Kevin Koster commented on FoxNews.com Minimizes Jeff Sessions Controversy - Literally!
2017-03-03 16:55:34 -0500
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Sadly, the reality is that there will be no real investigation of this matter. The Right has full control over both houses of Congress as well as the White House. There will be a little window dressing and an occasional stern look from some GOP congressmen, but that’s it. They’re taking their cue from Fox News, as they have made abundantly clear.
Kevin Koster commented on R.I.P. Alan Colmes
2017-02-24 02:33:57 -0500
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While I can understand people’s sympathy for Colmes and his family, I’ve never thought of him as particularly left wing. Colmes was a moderate liberal Democrat, nothing more and nothing less. He was hand-picked to be on Hannity’s show as a harmless voice who could be counted on to regularly back down to Hannity’s more forceful personality. Colmes did very well for himself at Fox News by essentially doing what he was told. I agree he was under pressure when he appeared on their airwaves. They were paying him a lot more money than he had received to do his radio show or anything else he’d done – although nothing anywhere near what Hannity was getting. He knew his role and he accepted it. As a result, he and his family made a good living for over a decade. And then Hannity dumped him, figuring he no longer needed the pretense of having a sidekick. He continued to make appearances, usually just on O’Reilly’s show, where O’Reilly would regularly shout at him and castigate him, but also where he did occasionally make a more interesting point than he had been permitted to voice on Hannity. (I note that in the years since Hannity kicked him off the show, Colmes was almost never mentioned – it was as if he’d never been there. Hannity’s sudden show of mourning Colmes’ death today is in direct contrast to his deliberate ignoring of Colmes when he was alive for the past 8 years.)
Many left wingers I know were extremely disappointed in Colmes’ appearances with Hannity while he was on the show. They were incensed that Colmes never called Hannity out for his constant cheap shots, his simmering racism and his inability to see past partisan viciousness. I myself recall being confused when I first heard his name back in 1996. Fox News billed him as a “top liberal voice”, but that was news to any of us who regularly listened to Pacifica Radio or even to NPR. If Fox News had been interested in actually putting an openly left wing voice on the air with Hannity, they would have given that seat to Jeff Cohen of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Instead, they put Cohen on in a much more minor position as part of the panel on their Fox News Watch weekend show. They also could have talked to Amy Goodman or to Larry Bensky or to Alexander Cockburn or to any of a number of truly left wing scholars who would have wiped the floor with Hannity on a regular basis. But that’s not what Fox News wanted. They wanted a nice, easy-going guy who frankly had a more bookish appearance next to the red meat of Hannity. And that’s what they got.
Again, it is sad for Colmes’ family that he has passed away, and I wish them well in this difficult time for them. But I have no sympathy for the purveyors on Fox News who presented him in the manner that they did over the years. Colmes’ own willing participation in the ruse makes this situation even more unfortunate. I realize this gave his family a more lucrative lifestyle, but real left wing journalists like Bensky never prioritized that.
The key to any left winger agreeing to appear on a Fox News show is to be aware of how the hosts will attempt to spin their presentation in a wildly slanted manner, and to be ready to challenge the false premises being offered as “facts”. Tucker Carlson has become a master of the typical Fox News approach – present a “question” to a guest that is in fact a wildly propagandistic right wing opinion and then try to trap the guest in their answer. If the guest accepts the premise, Carlson has already won the debate. If the guest does not accept it, Carlson will then attempt to throw false moral equivalencies or absurd comparisons that may initially sound reasonable but are intended to buttress Carlson’s initial preset hypothesis. If the guest points out what Carlson is sneakily doing, Carlson will then attempt to talk over the guest or make funny faces and pretend to laugh. There’s really only one way to deal with this kind of bullying as practiced by Fox News – and this to directly challenge them on their bias and to point out their behavior. I wish that Colmes had taken much more initiative in this area over the past 20 years.
Many left wingers I know were extremely disappointed in Colmes’ appearances with Hannity while he was on the show. They were incensed that Colmes never called Hannity out for his constant cheap shots, his simmering racism and his inability to see past partisan viciousness. I myself recall being confused when I first heard his name back in 1996. Fox News billed him as a “top liberal voice”, but that was news to any of us who regularly listened to Pacifica Radio or even to NPR. If Fox News had been interested in actually putting an openly left wing voice on the air with Hannity, they would have given that seat to Jeff Cohen of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Instead, they put Cohen on in a much more minor position as part of the panel on their Fox News Watch weekend show. They also could have talked to Amy Goodman or to Larry Bensky or to Alexander Cockburn or to any of a number of truly left wing scholars who would have wiped the floor with Hannity on a regular basis. But that’s not what Fox News wanted. They wanted a nice, easy-going guy who frankly had a more bookish appearance next to the red meat of Hannity. And that’s what they got.
Again, it is sad for Colmes’ family that he has passed away, and I wish them well in this difficult time for them. But I have no sympathy for the purveyors on Fox News who presented him in the manner that they did over the years. Colmes’ own willing participation in the ruse makes this situation even more unfortunate. I realize this gave his family a more lucrative lifestyle, but real left wing journalists like Bensky never prioritized that.
The key to any left winger agreeing to appear on a Fox News show is to be aware of how the hosts will attempt to spin their presentation in a wildly slanted manner, and to be ready to challenge the false premises being offered as “facts”. Tucker Carlson has become a master of the typical Fox News approach – present a “question” to a guest that is in fact a wildly propagandistic right wing opinion and then try to trap the guest in their answer. If the guest accepts the premise, Carlson has already won the debate. If the guest does not accept it, Carlson will then attempt to throw false moral equivalencies or absurd comparisons that may initially sound reasonable but are intended to buttress Carlson’s initial preset hypothesis. If the guest points out what Carlson is sneakily doing, Carlson will then attempt to talk over the guest or make funny faces and pretend to laugh. There’s really only one way to deal with this kind of bullying as practiced by Fox News – and this to directly challenge them on their bias and to point out their behavior. I wish that Colmes had taken much more initiative in this area over the past 20 years.
Kevin Koster commented on Rush Limbaugh: Obama Got ‘Everything He Wanted’ His First Year Because He’s Black
2017-02-19 20:29:49 -0500
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This is a series of blatant, vicious lies from Limbaugh, and we should understand them for what they are.
President Obama absolutely did not get everything he wanted or even close to it during 2009 or any other time during his presidency. And he certainly was not awarded any deference from the Right due to his race. If anything, he was repeatedly attacked even more strenuously on that basis. I can cite Right Wing talk radio from 2008 condescendingly portraying his candidacy as doomed due to his race, where one KFI host predicted he would lose due to dishonest liberal voters who wouldn’t pull the lever for him when in the privacy of the voting booth.
Rush Limbaugh kicked off 2009 with the infuriated scream of “I HOPE HE FAILS!” as a direct attack on President Obama for having the temerity to be elected by a solid majority of the country. Newt Gingrich, Karl Rove, and the Right held a strategy meeting to coincide with Obama’s inauguration wherein they plotted to block every single thing the Dems did and to then campaign on that intransigence in 2010 and 2012. The GOP worked hard to stop anything Obama proposed under the idea that most things wouldn’t go anywhere so they could call him a failure, and that if anything did get through, they could campaign that they didn’t vote for it anyway. The only reason that Obama and the Dems got anything accomplished in 2009 was because the Dems held solid majorities in Congress, as a continuing direct repudiation of the corruption and incompetence of the GOP and the W Bush White House. Had the GOP controlled larger numbers of congresspeople, we likely would not have seen the ACA passed and the government would have been completely mired in gridlock.
I also note that Barack Obama assumed office at a time when the country was in an economic free-fall, due again to the corruption and incompetence of the W Bush White House. The hope from folks like Limbaugh had been to hold off the recession until a Democrat got into office and then blame it on him. Unfortunately for the Right, the recession erupted before the election, so it was clear to all where the blame resided. And we must note that throughout the Dems’ work to get us out of the recession, the Right did everything they could to pour sand in the tank and talk down the economy – to tighten the screws on everyday voters and convince them the Dems weren’t really doing anything to help them.
