I still stick to the belief that many who voted for the shitgibbon did it for 3 basic reasons. (1) They vote republican no matter what. (2) They hated Hillary more than they feared Trump. (3) They actually were crazy enough to believe the things Trump told them.
Many of those in groups 1 and 2 are one/two issue voters. NRA and Abortion. Those issues outweigh everything else.
Which is ironic, because I feel Trump voters are the best argument we’ve ever had for keeping abortion legal.
You are what you do. Steve Bannon is a racist fuck and represents bad things. It does not matter if he really believes in them at the level Steve Miller seems to or not. The policies they espouse and push through follow those racist beliefs.
Yeah, like I said, I actually think it’s worse. At least with people like David Duke, they say exactly what they mean, and you know where you stand. The ones that use the bigotry and hatred as a political tool are much more insidious, and maybe even more evil.
Gonna be a shame if these treasonous hacks all die.
“Questionable fundraising.”
Republicans: Money is free speech!
Also Republicans: Raising money to oppose me is bribery!
Yeah, I can’t grasp this bribery argument about the funding campaign against Susan Collins. If saying you’ll give money to her primary opponent if Collins votes to confirm Kavanaugh is bribery because she can save primary spending money by voting against him, then saying you will run against her in a primary if she votes to confirm Kavanaugh is bribery for the exact same reason. And that kind of political threat is routine, it’s the reason all the Republicans are controlled by the tea party / Trump voters. I can’t see why anyone takes that argument seriously. Collins says three lawyers have told her it’s a bribe, which makes me think she needs better lawyers.
I mean, it sure sounds like a bribe to me. As does nearly all campaign contributions and lobbying. So how about we get rid of all that and instead just grant each candidate n dollars to run a campaign with? ;)
FWIW, the crowdfunding has been done by some 40,000 people contributing $20.20 each. Grassroots funding IMO at least is how a democracy should work, not millions given by billionaires.
What makes this worse is the way it’s being reported by NBC.
Yes, it is literally the opposite of a campaign contribution to Collins in the conventional sense. If it is a bribe, then everything in politics is a bribe.
Short Twitter thread explains why Republicans can keep getting away with the shit they get away with.
The only reason to ever watch CNN in three words: Brooke Baldwin’s Cheekbones
I believe CNN is actually right wing controlled, it is the only way to explain most of the shit they put on the air.
It is Saturday morning, and Rod Rosenstein still has a job.
So do Michael Schmidt and his co-authors at the New York Times. They shouldn’t.
On Monday a wave of rumor broke over DC: Rosenstein, said the rumor, was so ashamed about a NYT article about him published the previous week that he wanted to resign … immediately. There was a moment of high drama on Monday as Rosenstein headed to the White House for a previously scheduled meeting. Was the future of the Russia investigation in doubt? Was a constitutional crisis imminent? Dozens of news sources scrambled to get the story and make sense of a tangle of conflicting facts.
In the event, nothing happened. Rosenstein did not resign. A meeting was scheduled between him and Trump (who at the time was in NYC at the UN) for Thursday; on Thursday it was quietly rescheduled to next week. Meanwhile, Trump-connected sources like the WSJ let it be known that Trump wanted Rosenstein to stay on, at least until after the midterms.
The story never made a lot of sense. The NYT piece that allegedly caused Rosenstein such anguish was more of a muffled thud than a bombshell: it was so poorly sourced that even Fox News raised its eyebrow. None of the sources claiming Rosenstein was going to resign were Rosenstein himself or “people familiar with his thinking” i.e. his allies. The one and only statement about the whole thing attributed to Rosenstein himself was a statement on Monday morning to an aide that he expected to be fired - a vastly different scenario with entirely different ramifications than a resignation.
So a rumor turned out to be wrong. Any responsible and self-aware news organization would admit as much, and then turn to the question of who spread the rumor and why. Not the New York Times. Instead, on Monday afternoon (after Rosenstein didn’t resign) they doubled down with a story that said Rosenstein was absolutely, definitely going to resign on Thursday, that Rosenstein broke down and became “emotional” at the meeting on Monday, and that he begged to talk to Trump directly so that Trump wouldn’t be mean to him on Twitter. Their prediction of a Thursday resignation turned out to be completely and absolutely wrong. (As is its wont, the Times has scrubbed the aforementioned articles when it was clear Rosenstein wasn’t leaving: the articles now reluctantly admit that reality refused to obey the Times’s dictates.)
The NYT doubled down on a Rosenstein resignation on a specific date, putting its credibility on the line. They got it wrong. If they take the truth seriously, they should replace the fuckups responsible and find some new reporters who will try harder to get it right.
Schmidt et. al. would doubtless respond that they had multiple highly-placed sources for their story, but this is irrelevant. Trump administration sources have proven time and time again to be liars; and not even the greenest cub reporter would assume that any statement from them was based in fact. And of course it’s no surprise there were multiple sources, because the GOP is good at coordinating talking points. It was just last weekend, after all, that they made a ludicrous and ill-advised, but undeniably coordinated, attempt to convince the world that Kavanaugh had a doppelganger. No one should be surprised that they also had a coordinated attempt to get Rosenstein to resign in the works.
(If Rosenstein should eventually resign in the days, weeks, or years ahead, the NYT will doubtless also claim vindication. But this too is irrelevant: no one praises the skill of the weatherman who says, “It will rain … someday.”)
The Times won’t fire anyone, of course. They left responsibility and self-awareness behind long ago. When you’re wallowing that deep in self-regard you’re unable to admit that you’ve been played. Instead they’ll just scold anyone who points their reporting defects for not respecting their betters, while mentally planning where to put their next Pulitzer.
Well written. Thank you.