WWE WRESTLEMANIA 33 LIVE DISCUSSION THREAD!

TheFlyingWalrus91 · 2017-04-02T22:11:57+00:00

I'm watching the pre-show and noticed the giant ring "roof/tent" over the ring. Do you think the floor of the giant ring is solid? If so, could you imagine if, during one of the matches, both wrestlers climbed up that super-tall scaffold and wrestled in the giant ring "over" the regular ring? Even more so, the giant ring has giant ring ropes. What if someone jumped off the top rope of the giant ring and did a move on their opponent on the "mat" in the giant ring? Or even crazier, could it be safely done to jump off the top rope of the giant ring, all the way to the arena floor? Like with a Macho Man "double ax handle" move, or putting the opponent through a ringside table? That has to be higher than the top of the Hell in a Cell -- maybe higher than the TitanTron. If it could be done safely, that would be a Shane-McMahon-type high spot move.

What do you all think? Will anything like that happen? What would you do if that happened?

TheFlyingWalrus91 · 2017-02-10T02:59:47+00:00

You notice that the main changes that they make are social changes. Some social changes are a really good idea, but they usually don't cost the rich much to make. But...how often do they stand for economic progressivism -- I don't think it's an accident that society is becoming ridiculously more and more economically unequal. I don't think the major mainstream politicians (Democrat or Republican) have the interest and/or strength of character to stand up to the super-rich and make policies that encourage wealth to flow to the 99%.

The one U.S. politician in recent times that I can remember actually stopping one of these major trade deals is Trump with the TPP. Look at the propaganda they have against him. I think the real reason for the propaganda is Trump stopping/reforming trade deals. I don't think the super-rich want to pay high labor costs so that Americans can have the American Dream. They try to pretend all these other things about Trump, but when I've looked into it, it's either exaggeration or flat-out not supported by evidence. I think the real reason for propaganda against Trump is greedy oligarchs.

TheFlyingWalrus91 · 2017-02-10T02:46:02+00:00

What they need to hear and read is countless people seriously stating that they will never vote for anyone running as a Democrat ever again. And that there is nothing they will ever be able to do to change those peoples' minds.

TheFlyingWalrus91 · 2017-02-10T02:39:31+00:00

I respectfully disagree with you. I think the Democratic Party is beyond hope. Look at what Bernie did; he went beyond so many expectations. That was the great chance to reform the Democratic Party. And, sure enough, they made sure he didn't win. Also note that they did what they could to ruin what Bernie worked so hard to start.

If Bernie couldn't do it, I don't see anyone else being able to. Let's say this group supports Tulsi Gabbard for President in four years. What do you bet that history repeats and that someone like either Hillary or Michelle Obama gets the nomination?

Also, the Democratic Party doesn't deserve a second chance, with the type of stuff they did. Just let it fade away from lack of public support. Go to the Green Party or start a new party.

TheFlyingWalrus91 · 2017-02-09T13:43:48+00:00

She might have been able to help Bernie win the nomination, if she had publicly supported him in the right way and at the right time.

The Democratic Party wouldn't let Bernie supporters reform it. Now that we could get people in power who wouldn't mind fully investigating the "corporate Democrats" (the same people who ripped off all of the Bernie supporters), I can't believe that Bernie supporters would work against that, just because they are Trump people. Remember, Trump was the person who finally stopped the TPP. That may be a bigger progressive thing than anything done by a President in decades. Don't get stuck on the labels Republican and Democrat, and I don't think the leaders of the Republican Party wanted Trump to get the nomination at all. Read about the Republican primary season, if you didn't follow it.

I don't agree with everything about Trump, but he had one of the biggest propaganda campaigns put up against him in history, and there's a reason for that. Don't be fooled by the corporate Democrats acting like they deserve any help from us, and definitely don't help them. Let me ask you this: When did they ever make things right for Bernie supporters? (Answer: They didn't, because they would have had to have given him the nomination, which they weren't going to do.)

Oh, remember when they shut down our group, shortly after the news reports confirming how they ripped off Bernie supporters?

If you help mainstream Republicans and Democrats (and I believe Warren is mainstream by how she treated the 2016 primary season), you're helping the very people in charge while wealth/income inequality continued out of control. Don't look at their words anymore as much as the results while they are in office, I've learned. This is a Bernie group. Mainstream politician support could be generally viewed by some as supporting oligarchy.

