Kevin Koster commented on Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli Plays The Victim For Price Gouging Life-Saving Drug
2016-12-11 21:02:24 -0500
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When it comes to health care and health insurance, Shrkeli is exactly the person Fox News and the Right Wing want at the till. Because this isn’t about actually taking care of sick patients or curing anyone. This is about making money. Shkreli was openly trying to get as much money for himself and his company out of this drug as he could – it wasn’t just a “small profit” he was after. He knew he had these patients at his mercy and he took every advantage he could. And that’s the philosophy of the Right Wing, particularly the Libertarian wing of it: IGMFU. If you can’t afford the price of the drug, then you shouldn’t have it, should you? If that means you will die of the disease you’re suffering, then that’s a YP not an MP. Not hard to figure this stuff out when you unpack it.
There’s an added bit of entertainment coming over the next month before the GOP dismantles the ACA on January 20th and Trump happily signs the bill. There’s been some discussion lately about “Repeal and Delay” since the Right has never been able to agree on a plan, mostly due to the fact that many of them never wanted any such program in the first place. The GOP will be hammered on this from the Far Right, including both Fox News and their favorite radio spokesman, Rush Limbaugh. And here’s what Limbaugh had to say on this matter, (something he’s threatening to really jump up and down about over the next few weeks – specifically to influence the GOP and Trump/Pence to do his bidding): “I’m thinking this whole idea of having something to replace it with is a smoke screen and this two-year, three-year delay…Just repeal it and turn loose the market on this! I don’t… For me, I don’t understand what this two- or three-year delay is….And there’s no real guidance from Trump on this yet, other than we’re gonna repeal it and replace it. But when do you replace it is the question – and with what? They do not have an alternative Obamacare health care bill. Now, my thinking is ‘Good! Why should the government be involved in this anyway?’” I think it’s safe to say that the Far Right will have their way on this, particularly with Mike Pence running the White House and Pence’s friend Tom Price running Health and Human Services. I have repeatedly said this since Trump squeaked through during the election and we are now seeing the Right Wing really starting to sharpen their knives. I don’t know that the Right is so concerned about millions of people losing their coverage when they can spin it that most of them could have qualified for other plans anyway. (Don’t worry that those plans would have bankrupted them)
By the way, at the same time they’re pulling these moves, they are already starting to move on the notion of gutting Medicare. And there is even a Right Wing House member who’s making hay with his new Social Security reform plan – the one that refuses to make even the tiny adjustment to SSI taxes to solve the math equation they have in about 20 years. The one that supposedly makes the program solvent for the next 75 years by strictly cutting benefits to most of the recipients – anywhere up to a third or half of their benefits. Sounds great, doesn’t it? And Trump will have perfect cover for this because he can say “Hey, we have to keep these programs solvent and we don’t want to increase all your taxes, you know.”
I really find it interesting that in the midst of the holiday season when we focus on giving and on compassion for others, the Far Right is focused on gloating, bullying and then potentially brutalizing large swathes of the American public. I suppose that can make for a Merry Christmas for some, but not anyone I would care to know so well.
There’s an added bit of entertainment coming over the next month before the GOP dismantles the ACA on January 20th and Trump happily signs the bill. There’s been some discussion lately about “Repeal and Delay” since the Right has never been able to agree on a plan, mostly due to the fact that many of them never wanted any such program in the first place. The GOP will be hammered on this from the Far Right, including both Fox News and their favorite radio spokesman, Rush Limbaugh. And here’s what Limbaugh had to say on this matter, (something he’s threatening to really jump up and down about over the next few weeks – specifically to influence the GOP and Trump/Pence to do his bidding): “I’m thinking this whole idea of having something to replace it with is a smoke screen and this two-year, three-year delay…Just repeal it and turn loose the market on this! I don’t… For me, I don’t understand what this two- or three-year delay is….And there’s no real guidance from Trump on this yet, other than we’re gonna repeal it and replace it. But when do you replace it is the question – and with what? They do not have an alternative Obamacare health care bill. Now, my thinking is ‘Good! Why should the government be involved in this anyway?’” I think it’s safe to say that the Far Right will have their way on this, particularly with Mike Pence running the White House and Pence’s friend Tom Price running Health and Human Services. I have repeatedly said this since Trump squeaked through during the election and we are now seeing the Right Wing really starting to sharpen their knives. I don’t know that the Right is so concerned about millions of people losing their coverage when they can spin it that most of them could have qualified for other plans anyway. (Don’t worry that those plans would have bankrupted them)
By the way, at the same time they’re pulling these moves, they are already starting to move on the notion of gutting Medicare. And there is even a Right Wing House member who’s making hay with his new Social Security reform plan – the one that refuses to make even the tiny adjustment to SSI taxes to solve the math equation they have in about 20 years. The one that supposedly makes the program solvent for the next 75 years by strictly cutting benefits to most of the recipients – anywhere up to a third or half of their benefits. Sounds great, doesn’t it? And Trump will have perfect cover for this because he can say “Hey, we have to keep these programs solvent and we don’t want to increase all your taxes, you know.”
I really find it interesting that in the midst of the holiday season when we focus on giving and on compassion for others, the Far Right is focused on gloating, bullying and then potentially brutalizing large swathes of the American public. I suppose that can make for a Merry Christmas for some, but not anyone I would care to know so well.
Kevin Koster commented on Fox Guest Gets A Friendly Platform To Call For Cutting Funding To Sanctuary Cities
2016-12-12 18:39:20 -0500
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Frankly, I don’t think the Right Wing really cares if Los Angeles or New York City suffers. If anything, they’d enjoy watching it happen. From the tone of their latest gloating and bullying, it sounds like they expect those cities to quickly fold and beg Trump for mercy. After which, they’re hoping Trump will drag it out longer to make sure they get the message that they are never to challenge the bully again if they don’t want another bloody nose. I don’t think they’re that far off in terms of the Dems caving, as they usually do when they’re pressured. I just don’t think they’ll cave as fast as the Right is hoping. Nonetheless, the Right will be sure to gloat about the cave as soon as it happens.
What makes the Right’s prediction here irritating is that they have consistently acted like this for the past 60-80 years. It’s a state of constantly assuming that they can bully people at will and get away with it, that they can brutalize other countries and that nobody will lift a finger to stop them. I still remember a classic example of this from my high school History class. We had a guest speaker relating the events of the Cuban Missile Crisis and how the Kennedy Administration dealt with it. During the Crisis, as things were reaching a head, there was a typical meeting of the various hawks and doves to discuss what they should do next. This is roughly the transcript as it was described to us:
Foreign Policy Hawk: “Well, clearly, if the USSR doesn’t back down, we’ll need to launch missiles and take out the sites in Cuba to secure the region.”
Foreign Policy Dove: “And if we do that, how do you think they’ll respond to us?”
Hawk: “Well, they’ll probably take out our sites in Turkey, as they’ve been threatening.”
