lostfan

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Oct 26, 2016 -> 03:11 PM) It started there, and then some digging found that it was nationwide. And it should still be considered a scandal because whistle blowers are coming out 2 years later saying the numbers are still cooked and wait times aren't getting any better. To me Obama deserves major blame for that (which he does not get) because he took an active role to fix the problem but hasn't done any follow-up. He basically canned the top guy, replaced him, had the new guy replace a bunch of underlings but the results and fake numbers are still taking place. Nothing was fixed. Sure, that's fair. That's really something that needs a nationwide discussion on major reform and nobody really did anything substantive, and he was in charge.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 26, 2016 -> 02:45 PM) Kelly just last night was asking Newt about Trump being a sexual predator. I sure don't even remember the reverse of something like that. I dunno what you're getting at here. You mean another network going after Clinton? There's really not a Democratic equivalent of Fox News, but since most people think it's MSNBC I'll use them - Andrea Mitchell hates the Clintons and s***s on them fairly regularly. Gingrich embarrassed himself SO bad in that interview. If I didn't hate him so much it would've been painful to watch.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Oct 26, 2016 -> 01:18 AM) I have had a very strange relationship with this neighbor. About 6-7 years ago we got new next door neighbors at my mom's house that I grew up in. We were both very friendly from the beginning. Fast forward a couple years and I see them come into the restaurant/brewery I bartended at right by our houses. After this, every time they come in, they ask to sit with me. They'd come in, we'd talk and laugh they would spend about $40-50, tip me 25-40% and we'd go on with our lives. They are a mid 60's couple and I would mostly talk to the wife. He is retired Chicago PD. The guy would say some strange stuff to me. Stuff about race, women, etc. He was mostly quiet when they were out to eat. My mom despised the guy though. She is a shy nurse that barely talks about others unless she's saying positive things. She claimed he was giving her dirty looks, claims he was rude, etc. My dad and I basically told her she's just imagining it, don't worry about it. So then I was a junior in college and I was still driving the remains of the family car my dad told I have three months to buy a car as the family car was going to my other sister. So I buy a car but at this point I am living and working in the city so my car is down there. The family car that I used to drive stayed parked in front of one of two slabs of street in front of my house. After I graduate and work I go back for another degree and move back to the suburbs. So I haven't seen my neighbors much if at all the last few years and they probably don't even know I have a new car. With the silver pos in front of the big slab of street in front of my house, my parents in the garage/driveway, I have to part in the street. So I park on the other slab of street in front of my house. This spot is about 80% in front of my house and 20% in front of the aforementioned neighbors house. The street is public. I park there for several weeks, maybe even months I am not sure. My car is always parked as close to my house as possible. All of a sudden, I'd come home after work and he'd be parked in the spot. Sometimes with his Mercedes and sometimes with his F350. His truck would nearly protrude our driveway because it's so massive. When we back out to exit the neighborhood, we have to back out around his truck as it sits a foot off our driveway. To what started as something he did every once in a while, he now parks there more than I do. The dumbest part is, he has two spots in the garage, an open driveway and only two cars. When I would park in the spot, he would just park in his garage. When he would park in the spot, I would rotate parking in front of a couple other neighbors houses. So I get feel like I am annoying someone every time I get in and out of my car. Last couple weeks his truck hasn't moved from "my spot." A couple weekends ago, I moved my car out of the spot, picked up a friend who lives in the neighborhood, dropped him off to the closest bar to our houses and went back home. It was 11 minutes roundtrip. I came back, his truck is there and his garage is closing as I pull up. This is at noon on a Sunday. I'm convinced the guy is watching the spot on his elaborate set of security cameras. At this point, I've had enough. I am not going to be an asshole because my parents have to live next to this guy after I do but I I decided I needed to talk to him. I planned to be friendly and then change the subject to basically asking him how he sees the situation. I'm mowing the lawn and he pulls up in his other car and parks it in the driveway. I stop the mower and say "Mr. Schmo" and walk towards him. He appeared to have not hear me (I am a loud person) and closed the garage. It doesn't seem he wants to talk to me. What do I do with this guy? I had a friend recommend buying the cheapest Vespa possible and just keeping it there because the spot is big enough for my car and the vespa but not for his truck and the vespa. That would be hilarious but probably not realistic. I think you should wait until he's outside, make eye contact, whip out your dick, and pee on the spot to mark your territory.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Oct 26, 2016 -> 02:27 PM) It was more the cover-up/fake reporting numbers at all levels of the department, basically across the nation, that was the issue. That Vets get s***ty/slow service from a government run healthcare institution isn't new or surprising. I deal with Medicare and the VA a decent amount through my work (dead/injured old people/vets) and both entities are absolutely awful to deal with. I loathe the day that I actually have to deal with Medicare for my own healthcare. It was the fake numbers thing at the Phoenix VA if I recall. But the words "VA scandal" are kinda synonymous with the VA sucking now.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Oct 26, 2016 -> 02:24 PM) I don't watch Fox News, so keep that in mind when I say this, but I do think the "they're just the GOP/Conservative mouthpiece organization" is not really true as much as it was 5-6 years ago. Two people I randomly see through viral videos online, like O'Reilly and Megyn Kelly, are far from the conservative cheerleaders like Hannity. Both have gone after Trump repeatedly (Kelly especially). Beck, though not with the network now, is totally against Trump and the current GOP. Yes, they're all obviously much more conservative than their MSNBC counter-parts, but they're all not the extreme right version of conservatism either (like Hannity). You don't really get exposure to that though when you employ the blowhard extremists like Hannity who say the most outlandish things. So I agree, that's on them for the "monster" they created. O'Reilly is probably more independent of a voice than he gets credit for I think. He doesn't walk in lock step with Republicans. Beck was just on Fox to make a s***load of money. I think part of the reason Fox management has been promoting Kelly so much is to fight this perception that they're like the official communications arm of the RNC. It's a little ironic - I was paying attention during the Republican primaries and they have Fox on at work on alternating days. They were actually giving a good faith effort to kneecap Trump because they knew what was happening and didn't want to be forced to be in the position they're in now (weakly making excuses for him between rounds of attacking Clinton). But it backfired and just made primary voters like Trump more.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Oct 26, 2016 -> 12:09 PM) I think it was John Oliver that made the point - who is that movie directed to? What fan of Michael Moore needs to be convinced that Trump is a terrible choice for President? There's a larger phenomenon here I think, and people like Moore are just one part of it. The way that everything is all broken up and self-segregated in media, groups of people end up just talking to themselves, and they can't get anyone else to pay attention to them. I read a few things in the past few months where the conservative pundit class is starting to see the drawbacks of their strategy. They've been tremendously successful at creating their own media and pushing the bias angle that they've been able to influence the way the rest of the media covers stories for a while, but it's starting to have its limits. Everyone else sees Fox and other places on the internet like it are SO openly and unapologetically partisan that everyone who's not already a committed Republican basically ignores them. They start to notice that they have stories that instantly go viral and Fox News spends most of the day talking about the latest scandal, but only conservatives talk about it, and every other media outlet ignores it as partisan spin. It doesn't matter if it was a legitimate scandal or not, that's not how people perceive it. It works in reverse too. Other stories don't get into conservative media.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 26, 2016 -> 01:13 PM) Honestly, I don't think an honest effort would be put into it, as there isn't enough outrage about it. My opinion is instead of dumping more money into that busted system, just let them go to their regular doctors and hospitals outside of the VA, and have them cover their costs there, instead of just when the VA gets around to deciding it OK to seek outside treatment. I wonder would it be cheaper to just give them some form of heavily subsidized insurance, and then just have the VA do administrative stuff (GI Bill payments, VA loans, injury rates, etc.)

