Kevin Koster commented on Fox ‘Honors’ KBJ Confirmation By Baselessly Suggesting She’s A Stealth Radical
2022-04-11 16:59:44 -0400
· Flag
Severino has no credibility and she’s blatantly lying here. The record of the SC appointees she mentions is quite clear. (And let’s all remember that the angry Right Wing corruption of “originalism” is an unfortunate misapplication of a way to understand context in legislation. Right Wingers led by Robert Bork turned that into an edict that the Constitution is fixed in concrete and can only be read in terms of where it was when the articles and amendments were first written – and that’s a nonsensical approach.)
Clarence Thomas was and is an unsuitable candidate to be named to any federal bench, let alone the SC. He was hand-picked as a slap in the face to Thurgood Marshall and to everyone who appreciated the perspective Marshall brought to the high court. His bias and extreme partisanship has never waned one iota in the 30+ years he has inflicted opinions at the SC. In addition to his vicious partisanship, he has demonstrated the qualities of a truly despicable man, just as was indicated by Anita Hill as well as multiple other women who were not permitted to testify. And he’s currently mired in a conflict of interest that in any reasonable society would require him to step down in disgrace and potentially face criminal prosecution.
Samuel Alito was and is an unsuitable candidate for any federal bench, let alone the SC. He was nominated as a Far Far Right replacement for Sandra Day O’Connor, to tip the SC even more solidly to the Right than it had already been up to that point. He’s also an open racist, having enthusiastically joined and supported the Concerned Alumni of Princeton. (The only way angry Right Wingers could dodge this fact at his hearing was to have his wife burst into tears and stomp out of the room in a tantrum when it was brought up.) His bias and extreme partisanship has never waned one iota in the 16 years he has inflicted opinions at the SC.
Neil Gorsuch was and is an unsuitable candidate for any federal bench, let alone the SC. He was rammed into a seat stolen by angry Right Wingers from Merrick Garland, specifically with the intent of making sure this seat was not filled by President Obama or by anyone remotely less Far Right Wing than Scalia. When Trump unexpectedly squeaked through the 2016 Election, angry Right Wingers got a double victory – they got to sneer in the face of everyone else, and they were able to change Senate rules and ram through an extreme partisan idealogue even farther to the Far Right than Scalia.
Brett Kavanaugh was and is an unsuitable candidate for any federal bench, let alone the SC. His consistent basis has been that of a privileged wealthy Right Winger, going back to his days in prep school, where he and his buddies were known for heavy drinking and for openly inappropriate conduct with women. His record as a partisan has been openly craven, and his financial matters have been more than shady. And all of this was discussed at both of his confirmations, where he was effectively rammed through by angry Right Wingers to make sure he got his judicial rewards. He committed perjury in both of his confirmations, but the standard of proof for a criminal case is so high that he was able to get away with it. And he got away with openly vicious outbursts in his SC hearing (just as Lindsey Graham did), rather than being compelled to retreat in disgrace.
Amy Coney Barrett was and is an unsuitable candidate for any federal bench, let alone the SC. She frankly should have stayed at Notre Dame, where she could have opined against reproductive freedom all the livelong day without endangering women’s lives as the upcoming Dobbs ruling is certain to do. Her appointment and ramming onto the SC were a deliberate slap in the face to Ruth Bader Ginsburg and all who supported her.
All five of the judges discussed above should have been rejected, but were instead given lifetime berths to follow the Far Right’s long game of destroying and erasing the precedents in civil rights and workers’ rights that were established under the Warren Court and some moments of the Burger Court. Severino is paid to shill for a Far Right advocacy group that is bent on that destruction and erasure.
Clarence Thomas was and is an unsuitable candidate to be named to any federal bench, let alone the SC. He was hand-picked as a slap in the face to Thurgood Marshall and to everyone who appreciated the perspective Marshall brought to the high court. His bias and extreme partisanship has never waned one iota in the 30+ years he has inflicted opinions at the SC. In addition to his vicious partisanship, he has demonstrated the qualities of a truly despicable man, just as was indicated by Anita Hill as well as multiple other women who were not permitted to testify. And he’s currently mired in a conflict of interest that in any reasonable society would require him to step down in disgrace and potentially face criminal prosecution.
Samuel Alito was and is an unsuitable candidate for any federal bench, let alone the SC. He was nominated as a Far Far Right replacement for Sandra Day O’Connor, to tip the SC even more solidly to the Right than it had already been up to that point. He’s also an open racist, having enthusiastically joined and supported the Concerned Alumni of Princeton. (The only way angry Right Wingers could dodge this fact at his hearing was to have his wife burst into tears and stomp out of the room in a tantrum when it was brought up.) His bias and extreme partisanship has never waned one iota in the 16 years he has inflicted opinions at the SC.
Neil Gorsuch was and is an unsuitable candidate for any federal bench, let alone the SC. He was rammed into a seat stolen by angry Right Wingers from Merrick Garland, specifically with the intent of making sure this seat was not filled by President Obama or by anyone remotely less Far Right Wing than Scalia. When Trump unexpectedly squeaked through the 2016 Election, angry Right Wingers got a double victory – they got to sneer in the face of everyone else, and they were able to change Senate rules and ram through an extreme partisan idealogue even farther to the Far Right than Scalia.
Brett Kavanaugh was and is an unsuitable candidate for any federal bench, let alone the SC. His consistent basis has been that of a privileged wealthy Right Winger, going back to his days in prep school, where he and his buddies were known for heavy drinking and for openly inappropriate conduct with women. His record as a partisan has been openly craven, and his financial matters have been more than shady. And all of this was discussed at both of his confirmations, where he was effectively rammed through by angry Right Wingers to make sure he got his judicial rewards. He committed perjury in both of his confirmations, but the standard of proof for a criminal case is so high that he was able to get away with it. And he got away with openly vicious outbursts in his SC hearing (just as Lindsey Graham did), rather than being compelled to retreat in disgrace.
Amy Coney Barrett was and is an unsuitable candidate for any federal bench, let alone the SC. She frankly should have stayed at Notre Dame, where she could have opined against reproductive freedom all the livelong day without endangering women’s lives as the upcoming Dobbs ruling is certain to do. Her appointment and ramming onto the SC were a deliberate slap in the face to Ruth Bader Ginsburg and all who supported her.
All five of the judges discussed above should have been rejected, but were instead given lifetime berths to follow the Far Right’s long game of destroying and erasing the precedents in civil rights and workers’ rights that were established under the Warren Court and some moments of the Burger Court. Severino is paid to shill for a Far Right advocacy group that is bent on that destruction and erasure.
Kevin Koster commented on Fox Guest Calls Judge KBJ ‘Very Qualified,’ Then Trashes Her
2022-03-30 23:01:15 -0400
· Flag
Justice Jackson will be confirmed by the end of next week, unless something truly strange happens. She already has Collins’ vote and likely more GOP votes. And this was never in doubt.
GOP Senators simply wanted revenge for the temerity Dems showed during the Pence White House SC rams. And they were delighted to smear Jackson for the obvious reasons – as yet another example of their clear feelings about non-male and non-Caucasian nominees. It’s clear they were trying to bait her into getting angry, as Kavanaugh had. And they failed at that, so they went with the notion of just smearing her.
GOP Senators simply wanted revenge for the temerity Dems showed during the Pence White House SC rams. And they were delighted to smear Jackson for the obvious reasons – as yet another example of their clear feelings about non-male and non-Caucasian nominees. It’s clear they were trying to bait her into getting angry, as Kavanaugh had. And they failed at that, so they went with the notion of just smearing her.
Kevin Koster commented on 'Objective' Trace Gallagher: ‘Certainly, Judge Kavanaugh Did Not Get Due Process, Which He Deserved'
2022-03-30 22:56:37 -0400
· Flag
Just in case anyone doesn’t know the history, neither Brett Kavanaugh nor Robert Bork were saints. Both men had extremely serious issues that meant they would be inappropriate to be named to any court, let alone the Supreme Court.
In the case of Bork, the exposure of his unfortunate writings and statements was not what doomed him. Nor was his infamous history of having fired the special counsel at Richard Nixon’s demand. What doomed Bork was Bork himself, who openly stated his extremist positions at his hearing, and alienated so many people that Republicans voted against him and he went down to a spectacular, humiliating defeat.
As for Kavanaugh, he has a history as an extreme partisan and idealogue, and much of that had already come back to haunt him when the GOP was ramming him into his SC seat just before the 2018 midterms. He had a history of nasty behavior while working with Ken Starr and in the W/Cheney White House. He had committed perjury during his earlier confirmation hearing for his first court appointment, but proving perjury is far more complex than the Judiciary Committee would handle, and the GOP members were intent on ramming, not listening.
When Kavanaugh’s attack on Christine Blasey-Ford went public and more women appeared with similar stories about Kavanaugh, it was more than appropriate for the Committee to examine it. After all, the Right Wing has spent decades telling us that character counts and touting their good Christian values. (And there are multiple witnesses who have discussed that Georgetown Prep, where Kavanaugh, Mark Judge attended, was known for the unrestrained behavior of the rich students at their various extracurricular parties.) But instead of taking this seriously, angry Right Wingers suddenly tried to attack the female victims and accuse the Dems of somehow being mean to Kavanaugh, completely turning the actual situation upside down. Kavanaugh had a few uncomfortable minutes in the hearing room and erupted in snide remarks at the Senators and a scary, unhinged meltdown where he accused the Clintons of orchestrating his misdeeds.
But at no point was Kavanaugh’s confirmation in doubt. He knew he was going to be rammed through, and he was. The result of the hearings? Kavanaugh got his lifetime brass ring at the nation’s highest court and continues his life of luxury while he and his fellow Far Right SC members work to erase the precedents of the Warren and Burger courts. And Professor Ford? She and her family spent months enduring death threats and harassment and were forced to move twice as she was repeatedly doxxed. Even today, she is harassed by angry Right Wingers, and all for having the temerity to stand up. Which only goes to show why so many victims of harassment and sexual assault are reluctant to come forward.