Dove: “And what do you think we’ll need to do in response to that?”
Hawk: “Well, at that point, we’ll really need to start launching missiles against targets inside the Russian border…”
Dove: “And after we start nuking them, how do you think they’re going to respond to that???”
Hawk: “Well, at that point, I think it’s clear that cooler heads will prevail…”
Just imagine if we had the Pence Administration running the military during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I think we can all see the way that situation would have turned out…
And it strikes me how vicious Santorum’s comments here really are. He had no problem whatsoever telling this woman to get out of the country, and essentially saying that she’d gotten away with something by even being here in the first place. You could even make a slogan out of his cruelty – “You don’t belong in MY country.”
What makes the Right’s prediction here irritating is that they have consistently acted like this for the past 60-80 years. It’s a state of constantly assuming that they can bully people at will and get away with it, that they can brutalize other countries and that nobody will lift a finger to stop them. I still remember a classic example of this from my high school History class. We had a guest speaker relating the events of the Cuban Missile Crisis and how the Kennedy Administration dealt with it. During the Crisis, as things were reaching a head, there was a typical meeting of the various hawks and doves to discuss what they should do next. This is roughly the transcript as it was described to us:
Foreign Policy Hawk: “Well, clearly, if the USSR doesn’t back down, we’ll need to launch missiles and take out the sites in Cuba to secure the region.”
Foreign Policy Dove: “And if we do that, how do you think they’ll respond to us?”
Hawk: “Well, they’ll probably take out our sites in Turkey, as they’ve been threatening.”
Dove: “And what do you think we’ll need to do in response to that?”
Hawk: “Well, at that point, we’ll really need to start launching missiles against targets inside the Russian border…”
Dove: “And after we start nuking them, how do you think they’re going to respond to that???”
Hawk: “Well, at that point, I think it’s clear that cooler heads will prevail…”
Just imagine if we had the Pence Administration running the military during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I think we can all see the way that situation would have turned out…
And it strikes me how vicious Santorum’s comments here really are. He had no problem whatsoever telling this woman to get out of the country, and essentially saying that she’d gotten away with something by even being here in the first place. You could even make a slogan out of his cruelty – “You don’t belong in MY country.”
Kevin Koster commented on Trump Suggests He’s Going To Retaliate Against The CIA - And Fox Host Chris Wallace Helps
2016-12-12 17:28:57 -0500
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Eyes. that’s exactly right. And Pence is surrounding himself with the harshest and most draconian of Right Wingers. If Education, Energy and the EPA survive the Pence Administration, it will be nothing short of miraculous.
Kevin Koster commented on Bill O’Reilly Blames Polarization In The U.S. On The Poor, Immigrants And Democrats
2016-12-09 14:06:09 -0500
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I previously addressed this in the Behar thread, so I’ll try to quickly reiterate here:
O’Reilly is desperately looking for a way to dismiss and sneer at the fact that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote last month, and did so on the order of nearly 3 million votes. To admit this fact would be to admit that the Pence Administration does not really have that “sweeping mandate” and didn’t really have that “landslide victory” that the Right keeps trying to gloat about. In fact, they had a squeaker, earned from gaming the system and depressing as much of the vote as possible so that they could win enough counties in swing states to pull this off. Had a thousand more people shown up in several of those counties, the vote would have gone the other way and we’d be having a very different discussion. Dems really need to remember this for 2018, 2020 and the future, although we can appreciate that with changing demographics, this little maneuver will not help the Right in another few years. There simply won’t be enough angry white voters to overwhelm the other demographics, and they won’t be able to campaign on straight xenophobia any longer. This was their last gasp of that idea. (And if we think back a bit, the big Reagan landslide of 1984 is no longer possible for them – that was from a time when you really could win a landslide election with just angry white male votes…)
So O’Reilly needs to find a spin to explain away those millions of voters who did not vote for his preferred candidate. He’s already dismissed California with a sneer on several occasions. Partly he’s done this on the basis that he hates California on general principle and thinks he’s somehow morally superior to anyone living there. Partly he’s done this with his outrageous support of Right Wing lies that somehow millions of undocumented aliens were committing voter fraud across California. But he needed to get another cheap shot in. So now he turns to New York, which he presents as really just a bunch of welfare cheats and unworthy slackers who depend on government handouts. He even pushes this nonsense far enough to try to get some moral high ground by stating that he and “good Americans” are being forced to pay for all these cheats and slackers in New York, when clearly those people should just be told to get a job or something. And yes, this is totally consistent with his tantrum on Election Night 2012, when he screamed that Obama only won because of the slackers who want “free stuff”.
And by taking this rather vicious approach, O’Reilly can now get a two-fer. He can dismiss millions of Americans who disagree with Trump and with him, and he can act like it’s some kind of a moral crusade for himself. And voila! Now he can say that Trump has a “sweeping mandate” and a landslide! Nice, eh? It even justifies his triumphal monologue on November 9th where he thought he was putting Hillary in her place by angrily declaring “America has had enough of Hillary Clinton!” and after saying a series of increasingly nasty and mean-spirited cheap shots, then concluding, “But that’s enough about her!” as though he had any moral standing to be making such statements.
To answer Richard, I don’t think these guys are actually planning to do anything as vile as that. But I do think they’re hoping that ISIS or some other radical group tries something like that. It would give them all the justification they want to go “full Cheney” and demand that all Americans support the Pence Administration in whatever chicanery it wishes to inflict. I’d also like us to remember that when W took the country to war against Iraq in 2003, there were tens of thousands of people regularly in the streets protesting it. And the Right simply didn’t care – they went on killing people in Iraq regardless of the protests. If anything, they learned the lessons from Vietnam to make sure that there were as few objective witnesses as possible to the carnage. No photos of the caskets coming back home. Embedded reporters to make sure they were bonded to the units they were covering. Aggressive action against independent and international journalists, retroactively justified by saying “they should have known they were in a war zone”. If the Right learned anything from this, in spite of the fun WikiLeaks has had, it’s that they can get away with the Big Lie and do it repeatedly.
At the same time, I also believe the Right will come to regret their momentary infatuation with Julian Assange. He was useful to them for getting uncomfortable gossip documents about Clinton’s campaign. They even celebrated him for doing so. I wonder how Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly will respond when WikiLeaks starts spreading emails from the various Pence Administration cronies….
