Kevin Koster commented on Jonathan Turley: Democrats Have ‘Bulldozed Any Moral High Ground They Had After Jan. 6’
2024-03-11 16:02:57 -0400
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Turley has not even a shred of credibility, much less anything approaching a moral high ground.
The reality is that Turley has been shamelessly deflecting for Little Trump for years, and his latest antics are only the most current examples we have.
Turley is understandably afraid of what will happen when Little Trump is actually being tried in court for his multiple felony crimes. And Turley is even more afraid of what will happen with voters when they are informed that the GOP is trying to support a man who is soon to be a convicted felon.
So Turley is supporting the various games that Little Trump’s unpaid attorneys are playing to try to run out the clock and keep any of the prosecutions from getting to trial before November.
What’s actually happening is that Little Trump’s hush-money trial in NYC will begin in two weeks. His RICO trial in Georgia looks like it’s going in the summer, after the judge bats away the nonsensical attempted smears that Right Wingers flung at the DA there. The Supreme Court will hear Little Trump’s outlandish claims of total immunity in another month or so and give their opinion likely in June, which will set up the DC January 6 trial to go by late summer. And that doesn’t even get into the stolen documents case.
Whether Turley likes it or not, the wheels of justice are not going to stop turning just because Little Trump wants to pretend he’s being persecuted rather than being prosecuted.
The reality is that Turley has been shamelessly deflecting for Little Trump for years, and his latest antics are only the most current examples we have.
Turley is understandably afraid of what will happen when Little Trump is actually being tried in court for his multiple felony crimes. And Turley is even more afraid of what will happen with voters when they are informed that the GOP is trying to support a man who is soon to be a convicted felon.
So Turley is supporting the various games that Little Trump’s unpaid attorneys are playing to try to run out the clock and keep any of the prosecutions from getting to trial before November.
What’s actually happening is that Little Trump’s hush-money trial in NYC will begin in two weeks. His RICO trial in Georgia looks like it’s going in the summer, after the judge bats away the nonsensical attempted smears that Right Wingers flung at the DA there. The Supreme Court will hear Little Trump’s outlandish claims of total immunity in another month or so and give their opinion likely in June, which will set up the DC January 6 trial to go by late summer. And that doesn’t even get into the stolen documents case.
Whether Turley likes it or not, the wheels of justice are not going to stop turning just because Little Trump wants to pretend he’s being persecuted rather than being prosecuted.
Kevin Koster commented on Trump: ‘Any Time I Get Indicted, It’s An Honor’
2024-02-05 16:42:53 -0500
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Little Trump, aka Pence’s childish former spokesman, sounds like he wants people to think he’s enjoying himself in court. In reality, as Ellen correctly notes, Little Trump is terrified of the consequences of his felonious behavior.
And if he really thinks an “honor” to be indicted 91 times for his felony crimes, one has to wonder how thrilled he will be when he gets convicted and sent to Leavenworth.
And if he really thinks an “honor” to be indicted 91 times for his felony crimes, one has to wonder how thrilled he will be when he gets convicted and sent to Leavenworth.
Kevin Koster commented on Fox News And The Right Wing’s Sick Obsession With Taylor Swift
2024-02-02 16:55:55 -0500
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It’s frankly been interesting to see Angry Right Wingers panicking about Taylor Swift. I’m not sure that attacking her and her fans is a winning strategy, but Angry Right Wingers tend to fall back to that. The problem here is that Swift mobilizing her fans, even a fraction of them, to get out and vote this year, could be a game changer in several states. Personally, I’m all for it. There are plenty of sensible people in Red States, and if this is what it takes to get them to the ballot box, it’s a good thing.
Kevin Koster commented on Fox News Suddenly Cares About Presidential Insults
2024-01-19 11:04:39 -0500
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Fox has absolutely no moral ground to say one word about insults, given that they have made their entire business model from insulting everyone with whom Angry Right Wingers disagree.
Are we seriously meant to believe that Fox viewers are clutching their pearls over being challenged for their bigotry, when Fox has specialized not only in cheerleading the most vicious of personal attacks (see: thousands of examples from Jesse Watters, Hannity, Carlson, O’Reilly, etc, etc etc) but they’ve also encouraged their on-air personalities to engage in them. Everything from disgraced pundit Glenn Beck projecting his own issues and calling President Obama a “racist” to James Taranto on Hannity’s show in 2011 calling President Obama “a pathetic little man”. And that doesn’t even touch their gleeful joy at watching Mike Pence’s childish former spokesman constantly throwing tantrums throughout the unfortunate epoch of 2017-2020.
Honestly, do these people really think that nobody can remember their vicious, bigoted, hateful comments from even two minutes ago?
Are we seriously meant to believe that Fox viewers are clutching their pearls over being challenged for their bigotry, when Fox has specialized not only in cheerleading the most vicious of personal attacks (see: thousands of examples from Jesse Watters, Hannity, Carlson, O’Reilly, etc, etc etc) but they’ve also encouraged their on-air personalities to engage in them. Everything from disgraced pundit Glenn Beck projecting his own issues and calling President Obama a “racist” to James Taranto on Hannity’s show in 2011 calling President Obama “a pathetic little man”. And that doesn’t even touch their gleeful joy at watching Mike Pence’s childish former spokesman constantly throwing tantrums throughout the unfortunate epoch of 2017-2020.
Honestly, do these people really think that nobody can remember their vicious, bigoted, hateful comments from even two minutes ago?
Kevin Koster commented on Sean Hannity Pitches In To Get O’Reilly’s Books Un-Banned In Florida
2024-01-19 10:56:28 -0500
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There’s a big reason why O’Reilly is hypocritically outraged about his books being pulled. Since he no longer has his cushy position at Fox after he was fired in disgrace for sexual harassment and worse seven years ago, he depends on Right Wingers buying his “Killing” books in bulk to give him an income. He certainly isn’t making much of a profit with his podcast, where he regularly begs listeners to give him money. So he needs the places where there are lots of Right Wingers to go buy his books in large quantities.
And O’Reilly did not previously have any problem with DeSantis and Angry Right Wing Florida officials banning books he personally doesn’t like. O’Reilly has repeatedly spoke out in praise of Florida’s behavior in these areas. It was only when O’Reilly found his own books in the crosshairs that he suddenly rediscovered the 1st Amendment – and only for himself. In his tantrum about this situation, he’s again stated that he thinks other books he doesn’t like still should be banned.
I must note that O’Reilly’s books are a questionable affair in the first place, and it’s easy to see how they fell afoul of the Florida censorship rules. In addition to being poorly written and poorly researched (almost completely by O’Reilly’s “co-author” Martin Dugard), they usually are loaded with salacious details from questionable sources. O’Reilly’s unfortunate ramblings about “Killing the Mob” and “Killing the Legends” include all kinds of saucy assertions about Hollywood and Elvis and John Lennon, etc. Which of course fuel the usual Angry Right Wing hatred of Hollywood and various celebrities. And there’s the matter that all of those O’Reilly books are in a series he has enthusiastically titled “Killing (fill in the blank)”. As far as having any scholastic value, it would be an extreme uphill battle to prove such about anything O’Reilly has written. One supposes the books are useful as evidence of O’Reilly’s own personal issues and biases. Even though we have plenty of that from his public tantrums and unfortunate comments over the years.
Ellen is correct that no book should be banned – the whole notion of that is an obvious assault on the 1st Amendment. But it’s more than a little interesting to see a disgraced Angry Right Wing pundit being hoist by his own petard.
And O’Reilly did not previously have any problem with DeSantis and Angry Right Wing Florida officials banning books he personally doesn’t like. O’Reilly has repeatedly spoke out in praise of Florida’s behavior in these areas. It was only when O’Reilly found his own books in the crosshairs that he suddenly rediscovered the 1st Amendment – and only for himself. In his tantrum about this situation, he’s again stated that he thinks other books he doesn’t like still should be banned.
I must note that O’Reilly’s books are a questionable affair in the first place, and it’s easy to see how they fell afoul of the Florida censorship rules. In addition to being poorly written and poorly researched (almost completely by O’Reilly’s “co-author” Martin Dugard), they usually are loaded with salacious details from questionable sources. O’Reilly’s unfortunate ramblings about “Killing the Mob” and “Killing the Legends” include all kinds of saucy assertions about Hollywood and Elvis and John Lennon, etc. Which of course fuel the usual Angry Right Wing hatred of Hollywood and various celebrities. And there’s the matter that all of those O’Reilly books are in a series he has enthusiastically titled “Killing (fill in the blank)”. As far as having any scholastic value, it would be an extreme uphill battle to prove such about anything O’Reilly has written. One supposes the books are useful as evidence of O’Reilly’s own personal issues and biases. Even though we have plenty of that from his public tantrums and unfortunate comments over the years.
