I didn't realize Muslim Americans do not salute the flag. Obama was never in the military and often forgets the custom and courtesies. Trump was also seen doing these things. Oddly, Melania is a foreigner and has been seen nudging Trump to show respects during the ceremonies. Immigrants are likely to know more about our country than the citizens. Those garbs Obama is wearing is called 'Batik". It's a traditional garb that predates Islam's arrival to Indonesia and is seen as formal wear just like a suit. I have a couple that were given to me as gifts and I've often worn them Indonesian gatherings and to the Consulate in Hawaii and California. None of them even ask about my religion or assume. They don't really care. There's a reason why so many people go to Bali for Vacation and you hear little from Indonesia when it comes to global terrorism.  Nearly all tourist buy them and wear them for the experience since they are everywhere. Indonesia is the worlds most populous country for muslims but Islam isn't the state religion. You can choose your religion and it is in their constitution. Also, many muslims in Indonesia say they're muslim "ktp". KTP is Indonesia for ID which means they're muslims per their ID and that is all. Since it has to be on their ID they choose one over atheism since atheism isn't allowed in Indonesia. Saying you're Muslim is the easiest road in Indonesia. Indonesia's approach to religion is similar to Singapore. They're just a lot poorer and have way to much land mass. Take i5 from someone who has been to Indonesia and speaks the language fluently, their is nothing he has done there that screams muslim or just curiosity and courtesy. When you visit the Temple of other religions you usually show your courtesy in kind. The whole muslim focus is just a push to rail people against him. Why is it that out of all the presidents Fox News often mentioned Obama's middle name. They wanted to well up peoples xenophobia/Islamophobia and coral them like sheep. He was treated entirely different from the right out of all the other presidents. That sounds like racism to me.

@Frederick:

@Drwas:

President Donald Trump is dealing with a budding scandal after his decision to fire FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday.

But even before that, he appears to have hit a new low with the American people.

A new poll from Quinnipiac University shows Trump’s disapproval rating rising to 58 percent - a new high in Quinnipiac’s regular polling and the highest in a high-quality, non-tracking poll since his inauguration. Just 36 percent approved of Trump’s job performance.

.. and we saw how accurate polls were in the 2016 election, eh?
The problem with polls is.. the polls represent only the people who are polled!  The pollsters typically only poll the people who live in high crime city centers.. where the libtards tend to live and breath like cockroaches.

Polls tend to be relatively accurate and Hillary did when the majority of votes. The polls did tighten closing in on the election. You see one poll and map all others the same. Trump has received the same ratings from all polls, even conservative polls poll him poorly. Is Fox News just polling "libtards"?. Should we now disregard all census data and anything that requires self-reporting? There will always be a range of accuracy when you use sample populations to divine majority sentiment but it gets you in the ball park.

@mhorndisk:

It's EMBARRASSING that you Queens will sit there and claim Trump is affiliated with the KKK when the KKK hates Jews and Trump is one of their biggest supporters. Obama had HORRIBLE relations with Israel, wouldn't even RECOGNIZE the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he came to the US. Obama is more in line with the KKK's HATRED of the Jews than Trump ever could be. Are you REALLY that fucking dumb? Don't you dare accuse Trump of being in league with the KKK and playing that race card. This post is appalling and ridiculous and you should be ashamed of yourself for being a fucking idiot for posting it.

The problem with Trump supporters is that they see just singular groups. Majority of Jews supported Obama and dislike Netanyahu and his political clout of late. They do not equate disagreement with Israel as a disagreement with Jews. Trumpkins wouldn't understand. Just because you dislike Somalia doesn't mean you hate black people or are a racist. This is just a talking point for Trumpkins trying to defend a group they normally rail against. A group that creates less noise over the issue than Trumpkins because they understand the problem and aren't blind nationalist when human rights are grossly dissolved. Jews are rated the smartest group in the US and yet maintain a high approval rating for Obama. What do they see that you don't? They aren't stupid.

@Frederick:

@blackwing:

Out of curiosity, what is up with all of the bigoted, right-leaning Conservatives on this site? Are there really that many self-hating bigots in the LGBT community or has this site been invaded by Republican "Tea-Party" nutjobs?

Actually.. homosexuals tend to be more educated, more intelligent, with high paying jobs.. and conservative.   
I don't suppose that you knew that the KKK is overwhelmingly democrats?

I bet you think that Hillary likes black people.  She is extremely racist.  She also hates homosexuals.

The only time you will see Hillary pandering to blacks and gays is when she is desperate for votes.

Did you just make that up? You can't possibly think the surge in kkk rallies, Trumps picture on every kkk magazine, kkk openly endorsing Trump makes them democrats? There was only one kkk member claiming democrat for his chapter and all the other 129 chapters stated this wasn't true. Only 9% of LGBT members rated trump warmly and 72% of LGBT supported Hillary.

