Kevin Koster commented on Sheriff David Clarke Calls For ‘Pitchforks And Torches’
2016-10-16 12:53:32 -0400
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Joseph is correct here, although I would have preferred to see Al Gore actually pursue a full recount of Florida in 2000 as was his right. Sadly, he chose to just cherry pick a few counties he thought he would win. What was needed was a statewide recount, which later research proved would have shown he had actually won the state of Florida by the barest of margins. I guarantee the Bush people would have screamed bloody murder at this and we would have had a do-over in Florida that would have emphatically put Gore in the White House. But he chose to walk away instead. I agree with his approach of not being childish about it, but I wish he would have used the proper means that were open to him to stand up for the millions of people who were effectively disenfranchised in 2000.
That said, had Gore listened even a little to left wing Dems who were begging him to take some of the policy positions of Ralph Nader, he would not have found himself in such a tight margin in Florida.
As for the Tea Party nonsense, I agree that nearly all of it has been about obstructing President Obama and hiding behind some faux patriotism. It’s also been well-funded by the Koch Brothers and the like, an aspect that the right wing tries to muddy by throwing smears at George Soros.
I also agree that Clarke’s behavior this year has been acutely irresponsible for a Sheriff. The best thing he could do at this time would be to voluntarily step down and allow a non-partisan Sheriff take over. Or his citizens could recall him.
I fully expect Trump to throw a complete tantrum after he loses. I doubt he’ll concede in any public way, and I really doubt he’ll make the traditional phone call. Trump doesn’t handle losing well – and all the other parts of the end of a presidential campaign would be skipped by him while he announces his new media empire in the making. I expect him to make a series of comments about the election being rigged against him and that he’ll be filing a lawsuit about that but in the meantime, here’s Trump TV. It’s for that reason that I expect some Trumpsters to attempt to disrupt the inauguration in January.
On the other hand, it will be deeply satisfying to either see the Senate go ahead and confirm Merrick Garland in December or see Hillary Clinton make the first of what should be at least 2 SC appointments within her first week in the White House.
That said, had Gore listened even a little to left wing Dems who were begging him to take some of the policy positions of Ralph Nader, he would not have found himself in such a tight margin in Florida.
As for the Tea Party nonsense, I agree that nearly all of it has been about obstructing President Obama and hiding behind some faux patriotism. It’s also been well-funded by the Koch Brothers and the like, an aspect that the right wing tries to muddy by throwing smears at George Soros.
I also agree that Clarke’s behavior this year has been acutely irresponsible for a Sheriff. The best thing he could do at this time would be to voluntarily step down and allow a non-partisan Sheriff take over. Or his citizens could recall him.
I fully expect Trump to throw a complete tantrum after he loses. I doubt he’ll concede in any public way, and I really doubt he’ll make the traditional phone call. Trump doesn’t handle losing well – and all the other parts of the end of a presidential campaign would be skipped by him while he announces his new media empire in the making. I expect him to make a series of comments about the election being rigged against him and that he’ll be filing a lawsuit about that but in the meantime, here’s Trump TV. It’s for that reason that I expect some Trumpsters to attempt to disrupt the inauguration in January.
On the other hand, it will be deeply satisfying to either see the Senate go ahead and confirm Merrick Garland in December or see Hillary Clinton make the first of what should be at least 2 SC appointments within her first week in the White House.
Kevin Koster commented on Get Ready For The Impeachment Of Hillary Clinton – Sean Hannity Is
2016-10-19 06:21:54 -0400
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It is extremely odd to see Daniel suddenly introducing this kind of material and not understanding its nature. I had thought he was presenting himself as an experienced intellectual with scholastic background. Instead, he has repeated various unfortunate racial assumptions and even now refuses to support them with any actual research.
He now brings in an excerpt from a Russian-hacked email, out of a large trove dumped by WikiLeaks and which we have no way of knowing how it’s been edited or changed. We’ve already had various parts of these releases discredited as actually being misquotes of published articles, and we’ve had an official determination that these dumps are the result of Russian hackers trying to affect our election. This apparently does not concern Daniel, who previously was very concerned about his fear of foreigners affecting this country. But let’s assume for argument that the specific email he’s worried about is a genuine article. If it is, it’s actually a document of inclusion, not racism. The email describes a list of potential VP options, any of whom could be a good choice to hold the office. Identifying their background, ethnicity, etc is not racism – it is simply identifying who is being discussed as a candidate for high office. If the list were about ruling OUT a candidate due to their ethnicity, then THAT would be racism. Compare this to Trump and Daniel’s discussion of the reasons he is afraid of Muslim immigrants and how he wishes to keep them out of the US. One discussion is about bringing people in, the other is about keeping people out. One is about looking forward, the other is about the fear of an Other. I believe it’s easy to determine which approach is truly in racist territory.
