-TSS-

Iraqi WMD's vs Russia hacking the US election. Which do you think was a more believable story?

I wonder have some people never before experienced a disappointing election-result as for some people it seems to be so difficult to get a grip. As if the 2016 election was a final Presidential-election and now Trump is going to be President forever.

The two term-rule has proved to be a good one over the years. It stops any President from having ideas that he is indispensable. I don't think very many people have complained at the end of the second term of any two term President that such a shame that he can't run for another term. Not even with Reagan. People are happy after eight years to get rid of the President. Reagan is the only two term President who had a successor of his preference getting elected after him. Otherwise people's yearning for a change after eight years extends beyond the President also to the party in power both in the White House and Congress. In fact it is the same pattern which repeats itself after every eight years, this sweeping change across the board. In reality it means of course that nothing ever really changes, which could be considered a sign of stability rather than stagnation.

Funny thread-title; if you consider something being propaganda then you assume it is false information. So what exactly is false propaganda?

If only people defined what is fake news then this issue would be easier to discuss. One usually understands that fake news=false information. However more often than not the so called fake news has revealed the lies of the so-called trustworthy media.

The EU is turning into an EUSSR and the methods are the same; persecution, punishment, defaming of all those who disagree with the state.

Dwelling in perennial victimhood may be comforting and giving you a sense of togetherness with the like-minded people but ii really gets you nowhere in the end. That's why I believe it is very detrimental to develop a mind-set that the whole world is against you and whatever is going wrong in your life none of it is your own fault. I don't know Canada as I've never been to your country but I can speak for my country Finland which is certainly one of the least racist countries you could imagine. Yet we also have at regular intervals these victim-stories which always without an exception turn out to be false.

Articles like this always make me think universities have too much money or too much spare time. Or both.

Whether someone is qualified or is not should be accurately measurable. If you utterly dislike someone it still does not amount to being unqualified. As I said earlier, the primaries sort out the wheat from the chaff. Those who dont have what it taken to be President drop out of the race,

Well, with anything under 50% you can be told the majority didn't vote for you. No matter if even a larger majority didn't vote for anyone else.

If I were asked, which I never am and maybe for a good reason, as to how to reform the American Presidential-election system I would keep it as it is except if a candidate wins more than 50% of the popular vote. In that case you just can't lose under any logic of democracy, can you? If none of the candidates more than 50% of the popular cvotes then the electoral college decides. In other words, I think Trump is the winner truly and deservedly.

People often lose their sense of perspective with things like this. Imagine an attack on the scale of 9/11 happening every week in any given European city. people would be paralysed with fear. Yet even then the likelihood of being a victim of such an attack is like a negative lottery-win. However, if that happened every week with hundreds of victims every week people would be negging their governments to step up the police-state. I'm not hinting here any tinfoil-hat theory or something. Just stating the facts how the human-mind works irrationally.

As I have had the experience of been in the Finnish army over 20 years ago as we still have the relic called conscription I can only say that if Putin decided to invade Finland I hope Finland surrendered straight away because my experience of our army was that it would be blown away in a couple of hours. Foolishly our leaders are afraid of joining NATO only because the majority of the population is against as if they knew something.

Dont know about Australia but in Europe attacks are prevented almost on a daily basis. Fortunately most of them are so poorly planned that preventing them is a piece of cake. When it is reported that an attack has been foiled you can become suspicios that they are going to push through more surveillance-laws to monitor citizens.

It's a major embarassment for any country not being able to guarantee the security of foreign diplomats on one's soil, no matter even if they are diplomats of your enemies, or especially when they are diplomats of your enemies.

The latest news is that they have arrested the wrong guy. The real perpetrator is still at large.

That is what primaries are for that people who are not fit to be President drop out. It's a bit too late to discover someone is either lunatic or incompetent if that person has won the election.

This could have serious consequences. Murdering a diplomat is tantamount to a declaration of war.

Speculation about this is fun but I'd say that with 99% certainty they'll vote for Trump. Some electiors may defect but 37? No way! You can say with 100% certainty that Hillary won't be elected. The Republicans are not going to give up their election-victory. If they dump Trump they'll vote for another Republican instead.

All this is tinfoil-stuff but many people who went to law school at the same time and in the same place as Obama have said they can't remember ever having met or seen Obama during their time at the law school. Not that it would be a proof of anything as it isn't. Just saying. It's a very nasty thing that people who are not happy about who is the President are doing their best to undermine the presidency of that person or even create an impression that the person's presidency is illegitimate in the first place. People who don't like Obama have been going on about this birth certificate-issue and now when Trump takes over he will doubtlessly be reminded of how the Russians hacked the election, which of course is total bullshit, but if going on about it weakens Trump then it is somehow accepted.

Isn't all of that deficit in California alone meaning that in 49 states Trump won more votes than Hillary?

I can't understand how a country which is supposed to be a technological super-power is so inept at things like that. Not just that but take censuses; filling in forms every 10 years. The result of the censuses and reality could be tens of millions of people apart from each other.

I wonder why there wasn't such speculation in 2000 about electors defecting when the EC-vote was really close with Bush leading by only 5 electoral college-members and also then the election was very controversial with the losing candidate winning the popular vote. This time the idea of 37 electors defecting is not realistic but fun to speculate nevertheless. The thing you can say with 100% certainty is that Hillary won't be President. The Republicans won't give up their election-victory, of course they won't, they just might want someone else than Trump as President.

An interesting excerp from an article I found on the subject: "14 African Countries are Still Forced Nowadays by France to Pay Colonial Tax for the Benefits of Slavery and Colonization 80% of the 10 countries with the lowest literacy rates in the WORLD among adults are in francophone Africa. Namely: Benin (40%), Burkina Faso (26%), Chad (34%), Côte d’Ivoire (49%), Guinea (29%), Mali (23%), Niger (29%), and Senegal (42%). This spectacular result is achieved after over 150 years of French colonization! During the almost 200 years of French colonization in Africa and Asia, France has built only ONE university in their entire colonies. It was in Indochina. After 150 years of French colonization of CAR (Central African Republic) there was only ONE person with a PhD degree when the country became independent in 1960. However, France continues to collect rent on the colonial buildings they have left in these countries, and 14 African countries are still forced nowadays by France to pay colonial tax for the benefits of slavery and colonization. Imagine the US still paying RENT to the British for the White House for instance, or Russia to collect rent from the vast public housing they have built through eastern Europe during soviet union occupation."

Rex Tillerson. That name sounds like some cartoon-character. Ok, joking aside, I think it is a relative strength in the US political system that their cabinet secretaries are not necessarily and nearly not always some day-to-day career politicians. In Europe almost all ministers are members of parliament and have a long experience of being in politics.