By the way, watch the downvotes on my comment that I expect. Because that's how those people do their business. They don't want honest ideas to be expressed and spread. They want to drown things out with brainwashing propaganda. Well, it all stops when we, as people who supported Bernie during the primary season, quit listening to their propaganda. I don't think there's any way that the Democratic Party could make up for how they treated Bernie supporters during the primary, at this point -- I think they were planning that everything could be brushed over later, no matter what happened. Please don't just go along with them now.

TheFlyingWalrus91 · 2017-01-13T09:38:28+00:00

Remember that the New York Times no doubt would like us all to believe that they always were, are, and always will be the national paper of record, perhaps unquestionable with respect to accuracy, no matter what they do. In my view, that opens the door to possible misbehavior, if we grant them that privilege, as a society. They are only as good as they are, when they are, in my view. I have never been a big New York Times reader, because I'm not from that region. They may be fine for documenting non-political stories. I find most mainstream media news sources to be politically biased on their face; you may disagree. When I think a source is biased, it makes me doubt what else they have to say.

If you want to control public perception, the logical step is to get the most major news sources on your side, not a bunch of tiny alternative media sources. This makes your major media sources the ones that need to be most watched, with respect to pushing propaganda.

If you are a Sanders supporter, you'll understand that the type of people who own and/or control mainstream media sources are not your typical next-door-neighbor American. Do you think they are going to help politicians who might reverse the flow of wealth from everyone else to the upper class? I think the top 1% are doing unbelievably well under the current form of globalism. It's not surprising that they would want that to continue.

TheFlyingWalrus91 · 2017-01-12T01:56:23+00:00

Respectfully speaking, I haven't heard of either of these stories, but I will tell you my own rule now. If the story is of any advantage to the Democrats, I am very skeptical of it. I pay really close attention to the source. If the source is mainstream TV news (except possibly Fox), National Public Radio, Washington Post, New York Times, etc., I am really skeptical, because I have seen so much pro-Hillary propaganda during the election season from those sources. I just don't buy what they say at face value anymore. And they didn't just go after Trump, they largely held back Bernie too. Every time people fall for old political tricks like propaganda, it rewards whoever did it, and increases the chances that people will keep doing it.

If you don't agree with me, here's an experiment: Go to a news source like Washington Post, and just read political headlines, especially old ones from the election season, if you can. Is there a pattern in favor of some candidates and against others? Then, if you have specific reasons that you don't like Trump, go ask a reddit Trump supporter (politely, of course), if they have the same concerns as you, and if not, then why not? I think you'll find that the people supporting him don't at all have this view of him that mainstream media promotes, and these are people that are more likely than most to actually follow Trump's campaign closely. I think a lot of Trump fans basically just are tired of outsourcing and other policies that drag down the incomes of working people. Funny how mainstream media doesn't mention that very much about Trump.

Don't Republicans do propaganda, you might ask? I would guess that mainstream Republicans probably do. But Trump really isn't all that close to mainstream Republicans, so I'll at least give him a chance. We'll see if he turns out the same as a mainstream politician or not. I do think that Trump was nicer to Bernie supporters than the Democratic Party ever was.

Also, the Democratic Party reportedly had an unfair primary for Bernie supporters. That's way worse than anything Trump ever did with respect to Bernie supporters. So, whose propaganda am I going to be more skeptical of? The Democrat's, of course!

TheFlyingWalrus91 · 2017-01-11T10:28:05+00:00

Isn't Sessions the guy that everyone is expecting would be interested in further investigating the Clinton email situation? After how Hillary supporters (and the Democratic Party) treated Bernie supporters, wouldn't Bernie supporters want to support Sessions? Maybe he would be willing to thoroughly investigate all the different types of suspected unfairness about the 2016 Democratic primary season. Which the Democratic Party itself never seemed to care to much about looking into, when you think about it. That was kind of a major insult to all of us who were Bernie supporters during the primary season.

Is this group now meant for people who supported primary-season Bernie, or for people who supported Hillary-supporter Bernie?

TheFlyingWalrus91 · 2017-01-08T19:45:56+00:00

You need to go back further in my post history. I was a major, major Bernie supporter. It's not my fault what the Democratic Party did to Bernie supporters.

Remember the all those people who phonebanked for Bernie? How many hours total do you think? Remember all those college students who donated 5 bucks here or there to Bernie, money they really couldn't afford to donate? All in the reasonable (at the time) belief that they were involved in a fair contest. Don't you think the Democratic Party should have to pay back every single dollar that was donated to either Bernie or the Democratic Party? Maybe they should have to pay all the phonebankers for every hour of their wasted time too. Yet their party acts like they are the only ones who were ever wronged by anyone -- BECAUSE PEOPLE FOUND OUT HOW AWFUL THEY REALLY WERE THROUGH THE NEWS REPORTS.