Ellen is correct that no book should be banned – the whole notion of that is an obvious assault on the 1st Amendment. But it’s more than a little interesting to see a disgraced Angry Right Wing pundit being hoist by his own petard.
Kevin Koster commented on Laura Ingraham Tells DeSantis And Haley To Drop Out And Endorse Trump
2024-01-17 16:19:25 -0500
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Ingraham is working overtime to once again ingratiate herself with Little Trump. But she’s not thinking clearly here. What is she going to do after Little Trump is convicted of his felonies and his voters flee him? At least one-third of the Iowa GOP caucusers made clear that they will not support him after he’s convicted. The GOP is going to need a viable candidate after Little Trump is remanded to custody and sent to Leavenworth for the first of his prison sentences. One would think that even Ingraham knows that they’re going to have to turn to Nikki Haley before the convention if they don’t want to have a complete disaster there.
Kevin Koster commented on Trump Town Hall Shows Fox Likely To Turn Even More Extreme
2024-01-15 16:21:16 -0500
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Ellen is absolutely correct to note this problem.
I would just add that at least part of Fox’s motivation for going even farther to the Extreme Right is that they’re being pulled there by their competitors on the Right Wing fringe. Angry Right Wing propaganda outlets like “Newsmax” and “Breitbart” and “The Blaze” and “OAN” etc, are continuing the dark work they’ve been inflicting for the past decade and more. It is frankly shocking that some of those outlets are now pushing so far off the cliff of the Extreme Far Right that they are accusing Fox itself of somehow being “left” or “liberal”. (It’s interesting to also note that many of these propaganda outlets have scooped up the former Fox hosts from the past – like Greta Van Susteren and the disgraced serial harasser Eric Bolling.)
In the wake of the 2020 Election, most of these outlets followed Little Trump’s lead of frantically trying to deny the outcome. It was frankly obvious that they were desperately placating Little Trump’s inability to admit to being a loser.
And in the current context, the desperation of Fox to not be completely outflanked on the Right by these extremists, many of them being fronted by former Fox faces, is understandable. It doesn’t make Fox any less craven for doing it, but one can see why Fox is panicking like this.
I would just add that at least part of Fox’s motivation for going even farther to the Extreme Right is that they’re being pulled there by their competitors on the Right Wing fringe. Angry Right Wing propaganda outlets like “Newsmax” and “Breitbart” and “The Blaze” and “OAN” etc, are continuing the dark work they’ve been inflicting for the past decade and more. It is frankly shocking that some of those outlets are now pushing so far off the cliff of the Extreme Far Right that they are accusing Fox itself of somehow being “left” or “liberal”. (It’s interesting to also note that many of these propaganda outlets have scooped up the former Fox hosts from the past – like Greta Van Susteren and the disgraced serial harasser Eric Bolling.)
In the wake of the 2020 Election, most of these outlets followed Little Trump’s lead of frantically trying to deny the outcome. It was frankly obvious that they were desperately placating Little Trump’s inability to admit to being a loser.
And in the current context, the desperation of Fox to not be completely outflanked on the Right by these extremists, many of them being fronted by former Fox faces, is understandable. It doesn’t make Fox any less craven for doing it, but one can see why Fox is panicking like this.
Kevin Koster commented on Nikki Haley Reveals Plan To Cut Social Security – Minutes After She Denied Planning To
2024-01-15 16:13:46 -0500
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We need to be very clear about the intentions of the Angry Right Wingers in the GOP when it comes to Social Security and Medicare. They are currently playing one of their usual cards of faux “concern” about these programs when in fact they want to not only gut them but eliminate them within a generation.
The GOP never wanted either Social Security or Medicare to exist. They have always been hostile to these programs and have done everything they could to disparage them and sabotage them. GOP politicians and Angry Right Wing pundits have spent decades referring to Social Security as a “Ponzi Scheme” or as “Social Insecurity” and trying to convince voters that the program doesn’t work and is going bankrupt. They’ve been unsuccessful in turning the public against these programs because the programs actually work, and seniors tend to be pleasantly surprised that they actually do receive the retirement insurance they’ve been paying for throughout their careers, despite GOP doomsaying that they would never see it.
The latest GOP approach, cultivated over the past 25 years, has been to refuse to make any common sense adjustments to the funding of the programs, thus setting up a situation where Angry Right Wingers could make the nonsensical comments Haley does here – about how the programs are about to go bankrupt and we better do something drastic to head that off. In reality, the GOP could head off any problems right now by agreeing to multiple simple steps that they’ve been stonewalling for over two decades.
The Dems’ solutions here, which the GOP has refused to consider, include raising the cap on applicable earnings from the 160K area to somewhere above 500K or removing it entirely, increasing the pool of applicable employees to include state and local governmental workers, and making a tiny incremental increase in the employer side of FICA. That last part could have been at 0.1% if the GOP and the Right Wing would have gotten out of the way in the early 2000s. Since they’ve obstructed it for this long, that number is now likely closer to 0.3% – not a large number, but higher than it could have been had the GOP not been sabotaging our ability to address the issue.
The one area where the GOP partly agrees with the Dems is in the notion of raising the retirement age. Except that the Dems want to make a very small, incremental increase from 67 to 69 over 20+ years, and the GOP wants an immediate jump from 67 to 70 to go into effect for everyone not currently retired. As the CBPP report notes, any increase in retirement age would really hit the lower income workers the hardest, as their age expectancy has never increased in the way the GOP currently tells people it has. (The GOP is of course planning a little switch-up if they get their way with the sudden increase – they’ll tell the angry near-retirees and everyone else that the program is failing just like the GOP had predicted, which would be part of their setting the stage to completely erase the program a few years later.
But Haley masks the larger part of the GOP approach to gutting SS, and she’s doing so with full knowledge of what that approach will do. Per the most updated Republican Study Committee plan, which is built from the 2010 Heritage Foundation Plan to “save” Social Security, the GOP idea is to change the basics of how the program works. The new idea would be to have SS be a flat monthly payment of $1200 per month for anyone who receives it. Right Wingers like to say this would mean an increase for some and a decrease for others, so that’s a good idea, right? Wrong. The actual impact is that low income retirees would see a small increase in their monthly payments and everyone else would get a larger and larger cut. For example, Middle Class retirees who were scheduled to receive 3K to 4K per month would now be told to live with $1200 instead.
But wait, it gets even better. Haley and her associates would then means-test the Social Security payments so that anyone with a decent pension or 401K would be told they are ineligible for most, if not all, of the $1200 each month. It doesn’t matter to the GOP that these Americans paid into FICA every week for decades. The GOP plan would be to tell that group to jump in the lake – as yet another way of proving their idea that “government can’t get anything done”. And it gets better still – the RSC has noted they want their new conditions to apply to everyone born after 1968. In other words, this would apply to people in their mid-50s right now, who are looking at retirement in about a decade. I note that even the Heritage Plan wasn’t this nasty – they were talking about their draconian cuts only applying to people born after 1985, who would have been 25 at the time they were promulgating those cuts. The current GOP has no such restraints on how poorly they want to treat the Middle Class. This probably should not be a surprise, given that the GOP enthusiastically skyrocketed the federal taxes of Middle Class Employees with the 2017 GOP Tax Transfer that the Dems still haven’t repealed.
Voters really need to keep this in mind when they go to the ballot booth in November. If the GOP gets their way and winds up with Nikki Haley in the White House and a GOP Congress, we can be certain they will move quickly to make the cuts described above, if not even more drastic ones.
The GOP never wanted either Social Security or Medicare to exist. They have always been hostile to these programs and have done everything they could to disparage them and sabotage them. GOP politicians and Angry Right Wing pundits have spent decades referring to Social Security as a “Ponzi Scheme” or as “Social Insecurity” and trying to convince voters that the program doesn’t work and is going bankrupt. They’ve been unsuccessful in turning the public against these programs because the programs actually work, and seniors tend to be pleasantly surprised that they actually do receive the retirement insurance they’ve been paying for throughout their careers, despite GOP doomsaying that they would never see it.
The latest GOP approach, cultivated over the past 25 years, has been to refuse to make any common sense adjustments to the funding of the programs, thus setting up a situation where Angry Right Wingers could make the nonsensical comments Haley does here – about how the programs are about to go bankrupt and we better do something drastic to head that off. In reality, the GOP could head off any problems right now by agreeing to multiple simple steps that they’ve been stonewalling for over two decades.
The Dems’ solutions here, which the GOP has refused to consider, include raising the cap on applicable earnings from the 160K area to somewhere above 500K or removing it entirely, increasing the pool of applicable employees to include state and local governmental workers, and making a tiny incremental increase in the employer side of FICA. That last part could have been at 0.1% if the GOP and the Right Wing would have gotten out of the way in the early 2000s. Since they’ve obstructed it for this long, that number is now likely closer to 0.3% – not a large number, but higher than it could have been had the GOP not been sabotaging our ability to address the issue.