In the case of Bork, the exposure of his unfortunate writings and statements was not what doomed him. Nor was his infamous history of having fired the special counsel at Richard Nixon’s demand. What doomed Bork was Bork himself, who openly stated his extremist positions at his hearing, and alienated so many people that Republicans voted against him and he went down to a spectacular, humiliating defeat.
As for Kavanaugh, he has a history as an extreme partisan and idealogue, and much of that had already come back to haunt him when the GOP was ramming him into his SC seat just before the 2018 midterms. He had a history of nasty behavior while working with Ken Starr and in the W/Cheney White House. He had committed perjury during his earlier confirmation hearing for his first court appointment, but proving perjury is far more complex than the Judiciary Committee would handle, and the GOP members were intent on ramming, not listening.
When Kavanaugh’s attack on Christine Blasey-Ford went public and more women appeared with similar stories about Kavanaugh, it was more than appropriate for the Committee to examine it. After all, the Right Wing has spent decades telling us that character counts and touting their good Christian values. (And there are multiple witnesses who have discussed that Georgetown Prep, where Kavanaugh, Mark Judge attended, was known for the unrestrained behavior of the rich students at their various extracurricular parties.) But instead of taking this seriously, angry Right Wingers suddenly tried to attack the female victims and accuse the Dems of somehow being mean to Kavanaugh, completely turning the actual situation upside down. Kavanaugh had a few uncomfortable minutes in the hearing room and erupted in snide remarks at the Senators and a scary, unhinged meltdown where he accused the Clintons of orchestrating his misdeeds.
But at no point was Kavanaugh’s confirmation in doubt. He knew he was going to be rammed through, and he was. The result of the hearings? Kavanaugh got his lifetime brass ring at the nation’s highest court and continues his life of luxury while he and his fellow Far Right SC members work to erase the precedents of the Warren and Burger courts. And Professor Ford? She and her family spent months enduring death threats and harassment and were forced to move twice as she was repeatedly doxxed. Even today, she is harassed by angry Right Wingers, and all for having the temerity to stand up. Which only goes to show why so many victims of harassment and sexual assault are reluctant to come forward.
Kevin Koster commented on Tucker Carlson Smears Greta Thunberg: ‘Emotionally Damaged Child’
2022-03-12 18:06:33 -0500
· Flag
Little Tuckerr Carlson is upset at Greta Thunberg? And he’s making more childish comments?
It’s truly a shame that angrr Right Wingers seem to think they can behave like this and profit from it.
It’s truly a shame that angrr Right Wingers seem to think they can behave like this and profit from it.
Kevin Koster commented on Jonathan Turley Comes Up With Highbrow Version Of The Right-Wing Hit Job On Ketanji Brown Jackson
2022-03-03 22:35:10 -0500
· Flag
A few things to note here.
First, Ellen is absolutely right to note that Turley is playing the usual “serious thinker” ruse to support the latest angry Right Wing propaganda. As we noted when Stephen Hayes and Chris Wallace fled Fox News for actual journalism outlets, there’s a long history over the past 25+ years of paid “analysts” on Fox doing their part to support the Line of the Day. The line is usually heard from the first Fox News AM host, as well as from the earliest morning AM right wing shock jocks (Glenn Beck keeps trying to be “the guy” for this) as to how to spin whatever is happening in the world. One day the Line may be about how great Ronald Reagan was at (fill in the blank). Many other days the Line will be about how great the Pence White House supposedly was for America, even if its childish former spokesman kept distracting everyone with his mean tweets. (The reality – that the Pence White House was an unmitigated disaster and the childish spokesman’s mean tweets were openly encouraged and enjoyed by Angry Right Wingers throughout – somehow always goes unspoken) Throughout the 2 terms of the Obama White House, the Line was often about how whatever President Obama said or did that day was a failure or criminal or both. These days, that approach has been modified to say that whatever President Biden said or did that day reflects that he is supposedly senile, criminal, or a failure – or all three at once. So one supposes that Fox News is getting more nuanced in its smears. The purpose, then, of a “serious thinker” like Turley is to put a veneer of sage respectability on the smears. So he’ll offer a column and a few talking head appearances on angry Right Wing outlets and cite a couple of cherry-picked stats and then take a solemn “ethical high ground” tone to tut-tut about whatever feigned outrage the Right wants its base to be riled up about.
In the case of the almost certain upcoming confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson in the Breyer seat, the reality does not give angry Right Wingers much in the way of red meat – apart from her ethnicity and gender. Jackson’s record as a judge and previously as a public defender is one of moderation – she’s recommended some common sense reforms to criminal sentencing, and her approach has been to work with both Dems and Republicans to accomplish that. As a result, she’s supported by the usual Dems for a Dem nominee but also by GOP stalwarts like the Fraternal Order of Police. She appears to be very much in the mode of Breyer, who was known as a moderate who reached across the aisle to achieve consensus whenever he could. (And let’s not forget that she clerked for Breyer) Angry Right Wingers have attempted to paint Breyer as “Far Left” but that’s actually far from the truth. Breyer was and is enough of a centrist that Orrin Hatch and Strom Thurmond openly supported him when his nomination to the SC was announced by President Clinton in 1994. But times have changed since 1994, so a moderate centrist like Breyer or Jackson is somehow now to be seen as “Far Left” while Far Right idealogues like Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett are supposedly mainstream. We must keep in mind that replacing Breyer with Jackson will not make any change in the makeup of the Court – in terms of the political leanings of individual jurists (she’s close to Breyer in her thinking) or in terms of the balance of the Court (it remains firmly packed to the Far Far Right, with 3 moderate Dems, 1 Hard Right Chief Justice in the Rehnquist mode and 5 Very Far Right extremists in a solid majority). The court rulings will not change a whit with the introduction of Judge Jackson; we’ll see the usual 6-3 or 5-4 rulings to the Far Right, only with one of the dissenters having the name Jackson rather than Breyer. And the real change we’ve seen with the new 5 Far Far Right majority will continue apace – that there will likely be very little consensus as this majority sees no need to entertain the ideas of anyone not on the Far Right. Offbeat rulings like today, where Gorsuch suddenly joined with Sotomayor for his own reasons are now isolated exceptions.
Regarding Biden’s laudable step to finally name the first African-American female to the High Court, it actually was necessary to do it, particularly after the openly hateful record of the Pence White House in its packing of the judiciary over the prior four years. In over 200 judicial appointments to federal benches, the Pence White House, outsourcing the selections to extremist advocates at Heritage Action and the Federalist Society, included a grand total of 8 African American, 8 Chicano, and 13 Asian-American, with not even a single African American nominated for an appellate court. This means a staggering tilt of 85% white judicial appointees overall, to go with an equally staggering tilt of 75% male judicial appointees by Mike Pence. Appointing an African-American female is frankly the least the Biden White House could do. (And this was only part of Mike Pence’s pushback on any sense of living in the 21st century – the appointments made for all staff, cabinet and intern positions were staggeringly tilted to White Males.)
Regarding Turley’s attempt to find a “serious thinker” justification to dismiss Judge Jackson, his comments are nonsensical on their face. If Turley wants to discuss an “extremely limited written record”, then he must have had the identical objection to Amy Coney Barrett when she was being frantically rammed onto the High Court. And he must have also objected to David Souter, who actually did have a sparse written record when he was appointed by George Bush – and that sparsity was weaponized by Right Wingers at that time. (The Right had hoped to sneak Souter in as a stealth nominee who would emerge as a Hard Right riposte to William Brennan. When liberal groups objected to Souter and noted the game the Right was playing, they received condescending lectures about how they were supposedly prejudging Souter without evidence. Of course, Souter actually turned out to be an Independent, which pushed the Right to pre-screen their subsequent judicial picks at a much more exhaustive level.)
Turley tries to imply that Judge Jackson is constantly being chastised and overturned. That’s also false. In fact, she has about a 2% reversal rate, which is far below a number that would cause actual concern. (And in fact both Gorsuch and Kavanaugh had very real issues in this area, which did not bother Turley.)
And let’s not allow Turley to get away with that below-the-belt shot about how a living Constitution approach is just something favored by “some on the left.” That’s a flat-out False Premise. Full Stop. The notion of the Constitution being a living, breathing document is as mainstream as the notion of separation of powers. It’s a fundamental truth about our country that has been taught in basic Social Studies classes to elementary school kids for over a century. The only people who don’t hold to that idea are the angry Right Wingers who turned to the Borkified idea of “originalism” as a way to argue for the illegitimacy of all Supreme Court decisions they personally dislike. In their view, the Constitution is frozen until someone has a Convention of the States to make an amendment, and no interpretation is allowed unless the Framers explicitly discussed that point of view. This is a pernicious aspect of the approach of “serious thinkers” like Turley. They want you to think that their Far Right opinion about Constitutional Law is the only way to see the Constitution – rather than what it really is – a Far Right opinion.
When we get to the actual core of the objections of angry Right Wingers here, it’s plain to see. It is not about any faux “concern” about giving everyone a chance. It’s about staying with an angry vision of “America – the way it oughtta be!!!” as unrepentant bigot Rush Limbaugh would say. A world where White Men get to lay down the law, White Women stay in the kitchen, and where everyone else better keep their heads down if they know what’s good for them. Judge Jackson’s transgression against the Right Wing is that she had the temerity to excel in the law while being African American and female. One supposes that the angry Right Wingers’ attempts to cloak their bigotry as “concern” actually shows the culture to perhaps be a little healthier now than during the miserable epoch of the Pence White House. If these guys were able to practice their hateful bigotry openly, as they did for much of 2017-21, there would be no need for Turley to help them play these games.