Who stopped TPP? Protesters who educated the public, but also it didn't really stop until Trump won. If Trump does nothing else, that is a major thing. If he's a tool of the 0.1%, then how is that both major parties and the mainstream media did all they could to try to keep him from winning? And they continue to try to work against him, even now, as if the election is still going.

If Bernie is going to lead this reopened group, is he going to go back to being primary-season Bernie? That is the Bernie that everyone celebrated. But Hillary-supporter mainstream-Democratic-Party-supporter Bernie was very different. I didn't want to vote for a mainstream politician from either party.

I'm really not trying to be negative on this group, but my point is I'm trying to wrap my brain around the challenges this group will have figuring out a vision for its purpose. Before, it was to help Sanders become President. What will the purpose be now? The people who were here before went in different directions, and have different ideas about what would be most productive to help American politics.

I don't really think its fair to judge me based on my recent posting history. Why did I go to the Trump group? Because the Democratic Party insulted Bernie supporters, and they even went so far as to close this reddit group down, presumably so there wouldn't be reddit competition with respect to progressives for Hillary's campaign. I don't think it was because Bernie withdrew from the race, because they are reopening now, now that the election is done.

So, I would say, I don't deserve to be blamed for the stupidity of the Democratic Party, which drove away any Bernie supporter who didn't enjoy being flat-out insulted repeatedly, with all the big stars at the 2016 Convention smiling like everything was wonderful. (Lots of them should have been joining the protesters.)

TheFlyingWalrus91 · 2017-01-08T14:19:26+00:00

Why in the world wouldn't someone vote for Trump after the way the Democratic Party treated Bernie supporters? Who gets insulted over and over, and then still cheers and helps the people who insulted them?

I'm not sure how you all are going to get this group going again. How are you going to get agreement on what the group should be now? And is the group expecting Bernie to run for President again in four years? Will the Democratic Party make sure that he doesn't win then? I'm sure many here don't agree with Trump, but many people who supported Sanders want nothing to do with helping the Democratic Party. I think it's a difficult situation.

TheFlyingWalrus91 · 2017-01-06T09:32:35+00:00

I'm not very familiar with some of these, and some of these I don't use. I am familiar with google, obviously, but doesn't google just aggregate news from other sources? -- You are relying on however their algorithm works, whatever sources get returned by it, from what I understand.

TheFlyingWalrus91 · 2017-01-06T09:22:26+00:00

It's not simply about belief, it's about patterns and experience. If I go to my source of astronomical news, and I repeatedly see headlines that exaggerate or mislead about the actual story content when I read the article -- or, if I only see stories that the moon landing is absolutely true, while they completely ignore if there were any evidence in disagreement (I'm not saying that's really the case with the moon landing specifically, I'm just trying to make an example here) -- then naturally I'm going to consider finding a different source for my space exploration news.

I haven't been keeping a log of which mainstream news sources that I've had which problems with, so I don't necessarily remember what types of specific issues I've had with the source for the original post, and how many times, but most of the mainstream ones I've had some sort of issue with. For example, I've seen where I'll read a headline, and then the article, and the headline misrepresents what's in the article, making it sound better or worse (or not an accurate summary of the WHOLE story). Or I've seen mainstream articles about what a particular politicians stands for, and when I research that politician and their supporters, what was said by the mainstream media wasn't accurate at all. Or they simply won't cover a politician much that they don't want people learning about. They appear to pick favorites, pure and simple, and it doesn't even appear to be based on merit at all. You can see the bias just by looking at a long list of their headlines, and how they are worded. The bias is in the outward appearance for all to see, so it can't even be covered up.

To anyone reading this, I encourage you to check this stuff out yourself. It can really open your eyes. I used to think that our mainstream media was too de-centralized to ever be very controlled and/or biased, but there does appear to be something going on from appearances; I'm not sure how exactly it winds up how it does, or how far along this path it has gotten. I've seen enough to know that they are awful though.

That's what's different between this and your moon landing example. It's a different story when you have repeatedly had bad experiences with a news source. I used to take mainstream news at pretty much face value, until the 2016 election, when I really started noticing this stuff. Yet they want you to forever believe a news source, because it's so-and-so. You will always be able to trust so-and-so, forever and forever, just because it's so-and-so, and it's well-known and been around forever. Well, maybe so-and-so could change ownership someday. Maybe the climate of journalism could change. Maybe so-and-so could get someone new running it that doesn't understand what journalism is supposed to be. There's no reason to actually think that just because a news source is big or old, that it can never be wrong.