Regarding the selectively edited videos purveyed by James O’keefe, there’s a reason why most people ignore them. O’Keefe has a long record of fraud and criminality. He is simply not a credible source, particularly since we have no idea what he’s removed from these tapes – such as the part where the participants are apparently asked to discuss how they would handle a hypothetical situation. But even if we look at the tapes per se, are we really meant to believe that someone showing up outside a Trump rally wearing a Planned Parenthood t-shirt is enough to send Trump supporters into a crazed violent attack? And are we meant to believe that the Chicago riot was solely due to a couple of agitators rather than what we already know was a situation of angry Chicago residents who don’t like Trump’s racism confronting a bunch of Trump supporters who do like Trump’s racism?
If this is truly what Daniel believes will be a solid scholastic support for his unfortunate racial assertions, I don’t know how he believes he would convince anyone, let alone the people who read and post at this site.
He now brings in an excerpt from a Russian-hacked email, out of a large trove dumped by WikiLeaks and which we have no way of knowing how it’s been edited or changed. We’ve already had various parts of these releases discredited as actually being misquotes of published articles, and we’ve had an official determination that these dumps are the result of Russian hackers trying to affect our election. This apparently does not concern Daniel, who previously was very concerned about his fear of foreigners affecting this country. But let’s assume for argument that the specific email he’s worried about is a genuine article. If it is, it’s actually a document of inclusion, not racism. The email describes a list of potential VP options, any of whom could be a good choice to hold the office. Identifying their background, ethnicity, etc is not racism – it is simply identifying who is being discussed as a candidate for high office. If the list were about ruling OUT a candidate due to their ethnicity, then THAT would be racism. Compare this to Trump and Daniel’s discussion of the reasons he is afraid of Muslim immigrants and how he wishes to keep them out of the US. One discussion is about bringing people in, the other is about keeping people out. One is about looking forward, the other is about the fear of an Other. I believe it’s easy to determine which approach is truly in racist territory.
Regarding the selectively edited videos purveyed by James O’keefe, there’s a reason why most people ignore them. O’Keefe has a long record of fraud and criminality. He is simply not a credible source, particularly since we have no idea what he’s removed from these tapes – such as the part where the participants are apparently asked to discuss how they would handle a hypothetical situation. But even if we look at the tapes per se, are we really meant to believe that someone showing up outside a Trump rally wearing a Planned Parenthood t-shirt is enough to send Trump supporters into a crazed violent attack? And are we meant to believe that the Chicago riot was solely due to a couple of agitators rather than what we already know was a situation of angry Chicago residents who don’t like Trump’s racism confronting a bunch of Trump supporters who do like Trump’s racism?
If this is truly what Daniel believes will be a solid scholastic support for his unfortunate racial assertions, I don’t know how he believes he would convince anyone, let alone the people who read and post at this site.
Kevin Koster commented on Accused Sexual Harasser O'Reilly And Serial Adulterer Gingrich Attack Media Coverage Of Donald Trump’s Alleged Sexual Abuse: ‘Nobody Is Perfect’
2016-10-15 12:36:32 -0400
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I think it’s pretty clear now that the Trump campaign is in a death spiral. There is very little chance they can make up their shortfall in the remaining 3 ½ weeks, and Trump has apparently committed himself to lashing out in every direction rather than even pretending to act “presidential.” As a result, Fox News and right wing radio are being presented with a quandary. They know their candidate is going to lose and someone they absolutely hate is going to become president – so how do they present that situation to their audience?
Bill O’Reilly is in a particularly ticklish position here. He clearly likes Trump and wants him to win, but can’t maintain that in the light of what’s clearly happening, particularly with Trump’s numbers going south. The fact that Fox News polling and right wing former pollster Scott Rasmussen are now agreeing that Clinton is far enough ahead to pretty much have this is definitely not a help for the pro-Trumpers out there. So the story now is how do they play the endgame? For O’Reilly, he’s likely to blame Trump’s downfall on salacious rumors, thus allowing him to pretend he has the moral high ground to tut-tut that the media should have focused more on Clinton’s liabilities and things like WikiLeaks.
I note with WikiLeaks that I have to wonder if Julian Assange hasn’t just completely played the American right for fools, and if he isn’t having a good laugh at their expense, given that there’s really no there there when you actually look at what his hackers got from the Russians. Assange has pushed the right wing into a completely hypocritical position – they HATED him several years ago when he and Manning were publishing materials the right didn’t want out there, but now they’re sympathetic to him if he can give them dirt on the Clintons. He repeatedly rings their bell with hints about great stuff he’s going to release, but teases the release with comments like “some of it is interesting, some of it is amusing.” Then he dumps a hacker trove of internal emails that pretty much show snarkiness inside a campaign – real shocker there. Given that there are thousands of almost completely irrelevant emails in this dump, the right wing is left scrambling through all this dreck looking for the needle in the haystack, and there really isn’t one that I’ve seen – something Assange admitted in his announcement a couple of weeks ago. So we have the spectacle of the right wing frantically trying to find that smoking needle in the midst of thousands of pounds of dross – I have to believe Assange is having a good time watching the attempted frenzy. This may be the ultimate rick roll ever done.