I don't know how whatever the "VA scandal" is supposed to have been became a political issue. (well ok, actually I do, but not the point). It's always had long wait times and been a pretty miserable experience, basically since Vietnam. I don't even know how you fix that actually.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Oct 26, 2016 -> 12:31 PM) Yet you have the Secretary taking unilateral action to "fix" the problem. It's not an excuse that it's up to Congress if ultimately someone can step forward and say, this is a bulls*** policy, we're going to stop. It's lazy to blame any President for a variety of executive/management blunders that happen 40 people down the line, I agree. Yet we do it anyway, with every President, except Obama gets a pass on it most of the time and I don't know why. The VA is STILL having major problems with wait times, 2 years after the scandal was "addressed." It's not unilateral action, it's really not his problem to fix. This is a band-aid which gives the soldiers some breathing room. Congress still needs to fix this.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Oct 26, 2016 -> 12:25 PM) Immediately fixed seems like a stretch. The ABC article makes it seem like people were b****ing for 2 years. I don't get the puppy gloves when it comes to Obama. If this were Bush circa 2005 he would have been blamed personally much like he was for the DoD's policies in Iraq/Afghanistan. Bush got blamed for those because those were POLICY decisions, which he WAS personally responsible for. Not administrative issues. The president really doesn't even have time to micromanage the DoD.