The one area where the GOP partly agrees with the Dems is in the notion of raising the retirement age. Except that the Dems want to make a very small, incremental increase from 67 to 69 over 20+ years, and the GOP wants an immediate jump from 67 to 70 to go into effect for everyone not currently retired. As the CBPP report notes, any increase in retirement age would really hit the lower income workers the hardest, as their age expectancy has never increased in the way the GOP currently tells people it has. (The GOP is of course planning a little switch-up if they get their way with the sudden increase – they’ll tell the angry near-retirees and everyone else that the program is failing just like the GOP had predicted, which would be part of their setting the stage to completely erase the program a few years later.
But Haley masks the larger part of the GOP approach to gutting SS, and she’s doing so with full knowledge of what that approach will do. Per the most updated Republican Study Committee plan, which is built from the 2010 Heritage Foundation Plan to “save” Social Security, the GOP idea is to change the basics of how the program works. The new idea would be to have SS be a flat monthly payment of $1200 per month for anyone who receives it. Right Wingers like to say this would mean an increase for some and a decrease for others, so that’s a good idea, right? Wrong. The actual impact is that low income retirees would see a small increase in their monthly payments and everyone else would get a larger and larger cut. For example, Middle Class retirees who were scheduled to receive 3K to 4K per month would now be told to live with $1200 instead.
But wait, it gets even better. Haley and her associates would then means-test the Social Security payments so that anyone with a decent pension or 401K would be told they are ineligible for most, if not all, of the $1200 each month. It doesn’t matter to the GOP that these Americans paid into FICA every week for decades. The GOP plan would be to tell that group to jump in the lake – as yet another way of proving their idea that “government can’t get anything done”. And it gets better still – the RSC has noted they want their new conditions to apply to everyone born after 1968. In other words, this would apply to people in their mid-50s right now, who are looking at retirement in about a decade. I note that even the Heritage Plan wasn’t this nasty – they were talking about their draconian cuts only applying to people born after 1985, who would have been 25 at the time they were promulgating those cuts. The current GOP has no such restraints on how poorly they want to treat the Middle Class. This probably should not be a surprise, given that the GOP enthusiastically skyrocketed the federal taxes of Middle Class Employees with the 2017 GOP Tax Transfer that the Dems still haven’t repealed.
Voters really need to keep this in mind when they go to the ballot booth in November. If the GOP gets their way and winds up with Nikki Haley in the White House and a GOP Congress, we can be certain they will move quickly to make the cuts described above, if not even more drastic ones.
Kevin Koster commented on Don’t Believe For One Moment That Stefanik Or Hannity Care About Antisemitism
2024-01-05 22:15:46 -0500
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This entire witch hunt by Angry Right Wingers against colleges should be called out for what it is.
I agree with Ellen that neither Hannity nor Stefanik truly care about the issue of anti-semitism or about what actually happens when bigots physically attack the people they hate. I didn’t hear either of them lift a finger when the Tiki Torch marchers in Charlottesville ran around yelling “Jews will not replace us!” I didn’t hear either of them lift a finger when there were over 1400 documented hate crimes in the wake of Little Trump’s squeaker win in 2016, as noted by the Southern Poverty Law Center at the time. These attacks included synagogues having swastikas spray painted on them, and young Muslim girls having their hijabs ripped off their heads.
Stefanik’s attempted “gotcha” moment with the colleges was a fairly craven matter. Whether or not one wants to get into Gay’s issues with possible plagiarism is frankly irrelevant to this. And it wouldn’t have come up as a possible issue if Angry Right Wingers hadn’t decided to go after her with everything they had.
I also want to note that “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free” is NOT automatically a call for genocide or any other kind of violence. This is why Professor Gay and the others who testified at Congress didn’t fall for the obvious setup that Stefanik and the other Angry Right Wingers were attempting. Professor Gay correctly and appropriately noted that the context is extremely important. Who is saying that slogan and who they are saying it to. If we’re discussing Hamas terrorists or their supporters cheering on the deaths of Israelis, then obviously it’s something to be condemned. But what if we’re discussing Jewish peace activists who are gathering with Palestinian activists at Harvard and other campuses to beg for a cease-fire to stop the killing and revenge killing? Angry Right Wingers would like everyone to conflate the two ideas and then just condemn the peace activists, and they’re hiding behind the Hamas attack to try to get away with this.
Past that, Angry Right Wingers have long been making nasty comments about colleges and universities somehow corrupting the students, since they don’t teach Far Right extremist propaganda. So this was an easy opportunity for Stefanik to put on her “I’m OUTRAGED” act in front of Congress, and an easy opportunity for Angry Right Wing pundits everywhere to muse about the sheer awfulness of anyone who doesn’t immediately call for the complete razing of Gaza.
I agree with Ellen that neither Hannity nor Stefanik truly care about the issue of anti-semitism or about what actually happens when bigots physically attack the people they hate. I didn’t hear either of them lift a finger when the Tiki Torch marchers in Charlottesville ran around yelling “Jews will not replace us!” I didn’t hear either of them lift a finger when there were over 1400 documented hate crimes in the wake of Little Trump’s squeaker win in 2016, as noted by the Southern Poverty Law Center at the time. These attacks included synagogues having swastikas spray painted on them, and young Muslim girls having their hijabs ripped off their heads.
Stefanik’s attempted “gotcha” moment with the colleges was a fairly craven matter. Whether or not one wants to get into Gay’s issues with possible plagiarism is frankly irrelevant to this. And it wouldn’t have come up as a possible issue if Angry Right Wingers hadn’t decided to go after her with everything they had.
I also want to note that “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free” is NOT automatically a call for genocide or any other kind of violence. This is why Professor Gay and the others who testified at Congress didn’t fall for the obvious setup that Stefanik and the other Angry Right Wingers were attempting. Professor Gay correctly and appropriately noted that the context is extremely important. Who is saying that slogan and who they are saying it to. If we’re discussing Hamas terrorists or their supporters cheering on the deaths of Israelis, then obviously it’s something to be condemned. But what if we’re discussing Jewish peace activists who are gathering with Palestinian activists at Harvard and other campuses to beg for a cease-fire to stop the killing and revenge killing? Angry Right Wingers would like everyone to conflate the two ideas and then just condemn the peace activists, and they’re hiding behind the Hamas attack to try to get away with this.
Past that, Angry Right Wingers have long been making nasty comments about colleges and universities somehow corrupting the students, since they don’t teach Far Right extremist propaganda. So this was an easy opportunity for Stefanik to put on her “I’m OUTRAGED” act in front of Congress, and an easy opportunity for Angry Right Wing pundits everywhere to muse about the sheer awfulness of anyone who doesn’t immediately call for the complete razing of Gaza.
Kevin Koster commented on Sean Hannity Has Ditched New York And Moved To Florida
2024-01-03 11:11:38 -0500
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It’s unsurprising that Hannity is fleeing to a retirement residence in Florida. Given that he’s approaching 30 years of inflicting angry partisan propaganda on Fox, it’s likely that he’s looking to get the Brit Hume position that O’Reilly famously wanted for himself – ie getting to opine a couple of times a week and not need to host a daily program but still get paid a generous amount by Fox.
Hannity has always been one of the more consistent of the Rush Limbaugh copycats over the past couple of decades, even if he has never been able to capture the sheer number of angry bigots that Limbaugh could. It’s certainly been enough to allow him to earn a small fraction of the fortune Limbaugh wallowed in. Hannity’s move to Florida is also consistent with his copycat moves in this area – Limbaugh also made a point of frantically running from New York to Florida in the 1990s.
It should be noted that Hannity may not reside close to Little Trump for very long, given the impending felony convictions and prison sentences facing the man Hannity has spent so much time desperately toadying for. Of course, Hannity could purchase a modest residence in Lansing, Kansas and be able to go see Little Trump during Visiting Hours each Thursday if he really wishes.
Hannity has always been one of the more consistent of the Rush Limbaugh copycats over the past couple of decades, even if he has never been able to capture the sheer number of angry bigots that Limbaugh could. It’s certainly been enough to allow him to earn a small fraction of the fortune Limbaugh wallowed in. Hannity’s move to Florida is also consistent with his copycat moves in this area – Limbaugh also made a point of frantically running from New York to Florida in the 1990s.
It should be noted that Hannity may not reside close to Little Trump for very long, given the impending felony convictions and prison sentences facing the man Hannity has spent so much time desperately toadying for. Of course, Hannity could purchase a modest residence in Lansing, Kansas and be able to go see Little Trump during Visiting Hours each Thursday if he really wishes.
