the outcome of any election.   The Democrat's big lie is that Russian interference (originally articulated as being in collusion with the Trump campaign) actually stole the election.   Do I need to post about a thousand articles from 2016-2018?

Similarly, there is always some background level of election fraud.  Does the factual existence of minor and insignificant election fraud support Trump's stolen 2020 election lie?   Hardly.

Originally Posted by Richard Davis

What is my political point of view?  Please do elaborate.  

Since you asked nicely with adult language, I'll reply.   But please note I twice said political point of view and rhetorical style. 

I think your political point of view is extreme right wing-libertarian, to the point where both parties offer far more government that you would prefer.  You simply do not trust any aspect of the government.  You want far less regulation, far less taxation, strong national defense, and you demand an air-tight border to the extent possible.   You despise Republican spending policies, but you think the Rs are more aligned with your point of view than the Ds.  So you vote R even though you are not an R.

You know that Trump has significant character flaws, but since you believe Biden is an abject criminal profiting freely from his own graft and corruption you think Biden is orders of magnitude less fit than Trump to be president.

You despise DEI, wokeness, and the "smug bastards" in academia.  You know they despise you too.  Therefore you see Trump as a pugilist on "your side."   You see the world as a dichotomy where no one left of the far right has any legit policy positions whatsoever.   You personalize this to the extent that in your view every political figure left of the far right is objectively evil.  In addition, this causes you to view every action taken against Trump as a witch hunt.

Because of this, and because you are simply an unpleasant guy, your rhetorical style is extremely hostile and rife with cursing, name calling, mockery and the like.  You regularly deal in logical fallacies or outright deception.  You just ignore it when you are proven wrong.  You have no interest in dialog, or making friends with fellow hobbyists.  You have no interest in understanding the positions of those you disagree with.

Frankly, your political position is no problem.   Your rhetorical style is.   It is a total deal breaker for any reasonable discussion.   Reasonable discussion is not your thing though.

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

Frankly, I think you're missing the point. The belief that Russian interference deliberately influenced the outcome of the 2016 election is grounded in reality whereas the claims of Trump and the majority of Republicans that the 2020 election was stolen is not and never has been.
 
I, and I suspect most Democrats, believe the Russians illegitimately influenced the outcome of the 2016 election but that does not mean I or others think the election of Trump in 2016 was illegitimate and neither did Hillary Clinton who conceded so on the day after the election, unlike Trump who has never conceded his legitimate defeat.

The polls I linked to asked whether the respondent believed Russian interference changed the outcome of the 2016 election.  As of 2022, a large majority (72%) of Ds do indeed believe Russian interference changed the outcome of the 2016 election.  

This was the central theme of the post election collusion lie.  That the outcome was changed and that Trump was an illegitimate president.   I personally think one has to engage in some serious revisionist history to see otherwise.  MSNBC ran with nothing else for three years!   Adam Schiff built his career on this big lie.  Clinton called Trump an illegitimate president many times.  Her sense of self is entirely predicated upon being screwed out of the presidency by nefarious means.

Bottom line, both Ds and Rs are equally susceptible to a big lie to explain why they lost an election they desperately wanted to win.  These 72% are otherwise normal people, very few of them are Jan 6 criminals.  Why do these majorities of otherwise relatively normal Ds and Rs believe unsupported conspiracy theories hatched by losing politicians in the wake of an electoral disappointment? I think the blame lies in some mix of human nature and tribalism, exacerbated by self-inflicted information bubbles, fed by a completely bifurcated and biased press,  and instigated by low-grade scum politicians that thrive in the muck our balkanized system has become.

Originally Posted by Brian McFarland

You forgot to include his charming homophobia and misogyny traits.

Only so much time in the day...

Originally Posted by Jim Moscheck

Even as a casual college basketball fan it was painful to watch Purdue's historic loss to FDU last night. I'm sure much more so for Jim Brown. Their season started out so good and ended so badly. I'm sure it must have been a long bus ride home. Only the second time a #1 seed has lost to a #16.

With the three big upsets so far I'm sure there aren't too many brackets still intact.

Hi Jim M.

