1. #8226
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cold Pizza
    I still prefer Trump winning in the last election.
    “I feel betrayed.”

    These were the words that a friend of Mexican descent recently shared with me, about the Bible Belt suburban neighbors she once thought she knew and felt at home with; those whose children she’d made pancakes for after sleepovers, those she’d treated as her very own. She used to believe that she belonged with these people, that these were her people, that they were for her.


    But on a Tuesday in November everything changed. Now there is alienation. Now there is fracture. Now there is a palpable distance between them—and bridging it feels impossible.


    She isn’t alone.


    Hers is the story of tens of millions of Americans, trying to repair what has been broken over the past year; trying to rebuild relationships stretched well past the point of collapse by this election and the aftermath of it. It might well be your story, too.


    Every day I cross paths with people from every corner of this nation who are gingerly navigating similar daily minefields; living with, working for, being married to, or worshiping alongside people whose vote has driven a seemingly impenetrable wedge between them.


    And I’m one of them.


    As a person of faith raised to extend forgiveness, I confess that I am failing miserably these days. As hard as I try, I am not finding much mercy for those whose choices feel so antithetical to my own heart, those whose votes sanction such malevolence and indignity and violence. And as the days pass, this resentment seems to only grow as I watch people double down on what I’d hoped was a momentary lapse in judgment they’d have confessed to and repented of by now. And as they willingly, boldly reiterate their decision, I can’t reconcile the image I once had of them, with the reality of their political affirmations.


    Simply stated: there are people I once respected whom I no longer do in the way I used to.


    I’m not at all proud to say this—it is as much confession as it is declaration, but it is the jagged, unvarnished truth. I’m not sure how to simultaneously affirm the marginalized communities so threatened by this President, while nurturing relationships with those who gladly consent to him. Right now the two tasks seem incompatible; to do one it feels like betraying the other, and so my support for those who are hurting and vulnerable comes at the expense of relationships I’d once held dear. They are the very real and close collateral damage of this election.


    Chances are you’re walking this road right now. Either through daily explosions over the dinner table, an uneasy truce of small talk, through social media silence, or physical disconnection—you are enduring a level of relational brokenness right now that is unlike any before. And since those fractures are as individual as your specific ties to the people you were close to, finding a way forward that heals universally is a tall order.


    Honestly there are likely many relationships that will never be the same—this may be the price of being fully authentic and standing unapologetically for the people and the principles you believe in. An event like this has exposed things that will be impossible to fully bury again, and though you may never be able to repair all that has been broken with people you know or love or work with—it is still worth trying. It’s worth having difficult conversations, seeking to understand, overcoming assumptions, mapping out common ground, and striving for something redemptive, wherever there is a similar willingness by the other. And where there is not willingness—the chasm between you may be permanent.


    Right now the one fragile reality we can hold onto is that every person believes he or she is good and right. No one ever genuinely imagines they are doing damage, that they are being hateful, and bad as someone might appear from across a table or across a Twitter exchange or across the aisle, no one ever thinks they are the bad guy. In a nation of 300 million people, there are exactly zero who believe they are wrong or hurtful—and this is at least a place we can find commonality.


    I am still not sure I will again be able to have the emotional proximity, the sense of shared affinity, or the familial bond I once had with some people because of what this election has revealed to me about them, but because I believe everyone is worth it I am trying:


    I am trying to listen more than I speak,

    to offer an open hand more than a closed fist,
    to see the best in the people I find it difficult to see good in,
    to give them the grace I desire for myself.

    I fail regularly but this is my daily aspiration—because if it ceases to be so, then I become as harmful as I now perceive them to be.


    I hope reconciliation and healing can come for us (and for you and those you are estranged from), but at the end of the day I know that the alienation and betrayal my Mexican friend now feels is not okay, and that she is worth the turbulence I now encounter to stand alongside her and to advocate for her. This is perhaps what times like these do best; like a crucible they burn away impurities so that something else can be yielded. Maybe what is being forged right now is something priceless though costly: we are losing fair-weather friendships and familial comfort in order to find our truest voices.