O’Reilly is desperately looking for a way to dismiss and sneer at the fact that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote last month, and did so on the order of nearly 3 million votes. To admit this fact would be to admit that the Pence Administration does not really have that “sweeping mandate” and didn’t really have that “landslide victory” that the Right keeps trying to gloat about. In fact, they had a squeaker, earned from gaming the system and depressing as much of the vote as possible so that they could win enough counties in swing states to pull this off. Had a thousand more people shown up in several of those counties, the vote would have gone the other way and we’d be having a very different discussion. Dems really need to remember this for 2018, 2020 and the future, although we can appreciate that with changing demographics, this little maneuver will not help the Right in another few years. There simply won’t be enough angry white voters to overwhelm the other demographics, and they won’t be able to campaign on straight xenophobia any longer. This was their last gasp of that idea. (And if we think back a bit, the big Reagan landslide of 1984 is no longer possible for them – that was from a time when you really could win a landslide election with just angry white male votes…)
So O’Reilly needs to find a spin to explain away those millions of voters who did not vote for his preferred candidate. He’s already dismissed California with a sneer on several occasions. Partly he’s done this on the basis that he hates California on general principle and thinks he’s somehow morally superior to anyone living there. Partly he’s done this with his outrageous support of Right Wing lies that somehow millions of undocumented aliens were committing voter fraud across California. But he needed to get another cheap shot in. So now he turns to New York, which he presents as really just a bunch of welfare cheats and unworthy slackers who depend on government handouts. He even pushes this nonsense far enough to try to get some moral high ground by stating that he and “good Americans” are being forced to pay for all these cheats and slackers in New York, when clearly those people should just be told to get a job or something. And yes, this is totally consistent with his tantrum on Election Night 2012, when he screamed that Obama only won because of the slackers who want “free stuff”.
And by taking this rather vicious approach, O’Reilly can now get a two-fer. He can dismiss millions of Americans who disagree with Trump and with him, and he can act like it’s some kind of a moral crusade for himself. And voila! Now he can say that Trump has a “sweeping mandate” and a landslide! Nice, eh? It even justifies his triumphal monologue on November 9th where he thought he was putting Hillary in her place by angrily declaring “America has had enough of Hillary Clinton!” and after saying a series of increasingly nasty and mean-spirited cheap shots, then concluding, “But that’s enough about her!” as though he had any moral standing to be making such statements.
To answer Richard, I don’t think these guys are actually planning to do anything as vile as that. But I do think they’re hoping that ISIS or some other radical group tries something like that. It would give them all the justification they want to go “full Cheney” and demand that all Americans support the Pence Administration in whatever chicanery it wishes to inflict. I’d also like us to remember that when W took the country to war against Iraq in 2003, there were tens of thousands of people regularly in the streets protesting it. And the Right simply didn’t care – they went on killing people in Iraq regardless of the protests. If anything, they learned the lessons from Vietnam to make sure that there were as few objective witnesses as possible to the carnage. No photos of the caskets coming back home. Embedded reporters to make sure they were bonded to the units they were covering. Aggressive action against independent and international journalists, retroactively justified by saying “they should have known they were in a war zone”. If the Right learned anything from this, in spite of the fun WikiLeaks has had, it’s that they can get away with the Big Lie and do it repeatedly.
At the same time, I also believe the Right will come to regret their momentary infatuation with Julian Assange. He was useful to them for getting uncomfortable gossip documents about Clinton’s campaign. They even celebrated him for doing so. I wonder how Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly will respond when WikiLeaks starts spreading emails from the various Pence Administration cronies….
Kevin Koster commented on Fr. Jonathan Morris Defends Trump's 'America First' Policy, Touts 'American Exceptionalism,' Scolds Flag Burners
2016-12-09 13:33:09 -0500
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Let’s unpack this.
Morris is saying that xenophobia, Islamophobia, misogyny, racism and the other general hatreds fomented by the Right are fine and dandy, so long as we wrap them up in the comforting flag of America First. Check.
And he’s saying that dissenting speech is not a good thing. Hmmm. So what does Morris say about the Right Wingers who spent 8 years viciously attacking Barack Obama, calling him every racist name they could, calling him a socialist, calling him a secret Muslim, and saying that he wasn’t even born in the USA, as Trump happily fomented himself? Was all of that the kind of free speech that Morris approves of?
I would greatly appreciate having five minutes to discuss this with Morris, to see if he understands the sheer mountain of hypocrisy he is purveying.
Morris is saying that xenophobia, Islamophobia, misogyny, racism and the other general hatreds fomented by the Right are fine and dandy, so long as we wrap them up in the comforting flag of America First. Check.
And he’s saying that dissenting speech is not a good thing. Hmmm. So what does Morris say about the Right Wingers who spent 8 years viciously attacking Barack Obama, calling him every racist name they could, calling him a socialist, calling him a secret Muslim, and saying that he wasn’t even born in the USA, as Trump happily fomented himself? Was all of that the kind of free speech that Morris approves of?
I would greatly appreciate having five minutes to discuss this with Morris, to see if he understands the sheer mountain of hypocrisy he is purveying.
Kevin Koster commented on Fox News Democrat Pre-Blames Obama For Any ISIS Attacks On Trump’s Watch
2016-12-09 13:28:10 -0500
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Schoen hasn’t had any credibility since he and Caddell wrote the notorious op-ed in 2012 demanding that Barack Obama leave the presidential race and not seek re-election. He and Caddell are paid a LOT of money by Fox News to play Dems on TV while undermining pretty much anything that the Democrats actually stand for. So what he says is not important and not worth discussing.
As for the bigger meat of this story, there is absolutely going to be a “Blame Obama First” routine going on at Fox News for the next 4 years. They will justify this nonsense by saying that Obama blamed everything on W for 8 years and so they are okay to say everything now must be Obama’s fault. They’ll of course be ignoring that Obama came into office during a terrible recession that was caused by the tremendous mismanagement and incompetence of the W regime. They’ll be ignoring that W’s foreign policy had destroyed any credibility the Americans had before his people began torturing and renditioning people at will throughout the 2000s, and before the Right led the country into two different futile and unfunded wars. The country that Obama leaves to the Pence Administration today is one that is not in a recession and is fairly secure around the world, as well as one that has not destroyed its own environment or labor force and has tried to cobble together a health insurance system that can cover as many people as it can.
Within the first 6 months of 2017, we can expect to see the Pence Administration undo nearly all of that, mostly within the first 5 weeks. This will be a much more aggressive White House around the world, which will quickly lead to trade difficulties and I’m sure to a series of military confrontations with groups like ISIS. The generals Pence is bringing in are likely to go big with the bombing idea as a way of “making a point”, which will of course just drive more locals into the arms of these groups, but who worries about that? And this will be a craven White House at home, given that we will now have Education, Interior, Labor and the EPA supervised by people who object to the existence of those departments in the first place. I would not be surprised to see all four of those departments radically reduced, particularly the first and the last, which I believe the Right would like simply ended as soon as possible. And we already know that the ACA is gone and that the various international treaties (Climate Change, Iran, Cuba rapproachement) will be ripped up on January 20th.
So there will be serious consequences and a LOT of unhappy and angry people. There will be stresses that stymie the economy, as well as other problems. All of this will be blamed on Obama by Fox News, who will say it’s his fault for leaving them such terrible problems that now must be fixed. The funny part of this is that they will have already have succeeded in erasing his presidency. The constant blame they’ll throw at him afterwards will just be the extra kicks the bully usually gives to his victim after beating him up on the playground. Just to make sure the other kids pay attention.
