Random Political comments...

^^^^^ But does that actually happen? ^^^^

Politifqct Bias link
Excerpt:
Q. How do you know PolitiFact is biased?

A. Through a variety of factors. Journalists tend to lean ideologically left.
The St. Petersburg Tampa Bay Times, which started PolitiFact in conjunction with the Congressional Quarterly, is a traditionally liberal paper. We note that PolitiFact's stories appear to damage Republicans far more often than Democrats despite the fact that PF tends to choose about as many stories dealing with Republicans as for Democrats. If the selection process was blind then either proportions should be approximately even or else the party with worse ratings should receive more ratings overall according to what PolitiFact lists as its selection criteria. Plus our independent research helps confirm the hypothesis.

link here
Excerpt..
In spite of its frequent publication ... of "report cards" showing how various persons and organizations rate on its trademarked "Truth-O-Meter," PolitiFact openly admits that its process for choosing which claims to rate is not scientific. PolitiFact maintains it is making no effort to figure out which persons or groups lie more, albeit at the same time publishing its stories in a way that encourages readers to draw such conclusions based on unscientific data.


Addum: My subject line above was for you Loki, @ your bolded.. I didn't see Bookie had posted.

 

Oh damn...you are 100% CORRECT!

Bernie was used by the DNC to gain his independent voters.

 

Depending on ones own bias you can search for articles and opinions that are both for and against various fact checking sites, for example..

http://craigconnects.org/2014/04/4-factchecking-sites-thatre-the-real-deal.html

Politifact is my favorite and the one that I most quote here and elsewhere, whenever I hear doubts about their veracity I always say that the Pulitzer Prize is not just handed out, they have to go through a vigorous vetting process before being awarded.

http://www.pulitzer.org/page/2016-journalism-submission-guidelines-requirements-and-faqs

 

YES, that's what l plan to do from now on. I gave politifact a lot of leeway believing they were scientific and unbiased, but not anymore since I've learned they stem from a liberal newspaper. I will look for more proof.
#3 and #4 specifically l will examine. #1 Factcheck I knew about.

 

You sound clueless.

Yes of course the DNC was behind Hillary from the start.
All her people where positioned there after 2012 and Bernie Sanders wasn't even an official member of the Democratic Party.
He still isn't.

What you're forgetting is that Hillary WON MORE VOTES in the primary elections than Bernie Sanders.

Bernie couldn't win California. He couldn't win NY.
He didn't deserve the nomination.....because he couldn't WIN it.

No one stole anything from him.
Bernie lost the nomination at the ballot box.
The only issue is the Democratic establishment was firmly behind Hillary for the last 4 years. Why is this a shock or somehow unfair??

Anyone running against Hillary KNEW they had this huge built-in advantage to overcome in order to defeat her.

Just facts, no conspiracy.

You act like there were Republicans who were going to vote for Bernie Sanders if he had won the nomination. GTFOH.

You would be the same people dissing him for being an atheist and calling him a stinkin' commie.:smt013


It always shocks me when conservatives I consider to be intelligent lose the ability to think critically.

Obama faced worse odds against Hillary in 2008, and the only way to defeat those kinds of odds is to rally people at the ballot box to vote for YOU.:smt021

 

This.


Sanders through out his whole political career has identified himself as an Independent. So why run as a Democrat? If he were truly the political revolutionary that his supporters believe him to be and legitimately could have won the election then he should have run as an Independent candidate and given voters an actual third party alternative to Clinton and Trump. Perfect opportunity to shake up the current two party political system we have but he didn't take it.

 

That's what cost him. You are suppose to forge these relationships ahead of time. He never did that!!!!!! Honestly, he sticks with the democrats like glue. He should have just joined the party.

 

He had all this grass roots support from all these disgruntled progressives who were upset that Obama wasn't as liberal as they wanted and socially liberal independents who weren't going to vote Republican for various reasons and let that support go to waste rather than actually build that up into an actual viable political movement to challenge the current two parties in order to bring about the changes he claimed he championed.

If you aren't smart enough to recognize an opportunity when it presents itself and bold enough to take advantage of it, then how good of a leader and change maker can you actually be?

 

That would never work. He saw the writings on the wall and did the right thing. used the Democratic party to get it to where it should be. Had he done this independently, he would have failed.

 

How did he get it where it should be? If he had actually done that, then there wouldn't still be this knot of disgruntled Sanders supporters saying "Fuck Hilliary" and allowing the possibility of the Cheetos colored self styled American Jesus getting in the White House.

 

I really don't think Bernie thought he'd get this far. I think he believed by running, he'd be able to bring up issues, force the Dems to confront them and inturn move further to the left. That was his original goal. But, he got more support than he thought he would get. Much, much more. So much more that he saw he actually had a very real shot at winning. The only problem was he hadn't prepared for an actual run at the white house. Consequently, he didn't have everything lined up in enough time to enable him to take advantage of that support and win the primary. Which, is sad for us. Had he known the support he'd get and planned accordingly, he would've been the Democratic nominee. But, he did suceed in his intial goal; he managed to move Hilary and the DNC a lot further to the left than they would've gone on their own.

 

At this point Hilary can come out on stage, with a crack pipe in one hand and a dead hooker in the other and most of us who supported her are still going to vote for her.