Despite all this, Barack Obama was consistently a popular president who was perceived as intelligent and caring, and who was clearly trying to do what he could to clean up the mess left to him and us by 8 years of Dick Cheney running the White House. What Obama accomplished, he did in spite of the constant and mean-spirited attacks from outlets like Fox News and AM Right Wing radio. And in spite of Limbaugh’s vicious lies here, there in fact were jobs created during the presidency of Barack Obama. The stimulus wasn’t enough, but it did stem the free-fall we were experiencing and we did pull out of the recession. Had the Right been willing to help in this process, we could have recovered more fully and more quickly, but Limbaugh didn’t care about that in 2009.
Limbaugh seems to want to blame the unpopularity of the Pence White House on some kind of favoritism toward Obama, rather than on the behavior of Pence and his Tweeter-in-Chief. He might do better to look at the belligerence of Trump’s behavior, and the mystifying assumption that Trump has some kind of overwhelming popular mandate to inflict the damage he is attempting. If Donald Trump wants to be more popular with the majority of people in this country, he needs to actually try to work with someone outside his small group of supporters and yes men. If he’s going to continue dictating from the Far Right and telling everyone to just get over it, he will continue to watch his approval rating plummet into oblivion. I realize that Trump is upset and frightened about this situation, but he needs to start demonstrating the maturity he promised he would when he campaigned to take this office. If he cannot do so, we will face certain problems in the near future, and he will face a landslide defeat in 2020.
President Obama absolutely did not get everything he wanted or even close to it during 2009 or any other time during his presidency. And he certainly was not awarded any deference from the Right due to his race. If anything, he was repeatedly attacked even more strenuously on that basis. I can cite Right Wing talk radio from 2008 condescendingly portraying his candidacy as doomed due to his race, where one KFI host predicted he would lose due to dishonest liberal voters who wouldn’t pull the lever for him when in the privacy of the voting booth.
Rush Limbaugh kicked off 2009 with the infuriated scream of “I HOPE HE FAILS!” as a direct attack on President Obama for having the temerity to be elected by a solid majority of the country. Newt Gingrich, Karl Rove, and the Right held a strategy meeting to coincide with Obama’s inauguration wherein they plotted to block every single thing the Dems did and to then campaign on that intransigence in 2010 and 2012. The GOP worked hard to stop anything Obama proposed under the idea that most things wouldn’t go anywhere so they could call him a failure, and that if anything did get through, they could campaign that they didn’t vote for it anyway. The only reason that Obama and the Dems got anything accomplished in 2009 was because the Dems held solid majorities in Congress, as a continuing direct repudiation of the corruption and incompetence of the GOP and the W Bush White House. Had the GOP controlled larger numbers of congresspeople, we likely would not have seen the ACA passed and the government would have been completely mired in gridlock.
I also note that Barack Obama assumed office at a time when the country was in an economic free-fall, due again to the corruption and incompetence of the W Bush White House. The hope from folks like Limbaugh had been to hold off the recession until a Democrat got into office and then blame it on him. Unfortunately for the Right, the recession erupted before the election, so it was clear to all where the blame resided. And we must note that throughout the Dems’ work to get us out of the recession, the Right did everything they could to pour sand in the tank and talk down the economy – to tighten the screws on everyday voters and convince them the Dems weren’t really doing anything to help them.
Despite all this, Barack Obama was consistently a popular president who was perceived as intelligent and caring, and who was clearly trying to do what he could to clean up the mess left to him and us by 8 years of Dick Cheney running the White House. What Obama accomplished, he did in spite of the constant and mean-spirited attacks from outlets like Fox News and AM Right Wing radio. And in spite of Limbaugh’s vicious lies here, there in fact were jobs created during the presidency of Barack Obama. The stimulus wasn’t enough, but it did stem the free-fall we were experiencing and we did pull out of the recession. Had the Right been willing to help in this process, we could have recovered more fully and more quickly, but Limbaugh didn’t care about that in 2009.
Limbaugh seems to want to blame the unpopularity of the Pence White House on some kind of favoritism toward Obama, rather than on the behavior of Pence and his Tweeter-in-Chief. He might do better to look at the belligerence of Trump’s behavior, and the mystifying assumption that Trump has some kind of overwhelming popular mandate to inflict the damage he is attempting. If Donald Trump wants to be more popular with the majority of people in this country, he needs to actually try to work with someone outside his small group of supporters and yes men. If he’s going to continue dictating from the Far Right and telling everyone to just get over it, he will continue to watch his approval rating plummet into oblivion. I realize that Trump is upset and frightened about this situation, but he needs to start demonstrating the maturity he promised he would when he campaigned to take this office. If he cannot do so, we will face certain problems in the near future, and he will face a landslide defeat in 2020.
Kevin Koster commented on Trump Copies Fox & Friends’ Talking Points To Pretend He’s Tough On Russia
2017-02-16 12:57:10 -0500
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David, Pence is already running the policies at the White House. Trump is acting the part he said he would during their negotiations in the campaign – he’s the public face and spokesperson for the real work that Pence is doing behind the scenes.
This particular clip just reinforces that Trump is regularly watching Fox News at all hours – likely because it’s the only media outlet consistently giving him high fives. The scary part here is something akin to the movie Broadcast News, where the anchor blindly repeats what he’s told over his headset. In this case, Trump regularly parrots whatever propaganda line is spewed from the Fox News’ broadcasts, and does so within minutes of the line being aired.
We actually did hear the Watergate line last night from Bill O’Reilly, while Bob Woodward was trying to school him on the real problems being exposed by the Flynn debacle. Woodward was concerned that the firing of Flynn was setting off warning bells for journalists who didn’t see why his dissembling was so serious – meaning that there must be something more to this story than what we’ve been told. They clearly think there is a greater malfeasance. (And Fox News wants to twist the story so it’s about the act of leaking rather than about the information that came out – which is stunning in its hypocrisy for an outfit that openly rooted for leaks into the Clinton campaign and the Obama White House…) I would argue that the real reason Flynn was fired was because he messed with Mike Pence, the acting President and this was a message to the entire cabinet and the Executive Branch – don’t make the same mistake Flynn did. I’m sure the rest of the White House will be a LOT more careful in how they deal with Pence going forward. Or they’ll be fired too. We can always hope that journalists will start picking up on this and showing how Pence is controlling a lot more than anyone thought. His influence today is apparently much greater than even Dick Cheney’s was a decade ago – and that’s saying something.
This particular clip just reinforces that Trump is regularly watching Fox News at all hours – likely because it’s the only media outlet consistently giving him high fives. The scary part here is something akin to the movie Broadcast News, where the anchor blindly repeats what he’s told over his headset. In this case, Trump regularly parrots whatever propaganda line is spewed from the Fox News’ broadcasts, and does so within minutes of the line being aired.
We actually did hear the Watergate line last night from Bill O’Reilly, while Bob Woodward was trying to school him on the real problems being exposed by the Flynn debacle. Woodward was concerned that the firing of Flynn was setting off warning bells for journalists who didn’t see why his dissembling was so serious – meaning that there must be something more to this story than what we’ve been told. They clearly think there is a greater malfeasance. (And Fox News wants to twist the story so it’s about the act of leaking rather than about the information that came out – which is stunning in its hypocrisy for an outfit that openly rooted for leaks into the Clinton campaign and the Obama White House…) I would argue that the real reason Flynn was fired was because he messed with Mike Pence, the acting President and this was a message to the entire cabinet and the Executive Branch – don’t make the same mistake Flynn did. I’m sure the rest of the White House will be a LOT more careful in how they deal with Pence going forward. Or they’ll be fired too. We can always hope that journalists will start picking up on this and showing how Pence is controlling a lot more than anyone thought. His influence today is apparently much greater than even Dick Cheney’s was a decade ago – and that’s saying something.