Hillary did at a time make a disgusting statement that she turned around and apologized for.  Hillary flip-flops for sure, but is able to change her mind to represent her constitutents whereas Trump just can't. Trump never apologized for the Central park 5 and continues to call them criminals despite DNA evidence and a confession from the real perp. You have testimony for people who worked fro trump at dinner parties about blacks being ushered out of sight for not being classy enough to work in the public venue. You have his trouble with mobster Libutti that had him fined for discrimination by the Casino commission. It just goes on and on.

I'm a liberal and support our military. Then again, I just served 6 years in the army and just got out in order to go to school. In my branch, support for Trump is not as pronounced as is it with the usual" ground pounders". I had a Sgt or 2 that supported him in a company of over 200 people. Of course the branch with the highest GT requirements are less likely to support him, but we are in the minority. 62% of the military voted Trump or more accurately republican. The military see's a meal ticket and a call to action under republicans. We are trained to go to war and many enlisted for that purpose.

The military in garrison mode (i.e. peace time) is exceeding boring and filled with mundane and repetitive task just for the sake of doing something. Other days you are just training to go to war and fight. Republicans are more likely to produce that reality and give us money to do so. Go to war gives you combat badges, a combat tour on your belt which means promotion points, combat zone finance bonuses, your sitting in a country usually where you can't really spend much of the money so it just piles up nicely (unless you have a horrid wife at home spending it), etc. Legislation is also more likely to pass in favor of the military under a republican, however the democrats last year alone tried to pass over 16 legislations to help the military and veterans but republicans shot everyone of them down. They did it because the military "belongs" to them and they can't have them vying for their constituents. Doesn't really matter all that much when you look at the demographics where the military pulls from and our tactics. A lot of these guys are true republicans and come from the same families that just feed into the military for over generations. It's a culture within the family and a way of life. The military isn't voting republican because it helps the country as much as it helps us. The military is its own insulated culture with a different reality. It's not a fake or bad reality though. Just different.

@raphjd:

First of all.. Obama went 8 years without denouncing terrorism.. in fact.. he wound up FUNDING it!

Exactly.

It's not terrorism if a muslim does it.

I think you've got things confused. You should actually look at a government list of terrorist attacks in the "US". The majority of terrorist attacks are conducted by Americans and are white. When was the last time you heard the news report such a person as a terrorist. You don't hear it unless they're Muslim since those are the only terrorist people care about since they are able to channel a feeling of "other people not like us".

Historically, the Nazi party wanted to eradicate large swaths of people whereas communism wanted to eradicate an identity.

I would claim socialism is akin to the  two above even if there are some derivative elements. It's like hating all Jews just because "they killed jesus". We all enjoy socialist norms in the US. Public access roads, public access anything, public schools, fire department, the police, etc. We adopt that which works and it doesn't have to be black and white as some people will claim. Universal healthcare has proven to be a tremendous positive in Europe and western powers. The US score the lowest on the Human Development Index than our peers. Blue states are at the top of the HDI of course. Blue states have more money and focus outward than inward.

I wouldn't say conservatism is growing in the US. There is just a shift and concentration of populations and a lot of people who vote the lesser of evils that they perceived. If you look at a 3D map of the US elections most red districts nearly do not exist since the blue districts tower over them by far. Conservatives are strategically spread out and are district-ed, thus giving them more power even when there are districts with only 40 people versus those that have up a million. Also if you look at an electoral vote of millennials from this election Hillary won 43 states from millennials. Also with a more diversified population it becomes harder for republicans. All charts on who benefits groups more has always pointed to democrats. Even Caucasians overall do better under democrats financially and score higher on the human development index.

There are conservative bastions in the US of course. Every blue state in the US over the last 30-40 years has vote for a republican because they preferred the candidate whereas there are 13 red states that have only voted red because of the party. This makes it a little difficult for democrats  when your constituents aren't just regular loyal "football fans" that vote only for the team like many republican states. They actually have to appeal to their constituents. Obviously they have an easier time of course, but republicans have a chance whereas in some states democrats just can't.

Sidenote: The district of Columbia has only voted blue and by a massive margin. Usually 80%+ but its not really a state so I didn't mention it. The last election they voted for Hillary by 92%. No one really likes Trump there I guess.

@raphjd:

Your citations for these beliefs of yours from established, reputable, professional-journalist news sources are… where???

Let me guess, you will only accept liberal sites like TYT and CNN.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/01/obama-expanding-nsa-powers/513041/

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/01/obama-expands-surveillance-powers-his-way-out

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_on_mass_surveillance (I don't normally post wikipedia, but liberal love it)

Then of course we have Wikileaks and Snowden.   You know, the whistleblowers Obama persecuted despite his campaign promise to protect whistleblowers.