Why? Because we think logically and don't get stuck on stupid (and no, I'm not calling you stupid, I'm referring to the Bernie or bust crowd). We understand the entirety of what's at stake. There could be as many as 3 supremes that may need to be replaced and to have a con-servative, in today's republican party, pick who fills those seats is utterly horrifying.

Not to mention all the cabinet picks. From the FDA to The Department of Education and beyond. To think all of those postitions would be filled by right wing, religious zelouts who have no regard for science or critical thought in general is motivation enough to unite behind Hilary.

And to break it down to "real life" consquences of letting any con-servative, let alone Trump, get into the White House at this critical juncture; my girl friend has affordable, quality health care because of a liberal President. She got treated for something that could have turned serious had she not seeked treatment. Treatment that she would never have had because she other wise couldn't afford it. But, now, it's no big thing.

You think me, and millions of others like me, are going to risk giving that up because of some political bullshit that they all do? Because Hilary may have strecthed the truth here and there, like every successful politician has had to do, to get the job done or to cover her ass because of some lame, fruitless witch hunt? No way. Not. Ever. Going. To. Happen.

This isn't Jr. High School. Dems know things aren't black and white. We know the real work, the real meat of our issues and the solutions to them lay firmly in the gray more often than not.

It's about moving the ball down the field. For the most part, everything else is just trivial. And, BTW, republicans do it too. Matter of fact, they're masters at ut. That's how they win elections. Look at who they're backing. If they were really the party of good, Christian values, they'd put God's teachings first and denounce Trump. But, they won't because all that moral posturing they've been selling to the American people is B.S. and this election cycle clearly shows it.

Would love to see the con-sevatives here go after the right for their blatant hypocrisy as much as they persecute the left over basless click-bait.

 

I need to spread more rep around first but for now:

 

You may as well call Donald Trump "Satan" why not? Does "Satan" not get his work done through people? Is Donald Trump's candidacy not the direct result of bigotry, ignorace and rage? Is Donald Trump dividing people or bringing them together?

How else do you think "Satan" could make it into the white house of not by using a human being to push his agenda? Should the so called real and invisible "Satan" run for president with his invisible body and non existant voice? Lol. This guy is in the open with his nonsense and bigotry, not trying to hide it at all, practically admitting to be "Satan" and running for president with the approval of the good old Christian party. How about that.

All of the anti science non critical thinking self absorbed ass clowns have themselves to thank when the Shit hits the fan. Just like they can thank themselves for all of the problems Bush caused. Instead of blaming some invisible entity for all of the bad things that happen in this world it would be nice if people actually behaved like adults and exercised some accountability.
That of course won't happen because it would actually require some learning, and the prerequisite for that is recognizing and admitting your own mistakes. That's always too much to ask for.

 

Are you saying she had unaffordable, bad quality health care before the ACA, and never sought treatment as a result..?

Or, that she had NO Health Insurance before the ACA and never would have sought treatment?

 

She had no health insurance she could afford and would not have seeked treatment except the emergency room if things got worse.

 

Curious what range her deductible was .. It's thousands and thousands of out of pocket dollars now for most everyone.
Which is why so many are struggling out here and foregoing treatment.
Almost 10 million Americans have even gone so far as to take the IRS fine hit, because it's cheaper than the cheapest Insurance offered under the ACA.

 

Is that your personal experience or is that what you've read?

 

While there are some who dispute the findings below, we should all do our own research when it comes to the ACA

http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2016/07/21/obamacare-premiums-are-lower-than-you-think/

Obamacare Premiums Are Lower Than You Think


Since the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) health insurance marketplaces first took effect in 2014, news story after story has focused on premium increases for certain plans, in certain cities, or for certain individuals. Based on preliminary reports, premiums now appear set to rise by a substantial amount in 2017.
What these individual data points miss, however, is that average premiums in the individual market actually dropped significantly upon implementation of the ACA, according to our new analysis, even while consumers got better coverage. In other words, people are getting more for less under the ACA.
Covered California, that state’s marketplace, just announced premium increases averaging 13.2 percent. But even if premiums increase by the 10 or 15 percent overall that some are predicting for 2017, they will still be far lower than premiums otherwise would have been in the absence of the law. Moreover, this analysis does not include the effects of premium and cost-sharing subsidies that serve to make ACA marketplace plans more affordable for many people.

Lessons Learned

The ACA marketplaces, though imperfect, represent a clear improvement over the unstructured, non-transparent individual health insurance market that existed beforehand. They have been quite successful in lowering premiums for consumers while simultaneously providing better insurance. While guaranteed issue, required essential benefits, and restrictions on medical underwriting undoubtedly pushed up premiums, aspects of the ACA that created a far more competitive individual insurance market appear to have more than offset those effects. As a result, individual market premiums in 2014 were lower than they were in 2013 and lower than they would have been absent the ACA.
Experiences do differ widely across the nation, though, so consumers in some regions have fared more poorly and some markets suffer from minimal competition. The results of this analysis do not mean that no work remains. Health reform is an ongoing challenge, and there is still much room to increase the quality and competitiveness of marketplaces.

 

Both. And my immediate friends circle also.