Kevin Koster commented on Federal Fox Investigation Reportedly Includes Allegations Of Phone Hacking And Illegal Surveillance
2017-02-16 12:47:33 -0500
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I’m more than skeptical about thinking this will go much farther. Jeff Sessions is now the head of the Justice Department, and he has no incentive to follow a series of leads that would be embarrassing or criminally fraught for Fox News and Roger Ailes. Based on the Pence White House’s fondness for Fox News, and on Trump’s personal friendship with Ailes, it’s more likely this investigation will be slow-rolled until nobody knows much about it anymore.
The priorities of the Jeff Sessions Justice Dept will be the deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants, the dropping of all attempts to protect anyone’s civil rights, the dropping of all attempts to defend the ACA, and a frantic attempt to locate the multiple government employees now regularly leaking the details of the incompetence of Pence’s staff. There’s not a lot of room there for a high line investigation of the Pence White House’s largest and most visible ally in the Right Wing media.
And we should not forget that they still have open investigations running against the Clintons and their charity. Sessions himself may recuse himself, but that doesn’t mean he won’t instruct the people below him to aggressively find whatever they can. Just yesterday, the Tweeter-in-Chief threw out another attack on the Clinton campaign as part of his desperate attempt to deflect questions about his compromised and now former National Security Advisor. If Flynn is to be dropped from the Pence White House, and if there is a push to discipline Conway, it’s a no-brainer that these guys will respond with an even nastier push to get that grand jury empaneled on the Clintons as soon as possible.
The priorities of the Jeff Sessions Justice Dept will be the deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants, the dropping of all attempts to protect anyone’s civil rights, the dropping of all attempts to defend the ACA, and a frantic attempt to locate the multiple government employees now regularly leaking the details of the incompetence of Pence’s staff. There’s not a lot of room there for a high line investigation of the Pence White House’s largest and most visible ally in the Right Wing media.
And we should not forget that they still have open investigations running against the Clintons and their charity. Sessions himself may recuse himself, but that doesn’t mean he won’t instruct the people below him to aggressively find whatever they can. Just yesterday, the Tweeter-in-Chief threw out another attack on the Clinton campaign as part of his desperate attempt to deflect questions about his compromised and now former National Security Advisor. If Flynn is to be dropped from the Pence White House, and if there is a push to discipline Conway, it’s a no-brainer that these guys will respond with an even nastier push to get that grand jury empaneled on the Clintons as soon as possible.
Kevin Koster commented on Hannity Blames The Democrats For Trump Administration’s Poor Performance Defending Muslim Ban To Appeals Court
2017-02-10 10:44:56 -0500
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Even if Sessions had been confirmed earlier (and there was never any doubt that he would get in), he could not have changed the outcome here. The reality is that the Pence White House’s position has been a bullying tone of saying they can rely on shaky statutory support and that this vicious ban is “unreviewable” – meaning in simpler language “SHUT UP AND GO AWAY”. That approach has never worked well with the judiciary – hence the unanimous result from the 9th Circuit. If this was purely a partisan scenario, the court would have been split. It wasn’t – this was a clear cut case of overreach by the bullies in the Pence White House, who are now getting their first taste of the asphalt.
We must also be clear that these decisions are not really being made by Donald Trump. He doesn’t know half of what he’s signing. The EO’s are being drafted by Pence and his team and then being presented to Trump to present as a triumphant success, regardless of what damage each EO does. Remember that the domestic and foreign policy of this White House is the responsibility of Mike Pence, meaning that we should expect more and more of these EO’s, and more and more proclamations of imaginary success and popularity. Even if Trump somehow resigned or disappeared today, these policies and EO’s would continue at the same pace in the same direction. We would just have Pence doing his work in the open rather than hidden behind Trump.
I think it’s healthier to think of this as the presidency Mike Pence was hoping to see from Ted Cruz. Hard Right choices, Far Right appointments and a smash-mouth, in-your-face approach to governance. If anyone in this country is really upset by all this, it’s Ted Cruz, who is now forced to cheerlead Trump from the sidelines while watching Pence steal all of Cruz’ pet ideas and present them as Trump’s.
Keep in mind that the fast pace of this White House is understandable as their reaction to how little time they have to ram all these ideas through before the 2018 midterms where they expect to face serious trouble in the Senate. And they’re rushing to try to erase the Obama presidency as fast as they can – but that’s more a matter of their personal hatred for Barack Obama and his voters than any real political need.
Regarding Neil Gorsuch, that’s unfortunately a done deal as well. My hope is that the Dems go ahead and filibuster him, and that they vote, as they’ve announced, to appropriately oppose him. Once it’s clear that McConnell can’t get 60 votes (he’ll likely only have 53 with Joe Manchin joining in), the Right will immediately “go nuclear” and dismantle the remaining 60 vote thresholds. The next day, we’ll see a new vote on Gorsuch, which will safely sit at 53 and Fox News will announce it as “bipartisan support” for the new Scalia on the high court.
BTW – I note that Jason Chaffetz has proudly announced that he’s pushing a bill to abolish the Department of Education that should move through the House this year. So they’re moving faster than I thought on some of these ideas. I have a feeling that Energy and the EPA won’t be far behind…
We must also be clear that these decisions are not really being made by Donald Trump. He doesn’t know half of what he’s signing. The EO’s are being drafted by Pence and his team and then being presented to Trump to present as a triumphant success, regardless of what damage each EO does. Remember that the domestic and foreign policy of this White House is the responsibility of Mike Pence, meaning that we should expect more and more of these EO’s, and more and more proclamations of imaginary success and popularity. Even if Trump somehow resigned or disappeared today, these policies and EO’s would continue at the same pace in the same direction. We would just have Pence doing his work in the open rather than hidden behind Trump.
I think it’s healthier to think of this as the presidency Mike Pence was hoping to see from Ted Cruz. Hard Right choices, Far Right appointments and a smash-mouth, in-your-face approach to governance. If anyone in this country is really upset by all this, it’s Ted Cruz, who is now forced to cheerlead Trump from the sidelines while watching Pence steal all of Cruz’ pet ideas and present them as Trump’s.
Keep in mind that the fast pace of this White House is understandable as their reaction to how little time they have to ram all these ideas through before the 2018 midterms where they expect to face serious trouble in the Senate. And they’re rushing to try to erase the Obama presidency as fast as they can – but that’s more a matter of their personal hatred for Barack Obama and his voters than any real political need.
Regarding Neil Gorsuch, that’s unfortunately a done deal as well. My hope is that the Dems go ahead and filibuster him, and that they vote, as they’ve announced, to appropriately oppose him. Once it’s clear that McConnell can’t get 60 votes (he’ll likely only have 53 with Joe Manchin joining in), the Right will immediately “go nuclear” and dismantle the remaining 60 vote thresholds. The next day, we’ll see a new vote on Gorsuch, which will safely sit at 53 and Fox News will announce it as “bipartisan support” for the new Scalia on the high court.
BTW – I note that Jason Chaffetz has proudly announced that he’s pushing a bill to abolish the Department of Education that should move through the House this year. So they’re moving faster than I thought on some of these ideas. I have a feeling that Energy and the EPA won’t be far behind…
Kevin Koster commented on Neither Trump Nor Conway Seem To Care If She Broke Federal Laws Shilling For Ivanka Trump Merchandise
2017-02-10 10:30:55 -0500
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This is fairly simple to understand.
They don’t care, and they’re not going to change their behavior. They’re happy that you don’t like them – they enjoy rubbing this kind of stuff in people’s faces. It’s called bullying. They’ve been doing it for the past 18 months. Not a surprise that they’re going to their usual safe space.