    In these moments everything is raw and the wounds are so very fresh. Right now our memories may be our best chance at reconciliation with those with whom there is separation; to remember that there was a day before the past year, when these relationships were meaningful and life-giving and beautiful. They still might one day be again, but the road to bridge the distance created by this election may be longer and more painful than any of us realize. Hopefully we can keep walking it.

    May this nation find a way to repair all that is broken among us and between us and within us.

    Even if it follows a terrible noise or a long silence—may love still have the last, loudest word".


    Fixing Relationships This Election Has Broken | john pavlovitz

  2. #8227
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    ^ That is a very vague article.

    It's cryptic. Coy.

    Many people in the US "take their politics personally."

    That's not good, IMO.

    But that's the way some people are.

  3. #8228
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cold Pizza
    But that's the way some people are.
    "To still be supporting this man in these days with all that we have seen, is to declare war on decency, on equality, on any semblance of forthrightness or fair play. It is to double down on the bigotry which was dismissed as hyperbole during his campaign and which has been ratified hundredfold since taking office. To witness his absolute disregard for the Constitution, his violent allergic reaction to facts—and not condemn it all becomes an indictment of one’s own heart. It becomes an act of aggression against humanity.

    The are truths that are self-evident in the light of these days that may have been obscured in the campaign:

    A brilliant healthcare alternative is not coming.


    Coal jobs are not coming back.


    Taxes for the middle class are not coming down.

    Mexico is not paying for the wall.

    Muslims are being persecuted.

    Protection for those with special needs are evaporating.

    The poor are getting thrown to the lions.


    Public schools are being thrown under the bus.

    Crumbling bridges and highways are being left to deteriorate.

    The elderly are being left to fend for themselves.

    The environment is being willfully set on fire.

    The whole system is being intentionally blown-up.

    The rule of Law in our Government is being trod upon".

    The Monster | john pavlovitz

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    ^ and yet the dims are still more unpopular than trump.

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    Quote Originally Posted by longway
    and yet the dims are still more unpopular than trump
    Could you post up a link to that or is your repeated blathering something that exists in your fantasy?

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    Thailand Expat Jesus Jones's Avatar
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    Will admit my opinion of Trump has fallen into the negative. While Clinton is still the criminal she is, why on earth Trump would associate himself with Kissenger is worrying.

    His actions on Syria and his flipflop attitude toward J.A at wiki show signs of yet another puppet.

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    Quote Originally Posted by CSFFan View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by longway
    and yet the dims are still more unpopular than trump
    Could you post up a link to that or is your repeated blathering something that exists in your fantasy?
    He's just an RT shill seeking to play up divisions. He has no idea what he's talking about. Pay no attention to him.

  8. #8233
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    Quote Originally Posted by longway
    ^ and yet the dims are still more unpopular than trump.
    "RESULTS OF MAY 10, 2017 - BEFORE COMEY WAS FIRED -
    59% DISAPPROVE AND 51% STRONGLY DISAPPROVE OF THE FAT BASTARD'S REGIME.

    "The erosion of white men, white voters without college degrees and independent voters, the declaration by voters that President Donald Trump's first 100 days were mainly a failure and deepening concerns about Trump's honesty, intelligence and level headedness are red flags that the administration simply can't brush away," aid Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.

    There is no way to spin or sugarcoat these sagging numbers," Malloy added.

    Disapprove is at 58% and STRONGLY Disprove is 51%

    By a 54 - 38 percent margin, American voters want the Democratic Party to win control of the U.S. House of Representatives. This is the widest margin ever measured for this question in a Quinnipiac University poll, exceeding a 5 percentage point margin for Republicans in 2013."


    https://poll.qu.edu/national/release...ReleaseID=2456

  9. #8234
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jesus Jones
    While Clinton is still the criminal she is...
    What crime was she convicted of? I seem to forget....

  10. #8235
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    Quote Originally Posted by Storekeeper
    RESULTS OF MAY 10, 2017 - BEFORE COMEY WAS FIRED -
    That's the key here isn't it. He is going to sink even farther after firing Comey.

    Quote Originally Posted by CSFFan
    What crime was she convicted of? I seem to forget....
    He gets all his propaganda from Alex Jones.

  11. #8236
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    Is There Mutiny in the White House? | Vanity Fair

    "Whether you support Trump or oppose him, the integrity of government is at stake at moments like this, and preserving it means playing the straight man and making Rufus T. Firefly pay a price".