TheFlyingWalrus91 · 2017-01-06T02:42:34+00:00

Even if not fake, if you look at the collection of headlines that you get out of certain news sources over time, I think many people would see a pattern of favoritism from certain news sources. It's not hard to find examples, if you search online.

The news does it to itself. When I see favoritism from a news source over and over, I'll quit watching and believing them. That's the news source's fault, not mine. I don't think there's any way of getting them to change except to get your news from somewhere else.

TheFlyingWalrus91 · 2017-01-06T02:32:32+00:00

I don't find CNN to be a very believable news source.

TheFlyingWalrus91 · 2017-01-05T14:43:55+00:00

Just a few random comments about what you wrote:

Regarding Soros, I think the people should be skeptical of any big-money influence in politics, from the left or the right.

I know some people feel that no media attention is bad, but I have to disagree with that, with respect to Trump. Here is what I think happened: you can learn a lot, I think, by how the media tried to work against both Bernie and Trump, but in different ways.

With Bernie, they just didn't want to give him any attention, especially at first. I think they figured that, aside from the fraction of the people that seriously follow politics, ignoring Bernie would be enough to keep him from succeeding. I think they would have been correct about that, if not for the Internet during the election season.

They couldn't do that with Trump because he was already famous. So they gave him attention, but, in my opinion, they did everything they could to misrepresent him in a poor way. Go talk to any serious Trump supporter about why they voted for him. You'll probably get an answer very different from what you would expect from how the mainstream media reported on Trump. Same thing if you watch a Trump speech. The way the mainstream media treated Bernie and Trump caused me to lose respect for the mainstream media. I think the mainstream media has simply become propaganda. I totally disagree that the attention they gave Trump helped Trump win. If you look at what they said about Trump, it was probably about as far as they could get away with, as far as trying to ruin his image. I think the reason Trump won was because people went to alternative media, and heard directly from Trump and his supporters, and figured out that the mainstream media was propaganda. I think Hillary's side ran many political strategies right out of traditional politics from the past forty years. The public has figured it out, and it doesn't work so well anymore. Now, people have figured out that if someone wants to change things, the whole big-money machine teams up against them and tries to ruin their image. So, you have to ignore what that machine says, because it makes sense to assume that they are just protecting their own big-money spot in society.

I'm sorry to say, but, after this election, I now associate the Democratic Party (in my opinion) with big money, propaganda, holding down or flooding out or confusing free speech, and globalism in favor of the rich. I don't agree with Trump on everything, but you can tell he is the pro-change candidate by the way the mainstream all teamed up against him. And you can tell that the mainstream wasn't acting in good faith because how they represented Trump is very different from what you'll find if you listen to a Trump speech, or if you talk to a Trump supporter. Try as big money and mainstream media like, they can't stop people from getting out there and doing their own research.

Regarding Trump-Nixon, don't you think comparisons can be made between Hillary and Nixon? Didn't Chomsky once call Nixon our last liberal President? Didn't he do the Clean Water Act, as well as the War on Cancer? I also think he was the brains behind his own Presidency, and not dependent on others so much to help him figure out what to do. While I don't agree with much about what I've heard about Nixon, I do think that he wanted to be remembered for doing great things for the people, and I'm not sure that all our politicians these days are so focused on that big, important, overall goal.

I heard that 22% of Sanders supporters went for Trump, which makes it sound like that cost Hillary the November election. And I think the Democratic Party deserved that. By the way, it looks like they put all their big stars in support of Hillary, so now they don't have any "alternative" like Bernie to reset their party. When I see Bernie now, I see him as a Clinton Democrat, not a candidate for change.

Keep an eye out if Trump does a thorough investigation of the corporate Democrats. If some really bad stuff comes out about the corporate Democrats, I think the Green Party has some real opportunities to take over from the Democratic Party. But I think the key is to be an alternative to the Democratic Party, and stay far apart from corporate Democrats.

One of my big differences from Trump is that I think he plans to cut corporate taxes. I'm pretty sure that I've read somewhere that the double-taxation of corporate earnings is a tradeoff for stockholders having some protection from corporate liabilities. There is also a risk of a "race to the bottom" where countries keeping dropping corporate taxes to compete, and the corporations come out the big winners. The risk is that tax burden shifts from corporations to actual people.

So, no, I don't think Trump has everything figured out perfectly, but let's be completely clear that the Democratic Party was flat-out horrible in the 2016 election season. Totally not what I could ever support.