But while that’s happening, Fox News knows it must continue to beat the drum that this is a “real serious scandal” for Clinton, and that somehow the revelations about Trump’s boorishness and creepiness are somehow only coming out as a “wag the dog” maneuver rather than a nail into the coffin of the Trump campaign. The main audience of Fox News are right wingers who have repeatedly been told that the Clintons are evil career criminals who should be in jail – so that drumbeat would be comforting to them in a time when it’s obvious their candidate is going down in flames. Fox News and the right wing are also being careful about not repeating the crippling mistake they made in 2012, where they insisted that Mitt Romney was going to win, with some even opining he would win in a landslide and saying that the polls showing the truth were “skewed”. (I note that the 2012 right wing spin was so humiliatingly disproven that Scott Rasmussen was forced to leave polling in disgrace – he had previously been touted up to that election day as “the most accurate” of all the pollsters by using the questionable accounting tactic of only using the final few days of a race to measure that accuracy. Rasmussen had been notorious for keeping a right wing thumb on the scale up to that point to make it appear that the right wing candidate was going to win, and then taking the thumb off at the very end to show real numbers just before the polls opened. In 2012, Rasmussen and Gallup kept their thumbs on the scale all the way down, thinking it would help stimulate more right wingers to vote and discourage everyone else – this sadly backfired for them as we saw.)
So now we have Fox News openly admitting that Clinton is likely to win, and various right wing AM radio shouters are saying the same thing. This leaves two issues for the various pundits and anchors to handle. First, who do they blame for the defeat? Do they admit that it’s Trump himself, as Ben Shapiro is positioning himself to do since he never liked Trump in the first place? Do they follow the line that “the whole media is in the tank for Hillary” as Limbaugh has done? Do they blame “weak Republicans” for not sticking with Trump, like Hannity and Gingrich? Do they pretend they have some gravitas that sets them above the fray as O’Reilly is laughingly attempting here? Do they pretend to have objectivity, as Megyn Kelly is currently playing? (She was never a Trump fan for obvious reasons, and her open disdain for Trump’s mouthpieces on her show is becoming truly entertaining as we get down to the final days of the campaign)
I will be curious to see if Trump really does try to start up a “Trump TV” to compete with Fox and Newsmax and the other right wing outlets. If he does, the behavior of Hannity, Gingrich and Huckabee, among others, makes a lot of sense. I could easily see Hannity jumping over to a new Trump network with Gingrich and Roger Ailes and essentially continuing the propaganda they’ve been inflicting for the past 20 years. I could see Kelly positioning herself as the primary anchor of a less rabidly right wing Fox News in the post-Ailes, post-election period, particularly if Hannity jumps ship and O’Reilly retires in another year. Huckabee could go either way – if there are two networks of this ilk, he has his pick of the litter – one of them will give him a cushy weekend show like he had before on Fox News (and most likely will again in 2017). (I have to feel a little sorry for Ted Cruz, in that he clearly thought he was going to have that kind of cushy gig but will instead wind up with only Glenn Beck to turn to – assuming that Beck’s organization survives much longer.)
One final thought – I have kept a little bit of video of Newt Gingrich, recorded on August 18th during an appearance with Hannity. His exact words: “I’m going to go out on a limb tonight, and you can keep this tape and remind me about it after the election, okay? Donald Trump’s gonna win. Donald Trump’s gonna win, because in the end, the country’s not gonna reward big banks and big unions and big bureaucracies and big donors and big corruption by voting for a big liar. And in the end, the country’s gonna say ‘You know, whatever Trump’s weaknesses may be, he’s a sincere guy trying very hard to get this country back on the right track.” Now, if a bunch of Republicans are too stiff-necked, too proud, or in some cases too committed to the old order, after the election, I think they’re gonna be very sobered by their position because the fact is, I think he’s gonna win." Let’s see how that works out in 3 1/2 weeks…
Bill O’Reilly is in a particularly ticklish position here. He clearly likes Trump and wants him to win, but can’t maintain that in the light of what’s clearly happening, particularly with Trump’s numbers going south. The fact that Fox News polling and right wing former pollster Scott Rasmussen are now agreeing that Clinton is far enough ahead to pretty much have this is definitely not a help for the pro-Trumpers out there. So the story now is how do they play the endgame? For O’Reilly, he’s likely to blame Trump’s downfall on salacious rumors, thus allowing him to pretend he has the moral high ground to tut-tut that the media should have focused more on Clinton’s liabilities and things like WikiLeaks.
