How I learned to stop worrying and love Trump!

Trump sucks, vote Bernie.

^ agree. Let’s be honest, if the nominee isn’t Bernie, we’re getting 4 more years of trump. And if the nominee isn’t Bernie, it’s gonna have to be a no vote for me.

Atavachron wrote: 'Anatidaephobia is the fear that at any point, somewhere in the world, a duck or goose may be watching the person who is suffering from the phobia.' Wow.

Yeah, I keep learning new things at my age. Unfortunately, they're not very good things.

SteveG wrote: dougmcauliffe wrote: ^ agree. Let’s be honest, if the nominee isn’t Bernie, we’re getting 4 more years of trump. And if the nominee isn’t Bernie, it’s gonna have to be a no vote for me. I don't understand this logic of a no vote if it's not Bernie. That is the same as a yes vote for Trump. So, you actually prefer Trump over any other Democratic candidate. I don't understand it but it doesn't surprise me either. We Dems have always been our own worst enemies. I'm sure that most Republican congressmen and senators hate Trump but that group sticks together, no matter what. That's something that the Dems will never be able to do. That's why Mr. Trump is president and will probably continue to be for another 4 years.

"Radio Sputnik, a propaganda arm of the Russian government, began broadcasting on three Kansas City-area radio stations during prime drive time.

When commuters spin the radio dial as they drive through Kansas City, Mo., these days, between the strains of classic rock and country hits they can tune in to something unexpected: Russian agitprop.

In January, Radio Sputnik, a propaganda arm of the Russian government, started broadcasting on three Kansas City-area radio stations during prime drive times, even sharing one frequency with a station rooted in the city’s historic jazz district.

“Who needs a ridiculous Red Dawn invasion,” a participant in one online forum wrote about the new broadcasts. “Your overlord, Mr. Putin, will be addressing you soon, so it’s best to prepare now,” another commenter wrote, referring to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

In the United States, talk radio on Sputnik covers the political spectrum from right to left, but the constant backbeat is that America is damaged goods.

Sputnik’s American hosts follow a standard talk radio format, riffing on the day’s headlines and bantering with guests and callers. They find much to dislike in America, from the reporting on the coronavirus epidemic to the impeachment of President Trump, and they play on internal divisions as well.

On a recent show, one host started by saying he was broadcasting “live from Washington, D.C., capital of the divided states of America.”

Critics in Kansas City called Radio Sputnik’s arrival an unabashed exploitation of American values and openness. Those behind the deal defended it as a matter of free speech, as well as a simple business transaction.

Peter Schartel, the owner of Alpine Broadcasting Corporation of Liberty, Mo., the company airing Sputnik in Kansas City, said that he started the broadcasts on Jan. 1 both because he liked what he heard during a trial run last fall and because he was getting paid.

The deal was brokered by RM Broadcasting, a Florida firm that hunts for airtime to sell to Rossiya Segodnya, the Russian state media organization behind Sputnik.



Last year a federal judge in Florida ruled against RM Broadcasting’s owner, Arnold Ferolito, after he sued to prevent the Justice Department from forcing him to register as a foreign government agent. (Various news media organizations linked to Russia had already been ordered to register.)

The ruling outraged Mr. Ferolito, who said he made his first deal to get Russian state radio on the air in the United States in 2009. “They are paying for airtime and I make a percentage,” he said in an interview. “I am not being paid to represent the Russian government.”

Anyone tuned to Sputnik on 104.7 FM while driving across the historic 18th & Vine district in Kansas City, Mo., will find that it fades for a few minutes of music from KOJH — the call letters refer to Kansas City’s oldest jazz house — before Sputnik takes back over.

For years, Anita J. Dixon, a community organizer, dreamed of creating a radio station built around the music of such legendary Kansas City musicians as Count Basie and Charlie Parker. Ms. Dixon said having Sputnik dominate the same frequency was jarring.

Mr. Schartel disputed the notion that Kansas City is getting Sputnik instead of jazz. Radio Sputnik does beam its signal on the same frequency as KOJH, he said, but outside the limited geographic area awarded to the Mutual Musicians Foundation for the nonprofit, low-power jazz station.




Ms. Dixon still found it galling that Russia had gained space on the radio dial on the same frequency she had envisioned as a beacon for a black community that, among other things, had sent soldiers to die defending American values like free speech.

People ask how Russia managed to interfere in U.S. elections, Ms. Dixon said. “Because they get free airwaves,” she said. “It is called propaganda.”

Before Kansas City, Washington had been the only American city with Sputnik broadcasts — round the clock on one AM station and one FM station. Public disclosure forms show that the Russian government is paying more than $2 million over three years, starting in December 2017, for the Washington broadcasts.

In Kansas City, the fee is $324,000 for three years, or $49.27 per hour, according to RM Broadcasting’s Foreign Agents Registration Act filing. Mr. Schartel said he gets $27.50 of that hourly rate.

When it began in January, the Sputnik broadcast on KCXL was met with strong condemnation from locals. The station received a lot of hate calls, including a threat to burn it down, Mr. Schartel said.

An editorial in The Kansas City Star noted that the free press was a prime target of Mr. Putin’s attempts to weaken public trust in American institutions. “It’s sad, but not astonishing, that an American entrepreneur would put business above patriotism,” the paper wrote. “Listener, beware.”

Those involved in putting Sputnik on the air defended it as free speech. “I am not a bumpkin that fell off a wagon; I encourage people to listen for themselves,” Mr. Schartel said.

What was once Radio Moscow was reborn as Radio Sputnik in 2014. Mr. Putin backed the effort to create a central, state-run news organization — called Rossiya Segodnya, or Russia Today in English — designed to challenge the West’s global dominance on reporting news.

In a modern spin on propaganda, it focuses on sowing doubt about Western governments and institutions rather than the old Soviet model of selling Russia as paradise lost."

from www.nytimes.com

Edited by Easy Money - February 20 2020 at 08:45

LAM-SGC wrote: I can't write what I want to write without being called lots of names, so I won't bother. Free speech is only free sometimes. BTW, I wasn't going to wrote anything negative about Trump, my energies lie elsewhere. The USA got what they deserve in that they got what they voted for.

Some of my best fiends are Trumpers. You're entitled to your opinion as long as you don't live in the Fox and Breitbart bubble. I like a few of things that Trump does, just not way he goes about doing them.

LAM-SGC wrote: Mirakaze wrote: LAM-SGC wrote: Free speech is only free sometimes.   Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from being judged for the things you say. . True. And I never claimed otherwuse. However, some uncomfortable truths about Islam cannot be voiced without fatwas being issued and people being murdered.

Yeah, it's only safe to argue about politics. For now, at least. That may change.

SteveG wrote: I, sir, am not a robot, and have passed many capcha tests as proof!

Speaking as a robot I am sick and tired of being discriminated against with these captchas...

Edited by Slartibartfast - February 20 2020 at 12:28