I do find it interesting that O’Reilly, Carlson and Hannity very carefully avoided mentioning this situation AT ALL. It was as though this never happened, while they were fuming over the Pence White House being appropriately slapped down by the 9th Circuit. Now, if Robert Gibbs early in 2009 had endorsed a product hawked by Michelle Obama while being interviewed by CNN, I have a feeling the entire Fox News network would have been in an uproar. Jay Sekulow would be screaming from the rafters that Gibbs needed to be thrown in the hoosgow immediately to restore democracy. O’Reilly would be intoning heavily on the loss of dignity for the White House and the damage this could do to our standing with “the folks” everywhere. But if the Pence White House does it? All good! Nothing to see here. Move along. (Or at the more extreme edge of bullying, you can check out Rush Limbaugh’s response – which was to viciously laugh at anyone thinking there was anything wrong here, and to say that it was just so much fun to watch liberals get upset about it.)
They don’t care, and they’re not going to change their behavior. They’re happy that you don’t like them – they enjoy rubbing this kind of stuff in people’s faces. It’s called bullying. They’ve been doing it for the past 18 months. Not a surprise that they’re going to their usual safe space.
I do find it interesting that O’Reilly, Carlson and Hannity very carefully avoided mentioning this situation AT ALL. It was as though this never happened, while they were fuming over the Pence White House being appropriately slapped down by the 9th Circuit. Now, if Robert Gibbs early in 2009 had endorsed a product hawked by Michelle Obama while being interviewed by CNN, I have a feeling the entire Fox News network would have been in an uproar. Jay Sekulow would be screaming from the rafters that Gibbs needed to be thrown in the hoosgow immediately to restore democracy. O’Reilly would be intoning heavily on the loss of dignity for the White House and the damage this could do to our standing with “the folks” everywhere. But if the Pence White House does it? All good! Nothing to see here. Move along. (Or at the more extreme edge of bullying, you can check out Rush Limbaugh’s response – which was to viciously laugh at anyone thinking there was anything wrong here, and to say that it was just so much fun to watch liberals get upset about it.)
Kevin Koster commented on Jan Brewer Is ‘Absolutely Delighted’ Betsy DeVos Was Confirmed As Education Secretary
2017-02-09 09:15:14 -0500
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First of all, Jan Brewer has no moral ground upon which to stand when making her claims. She was responsible for multiple vicious statements about President Obama and infamously attempted to lecture him while being under appropriate criticism herself for what was going on in her state.
More importantly, we need to be realistic about what the impact of Betsy DeVos will be for the Dept of Education and for schools in this country. In the simplest terms, DeVos is going to be the Anne Gorsuch of the Dept of Education. She will oversee a slashing of its funding and size, most likely in the direction of eliminating the department altogether by 2020. As many services and areas that can be thrown back to the individual states will be done, leaving only a general administration that tilts its emphasis to private schools, charter schools and voucher programs to allow wealthier people to get a reimbursement for their tuitions.
DeVos’ real emphasis is an attack on public education and particularly on the teachers’ unions. Her intent is to marginalize and bankrupt those unions and make it look as though charter schools or home schooling is somehow the equivalent of a proper K-12 educational curriculum. By pushing her notions of “school choice”, what she’s really doing is pulling the money from the public school system, which will in turn reinforce her hypothesis that the public schools are just an underperforming drain on our communities.
Given the way these things tend to play out, I foresee a major graft scandal coming up within the next year or two, as it becomes clear that various private and charter school systems are getting preferenced and that certain individuals are profiting at everyone else’s expense. If the Senate changes hands in 2018, I wouldn’t be surprised to see significant discussions of this. Not sure if we will see the extent of what happened at the EPA under Gorsuch in the early 80s, where the department head was driven from office in disgrace and her deputy went to jail – particularly given that the House is unlikely to shift to the Dems for another decade. But as the truth comes out about how craven these people are (and as happened repeatedly under the W/Cheney group), the public’s unhappiness with the Pence White House will only accelerate.
I note that there are several other departments also being impacted by unfortunate Pence appointments, including the EPA, Energy, Labor, Justice etc. Some of this is synergistic. For example, Labor will no longer be looking out for unions’ rights – instead, they’ll be siding with the employers to find ways to minimize the impact of the workers. Teachers’ unions and public employees will essentially be put in a corner. Justice for its part will not be looking at civil rights issues or anything that would benefit lower income students and families. And at least until November 2018, there will be no area of recourse for the public other than protesting outside the Congress and the White House. We can look forward to near-constant events of that throughout the next two years.
I’m also foreseeing massive cuts, if not wholesale elimination of other departments like Energy and the EPA. These have long been Far Right goals and there’s no reason to believe they won’t pursue them now that they have an opportunity.
More importantly, we need to be realistic about what the impact of Betsy DeVos will be for the Dept of Education and for schools in this country. In the simplest terms, DeVos is going to be the Anne Gorsuch of the Dept of Education. She will oversee a slashing of its funding and size, most likely in the direction of eliminating the department altogether by 2020. As many services and areas that can be thrown back to the individual states will be done, leaving only a general administration that tilts its emphasis to private schools, charter schools and voucher programs to allow wealthier people to get a reimbursement for their tuitions.
DeVos’ real emphasis is an attack on public education and particularly on the teachers’ unions. Her intent is to marginalize and bankrupt those unions and make it look as though charter schools or home schooling is somehow the equivalent of a proper K-12 educational curriculum. By pushing her notions of “school choice”, what she’s really doing is pulling the money from the public school system, which will in turn reinforce her hypothesis that the public schools are just an underperforming drain on our communities.
Given the way these things tend to play out, I foresee a major graft scandal coming up within the next year or two, as it becomes clear that various private and charter school systems are getting preferenced and that certain individuals are profiting at everyone else’s expense. If the Senate changes hands in 2018, I wouldn’t be surprised to see significant discussions of this. Not sure if we will see the extent of what happened at the EPA under Gorsuch in the early 80s, where the department head was driven from office in disgrace and her deputy went to jail – particularly given that the House is unlikely to shift to the Dems for another decade. But as the truth comes out about how craven these people are (and as happened repeatedly under the W/Cheney group), the public’s unhappiness with the Pence White House will only accelerate.
I note that there are several other departments also being impacted by unfortunate Pence appointments, including the EPA, Energy, Labor, Justice etc. Some of this is synergistic. For example, Labor will no longer be looking out for unions’ rights – instead, they’ll be siding with the employers to find ways to minimize the impact of the workers. Teachers’ unions and public employees will essentially be put in a corner. Justice for its part will not be looking at civil rights issues or anything that would benefit lower income students and families. And at least until November 2018, there will be no area of recourse for the public other than protesting outside the Congress and the White House. We can look forward to near-constant events of that throughout the next two years.
I’m also foreseeing massive cuts, if not wholesale elimination of other departments like Energy and the EPA. These have long been Far Right goals and there’s no reason to believe they won’t pursue them now that they have an opportunity.
Kevin Koster commented on Donald Trump: Barack Obama ‘Likes Me’
2017-02-08 07:55:00 -0500
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This is the same person who also insists that three million votes cast in the 2016 election were fraudulent, who insists that any truthful reporting of his vicious behavior is “fake news”, who insists that his sparsely viewed inauguration was somehow a record-breaker, who refuses to believe poll after national poll that show him to be increasingly unpopular.
So it makes sense that he believes President Obama is somehow a fan of his.
David, to be brutally honest, I don’t believe that the Pence White House has enough self-awareness to do anything like calling a former Democrat President in to help them. As far as they’re concerned, they’re doing great and they don’t want to hear anything that says they aren’t. And they think that anything the prior President did needs to be erased, just as they’ve been doing for their entire time since they moved into the White House.
A group of people who would prioritize erasing the ACA is not a group that particularly cares to hear what Barack Obama or any Democrat has to say.
I take Trump’s comments about this with a large grain of salt. It sounds good for him to talk nicely about the prior President, but his actions indicate otherwise.
So it makes sense that he believes President Obama is somehow a fan of his.
David, to be brutally honest, I don’t believe that the Pence White House has enough self-awareness to do anything like calling a former Democrat President in to help them. As far as they’re concerned, they’re doing great and they don’t want to hear anything that says they aren’t. And they think that anything the prior President did needs to be erased, just as they’ve been doing for their entire time since they moved into the White House.
