Washington Post Alternative?

Report · Jan 23, 2017

Donald Trump's bizarre behaviour has got me hooked on American News, and I have been reading the online Washington Post trying to keep up with it all. Unfortunately, it seems that the Post has a Pay Meter and I now get this message:

To keep reading it would cost me the same as Photoshop and Lightroom, so I'm thinking there must be alternative online newspapers with the same honest, and independent editing as the Post. Can you people that live me give me a heads up? If anyone suggests Fox News, they had better add the winking emoticon

The Post has a great layout of stories as well as great content, with a hard copy newspaper look to it. That works well for me, and I'd love to find similar. Apparently you can get the Post online free for six months if you are an Amazon Prime customer, but I'd prefer to avoid Amazon Prime.

Report · Jan 28, 2017

No, No, No.! I didn't tell you to leave the country, you said you were "...seriously considering leaving the country." I just happened to agreed with you and suggested you take that ***** madonna along because you were both being insane and caught up in the moment (with her it was worse. she threaten violence in wanting to "blow up the WH".) I mean who in their right mind would say something like that. Now look at the post where you suggested leaving politics out of the forums before all this and read my reply to that one I said, " I hate to agree with you, but I agree with you. Enough said." I felt slighted personally by you as if you were saying you were the only one able to talk politics and I couldn't. I felt that you were waiving that ACP badge in my face. Now scan down the posts where you started talking your political views and such. Hey, I was willing to let the whole thing drop but now...also notice I have not cursed at you once nor threatened you in any way form or fashion and I don't intend to, this to me is merely a civil spat...a disagreement of views as they say, that's all. So pls don't go getting all thin-skinned on me now. I'm rather enjoying this.

Report · Jan 28, 2017

Cactus Cowboy wrote:
I felt slighted personally by you as if you were saying you were the only one able to talk politics and I couldn't.

I am terribly sorry. I did not mean to make you feel slighted at all. I don't even understand how I did it as I didn't intend to do that in the least. But, as I said before, sans the context of body language and tone of voice, a text-based medium like a forum can make conversation difficult as it is much harder to convey emotion, meaning, and intention.

Although, you have now called me insane in addition to suggesting I leave the country, so I do feel even more as if you are intending to be insulting.

Also, please stop trying to lump me in with Madonna and her call to violence. Now, while I do support the 2nd Amendment to the constitution (and the reason for the 2nd Amendment was originally for the purpose of the people taking up arms against the government), I do not think now is the time for such things. If the left-wing conspiracy theorists who think that the new administration is trying to usher in some kind of Nazi-like authoritarian police state with his own private security force, no free press, etc., I might change my mind. But I don't think their wild theorizing is what's actually going to happen and I don't think we should be issuing calls for violence.

That being said, in Madonna's defense, there is now someone in the WH who seems to think it's okay to brag about sexually assaulting multiple women, who talks about walking into dressing rooms of pageant girls while they are naked, and other such things. So, while I can understand her fear and the desire to fight back, I just don't think violence is the answer in this case. And I certainly do not condone the suggestion that incendiary devices be used on the White House or its occupants.

Cactus Cowboy wrote:
Now scan down the posts where you started talking your political views and such. Hey, I was willing to let the whole thing drop but now...

The reason I started talking about my politics was two-fold.

1. was because someone said they thought it would be fine to have political discussion around here (although, I'm still not convinced of the efficacy of such discussion).

But 2. (more importantly) was to try to help contextualize my earlier comment about leaving. I am not some left-wing liberal who cried on election day because my team lost and have since decided to throw a tantrum, take my toys, and leave. I was hoping that sharing a bit of my history and my views of the current events would help you understand that I am capable of rational thought and perhaps give some insight into why I am concerned about some of the things that are happening. Like, for example, that the swamp seems to be not only un-drained, but rather swampier than before as it's being filled with billionaires, bankers, and oil tycoons.

