So, I started a legitimate thread in the Custom Lounge regarding an article by Gary Shapiro of the CTA and I'm almost instantly vilified by the right-wing trumpers on here.

A total of 34 posts (and only seven by me - the original one posting a link, another one one posting a second link to a larger version of the same story, and five posts trying to defend myself from the haters).

So much hate! Enough to get the thread locked! This was "kill the messenger" at its finest!

Have I said some disparaging things on here against the orange beachball? Sure, but nothing worse than what was said about the last President from some of you. Hell, you're still attacking Hillary Clinton (did you know she lost? Talk about sore winners).

Anything Trump does, you're okay with. Ban abortion and jail doctors? Check. Arrest journalists ("the enemy of the State")? Why not. Use the Attorney General as his own personal lawyer? Check. Sue everyone and anything to avoid having to release his tax returns? Check. Did you never stop, for one second, to ask yourselves "What is he hiding?" If he's so totally vindicated (no collusion, no obstruction) then what is he trying to hide? He hasn't drained the swamp, he's the swamp creature!

There is something wrong with you. I need a name for it. Hmmm, how about:

Trump Derangement Syndrome

"People see what they want to see and disregard the rest."

politifact.com - does an excellent job distilling what politicians say and how truthful that is. Pretty much all of them are liars. The Donald is very prolific with the lies - approx 70% of the statements he makes are at best partially untruthful.

I doubt any one of us would have much do do with someone we met personally that lied that much. Yet somehow that is OK if they're the president. Trumpers will argue that Hillary or Pelosi are liars and to them that somehow makes the lies from Trump OK.

You're at work and your portable power drill disappears. You know someone stole it. One employee (that lies a lot) keeps claiming he had nothing to do with it and didn't steal it. He does this over and over. I wonder who stole your drill? In US politics he didn't. In the real world?

US politics has devolved into Party Over Country. The devoted of whichever party don't care about the real world. Their reality is their party and what the party wants is right. Bad for the country? In their minds the Party is the Country.

When Obama was first elected to the POTUS the economy was in free fall. People were losing their jobs and homes in droves. The RNC had their first meeting with Obama as president and what was the agenda they laid out? Keeping Americans in their homes? Keeping Americans in their jobs? Keeping food on the table for Americans who were unemployed through no fault of their own? No, their #1 agenda was to make Obama look bad and block anything and everything he tried to do. The Republican voters were OK with this, because Obama isn't in their Party. Party Over Country.

I was raised to love my country.  With what our politics has turned into, if I take a trip out of the US I will be Canadian.  I'm embarassed and highly disappointed.  I used to be proud to be an American.  Not any more.

I agree with everything you said. When we were at the height of the Vietnam war, I traveled Europe with a couple of friends camping and youth hostels etc. One of us sewed a Canadian flag to a backpack and we claimed to be Canadian the whole two months. If anyone asked we said we were from Windsor Ontario which was across the river from Detroit.

I think the only way we will see any real change is if we can get the corporate and super-wealthy's money out of the equation. When some of the lobbyists actually write the bills how does that do the country any good? Mr. Smith, LLC goes to Washington.

As Washington and the media explode,all I can do is laugh!

It's been wrong for so long that I'm surprised that we still have a country!

We will see what happens.

Am I allowed to drop by with a brief Brexit whinge?


We’re still fighting to get ours back!

I am not a fan of Trump (to put it simply I think he is the worst thing to happen to the US and the world). And I think the "topic" of that thread would have been extremely interesting.

I don't know about you or the rest of the guys but we are not Bestbuy, we don't have people coming in and leaving 20 minutes later with a TV at the price on the sticker. We meet with clients, take measurements, plan everything out, give them a quote and tell them "see you in (many months later) when we will have time for that job. It would be interesting to see what others are going to do, do you decide to eat up that extra cost (which can be substantial) aka "I stand by my original quote" or do you decide to call (some of) them back with new quotes and give them the choice to change stuff.

BUT that being said, you did not make yourself, the topic or the thread any services. Instead of making it about the business ( what will you do with quotes for future project, do you think people will try and wait it out and it will hurt business in the short term.....) You made it 100% political from the get go and you antagonized people that did not need much of an excuse to become hostile.

From the get go? Really? 100% political?

The very first post in the thread, which I created, only had two things in it:

1. Me saying: "Thanks to the Trump Tax:"

and

2. The link to the article discussing the interview with Gary Shapiro ...

... where Shapiro (not me) specifically says:

"The TRUMP Administration has now formally proposed an excise TAX or tariff on consumers' favorite technology products" [emphasis mine].

Do yourself a favor and re-read the first post. Then tell me you came to the same conclusion.

Yes you May (pun intended).

I think you got "Brexited" by the same means in which we got "Trumpeted". With help from the Internet Research Agency. Your thoughts?

So what happens next, with Theresa resigning? (or "Teresa" as the White House misspells it). Is there any possible way, even remotely, to have a re-do referendum? If so, would the vote be to "stay"?

From what I've read, it already looks like a few foreign corporations with European headquarters in the UK are already quitting the place.