Kevin Koster commented on Hannity Just Produced A Movie With John Schneider, Who Wants Biden ‘Hung’
2023-12-26 20:26:33 -0500
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One of the more depressing aspects of the past couple of decades has been the descent of many Right Wingers into outright viciousness. In some cases, these were people who probably always harbored angry thoughts toward others and who simply feel emboldened by Fox, Breitbart, AM Radio and personalities like Little Trump. In other cases, these were people who have transitioned from rationality to irrationality. Some have always been jerks but moved their politics from being liberal to Right Wing, or moved their politics in the opposite direction.
John Schneider formerly had a strong career in Hollywood, regardless of his politics. Dukes of Hazzard was obviously the biggest role, and one where he and co-lead Tom Wopat actually strong-armed Warner Bros by refusing to film the 5th season, which led to the infamous episodes with Coy and Vance Duke. Following that, Schneider regularly worked on many other series as a lead and series regular, including Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman, where he replaced the male lead for much of their final season. And he’s been on a laundry list of other shows. I worked with him in 1998 on JAG and found him at that time to be a professional and polite man. But a lot can change over time, as noted. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that, like many Right Wingers, he was emboldened to come out with offensive statements he never would have made in years past.
The issue with the Dukes of Hazzard car isn’t that the Confederate flag is a “rebel flag”, and Schneider knows that. It’s that it celebrates the subjugation of people based on their ethnicity, and it’s frankly shocking that it took this long for mainstream culture to clue into it. The notion that the show was “cancelled” is a bit much – the issue was that the central image of the car in the show features a racist flag. And even in spite of that, the series was made available repeatedly on DVD and worldwide and the creatives on the show became millionaires many times over. Considering that the show was really launched as a TV-safe version of “Smokey and the Bandit”, one would think that Schneider would be happy with the outcome for himself.
I’ll note that what we’re dealing with is not “cancel culture” but rather what LeVar Burton has correctly termed “consequences culture”. It’s not that Angry Right Wingers are told they have no right to say vicious, bigoted things. It’s that they have to accept the consequences for expressing offensive comments to people who might not wish to be verbally attacked. If people don’t want to be called out for making vicious, bigoted statements, they could simply refrain from making vicious, bigoted statements.
As for the new direct-to-video piece, it’s telling that it was produced by Hannity and Jay Sekulow’s son. It seems to be part of a new movement by Angry Right Wingers to make “their” own separate content, with a particular emphasis on how incensed they are at the rest of us each time. None of these movies has been particularly successful, although the Qanon child trafficking movie did okay before the truth came out about the story behind the film.
John Schneider formerly had a strong career in Hollywood, regardless of his politics. Dukes of Hazzard was obviously the biggest role, and one where he and co-lead Tom Wopat actually strong-armed Warner Bros by refusing to film the 5th season, which led to the infamous episodes with Coy and Vance Duke. Following that, Schneider regularly worked on many other series as a lead and series regular, including Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman, where he replaced the male lead for much of their final season. And he’s been on a laundry list of other shows. I worked with him in 1998 on JAG and found him at that time to be a professional and polite man. But a lot can change over time, as noted. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that, like many Right Wingers, he was emboldened to come out with offensive statements he never would have made in years past.
The issue with the Dukes of Hazzard car isn’t that the Confederate flag is a “rebel flag”, and Schneider knows that. It’s that it celebrates the subjugation of people based on their ethnicity, and it’s frankly shocking that it took this long for mainstream culture to clue into it. The notion that the show was “cancelled” is a bit much – the issue was that the central image of the car in the show features a racist flag. And even in spite of that, the series was made available repeatedly on DVD and worldwide and the creatives on the show became millionaires many times over. Considering that the show was really launched as a TV-safe version of “Smokey and the Bandit”, one would think that Schneider would be happy with the outcome for himself.
I’ll note that what we’re dealing with is not “cancel culture” but rather what LeVar Burton has correctly termed “consequences culture”. It’s not that Angry Right Wingers are told they have no right to say vicious, bigoted things. It’s that they have to accept the consequences for expressing offensive comments to people who might not wish to be verbally attacked. If people don’t want to be called out for making vicious, bigoted statements, they could simply refrain from making vicious, bigoted statements.
As for the new direct-to-video piece, it’s telling that it was produced by Hannity and Jay Sekulow’s son. It seems to be part of a new movement by Angry Right Wingers to make “their” own separate content, with a particular emphasis on how incensed they are at the rest of us each time. None of these movies has been particularly successful, although the Qanon child trafficking movie did okay before the truth came out about the story behind the film.
Kevin Koster commented on Bill Barr Claims The Left ‘Created Trump’
2023-12-25 13:07:17 -0500
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Barr is being particularly specious here, and he has much to personally answer for. Not just the despicable pre-spin he put on the Mueller Report where he tried to bury the damage therein, but the earlier pardons of the Iran Contra criminals to allow them to escape justice back in the 1990s.
The political disaster of Donald Trump defiling the White House was not created by “the Left” or any other phantom boogeyman Barr wants to conjure. This disaster was decades in the making by Angry Right Wingers. It started with the earlier Far Right pundits like Paul Harvey and Wally George, and descended into rampant viciousness with the rise of unrepentant bigots like Rush Limbaugh and Roger Ailes. Which begot Far Right propaganda outlets like Fox and shock jocks across AM radio, which in turn begot even more Extreme Far Right propaganda outlets like Newsmax and OAN and craven hucksters like Glenn Beck and Alex Jones.
The only way someone like Little Trump could prevail is in a landscape where outlets like Fox could create “alternative facts” for its viewers to consume instead of the actual news of the day.
Studies were done two decades ago of how Americans understood the news of the day, and those studies consistently showed that Fox viewers were the most misinformed and/or under-informed people in the group. Because the Fox fans kept getting basic facts upside down and backwards, albeit in a consistent pattern with what they were being fed by Fox and by AM radio hosts every day. And this situation has only gotten worse – to the point that millions of Americans today would rather believe propaganda than accept the reality that Little Donald Trump is the loser of the 2020 Election and an unapologetic felon.
The political disaster of Donald Trump defiling the White House was not created by “the Left” or any other phantom boogeyman Barr wants to conjure. This disaster was decades in the making by Angry Right Wingers. It started with the earlier Far Right pundits like Paul Harvey and Wally George, and descended into rampant viciousness with the rise of unrepentant bigots like Rush Limbaugh and Roger Ailes. Which begot Far Right propaganda outlets like Fox and shock jocks across AM radio, which in turn begot even more Extreme Far Right propaganda outlets like Newsmax and OAN and craven hucksters like Glenn Beck and Alex Jones.
The only way someone like Little Trump could prevail is in a landscape where outlets like Fox could create “alternative facts” for its viewers to consume instead of the actual news of the day.
Studies were done two decades ago of how Americans understood the news of the day, and those studies consistently showed that Fox viewers were the most misinformed and/or under-informed people in the group. Because the Fox fans kept getting basic facts upside down and backwards, albeit in a consistent pattern with what they were being fed by Fox and by AM radio hosts every day. And this situation has only gotten worse – to the point that millions of Americans today would rather believe propaganda than accept the reality that Little Donald Trump is the loser of the 2020 Election and an unapologetic felon.
Kevin Koster commented on Fox Ignores Boebert’s Disgraceful Beetlejuice Behavior
2023-09-19 14:03:17 -0400
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The issue here is that Boebert clearly felt she could get away with doing whatever she wanted without any consequences. This is unfortunately the same pattern we have seen from Angry Right Wingers over the past 7 years, particularly after they were emboldened by Mike Pence’s childish former spokesman.
It’s not just that Boebert was vaping in the theater, or that she was being loud and obnoxious, or that she was engaging in unacceptable public behavior that’s right on the edge of indecent exposure. It’s not just that she was taking phone photos and selfies in the theater when she had been told not to. It’s that when she was told to stop it, she lashed out at the other patrons and the theater staff who then appropriately removed her. It’s that she then played the “do you know who I am” card and made further obscene gestures, while continuing to take selfies.
Boebert would have been fine to try to just get away with all this, had she not been confronted with the actual video from the security cameras. So now we get a “limited, hang-out mode” sort-of apology. But she’s not sorry for what she did. She’s sorry she got caught on camera doing what she did.
And again, she clearly thinks she can behave like this and get away with it. Just like Pence’s childish former spokesman always did. But just as little Trump is now facing years in prison for his felonies, she’s being held accountable for her misdeeds. Hopefully both of them (and their fans) can learn their lesson.
It’s not just that Boebert was vaping in the theater, or that she was being loud and obnoxious, or that she was engaging in unacceptable public behavior that’s right on the edge of indecent exposure. It’s not just that she was taking phone photos and selfies in the theater when she had been told not to. It’s that when she was told to stop it, she lashed out at the other patrons and the theater staff who then appropriately removed her. It’s that she then played the “do you know who I am” card and made further obscene gestures, while continuing to take selfies.
Boebert would have been fine to try to just get away with all this, had she not been confronted with the actual video from the security cameras. So now we get a “limited, hang-out mode” sort-of apology. But she’s not sorry for what she did. She’s sorry she got caught on camera doing what she did.