I'm walking on air today!   Detroit was very good to the Boilermakers.  Thank you so much for the condolences last year - the wounds are finally healed!   It was interesting to peruse the thread you started a year ago.  

This vid won't mean that much to a casual fan, but I was totally choked up last night when I rewatched it!  I couldn't talk without tears.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RseIaweDbWM  (turn the sound up!)

Can't wait for next weekend, if we make it, the finals are eclipse night.   I'll get to watch both the Saturday and Monday games with my 90+ year old parents.   That will be really cool win or lose.   As of right now, the eclipse weather forecast looks about as good as one could hope for too!

Originally Posted by Jim Moscheck

We watched the game yesterday cruising in the middle of the Caribbean ocean on our way to Curaçao. I was thinking of you. Go Boilermakers!

Michigan has to settle for the final four in college hockey. I think they play Denver next. The Boston College/Boston U game should be pretty good too.

Well, that and the football national championship....   Michigan basketball picked up a gem of a coach after the regular season too.  They'll be back.   

My wife and I have gone on scuba dive vacations in Bonaire a couple of times.  Right next to Curacao.  If there is time, try to get in a snorkeling trip while you are there.   The reefs in the Bonaire/Curacao/Aruba region, right of the beach, are very healthy and spectacular.

Originally Posted by Jim Moscheck

Bonaire tomorrow and Aruba on Wednesday. Didn’t book any snorkeling excursions since I’m still recovering from the knee surgery in December. Four month recovery period , but still can’t bend my knee fully, almost but not quite there. My son is a musician/drummer in one of the venues onboard and we’ve seen him play more in five days than we did the previous decade. It’s only rock and roll and I like it. We’ve only seen him play jazz or classical in the past few years. Wish I could post a video as the band is really good. A management team put together the band from applicants from around the world in December and they got onboard in January. He’s got one more cruise here then they reposition to the west coast. He’s done in June, then goes out three weeks later with a new band to do Alaska, Japan, Hawaii, and then Australia until just before Christmas.

That is really cool!  Bon voyage!

We really lucked out in south central Indiana on Monday.   Nearly blue sky through the whole eclipse with maybe the slightest wisps of high cloud some of the time.   Venus and Jupiter were clearly visible a few minutes before totality, and a couple of proms shined like rubies during totality.   Very cool.  The proms are in my photos, but washed out.   I needed a couple shorter exposures.   This is a composite of a 1/350 second and a 1/45 second image with a Canon SL2 and a tiny 70 mm William Optics refractor.   I hope the weather was OK wherever you were, if you tried to see the eclipse.  Texas looked pretty dicey.  

Unfortunately, I used up all my luck on the weather and Purdue lost in the national championship game.   No worries there though, U Conn is incredibly good, and it was a heck of a lot better than last year!  Jim

Originally Posted by James Brown

We really lucked out in south central Indiana on Monday.   Nearly blue sky through the whole eclipse with maybe the slightest wisps of high cloud some of the time.   Venus and Jupiter were clearly visible a few minutes before totality, and a couple of proms shined like rubies during totality.   Very cool.  The proms are in my photos, but washed out.   I needed a couple shorter exposures.   This is a composite of a 1/350 second and a 1/45 second image with a Canon SL2 and a tiny 70 mm William Optics refractor.   I hope the weather was OK wherever you were, if you tried to see the eclipse.  Texas looked pretty dicey.  

Unfortunately, I used up all my luck on the weather and Purdue lost in the national championship game.   No worries there though, U Conn is incredibly good, and it was a heck of a lot better than last year!  Jim

Here is a diamond ring shot.

We really lucked out in south central Indiana on Monday.  Nearly blue sky through the whole eclipse with maybe the slightest wisps of high cloud some of the time.  Venus and Jupiter were clearly visible a few minutes before totality, and a couple of proms shined like rubies during totality.  Very cool.  The proms are in my photos, but washed out.  I needed a couple shorter exposures.  This is a composite of a 1/350 second and a 1/45 second image with a Canon SL2 and a tiny 70 mm William Optics refractor.  I hope the weather was OK wherever you were, if you tried to see the eclipse.  Texas looked pretty dicey.