As for the bigger meat of this story, there is absolutely going to be a “Blame Obama First” routine going on at Fox News for the next 4 years. They will justify this nonsense by saying that Obama blamed everything on W for 8 years and so they are okay to say everything now must be Obama’s fault. They’ll of course be ignoring that Obama came into office during a terrible recession that was caused by the tremendous mismanagement and incompetence of the W regime. They’ll be ignoring that W’s foreign policy had destroyed any credibility the Americans had before his people began torturing and renditioning people at will throughout the 2000s, and before the Right led the country into two different futile and unfunded wars. The country that Obama leaves to the Pence Administration today is one that is not in a recession and is fairly secure around the world, as well as one that has not destroyed its own environment or labor force and has tried to cobble together a health insurance system that can cover as many people as it can.
Within the first 6 months of 2017, we can expect to see the Pence Administration undo nearly all of that, mostly within the first 5 weeks. This will be a much more aggressive White House around the world, which will quickly lead to trade difficulties and I’m sure to a series of military confrontations with groups like ISIS. The generals Pence is bringing in are likely to go big with the bombing idea as a way of “making a point”, which will of course just drive more locals into the arms of these groups, but who worries about that? And this will be a craven White House at home, given that we will now have Education, Interior, Labor and the EPA supervised by people who object to the existence of those departments in the first place. I would not be surprised to see all four of those departments radically reduced, particularly the first and the last, which I believe the Right would like simply ended as soon as possible. And we already know that the ACA is gone and that the various international treaties (Climate Change, Iran, Cuba rapproachement) will be ripped up on January 20th.
So there will be serious consequences and a LOT of unhappy and angry people. There will be stresses that stymie the economy, as well as other problems. All of this will be blamed on Obama by Fox News, who will say it’s his fault for leaving them such terrible problems that now must be fixed. The funny part of this is that they will have already have succeeded in erasing his presidency. The constant blame they’ll throw at him afterwards will just be the extra kicks the bully usually gives to his victim after beating him up on the playground. Just to make sure the other kids pay attention.
Kevin Koster commented on Mike Pence Tries To Disguise Trump’s Call With Taiwan As ‘Congratulatory’
2016-12-08 01:54:25 -0500
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This is not hard to understand.
This group is of course going to love anything Trump does. And they were going to hate anything Obama did. Has nothing to do with whether one is right or wrong. Just that one is Trump and GOP and the other is Obama and Democrat. The former is always right and the latter is always wrong.
And again, we need to keep in mind – Mike Pence is the acting President, and will be so for the next four years. He’ll be handling the real work in the White House while Trump headlines rallies and public appearances.
This group is of course going to love anything Trump does. And they were going to hate anything Obama did. Has nothing to do with whether one is right or wrong. Just that one is Trump and GOP and the other is Obama and Democrat. The former is always right and the latter is always wrong.
And again, we need to keep in mind – Mike Pence is the acting President, and will be so for the next four years. He’ll be handling the real work in the White House while Trump headlines rallies and public appearances.
Kevin Koster commented on O’Reilly Vows Not To Go On The View Because Joy Behar Insulted BFF Donald Trump
2016-12-08 12:44:27 -0500
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There are a few more aspects to this matter that we should keep in mind:
O’Reilly’s position here is not only hypocritical but deeply offensive. He had no problem himself disrespecting Barack Obama and accusing his Administration of criminality all over the place, even though these assertions were repeatedly debunked. He had no problem having various angry Right Wingers on like Monica Crowley to say truly outrageous things about Obama every week of his presidency, including the notion that impeachable crimes were being committed in the White House every single day of the past 8 years. He further accused the Clintons of criminality and immorality and even of murder when it comes to women’s reproductive rights. He does not get to rewrite that history and get on his moral high horse because Joy Behar notes that Trump has serious temperament and stability issues, given his behavior over the past several decades. She’s not far off to note that Trump’s obsessive need to jump on Twitter and attack people can be a serious problem, or to note that he does not seem to comprehend the difference between internet rumors and truth. Those are valid concerns and O’Reilly does himself no favors by conveniently forgetting that he himself actually admitted this at various times during the campaign. What we’re seeing here is O’Reilly trying to bully his way out of his own contradictions, and that won’t work for anyone who’s been paying attention. It also won’t work for O’Reilly if he truly thinks anyone is going to buy the “elder statesman” act he now wants to assume.
O’Reilly is trying to help spread a false narrative about this election to somehow justify the Right Wing’s desperate need to show this as a “sweeping mandate” and a “landslide” for Trump. Factually, Trump lost the popular vote and only squeaked by in several swing states due to enough Clinton voters being demoralized enough or cocky enough to not show up. Trump benefited from the long-time GOP strategy of making elections as unpleasant as possible, to thus make it likelier that only their own true believers would show up, as they do in the midterms. Dems will absolutely need to work on this for 2018 and 2020 if they wish to stem the problems that Pence’s White House is going to inflict on the country. But this was not a “landslide” or a “sweeping mandate” by any means, and Pence and the others are knowingly lying when they say it was. So O’Reilly is trying to find a way to justify that statement to retroactively make it true – kind of like the GOP is about to do to Obama, where they will erase his presidency and then retroactively declare him a failure who didn’t accomplish anything.
O’Reilly’s tactic is to say that the popular vote margin for Clinton is really only in California, as he did a day or two after the election when he snapped at Austan Goolsbee that “that’s just California (sniff)”. This is now the Right Wing drumbeat – take Los Angeles and San Francisco out of the count and now Trump is ahead, see? All we have to do is ignore California because they hate us anyway.
Last night, O’Reilly took the bullying and hating to a new level with New York. Acknowledging that Trump lost New York by nearly an 80-20 margin, O’Reilly dismissed this with the notion that New York is really just a giant welfare state, and that New York City is really just the welfare capital of the world. This falls right in line with the hateful rhetoric he was spewing right after Obama was re-elected in 2012 that he only won because “people want free stuff”. So now we can ignore New York because they’re all just welfare cheats who want a handout, and we can ignore California because they’re a bunch of irrelevant know-nothings. Now that’s inclusiveness for you.
All of this meanness and bullying would already be risible, were it not for the Right Wing’s new demand that everyone just accept Trump as a wonderful guy who deserves a chance as President. I’m all for giving people a chance, but Trump ran a hate-filled, racist, misogynistic campaign about attacking his enemies. Pence’s career has been one of hatred re toward anyone with whom he disagrees. These are not people who are interested in working with anyone else. So I’ll keep my eyes open about what they do, but I have no illusions about what they intend and what they are already doing. And I will not be bullied out of remembering their conduct.