1. The Obama administration doesn't manage the CA Guard, California manages the CA Guard. 2. The DoD manages itself administratively most of the time, even moreso than most government agencies because it's so big. It has its own internal bureaucracy. That's how they discovered the issue of fraudulent bonuses in the first place. The result was at least one court martial (to my knowledge) and a prison sentence. 3. The DoD's budget (which was the issue here) comes from the NDAA every year, which is authorized by Congress. They hadn't yet, for whatever reason. It's really lazy to just default to "Obama f***ed up." When it got high-level attention they took action.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Oct 26, 2016 -> 12:05 PM) Just like the VA scandal, which still continues without much coverage, Obama gets yet another pass on some terrible management/policies when it comes to our vets. How does no one in his administration raise a hand and say this is bulls*** and a terrible idea? Ashton Carter is not a part of the Obama administration? That's news to me. I thought Secretary of Defense was a Cabinet position. It's not?

Congress is ultimately gonna have to be the ones who resolve this, but it's good that the SECDEF stepped in. This would have been considered a breach of contract if it worked in the other direction, and while I get why the CA Guard was trying to get the money back (it's the law), this was pretty f***ed up. http://abcnews.go.com/US/secretary-defense...ory?id=43070700

QUOTE (shysocks @ Oct 26, 2016 -> 10:54 AM) We begin with Election 2016, or as it's also known, "Something Depressing Peppered with a Couple of Naughty Words, Description Getting Progressively Longer as Weeks Progress 2016." hahahaha Only 2 more weeks of him having to lead with election garbage... in his defense though, he did refuse to pretend the nonstop Trump stories were worthy of talking about for a whole year, until it really was time.

QUOTE (Brian @ Oct 26, 2016 -> 10:45 AM) I like the Jon Oliver show but I don't find his comedy that funny. His material and subjects are so well done though. I need to read all the posts before I respond because I am just repeating other people's points. I don't know that Oliver is necessarily trying to be all that funny, he's just adding levity to keep his audience interested while he talks about boring (but important) s*** like the prison system, or local newspapers covering state legislatures, or corrupt pharmaceutical laws.

QUOTE (bmags @ Oct 26, 2016 -> 10:32 AM) But, sir, you are missing good Jon Stewart from 2008-2010 of Jon Stewart vs. Financial Press. Yeah, that stuff was good, but I think his best work was when Bush was in office.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 26, 2016 -> 10:25 AM) Neither Oliver nor Bee attempts to be Stewart, yet they have their own voice and can nail some unbeatable moments. That's what keeps me tuning in. Yeah, Oliver is on his own show and can do things his own way, which is more or less a type of long-form comedy journalism. Bee does something like that, too. Stewart never really wanted to be taken that seriously (he would never have led a 7-minute segment on how superdelegates work for example). Noah is shoehorned and doesn't have that kind of freedom.