First, Ellen is absolutely right to note that Turley is playing the usual “serious thinker” ruse to support the latest angry Right Wing propaganda. As we noted when Stephen Hayes and Chris Wallace fled Fox News for actual journalism outlets, there’s a long history over the past 25+ years of paid “analysts” on Fox doing their part to support the Line of the Day. The line is usually heard from the first Fox News AM host, as well as from the earliest morning AM right wing shock jocks (Glenn Beck keeps trying to be “the guy” for this) as to how to spin whatever is happening in the world. One day the Line may be about how great Ronald Reagan was at (fill in the blank). Many other days the Line will be about how great the Pence White House supposedly was for America, even if its childish former spokesman kept distracting everyone with his mean tweets. (The reality – that the Pence White House was an unmitigated disaster and the childish spokesman’s mean tweets were openly encouraged and enjoyed by Angry Right Wingers throughout – somehow always goes unspoken) Throughout the 2 terms of the Obama White House, the Line was often about how whatever President Obama said or did that day was a failure or criminal or both. These days, that approach has been modified to say that whatever President Biden said or did that day reflects that he is supposedly senile, criminal, or a failure – or all three at once. So one supposes that Fox News is getting more nuanced in its smears. The purpose, then, of a “serious thinker” like Turley is to put a veneer of sage respectability on the smears. So he’ll offer a column and a few talking head appearances on angry Right Wing outlets and cite a couple of cherry-picked stats and then take a solemn “ethical high ground” tone to tut-tut about whatever feigned outrage the Right wants its base to be riled up about.
In the case of the almost certain upcoming confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson in the Breyer seat, the reality does not give angry Right Wingers much in the way of red meat – apart from her ethnicity and gender. Jackson’s record as a judge and previously as a public defender is one of moderation – she’s recommended some common sense reforms to criminal sentencing, and her approach has been to work with both Dems and Republicans to accomplish that. As a result, she’s supported by the usual Dems for a Dem nominee but also by GOP stalwarts like the Fraternal Order of Police. She appears to be very much in the mode of Breyer, who was known as a moderate who reached across the aisle to achieve consensus whenever he could. (And let’s not forget that she clerked for Breyer) Angry Right Wingers have attempted to paint Breyer as “Far Left” but that’s actually far from the truth. Breyer was and is enough of a centrist that Orrin Hatch and Strom Thurmond openly supported him when his nomination to the SC was announced by President Clinton in 1994. But times have changed since 1994, so a moderate centrist like Breyer or Jackson is somehow now to be seen as “Far Left” while Far Right idealogues like Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett are supposedly mainstream. We must keep in mind that replacing Breyer with Jackson will not make any change in the makeup of the Court – in terms of the political leanings of individual jurists (she’s close to Breyer in her thinking) or in terms of the balance of the Court (it remains firmly packed to the Far Far Right, with 3 moderate Dems, 1 Hard Right Chief Justice in the Rehnquist mode and 5 Very Far Right extremists in a solid majority). The court rulings will not change a whit with the introduction of Judge Jackson; we’ll see the usual 6-3 or 5-4 rulings to the Far Right, only with one of the dissenters having the name Jackson rather than Breyer. And the real change we’ve seen with the new 5 Far Far Right majority will continue apace – that there will likely be very little consensus as this majority sees no need to entertain the ideas of anyone not on the Far Right. Offbeat rulings like today, where Gorsuch suddenly joined with Sotomayor for his own reasons are now isolated exceptions.
Regarding Biden’s laudable step to finally name the first African-American female to the High Court, it actually was necessary to do it, particularly after the openly hateful record of the Pence White House in its packing of the judiciary over the prior four years. In over 200 judicial appointments to federal benches, the Pence White House, outsourcing the selections to extremist advocates at Heritage Action and the Federalist Society, included a grand total of 8 African American, 8 Chicano, and 13 Asian-American, with not even a single African American nominated for an appellate court. This means a staggering tilt of 85% white judicial appointees overall, to go with an equally staggering tilt of 75% male judicial appointees by Mike Pence. Appointing an African-American female is frankly the least the Biden White House could do. (And this was only part of Mike Pence’s pushback on any sense of living in the 21st century – the appointments made for all staff, cabinet and intern positions were staggeringly tilted to White Males.)
Regarding Turley’s attempt to find a “serious thinker” justification to dismiss Judge Jackson, his comments are nonsensical on their face. If Turley wants to discuss an “extremely limited written record”, then he must have had the identical objection to Amy Coney Barrett when she was being frantically rammed onto the High Court. And he must have also objected to David Souter, who actually did have a sparse written record when he was appointed by George Bush – and that sparsity was weaponized by Right Wingers at that time. (The Right had hoped to sneak Souter in as a stealth nominee who would emerge as a Hard Right riposte to William Brennan. When liberal groups objected to Souter and noted the game the Right was playing, they received condescending lectures about how they were supposedly prejudging Souter without evidence. Of course, Souter actually turned out to be an Independent, which pushed the Right to pre-screen their subsequent judicial picks at a much more exhaustive level.)
Turley tries to imply that Judge Jackson is constantly being chastised and overturned. That’s also false. In fact, she has about a 2% reversal rate, which is far below a number that would cause actual concern. (And in fact both Gorsuch and Kavanaugh had very real issues in this area, which did not bother Turley.)
And let’s not allow Turley to get away with that below-the-belt shot about how a living Constitution approach is just something favored by “some on the left.” That’s a flat-out False Premise. Full Stop. The notion of the Constitution being a living, breathing document is as mainstream as the notion of separation of powers. It’s a fundamental truth about our country that has been taught in basic Social Studies classes to elementary school kids for over a century. The only people who don’t hold to that idea are the angry Right Wingers who turned to the Borkified idea of “originalism” as a way to argue for the illegitimacy of all Supreme Court decisions they personally dislike. In their view, the Constitution is frozen until someone has a Convention of the States to make an amendment, and no interpretation is allowed unless the Framers explicitly discussed that point of view. This is a pernicious aspect of the approach of “serious thinkers” like Turley. They want you to think that their Far Right opinion about Constitutional Law is the only way to see the Constitution – rather than what it really is – a Far Right opinion.
When we get to the actual core of the objections of angry Right Wingers here, it’s plain to see. It is not about any faux “concern” about giving everyone a chance. It’s about staying with an angry vision of “America – the way it oughtta be!!!” as unrepentant bigot Rush Limbaugh would say. A world where White Men get to lay down the law, White Women stay in the kitchen, and where everyone else better keep their heads down if they know what’s good for them. Judge Jackson’s transgression against the Right Wing is that she had the temerity to excel in the law while being African American and female. One supposes that the angry Right Wingers’ attempts to cloak their bigotry as “concern” actually shows the culture to perhaps be a little healthier now than during the miserable epoch of the Pence White House. If these guys were able to practice their hateful bigotry openly, as they did for much of 2017-21, there would be no need for Turley to help them play these games.
Kevin Koster commented on Like Clockwork, Sen. Grassley Repeats RW Smear Of Judge Jackson
2022-02-26 02:01:17 -0500
· Flag
It’s frankly tiring to repeatedly have to address these debunked lies, but we must continue to do so.
Judge Jackson is not “Far Left” by any sane metric. She’s a former public defender whose actual published opinions show her to be a centrist moderate, in a similar vein to both Breyer and Kagan. We should remember that despite what angry Right Wingers desperately want everyone to think, we really don’t have anyone on the Supreme Court who could be described as “Far Left”, let alone just Left. Breyer is actually a centrist known for agreeing with Right Wingers on matters of criminal justice and other areas. It’s notable that the current roster of Far Right Wingers on the SC are so extreme that even Breyer can’t reach them much of the time. But then, that’s what Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett were appointed to do.
The GOP talking points about Judge Jackson leave out crucial information. Yes, Jackson ruled against the Pence White House and Pence’s childish former spokesman – not because the policies were “conservative” but because they were unconstitutional, barbaric, vicious and at times openly criminal. Yes, Judge Jackson worked with President Obama, including major work at the US Sentencing Commission. That’s not a bad thing at all. I find it interesting that angry Right Wingers paint that as disqualifying, when they cheerled for Kavanaugh and Barrett, both open GOP partisans who worked to shut down Dem voters’ rights in Florida in 2000, with Kavanaugh having earlier worked on the Ken Starr team where he gleefully scripted the most lascivious and embarrassing interrogatories he could throw at President Clinton. Gorsuch is a lifelong partisan idealogue who thought it clever to found a “Fascism Forever” club in school. And yet somehow Judge Jackson working for common sense guidelines for criminal punishments is unacceptable?
The reality here is that Jackson will be a moderate voice, and it will make not a whit of difference on a court dominated by 5 extremist Right Wingers and 1 Hard Right Chief Justice.
Judge Jackson is not “Far Left” by any sane metric. She’s a former public defender whose actual published opinions show her to be a centrist moderate, in a similar vein to both Breyer and Kagan. We should remember that despite what angry Right Wingers desperately want everyone to think, we really don’t have anyone on the Supreme Court who could be described as “Far Left”, let alone just Left. Breyer is actually a centrist known for agreeing with Right Wingers on matters of criminal justice and other areas. It’s notable that the current roster of Far Right Wingers on the SC are so extreme that even Breyer can’t reach them much of the time. But then, that’s what Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett were appointed to do.
The GOP talking points about Judge Jackson leave out crucial information. Yes, Jackson ruled against the Pence White House and Pence’s childish former spokesman – not because the policies were “conservative” but because they were unconstitutional, barbaric, vicious and at times openly criminal. Yes, Judge Jackson worked with President Obama, including major work at the US Sentencing Commission. That’s not a bad thing at all. I find it interesting that angry Right Wingers paint that as disqualifying, when they cheerled for Kavanaugh and Barrett, both open GOP partisans who worked to shut down Dem voters’ rights in Florida in 2000, with Kavanaugh having earlier worked on the Ken Starr team where he gleefully scripted the most lascivious and embarrassing interrogatories he could throw at President Clinton. Gorsuch is a lifelong partisan idealogue who thought it clever to found a “Fascism Forever” club in school. And yet somehow Judge Jackson working for common sense guidelines for criminal punishments is unacceptable?
The reality here is that Jackson will be a moderate voice, and it will make not a whit of difference on a court dominated by 5 extremist Right Wingers and 1 Hard Right Chief Justice.
Kevin Koster commented on Sara Carter ‘Clarifies’ Her Fake Report About ‘Trampled’ Canadian Anti-Vaxxer One Day Later
2022-02-21 18:25:51 -0500
· Flag
Angry Right Wing pundits are continuing to run with the spin Carter was pushing. It doesn’t matter to them that this has been debunked. They’re tripling down on their story of the supposedly “brave truckers” as “freedom fighters” rather than the reality that this was a group of angry Right Wing ant-vaxxers who have shown contempt for the health of their fellow Canadians.