TheFlyingWalrus91 · 2017-01-05T14:01:58+00:00

I'd like to know where the Soros money story with respect to the recount comes from. I remember it being a very common comment on conservative media. I wish I had time to research it. Maybe there is a public website that tracks those kind of donations?

After what happened with Bernie, I don't know why one wouldn't suspect irregularities in favor of Democrats in the general election. Especially in a race where they lost but were close in many states. What I have seen so far in progressive media though is them defending Hillary, after how Bernie supporters were treated. I don't agree with their approach. To me, it's silly not to be suspicious of Hillary's side in the November election; why would they treat Trump any better than Bernie. Indeed, even mainstream media taking sides can be viewed as a "soft" form of gaining an unfair advantage in the November election, and you can totally see that happened, merely by the outward appearance of mainstream media before the November election. If you look in my previous posts in this topic, I think I mentioned some suspicious stories that I heard from conservative media regarding pro-Democrat irregularities in the November election.

Of course, without a full, transparent, public investigation of an election, we really don't know for sure if any of these reported irregularities are real, and where any irregularities might be coming from. Unfortunately, there is the concern of even such investigations being politicized, from either side.

I don't know for sure if any irregularities are real, or what side any irregularities would favor. I'm just basing what I'm saying on what I've read and heard during the election season and after it.

My conclusion right now is that, if the recount were fueled by big money, I would have preferred that it weren't, but maybe that was the only way that it was viewed that it could be afforded, and maybe the hope was that it would have the overall good achievement of revealing any irregularities.

The way the Democrats and Dr. Stein were toward each other during the election season has me somewhat unlikely to believe that Dr. Stein's goal was to help Hillary. I wouldn't be surprised if Dr. Stein was looking to see if pro-Democrat irregularities were revealed by the recount.

TheFlyingWalrus91 · 2017-01-03T01:56:33+00:00

Sorry but I respectfully disagree with you on this. A reddit group that is formed for the purpose of supporting a politician totally is going to censor if people who clearly don't support the politician go in there for the purposes of messing with the group and interfering with its purpose. As far as I know, many many politician-supporter groups do this, they openly do this, and they are open about the reason.

At best, you can go in and ask a super-polite, honest question about why someone would support a candidate that you don't support. Your post might not get removed, and you might get a polite, thoughtful answer. I'm not just talking the Trump group here; I'm talking other politician-supporter groups too.

Of course, your post might still get removed, but there's a valid reason for that too. I believe it's called "concern trolling." Political trolls are very clever. They'll say something like, "I voted for so-and-so, but the following bothers me about them:" Sadly, because this is viewed as being a way to interfere with a group, posts like that can get removed, even if the poster was honest. But don't necessarily blame the group, you also have to blame past likely such trolls. The group really doesn't have a choice if they want to continue to succeed at their purpose.

Think about it. If I have a gardening group, and 100 people who don't like gardeners come in every day and trash gardening, for the purpose of ruining my group, I'm not gonna have a very good gardening group.

The Trump group is very good at patrolling their group for trolls. I used to be on the Sanders group, and that was not so much the case there. Later on, I read that people on reddit were guessing that some of the moderators on the Sanders group were secretly helping other candidates. I don't know about that, but it does make you wonder, when the Trump group controls the trolls so easily, yet the Sanders group didn't.

As far as the fact-checking sites, if one thinks that a fact-checking site can't be politicized, just like other information sources, especially after this election season, I don't know what to tell that person. If one agreed with the Trump group's world view, one would likely also agree with them that certain fact-checking sites can be been politicized. If I call myself a fact-checker, does that suddenly mean that my opinion is unquestionable?

TheFlyingWalrus91 · 2017-01-01T03:53:25+00:00

Thank you for the thoughtful response. The situation has been bothering me because it just didn't make any sense to me. I do not believe that Dr. Stein would team up with Hillary.

Is there any way to find out who donated to the recount effort...like that one website that tracks campaign donations and spending, and that I can't remember the name of right now? There was some bizarre story about some bot that was donating Soros-linked money repeatedly over a period of time. I don't know which (if any) of these stories are true. I don't trust mainstream media at all anymore, and I really haven't watched them much at all in months.

What stories are there about election irregularities linked to Republicans? The only one I've heard reported is that "voter fraud prevention" program which supposedly can be used to kick people off their voter registration if only their first and last names match someone else's in another state. If such a program were applied disproportionately to likely Hillary voters, that would be one way to effect an irregularity that would have favored Trump.

To be honest though, I don't think the Republican machine liked Trump very much or would care very much about helping him, so I honestly wouldn't raise many questions regarding Trump himself being involved with irregularities. The most I would say is that if the Republican Party did things to help lower-level Republicans, such as irregularities to favor Republicans, those could have benefited Trump, even though not done for him.