A group of people who would prioritize erasing the ACA is not a group that particularly cares to hear what Barack Obama or any Democrat has to say.
I take Trump’s comments about this with a large grain of salt. It sounds good for him to talk nicely about the prior President, but his actions indicate otherwise.
Kevin Koster commented on Meghan McCain Smears ‘Pocahontas’ Elizabeth Warren Over Opposition To DeVos
2017-02-08 07:46:17 -0500
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And the Year of the Bully rolls right along, doesn’t it?
Fun for Meghan McCain to recycle a childish insult from Rush Limbaugh’s show and then dignify it as okay because hey, Trump liked it too. (And we should remember that Donald Trump clearly follows the lead both of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News hosts like O’Reilly and Hannity)
If anything, McCain is unintentionally confirming what saner people in this country are quickly realizing – that there’s a bigger problem than Donald Trump’s childish public behavior and his attempts to bully anyone who doesn’t agree with him. The problem is that Trump’s rabid supporters, mostly angry white men but also some angry white women, are now thinking that they are free to let their inner bully fly. (Not to mention their inner bigot, inner racist and inner hater in general) Since they see Trump get away with this behavior, they figure now they can say the things they’ve always wanted to say and there will be no consequences. It’s the same mentality that led Rush Limbaugh to have one of his promo lines be “Well, SOMEBODY had to say it!” It’s the same mentality we discussed here a year ago, where Trump supporters actually said in public that they felt they couldn’t say what they really felt because they were afraid someone would call them a racist. Clearly, they’re not afraid of that anymore – and that’s going to have major ramifications for the rest of us.
We need to remember that for all the silliness like the anarchists disrupting a Berkeley talk by a vicious Breitbart hate-speech monger, there have been thousands of acts of hate documented by the Southern Poverty Law Center, perpetrated by angry Trump supporters against everyone else. Acts ranging from swastikas painted on synagogues or on people’s houses, other offensive graffiti being spray painted, cars being smashed and vandalized, to the more chilling spectacle of children in schools following the Tweeter-in-Chief’s example by attacking non-white children. The Right holds a serious responsibility for this conduct, and they do not get to claim any moral high ground when they happily indulge in it themselves, as McCain just did.
I also note that Mitch McConnell’s stunt in trying to shut Elizabeth Warren up yesterday is an interesting one, aside from the long-term backfire effect. First, everyone knew that Sessions and DeVos would be confirmed, as will all of the Pence White House’s cabinet picks, unless one of the picks chooses to step away, as the one lesser guy did this week. The GOP does not need a single Dem vote for this and they’re ramming these idiots through. So we can look forward to a gutted Education Dept along with a gutted Energy Dept and EPA – assuming these Depts even exist by 2020. (I’d keep an eye open for which one is completely dismantled first.) Second, Warren’s intention of raising awareness of the serious inappropriateness of these people to be put in charge of these departments has now been given an even louder platform than she thought she had before. But thirdly, it’s interesting to see McConnell try to shut things down with this selective enforcement of an obscure Senate rule about disparagement. I’m betting there’s one in there that applies to all the really vicious statements made by angry Right Wing GOP members of both houses about President Obama and his cabinet at every possible opportunity from 2009 through to January 19, 2016. But we didn’t hear McConnell jumping up and down about any of those, did we? Only when he thought he could score some kind of cheap point – and as he’s noted, it blew up in his face. This from the same man who said his proudest moment in the US Senate was when he churlishly refused to do his job for the past year and smugly announced that intention to the sitting President to his face.
Fun for Meghan McCain to recycle a childish insult from Rush Limbaugh’s show and then dignify it as okay because hey, Trump liked it too. (And we should remember that Donald Trump clearly follows the lead both of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News hosts like O’Reilly and Hannity)
If anything, McCain is unintentionally confirming what saner people in this country are quickly realizing – that there’s a bigger problem than Donald Trump’s childish public behavior and his attempts to bully anyone who doesn’t agree with him. The problem is that Trump’s rabid supporters, mostly angry white men but also some angry white women, are now thinking that they are free to let their inner bully fly. (Not to mention their inner bigot, inner racist and inner hater in general) Since they see Trump get away with this behavior, they figure now they can say the things they’ve always wanted to say and there will be no consequences. It’s the same mentality that led Rush Limbaugh to have one of his promo lines be “Well, SOMEBODY had to say it!” It’s the same mentality we discussed here a year ago, where Trump supporters actually said in public that they felt they couldn’t say what they really felt because they were afraid someone would call them a racist. Clearly, they’re not afraid of that anymore – and that’s going to have major ramifications for the rest of us.
We need to remember that for all the silliness like the anarchists disrupting a Berkeley talk by a vicious Breitbart hate-speech monger, there have been thousands of acts of hate documented by the Southern Poverty Law Center, perpetrated by angry Trump supporters against everyone else. Acts ranging from swastikas painted on synagogues or on people’s houses, other offensive graffiti being spray painted, cars being smashed and vandalized, to the more chilling spectacle of children in schools following the Tweeter-in-Chief’s example by attacking non-white children. The Right holds a serious responsibility for this conduct, and they do not get to claim any moral high ground when they happily indulge in it themselves, as McCain just did.
I also note that Mitch McConnell’s stunt in trying to shut Elizabeth Warren up yesterday is an interesting one, aside from the long-term backfire effect. First, everyone knew that Sessions and DeVos would be confirmed, as will all of the Pence White House’s cabinet picks, unless one of the picks chooses to step away, as the one lesser guy did this week. The GOP does not need a single Dem vote for this and they’re ramming these idiots through. So we can look forward to a gutted Education Dept along with a gutted Energy Dept and EPA – assuming these Depts even exist by 2020. (I’d keep an eye open for which one is completely dismantled first.) Second, Warren’s intention of raising awareness of the serious inappropriateness of these people to be put in charge of these departments has now been given an even louder platform than she thought she had before. But thirdly, it’s interesting to see McConnell try to shut things down with this selective enforcement of an obscure Senate rule about disparagement. I’m betting there’s one in there that applies to all the really vicious statements made by angry Right Wing GOP members of both houses about President Obama and his cabinet at every possible opportunity from 2009 through to January 19, 2016. But we didn’t hear McConnell jumping up and down about any of those, did we? Only when he thought he could score some kind of cheap point – and as he’s noted, it blew up in his face. This from the same man who said his proudest moment in the US Senate was when he churlishly refused to do his job for the past year and smugly announced that intention to the sitting President to his face.
Kevin Koster commented on Donald Trump Defends Putin’s Murders: ‘You Think Our Country’s So Innocent?’
2017-02-05 23:19:34 -0500
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The interview was a fawning embarrassment. O’Reilly was essentially serving up polite softballs for Trump to expound upon his supposed greatness.
Note that Trump is continuing to insist on this phantom “massive voter fraud” idea, and is unable to reconcile his paranoia about it with the actual facts. At one point he actually said that he’d already proved his case, when in fact he has only shown he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Trump also made clear he intends to ditch the Iran nuclear deal and made clear that he did in fact threaten the Mexican President when he spoke with him a week ago. And he’s holding onto this idea that somehow Mexico will be paying for his offensive wall idea – something that will never happen.
If anything was demonstrated past O’Reilly’s sudden respect for the presidency (now that it’s not a Democrat), it was Trump’s complete blindness to reality.
Note that Trump is continuing to insist on this phantom “massive voter fraud” idea, and is unable to reconcile his paranoia about it with the actual facts. At one point he actually said that he’d already proved his case, when in fact he has only shown he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Trump also made clear he intends to ditch the Iran nuclear deal and made clear that he did in fact threaten the Mexican President when he spoke with him a week ago. And he’s holding onto this idea that somehow Mexico will be paying for his offensive wall idea – something that will never happen.
If anything was demonstrated past O’Reilly’s sudden respect for the presidency (now that it’s not a Democrat), it was Trump’s complete blindness to reality.