O’Reilly’s position here is not only hypocritical but deeply offensive. He had no problem himself disrespecting Barack Obama and accusing his Administration of criminality all over the place, even though these assertions were repeatedly debunked. He had no problem having various angry Right Wingers on like Monica Crowley to say truly outrageous things about Obama every week of his presidency, including the notion that impeachable crimes were being committed in the White House every single day of the past 8 years. He further accused the Clintons of criminality and immorality and even of murder when it comes to women’s reproductive rights. He does not get to rewrite that history and get on his moral high horse because Joy Behar notes that Trump has serious temperament and stability issues, given his behavior over the past several decades. She’s not far off to note that Trump’s obsessive need to jump on Twitter and attack people can be a serious problem, or to note that he does not seem to comprehend the difference between internet rumors and truth. Those are valid concerns and O’Reilly does himself no favors by conveniently forgetting that he himself actually admitted this at various times during the campaign. What we’re seeing here is O’Reilly trying to bully his way out of his own contradictions, and that won’t work for anyone who’s been paying attention. It also won’t work for O’Reilly if he truly thinks anyone is going to buy the “elder statesman” act he now wants to assume.
O’Reilly is trying to help spread a false narrative about this election to somehow justify the Right Wing’s desperate need to show this as a “sweeping mandate” and a “landslide” for Trump. Factually, Trump lost the popular vote and only squeaked by in several swing states due to enough Clinton voters being demoralized enough or cocky enough to not show up. Trump benefited from the long-time GOP strategy of making elections as unpleasant as possible, to thus make it likelier that only their own true believers would show up, as they do in the midterms. Dems will absolutely need to work on this for 2018 and 2020 if they wish to stem the problems that Pence’s White House is going to inflict on the country. But this was not a “landslide” or a “sweeping mandate” by any means, and Pence and the others are knowingly lying when they say it was. So O’Reilly is trying to find a way to justify that statement to retroactively make it true – kind of like the GOP is about to do to Obama, where they will erase his presidency and then retroactively declare him a failure who didn’t accomplish anything.
O’Reilly’s tactic is to say that the popular vote margin for Clinton is really only in California, as he did a day or two after the election when he snapped at Austan Goolsbee that “that’s just California (sniff)”. This is now the Right Wing drumbeat – take Los Angeles and San Francisco out of the count and now Trump is ahead, see? All we have to do is ignore California because they hate us anyway.
Last night, O’Reilly took the bullying and hating to a new level with New York. Acknowledging that Trump lost New York by nearly an 80-20 margin, O’Reilly dismissed this with the notion that New York is really just a giant welfare state, and that New York City is really just the welfare capital of the world. This falls right in line with the hateful rhetoric he was spewing right after Obama was re-elected in 2012 that he only won because “people want free stuff”. So now we can ignore New York because they’re all just welfare cheats who want a handout, and we can ignore California because they’re a bunch of irrelevant know-nothings. Now that’s inclusiveness for you.
All of this meanness and bullying would already be risible, were it not for the Right Wing’s new demand that everyone just accept Trump as a wonderful guy who deserves a chance as President. I’m all for giving people a chance, but Trump ran a hate-filled, racist, misogynistic campaign about attacking his enemies. Pence’s career has been one of hatred re toward anyone with whom he disagrees. These are not people who are interested in working with anyone else. So I’ll keep my eyes open about what they do, but I have no illusions about what they intend and what they are already doing. And I will not be bullied out of remembering their conduct.
Kevin Koster commented on Fox News Celebrates: You can say ‘Merry Christmas’ Again Because Donald Trump Is Now The President
2016-12-07 00:07:30 -0500
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Yet another example of an early start to The Year of The Bully.
It’s a Merry Christmas to these guys because they’re dreaming of how they’ll be able to erase the entire Obama presidency in a couple of days in mid-January, and then kick the sand in everyone’s faces. Scut Farkus lives.
It’s a Merry Christmas to these guys because they’re dreaming of how they’ll be able to erase the entire Obama presidency in a couple of days in mid-January, and then kick the sand in everyone’s faces. Scut Farkus lives.
Kevin Koster commented on Fox Psychiatrist Blames Liberals For Pizzagate And Fake News
2016-12-06 23:55:09 -0500
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Ablow’s comments here are incoherent.
This really isn’t hard to understand as a story. Right Wingers, including Flynn’s wacky son, promulgated a vicious lie about a pizzeria that resulted in one of their followers bringing an assault rifle to the place with the intent of committing violent mayhem. There isn’t anything more to it than that. It’s the same kind of nonsense as Bill O’Reilly repeatedly referring to Dr. Tiller as “Tiller the Baby Killer” until one of his viewers murdered Tiller.
I really wish the Right would take responsibility for this kind of thing, but they never seem to want to do so.
In the current mode of Right Wing bullying and gloating, this kind of thing is becoming a greater concern. As more and more Right Wingers are feeling emboldened, and are exercising their long-festering hatred of everyone else, I am becoming increasingly concerned about the likelihood of more events like this occurring.
This really isn’t hard to understand as a story. Right Wingers, including Flynn’s wacky son, promulgated a vicious lie about a pizzeria that resulted in one of their followers bringing an assault rifle to the place with the intent of committing violent mayhem. There isn’t anything more to it than that. It’s the same kind of nonsense as Bill O’Reilly repeatedly referring to Dr. Tiller as “Tiller the Baby Killer” until one of his viewers murdered Tiller.
I really wish the Right would take responsibility for this kind of thing, but they never seem to want to do so.
In the current mode of Right Wing bullying and gloating, this kind of thing is becoming a greater concern. As more and more Right Wingers are feeling emboldened, and are exercising their long-festering hatred of everyone else, I am becoming increasingly concerned about the likelihood of more events like this occurring.
Kevin Koster commented on Fox Cheerleads Trump’s Reckless Call With Taiwan
2016-12-06 13:32:21 -0500
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Fully agreed, Eyes. These guys are going to learn the wrong lesson from this. It’s becoming a teachable moment, but one that Trump will think means he can now bully China.
Kevin Koster commented on Mike Huckabee Calls Utterly Unqualified Dr. Ben Carson ‘A Terrific Choice’ For HUD Secretary
2016-12-05 23:22:03 -0500
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I have to hand it to Mike Huckabee – he has played the situation of the past two years brilliantly. He knew he wasn’t going to be President, but he positioned himself to support the most extreme person he could. He was never going to support Ted Cruz, who he openly detests, but he was happy to support Trump. And he doesn’t really want to spend his time doing the boring work of running one of these agencies for what wouldn’t be much of a salary.
But because he’s behaved himself very well in the eyes of the Right and Fox News, playing to the businessmen at Fox News and the most wild-eyed of the evangelical community, he’s poised to resume his Fox News weekend show in the new year. I’ve been waiting for them to announce the return of the Huckabee show as of January, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it pop up as soon as they can close a deal with him. (The only thing that was holding this back was the notion that he might take a position in the Trump cabinet, but it’s evident he turned that idea down flat.) This makes sense for Huckabee, as he’s set to make a LOT more money when he resumes his contract. And it allows Huckabee to block Ted Cruz from coming to Fox News after he gets primaried out of office in a couple of years. So Huckabee both gets to personally profit from the Trump presidency and gets to prevent Cruz from getting access to the well where Huckabee has been drinking for the past near decade. This is a long-game version of the delightful moment during the campaign where Huckabee seized on the Kim Davis controversy and blocked Cruz from being able to poach on the territory. One gets the impression that Huckabee got a lot of satisfaction by denying Cruz that moment, and he’ll get a lot more satisfaction by denying Cruz the big payday here.