    Open link to read the article.

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    https://www.city-journal.org/html/ov...ove-15185.html

    An Overdue Move

    President Trump made a mistake not in firing James Comey but in waiting so long to do it.

    "President Trump’s dismissal of James Comey as FBI director was unfortunate only in that it should have occurred sooner. Comey, however gifted he may have been as a prosecutor, was a loose cannon whose record over the last year was peppered with bizarre statements and errors of judgment.

    Last July, Comey announced that he would not recommend that criminal charges be brought against Hillary Clinton for her use of a personal server to exchange emails while she was secretary of state. But he followed this statement with a detailed excoriation of the impropriety of Clinton’s behavior, calling her and her colleagues “extremely careless.” Comey concluded, “to be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now.”

    This statement, far from “clear,” only confused the issue. If the activity under investigation would generally deserve sanction, why wasn’t that the case for Clinton? Instead of laying the question of Clinton’s corruption to rest, Comey hinted that she was not being charged because it would be impossible to prosecute her—exactly the kind of special treatment for the elite that angered so many Americans during the election. Comey thus turned up the heat of suspicion and mistrust.

    As FBI director, Comey, a former high-ranking federal prosecutor and deputy attorney general, seemed unwilling or unable to embrace the role of cop. No FBI director has ever before made such a disclosure about his recommendations to charge or not charge a subject of an investigation: that’s normally left to prosecutors. Comey’s unprecedented action was planned prior to the revelation that then-attorney general Loretta Lynch had met in private with former president Bill Clinton; Comey apparently wanted to reserve the moment in the spotlight for himself.

    Then, in October, a few days before the most contentious presidential election in modern history, Comey went public again, this time to announce that the FBI was reopening the investigation into Clinton’s emails because some had been downloaded onto Anthony Weiner’s laptop. Clinton now considers this revelation, which turned out a few days later to have been an overstatement, to be the key reason why she lost the election.

    It’s unlikely that concerns over Clinton’s emails outweighed her failure to convey a coherent economic vision in the minds of the white working-class voters who chose to support Donald Trump instead—or in the minds of the black voters who stayed home instead of going to the polls. But Comey’s interjection of himself into the race at such a crucial moment, with news that turned out not to affect the Clinton investigation one way or another, was further evidence of his poor judgment, which always seemed to tilt in the direction of his own aggrandizement.

    Regarding the investigation into President Trump and his advisors’ supposed connection to Russian operatives determined to tilt the election in his favor, Comey has played peekaboo for almost a year, alternately insinuating and denying that any real evidence exists. In his March testimony before the House, Comey made bizarre statements about Vladimir Putin’s deepest feelings and agreed with Democratic lawmakers as they spun elaborate theories about “close-knit cabals” involving Trump associates and KGB diehards. “They wanted to hurt our democracy,” explained Comey without reference to evidence or fact, “hurt her, help him . . . Putin hated Secretary Clinton so much.” Last week, Comey told the Senate that Russia presents “the greatest threat of any nation on earth” to American democracy, and that he expects “to see them back in 2018, especially 2020.”

    So far, no evidence has been presented to demonstrate that any state or organization, least of all Russia, had anything to do with tricking John Podesta into revealing his email password, which is what led to the exposure of the DNC emails—the episode now considered synonymous with “hacking the election.” Yet Comey, as the nation’s top law-enforcement officer, felt comfortable entertaining wild, conspiratorial speculations in the Senate, without evidence.

    It is unfortunate that it took Trump so long to fire Comey; he should have done so in January, when he took office. The timing of this decision will now surely cause the president other problems".

  13. #8238
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    Quote Originally Posted by Storekeeper View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Cold Pizza
    But that's the way some people are.
    "To still be supporting this man in these days with all that we have seen, is to declare war on decency, on equality, on any semblance of forthrightness or fair play. It is to double down on the bigotry which was dismissed as hyperbole during his campaign and which has been ratified hundredfold since taking office. To witness his absolute disregard for the Constitution, his violent allergic reaction to facts—and not condemn it all becomes an indictment of one’s own heart. It becomes an act of aggression against humanity.