Anyway, my facetious comment about leaving the US in this thread was really more of a joke to me than to anyone else because I was looking into moving abroad even before the election happened. I'd like to go somewhere warmer as I don't care for winter, so I have been looking into the Virgin Islands (some of which are still owned by the US), Belize, and other Caribbean locations as well as Australia and New Zealand. Unfortunately, the kind of work I do is not likely to be found as a full-time gig in the Caribbean unless I'm just doing freelance via the internet for anybody anywhere (and I don't particularly feel like dealing with that hassle - I'd rather work for an agency, creative house, or some other larger group where I don't have to deal with trying to drum up business and promoting myself). So, while I have been looking into moving internationally, it was not mainly motivated by the actions of our new president.

Report · Jan 29, 2017

I accept your apology Szalam and I in turn hope you likewise accept mine. Why I've let something this trivial upset me I don't know. You have every right to move where ever you wish. Though doing so would make us all weaker for it. I understand your trepidations about this administration trust me, many other American's have the same concerns myself included. Vigilance is what's needed now but NOT extremism. As for Madonna, hey, sorry about that but she's on her own. I ain't touching on that no more. She's probably got the NSA and drowns plugged up her booty by now who knows.

Report · Jan 29, 2017

Cactus Cowboy wrote:
I accept your apology Szalam and I in turn hope you likewise accept mine.

Yes, sir.

Cactus Cowboy wrote:
Vigilance is what's needed now but NOT extremism.

Agreed completely.

Report · Jan 28, 2017

Szalam,

"For example, if the federal government is going to help fund Planned Parenthood, they might consider stipulating that federal money doesn't go towards abortions."

By law, the money PPH receives from the federal government cannot be used toward abortions. You are one of many who doesn't know that.

It's also a small part of what they do. Read this link (or others) to find that 97% of what they do is not abortions. Personally, I remember the days when young girls used coat hangers and I don't want to see us go back to those days. Not ever.

http://www.factcheck.org/2011/04/planned-parenthood/

On the topic of federal government and health care:

They run health care for all government employees and retirees and also Medicare in addition to the Affordable Health Care Act.

I did not know until minutes ago that Congress is now under ACA as of 2014. Fascinating.

http://www.factcheck.org/2009/08/health-care-for-members-of-congress/

<sarcasm> An out-of-date vulnerable Android phone? Impeachable offense! </sarcasm>

And I am sorry someone told you to leave the country. That is uncalled for.

Report · Jan 28, 2017

Szalam wrote:
I also have heard some decent arguments for why the federal government should not be involved in health insurance.

Well, I can't imagine what they would be. It seems that above a certain income threshold (or below some other threshold), people forget why contributing to the community (by paying taxes) is the right thing to do.

Actually I think there's a psychological mechanism at bottom. If you're "successful" (earning money), the brain wants to think that it's all your own doing. It's because you're hard working and you deserve it.

But in fact it's mostly luck. You were born into the right social environment, you were at the right place at the right time, things happened just your way. For every one who "made it", there are countless who either worked equally hard, or had the chips so solidly stacked up against them that they never got the chance.

But the brain thinks - they never had it in them, not like I did. Man, I'm good.

It's called "pulling up the ladder". No more taxes (read my lips).

And don't get me started on anti-abortion. Did you see the photo of the Trump signing this, surrounded by all men? That picture says it all.

Report · Jan 28, 2017

D Fosse wrote:
Actually I think there's a psychological mechanism at bottom. If you're "successful" (earning money), the brain wants to think that it's all your own doing. It's because you're hard working and you deserve it.

I have seen this sort of thing from a lot of people. In some ways, it's true; I mean, I have worked hard to be where I am, but a lot of it was luck too and I am aware of that. Growing up poor was a hurdle and I overcame that obstacle, but being American, white, Christian, and a cis-gendered male was likely quite a large part of that. It certainly didn't hurt. I've really ticked most of the privilege boxes (except I'm not straight - God messed that one up for me).