I note with WikiLeaks that I have to wonder if Julian Assange hasn’t just completely played the American right for fools, and if he isn’t having a good laugh at their expense, given that there’s really no there there when you actually look at what his hackers got from the Russians. Assange has pushed the right wing into a completely hypocritical position – they HATED him several years ago when he and Manning were publishing materials the right didn’t want out there, but now they’re sympathetic to him if he can give them dirt on the Clintons. He repeatedly rings their bell with hints about great stuff he’s going to release, but teases the release with comments like “some of it is interesting, some of it is amusing.” Then he dumps a hacker trove of internal emails that pretty much show snarkiness inside a campaign – real shocker there. Given that there are thousands of almost completely irrelevant emails in this dump, the right wing is left scrambling through all this dreck looking for the needle in the haystack, and there really isn’t one that I’ve seen – something Assange admitted in his announcement a couple of weeks ago. So we have the spectacle of the right wing frantically trying to find that smoking needle in the midst of thousands of pounds of dross – I have to believe Assange is having a good time watching the attempted frenzy. This may be the ultimate rick roll ever done.
But while that’s happening, Fox News knows it must continue to beat the drum that this is a “real serious scandal” for Clinton, and that somehow the revelations about Trump’s boorishness and creepiness are somehow only coming out as a “wag the dog” maneuver rather than a nail into the coffin of the Trump campaign. The main audience of Fox News are right wingers who have repeatedly been told that the Clintons are evil career criminals who should be in jail – so that drumbeat would be comforting to them in a time when it’s obvious their candidate is going down in flames. Fox News and the right wing are also being careful about not repeating the crippling mistake they made in 2012, where they insisted that Mitt Romney was going to win, with some even opining he would win in a landslide and saying that the polls showing the truth were “skewed”. (I note that the 2012 right wing spin was so humiliatingly disproven that Scott Rasmussen was forced to leave polling in disgrace – he had previously been touted up to that election day as “the most accurate” of all the pollsters by using the questionable accounting tactic of only using the final few days of a race to measure that accuracy. Rasmussen had been notorious for keeping a right wing thumb on the scale up to that point to make it appear that the right wing candidate was going to win, and then taking the thumb off at the very end to show real numbers just before the polls opened. In 2012, Rasmussen and Gallup kept their thumbs on the scale all the way down, thinking it would help stimulate more right wingers to vote and discourage everyone else – this sadly backfired for them as we saw.)
So now we have Fox News openly admitting that Clinton is likely to win, and various right wing AM radio shouters are saying the same thing. This leaves two issues for the various pundits and anchors to handle. First, who do they blame for the defeat? Do they admit that it’s Trump himself, as Ben Shapiro is positioning himself to do since he never liked Trump in the first place? Do they follow the line that “the whole media is in the tank for Hillary” as Limbaugh has done? Do they blame “weak Republicans” for not sticking with Trump, like Hannity and Gingrich? Do they pretend they have some gravitas that sets them above the fray as O’Reilly is laughingly attempting here? Do they pretend to have objectivity, as Megyn Kelly is currently playing? (She was never a Trump fan for obvious reasons, and her open disdain for Trump’s mouthpieces on her show is becoming truly entertaining as we get down to the final days of the campaign)
I will be curious to see if Trump really does try to start up a “Trump TV” to compete with Fox and Newsmax and the other right wing outlets. If he does, the behavior of Hannity, Gingrich and Huckabee, among others, makes a lot of sense. I could easily see Hannity jumping over to a new Trump network with Gingrich and Roger Ailes and essentially continuing the propaganda they’ve been inflicting for the past 20 years. I could see Kelly positioning herself as the primary anchor of a less rabidly right wing Fox News in the post-Ailes, post-election period, particularly if Hannity jumps ship and O’Reilly retires in another year. Huckabee could go either way – if there are two networks of this ilk, he has his pick of the litter – one of them will give him a cushy weekend show like he had before on Fox News (and most likely will again in 2017). (I have to feel a little sorry for Ted Cruz, in that he clearly thought he was going to have that kind of cushy gig but will instead wind up with only Glenn Beck to turn to – assuming that Beck’s organization survives much longer.)
One final thought – I have kept a little bit of video of Newt Gingrich, recorded on August 18th during an appearance with Hannity. His exact words: “I’m going to go out on a limb tonight, and you can keep this tape and remind me about it after the election, okay? Donald Trump’s gonna win. Donald Trump’s gonna win, because in the end, the country’s not gonna reward big banks and big unions and big bureaucracies and big donors and big corruption by voting for a big liar. And in the end, the country’s gonna say ‘You know, whatever Trump’s weaknesses may be, he’s a sincere guy trying very hard to get this country back on the right track.” Now, if a bunch of Republicans are too stiff-necked, too proud, or in some cases too committed to the old order, after the election, I think they’re gonna be very sobered by their position because the fact is, I think he’s gonna win." Let’s see how that works out in 3 1/2 weeks…
Kevin Koster commented on Presidential Debate At Washington University In St. Louis - Open Thread
2016-10-10 00:03:02 -0400
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I agree with David. Clinton had essentially an equal performance to the first debate. She had one moment where she was clearly irritated with Trump, and she had one moment where she interrupted him, but other than that, she played at as classy as one could given the opponent.