Kevin Koster commented on During Anti-Trump Protests At Mar-A-Lago, Fox Showcases Trump Supporters
2017-02-05 10:35:31 -0500
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Not a surprise here. Makes perfect sense that Fox News would preference the handful of Trump supporters and try to diminish the fact that we are now in our third straight weekend of nationwide protests.
If anything, the fervency of the continuing protests is going to propel the Pence White House into acting as quickly as it can to push its goals forward – they’re aware that they may only have until mid-2018 before much of Congress will need to defend their seats against what is looking like a grassroots uprising against them.
I note that legal analysts have pointed out that Trump’s deportation plans go far, far beyond just the undocumented immigrants in the criminal courts and jails today. The EO is broadly worded and likely covers up to 8 million people – the only ones they don’t intend to deport are the people who have expired visas. The EO also allows the Sessions Justice Dept to skip the process of actually putting undocumented immigrants through a court hearing, which means the deportation schedule is going to move a LOT faster than people were thinking it would. This is likely the reason that the DACA program hasn’t been addressed in public yet – they’re waiting for the first wave of raids and deportations to start.
On the ACA front, Pence is waiting for Tom Price to be confirmed and seated at HHS before having the reconciliation repeal bill signed by the Tweeter-in-Chief. The idea is likely to have Price announce his wonderful new health care idea simultaneously with the scrapping of 99% of the ACA, so that the Right can make a convincing lie about having replaced the ACA. (Price’s wonderful idea involves health savings accounts and tax adjustments, including dropping the tax credit given to employers for covering their employees – this will be presented as a way to get government out of the health care business and restoring “freedom” to the system – when in fact the purpose is to kill the ACA and dump the costs onto what’s left of the middle class. When the system collapses and people can’t afford the care, they’ll get the same answer that is always heard from libertarians: IGMFU)
On the Supreme Court front, McConnell is waiting for the Dems to filibuster Gorsuch so he can justify scrapping the filibuster. I’m anticipating that happening within the next two months, but it could come more quickly if McConnell rushes the Gorsuch hearings forward. If I were a Dem at those hearings, I would spend as much time as possible asking Gorsuch about Merrick Garland and the conduct of the GOP Senators in not conducting any hearings for him last year. Gorsuch will still get onto the Court, and the Dems can’t do anything about it, but it would at least provide some entertainment in the middle of the gloom.
If anything, the fervency of the continuing protests is going to propel the Pence White House into acting as quickly as it can to push its goals forward – they’re aware that they may only have until mid-2018 before much of Congress will need to defend their seats against what is looking like a grassroots uprising against them.
I note that legal analysts have pointed out that Trump’s deportation plans go far, far beyond just the undocumented immigrants in the criminal courts and jails today. The EO is broadly worded and likely covers up to 8 million people – the only ones they don’t intend to deport are the people who have expired visas. The EO also allows the Sessions Justice Dept to skip the process of actually putting undocumented immigrants through a court hearing, which means the deportation schedule is going to move a LOT faster than people were thinking it would. This is likely the reason that the DACA program hasn’t been addressed in public yet – they’re waiting for the first wave of raids and deportations to start.
On the ACA front, Pence is waiting for Tom Price to be confirmed and seated at HHS before having the reconciliation repeal bill signed by the Tweeter-in-Chief. The idea is likely to have Price announce his wonderful new health care idea simultaneously with the scrapping of 99% of the ACA, so that the Right can make a convincing lie about having replaced the ACA. (Price’s wonderful idea involves health savings accounts and tax adjustments, including dropping the tax credit given to employers for covering their employees – this will be presented as a way to get government out of the health care business and restoring “freedom” to the system – when in fact the purpose is to kill the ACA and dump the costs onto what’s left of the middle class. When the system collapses and people can’t afford the care, they’ll get the same answer that is always heard from libertarians: IGMFU)
On the Supreme Court front, McConnell is waiting for the Dems to filibuster Gorsuch so he can justify scrapping the filibuster. I’m anticipating that happening within the next two months, but it could come more quickly if McConnell rushes the Gorsuch hearings forward. If I were a Dem at those hearings, I would spend as much time as possible asking Gorsuch about Merrick Garland and the conduct of the GOP Senators in not conducting any hearings for him last year. Gorsuch will still get onto the Court, and the Dems can’t do anything about it, but it would at least provide some entertainment in the middle of the gloom.
Kevin Koster commented on You Know Donald Trump Is In Trouble When A Fox Host Starts Demanding Democrats Help Him Out
2017-02-05 10:41:19 -0500
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Joseph, you’re correct about the House. There is no chance to do anything there until after the 2020 Census, which the Dems will really need to get involved in NOW. I’d love to think that public outrage in those districts could swing a bunch of seats, but it’s simply too many seats in too many places.
The Senate is another story. My instincts say that the palpable anger at the GOP and Trump across the country for their bullying and viciousness is going to result in a very different midterm than smirkers like Jesse Watters are hoping to see. The Senate will be a tough lift, but I do think it’s possible that you could see the Dems retain their seats and potentially pick up 3 more. That’s all they need to stop the nonsense with the various appointments, policies and SC nominations, particularly after McConnell gets rid of the filibuster next month.
The Senate is another story. My instincts say that the palpable anger at the GOP and Trump across the country for their bullying and viciousness is going to result in a very different midterm than smirkers like Jesse Watters are hoping to see. The Senate will be a tough lift, but I do think it’s possible that you could see the Dems retain their seats and potentially pick up 3 more. That’s all they need to stop the nonsense with the various appointments, policies and SC nominations, particularly after McConnell gets rid of the filibuster next month.
Kevin Koster commented on Economist Stephen Moore Leaves Fox News For CNN
2017-02-03 13:07:15 -0500
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The thesis here is absolutely correct.
CNN is trying to bring on some Right Wing voices in the hope that they can appeal to the Trump voters and maybe keep some access to the White House. Essentially, they’re pivoting to the Right since we have an extreme Far Right ideologue group now occupying the White House and controlling the entire debate in Washington DC.
Now, for an outlet that has never taken that kind of approach, I continue to recommend Democracy Now and Amy Goodman. But I do have to acknowledge that CNN has been doing a mostly solid job of calling the Pence White House out on its extremism, its lying and its general viciousness. From what I can see, this is a much more grounded approach than we saw 16 years ago with the W Bush selection and presidency.
CNN is trying to bring on some Right Wing voices in the hope that they can appeal to the Trump voters and maybe keep some access to the White House. Essentially, they’re pivoting to the Right since we have an extreme Far Right ideologue group now occupying the White House and controlling the entire debate in Washington DC.
Now, for an outlet that has never taken that kind of approach, I continue to recommend Democracy Now and Amy Goodman. But I do have to acknowledge that CNN has been doing a mostly solid job of calling the Pence White House out on its extremism, its lying and its general viciousness. From what I can see, this is a much more grounded approach than we saw 16 years ago with the W Bush selection and presidency.
Kevin Koster commented on Fox News Puppet? Trump Threatens To Pull Federal Funding From UC Berkeley Right After Fox & Friends Suggests It
2017-02-02 16:58:30 -0500
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I’m frankly sick and tired of all these attempted bullying lectures from Fox News and the usual bullying tweets that follow from the Pence White House’s spokesman.
I really wish the protesters in Berkeley had simply shunned this jerk peacefully and leafletted his event – I would even have encouraged them to have appeared at the event and asked him challenging questions about his predilection for hate speech and viciousness. Having a riot over it is a criminal act that just fuels the Fox News nonsense machine. Most Berkeley students weren’t supporting having a riot, and while most sane people think this guy is a jerk, they’re not going to dignify his behavior with further violence.
That said, if the Tweeter-in-Chief wants to cut off federal funds to UC Berkeley, then just do it and stop talking about it. If the GOP wants to cut off funds to Los Angeles or California, then just do it and stop all this posturing. I’m not impressed by bullying tactics. If they mean what they say, then stand up and follow up. If they don’t mean it, then admit that they don’t even know what they’re talking about. But enough of the huffing and puffing.