Let’s not forget that Sara Carter has made a risible career for herself of pushing angry Right Wing propaganda and pretending it to be “reporting”. In recent times, she was a reliable cultist for the Pence White House and particularly for Mike Pence’s childish former spokesman. She repeatedly tried to push “bombshell” propaganda tidbits about supposed Dem wrongdoing during the many times that Pence White House criminality came under scrutiny. She also jumped on the bandwagon to push fraudulent spin about, ironically, election “fraud”. (All of this was meant to get approval from Pence’s childish former spokesman, who wanted to hear his loyalists say that he had not done anything wrong and that he had not just lost an election. When the reality is that he actually committed multiple crimes, got himself impeached twice, and then actually did lose the 2020 Election in a fairly humiliating fashion.)
Sara Carter may have found a way to monetize Right Wing bias and bigotry, but she has never been able to achieve credibility as anything more than a mouthpiece for Far Right propaganda. On the other hand, she’s at least been consistent in her approach. From her first “big story” in the 2000s where she tried to lionize convicted felons Ramos & Compean to her current dark work pushing the “brave truckers” canard, Carter has shown she can be counted on to stick up for the bigots, bad actors and bullies on the Far Right.
Let’s not forget that Sara Carter has made a risible career for herself of pushing angry Right Wing propaganda and pretending it to be “reporting”. In recent times, she was a reliable cultist for the Pence White House and particularly for Mike Pence’s childish former spokesman. She repeatedly tried to push “bombshell” propaganda tidbits about supposed Dem wrongdoing during the many times that Pence White House criminality came under scrutiny. She also jumped on the bandwagon to push fraudulent spin about, ironically, election “fraud”. (All of this was meant to get approval from Pence’s childish former spokesman, who wanted to hear his loyalists say that he had not done anything wrong and that he had not just lost an election. When the reality is that he actually committed multiple crimes, got himself impeached twice, and then actually did lose the 2020 Election in a fairly humiliating fashion.)
Sara Carter may have found a way to monetize Right Wing bias and bigotry, but she has never been able to achieve credibility as anything more than a mouthpiece for Far Right propaganda. On the other hand, she’s at least been consistent in her approach. From her first “big story” in the 2000s where she tried to lionize convicted felons Ramos & Compean to her current dark work pushing the “brave truckers” canard, Carter has shown she can be counted on to stick up for the bigots, bad actors and bullies on the Far Right.
Kevin Koster commented on How Fox’s ‘Ultimate Journalist’ Promoted Cooked-Up Durham Investigation ‘Bombshell'
2022-02-18 02:40:48 -0500
· Flag
Just to make sure I’ve put it in the right thread, I’m going to repeat something I posted earlier:
Regarding the non-story of the Durham mention, there really isn’t much to it. Durham was just discussing how as part of his examination and interviewing, he was finding that there had been plenty of pings of I believe American phones contacting Russian phones/contacts/IMs. Not actual surveillance of content so much as contact pings. And most of this was from individuals in President Obama’s White House (which I believe is based on typical diplomacy and business between our countries). They had also noted a bunch of activity pinging the Russian contacts from the Trump campaign, and the Durham interviewee apparently turned that information over to the FBI, which is frankly normal procedure. (I believe the pings are tracked based on the receiver, which is how Flynn got caught in his malfeasance – ie that they weren’t wiretapping Trump Tower but instead catching contacts to Russians and tracing them BACK to Trump Tower and phones like Flynn’s.) Durham added that he believed the person who found the Trump Campaign pings and passed them to the FBI was doing so in an improper way, that he was using his access to information not publicly available rather than staying in his lane at that time. The person involved sounds like they worked at that time (in the 2016 race) in support of an arm of Clinton’s campaign. The point is, when they catch what look like suspicious/shady activity, cops tend to report it. If they didn’t, we would think THAT was corrupt.
I note that nothing in Durham’s update says anything about Hillary Clinton being involved or even knowing about this bit of normal procedure as it was happening. Nothing in the update says anything about anyone being arrested or indicted for this. Nothing in the update gives any indication of anything more than a little more background information around Durham’s discussion of one man, Michael Sussmann, who has been charged with lying to the FBI. Sussmann disputes this and says he believes Durham is trying to “inflame media coverage” with what looks like a gratuitous mention that does not carry any charges. The mention of the pings is in a subsection of the update and it’s indicated that this area has been looked at and is already in the rear view mirror.
So we have Durham issuing an update with a bit of tech-wonk detail which basically says he has no further charges or indictments at this time. That’s it. Except that angry Right Wingers are having a week where they need something, anything to get attention away from actual news events they’d prefer you didn’t notice. Such as the Pence White House failing to prevent the January 6 Committee from gaining access to their papers. And the spectacular revelation that Pence’s childish former spokesman regularly tried to conceal classified documents (including his theft of 15 boxes of such materials and his transport of the stolen goods to Mar-a-lago) and to destroy other classified materials by tearing them up and/or flushing them down the White House toilets. And then we have this week’s bombshell – that the Trump organization’s longtime accountants are running, not walking away from the Trumps, including the accountants publicly stating that Trump’s financials are fraudulent, and the accountants turning over what look like hundreds of thousands of papers to the New York Attorney General. And that’s without getting into all the fraudulent schemes being regularly uncovered about how angry Right Wing Trump supporters attempted to overturn the 2020 Election in various ways, including the assembly of illegitimate “electors” for states that they lost.
Given that, it’s clear why angry Right Wingers want to push their latest Durham “bombshell”. It’s partly the usual reason – putting out a vague threat to everyone that angry Right Wingers want their revenge for all the Mueller indictments and both impeachments of Pence’s childish former spokesman. (And we can absolutely expect the GOP to attempt to do a revenge impeachment of President Biden and possibly of VP Harris should they retake the Congressional majorities in November) But it’s mostly to give them something to repeatedly shout while clapping their hands over their ears so they don’t hear the actual news.
The Durham update is absolutely not “Way Worse Than Watergate” by any means. Durham’s update is about DOJ procedure and progress in a minor and disputed case of one man who may or may not have said something untrue to the FBI. As opposed to the Trump Campaign and Pence White House minions who were caught red-handed in all kinds of criminal behavior and then pleaded their cases down to just misleading the FBI so they could get lighter prison time. Or the matter of the Watergate scandal, where angry Right Wingers in the Nixon White House were caught in multiple illegal acts, after the exposure of their burglary of the DNC HQ and their attempts to plant bugs. The Watergate “plumbers” were not involved in a DOJ investigation into foreign interference and computer hacks – they were simple burglars who got caught. (I note that angry Right Wingers repeatedly tried to dismiss the Watergate scandal back in the day, and some are continuing that propaganda even today. John O’Connor has made a cottage industry of trying to change the Watergate narrative and rewrite the history into one that Right Wingers can tell their kids rather than the truth – and he’s part of the new push to reframe Watergate and attack Hillary Clinton. I also note that angry Right Wingers with money made sure to reward the Watergate burglars for their “service” – for example, G. Gordon Liddy made millions and enjoyed celebrity status for decades after his imprisonment.)
But angry Right Wingers are hoping you won’t know any of that. And they’re hoping that they can intimidate and bully their enemies by threatening them with “execution” based on nothing. We should not take this lightly. If the GOP retake Congress this November, we must expect them to initiate revenge actions. And if an angry Right Wing GOP man retakes the White House in 2024 with angry Right Wing majorities in Congress, things could get far worse. We already saw what could happen when Fox News pundits had their way in the Pence White House as well as the W/Cheney disaster of the 2000s. The damage done by the epic deliberate mismanagement intended to prove “government can’t get anything done”, by the fumbling of a deadly pandemic, by all the emboldening of bigotry and hatred. At this point, Fox News is rushing to catch up to the farthest rightward fringe nonsense from web outlets like Newsmax. What happens when US policy is driven by Newsmax? Will we recognize this country after that?
Regarding the non-story of the Durham mention, there really isn’t much to it. Durham was just discussing how as part of his examination and interviewing, he was finding that there had been plenty of pings of I believe American phones contacting Russian phones/contacts/IMs. Not actual surveillance of content so much as contact pings. And most of this was from individuals in President Obama’s White House (which I believe is based on typical diplomacy and business between our countries). They had also noted a bunch of activity pinging the Russian contacts from the Trump campaign, and the Durham interviewee apparently turned that information over to the FBI, which is frankly normal procedure. (I believe the pings are tracked based on the receiver, which is how Flynn got caught in his malfeasance – ie that they weren’t wiretapping Trump Tower but instead catching contacts to Russians and tracing them BACK to Trump Tower and phones like Flynn’s.) Durham added that he believed the person who found the Trump Campaign pings and passed them to the FBI was doing so in an improper way, that he was using his access to information not publicly available rather than staying in his lane at that time. The person involved sounds like they worked at that time (in the 2016 race) in support of an arm of Clinton’s campaign. The point is, when they catch what look like suspicious/shady activity, cops tend to report it. If they didn’t, we would think THAT was corrupt.
I note that nothing in Durham’s update says anything about Hillary Clinton being involved or even knowing about this bit of normal procedure as it was happening. Nothing in the update says anything about anyone being arrested or indicted for this. Nothing in the update gives any indication of anything more than a little more background information around Durham’s discussion of one man, Michael Sussmann, who has been charged with lying to the FBI. Sussmann disputes this and says he believes Durham is trying to “inflame media coverage” with what looks like a gratuitous mention that does not carry any charges. The mention of the pings is in a subsection of the update and it’s indicated that this area has been looked at and is already in the rear view mirror.