Anyway, I think it's telling that the countries with the highest happiness ratings tend to be countries where the government is rather more involved (socialized medicine, etc), but not authoritarian. Granted, the taxes are higher, but there is a lot less worry about falling ill or losing your job. You know there is a safety net for when things go wrong. I'm not saying America should be more like them though. I'm saying we could learn from them and adapt some of that here with our more "freedom-oriented" way of doing things, so to speak.

Report · Jan 29, 2017

Szalam wrote:
Anyway, I think it's telling that the countries with the highest happiness ratings tend to be countries where the government is rather more involved (socialized medicine, etc), but not authoritarian. Granted, the taxes are higher, but there is a lot less worry about falling ill or losing your job.

Absolutely (I live in Norway). That's the whole point. But in the US, this is immediately labeled "socialism", which is a synonym for "poison".

Report · Jan 28, 2017

Szalam wrote:
Anyway, as to the original forum post, I do quite enjoy NPR as Jane also mentioned. Unlike most of her list, NPR is pretty unbiased in their reporting. They point out when people on both sides of the aisle make claims that are unsubstantiated and they have some rather in-depth reporting as well.

Nate Silver and 538 is also unbiased. They are not really news, but statistical analysis.

Dan Rather has come out of retirement to talk about what is going on in the White House right now.

Report · Jan 29, 2017

Szalam wrote:
Trevor.Dennis wrote:
America. What have you done?!
The following is not a politically opinionated post. I am just trying to describe what happened.
America voted a new kind of person into the White House. The reasons for doing so are as varied as the people of our nation.
Some people felt that his main opponent (Hillary Clinton) was too corrupt and that they had to vote for him just to keep her out.
Some people felt that their part of the country has been forgotten or ignored by their government and that their economy was in shambles and this new candidate could bring the "greatness" back to their region.
Some people felt that he would advance their white supremacist agenda.
Some people felt that he would make them safer.
Some people have just been fed up with perceived inaction of the government and just wanted to swing a big, orange wrecking ball right through Washington DC.
These are all valid concerns and feelings. The decision to vote for a particular candidate to address those concerns is up for debate. In fact, it was debated and America chose what we chose. Time will tell if this was a good choice or not regardless of our personal feelings about the matter.
That being said, I am seriously considering moving abroad.

Thanks for that, and kudos for keeping your cool back up this thread. I'd thought this thread had run its course, and I have been spending my free time looking for news and making a concerted effort to get properly into Illustrator with Deke McClelland on Lynda.com. My problem — and once again, this is from a no American's point of view with limited background knowledge — is know how credible some of the sites I have been reading are. Which is another reason I liked the Washington Post. So I'd appreciate a heads up about these 'News' sites please?

Bipartisan Report It has great content from my point of view, but it feels a bit too good to be true. It is reassuring to see what appear to be major stories covered elsewhere. Especially by organizations like the WP and BBC News, and that is not happening with some of the most outlandish stories.

Politico Magazine The name implies a degree of trust, but they are perhaps too focused on knocking Trump. The thing is I suspect I am actively seeking out anti Trump news media in an attempt to be reassured, but that can't be at the expense of truth.

MSNBC This surely has to be a legit news organization? I hope so because I devoted a lot of time to following it.

Not exactly news sites, but I have heard of Dan Rather, and I am looking forward to following his News & Guts Facebook articles. Perhaps not with the same news credentials as Dan Rather, but I see that Saturday Night Live's Alec Baldwin has been taking time out from his satirization Trump to lay into him via his Twitter account.

But I keep coming back to the Washington Post. One of the stories I have been following is David Fahrenthold's deep investigation of The Trump Foundation and a) whether it has misused funds (to pay Trump's personal debts) and b) actually made any of the donations to charity it claims to have. That was fascinating, and I loved that he raised an army of followers willing to help him hunt down the facts. One reader went so far as to book into a hotel owned by Trump for the sole purpose of confirming his theory that one of the painted portraits of Trump was being displayed there. He asked cleaning staff about it, and found it was indeed on public display in a bar downstairs. That portrait could be proved to have been paid for with a cheque from the Trump Foundation. Now today, I read a story that more evidence of abuse of the Trump Foundation's funds has been uncovered. What is confusing me is it feels like any one of these stories should be enough to bring Trump down, but they are coming in droves, and he keeps on riding the wave. How can that be happening.