And again, she clearly thinks she can behave like this and get away with it. Just like Pence’s childish former spokesman always did. But just as little Trump is now facing years in prison for his felonies, she’s being held accountable for her misdeeds. Hopefully both of them (and their fans) can learn their lesson.
Kevin Koster commented on Fox Guest Claims Texas’ Dangerous Border Buoys Are ‘Saving Lives’
2023-09-16 17:04:51 -0400
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The killer buoys are proof that for Angry Right Wingers, the meanness is the point. Putting blockers with serrated blades in the Rio Grande is not meant to save lives at all. It’s meant to make examples of anyone who dares try to cross.
This is the same thing as when Sessions announced the vicious policy of separating families from their children – he openly stated this was intended to make sure migrants knew it would be viscerally unpleasant for them to come to the US, so hopefully they wouldn’t anymore. And the Pence White House added to this with the equally vicious “Remain in Mexico” idea, which was designed to push migrants into the Mexican desert for months rather than allow them to enter the US. It’s no surprise that border entries plummeted of all kinds on the US/Mexico line after that – the Pence White House had made clear that coming to the US meant death or what could be worse than that. The reason the entries have jumped since then isn’t because the Biden White House is lax, but because we stopped the viciousness from the Pence guys. It’s not rocket science.
I’ll note that this viciousness from Angry Right Wingers goes back over a century. In more recent years, we can identify key moments of bigotry like the “Minutemen” volunteering to “watch” the border from their lawnchairs. And the Angry Right Wing AM radio support for Ramos & Compean for shooting a fleeing suspect in the back and then covering up the bad shoot. The proper response here is to confront this kind of bigotry when it pops up.
This is the same thing as when Sessions announced the vicious policy of separating families from their children – he openly stated this was intended to make sure migrants knew it would be viscerally unpleasant for them to come to the US, so hopefully they wouldn’t anymore. And the Pence White House added to this with the equally vicious “Remain in Mexico” idea, which was designed to push migrants into the Mexican desert for months rather than allow them to enter the US. It’s no surprise that border entries plummeted of all kinds on the US/Mexico line after that – the Pence White House had made clear that coming to the US meant death or what could be worse than that. The reason the entries have jumped since then isn’t because the Biden White House is lax, but because we stopped the viciousness from the Pence guys. It’s not rocket science.
I’ll note that this viciousness from Angry Right Wingers goes back over a century. In more recent years, we can identify key moments of bigotry like the “Minutemen” volunteering to “watch” the border from their lawnchairs. And the Angry Right Wing AM radio support for Ramos & Compean for shooting a fleeing suspect in the back and then covering up the bad shoot. The proper response here is to confront this kind of bigotry when it pops up.
Kevin Koster commented on Gutfeld On Biden Impeachment: ‘Zero Evidence Doesn’t Matter’
2023-09-16 16:56:35 -0400
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Give Gutfeld and Pirro an acknowledgement for at least being open about their hatred.
Eight months of constant touting of “bombshells” about President Biden and his son have gotten them nowhere, and they continue to have no evidence of actual wrongdoing, so what can they do? Pretend they do and proceed anyway.
Pirro’s comments are a litany of debunked falsehoods. Bobulinski is a jilted ex-partner of Hunter Biden who frankly is understandably upset that he never got those big money deals Hunter Biden said he would get. I’m sure Bobulinski thought that Joe Biden would be involved, and was pretty angry when he found out that all he was getting was the chance to listen once in a blue moon when Joe would call his son and say “How ya doing? How’s the weather over there, son?” Devon Archer’s actual testimony clearly states that Joe Biden was never involved in business discussions. All that would happen is that while Hunter was with his partners, occasionally he’d call his dad on speakerphone. And sometimes Hunter and his father would go out on social outings, like a golf game or a dinner, and his partners might attend, since they were friends with Hunter. None of that was actual business, but Angry Right Wingers hope everyone gets confused enough to think it was. Then VP-Biden using pseudonyms is not unusual. I would not be surprised for every major personage in DC to be using them, for a variety of legal reasons. And people visit the White House for a lot of reasons – 19 visits over 8 years by someone who was a friend of the VP’s son translates to about twice a year and there is no indication that anything untoward happened.
The only reason to push for this inquiry is exactly what Gutfeld admits – it’s revenge for the impeachments that Pence’s childish former spokesman brought upon himself. And it’s revenge for the felony prosecutions now coming down on little Trump. Most Angry Right Wingers know they have nothing to charge President Biden with, but they are so consumed with their hatred for him that they can’t stop themselves. And they have to know that they have a serious problem for 2024. GOP voters have made very clear that they will not support a convicted felon for President. And the only reason little Trump is campaigning is that he’s trying to stave off the consequences of his crimes. He’s trying to stay out of prison. Given how those prosecutions are going, that’s not working out very well for him.
Eight months of constant touting of “bombshells” about President Biden and his son have gotten them nowhere, and they continue to have no evidence of actual wrongdoing, so what can they do? Pretend they do and proceed anyway.
Pirro’s comments are a litany of debunked falsehoods. Bobulinski is a jilted ex-partner of Hunter Biden who frankly is understandably upset that he never got those big money deals Hunter Biden said he would get. I’m sure Bobulinski thought that Joe Biden would be involved, and was pretty angry when he found out that all he was getting was the chance to listen once in a blue moon when Joe would call his son and say “How ya doing? How’s the weather over there, son?” Devon Archer’s actual testimony clearly states that Joe Biden was never involved in business discussions. All that would happen is that while Hunter was with his partners, occasionally he’d call his dad on speakerphone. And sometimes Hunter and his father would go out on social outings, like a golf game or a dinner, and his partners might attend, since they were friends with Hunter. None of that was actual business, but Angry Right Wingers hope everyone gets confused enough to think it was. Then VP-Biden using pseudonyms is not unusual. I would not be surprised for every major personage in DC to be using them, for a variety of legal reasons. And people visit the White House for a lot of reasons – 19 visits over 8 years by someone who was a friend of the VP’s son translates to about twice a year and there is no indication that anything untoward happened.
The only reason to push for this inquiry is exactly what Gutfeld admits – it’s revenge for the impeachments that Pence’s childish former spokesman brought upon himself. And it’s revenge for the felony prosecutions now coming down on little Trump. Most Angry Right Wingers know they have nothing to charge President Biden with, but they are so consumed with their hatred for him that they can’t stop themselves. And they have to know that they have a serious problem for 2024. GOP voters have made very clear that they will not support a convicted felon for President. And the only reason little Trump is campaigning is that he’s trying to stave off the consequences of his crimes. He’s trying to stay out of prison. Given how those prosecutions are going, that’s not working out very well for him.
Kevin Koster commented on John Eastman Gets A Big Dose Of Republican Rehab From Laura Ingraham
2023-08-31 13:54:57 -0400
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There are two extremely telling indicators of how Angry Right Wingers are thinking the felony trials of little Donald Trump are going.
The first is that even the loudest and angriest GOP pundits on AM radio and on the various propaganda channels like Newsmax or Fox are starting to discuss the inevitable – that little Trump and his cronies are going to be convicted of multiple felonies, and that little Trump himself is looking at serious prison time. (He’s actually going to get his stated wish of winding up back in federal housing, but it may be somewhat different than he was thinking…)
The second is that angry Right Wingers are now throwing nonsense mud at President Biden and his family as furiously as they can, hoping they can fool voters into confusing the situations and winding up with a “plague on both their houses” response. It is sadly true that the endless repetitions of falsehoods like “Biden Crime Family” and “Hunter Biden Laptop” have confused enough poll respondents to foul various polls about voters’ feelings.
I’ll further note that Trump’s attempted public poses about this disintegrate when given any scrutiny. His pose of “You can’t prosecute me! I’m a presidential candidate! This is political persecution!!!” would mean that everyone could go rob a bank and then file to run for Mayor or Congressman or whatever, and tell prosecutors and the police that they’re now untouchable. His other pose of “I didn’t understand that I lost!” as well as “I didn’t understand that I couldn’t steal confidential documents” also translates to “I’m so unable to process basic information that I don’t know how elections work or how confidentiality works, but please vote for me anyway!”
Frankly, little Trump should be less concerned about whether authorities will establish a special wing of Leavenworth for him, and more worried that one or more of the judges is going to apply an appropriate sentencing punishment. Given Trump and his cronies’ utter disdain for the Constitution, for laws, and even for our democracy, it is important not only that he receive the applicable prison time, to be served consecutively and not concurrently, but also that he be stripped of all of the perquisites normally accorded to former presidents – including his Secret Service protection and his pension. This would make his imprisonment a much simpler matter, and given Trump’s sloughing off of the actual work to Mike Pence from 2017-2020, he frankly has never deserved those perquisites in the first place.