So we have Durham issuing an update with a bit of tech-wonk detail which basically says he has no further charges or indictments at this time. That’s it. Except that angry Right Wingers are having a week where they need something, anything to get attention away from actual news events they’d prefer you didn’t notice. Such as the Pence White House failing to prevent the January 6 Committee from gaining access to their papers. And the spectacular revelation that Pence’s childish former spokesman regularly tried to conceal classified documents (including his theft of 15 boxes of such materials and his transport of the stolen goods to Mar-a-lago) and to destroy other classified materials by tearing them up and/or flushing them down the White House toilets. And then we have this week’s bombshell – that the Trump organization’s longtime accountants are running, not walking away from the Trumps, including the accountants publicly stating that Trump’s financials are fraudulent, and the accountants turning over what look like hundreds of thousands of papers to the New York Attorney General. And that’s without getting into all the fraudulent schemes being regularly uncovered about how angry Right Wing Trump supporters attempted to overturn the 2020 Election in various ways, including the assembly of illegitimate “electors” for states that they lost.
Given that, it’s clear why angry Right Wingers want to push their latest Durham “bombshell”. It’s partly the usual reason – putting out a vague threat to everyone that angry Right Wingers want their revenge for all the Mueller indictments and both impeachments of Pence’s childish former spokesman. (And we can absolutely expect the GOP to attempt to do a revenge impeachment of President Biden and possibly of VP Harris should they retake the Congressional majorities in November) But it’s mostly to give them something to repeatedly shout while clapping their hands over their ears so they don’t hear the actual news.
The Durham update is absolutely not “Way Worse Than Watergate” by any means. Durham’s update is about DOJ procedure and progress in a minor and disputed case of one man who may or may not have said something untrue to the FBI. As opposed to the Trump Campaign and Pence White House minions who were caught red-handed in all kinds of criminal behavior and then pleaded their cases down to just misleading the FBI so they could get lighter prison time. Or the matter of the Watergate scandal, where angry Right Wingers in the Nixon White House were caught in multiple illegal acts, after the exposure of their burglary of the DNC HQ and their attempts to plant bugs. The Watergate “plumbers” were not involved in a DOJ investigation into foreign interference and computer hacks – they were simple burglars who got caught. (I note that angry Right Wingers repeatedly tried to dismiss the Watergate scandal back in the day, and some are continuing that propaganda even today. John O’Connor has made a cottage industry of trying to change the Watergate narrative and rewrite the history into one that Right Wingers can tell their kids rather than the truth – and he’s part of the new push to reframe Watergate and attack Hillary Clinton. I also note that angry Right Wingers with money made sure to reward the Watergate burglars for their “service” – for example, G. Gordon Liddy made millions and enjoyed celebrity status for decades after his imprisonment.)
But angry Right Wingers are hoping you won’t know any of that. And they’re hoping that they can intimidate and bully their enemies by threatening them with “execution” based on nothing. We should not take this lightly. If the GOP retake Congress this November, we must expect them to initiate revenge actions. And if an angry Right Wing GOP man retakes the White House in 2024 with angry Right Wing majorities in Congress, things could get far worse. We already saw what could happen when Fox News pundits had their way in the Pence White House as well as the W/Cheney disaster of the 2000s. The damage done by the epic deliberate mismanagement intended to prove “government can’t get anything done”, by the fumbling of a deadly pandemic, by all the emboldening of bigotry and hatred. At this point, Fox News is rushing to catch up to the farthest rightward fringe nonsense from web outlets like Newsmax. What happens when US policy is driven by Newsmax? Will we recognize this country after that?
Kevin Koster commented on Fox News Obviously Disappointed Sarah Palin Lost Her Libel Case Against NY Times
2022-02-17 17:27:59 -0500
· Flag
Regarding the non-story of the Durham mention, there really isn’t much to it. Durham was just discussing how as part of his examination and interviewing, he was finding that there had been plenty of pings of I believe American phones contacting Russian phones/contacts/IMs. Not actual surveillance of content so much as contact pings. And most of this was from individuals in President Obama’s White House (which I believe is based on typical diplomacy and business between our countries). They had also noted a bunch of activity pinging the Russian contacts from the Trump campaign, and the Durham interviewee apparently turned that information over to the FBI, which is frankly normal procedure. (I believe the pings are tracked based on the receiver, which is how Flynn got caught in his malfeasance – ie that they weren’t wiretapping Trump Tower but instead catching contacts to Russians and tracing them BACK to Trump Tower and phones like Flynn’s.) Durham added that he believed the person who found the Trump Campaign pings and passed them to the FBI was doing so in an improper way, that he was using his access to information not publicly available rather than staying in his lane at that time. The person involved sounds like they worked at that time (in the 2016 race) in support of an arm of Clinton’s campaign. The point is, when they catch what look like suspicious/shady activity, cops tend to report it. If they didn’t, we would think THAT was corrupt.
I note that nothing in Durham’s update says anything about Hillary Clinton being involved or even knowing about this bit of normal procedure as it was happening. Nothing in the update says anything about anyone being arrested or indicted for this. Nothing in the update gives any indication of anything more than a little more background information around Durham’s discussion of one man, Michael Sussmann, who has been charged with lying to the FBI. Sussmann disputes this and says he believes Durham is trying to “inflame media coverage” with what looks like a gratuitous mention that does not carry any charges. The mention of the pings is in a subsection of the update and it’s indicated that this area has been looked at and is already in the rear view mirror.
So we have Durham issuing an update with a bit of tech-wonk detail which basically says he has no further charges or indictments at this time. That’s it. Except that angry Right Wingers are having a week where they need something, anything to get attention away from actual news events they’d prefer you didn’t notice. Such as the Pence White House failing to prevent the January 6 Committee from gaining access to their papers. And the spectacular revelation that Pence’s childish former spokesman regularly tried to conceal classified documents (including his theft of 15 boxes of such materials and his transport of the stolen goods to
Mar-a-lago) and to destroy other classified materials by tearing them up and/or flushing them down the White House toilets. And then we have this week’s bombshell – that the Trump organization’s longtime accountants are running, not walking away from the Trumps, including the accountants publicly stating that Trump’s financials are fraudulent, and the accountants turning over what look like hundreds of thousands of papers to the New York Attorney General. And that’s without getting into all the fraudulent schemes being regularly uncovered about how angry Right Wing Trump supporters attempted to overturn the 2020 Election in various ways, including the assembly of illegitimate “electors” for states that they lost.
Given that, it’s clear why angry Right Wingers want to push their latest Durham “bombshell”. It’s partly the usual reason – putting out a vague threat to everyone that angry Right Wingers want their revenge for all the Mueller indictments and both impeachments of Pence’s childish former spokesman. (And we can absolutely expect the GOP to attempt to do a revenge impeachment of President Biden and possibly of VP Harris should they retake the Congressional majorities in November) But it’s mostly to give them something to repeatedly shout while clapping their hands over their ears so they don’t hear the actual news.
The Durham update is absolutely not “Way Worse Than Watergate” by any means. Durham’s update is about DOJ procedure and progress in a minor and disputed case of one man who may or may not have said something untrue to the FBI. As opposed to the Trump Campaign and Pence White House minions who were caught red-handed in all kinds of criminal behavior and then pleaded their cases down to just misleading the FBI so they could get lighter prison time. Or the matter of the Watergate scandal, where angry Right Wingers in the Nixon White House were caught in multiple illegal acts, after the exposure of their burglary of the DNC HQ and their attempts to plant bugs. The Watergate “plumbers” were not involved in a DOJ investigation into foreign interference and computer hacks – they were simple burglars who got caught. (I note that angry Right Wingers repeatedly tried to dismiss the Watergate scandal back in the day, and some are continuing that propaganda even today. John O’Connor has made a cottage industry of trying to change the Watergate narrative and rewrite the history into one that Right Wingers can tell their kids rather than the truth – and he’s part of the new push to reframe Watergate and attack Hillary Clinton. I also note that angry Right Wingers with money made sure to reward the Watergate burglars for their “service” – for example, G. Gordon Liddy made millions and enjoyed celebrity status for decades after his imprisonment.)
But angry Right Wingers are hoping you won’t know any of that. And they’re hoping that they can intimidate and bully their enemies by threatening them with “execution” based on nothing. We should not take this lightly. If the GOP retake Congress this November, we must expect them to initiate revenge actions. And if an angry Right Wing GOP man retakes the White House in 2024 with angry Right Wing majorities in Congress, things could get far worse. We already saw what could happen when Fox News pundits had their way in the Pence White House as well as the W/Cheney disaster of the 2000s. The damage done by the epic deliberate mismanagement intended to prove “government can’t get anything done”, by the fumbling of a deadly pandemic, by all the emboldening of bigotry and hatred. At this point, Fox News is rushing to catch up to the farthest rightward fringe nonsense from web outlets like Newsmax. What happens when US policy is driven by Newsmax? Will we recognize this country after that?
I note that nothing in Durham’s update says anything about Hillary Clinton being involved or even knowing about this bit of normal procedure as it was happening. Nothing in the update says anything about anyone being arrested or indicted for this. Nothing in the update gives any indication of anything more than a little more background information around Durham’s discussion of one man, Michael Sussmann, who has been charged with lying to the FBI. Sussmann disputes this and says he believes Durham is trying to “inflame media coverage” with what looks like a gratuitous mention that does not carry any charges. The mention of the pings is in a subsection of the update and it’s indicated that this area has been looked at and is already in the rear view mirror.
So we have Durham issuing an update with a bit of tech-wonk detail which basically says he has no further charges or indictments at this time. That’s it. Except that angry Right Wingers are having a week where they need something, anything to get attention away from actual news events they’d prefer you didn’t notice. Such as the Pence White House failing to prevent the January 6 Committee from gaining access to their papers. And the spectacular revelation that Pence’s childish former spokesman regularly tried to conceal classified documents (including his theft of 15 boxes of such materials and his transport of the stolen goods to
Mar-a-lago) and to destroy other classified materials by tearing them up and/or flushing them down the White House toilets. And then we have this week’s bombshell – that the Trump organization’s longtime accountants are running, not walking away from the Trumps, including the accountants publicly stating that Trump’s financials are fraudulent, and the accountants turning over what look like hundreds of thousands of papers to the New York Attorney General. And that’s without getting into all the fraudulent schemes being regularly uncovered about how angry Right Wing Trump supporters attempted to overturn the 2020 Election in various ways, including the assembly of illegitimate “electors” for states that they lost.