    The are truths that are self-evident in the light of these days that may have been obscured in the campaign:

    A brilliant healthcare alternative is not coming.


    Coal jobs are not coming back.


    Taxes for the middle class are not coming down.

    Mexico is not paying for the wall.

    Muslims are being persecuted.

    Protection for those with special needs are evaporating.

    The poor are getting thrown to the lions.


    Public schools are being thrown under the bus.

    Crumbling bridges and highways are being left to deteriorate.

    The elderly are being left to fend for themselves.

    The environment is being willfully set on fire.

    The whole system is being intentionally blown-up.

    The rule of Law in our Government is being trod upon".

    The Monster | john pavlovitz
    The above problems existed BEFORE Trump came to office.

    There is claim I highlighted above: "muslims are being persecuted."

    No, they are not. They are in the same situation as before. No change there.

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    the funny thing with all the silly noises about the FBI and the Russian ties investigation, is that it's proving Trump right to his electorate and the general American public, they are probably tired of the "political" non-sense when the POTUS and his staff should focus on making America great again

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dragonfly View Post
    the funny thing with all the silly noises about the FBI and the Russian ties investigation, is that it's proving Trump right to his electorate and the general American public, they are probably tired of the "political" non-sense when the POTUS and his staff should focus on making America great again
    Yes they should, instead of making Russia great again.


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    Quote Originally Posted by bsnub View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Storekeeper
    RESULTS OF MAY 10, 2017 - BEFORE COMEY WAS FIRED -
    That's the key here isn't it. He is going to sink even farther after firing Comey.

    Quote Originally Posted by CSFFan
    What crime was she convicted of? I seem to forget....
    He gets all his propaganda from Alex Jones.
    I do. At least there is a mix of reporters on his show who are for and against Trump. You keep bleating the same shit and follow the same narative, don't you?

    Feck me you must be bored!
    You bullied, you laughed, you lied, you lost!

  17. #8242
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    Quote Originally Posted by CSFFan View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Jesus Jones
    While Clinton is still the criminal she is...
    What crime was she convicted of? I seem to forget....
    Trump and Hillary. Same same but different.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jesus Jones
    Feck me you must be bored!
    So entertain me by explaining how Hillary is a criminal.

  19. #8244
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jesus Jones View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by bsnub View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Storekeeper
    RESULTS OF MAY 10, 2017 - BEFORE COMEY WAS FIRED -
    That's the key here isn't it. He is going to sink even farther after firing Comey.

    Quote Originally Posted by CSFFan
    What crime was she convicted of? I seem to forget....
    He gets all his propaganda from Alex Jones.
    I do. At least there is a mix of reporters on his show who are for and against Trump. You keep bleating the same shit and follow the same narative, don't you?

    Feck me you must be bored!
    There are also a mix of reporters on his show who believe in lizard people, the feds deliberately giving us cancer and Hillary running a paedophile ring from a fucking pizza parlour basement.

    You don't honestly take that twat seriously, do you?


  20. #8245
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    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda
    You don't honestly take that twat seriously, do you?
    Alex Jones isn't a twat...he's a performance actor, nothing more. Just ask his lawyer.

    Something to keep in mind when listening to the twat....he's not actually touting shit he believes in, but touting stuff that will keep people clicking on his site.

  21. #8246
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    Quote Originally Posted by CSFFan
    he's not actually touting shit he believes in, but touting stuff that will keep people clicking on his site.
    so, more like a Fox News "host" then...

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    Quote Originally Posted by tomcat
    so, more like a Fox News "host" then...
    Naw, Fox news hosts actually believe the shit they're promoting...for Alex Jones, it's nothing more than "art".

  23. #8248
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    Quote Originally Posted by CSFFan
    Naw, Fox news hosts actually believe the shit they're promoting...for Alex Jones, it's nothing more than "art".
    I don't think for a second Sean Hannity believes what he's saying. He's selling a product. I believe that product is something like, "guy who bullies people the way you wish you could".

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cold Pizza View Post
    ^ That is a very vague article.

    It's cryptic. Coy.

    Many people in the US "take their politics personally."

    That's not good, IMO.

    But that's the way some people are.
    He's a preacher and the niche audience he's cultivating is liberals.

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    I think the end is nigh for Trump.

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