The entire current situation of lawlessness in the GOP sadly arises from Gerry Ford’s mistaken pardoning of Richard Nixon in 1974. Had Nixon been appropriately prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned for his behavior then, the nation could have avoided multiple significant criminal scandals afterward – including the disasters of the Reagan, W and Pence White Houses. Instead, the criminals involved with the Nixon felonies learned they could get away with it. And many of those same people gleefully broke laws with Reagan and W and so on. With the current situation, the justice system at least has a chance to finally make a statement that nobody is above the law. This is actually positive moment for little Trump and his fans. They’re about to learn some very important lessons – about proper behavior and the consequences of misbehavior. And it’s long overdue that they do so.
The first is that even the loudest and angriest GOP pundits on AM radio and on the various propaganda channels like Newsmax or Fox are starting to discuss the inevitable – that little Trump and his cronies are going to be convicted of multiple felonies, and that little Trump himself is looking at serious prison time. (He’s actually going to get his stated wish of winding up back in federal housing, but it may be somewhat different than he was thinking…)
The second is that angry Right Wingers are now throwing nonsense mud at President Biden and his family as furiously as they can, hoping they can fool voters into confusing the situations and winding up with a “plague on both their houses” response. It is sadly true that the endless repetitions of falsehoods like “Biden Crime Family” and “Hunter Biden Laptop” have confused enough poll respondents to foul various polls about voters’ feelings.
I’ll further note that Trump’s attempted public poses about this disintegrate when given any scrutiny. His pose of “You can’t prosecute me! I’m a presidential candidate! This is political persecution!!!” would mean that everyone could go rob a bank and then file to run for Mayor or Congressman or whatever, and tell prosecutors and the police that they’re now untouchable. His other pose of “I didn’t understand that I lost!” as well as “I didn’t understand that I couldn’t steal confidential documents” also translates to “I’m so unable to process basic information that I don’t know how elections work or how confidentiality works, but please vote for me anyway!”
Frankly, little Trump should be less concerned about whether authorities will establish a special wing of Leavenworth for him, and more worried that one or more of the judges is going to apply an appropriate sentencing punishment. Given Trump and his cronies’ utter disdain for the Constitution, for laws, and even for our democracy, it is important not only that he receive the applicable prison time, to be served consecutively and not concurrently, but also that he be stripped of all of the perquisites normally accorded to former presidents – including his Secret Service protection and his pension. This would make his imprisonment a much simpler matter, and given Trump’s sloughing off of the actual work to Mike Pence from 2017-2020, he frankly has never deserved those perquisites in the first place.
The entire current situation of lawlessness in the GOP sadly arises from Gerry Ford’s mistaken pardoning of Richard Nixon in 1974. Had Nixon been appropriately prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned for his behavior then, the nation could have avoided multiple significant criminal scandals afterward – including the disasters of the Reagan, W and Pence White Houses. Instead, the criminals involved with the Nixon felonies learned they could get away with it. And many of those same people gleefully broke laws with Reagan and W and so on. With the current situation, the justice system at least has a chance to finally make a statement that nobody is above the law. This is actually positive moment for little Trump and his fans. They’re about to learn some very important lessons – about proper behavior and the consequences of misbehavior. And it’s long overdue that they do so.
Kevin Koster commented on Chris Christie Pats Himself On The Back For Having ‘Courage’ To Cut Social Security
2023-07-11 02:48:22 -0400
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This is a subject I’ve been following quite closely, having read the 2010 Heritage Foundation plan to “reform” Social Security and multiple current “Republican Study Committee” plans from the last couple of Congresses.
What Christie is proposing is essentially what the RSC wants to do. It’s a plan in three parts:
1. Reduce the SS payment to a flat $1200/month. They don’t say this openly now, but they do mention the same language around it – that the amount of the benefit needs to be “adjusted”, that those who currently get the lowest amount would see an increase and those who get the highest would see a decrease, etc. The Heritage plan spelled it out – make the benefit just the flat $1200/month or a whopping total of $14,400 per year. This would reduce the benefit to being what angry Right Wingers believe it should be – a small supplement that would help the elderly pay for groceries or other bills if they need a little help.
2. Means Test the payment so that it no longer goes to anyone with a decent pension, 401K or savings or any combination. The fun here is that none of the Right Wing plans agree on where they draw the line. Given the louder tone of the doomsaying for SS, I’d bet that they’ll go for the low end – say, if the retiree was seeing 50-60K per year, or less than 5K per month. For this group, instead of receiving the maximum SS payment (currently close to 4K per month), they might still be eligible and receive 1.2K per month or a little more than 1/4 the former benefit, or they might be declared ineligible and thus receive nothing at all. Either way, they definitely fit the description from #1 – they’ll be seeing a decrease…
3. Apply the new rules to the widest cohort possible. In the 2010 Heritage Foundation plan, the new rules would only apply to people 25 and under. In the 2022 RSC plan, the new rules would apply to people 54 and under. In the most current RSC plan released this year, the new rules would apply to people 59 and under. I want to make sure people understand that they read that correctly. The GOP intention is to tell people who have worked for nearly 40 years that they will see no benefit from having paid into FICA for those 40 years. Yes, the cruelty is the point.
In the event of a GOP president and a GOP majority in Congress in 2025, I would absolutely expect this to be at the top of their priority list, and I’d expect the new rules to be applied as widely as possible. The GOP has worked patiently for the past 6 decades to make this happen, so this would be another win for them, to go right alongside tossing out Roe and affirmative action.
Ellen is correct that there are extremely simple fixes that could be applied to SS funding – lifting the applicability cap, applying a small tax on the highest earners, and making a tiny increase in the employer side of FICA. All of this could have been done (in fact, should have been done) in the early 2000s, but the GOP wouldn’t hear of it. Nowadays, they trumpet the doomsaying as Christie is doing, saying that SS is about to go insolvent. It isn’t, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s the GOP who repeatedly refuses to take even a single common sense step to help SS.
Should the Right Wing succeed in gutting SS and Medicare, there is no question that they would move toward completely eliminating the programs as soon as practicable. Because at that point, all they would be is welfare for the indigent elderly and we can all hear what Right Wingers will say about that group – ie “they should have thought of this 20 years ago” or “they should ask their kids for help” or “they made their bed, now they can lie in it.”
What Christie is proposing is essentially what the RSC wants to do. It’s a plan in three parts:
1. Reduce the SS payment to a flat $1200/month. They don’t say this openly now, but they do mention the same language around it – that the amount of the benefit needs to be “adjusted”, that those who currently get the lowest amount would see an increase and those who get the highest would see a decrease, etc. The Heritage plan spelled it out – make the benefit just the flat $1200/month or a whopping total of $14,400 per year. This would reduce the benefit to being what angry Right Wingers believe it should be – a small supplement that would help the elderly pay for groceries or other bills if they need a little help.
2. Means Test the payment so that it no longer goes to anyone with a decent pension, 401K or savings or any combination. The fun here is that none of the Right Wing plans agree on where they draw the line. Given the louder tone of the doomsaying for SS, I’d bet that they’ll go for the low end – say, if the retiree was seeing 50-60K per year, or less than 5K per month. For this group, instead of receiving the maximum SS payment (currently close to 4K per month), they might still be eligible and receive 1.2K per month or a little more than 1/4 the former benefit, or they might be declared ineligible and thus receive nothing at all. Either way, they definitely fit the description from #1 – they’ll be seeing a decrease…
3. Apply the new rules to the widest cohort possible. In the 2010 Heritage Foundation plan, the new rules would only apply to people 25 and under. In the 2022 RSC plan, the new rules would apply to people 54 and under. In the most current RSC plan released this year, the new rules would apply to people 59 and under. I want to make sure people understand that they read that correctly. The GOP intention is to tell people who have worked for nearly 40 years that they will see no benefit from having paid into FICA for those 40 years. Yes, the cruelty is the point.
In the event of a GOP president and a GOP majority in Congress in 2025, I would absolutely expect this to be at the top of their priority list, and I’d expect the new rules to be applied as widely as possible. The GOP has worked patiently for the past 6 decades to make this happen, so this would be another win for them, to go right alongside tossing out Roe and affirmative action.
Ellen is correct that there are extremely simple fixes that could be applied to SS funding – lifting the applicability cap, applying a small tax on the highest earners, and making a tiny increase in the employer side of FICA. All of this could have been done (in fact, should have been done) in the early 2000s, but the GOP wouldn’t hear of it. Nowadays, they trumpet the doomsaying as Christie is doing, saying that SS is about to go insolvent. It isn’t, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s the GOP who repeatedly refuses to take even a single common sense step to help SS.