Given that, it’s clear why angry Right Wingers want to push their latest Durham “bombshell”. It’s partly the usual reason – putting out a vague threat to everyone that angry Right Wingers want their revenge for all the Mueller indictments and both impeachments of Pence’s childish former spokesman. (And we can absolutely expect the GOP to attempt to do a revenge impeachment of President Biden and possibly of VP Harris should they retake the Congressional majorities in November) But it’s mostly to give them something to repeatedly shout while clapping their hands over their ears so they don’t hear the actual news.
The Durham update is absolutely not “Way Worse Than Watergate” by any means. Durham’s update is about DOJ procedure and progress in a minor and disputed case of one man who may or may not have said something untrue to the FBI. As opposed to the Trump Campaign and Pence White House minions who were caught red-handed in all kinds of criminal behavior and then pleaded their cases down to just misleading the FBI so they could get lighter prison time. Or the matter of the Watergate scandal, where angry Right Wingers in the Nixon White House were caught in multiple illegal acts, after the exposure of their burglary of the DNC HQ and their attempts to plant bugs. The Watergate “plumbers” were not involved in a DOJ investigation into foreign interference and computer hacks – they were simple burglars who got caught. (I note that angry Right Wingers repeatedly tried to dismiss the Watergate scandal back in the day, and some are continuing that propaganda even today. John O’Connor has made a cottage industry of trying to change the Watergate narrative and rewrite the history into one that Right Wingers can tell their kids rather than the truth – and he’s part of the new push to reframe Watergate and attack Hillary Clinton. I also note that angry Right Wingers with money made sure to reward the Watergate burglars for their “service” – for example, G. Gordon Liddy made millions and enjoyed celebrity status for decades after his imprisonment.)
But angry Right Wingers are hoping you won’t know any of that. And they’re hoping that they can intimidate and bully their enemies by threatening them with “execution” based on nothing. We should not take this lightly. If the GOP retake Congress this November, we must expect them to initiate revenge actions. And if an angry Right Wing GOP man retakes the White House in 2024 with angry Right Wing majorities in Congress, things could get far worse. We already saw what could happen when Fox News pundits had their way in the Pence White House as well as the W/Cheney disaster of the 2000s. The damage done by the epic deliberate mismanagement intended to prove “government can’t get anything done”, by the fumbling of a deadly pandemic, by all the emboldening of bigotry and hatred. At this point, Fox News is rushing to catch up to the farthest rightward fringe nonsense from web outlets like Newsmax. What happens when US policy is driven by Newsmax? Will we recognize this country after that?
Kevin Koster commented on Former Fox Correspondent Jim Angle Dead Of Unknown Cause
2022-02-13 16:41:12 -0500
· Flag
In fairness, Angle knowingly pushed angry Right Wing propaganda on a daily basis for nearly 2 decades. He knew that what he was saying was neither true nor actual news. He knew these falsehoods were being pushed as “news”, but he did nothing to mitigate them. And in so doing, he enriched himself.
I’m sure this is a sad day for his family, but it’s a heck of a reach for Fox to try to present this as the passing of a lion of journalism. And it’s frankly insulting to actual journalists. His co-workers at the Fox propaganda platform should absolutely mark his passing as they wish. I’m not certain that it’s meaningful to anyone else.
I’m sure this is a sad day for his family, but it’s a heck of a reach for Fox to try to present this as the passing of a lion of journalism. And it’s frankly insulting to actual journalists. His co-workers at the Fox propaganda platform should absolutely mark his passing as they wish. I’m not certain that it’s meaningful to anyone else.
Kevin Koster commented on Fox 'Journalist' Faulkner Whitewashes Rogan: He’s Just Asking Tough Questions
2022-02-02 14:06:32 -0500
· Flag
Angry Right Wingers have certainly been in a snit this week about Joe Rogan supposedly being “cancelled”, although they are simultaneously gloating about Whoopi Goldberg’s suspension.
But the Right Wing outrage is based on false premises. Rogan wasn’t “cancelled”. He continues to enjoy his 100 million dollar podcast every day. He is being appropriately castigated by other Americans who wish not to be associated with his blatant and dangerous falsehoods. And they have the right not to be connected to his behavior.
It’s interesting to watch angry Right Wingers trying to play two different games with Neil Young and the others retracting their permissions from Spotify. On the one hand, we’re meant to be outraged that Rogan is somehow being “silenced”. On the other hand, Right Wingers have taken pains to sneer that nobody cares about Neil Young anyhow. Which would indicate that it’s not an issue. But they’re still saying this means Rogan is being “silenced”. So that would indicate that the Right Wingers really DO care what Neil Young does. And there’s the part where angry Right Wingers are loudly shouting how much they don’t care what Neil Young does. If this sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the very same 2nd Grade schoolyard behavior encouraged and emboldened by the Pence White House and its childish former spokesman.
To set the record straight, Rogan is not somehow being denied his first amendment right to free expression. He’s being called out for abusing that right, and for doing so in a particularly dangerous way. Free Speech does not mean it’s okay to shout Fire in a crowded theater. In other words, it’s not okay to spread wild falsehoods and conspiracy theories around a public health emergency that has killed millions and is continuing to kill. It’s not okay to exhort people to take quack “instant cures” that have actually led to even more deaths. And hiding behind the flimsy curtain of “I was just asking questions” does not change the record of Rogan’s behavior. The reason these blatant falsehoods get tagged is because they have been shown to cause very real harm. If Faulkner really is so concerned about being “stickered” every time she brings up another debunked conspiracy theory about Hunter Biden, perhaps she could consider not telling blatant lies on the air?
A final thought: Watching multiple artists refuse to associate with rumor mongers and falsehood spreaders, I’m reminded that this also applies to the Presidential Medal of Freedom. I note that this award has not been given since Pence’s childish former spokesman befouled it by throwing it away on Devin Nunes, Jim Jordan and most infamously, unrepentant bigot Rush Limbaugh. The tricky part of presenting this award to the next Maya Angelou or Steve Jobs is that the new recipient would be forced to share the stage with such unsavory company. Multiple people were offered this award by the Pence White House after the befouling and declined for the obvious reason. In order to present this Medal again, it will need to be redesignated, with the prior winners save Limbaugh, Jordan and Nunes grandfathered in. In that way, we’ll be able to maintain that tradition and scrub some of the sewage left over from the Pence White House.
But the Right Wing outrage is based on false premises. Rogan wasn’t “cancelled”. He continues to enjoy his 100 million dollar podcast every day. He is being appropriately castigated by other Americans who wish not to be associated with his blatant and dangerous falsehoods. And they have the right not to be connected to his behavior.
It’s interesting to watch angry Right Wingers trying to play two different games with Neil Young and the others retracting their permissions from Spotify. On the one hand, we’re meant to be outraged that Rogan is somehow being “silenced”. On the other hand, Right Wingers have taken pains to sneer that nobody cares about Neil Young anyhow. Which would indicate that it’s not an issue. But they’re still saying this means Rogan is being “silenced”. So that would indicate that the Right Wingers really DO care what Neil Young does. And there’s the part where angry Right Wingers are loudly shouting how much they don’t care what Neil Young does. If this sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the very same 2nd Grade schoolyard behavior encouraged and emboldened by the Pence White House and its childish former spokesman.
To set the record straight, Rogan is not somehow being denied his first amendment right to free expression. He’s being called out for abusing that right, and for doing so in a particularly dangerous way. Free Speech does not mean it’s okay to shout Fire in a crowded theater. In other words, it’s not okay to spread wild falsehoods and conspiracy theories around a public health emergency that has killed millions and is continuing to kill. It’s not okay to exhort people to take quack “instant cures” that have actually led to even more deaths. And hiding behind the flimsy curtain of “I was just asking questions” does not change the record of Rogan’s behavior. The reason these blatant falsehoods get tagged is because they have been shown to cause very real harm. If Faulkner really is so concerned about being “stickered” every time she brings up another debunked conspiracy theory about Hunter Biden, perhaps she could consider not telling blatant lies on the air?
A final thought: Watching multiple artists refuse to associate with rumor mongers and falsehood spreaders, I’m reminded that this also applies to the Presidential Medal of Freedom. I note that this award has not been given since Pence’s childish former spokesman befouled it by throwing it away on Devin Nunes, Jim Jordan and most infamously, unrepentant bigot Rush Limbaugh. The tricky part of presenting this award to the next Maya Angelou or Steve Jobs is that the new recipient would be forced to share the stage with such unsavory company. Multiple people were offered this award by the Pence White House after the befouling and declined for the obvious reason. In order to present this Medal again, it will need to be redesignated, with the prior winners save Limbaugh, Jordan and Nunes grandfathered in. In that way, we’ll be able to maintain that tradition and scrub some of the sewage left over from the Pence White House.
Kevin Koster commented on Ex-FNC Contributor Stephen Hayes Going To NBC News
2022-01-29 15:07:44 -0500
· Flag
Somehow, I typo’ed “vice” for “voice”.
I’d like to also note that there are such things as real journalism networks. Like CBS News. The New York Times. CNN. They employ reporters to research and present current events every day. They have done this for their entire existence, going back hundreds of years for some newspapers. There was never any “need” to inflict a Fox News.
Fox News is not, and never was, a real journalism network. It was always intended to be angry Right Wing propaganda that could counter any inconvenient facts and truths, and thus give an angry Right Wing audience a safe space where they could have their prejudices reinforced “on the news” every day and night. And it was designed to make enough of a negative space that when sane people called it out for its behavior, angry Right Wingers could retort that it was the real journalists who were the propagandists.
In the longer term, outlets like Fox News have not simply begot their more extreme progeny like OAN – they’ve allowed more cynical Right Wingers to push the false narrative that EVERY news organization is pushing biased propaganda. And too many people are falling for that line today.
I’d like to also note that there are such things as real journalism networks. Like CBS News. The New York Times. CNN. They employ reporters to research and present current events every day. They have done this for their entire existence, going back hundreds of years for some newspapers. There was never any “need” to inflict a Fox News.