QUOTE (CrimsonWeltall @ Oct 26, 2016 -> 10:16 AM) I think he's borderline unwatchable. His comedic delivery is awful, and he isn't capable of the genuine righteous indignation on serious topics that Stewart was. 0/2 This is what I'm talking about. He's not Stewart. He can't BE Stewart. People gotta let him be who he is instead of comparing him to how closely he can approximate Stewart's delivery. He can't.

QUOTE (bmags @ Oct 26, 2016 -> 10:12 AM) I don't know man. He's just not good, and I think 80% of that is writing (daily show itself started to fall off after 2010 imo when Stewart started believing his own hype that he was uniquely wise and the true reasonable american), but they also don't have the correspondent pipeline they used to have. But then there is Noah. His cadence is strange, comedically, he tends to swallow the punch lines instead of emphasize them... but also it just feels like the daily show just doesn't have a point of view anymore. It started out with Kilbourn skewing the news, stewart skewed politicians and news, but now it just seems to peddle nowthis meme outrage fodder. Back in my day. I think Stewart was a specific person for a specific time. Before Bush was elected the Daily Show was basically what it is now (without the viral factor), but then 9-11 happened and we had that years-long period of absurdity with the Bush administration and Republicans, and his show evolved into a type of salve for liberals to cope with until we could get our own people back in charge. Once Obama was elected, that wasn't really needed anymore, and since Stewart never actually WANTED to be this cultural focal point, he recognized it was a good time to move on so he stepped down. There really isn't any re-creating the Daily Show from, say, 2002-2008. That time is now past.

QUOTE (Brian @ Oct 26, 2016 -> 09:52 AM) The Daily Show dropped the ball by not hiring Samantha Bee after Stewart left. If she was interested in it. Her TBS show kills it. I mean, I don't think people are really giving Trevor Noah his due. He's doing a solid job, but people are ignoring him, and any praise people give for him is muted with "but I really miss Stewart..." They won't let him be his own guy.

Cleveland: We want a championship. We've suffered too long. Devil: Okay. I can get you one in 2016, you have to host the Republicans. That's my price. Cleveland: Okay, we can live with that. Devil: The Republicans will be nominating Donald Trump. Cleveland: We want 2 championships.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Oct 25, 2016 -> 04:04 PM) I have always found it interesting that supposedly millions upon millions of dead people vote, and none of them vote for republicans. This always comes up every election and it's always easily debunked with common sense but they love their conspiracy theories. 1. Almost all the time those dead people who are actually dead cast their vote, then died a few weeks/months later. 2. Of course there are dead people on voting rolls, because they just died. People don't even update their drivers licenses 2 years after they move and they act confused on how deceased people don't get immediately purged from the rolls. 3. If Democrats could rig elections so easily why do they let themselves get their asses kicked all the time? Like if they did it for anything other than cheating to get Obama elected it would be too obvious?

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Oct 25, 2016 -> 02:37 PM) The Obama photo killed me. That's the best part lol. As if to say "nobody ever acknowledged the White Sox after that, except the President of the United States, frequently, in public"

QUOTE (Lip Man 1 @ Oct 25, 2016 -> 01:59 PM) The coverage of the Sox during the 2005 playoff run was sustained and professional. It was not like the Cubs are getting now though with "over the top" hype, goofiness and unprofessionalism (i.e. reporters wearing Cub jerseys etc.) And I for one was happy about that. Now I grant you, certain organizations and individuals were not happy the Sox had gone as far as they did but never the less they did cover them. Mark Mariotti probably being the sole exception. I think they got about the appropriate amount of coverage in the Chicago media.

In the 70s, the whole theory of trickle-down/supply side economics was considered crackpot s***, but Reagan made it mainstream. I don't know if that's considered "Austrian economics" or if it's just something that gets rolled into that for convenience's sake.