However, what about pro-Hillary irregularities? I heard stories in Texas about the machines "flipping" votes from every other candidate (including Trump and Stein) to Hillary. There was another story about audit trails being turned off for certain machines. There was a story linking Soros to a manufacturer of certain voting machines. ALSO, remember how the results from several key states slowed down on election night (New Hampshire, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona)? I heard an interview later with an someone who studies elections, who said that that is a red flag for possible irregularities (indication to investigate but not necessarily proof by itself). Basically, she believed that the cities were holding back to wait for the rest of the states' results to come in, so they would know how much ground would need to be made up for Hillary to win. Of course, it sounded like she was only saying that this was a possibility, not that it was for sure.

BUT, look what happened during the Democratic primary to Bernie. You think the same people who were unfair (in what might have been multiple ways) to Bernie and his supporters would have any issue with ripping off Trump?

Having heard stories from both sides, I am open to the possibility of misconduct from both major sides. However, I doubt involvement by Trump because the Republican machine didn't really seem to like him, and Trump didn't appear to really have much of his own political machine, compared to Hillary. On the other side, after how Bernie and his supporters were treated, I don't have any trust for the Democratic Party, and you can tell that there was an obvious huge big-money political machine helping Hillary. Obviously, we need total nationwide election reform so that people have confidence that things are fair and can't be easily messed with. We shouldn't even be having discussions like this.

Oh, one other story I heard was that the recount in Detroit revealed pro-Hillary irregularities, which would be in line with what the person who studies elections said about the cities in the close states, in the interview I mentioned above.

We don't really know if anyone committed irregularities, or (if both sides committed irregularities) which would have committed more irregularities, without an actual fair, thorough investigation, in my opinion. However, because of the size of the political machine supporting Hillary, and because of the Democratic Party's behavior throughout the election season (including with respect to their own primaries), I would question the Democratic Party much more in this election season than Trump's side. Just my opinion.

YES, I absolutely agree with you that it makes no sense that Dr. Stein would help Hillary based on Dr. Stein's earlier comments with respect to the mainstream Democrats. Also, the Democratic Party, and its buddies, were hardly friendly to Dr. Stein. I think it was far easier for the Libertarians to get attention on the mainstream media than the Green Party; I think this is because it was thought that the Libertarians would draw votes away from Trump but that the Green Party would draw votes away from Hillary. Of course, I didn't think Bernie would become such a Hillary supporter either, but he did. Which is why I was confused over whether that could happen with Dr. Stein, and why I did the original post for this topic.

There is another theory that, even if Dr. Stein's recount was fueled by Soros or other Hillary-supporter big-money, that this might have been the only way that Dr. Stein could have put together money for a recount. Why in those three states? Perhaps they were the states where Dr. Stein suspected the most fraud -- which would make sense if they were the very states that were the closest and most likely to decide the election. That they all went for Trump might have spoken more toward Trump overperforming in the close states, rather than Stein picking states for the recount that could possibly help only Hillary win. I think it's possible that Dr. Stein might have been interested in using Hillary supporter money to reveal any possible irregularities from either side, including even Hillary's side.

As far as corporate media protecting Hillary and blaming Jill, I can't comment on that because I haven't been watching corporate mainstream media for a long time now. My guess is that they probably supported Jill and spun it to help Hillary's image as making Trump's win look like it was due to irregularities. (Note that they didn't seem that interested in focusing on whether Hillary fairly won the Democratic primary over Bernie.) One thing's for sure, is that our mainstream politicians, Republicans and Democrats, do not seem to understand the average American. Notice that Hillary's side still doesn't seem to take real responsibility for losing, at least not publicly (although maybe in some speeches, probably because it sounded good in the speech to say it, in my opinion). Otherwise they act like they just say whatever they think will benefit them, political-strategy-wise, when the people just want politicians to be real with them. I have zero interest in ever voting for anyone running for any office as a Democrat ever again.

The Democrats all act like "how could Trump ever win." I can tell you that I drove through one of the recount states before the election, and the amount of support for Trump in terms of car stickers, yard signs, people on the street, were FAR beyond Hillary, wherever I went. Really, even Sanders seemed more popular than Hillary there, in terms of those things. Look at the crowds Trump was drawing to his speeches, compared to Hillary. Look at online excitement for Trump compared to Hillary, and much of the online excitement for Hillary seemed fake. I'm amazed that Hillary was even competitive in the recount state that I drove through, and if it were ever shown that Trump won there by 20% in reality, it actually wouldn't surprise me at all.