Fox News is not, and never was, a real journalism network. It was always intended to be angry Right Wing propaganda that could counter any inconvenient facts and truths, and thus give an angry Right Wing audience a safe space where they could have their prejudices reinforced “on the news” every day and night. And it was designed to make enough of a negative space that when sane people called it out for its behavior, angry Right Wingers could retort that it was the real journalists who were the propagandists.
In the longer term, outlets like Fox News have not simply begot their more extreme progeny like OAN – they’ve allowed more cynical Right Wingers to push the false narrative that EVERY news organization is pushing biased propaganda. And too many people are falling for that line today.
Kevin Koster commented on Michele Bachmann: Palin ‘To Be Commended’ For Dining Out With COVID
2022-01-29 14:08:03 -0500
· Flag
One would have thought Bachmann’s 15 minutes were up after the humiliating failure of her 2012 Presidential run. It’s not surprising that she’s continuing to make foolish and dangerous comments like this, or that Fox News is desperate enough to have her on again. But it’s a pathetic sight.
Given that Watters is aware of the actual dangers of COVID and of how the Omicron variant has been both wildly contagious and deadly to the unvaccinated, one can only believe he’s hoping that Palin has been exposing and infecting New Yorkers.
Given that Watters is aware of the actual dangers of COVID and of how the Omicron variant has been both wildly contagious and deadly to the unvaccinated, one can only believe he’s hoping that Palin has been exposing and infecting New Yorkers.
Kevin Koster commented on Faulkner Whines Biden Discriminating By Replacing Breyer With Black Woman
2022-01-28 00:06:47 -0500
· Flag
It’s extraordinarily offensive for angry Right Wingers to play games with the very serious issue of Right Wing bigotry and discrimination. We are literally only one year removed from possibly the most openly bigoted White House since before the Civil War, one that openly promoted male Caucasians for all positions possible, one that rammed three extremist Far Right Caucasians onto the Supreme Court. And this bunch complains when the Biden/Harris White House continues their pledged work to appoint the highly qualified non-Caucasians the Pence White House snubbed? When Pence repeatedly appointed extremist partisan idealogues, his childish former spokesman was celebrated on angry Right Wing media for “promises fulfilled”. When the current White House continues to follow an appropriate and even noble approach, the very same angry Right Wing pundits respond with howls of feigned outrage. It’s as though they figure nobody will call them on their behavior.
And let’s be clear about the outcome of this appointment. It will not change anything about the makeup of the Supreme Court. Replacing Breyer with another centrist moderate means we will stay at 3 centrist moderates/mild liberals while the Right will continue to enjoy having a supermajority of 6 Far Right idealogues, with 5 of them being wildly beyond understandable norms. An actual shift in the Court would require the resignations of at least two of the Far Right idealogues, and that is unlikely for at least another decade, if not two. A replacement for Breyer just means that the current disaster does not get any worse just yet. The howls from the Right indicate either that they just want to try to bully the Dems into a defensive crouch or that they truly think they can bully everyone into letting them have a 7-3 uber-majority of Far Right idealogues.
Regarding Reagan’s appointment of Sandra Day O’Connor to the SC, we should remember he was not just appointing a female Justice to curry favor. Reagan’s handlers were using a short list of Right Wing women who passed the infamous “litmus test” started under that White House to make sure any potential appointee would be a reliable Right Wing vote. (The Right was skeptical of just naming Republicans after Warren Burger turned out to not be sufficiently loyal and after both Harry Blackmun and John Paul Stevens moved to the center.) O’Connor was not only grilled by the handlers; she was brought to Reagan, who personally interrogated her to be sure that she found reproductive choice “abhorrent.” Reagan’s point was that the justice might be female so he could say that he’d appointed the first woman. But she would be a reliably Right Wing Republican woman. O’Connor would become a swing vote in time, but her fulcrum was decidedly to the Right of where the SC’s middlepoint had been before.
And let’s be clear about the outcome of this appointment. It will not change anything about the makeup of the Supreme Court. Replacing Breyer with another centrist moderate means we will stay at 3 centrist moderates/mild liberals while the Right will continue to enjoy having a supermajority of 6 Far Right idealogues, with 5 of them being wildly beyond understandable norms. An actual shift in the Court would require the resignations of at least two of the Far Right idealogues, and that is unlikely for at least another decade, if not two. A replacement for Breyer just means that the current disaster does not get any worse just yet. The howls from the Right indicate either that they just want to try to bully the Dems into a defensive crouch or that they truly think they can bully everyone into letting them have a 7-3 uber-majority of Far Right idealogues.
Regarding Reagan’s appointment of Sandra Day O’Connor to the SC, we should remember he was not just appointing a female Justice to curry favor. Reagan’s handlers were using a short list of Right Wing women who passed the infamous “litmus test” started under that White House to make sure any potential appointee would be a reliable Right Wing vote. (The Right was skeptical of just naming Republicans after Warren Burger turned out to not be sufficiently loyal and after both Harry Blackmun and John Paul Stevens moved to the center.) O’Connor was not only grilled by the handlers; she was brought to Reagan, who personally interrogated her to be sure that she found reproductive choice “abhorrent.” Reagan’s point was that the justice might be female so he could say that he’d appointed the first woman. But she would be a reliably Right Wing Republican woman. O’Connor would become a swing vote in time, but her fulcrum was decidedly to the Right of where the SC’s middlepoint had been before.
Kevin Koster commented on Fox Promotes March For Life Slogan, ‘Equality Begins In The Womb’
2022-01-23 19:37:37 -0500
· Flag
Michael Moore sadly destroyed his own credibility over the past two decades. I could understand backing Ralph Nader in 2000, when Gore was running a tepid campaign and constantly tacking to the Right. But he then turned on those principles in 2004 and debased himself in begging Nader not to run that year. He then moved to being a constant doomsayer, regularly predicting that the Dem would lose whatever presidential election was current.
For example, here’s Moore being super helpful in 2012:
“Mitt Romney is going to raise more money than Barack Obama. That should guarantee his victory. I think people should start to practice the words ‘President Romney.’”
Moore would go on to repeat the game in 2016, where he then took a gleeful victory lap where he claimed to have his finger on the pulse of the American electorate. In reality, he made the same predictions over and over again and happened to land on a year when the result matched him. A broken clock will correctly state the time twice a day, but we don’t give it any credence because it’s still just a broken clock. Moore does not merit any more credence than that himself.
In fairness, it wasn’t Moore who tipped the 2016 election. While it’s true there was a loud subsection of the Bernie Sanders group who pushed the “dime’s worth of difference” argument, over 90% of the Sanders wing voted for Clinton in the general. Clinton herself could have headed off the squeaker in 2016 by spending real time and effort in the swing states rather than assuming those mainstream voters would appear. Moore is pretty much an irrelevant sideshow now.
For example, here’s Moore being super helpful in 2012:
“Mitt Romney is going to raise more money than Barack Obama. That should guarantee his victory. I think people should start to practice the words ‘President Romney.’”
Moore would go on to repeat the game in 2016, where he then took a gleeful victory lap where he claimed to have his finger on the pulse of the American electorate. In reality, he made the same predictions over and over again and happened to land on a year when the result matched him. A broken clock will correctly state the time twice a day, but we don’t give it any credence because it’s still just a broken clock. Moore does not merit any more credence than that himself.
In fairness, it wasn’t Moore who tipped the 2016 election. While it’s true there was a loud subsection of the Bernie Sanders group who pushed the “dime’s worth of difference” argument, over 90% of the Sanders wing voted for Clinton in the general. Clinton herself could have headed off the squeaker in 2016 by spending real time and effort in the swing states rather than assuming those mainstream voters would appear. Moore is pretty much an irrelevant sideshow now.
Kevin Koster commented on Pete Hegseth And Alveda King Celebrate MLK Day By Attacking Democrats
2022-01-20 15:49:47 -0500
· Flag
It is frankly offensive to see angry Right Wingers attempting to appropriate MLK for themselves.
In reality, angry Right Wingers openly hated MLK during his lifetime. They attacked him as what they considered to be a dangerous rabble rouser. They cheered when police attacked MLK and his fellow marchers with dogs and fire hoses. They decried MLK as a communist and traitor when he had the temerity to criticize the US attack on Vietnam. When MLK was murdered, Right Wingers took grim satisfaction – in the same way that disgraced former Fox personality Bill O’Reilly did when his screeds led to the vicious murder of George Tiller.
Angry Right Wingers have no credibility when they try to take MLK Day for themselves. It would be far more credible if they were to instead spend the day in quiet, remorseful atonement.
In reality, angry Right Wingers openly hated MLK during his lifetime. They attacked him as what they considered to be a dangerous rabble rouser. They cheered when police attacked MLK and his fellow marchers with dogs and fire hoses. They decried MLK as a communist and traitor when he had the temerity to criticize the US attack on Vietnam. When MLK was murdered, Right Wingers took grim satisfaction – in the same way that disgraced former Fox personality Bill O’Reilly did when his screeds led to the vicious murder of George Tiller.
Angry Right Wingers have no credibility when they try to take MLK Day for themselves. It would be far more credible if they were to instead spend the day in quiet, remorseful atonement.
Kevin Koster commented on Tucker Carlson: ‘Really, Not A Lot Happened’ On Jan. 6
2022-01-10 23:09:18 -0500
· Flag
First, Ellen: I do hope you’re feeling better. Had no idea about your situation (been fairly busy at work and needed to focus there for more hours than usual). Given the days since, I’m hoping you may have turned the corner on this.
Regarding Carlson’s bizarre statements:
1. He’s flat-out lying about what happened. This was a serious matter, one where a mob physically attacked the Capitol and attempted to physically attack the Congress in order to stop them from going through the usual process to confirm the election of a President. Because they couldn’t bear to admit that Pence’s childish former spokesman is a loser. Because Pence’s childish former spokesman can’t admit that to himself.