But because he’s behaved himself very well in the eyes of the Right and Fox News, playing to the businessmen at Fox News and the most wild-eyed of the evangelical community, he’s poised to resume his Fox News weekend show in the new year. I’ve been waiting for them to announce the return of the Huckabee show as of January, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it pop up as soon as they can close a deal with him. (The only thing that was holding this back was the notion that he might take a position in the Trump cabinet, but it’s evident he turned that idea down flat.) This makes sense for Huckabee, as he’s set to make a LOT more money when he resumes his contract. And it allows Huckabee to block Ted Cruz from coming to Fox News after he gets primaried out of office in a couple of years. So Huckabee both gets to personally profit from the Trump presidency and gets to prevent Cruz from getting access to the well where Huckabee has been drinking for the past near decade. This is a long-game version of the delightful moment during the campaign where Huckabee seized on the Kim Davis controversy and blocked Cruz from being able to poach on the territory. One gets the impression that Huckabee got a lot of satisfaction by denying Cruz that moment, and he’ll get a lot more satisfaction by denying Cruz the big payday here.
Kevin Koster commented on Former Fox Contributor Dr. Ben Carson Nominated To Be HUD Secretary Despite Utter Lack Of Qualifications
2016-12-05 23:13:20 -0500
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The intent of the Pence Administration should be clear, if their announced ideas haven’t already made it clear. These guys are not interested in having any of these agencies actually function – unless it’s for the purpose of tearing away at the social contract of our society.
Putting Ben Carson in charge of HUD is a recipe for making HUD a shadow of its former self. Rather than working to help in the areas of housing and urban development, Carson will of course take the position that these people don’t need help and that that the department should be cut way back and defunded as much as possible. I fully expect him to reduce the budget and the employees by at least half within the next year or two, since he sees them as the problem and not the solution.
Similarly, Betsy DeVos at Education will undoubtedly shrink that department as much as possible in prelude to getting rid of it outright. Her approach has already been to encourage charter schools, private schools and religious schools over the Right Wing’s hated enemy, the public school structure of this country. Under DeVos, we should expect to see the idea of school vouchers really pushed, with the effect of gutting what funding schools still get these days. Richer families will get a subsidy for the private schools where they wish to send their kids, and poorer families will be left with a choice of either staying with a miserably underfunded public school or taking their chances with unreliable charters or spending a LOT more money than they can afford to put their kids into private school, as the vouchers will never cover very much. This will essentially serve to give the rich yet another tax break, while leaving the rest of us with a broken, empty vessel of a public school system. Which will allow the Right to close this department and happily practice the libertarian philosophy of IGMFU under an official flag.
Myron Ebell at EPA will similarly gut and reduce that department, to the point that it no longer can do anything but issue useless and ignored recommendations to the companies that will happily pollute and contribute to an acceleration of global warming.
Jeff Sessions at Justice will do very little to actually seek justice for the people of this country, but he will spend time pursuing his political opponents and those people that Pence wants punished for what the Right sees as their sins. Equal protection for all? Not under Sessions, who’s been noted for racism and who will have a blanket go-ahead to restore what the Right sees as Order to various communities around the country. That means a much more aggressive policing approach and an assumption that non-whites are aggressors. That means an assumption that a Middle Eastern immigrant is a terrorist until proven innocent. That means a studied refusal to recognize hate crimes and injustices against the LGBT community, among many others. And it means that more emphasis will be placed on deporting as many immigrants as possible, in the name of “securing” the country. I note that Bill O’Reilly is already advocating for an “illegal immigrant registry” – something that should chill anyone in that situation. What he’s saying is that a Sessions Justice Dept would demand that immigrants give their name, address, etc, and then hope that ICE doesn’t immediately deport them. O’Reilly has to know that the actual result of the deportations and mandated registries will be that most of these people will retreat to the shadows as fast as they can. Which means that they’ll be at the mercy of employers who will pay them even less than they already do, and they will have no recourse. Which is of course what the various agro companies really wanted in the first place – an employee pool of terrified people who don’t dare say anything about lousy working conditions and pay.
We could go on – hawks throughout the Defense Department, anti-Cuban activists in Treasury, etc, etc, etc.
What do all these people have in common, other than the fact that some of them have never really held a public office and have no idea what to do there? The fact that pretty much all of these people are fundamentally opposed to the existence of the departments they will be supervising. In other words, government agencies being run by those who hate those agencies and would rather that they did not exist. We really shouldn’t be surprised that this is who Mike Pence is appointing, and we shouldn’t be surprised when the result is to radically shrink those departments or end them entirely.
Putting Ben Carson in charge of HUD is a recipe for making HUD a shadow of its former self. Rather than working to help in the areas of housing and urban development, Carson will of course take the position that these people don’t need help and that that the department should be cut way back and defunded as much as possible. I fully expect him to reduce the budget and the employees by at least half within the next year or two, since he sees them as the problem and not the solution.
Similarly, Betsy DeVos at Education will undoubtedly shrink that department as much as possible in prelude to getting rid of it outright. Her approach has already been to encourage charter schools, private schools and religious schools over the Right Wing’s hated enemy, the public school structure of this country. Under DeVos, we should expect to see the idea of school vouchers really pushed, with the effect of gutting what funding schools still get these days. Richer families will get a subsidy for the private schools where they wish to send their kids, and poorer families will be left with a choice of either staying with a miserably underfunded public school or taking their chances with unreliable charters or spending a LOT more money than they can afford to put their kids into private school, as the vouchers will never cover very much. This will essentially serve to give the rich yet another tax break, while leaving the rest of us with a broken, empty vessel of a public school system. Which will allow the Right to close this department and happily practice the libertarian philosophy of IGMFU under an official flag.
Myron Ebell at EPA will similarly gut and reduce that department, to the point that it no longer can do anything but issue useless and ignored recommendations to the companies that will happily pollute and contribute to an acceleration of global warming.