Trump, for his part, took every cheap shot he could at both Clinton and the moderators. When he wasn’t doing that, he was frankly incoherent on policy. He clearly followed the Hannity playbook of ignoring the questions he was asked and trying to pivot to personal attacks on Clinton followed by pithy statements about he was going to run a presidency that was going to be “so much better.”
People who are already in his corner, or who simply hate the Clintons, will love his performance tonight. I fully expect Limbaugh and the other hatemongers on AM radio to gleefully replay every last insult from Trump throughout the next two weeks as red meat for their listeners. But the polling is already coming in on the debate. CNN had it almost as high of a win for Clinton as the first one. YouGov had a tighter win for her.
And we should remember that going into this debate, Trump was already down to 22.4% at 538 on their most cautious outlook. He needed a massive win to be able to turn that around. Not just the attempted catchphrase of Tucker Carlson of being “an escape artist”. He needed a, forgive the expression, Huge win. He didn’t get one, and to my mind, he simply reconfirmed why he is temperamentally unsuited to this office.
Let’s see what happens with the polling over the next week and a half before the final debate. I fully expect Trump to come out completely unhinged in the final one. And let’s not forget that he thinks he has a sympathetic moderator in Chris Wallace…
Trump, for his part, took every cheap shot he could at both Clinton and the moderators. When he wasn’t doing that, he was frankly incoherent on policy. He clearly followed the Hannity playbook of ignoring the questions he was asked and trying to pivot to personal attacks on Clinton followed by pithy statements about he was going to run a presidency that was going to be “so much better.”
People who are already in his corner, or who simply hate the Clintons, will love his performance tonight. I fully expect Limbaugh and the other hatemongers on AM radio to gleefully replay every last insult from Trump throughout the next two weeks as red meat for their listeners. But the polling is already coming in on the debate. CNN had it almost as high of a win for Clinton as the first one. YouGov had a tighter win for her.
And we should remember that going into this debate, Trump was already down to 22.4% at 538 on their most cautious outlook. He needed a massive win to be able to turn that around. Not just the attempted catchphrase of Tucker Carlson of being “an escape artist”. He needed a, forgive the expression, Huge win. He didn’t get one, and to my mind, he simply reconfirmed why he is temperamentally unsuited to this office.
Let’s see what happens with the polling over the next week and a half before the final debate. I fully expect Trump to come out completely unhinged in the final one. And let’s not forget that he thinks he has a sympathetic moderator in Chris Wallace…
Kevin Koster commented on Donald Trump Uses Hannity’s Defense For His Hot Mic Lewd Comments
2016-10-08 11:53:00 -0400
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This tells us that Trump has been spending his time exclusively watching Fox News and listening to right wing AM radio. Because this attack strategy has been repeatedly advocated, not just by Hannity but by multiple other Fox News anchors, and by pretty much every single angry right wing AM shouter. Their hope is to play the meme of “Trump’s words aren’t great, but Hillary Clinton’s ACTIONS are much worse!” Doors is correct to note that this sounds like a 3rd grader pointing at someone else in the class when they get in trouble, but I have to note that it’s a nonsensical comparison.
Let’s be honest about the Trump issues. We’re not just talking about how he said the wrong words or insulted someone here or there. We’re discussing a consistent pattern of nastiness and viciousness that he has demonstrated over the last several decades. From the time he made headlines for his Marla Maples affair to the present day, he has always been known for this kind of behavior. We just didn’t have to see an audio/video demonstration by him in the flesh before. He has been known for crude behavior toward women and crude statements to and about them for decades.
Let’s also remember that this bombshell tape isn’t from 1975 when he was a young guy who didn’t know better. It isn’t even from “a long time ago” and one has to wonder where Trump got the idea that such a concept would sell for this situation. This tape is from 2005 – Trump was nearly 60 years old when he did this. Are we meant to believe that after he turned 60, he suddenly found maturity that he has yet to demonstrate even a single time during this entire campaign? Seriously?
And it’s not just the insults and the childlike tantrums he’s been throwing around during the campaign. Yes, the comments have been embarrassing – even vulgar, as he’s again demonstrated in this tape. But he’s not just “saying words”. He’s been engaging in racist BEHAVIOR. Stirring up birther rumors isn’t just “sticks and stones can break my bones but names can never hurt me”. Announcing a plan to screen Muslims from the US, and repeatedly fanning racist flames about building a wall against Mexico and forcing them to pay for it is not just “saying words”. Encouraging violence at his rallies is not just “saying words”. If you scream “Fire!” in a crowded theater, that’s not just “saying words”. Hate Speech isn’t just “words” – it’s deliberate action, and Donald Trump does not get to hide behind the right wing notion that he has no accountability for repeatedly voicing hatred, racism and sexism.