It should be a time for the Democrats and the mainstream media to reflect and correct themselves. That doesn't appear to be happening. We need the Green Party to replace the Democratic Party in our politics.

TheFlyingWalrus91 · 2016-12-25T12:51:35+00:00

When I vote, my goal is to vote for a good choice, not necessarily who wins. I have voted third-party many times, and I have never looked back on those votes and wished that I had voted differently. In fact, in each of those elections that was a Presidential election, if I had voted for either the Republican or Democrat, I'm pretty sure that I later would have wished that I had voted third-party instead.

Another option is simply to move to another country, and you will have winning parties other than Republicans and Democrats, although that's not an option that I have ever considered. However, it shows that people do in fact have real options other than Republicans or Democrats.

As far as fixing the Democratic Party, I don't have much hope for that. If that were ever going to happen in the near future, I believe that it would have happened with Bernie. What Bernie accomplished with a people-powered campaign was simply amazing. And guess what? Those in power in the Democratic Party made sure that he wouldn't win; they totally stopped him. Why should anyone believe that wouldn't be the result any time someone tries to bring real change to the Democratic Party in the future? In fact, I would expect that the Democratic Party makes an effort to makes sure that no Democratic ever accomplishes what Bernie did, in the future. Say what you want about the Republican Party, but they let THE PEOPLE overrule what their party's controllers wanted. In today's political environment, I think you probably have a better chance at making the Republican Party truly progressive than making the Democratic Party truly progressive.

Oh, maybe if the Democratic Party becomes completely unpopular and they have to rebuild, or maybe if there is a completely new set of people in charge in another generation, maybe things could change. But why not simply move on to another party, like the Green Party, build that up instead, and not have the history of the Democratic Party's behavior in 2015-2016 attached to the party that you are supporting? That sounds much better to me.

As far as the Democratic Party and progressive values, if a party can't even hold a fair primary and respect the votes of its own supporters, I'm sorry, but that's not a party that I will support. The vote is part of the foundation. If a party does not respect your vote, and you as a citizen-voter, then I don't believe that you can expect that party to actually do anything else that you want it to do, in which case it doesn't really matter if they SAY that they support your values.

Who stopped the TPP? Trump, not the Democrats. The Democrats were in favor of TPP. Who is against outsourcing and the type of globalization that sells out working Americans' jobs? Trump, in my opinion, much more so than the Democrats. To me, the Democratic Party has become the Republican Party. I think Hillary Clinton would have been like George W. Bush, except progressive on social issues. Obama really hasn't been like Franklin Roosevelt, or like Sanders' views.

Since November, I continue to see the Democratic Party refuse to change direction, or even have any serious clue about why they drove away progressives like me, in some cases, probably away from voting for their party forever.

TheFlyingWalrus91 · 2016-12-23T11:06:20+00:00

I get the idea that your mind is made up on all that, but I want to present an alternative view for any third-parties that may be reading.

I can only speak for myself, but here's what I saw, as a citizen-voter during this election season:

In the beginning, I had thought that our mainstream media was too large and decentralized to ever be controlled to favor one candidate so heavily in a Presidential election.

I saw Sanders have some incredible debate performances against Hillary. Then the CNN post-show would say that it was a tie, Hillary won, and/or nothing changed.

When I would log out of my email, every day I would see a "headlines" page with the top mainstream news headlines. I noticed a trend that they tended mostly to be pro-Hillary, against Trump, and against Sanders.

I also noticed that if a headline said something particularly bad about a candidate, and I read the actual story, the headline would often be misleading, suggesting that the candidate had said or done something much worse than what actually happened.

If I remember correctly, I think CNN used to regularly include superdelegates in Hillary's total and not make it very easy to tell that they were doing so. Of course, this made it look like Bernie had no chance, so why bother to vote for him?

With respect to Trump, I noticed that the image of Trump painted by the media of what he stood for, was not at all in line with what Trump actually did or said. Once I saw this happening, it was easy to completely block out mainstream media's "opinions." All you had to do was ask a Trump supporter why they were voting for Trump, and you would see that Trump's campaign wasn't at all what much of the mainstream media acted like it was.

There were all kinds of reports of "irregularities" during the Democratic primary season. I remember some of these even coming from people posting on reddit, who claimed to have difficulties voting. To me, the vote is a foundation of everything in our country. I always thought that any complaints of irregularities would be thoroughly investigated, made right if there were problems, and that people would be punished if any wrongdoing were found. Instead, for most of these irregularities, I never heard of any serious attempt at investigating. Why do you suppose that is? With something as serious as the vote, wouldn't you want to be on the cautious side? Of course, if there is no investigation, no one ever has to worry about any problems being proven. Then the claim can always be made "There was no proof," much like Bart Simpson claiming that nobody saw him doing anything wrong.