2. Carlson threw in a blatant lie about the death of Ashli Babbitt, when he said that she was “an unarmed protestor who was shot to death without warning by a cop.” Let’s try that one again. Babbitt was an unstable and violent person who had a history of threatening and attacking others. (A brief look into her history reveals that, among other things. She was, among other things, a major Qanon follower, as evidenced by her own statements, usually angry and violent ones.) Babbitt was killed by a Capitol Policeman while she was in the act of attempting to lead a breach to take over the Speaker’s Lobby and then attack Congressmembers. The policeman repeatedly warned the crowd to stay back and fired his weapon when Babbitt continued to try to breach the door windows and open the doors. Had Babbitt succeeded, the Lobby would have been flooded with the angry mob and one can only imagine how many Congressmembers would have been assaulted or worse. Had Babbitt followed the instruction of the policeman, she would be alive today. Her refusal to do so, and her commitment to attack, makes clear that she was not an innocent tourist. She intended harm, and sadly, she received harm.
3. It’s fairly obvious that Carlson is pandering to his audience. He knows full well what happened in the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021. But he also knows full well that if he admits what happened on the air, he’ll alienate the angry Right Wingers Fox News is desperate to keep in the fold. Further, if he admits ANYTHING, he will potentially lose his position and be replaced by someone along the lines of Jesse Watters or who knows who else.
4. It is important for all sane people to remember what actually happened, not only on January 6, 2021, but throughout the miserable epoch of the Pence White House, and throughout the bizarre behavior of angry Right Wingers going back 25 years, and frankly throughout the despicable tenure of Fox News.
Regarding Carlson’s bizarre statements:
1. He’s flat-out lying about what happened. This was a serious matter, one where a mob physically attacked the Capitol and attempted to physically attack the Congress in order to stop them from going through the usual process to confirm the election of a President. Because they couldn’t bear to admit that Pence’s childish former spokesman is a loser. Because Pence’s childish former spokesman can’t admit that to himself.
2. Carlson threw in a blatant lie about the death of Ashli Babbitt, when he said that she was “an unarmed protestor who was shot to death without warning by a cop.” Let’s try that one again. Babbitt was an unstable and violent person who had a history of threatening and attacking others. (A brief look into her history reveals that, among other things. She was, among other things, a major Qanon follower, as evidenced by her own statements, usually angry and violent ones.) Babbitt was killed by a Capitol Policeman while she was in the act of attempting to lead a breach to take over the Speaker’s Lobby and then attack Congressmembers. The policeman repeatedly warned the crowd to stay back and fired his weapon when Babbitt continued to try to breach the door windows and open the doors. Had Babbitt succeeded, the Lobby would have been flooded with the angry mob and one can only imagine how many Congressmembers would have been assaulted or worse. Had Babbitt followed the instruction of the policeman, she would be alive today. Her refusal to do so, and her commitment to attack, makes clear that she was not an innocent tourist. She intended harm, and sadly, she received harm.
3. It’s fairly obvious that Carlson is pandering to his audience. He knows full well what happened in the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021. But he also knows full well that if he admits what happened on the air, he’ll alienate the angry Right Wingers Fox News is desperate to keep in the fold. Further, if he admits ANYTHING, he will potentially lose his position and be replaced by someone along the lines of Jesse Watters or who knows who else.
4. It is important for all sane people to remember what actually happened, not only on January 6, 2021, but throughout the miserable epoch of the Pence White House, and throughout the bizarre behavior of angry Right Wingers going back 25 years, and frankly throughout the despicable tenure of Fox News.
Kevin Koster commented on The Terrible Truths Revealed By Ted Cruz Groveling To Tucker Carlson Over 1/6 Lies
2022-01-10 22:39:06 -0500
· Flag
What this illustrates is that Cruz is desperate to keep the Fox News audience in his corner as he (unbelievable as it sounds) warms up for yet another attempt to run for President in 2024.
The groveling before Fox News was actually nothing out of the ordinary for the usual angry Right Wing politico – the only ones I’ve seen to push back on Fox News were John McCain from time to time, and Donald Trump whenever he felt he wasn’t being totally worshipped. (I’ll note that many angry Right Wingers took the occasion of McCain’s death to join Trump in their dismissal of McCain, which is but one of many reasons why the McCain family backed Biden in 2020.)
The only surprise in this entire story is the anomaly of Cruz admitting that anything even remotely violent occurred on January 6, 2021. The standard angry Right Wing line for a year has been to deny the violence and/or blame it on the Left. One really has to ponder why Cruz went off script here. He apparently is pondering it too.
The groveling before Fox News was actually nothing out of the ordinary for the usual angry Right Wing politico – the only ones I’ve seen to push back on Fox News were John McCain from time to time, and Donald Trump whenever he felt he wasn’t being totally worshipped. (I’ll note that many angry Right Wingers took the occasion of McCain’s death to join Trump in their dismissal of McCain, which is but one of many reasons why the McCain family backed Biden in 2020.)
The only surprise in this entire story is the anomaly of Cruz admitting that anything even remotely violent occurred on January 6, 2021. The standard angry Right Wing line for a year has been to deny the violence and/or blame it on the Left. One really has to ponder why Cruz went off script here. He apparently is pondering it too.
Kevin Koster commented on Jan. 6 Committee Is Probably Making A Lot Of People At Fox Very Uncomfortable
2022-01-10 22:29:25 -0500
· Flag
While I’d be interested to see the spectacle of Hannity being forced to testify in front of Congress about his behavior in collusion with the Pence White House, I strongly doubt we’ll ever see it happen.
I expect that Sekulow and Hannity will not only refuse to cooperate, but that Hannity will take the same approach as multiple other former Trump minions and sue the congressional committee. The point of the lawsuits isn’t to actually win, or to prevail in a lower court. The point is to get the cases to a friendly district court and then potentially to the Supreme Court, and to drag them out for the next year. The goal here is to run out the clock until after the midterms and thus moot the entire scenario. Assuming that angry Right Wingers prevail in the midterms and the House switches hands, I would expect the GOP to immediately disband the January 6 committee and set up an alternate one blaming Nancy Pelosi.
I expect that Sekulow and Hannity will not only refuse to cooperate, but that Hannity will take the same approach as multiple other former Trump minions and sue the congressional committee. The point of the lawsuits isn’t to actually win, or to prevail in a lower court. The point is to get the cases to a friendly district court and then potentially to the Supreme Court, and to drag them out for the next year. The goal here is to run out the clock until after the midterms and thus moot the entire scenario. Assuming that angry Right Wingers prevail in the midterms and the House switches hands, I would expect the GOP to immediately disband the January 6 committee and set up an alternate one blaming Nancy Pelosi.
Kevin Koster commented on ‘Straight News’ Show Promotes Abolishing CDC
2022-01-04 13:56:44 -0500
· Flag
Frankly, the Pence White House already succeeded in gutting the CDC, along with countless other federal departments, in their epic quest to make sure that government could not get anything positive done between 2017 and 2020. (Pence’s minions did put effort and time into caging children and trying to steal money from departments to put into the nonsensical “big beautiful border wall” that they were never able to actually build.)
The handling of the COVID pandemic was a mess from the beginning, mostly due to Pence and his childish former spokesman being caught completely flat footed by it, and then by angry Right Wingers trying to downplay the crisis for months. Pence had eliminated the advance CDC staff that could have headed off most of the crisis, under the angry Right Wing premise that “we don’t need to pay these people this much; we can just wait to see if there’s a crisis, and then we’ll hire the BEST people…”. Predictably, this resulted in everyone trying to play catch-up on the pandemic rather than having a handle on it. Pence’s childish spokesman spent the first month denying there was even a problem, and then turned on a dime to just blame the problem on China.
The Right Wing approach here was for two purposes. The first one was to make sure that public perception of the Pence White House was totally positive going into an Election cycle – and a raging pandemic killing hundreds of thousands of Americans did not line up with that narrative. The other purpose was a longer game for the Right – that of showing that government cannot get anything done. (The old Reagan line of “the scariest words you’ll ever hear are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help”). By gutting the CDC, Pence set up a self-fulfilling prophecy. His minions made sure the CDC couldn’t do its work, and now we’re hearing angry Right Wing pundits blaming the CDC for not getting that work done. (We can add some extra sauce in for the Right Wingers – attacking the CDC and White House now means they are attacking President Biden’s team rather than the Pence guys…)
It’s obvious that the Right’s goal today is to prolong the crisis and use it as a hammer against President Biden and the Dems this year for the midterms and even for the 2024 campaign. The fact that the Right’s obstinance throughout the crisis has directly resulted in millions more being infected around the world is never discussed by the Right. As far as they’re concerned, they’re happy to continue doubling down on the same lies they’ve been telling for the past two years now.
The handling of the COVID pandemic was a mess from the beginning, mostly due to Pence and his childish former spokesman being caught completely flat footed by it, and then by angry Right Wingers trying to downplay the crisis for months. Pence had eliminated the advance CDC staff that could have headed off most of the crisis, under the angry Right Wing premise that “we don’t need to pay these people this much; we can just wait to see if there’s a crisis, and then we’ll hire the BEST people…”. Predictably, this resulted in everyone trying to play catch-up on the pandemic rather than having a handle on it. Pence’s childish spokesman spent the first month denying there was even a problem, and then turned on a dime to just blame the problem on China.
The Right Wing approach here was for two purposes. The first one was to make sure that public perception of the Pence White House was totally positive going into an Election cycle – and a raging pandemic killing hundreds of thousands of Americans did not line up with that narrative. The other purpose was a longer game for the Right – that of showing that government cannot get anything done. (The old Reagan line of “the scariest words you’ll ever hear are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help”). By gutting the CDC, Pence set up a self-fulfilling prophecy. His minions made sure the CDC couldn’t do its work, and now we’re hearing angry Right Wing pundits blaming the CDC for not getting that work done. (We can add some extra sauce in for the Right Wingers – attacking the CDC and White House now means they are attacking President Biden’s team rather than the Pence guys…)
It’s obvious that the Right’s goal today is to prolong the crisis and use it as a hammer against President Biden and the Dems this year for the midterms and even for the 2024 campaign. The fact that the Right’s obstinance throughout the crisis has directly resulted in millions more being infected around the world is never discussed by the Right. As far as they’re concerned, they’re happy to continue doubling down on the same lies they’ve been telling for the past two years now.