The actual content of this video shows Trump enjoying his status as an entitled rich person who can get whatever he wants because he’s rich and a celebrity. Because he was in sympathetic company, he was happy to openly state that he enjoys what he sees as his status. The creepy part of the video isn’t just the casual sexism and objectification he enjoys – it’s the moment where he and Bush insist on having the actress give them each a hug. She has no idea that they’ve been making comments like this, including about her body, literally right before greeting her. It’s a skin-crawling moment, and Trump is clearly enjoying it in the video, as is Bush. It’s not just “words”, and Trump doesn’t get to dismiss the situation as something that small. On a larger scale, it’s the same meme of entitlement that he used to parlay his business failures (which weren’t self-financed) into a tax break of nearly a billion dollars that we know about, so that he wouldn’t even have to pay income taxes while raking in millions for himself each year.
And then we get to this bizarre right wing idea that somehow the Clintons’ “actions” are worse than Trump’s decades of bad behavior. I note that the right does seem to be running out of material. If the best they can do is to, yet again, bring up the old and discredited Bill Clinton smears, they truly are in panic mode. Hillary Clinton will likely not dignify this with a back and forth, but we should be very clear that the right wingers are not discussing “actions” by Hillary Clinton or Bill Clinton. They’re attempting to raise discredited accusations that were fully dealt with over 20 years ago. Broaddrick and Willey both had their accounts examined at the time, when they were barely relevant. Both women made inconsistent statements and repeatedly contradicted themselves. If the right wing has some new evidence that Bill Clinton is guilty of sexual assault or of being a “sexual predator”, let’s see this new evidence. Because they weren’t able to get any of this to stick when he was President. All they’ve been able to do is peddle the same nasty rumors they picked up from the likes of Rush Limbaush. They’ve repeated these lies and smears for over 20 years and the repetition does not make them true. What’s annoying is that the constant repetition over such a long period has confused a lot of people who only know that they always hear these stories. After people who aren’t really paying attention to this stuff keep hearing a story like that for years, they assume there must be something to it, rather than it just being the same rumors being thrown around for the umpteenth time. I imagine that Limbaugh and Hannity and their ilk are proud of the fact that they’ve confused so many people. They literally have repeated a lie so many times that they’ve gotten a lot of people to accept its basis – that somehow the Clintons and particularly Hillary are skilled liars and deceivers and probably criminals too. But the reality is that the right wing is just repeating lies and rumors and innuendos. None of which translates to “bad actions” by the Clintons.
It’s interesting that Hannity wants to yet again bring up Hillary Clinton being required by a judge to defend a rapist in court. He wants to yet again bring up her rueful comments about that in a later interview as though she was somehow proud of it. The reality is that she was mandated to take this case even when she asked to be relieved of it. This doesn’t make her a bad person or an evil person. It makes her an attorney who was assigned a case and didn’t have the luxury of refusing to do her job. (And Hannity never discusses that this particular case had a lot of complications he never mentions…)
I’m also wondering how Fox News thinks the anticlimactic WikiLeaks dump is somehow an equivalent story with Trump’s nastiness exploding in public. Assuming the WikiLeaks materials are accurate, all they show is Hillary Clinton discussing political reality behind closed doors. I don’t see anything in the “bombshells” Fox News thinks they have that actually shows Clinton saying anything particularly vexing. Maybe that she was frustrated with Sanders voters who were and are accusing her of everything under the sun because they didn’t want to deal with what actually happens in elections and politics. But, again assuming the leaked materials are correct, her discussion about politicians working out their agreements in private is not some strange horrifying conspiracy. It’s how bills get made and passed. There’s a political calculus that goes with this work. Both right wingers and liberals have worked together to keep the government functioning – at least up to the current situation where the right wing has steadfastly refused to do their jobs for years. And yes, there are times where opposing politicians will agree to do something together, knowing that the opposition will mount a token vote to say no. Idea being that everyone wants the bill to go through but the opposition must cast “No” votes to not get barbecued by their constituents back home. The opening of Cuba is just such an example. They all agree to let it go through, but a bunch of the congresspeople have to go through the motions of outwardly slagging the move or they’ll get primaried in the next election cycle. That’s not a craven action – it’s simply the reality of politics. If Hillary Clinton understands this, and obviously she and Bill Clinton are well versed in it, that makes her a more effective politician and would make her a better President. You would think that Donald Trump would understand this as someone who had a book written for him called “The Art of the Deal.” A truly well negotiated contract or bill requires everyone to give something – it’s not just the right wing saying “We get everything we want and everyone else loses”.