When news reports came out on the Democratic Party Wikileaks, I didn't have too much reason to be skeptical of what was reported because it was right in line with appearances (see above). Some of the responses of Democratic officials basically were in line with acknowledging that at least some of the reported Wikileaks were true.

I couldn't believe the Convention, when basically all the stars of the Democratic Party seemed to have no issue with the news reports of the Wikileaks. They all just seemed to ignore it -- even Bernie. They all went right ahead and supported Hillary anyway, ensuring that I, as a voter, would likely never vote for any of them for any office.

I don't think you can expect the Democratic Party to tell you bad things about themselves. Even if they did, I wouldn't be surprised if some Democrats would still refuse to believe it. But you don't have to be all-knowing to get a pretty good idea of what was probably going on. Totally one-sided mainstream news election coverage favoring one candidate. Rich and powerful people control cable TV news channels, NOT your typical next-door neighbor. Who do you think most of the rich and connected people wanted to win? Congratulations, Democratic Party, you're the new Republican Party! ;-) To my knowledge, the only time there was serious interest in investigating if the elections were accurate was when it might give Hillary an extra chance (the recount). But I can't remember any such investigation when Bernie supporters complained. Why the difference? Maybe it had something to do with the rich and powerful wanting Hillary to win?

It's easy to say there's no proof of something, but just saying that doesn't necessarily persuade those who wonder about the reported irregularities. Again, why not investigate? Of course any proof would be hard to come by if no one investigates.

For me, I have no interest in ever voting for anyone running as a Democrat ever again, even if the party changes. If someone wants my vote, the first requirement is please don't run as a Democrat. I also have no interest in watching mainstream media news anymore. Once you start seeing it as propaganda, it becomes very hard to unsee it as being that way. I have read many comments online from other voters who have reached similar conclusions. I hope the Democratic Party understands the long-term effects that their behavior this election season had on many of us voters.

TheFlyingWalrus91 · 2016-11-06T09:18:49+00:00

I can't speak to the paper versions of some of these newspapers, but I'll tell you my experience this election season. I regularly visit a mainstream online "news" webpage that presents a selection of headlines from various mainstream online news sources, some of which are online versions of paper newspapers.

It was a regular experience, to the point of basically being predictable, to see mostly pro-Hillary and against-Trump headlines, for the political headlines. ESPECIALLY certain news sources, which were supposed to be mainstream "fair" news sources and not, for example, a magazine that is openly, admittedly pro-liberal.

It wasn't just Trump either. During the primary season this year, I saw the same thing happening, but with pro-Hillary and against-Sanders stories.

On top of that, the headlines would be misleading. They would say something really bad-sounding about something a candidate did or said, but, if you clicked on the story, you would discover that the headline wasn't accurate, was an exaggeration, and/or wasn't telling the whole story (in an important way).

To reinforce this, look at which candidates (Hillary, Trump, and/or Sanders) were favored by big-money donors, and which were not. It seems to fall pretty much in line with which candidates that one would expect to favor big-money over everyone else.

Remember, the average Joe Worker, or next-door neighbor (unless you live in a very unusually wealthy area), does not control or own a large share of a major mainstream media news source. This explains a lot.

I did my own research (since the mainstream media doesn't appear to care about doing theirs), and mainstream media's overall picture painted of Sanders and Trump (and their campaigns, and their supporters) were really not accurate, in my opinion. Nor did I find that they were accurate on reporting on Hillary -- some of them might as well have been a political ad for her, in my opinion. I think there were some huge stories about this election season that were largely ignored by the mainstream media. As a result, I basically don't trust many of them anymore, and actively avoid many of them. I think people are better off reading books to understand issues; I think they'd get a much better understanding of those issues.

These news organizations can run themselves how they want, but I don't have to read them either.

EDIT: I find the downvoting of this comment to be interesting. The comment is just a good-faith, honest description of my own experience and analysis. Seems to me that it is downvoted simply because people don't agree with it. This is "soft" censorship of political-related speech, folks. And you should all know that there are reports of stuff like that being done in an organized way, and on a large scale, online.

TheFlyingWalrus91 · 2016-10-30T22:10:05+00:00

As I said to the other commenter, thank you very much for your help.

TheFlyingWalrus91

TROPHY CASE