I really wish the protesters in Berkeley had simply shunned this jerk peacefully and leafletted his event – I would even have encouraged them to have appeared at the event and asked him challenging questions about his predilection for hate speech and viciousness. Having a riot over it is a criminal act that just fuels the Fox News nonsense machine. Most Berkeley students weren’t supporting having a riot, and while most sane people think this guy is a jerk, they’re not going to dignify his behavior with further violence.
That said, if the Tweeter-in-Chief wants to cut off federal funds to UC Berkeley, then just do it and stop talking about it. If the GOP wants to cut off funds to Los Angeles or California, then just do it and stop all this posturing. I’m not impressed by bullying tactics. If they mean what they say, then stand up and follow up. If they don’t mean it, then admit that they don’t even know what they’re talking about. But enough of the huffing and puffing.
Kevin Koster commented on Tucker Carlson Calls Supreme Court Protesters 'A Pulsating Blob Of Humanity'
2017-02-02 09:06:06 -0500
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As anticipated, the Pence White House has indeed gone with a young, extreme Hard Right judge in the exact mold of Scalia. And as anticipated, Fox News has been cheerleading the pick. (It appears from their coverage that they knew Gorsuch would be the nominee at least a week early, as they suddenly began pushing stories about him for a full week before the Tweeter-in-Chief confirmed he was the choice.) Hardiman was never under very serious consideration, at least this time. The Pence White House has admitted that they didn’t even prepare briefing materials on Hardiman – that was just to create the illusion of a contest when Trump had already made up his mind to go extreme weeks earlier.
I find it hilarious that Bill O’Reilly felt it necessary to talk up what he thought the virtues were of Gorsuch, and to note that Gorsuch was approved to the bench by bipartisan acclamation, and to desperately insist that Dems must somehow be in a tough place if they don’t vote for him. Not one mention of how the GOP had no problem whatsoever ignoring and obstructing Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland for nearly a year after they had similarly supported him.
I frankly wonder how the GOP would react if the Dems were to treat Pence’s upcoming replacement of Anthony Kennedy in 2018 by saying “this is a midterm election year and we’d like the American People to decide this matter”.
Sadly, if history teaches us anything, it’s that the Dems will most likely cave on this matter and allow Gorsuch to take the seat that was stolen from Merrick Garland. If they don’t cave, the Right Wing is practically salivating about abolishing the filibuster and simply ruling by fiat. But the Dems get to choose. I find it interesting that CNN is trying to play this situation as the Dems trying to decide if they want to risk the rule being changed regarding further appointments, when it is clear that the Right will abolish the filibuster anyway. And yes, McConnell is itching to do it. He hates the Dems he has to deal with and would be happier if he didn’t even need to look at them anymore. His public posture is just intended to somehow lend him some ethical or moral high ground that he’s forgotten he forfeited over the past several years. He wants to make it look like he’s reluctant to take this step, when his behavior and comments through the Obama presidency betray his actual intent. A man who would prioritize obstruction, who would refuse to even have a hearing for Merrick Garland, and who would smugly gloat about his proudest moment in the US Senate being when he told Obama “You will not be filling this Supreme Court seat” is not a man who has any integrity or moral standing. At the drop of a hat, he’s ready to “go nuclear”, and he knows that the Dems know it.
My thinking is that the Dems should filibuster on principle and force the GOP’s hand – let them go ahead and get rid of the filibuster, and thus make it clear to the country who and what they are. At the least, this would show some spine from the Dems and lay the groundwork for their base to be more seriously involved in the 2018 midterms.
And make no mistake, Gorsuch is an extreme, vicious choice. This is a middle-aged man who has spent his life on the Far, Hard Right – this is not a man who will be going to the Supreme Court and suddenly having an epiphany about justice. This is a man who openly has enjoyed taking Far Right partisan positions, and who regularly has embraced those in his rulings. And at the age of 49, we can expect, he will do exactly what Scalia did, if not worse – he will be a vote against progress and for a reversion to a USA that has not existed since before Brown v Board of Education. And he’s only the first of what will likely be at least three young Scalias to be inflicted upon the Supreme Court. We can now count on Kennedy and Thomas to step down during Trump’s first term – the only question is whether the midterms allow the Dems to regain a small majority in the Senate to thus block him from further extremists. I fully expect the other two Right Wing justices to each announce their retirement within the next year. Those seats are lost, but the bigger problem will be if either Ginsberg or Breyer needs to step down for any reason. Should that happen, the Supreme Court will wildly swing to the Right, and pretty much every sane ruling we’ve seen since 1955 is in imminent danger of being overturned.
Again, I really hope that the people who sat out the 2016 election are paying attention. Elections have consequences and these are some pretty nasty ones.
I find it hilarious that Bill O’Reilly felt it necessary to talk up what he thought the virtues were of Gorsuch, and to note that Gorsuch was approved to the bench by bipartisan acclamation, and to desperately insist that Dems must somehow be in a tough place if they don’t vote for him. Not one mention of how the GOP had no problem whatsoever ignoring and obstructing Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland for nearly a year after they had similarly supported him.
I frankly wonder how the GOP would react if the Dems were to treat Pence’s upcoming replacement of Anthony Kennedy in 2018 by saying “this is a midterm election year and we’d like the American People to decide this matter”.
Sadly, if history teaches us anything, it’s that the Dems will most likely cave on this matter and allow Gorsuch to take the seat that was stolen from Merrick Garland. If they don’t cave, the Right Wing is practically salivating about abolishing the filibuster and simply ruling by fiat. But the Dems get to choose. I find it interesting that CNN is trying to play this situation as the Dems trying to decide if they want to risk the rule being changed regarding further appointments, when it is clear that the Right will abolish the filibuster anyway. And yes, McConnell is itching to do it. He hates the Dems he has to deal with and would be happier if he didn’t even need to look at them anymore. His public posture is just intended to somehow lend him some ethical or moral high ground that he’s forgotten he forfeited over the past several years. He wants to make it look like he’s reluctant to take this step, when his behavior and comments through the Obama presidency betray his actual intent. A man who would prioritize obstruction, who would refuse to even have a hearing for Merrick Garland, and who would smugly gloat about his proudest moment in the US Senate being when he told Obama “You will not be filling this Supreme Court seat” is not a man who has any integrity or moral standing. At the drop of a hat, he’s ready to “go nuclear”, and he knows that the Dems know it.
My thinking is that the Dems should filibuster on principle and force the GOP’s hand – let them go ahead and get rid of the filibuster, and thus make it clear to the country who and what they are. At the least, this would show some spine from the Dems and lay the groundwork for their base to be more seriously involved in the 2018 midterms.
And make no mistake, Gorsuch is an extreme, vicious choice. This is a middle-aged man who has spent his life on the Far, Hard Right – this is not a man who will be going to the Supreme Court and suddenly having an epiphany about justice. This is a man who openly has enjoyed taking Far Right partisan positions, and who regularly has embraced those in his rulings. And at the age of 49, we can expect, he will do exactly what Scalia did, if not worse – he will be a vote against progress and for a reversion to a USA that has not existed since before Brown v Board of Education. And he’s only the first of what will likely be at least three young Scalias to be inflicted upon the Supreme Court. We can now count on Kennedy and Thomas to step down during Trump’s first term – the only question is whether the midterms allow the Dems to regain a small majority in the Senate to thus block him from further extremists. I fully expect the other two Right Wing justices to each announce their retirement within the next year. Those seats are lost, but the bigger problem will be if either Ginsberg or Breyer needs to step down for any reason. Should that happen, the Supreme Court will wildly swing to the Right, and pretty much every sane ruling we’ve seen since 1955 is in imminent danger of being overturned.
Again, I really hope that the people who sat out the 2016 election are paying attention. Elections have consequences and these are some pretty nasty ones.