So I truly hope that Donald Trump does bring this nonsensical approach up tomorrow night. It would only provide an even simpler way for Hillary Clinton to summarize the major damage that he has done to his own campaign and his candidacy just by being himself. And I hope he follows the other right wing idea of ignoring questions from moderators and the public to just repeatedly pivot to more assertions that he’s going to “fix the economy”. All that will do is get him a reminder from the moderators that he needs to answer the questions that have been presented to him, which would result in yet another tantrum, which can’t help a situation where he’s tipping farther and farther upside down.
Let’s be honest about the Trump issues. We’re not just talking about how he said the wrong words or insulted someone here or there. We’re discussing a consistent pattern of nastiness and viciousness that he has demonstrated over the last several decades. From the time he made headlines for his Marla Maples affair to the present day, he has always been known for this kind of behavior. We just didn’t have to see an audio/video demonstration by him in the flesh before. He has been known for crude behavior toward women and crude statements to and about them for decades.
Let’s also remember that this bombshell tape isn’t from 1975 when he was a young guy who didn’t know better. It isn’t even from “a long time ago” and one has to wonder where Trump got the idea that such a concept would sell for this situation. This tape is from 2005 – Trump was nearly 60 years old when he did this. Are we meant to believe that after he turned 60, he suddenly found maturity that he has yet to demonstrate even a single time during this entire campaign? Seriously?
And it’s not just the insults and the childlike tantrums he’s been throwing around during the campaign. Yes, the comments have been embarrassing – even vulgar, as he’s again demonstrated in this tape. But he’s not just “saying words”. He’s been engaging in racist BEHAVIOR. Stirring up birther rumors isn’t just “sticks and stones can break my bones but names can never hurt me”. Announcing a plan to screen Muslims from the US, and repeatedly fanning racist flames about building a wall against Mexico and forcing them to pay for it is not just “saying words”. Encouraging violence at his rallies is not just “saying words”. If you scream “Fire!” in a crowded theater, that’s not just “saying words”. Hate Speech isn’t just “words” – it’s deliberate action, and Donald Trump does not get to hide behind the right wing notion that he has no accountability for repeatedly voicing hatred, racism and sexism.
The actual content of this video shows Trump enjoying his status as an entitled rich person who can get whatever he wants because he’s rich and a celebrity. Because he was in sympathetic company, he was happy to openly state that he enjoys what he sees as his status. The creepy part of the video isn’t just the casual sexism and objectification he enjoys – it’s the moment where he and Bush insist on having the actress give them each a hug. She has no idea that they’ve been making comments like this, including about her body, literally right before greeting her. It’s a skin-crawling moment, and Trump is clearly enjoying it in the video, as is Bush. It’s not just “words”, and Trump doesn’t get to dismiss the situation as something that small. On a larger scale, it’s the same meme of entitlement that he used to parlay his business failures (which weren’t self-financed) into a tax break of nearly a billion dollars that we know about, so that he wouldn’t even have to pay income taxes while raking in millions for himself each year.
And then we get to this bizarre right wing idea that somehow the Clintons’ “actions” are worse than Trump’s decades of bad behavior. I note that the right does seem to be running out of material. If the best they can do is to, yet again, bring up the old and discredited Bill Clinton smears, they truly are in panic mode. Hillary Clinton will likely not dignify this with a back and forth, but we should be very clear that the right wingers are not discussing “actions” by Hillary Clinton or Bill Clinton. They’re attempting to raise discredited accusations that were fully dealt with over 20 years ago. Broaddrick and Willey both had their accounts examined at the time, when they were barely relevant. Both women made inconsistent statements and repeatedly contradicted themselves. If the right wing has some new evidence that Bill Clinton is guilty of sexual assault or of being a “sexual predator”, let’s see this new evidence. Because they weren’t able to get any of this to stick when he was President. All they’ve been able to do is peddle the same nasty rumors they picked up from the likes of Rush Limbaush. They’ve repeated these lies and smears for over 20 years and the repetition does not make them true. What’s annoying is that the constant repetition over such a long period has confused a lot of people who only know that they always hear these stories. After people who aren’t really paying attention to this stuff keep hearing a story like that for years, they assume there must be something to it, rather than it just being the same rumors being thrown around for the umpteenth time. I imagine that Limbaugh and Hannity and their ilk are proud of the fact that they’ve confused so many people. They literally have repeated a lie so many times that they’ve gotten a lot of people to accept its basis – that somehow the Clintons and particularly Hillary are skilled liars and deceivers and probably criminals too. But the reality is that the right wing is just repeating lies and rumors and innuendos. None of which translates to “bad actions” by the Clintons.