Reporters on NBC are speaking about Chaos Presidency, and Government by Impulse. Are his aids spending so much time firefighting the damage he does with his overnight tweets, that they don't time to put together coherent policies? His idea to stop funding to states that don't follow the party line, for instance? Apparently California gives the Federal government $1 for every 78c it gets back, so they are in a position of strength and the wave of CALEXIT support is looking like Trump has shot himself in the foot..... again!

Lastly, for a long time it has seemed clear to me that Trump has some sort of mental illness. Weeks ago I Googled physiological analysis of his mental state, and found several professionals saying the same thing. That was before he added fuel to the fire with ill thought out policies and a wave of Executive Orders that couldn't work. Today I had a PM from a forum buddy with this more up to date diagnosis of Trump's mental state, but it is the Bipartisan Report again, so can I give it credence?

http://bipartisanreport.com/2017/01/27/johns-hopkins-top-psychotherapist-releases-terrifying-diagnos...

Blimey... It's midday here, and I have got nothing done. Not even looked at the forums, and a busy afternoon ahead.

Apparently the Washington Times shared this thought over of the shame of the closed borders to refugees policy, and they make a good point.

Report · Jan 29, 2017

Malignant Narcissism is plainly obvious to me. But I used to work in mental health and read the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) from cover to cover.

If you don't believe the Johns Hopkins psychotherapist, you can read the clinical description of Narcissistic Personality Disorder yourself from the latest DSM-5. I think you'll agree that Trump fits the description like a glove.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder DSM-5 301.81 (F60.81) - Therapedia

Nancy

Nancy O'Shea— Product User, Community Expert & Moderator

Report · Jan 30, 2017

Trevor.Dennis wrote:
MSNBC This surely has to be a legit news organization?

I would avoid MSNBC for the same reason I would avoid Fox News; they are just too slanted for me to really trust them. Fox is slanted right/conservative and MSNBC is the left/liberal answer to Fox. I'd rather just have the facts reported with balanced analysis when I want it.

Report · Jan 31, 2017

Szalam wrote:
Trevor.Dennis wrote:
MSNBC This surely has to be a legit news organization?
I would avoid MSNBC for the same reason I would avoid Fox News; they are just too slanted for me to really trust them. Fox is slanted right/conservative and MSNBC is the left/liberal answer to Fox. I'd rather just have the facts reported with balanced analysis when I want it.

Thanks. I was getting the same impression, but my answer has been to read everything I can find. Unfortunately, this becoming increasingly more unsettling, and I am now hoping that the Trump machine shoots itself in the foot with its repeated questionable tactics.

We have a possibly crazy right wing political blogger here called Whale Oil. The man behind it often getting into trouble with the courts, and is definitely not a nice person. Your situation with Steve Bannon as Trump's secretive aid, seems akin to our Whale Oil guy suddenly becoming the chief strategy advisor to our Prime Minister. It is tool surreal to understand. If what I read is correct, Bannon was not only the main architect for the immigration border ban, but was to the exclusion of pretty much everyone else on the President's team. No one got see what was going to happen until an hour or so before the Order was signed. That's crazy.

Dissenters are being fired and critical media excluded and Alternative Facts are being offed as truths no one is allowed to question. It is deeply worrying, and I am not even an American.

Report · Jan 31, 2017

<It is deeply worrying, and I am not even an American.>

Tell me about it. It's like I'm re-living the Nixon years. And we all know how that ended.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User, Community Expert & Moderator

Report · Feb 03, 2017

Trevor.Dennis wrote:
Szalam wrote:
Trevor.Dennis wrote:
MSNBC This surely has to be a legit news organization?
I would avoid MSNBC for the same reason I would avoid Fox News; they are just too slanted for me to really trust them. Fox is slanted right/conservative and MSNBC is the left/liberal answer to Fox. I'd rather just have the facts reported with balanced analysis when I want it.
Thanks. I was getting the same impression, but my answer has been to read everything I can find.