Kevin Koster commented on Kellyanne Conway: Pundits Who ‘Talk Smack’ About Trump Should Be Fired. ‘We Know All Their Names’
2017-01-29 22:44:50 -0500
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Conway dropped the mask a few times in this discussion. It was interesting to behold. The sheer level of vicious anger she’s sitting on is unsettling. And then she’d go back into the false smile and resort to a long recitation of irrelevant statistics that did not answer the simple questions she was being asked.
I find it interesting that her response to multiple judges finding serious legal problems with this weekend’s door slam at the airports was to dismiss the first judge for being an Obama appointee. As though that would dismiss the whole problem.
I find it interesting that her response to the issue of Trump offending the President of Mexico enough to cancel his scheduled visit was to immediately interject “We cancelled it first.” She must have missed the part where the Mexican President openly discussed cancelling the meeting, followed by Trump tweeting out a tantrum of suggesting he go ahead and cancel it. After which, the meeting was toast. We’re looking at a serious situation here – either a trade war with Mexico or worse. If the Pence White House doesn’t figure this out quickly, we could easily be looking at a cutoff in relations until competent people get back in the White House in 2020. And Conway’s focus is on whether Trump tweeted about cancelling first? Seriously?
I find it interesting that Conway is complaining that the press didn’t cover all of the EOs Pence cooked up for Trump to sign this week, when we had a non-stop barrage of coverage of exactly that. CNN has a running counter of everything they’ve done. Maybe Conway could spend five minutes looking at the CNN website before making these embarrassingly false claims.
And I’m not even going to get into the pandering Conway did to the anti-choice crowd, or the truly scary way she referred to all abortions as murder of innocent babies.
Make no mistake – these are cruel and vicious people and Conway’s attempts to justify their viciousness only makes a sour situation go rancid.
I find it interesting that her response to multiple judges finding serious legal problems with this weekend’s door slam at the airports was to dismiss the first judge for being an Obama appointee. As though that would dismiss the whole problem.
I find it interesting that her response to the issue of Trump offending the President of Mexico enough to cancel his scheduled visit was to immediately interject “We cancelled it first.” She must have missed the part where the Mexican President openly discussed cancelling the meeting, followed by Trump tweeting out a tantrum of suggesting he go ahead and cancel it. After which, the meeting was toast. We’re looking at a serious situation here – either a trade war with Mexico or worse. If the Pence White House doesn’t figure this out quickly, we could easily be looking at a cutoff in relations until competent people get back in the White House in 2020. And Conway’s focus is on whether Trump tweeted about cancelling first? Seriously?
I find it interesting that Conway is complaining that the press didn’t cover all of the EOs Pence cooked up for Trump to sign this week, when we had a non-stop barrage of coverage of exactly that. CNN has a running counter of everything they’ve done. Maybe Conway could spend five minutes looking at the CNN website before making these embarrassingly false claims.
And I’m not even going to get into the pandering Conway did to the anti-choice crowd, or the truly scary way she referred to all abortions as murder of innocent babies.
Make no mistake – these are cruel and vicious people and Conway’s attempts to justify their viciousness only makes a sour situation go rancid.
Kevin Koster commented on While CNN And MSNBC Were Reporting On #MuslimBan Protests, Guess What Fox News Aired?
2017-01-30 06:53:35 -0500
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Autocorrect deleted that is said that Alito replaced the more moderate O’Connor. The next sentence should have started “The judges they are evaluating now…”
Kevin Koster commented on Got Irony? Tucker Carlson Accuses BuzzFeed And Ben Smith Of Having A ‘Political Agenda Masquerading As Journalism’
2017-01-28 16:42:19 -0500
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I really don’t understand why anyone would go on a show hosted by someone like Tucker Carlson and expect anything other than his usual snideness, bullying and invective.
The only appropriate way to deal with such an invitation is to prepare for Carlson to try the early cheap shot, and have something ready. For example, if he’s going to talk about injecting a moral tone, have a few of his own columns and op-eds ready that you can read back to him, with the date and subject ready to be discussed. Because Carlson has always been known for his false moralizing.
Or you could bring up where Carlson published remarks by Mike Tyson about Sarah Palin and got schooled on that little problem by Greta van Susteren on the air. Where Carlson defended how he was quoting Tyson on the air and discussing a Vice Presidential candidate (whether she was ever that serious of a person is a different issue).
Or if he wants to discuss why someone was trying to engage in affirmative action, which is not racism but actually an attempt to provide opportunities for everyone and not just Caucasians, you could raise Carlson’s constant, snide promotion of bigotry.
There is no reason to allow Carlson to go on the offensive in any of these situations – the only way to handle him is to answer his snide opening with your own question and put him back on his heels. And when he tries to throw another cheap shot, send him another apropos question and put him back on his heels again. Even money says Carlson will frantically end the interview at that point, since he has no chance of pulling an Ingraham and getting his guest to essentially prove his preset hypothesis.
The only appropriate way to deal with such an invitation is to prepare for Carlson to try the early cheap shot, and have something ready. For example, if he’s going to talk about injecting a moral tone, have a few of his own columns and op-eds ready that you can read back to him, with the date and subject ready to be discussed. Because Carlson has always been known for his false moralizing.
Or you could bring up where Carlson published remarks by Mike Tyson about Sarah Palin and got schooled on that little problem by Greta van Susteren on the air. Where Carlson defended how he was quoting Tyson on the air and discussing a Vice Presidential candidate (whether she was ever that serious of a person is a different issue).
Or if he wants to discuss why someone was trying to engage in affirmative action, which is not racism but actually an attempt to provide opportunities for everyone and not just Caucasians, you could raise Carlson’s constant, snide promotion of bigotry.
There is no reason to allow Carlson to go on the offensive in any of these situations – the only way to handle him is to answer his snide opening with your own question and put him back on his heels. And when he tries to throw another cheap shot, send him another apropos question and put him back on his heels again. Even money says Carlson will frantically end the interview at that point, since he has no chance of pulling an Ingraham and getting his guest to essentially prove his preset hypothesis.
Kevin Koster commented on Fox Hosts Preemptively Pimp "Pro-Life" Claim: Mainstream Media Won't Cover Anti-Abortion March
2017-01-28 16:05:29 -0500
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I tend to doubt we’ll see that much of Pence, other than at occasional events like this one. He’s too busy running the domestic and foreign policy in his White House while Trump cavorts in public. This was always the plan.
And it’s a no-brainer that this event doesn’t merit wide coverage. It’s one of many single-issue marches that happen in DC every month, and it’s one that is particularly focused on an angry, hateful group. There are also marches about police violence, about violence against women, about the environment, etc. The only time these marches get attention is when you see massive crowds as we did on the 21st. A march in the tens of thousands is fine for the organizers of that march – if in fact they even got to that number. A march in the hundreds of thousands or higher is a different matter – and when you multiply that by all the cities in which marches were held a week ago, it becomes clear why that story was appropriate to cover.
If Fox News wishes to make an issue about the media not covering this anti-choice event, then they must be agreeing to cover all the other marches and rallies that regularly happen in DC. Something tells me that they don’t wish to cover those – they only want everyone to cover the little rally that they supported. Once again, hypocrisy and nonsense. And bullying to try to cover it over.
And it’s a no-brainer that this event doesn’t merit wide coverage. It’s one of many single-issue marches that happen in DC every month, and it’s one that is particularly focused on an angry, hateful group. There are also marches about police violence, about violence against women, about the environment, etc. The only time these marches get attention is when you see massive crowds as we did on the 21st. A march in the tens of thousands is fine for the organizers of that march – if in fact they even got to that number. A march in the hundreds of thousands or higher is a different matter – and when you multiply that by all the cities in which marches were held a week ago, it becomes clear why that story was appropriate to cover.
If Fox News wishes to make an issue about the media not covering this anti-choice event, then they must be agreeing to cover all the other marches and rallies that regularly happen in DC. Something tells me that they don’t wish to cover those – they only want everyone to cover the little rally that they supported. Once again, hypocrisy and nonsense. And bullying to try to cover it over.