My take from that thread is that the gang is so tuned into stomping on David for his "libtard" "anti Trump" "anti-Republican" yada yada yada views they don't even bother to read what is posted. His view doesn't match theirs so they refuse to listen. Thus:
"People see what they want to see and disregard the rest."

That’s what remoaners would like to believe, whilst Gore (as ever) believes it was down to climate change. However, the truth of the matter is that disenchantment within the EU (or EUSSR as it is known in some circles) genuinely runs deep, as last week’s European Election results demonstrate.

As with other well know political constructs (The Austro-Hungarian Empire, The Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, the Union of Norway and Sweden, and on a more local level pertinent to me, The County of Herefordshire and Worcestershire) the EU’s increasingly autocratic nature will almost certainly be its undoing. One only has to look at May’s Brexit deal, likened by some to the Versailles Treaty proffered to Germany after WW1, to see the spite and bile. For being responsible for a global conflagration and the deaths of millions? No, for merely wanting to return sovereignty over British domestic affairs to Westminster.

If interested, an article on the Antidemocratic nature of the European Union can be found here. And Brexit: Behind Closed Doors. is worth a watch, though I don’t know if it’s available over the pond. If not, here’s a rather telling quote from it…

"We got rid of them. We kicked them out. We finally turned them into a colony, and that was our plan from the first moment."

If one hadn’t already gathered, I’m a staunch Breixteer.


What happens next is anyone’s guess. May’s deal is dead: no one in their right mind could ever vote for a ‘leave deal’ that was effectively worse than remaining. As for a second referendum…

Back in 2016, I believe no one was more surprised at Leave winning than Farage. Democracy at work: the glum faces in the BBC studios were a joy to behold. The problem with a second referendum, though, is its undermining of the democracy of the first. This is another EU tactic: keep voting until you get the ‘right’ answer.

The situation is undoubtedly a shambles, but one that could so easily have been avoided. Richard North has a wealth of knowledge on the labyrinthine nature of the EU and produced ‘Flexit’ the definitive EU exit plan. At 407 pages long, it’s not a light read, but there is a video giving an outline...



All we can hope for is that May’s replacement (the pool doesn’t look overly inspiring - even my own MP own MP is considering tossing his hat into the ring) can salvage something from the wreckage. My real fear, however, is that nothing can, a General Election will be called, giving Corbyn (a bloody Marxist, for Christ's sake) a very real chance of entering No.10.

I, personally, have no undue concern about businesses leaving in fear of Brexit: the road was always likely to be rocky. But just take a look Labour’s energy and fiscal policies – renationalisation and Modern Monetary Theory. If that happens, the lights really will go out.

P.S. Sorry the post is so long, but nothing about the EU is simple, by design.

I think you may have stumbled onto something. I'm glad I don't live my life that way, with head in sand.

I'm very curious by nature, and used to take everything apart when I was a child to see how things worked. I'm a firm believer of the scientific method and I have no problem updating a prior opinion upon the introduction of new, solid evidence. I'm also far from the "libtard" which they think I am. There are many issues coming from the left that really annoy me:

- Over-board Political Correctness
- "Safe Spaces" etc.
- The left's own anti-science of GMOs and vaccines

The first two items above seem to be coming more from the millennial generation which I think started by the parent's ways of raising them ("everyone gets a reward") and letting the kids get away with anything. I was getting my haircut last week and a mom and dad brought their little girl with them. Mom was having her hair done and dad was trying to control the kid:

Dad (to child): "Why don't you sit on the couch?"
Child: "No!"
Dad: "Please"
Child: "No"
Dad: "Okay"

At any rate, we seem to have entered some sort of "post truth" era and it's very scary. I'm worried there will be no turning back.

You continually dig your own hole and then are shocked when you are thrown in it.  Your act is old.  I don't care about politics, so my angst with you has nothing to do with politics.  You are a leach that keeps sucking blood.  You post threads (or post in existing threads) with the intent of stirring things up and getting a rise out of people, nothing more.  Your game is transparent and the people reacting to your posts are just tired of your sh1t.  It's as simple as that!!!

It looks like you are stirred up and that something's got a rise out of you. Let's see, it can't be politics because you say that you don't care about politics. But you are suffering from self-described angst. I didn't realize that I had the power to cause so much strife in someone's life and for that I'm very sorry. Well, actually, I'm not sorry. Because I don't have time in my life to waste on whether your feelings have been hurt, or that you think my "act" is old, or that you equate me with some sort of out-of-favor medical treatment ("Bleed Him!").

Oh, and the people who are reacting to my posts and are just tired of my $hit? That is a contradictory statement - if they're tired of it they wouldn't react. Would they? They react because it's like ED medicine for them.

They react because 99% of your drivel is in threads about actual A/V topics where you bring your political jargon in to stir the pot, leading to ruined topics and closed threads. You are either delusional or just plain crazy that likes ruining a good thing. There are reasons that a large portion of the members have asked publicly for your removal from the site. I don't lose sleep over your antics and I'm sure most here don't, but its not irony that when your post count climbs, the overall traffic in the site dies down. You are a cancer, and cancer kills. You are killing this site.

How many members are there? According to your logic there should be about a dozen - two dozen max.

I can count on one hand the "... large portion of the members ..."