Obama promised to end the GWB era mass surveillance but that was a total lie, just like ending no bid contracts.

It was Obama's promises to end GWB era crap (Patriot Act, etc) that got me to vote for him over Hillary.    He lied and liberal justified.

I was given to say that you did not even read the articles but had to hold back knowing that you've probably never been an analyst or just aren't privy to intelligence jargon. Nowhere in those articles does it say anything about expanding surveillance on Americans "that isn't already being done". The  crux of these articles is its focus on incidental collection. The NSA has no focus on domestic affairs. The article outright said the information can only be acquired for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes. What does that mean? Most people who fall into those categories are either foreign, an agent of a foreign power, or acting grievously against the US. In order for the NSA to have acquired this information, these people would have had to have either been outside of the US, or had connections outside of the US and were assigned a "federal warrant" against which entails that there is unreasonable doubt that these people are most certainly in violation of the aforementioned.

The core of the articles (I didn't read wikipedia) concerns incidental collections that were previously filtered out by the NSA when sent to sister agencies. The new approach will be to not filter requested information in order avoid obfuscating targeted information. This is all Top Secret information and remains that way. Another agency can't reduce classifications from other sources that classified it. The problem is that while the NSA can't act on this information (literally a mass murderer could be in your home and about to kill your entire family and they would do nothing about it if he doesn't have an FBI warrant and is in the continental US), the FBI can act on incidental collected information concerning US persons since that is their jurisdiction and would be privy to information that is irrelevant and private, but the NSA could already do this and it remains in the TS realm anyway. There are more safeguards and happenstance that the article doesn't mention, but the overwhelming majority of Americans are not effected at all. It still remains concerning within its on context but anything that warrants the FBI to pursue to place a federal warrant on your head isn't irrelevant. The information stays in the TS realm just as it did with the NSA, it literally is in the same place, just another intelligence agency can see  it in its raw form just like the NSA always could. Remember, this information is foreign and comes from outside the US. Also, it is illegal for the NSA to collect on a person with the intention of incidentally collecting on a US person.

Incidentally collected information isn't wild and rampant, but will continue to exist as long as we have foreign enemies. Terrorist and Agents of foreign powers will always target american and they will get swooped up in collection. Someone truly nefarious had to have been in connection with you to have been incidentally collected. Though not the intention it helps protect Americans even if by mistake since now the US knows you are a target or of interest. The NSA/"CSS" also is more oriented with the military. They are focused on the war on terror and enemy combatants. Why else is the head always military?

I've said this before, snowden was a traitor. He did not attempt to use any whistle-blower channels at all. He didn't vet the information and didn't understand the difference between capabilities and restraints. People see incidental US person information, but what do you expect if a terrorist once contacted you? How do we prevent a mass bombing if they don't look? Everyone reads what they can do but never read the mountains of legal information,policies, and statutes that govern intelligence conduct.  It's boring and takes several reads if you're not a lawyer. Most whistle-blowing doesn't make the news since the information is classified and would harm the US by exposing us to our enemies and thus is held in FISA courts. The policies are adjusted accordingly. All legal matters concerning classified information is held in a FISA court and no regular civilian will ever hear about what goes on in their. This is kept secret from you by consequence since informing you is to inform terrorist, Russia, and all our enemies on how to evade us.

This will just go on and on and I'm not going to continue writing and writing. I think this is enough. I will not tell you to actually look through released policy letters and mundane regulations since leaked information is spillage. Spillage doesn't remove classification levels and thus referencing such information is still illegal.

Well we can't just take them for true without evidence. 99.9% of theories are false and if we gave them all credence we would be wearing tin foil hats and adamantium diapers to protect ourselves from barbed alien butt probes. We would be entering pizza gallerias and shooting the place up looking for Hillary child sex rings. We would be bombing abortion clinics over falsified information that caters to one's paranoia. Even if .1% of them are true in some sense, we can't take them for true until proven otherwise. I haven't read or verified any of your claims, but most or all them them required government declassification. What is the point going your whole life with fevered thoughts just to be proven right .1% of the time when this information is only ever revealed by expiration of classification dates or government revelations? This kind of thinking engenders the type of people who are readily given to any fake news just because it panders to their wayward biases. People like this are not healthy. If you were a stock investor and there was a company that had a .1% chance to make you a millionaire, but a 99.9% chance to wipe 20% of your account with each trade, what would you do? This is the toll conspiracy theorist suffer on the mind. A long battle of attrition living solely for moment far off into the yonder that you will snag a catch. The question is why when we could deal with it in it's on time when it can be reasonably done?