Jeff Sessions at Justice will do very little to actually seek justice for the people of this country, but he will spend time pursuing his political opponents and those people that Pence wants punished for what the Right sees as their sins. Equal protection for all? Not under Sessions, who’s been noted for racism and who will have a blanket go-ahead to restore what the Right sees as Order to various communities around the country. That means a much more aggressive policing approach and an assumption that non-whites are aggressors. That means an assumption that a Middle Eastern immigrant is a terrorist until proven innocent. That means a studied refusal to recognize hate crimes and injustices against the LGBT community, among many others. And it means that more emphasis will be placed on deporting as many immigrants as possible, in the name of “securing” the country. I note that Bill O’Reilly is already advocating for an “illegal immigrant registry” – something that should chill anyone in that situation. What he’s saying is that a Sessions Justice Dept would demand that immigrants give their name, address, etc, and then hope that ICE doesn’t immediately deport them. O’Reilly has to know that the actual result of the deportations and mandated registries will be that most of these people will retreat to the shadows as fast as they can. Which means that they’ll be at the mercy of employers who will pay them even less than they already do, and they will have no recourse. Which is of course what the various agro companies really wanted in the first place – an employee pool of terrified people who don’t dare say anything about lousy working conditions and pay.
We could go on – hawks throughout the Defense Department, anti-Cuban activists in Treasury, etc, etc, etc.
What do all these people have in common, other than the fact that some of them have never really held a public office and have no idea what to do there? The fact that pretty much all of these people are fundamentally opposed to the existence of the departments they will be supervising. In other words, government agencies being run by those who hate those agencies and would rather that they did not exist. We really shouldn’t be surprised that this is who Mike Pence is appointing, and we shouldn’t be surprised when the result is to radically shrink those departments or end them entirely.
Kevin Koster commented on Why Does Fox’s Chris Wallace Care So Much About Delegitimizing Jill Stein’s Vote Recount?
2016-12-05 09:08:06 -0500
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Truman may be correct in his predictions, although I’m hoping that not all of that will go that far. (I don’t think they’ll be able to touch Social Security, as much as they want to).
David hits the nail on the head – these guys have been acting like sore winners from the moment they squeaked in on November 8th. Wallace’s behavior here is exactly what we’ve been seeing, and will be seeing for the next several years – outright bullying and nastiness. Get ready for the Year of the Bully.
Ellen is correct to note that the overall point is that Clinton easily won the popular vote in a landslide over Trump. If the Right wants to talk about 62.5 million voters choosing Trump’s viciousness, that’s fine. The response is that 65 million chose Clinton, so how does Fox News wish to answer that. Squeaking by in multiple counties does not constitute a landslide for Trump or any mandate for him to do the damage he’s doing. It constitutes squeaking by and then running away with the football to scream “I won! I won! It wasn’t even close!”
Seriously, this is the kind of thing that used to get kids sent to bed without their supper.
David hits the nail on the head – these guys have been acting like sore winners from the moment they squeaked in on November 8th. Wallace’s behavior here is exactly what we’ve been seeing, and will be seeing for the next several years – outright bullying and nastiness. Get ready for the Year of the Bully.
Ellen is correct to note that the overall point is that Clinton easily won the popular vote in a landslide over Trump. If the Right wants to talk about 62.5 million voters choosing Trump’s viciousness, that’s fine. The response is that 65 million chose Clinton, so how does Fox News wish to answer that. Squeaking by in multiple counties does not constitute a landslide for Trump or any mandate for him to do the damage he’s doing. It constitutes squeaking by and then running away with the football to scream “I won! I won! It wasn’t even close!”
Seriously, this is the kind of thing that used to get kids sent to bed without their supper.
Kevin Koster commented on Fox Pundits Suggest Trump's Skipped Intelligence Briefings Just Part Of Making America Great Again
2016-12-05 08:56:42 -0500
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Again, we really need to keep an eye on Pence more than Trump here. Pence is the one who will be making these decisions. Trump is a distraction – albeit a hugely offensive one. While everyone looks at him and has a conniption fit, Pence will be quietly rolling back the world.
Kevin Koster commented on Hampshire College Calls Cops On Fox’s Jesse Watters
2016-12-03 17:12:36 -0500
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I hear you David, but we should not have any doubts about whether these guys are going to behave with any decency or not.
Trump isn’t even the one who’s going to be running this Administration. It’s really going to be the presidency of Mike Pence, who will push everything all the way over to the Far Right. Even a cursory glance at the cabinet positions they’ve announced so far is testament to a truly dangerous White House. While Pence is busy tearing up much of what we have understood to be our country, Trump will be out on the rally trail, as they previewed some 6 months ago. Pence will do the actual work and Trump will be out there “making America Great again”.
I have no uncertainty or even dread over what these people are going to do – they’ve already made that clear. I do have a great sadness for the people of this country and for the people of the world, for what we are about to see occur.
I agree that it will be necessary for those principled people who choose to stay in the US to be prepared to physically defend themselves. Be aware that having an attack dog may not actually protect you from harm – if anything, these guys could try to twist the situation to accuse you of assault rather than the other way around. But people need to be ready to deal with continual verbal and physical harassment. My point about that is that the far Right has been emboldened by the election. We see repeated examples of this now occurring virally. The worst was the kids in the schoolrooms taunting the other kids. But we also have had the various Trumpers verbally attacking servers in restaurants, coffee shops and stores. And we had the real winner on the Delta flight who screamed at the other passengers for several minutes before being banned for life from Delta. That’s just the beginning. I don’t think it will help anyone to just hope these guys go away. They won’t. Bullies never do, until they are humiliated themselves. Right now, they feel loud and proud – and that makes them extremely dangerous. My thought is that if one of them tries an assault, make sure you have some kind of witness or video record of it. If you can call the police, it’s best to handle it that way.
My point about people wanting to step outside the country until this madness is over is simply that there are a large number of principled people who don’t want the label of what will be happening here. In the same way that we had the Not In My Name group when the Bush/Cheney people chose to viciously attack various countries around the world 14 years ago. This will be more extreme and more violent, going in both directions. I can completely understand anyone not wanting to be in the middle of the situation, and wanting to be able to get some distance from it. In fact, I encourage getting as much distance away from these people as possible.
Trump isn’t even the one who’s going to be running this Administration. It’s really going to be the presidency of Mike Pence, who will push everything all the way over to the Far Right. Even a cursory glance at the cabinet positions they’ve announced so far is testament to a truly dangerous White House. While Pence is busy tearing up much of what we have understood to be our country, Trump will be out on the rally trail, as they previewed some 6 months ago. Pence will do the actual work and Trump will be out there “making America Great again”.
I have no uncertainty or even dread over what these people are going to do – they’ve already made that clear. I do have a great sadness for the people of this country and for the people of the world, for what we are about to see occur.
I agree that it will be necessary for those principled people who choose to stay in the US to be prepared to physically defend themselves. Be aware that having an attack dog may not actually protect you from harm – if anything, these guys could try to twist the situation to accuse you of assault rather than the other way around. But people need to be ready to deal with continual verbal and physical harassment. My point about that is that the far Right has been emboldened by the election. We see repeated examples of this now occurring virally. The worst was the kids in the schoolrooms taunting the other kids. But we also have had the various Trumpers verbally attacking servers in restaurants, coffee shops and stores. And we had the real winner on the Delta flight who screamed at the other passengers for several minutes before being banned for life from Delta. That’s just the beginning. I don’t think it will help anyone to just hope these guys go away. They won’t. Bullies never do, until they are humiliated themselves. Right now, they feel loud and proud – and that makes them extremely dangerous. My thought is that if one of them tries an assault, make sure you have some kind of witness or video record of it. If you can call the police, it’s best to handle it that way.