Should the Right Wing succeed in gutting SS and Medicare, there is no question that they would move toward completely eliminating the programs as soon as practicable. Because at that point, all they would be is welfare for the indigent elderly and we can all hear what Right Wingers will say about that group – ie “they should have thought of this 20 years ago” or “they should ask their kids for help” or “they made their bed, now they can lie in it.”
Kevin Koster commented on Fox News Desperately Spins WH Cocaine Mystery Into Hunter Biden ‘Cover-up’
2023-07-08 22:34:25 -0400
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It would be a surprise to find out that this baggie was planted by anyone other than an angry Right Winger trying to stir up trouble. We’re already seeing GOP pundits and politicians make as much hay out of this as they can.
In reality, the actual criminal matters at hand are the upcoming prosecutions of Mike Pence’s childish former spokesman. He’s been indicted twice on extremely serious felony charges, and there are at least two further major cases about him due to state their indictments later this summer.
Angry Right Wingers are clearly panicked at the potential prison sentences now faced by Trump, so they keep coming up with these whataboutism attempts to distract the public. We can expect their panic to increase as the cases proceed, which means the nonsense in this baggie story is likely to be exponentially multiplied…
In reality, the actual criminal matters at hand are the upcoming prosecutions of Mike Pence’s childish former spokesman. He’s been indicted twice on extremely serious felony charges, and there are at least two further major cases about him due to state their indictments later this summer.
Angry Right Wingers are clearly panicked at the potential prison sentences now faced by Trump, so they keep coming up with these whataboutism attempts to distract the public. We can expect their panic to increase as the cases proceed, which means the nonsense in this baggie story is likely to be exponentially multiplied…
Kevin Koster commented on Jonathan Turley Calls SCOTUS’ Anti-LGBTQ Decision ‘One Of The Greatest Free Speech Opinions In History’
2023-07-05 03:28:54 -0400
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Let’s all be very clear about how the 303 Creative ruling came about, as well as the killing of Affirmative Action, the killing of the student loan help and last year’s abomination of the Dobbs ruling killing Roe v Wade. And let’s be clear why they are doing this.
The rulings we’re seeing are absolutely predictable. They are what happens when angry Right Wing groups like The Federalist Society and Heritage Action dictate who the SC picks are. This is about the numbers game on the courts and particularly the SC. The hatred and the bigotry are the point. This goes back over 70 years.
For the entire term of the Earl Warren Supreme Court, angry Right Wingers were fuming that the SC had lost its way. Starting with Brown v Board, angry Right Wingers were vowing to disobey those rulings and to work to erase them. When Nixon got elected in 1968 as Warren was retiring, he appointed 4 Republican justices to try to reset the Court. And he mostly succeeded (one of them was noted bigot Bill Rehnquist). But the Burger Court also delivered Roe v Wade, which sent the Right Wing spiralling. After their humiliation in Watergate, they waited for the next GOP president, which turned out to be Reagan. With Reagan, they instituted the litmus test where they’d pre-screen any judges or justices to make sure they’d vote the Right way on whatever was required. When Reagan’s handlers told him to appoint Sandra Day O’Connor, he personally interviewed her to confirm that she found reproductive choice to be an awful thing. What he didn’t realize was that she wouldn’t outlaw it for everyone else.
When the Right realized that even the litmus test wasn’t foolproof, they outsourced their screening to Far Right extremist idealogues like Leonard Leo at the Federalist Society and hacks at the Heritage Foundation. Which is why nearly all GOP judge picks from the Cheney/W White House forward have been extremist gargoyles. It’s not all of them, and a tiny handful have had changes of heart – Michael Luttig being a notable exception to the rule.
So the 303 Creative Ruling is one we could see a mile out. The entire point of the ruling is that it doesn’t matter if there was a real cause of action. It doesn’t matter that this is a discussion that was settled many decisions ago in terms of fairness to everyone and free speech rights. All that matters is that angry Right Wingers now hold a 6 vote supermajority on the SC. In reality, there have been multiple bigoted cases brought on nearly every major civil rights and political matter over the past 50 years. And the Supreme Court with different membership regularly would bat these cases away as having been asked and answered. Roe v Wade was itself upheld no less than FOUR times, with even the Pence appointees like Kavanaugh admitting it was now not only a precedent but a “super-precedent”. But angry Right Wingers were extremely patient. They just kept bringing those doomed cases up, hoping that at some point they’d get the right number of idealogues on the SC bench at the same time. (One has to give the Right Wing points for patience – they’ve been playing the same long game to destroy Social Security for everyone currently under 65 for over 20 years, and their gambit may pay off soon…)
The actual people responsible for the 303 Creative debacle are the same people responsible for Dobbs – and that’s the 2-3 million active mainstream Dem voters across the swing states who stayed home in 2016 because they figured their votes didn’t make a difference. And hey, angry Left Wing commentators like Alexander Cockburn had told them for years that it didn’t matter who was on the Supreme Court because the GOP would never overturn Roe anyway… Because those 2-3 million active mainstream Dem voters stayed home that year, Trump was able to run the table on those swing states and install Pence as the acting president in the White House. And with that, over 200 bench appointments in the judiciary could now be handed over to Mitch McConnell and Leonard Leo and Heritage Action. Which is how we got Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett on the SC, when none of them should have ever been anywhere near the SC, let alone on any bench anywhere.
The point of the current SC rulings is that they are systematically rewriting SC precedents to a new hateful normal. You believe that women should have reproductive choice? NO. You believe that discrimination should not be normalized? NO. You believe that the COVID relief for people with loans should apply to students? NO. Notice how these rulings line up precisely with how angry Right Wingers have been fuming for years. Particularly the language in Alito’s rancid Dobbs decision, where he opines that “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start.” This has nothing to do with any precedents, since the current SC doesn’t believe in them. It’s all about the game of “we have the majority and now WE’LL tell YOU what.”
The 303 Creative ruling, which is clearly based on a completely false premise, is a direct statement that Obergefell is soon to fall. And it won’t be the last one to go. Angry Right Wing local legislators in Wisconsin are already railing against contraception as immoral – it’s only a matter of time before Griswold is tossed. And angry Right Wingers have hated Brown v Board from the beginning, regardless of what they currently say to sound less bigoted in public. It’s only a matter of time before a case is brought up that allows Alito to opine that Brown was “egregiously wrong from the start” and say what angry Right Wingers wanted in the original ruling – that Mr. Brown should stop whining if he doesn’t like how the Board of Education functions and just vote them out. (Except for the part where Mr. Brown is gerrymandered to make sure his vote is routed to the only non-white district in the area and thus inconsequential.) We can also look forward to SC decisions that allow states to criminalize reproductive choice if they wish under “states’ rights”. And we can look forward to this SC absolutely upholding a nationwide reproductive choice ban, should that come their way.
One could and should ask what the solution is. I’d argue that the options are limited. It’s unlikely that any White House or Congress will agree to expand the seats on the SC. It’s also sadly unlikely that Alito or Thomas will be impeached or resign in disgrace. Even though we’ve seen enough to have a good idea which of the two of them leaked the Dobbs decision and then blamed it on the clerks. (Alito’s comment of having “a pretty good idea” of who leaked Dobbs is particularly brazen.) So we simply have to wait until another justice steps down. And from what we’ve seen, that’s unlikely to happen for another 20 years, or until another GOP president is in the White House and the GOP controls the Senate. That’s not going to sound optimistic, and it isn’t. But it’s what happens when people don’t show up to vote. And this lesson really needs to be learned, or we’ll get another version of the Pence White House. And this time instead of Trump as the childish spokesman, we’d get a troll like DeSantis, who would go much farther.
The rulings we’re seeing are absolutely predictable. They are what happens when angry Right Wing groups like The Federalist Society and Heritage Action dictate who the SC picks are. This is about the numbers game on the courts and particularly the SC. The hatred and the bigotry are the point. This goes back over 70 years.
For the entire term of the Earl Warren Supreme Court, angry Right Wingers were fuming that the SC had lost its way. Starting with Brown v Board, angry Right Wingers were vowing to disobey those rulings and to work to erase them. When Nixon got elected in 1968 as Warren was retiring, he appointed 4 Republican justices to try to reset the Court. And he mostly succeeded (one of them was noted bigot Bill Rehnquist). But the Burger Court also delivered Roe v Wade, which sent the Right Wing spiralling. After their humiliation in Watergate, they waited for the next GOP president, which turned out to be Reagan. With Reagan, they instituted the litmus test where they’d pre-screen any judges or justices to make sure they’d vote the Right way on whatever was required. When Reagan’s handlers told him to appoint Sandra Day O’Connor, he personally interviewed her to confirm that she found reproductive choice to be an awful thing. What he didn’t realize was that she wouldn’t outlaw it for everyone else.
When the Right realized that even the litmus test wasn’t foolproof, they outsourced their screening to Far Right extremist idealogues like Leonard Leo at the Federalist Society and hacks at the Heritage Foundation. Which is why nearly all GOP judge picks from the Cheney/W White House forward have been extremist gargoyles. It’s not all of them, and a tiny handful have had changes of heart – Michael Luttig being a notable exception to the rule.