I love Rachel Maddow from MSNBC. She is excellent! I listen to her podcast through iTunes on the way to work.

Report · Feb 03, 2017

I love Rachel Maddow from MSNBC. She is excellent! I listen to her podcast through iTunes on the way to work.

Did you see the NYT has a podcast now? This is day three. Interesting angles. I'm working to tip the scales from obsessed back to informed, and have to be very careful which articles I pick to read*. I'll check out Rachel to see if she fits my criteria. but the new NYT podcast definitely does.

~~~~~~

* One day a few weeks ago I scanned all the headlines and the only article on the top stories page I felt safe clicking on was https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/13/dining/cauliflower-and-broccoli-new-recipes.html?_r=0.

Report · Feb 04, 2017

BarbBinder wrote:
* One day a few weeks ago I scanned all the headlines and the only article on the top stories page I felt safe clicking on was https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/13/dining/cauliflower-and-broccoli-new-recipes.html.

Oh, yum — I am checking these out! One of the great things about subscribing to the NYT is that I can save all these recipes into my recipe box!

Report · Feb 04, 2017

NYT Food section is great!

Nancy O'Shea— Product User, Community Expert & Moderator

Report · Feb 04, 2017

I like this chart. I hope it's fairly accurate.

Report · Feb 05, 2017

It's a bit of a minefield for anyone reasonably new to US media. What I am doing now is reading the centre to left outlets, and when I find anything interesting, try to confirm it or otherwise on sites like the BBC, Guardian, WoPo, NYT and LA Times.

Cats Eye's tip sounds interesting. I'll try that out right now. At the moment I am following ABC New's story about Trump lying about relinquishing ties to his business interests. I am also hoping that if the travel ban gets to the Supreme Court as has been suggested likely, that the ultimate decisions conform to the Rule of Law and your Constitution, and that the Supreme Court does not allow itself to be bullied into a verdict they don't believe is right.

Having just typed that last sentence, it feels ridiculous to even consider it as a possibility, but perhaps I have more respect for your Judiciary than Donald Trump.

Report · Feb 05, 2017

Best sellers from today's Washington Post, Trevor: note 1, 4, and 6

Report · Feb 05, 2017

How to Stay Sane as a Cartoonist in Trumpland - The New Yorker

Report · Feb 05, 2017

jane-e wrote:
Best sellers from today's Washington Post, Trevor: note 1, 4, and 6

There have been moments in the last two weeks when I actually feared that democracy was going to become a thing of the past in America. The GOP have not challenged any of seemingly crazy directives coming from The Whitehouse. The media is attacked for daring to challenge the most obvious falsehoods, and your Attorney General, Sally Yates, was sacked for looking at the travel ban from a legal perspective.

It is still on our main TV news every day, and the reaction from our news readers is one of disbelief. Trump will be talking to our PM today, and we are on tenterhooks wondering how that one will go. Bill English is fairly new to the PM job, but he has the look of a brawler about him.

It's a pity that today's conversation will be via the telephone. Bill boxed in his younger days, and got this black eye and other bruises from a charity boxing match in 2002. They don't mess about here. In fact they 'REALLY' don't mess about in Oz, and the Secret Service might have needed some fancy footwork to save Trump from a blacked eye if his conversation with Turnbull had been face to face. I can picture it in my head...

1st Secret Agent "Do you think we should step in?"

2nd Secret Agent "naaaa.. Give it another minute or two."

Report · Feb 05, 2017

I forgot to mention that Cats Eye's tip with the Firefox Private Window is working for me, so thanks for that.

Report · Feb 05, 2017

Hahaha!

Now I wish it were a face-to-face meeting as well!

Comedy is the only thing that keeps us going through this horror.

Arnold Schwarzenegger offered to switch jobs:

Arnold Schwarzenegger offers to switch jobs after President Trump's 'Apprentice' dig | abc7.com