My point about people wanting to step outside the country until this madness is over is simply that there are a large number of principled people who don’t want the label of what will be happening here. In the same way that we had the Not In My Name group when the Bush/Cheney people chose to viciously attack various countries around the world 14 years ago. This will be more extreme and more violent, going in both directions. I can completely understand anyone not wanting to be in the middle of the situation, and wanting to be able to get some distance from it. In fact, I encourage getting as much distance away from these people as possible.
Kevin Koster commented on Busted! We Caught Fox Changing Its Desk To Make Sure You See A Female Anchor’s Legs
2016-12-03 12:40:56 -0500
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I suppose I’m simply used to the misogyny at Fox News. I’m more interested in the topic they were discussing on the 28th – note how they are continuing to bang the drum about prosecuting the Clintons. This continues to be discussed multiple times a day on different shows across their spectrum, both on Fox News and on Fox Business. This is not an accident and we should understand what it means.
Trump’s Gloat-a-Thon a couple of nights ago featured a chilling moment of the entire crowd screaming and chanting “LOCK HER UP!” while the new President-elect stood there grinning and enjoying the viciousness. Anyone who thinks that Jeff Sessions will not be working as a priority to indict the Clintons and everyone around them is fooling themselves, to be frank.
Never, never underestimate the hate these people have for Democrats, and for the Clintons in specific.
Trump’s Gloat-a-Thon a couple of nights ago featured a chilling moment of the entire crowd screaming and chanting “LOCK HER UP!” while the new President-elect stood there grinning and enjoying the viciousness. Anyone who thinks that Jeff Sessions will not be working as a priority to indict the Clintons and everyone around them is fooling themselves, to be frank.
Never, never underestimate the hate these people have for Democrats, and for the Clintons in specific.
Kevin Koster commented on Trump Surrogate Looks Forward To Supreme Court Criminalizing Flag Burning
2016-12-05 08:54:46 -0500
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Trump has made clear that he has no interest in the nuts and bolts of actually doing the job as President. That work will be done by Mike Pence, per the agreement we heard about last summer. Trump’s self-assigned task will be in doing plenty of these victory lap tours and rallies to promote himself and “Make America Great Again”. The real work will be done by the Pence Administration.
There was an interesting article on CNN’s website this morning about concerns of the LGBT clergy community about what will happen to their rights under the incoming presidency. I was frankly surprised to see them wondering – these guys have made what will happen extremely clear. Pence’s entire career has been about hating and shunning them – of course he’s going to take actions to attack them. Did they think that Donald Trump would appoint a Supreme Court justice who would stick up for them for even a split second? Really?
There was an interesting article on CNN’s website this morning about concerns of the LGBT clergy community about what will happen to their rights under the incoming presidency. I was frankly surprised to see them wondering – these guys have made what will happen extremely clear. Pence’s entire career has been about hating and shunning them – of course he’s going to take actions to attack them. Did they think that Donald Trump would appoint a Supreme Court justice who would stick up for them for even a split second? Really?
Kevin Koster commented on While Fox Gushes Over Trump And The 1,000 Carrier Jobs Saved, Don’t Forget They Hated President Obama Saving 1.5 Million Auto Jobs
2016-12-03 13:18:17 -0500
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Fox News is already changing up its approach on economic news. They spent an interesting amount of time on Friday trying to talk down any influence President Obama has had on the economy and trying to pre-emptively set up a discussion for the next few years in terms of Donald Trump getting full credit if the economy does well. Given that his behavior is guaranteed to do the opposite, I have to wonder how quickly Fox News will blame Obama for the recession after Trump provokes China into calling in its markers.
Kevin Koster commented on Fox Host Bolling Is Just Fine With Millions Going Without Health Insurance Because ‘You Have Emergency Rooms’
2016-12-05 02:21:20 -0500
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John, I truly hope you’re right. I just don’t see that situation happening, given what we are already seeing in the works.
Trump isn’t going to be calling the shots on a lot of this in any case. He can be counted on to provide is a lot of sideshow theatrics and chest-pounding and flat-out bullying, but he’s not going to spend a lot of time noodling on about policy. That work will be done by Mike Pence and the Far Right people surrounding him. Trump may demand certain things happen, but the real work will be done by the Pence team.
The other part of this is that the crowds who Trump wants to satisfy have been whipped up into a complete hatred of Barack Obama and the Democrats. They’ve been whipped into a frenzy of wanting to see the ACA trashed and Hillary Clinton thrown headfirst into the slammer. This group wants to see a massive cement wall built on the Mexican border and they want to see Mexico’s President forced to bow down to Trump and pay for it himself. I’m not sure how Trump can really accomplish the final idea, but Pence’s team can easily accomplish the first two goals apace. They’ll gut the ACA right away and do a few victory laps over that one. Jeff Sessions will then go through the steps of pursuing criminal cases against the Clintons. I’m sure we’ll hear a lot about deportations as well over the next year or two. And we’ll hear about the young Borks that Pence’s team will put on the Supreme Court.
I don’t think the Trump base understands that many of these various actions will actually hurt them in the long term – they just want the visceral satisfaction of knowing they killed the ACA or that they were able to see the Clintons frog-marched the way these guys know everyone wanted to see Karl Rove and Dick Cheney paraded.
Trump isn’t going to be calling the shots on a lot of this in any case. He can be counted on to provide is a lot of sideshow theatrics and chest-pounding and flat-out bullying, but he’s not going to spend a lot of time noodling on about policy. That work will be done by Mike Pence and the Far Right people surrounding him. Trump may demand certain things happen, but the real work will be done by the Pence team.
The other part of this is that the crowds who Trump wants to satisfy have been whipped up into a complete hatred of Barack Obama and the Democrats. They’ve been whipped into a frenzy of wanting to see the ACA trashed and Hillary Clinton thrown headfirst into the slammer. This group wants to see a massive cement wall built on the Mexican border and they want to see Mexico’s President forced to bow down to Trump and pay for it himself. I’m not sure how Trump can really accomplish the final idea, but Pence’s team can easily accomplish the first two goals apace. They’ll gut the ACA right away and do a few victory laps over that one. Jeff Sessions will then go through the steps of pursuing criminal cases against the Clintons. I’m sure we’ll hear a lot about deportations as well over the next year or two. And we’ll hear about the young Borks that Pence’s team will put on the Supreme Court.
I don’t think the Trump base understands that many of these various actions will actually hurt them in the long term – they just want the visceral satisfaction of knowing they killed the ACA or that they were able to see the Clintons frog-marched the way these guys know everyone wanted to see Karl Rove and Dick Cheney paraded.