So the 303 Creative Ruling is one we could see a mile out. The entire point of the ruling is that it doesn’t matter if there was a real cause of action. It doesn’t matter that this is a discussion that was settled many decisions ago in terms of fairness to everyone and free speech rights. All that matters is that angry Right Wingers now hold a 6 vote supermajority on the SC. In reality, there have been multiple bigoted cases brought on nearly every major civil rights and political matter over the past 50 years. And the Supreme Court with different membership regularly would bat these cases away as having been asked and answered. Roe v Wade was itself upheld no less than FOUR times, with even the Pence appointees like Kavanaugh admitting it was now not only a precedent but a “super-precedent”. But angry Right Wingers were extremely patient. They just kept bringing those doomed cases up, hoping that at some point they’d get the right number of idealogues on the SC bench at the same time. (One has to give the Right Wing points for patience – they’ve been playing the same long game to destroy Social Security for everyone currently under 65 for over 20 years, and their gambit may pay off soon…)
The actual people responsible for the 303 Creative debacle are the same people responsible for Dobbs – and that’s the 2-3 million active mainstream Dem voters across the swing states who stayed home in 2016 because they figured their votes didn’t make a difference. And hey, angry Left Wing commentators like Alexander Cockburn had told them for years that it didn’t matter who was on the Supreme Court because the GOP would never overturn Roe anyway… Because those 2-3 million active mainstream Dem voters stayed home that year, Trump was able to run the table on those swing states and install Pence as the acting president in the White House. And with that, over 200 bench appointments in the judiciary could now be handed over to Mitch McConnell and Leonard Leo and Heritage Action. Which is how we got Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett on the SC, when none of them should have ever been anywhere near the SC, let alone on any bench anywhere.
The point of the current SC rulings is that they are systematically rewriting SC precedents to a new hateful normal. You believe that women should have reproductive choice? NO. You believe that discrimination should not be normalized? NO. You believe that the COVID relief for people with loans should apply to students? NO. Notice how these rulings line up precisely with how angry Right Wingers have been fuming for years. Particularly the language in Alito’s rancid Dobbs decision, where he opines that “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start.” This has nothing to do with any precedents, since the current SC doesn’t believe in them. It’s all about the game of “we have the majority and now WE’LL tell YOU what.”
The 303 Creative ruling, which is clearly based on a completely false premise, is a direct statement that Obergefell is soon to fall. And it won’t be the last one to go. Angry Right Wing local legislators in Wisconsin are already railing against contraception as immoral – it’s only a matter of time before Griswold is tossed. And angry Right Wingers have hated Brown v Board from the beginning, regardless of what they currently say to sound less bigoted in public. It’s only a matter of time before a case is brought up that allows Alito to opine that Brown was “egregiously wrong from the start” and say what angry Right Wingers wanted in the original ruling – that Mr. Brown should stop whining if he doesn’t like how the Board of Education functions and just vote them out. (Except for the part where Mr. Brown is gerrymandered to make sure his vote is routed to the only non-white district in the area and thus inconsequential.) We can also look forward to SC decisions that allow states to criminalize reproductive choice if they wish under “states’ rights”. And we can look forward to this SC absolutely upholding a nationwide reproductive choice ban, should that come their way.
One could and should ask what the solution is. I’d argue that the options are limited. It’s unlikely that any White House or Congress will agree to expand the seats on the SC. It’s also sadly unlikely that Alito or Thomas will be impeached or resign in disgrace. Even though we’ve seen enough to have a good idea which of the two of them leaked the Dobbs decision and then blamed it on the clerks. (Alito’s comment of having “a pretty good idea” of who leaked Dobbs is particularly brazen.) So we simply have to wait until another justice steps down. And from what we’ve seen, that’s unlikely to happen for another 20 years, or until another GOP president is in the White House and the GOP controls the Senate. That’s not going to sound optimistic, and it isn’t. But it’s what happens when people don’t show up to vote. And this lesson really needs to be learned, or we’ll get another version of the Pence White House. And this time instead of Trump as the childish spokesman, we’d get a troll like DeSantis, who would go much farther.
Kevin Koster commented on Kilmeade Suggests Trump Classified Docs Audio Leaked To Distract From – You Guessed It, Hunter Biden
2023-06-30 15:16:22 -0400
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There is a concerted strategy being played by angry Right Wingers, as this example shows. The idea is to counter the actual criminal jeopardy faced by little Donald Trump with smears about President Biden and his son Hunter. The intent is to muddy up the discourse so that uninformed viewers and voters will automatically assume that it’s not just Trump who’s corrupt but really EVERYBODY. So any time we hear a new revelation about Trump being caught on tape brazenly admitting to his malfeasances, angry Right Wingers immediately stammer out, “But what about Hunter Biden’s laptop????”
The GOP used this approach during the first impeachment of Mike Pence’s childish former spokesman. (And it’s really odd to think that we have to refer to that as just his first impeachment…) Whenever a GOP congressman got the microphone during the impeachment proceedings, they would immediately launch on a fact-free monologue about the “Biden Crime Family” or about “Hunter Biden’s crimes”. With the intent of confusing viewers into throwing up their hands and yelling “Ah, to heck with all of them!”
In the current situation, the desperation of angry Right Wingers is clear and understandable. They have a standard-bearer who is likely to either land in federal prison or be compelled to plead guilty to felonies within the next several months. (Which will render him unable to seek office, by the way) The only play they can think to make is to throw as much mud at President Biden and his family as they can.
So we hear nonsense about “Hunter Biden’s laptop”, which is a canard. In reality, there is no indication that any such laptop ever existed or that Hunter Biden ever went to the shop of the Trump fan in Delaware. What we do know exists is a “hard drive copy” that appears to contain the results of a data hack into Hunter Biden’s iCloud storage in 2019. This data hack was available in the Ukraine, coincidentally, when Rudy Giuliani was trolling for that kind of thing in later 2019. Time Magazine and Politico covered this fairly thoughouly. Or we hear about IRS “whistleblowers” in hushed tones. Except that it’s really just Gary Shapley again, and now he’s trying to get people to doubt the word of David Weiss, who already sent a terse letter to the angry Right Wingers in Congress, politely telling them to back off. But why should anyone listen to the prosecutor on this matter?
The reality here is that angry Right Wingers are panicked that little Donald Trump is facing at least four criminal prosecutions, with two of those due to have their indictments announced shortly. They have no idea what to do after he’s sentenced, so they’re frantically doubling down on the smears.
One would think these guys could figure out that their game-playing is quite obvious to all seeing it. On the other hand, angry Right Wingers might just be falling into the usual and predictable pattern of a gambler going into a downward spiral of going all-in on bad hands and then losing greater and greater sums until his entire life savings is exhausted.
The GOP used this approach during the first impeachment of Mike Pence’s childish former spokesman. (And it’s really odd to think that we have to refer to that as just his first impeachment…) Whenever a GOP congressman got the microphone during the impeachment proceedings, they would immediately launch on a fact-free monologue about the “Biden Crime Family” or about “Hunter Biden’s crimes”. With the intent of confusing viewers into throwing up their hands and yelling “Ah, to heck with all of them!”
In the current situation, the desperation of angry Right Wingers is clear and understandable. They have a standard-bearer who is likely to either land in federal prison or be compelled to plead guilty to felonies within the next several months. (Which will render him unable to seek office, by the way) The only play they can think to make is to throw as much mud at President Biden and his family as they can.
So we hear nonsense about “Hunter Biden’s laptop”, which is a canard. In reality, there is no indication that any such laptop ever existed or that Hunter Biden ever went to the shop of the Trump fan in Delaware. What we do know exists is a “hard drive copy” that appears to contain the results of a data hack into Hunter Biden’s iCloud storage in 2019. This data hack was available in the Ukraine, coincidentally, when Rudy Giuliani was trolling for that kind of thing in later 2019. Time Magazine and Politico covered this fairly thoughouly. Or we hear about IRS “whistleblowers” in hushed tones. Except that it’s really just Gary Shapley again, and now he’s trying to get people to doubt the word of David Weiss, who already sent a terse letter to the angry Right Wingers in Congress, politely telling them to back off. But why should anyone listen to the prosecutor on this matter?
The reality here is that angry Right Wingers are panicked that little Donald Trump is facing at least four criminal prosecutions, with two of those due to have their indictments announced shortly. They have no idea what to do after he’s sentenced, so they’re frantically doubling down on the smears.
One would think these guys could figure out that their game-playing is quite obvious to all seeing it. On the other hand, angry Right Wingers might just be falling into the usual and predictable pattern of a gambler going into a downward spiral of going all-in on bad hands and then losing greater and greater sums until his entire life savings is exhausted.