It’s interesting that Hannity wants to yet again bring up Hillary Clinton being required by a judge to defend a rapist in court. He wants to yet again bring up her rueful comments about that in a later interview as though she was somehow proud of it. The reality is that she was mandated to take this case even when she asked to be relieved of it. This doesn’t make her a bad person or an evil person. It makes her an attorney who was assigned a case and didn’t have the luxury of refusing to do her job. (And Hannity never discusses that this particular case had a lot of complications he never mentions…)
I’m also wondering how Fox News thinks the anticlimactic WikiLeaks dump is somehow an equivalent story with Trump’s nastiness exploding in public. Assuming the WikiLeaks materials are accurate, all they show is Hillary Clinton discussing political reality behind closed doors. I don’t see anything in the “bombshells” Fox News thinks they have that actually shows Clinton saying anything particularly vexing. Maybe that she was frustrated with Sanders voters who were and are accusing her of everything under the sun because they didn’t want to deal with what actually happens in elections and politics. But, again assuming the leaked materials are correct, her discussion about politicians working out their agreements in private is not some strange horrifying conspiracy. It’s how bills get made and passed. There’s a political calculus that goes with this work. Both right wingers and liberals have worked together to keep the government functioning – at least up to the current situation where the right wing has steadfastly refused to do their jobs for years. And yes, there are times where opposing politicians will agree to do something together, knowing that the opposition will mount a token vote to say no. Idea being that everyone wants the bill to go through but the opposition must cast “No” votes to not get barbecued by their constituents back home. The opening of Cuba is just such an example. They all agree to let it go through, but a bunch of the congresspeople have to go through the motions of outwardly slagging the move or they’ll get primaried in the next election cycle. That’s not a craven action – it’s simply the reality of politics. If Hillary Clinton understands this, and obviously she and Bill Clinton are well versed in it, that makes her a more effective politician and would make her a better President. You would think that Donald Trump would understand this as someone who had a book written for him called “The Art of the Deal.” A truly well negotiated contract or bill requires everyone to give something – it’s not just the right wing saying “We get everything we want and everyone else loses”.
So I truly hope that Donald Trump does bring this nonsensical approach up tomorrow night. It would only provide an even simpler way for Hillary Clinton to summarize the major damage that he has done to his own campaign and his candidacy just by being himself. And I hope he follows the other right wing idea of ignoring questions from moderators and the public to just repeatedly pivot to more assertions that he’s going to “fix the economy”. All that will do is get him a reminder from the moderators that he needs to answer the questions that have been presented to him, which would result in yet another tantrum, which can’t help a situation where he’s tipping farther and farther upside down.
Kevin Koster commented on Megyn Kelly And Sean Hannity Want You To Know They Are #Friends
2016-10-07 23:47:29 -0400
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Judging from Hannity’s obvious desperation tonight after the spectacular audio/video today, panic is an understatement.
I found it interesting that both he and O’Reilly did all they could to minimize the damage to Trump today, and as much as they could to exaggerate the non-news of what releases were being floated by WikiLeaks about Hillary Clinton.
You know the right wing is panicking when you see Dinesh D’Souza being touted as a reputable guest and then you hear him refer to Hillary Clinton as “a crooked hag”.
One really wonders how they’re going to handle the major bad publicity that will roil through this weekend. Trump has already gone on a spiral that has seen his 538 numbers plummet to a notably perilous level. Not sure they can go a lot lower, but this definitely won’t help him. And I don’t expect him to show up as a penitent and contrite man on Sunday night. Which will only increase the panic at Fox News.
I found it interesting that both he and O’Reilly did all they could to minimize the damage to Trump today, and as much as they could to exaggerate the non-news of what releases were being floated by WikiLeaks about Hillary Clinton.
You know the right wing is panicking when you see Dinesh D’Souza being touted as a reputable guest and then you hear him refer to Hillary Clinton as “a crooked hag”.
One really wonders how they’re going to handle the major bad publicity that will roil through this weekend. Trump has already gone on a spiral that has seen his 538 numbers plummet to a notably perilous level. Not sure they can go a lot lower, but this definitely won’t help him. And I don’t expect him to show up as a penitent and contrite man on Sunday night. Which will only increase the panic at Fox News.
Kevin Koster commented on Fox News Helps Donald Trump Take Credit For Pence’s Debate Win
2016-10-06 19:02:25 -0400
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I don’t know that it’s accurate to say that Pence “won” the debate. The right wing certainly believes that, and Fox News is trying to paint it that way, but I didn’t get that impression when I watched the event.
My reaction was that Pence came across as smug and condescending much of the time, and that he simply had no answer for most of the criticisms that were levelled at him by Kaine. Kaine, for his part, was much more fully prepared, but undercut his own strengths with too many interjections. I note that Pence did plenty of interjections of his own throughout.
Pence’s low points in the debate were his ugly condescension and nastiness regarding women’s reproductive rights, and his really scary answer to the final question of the evening. Both men were asked how they would bring people together after such a negative and divisive campaign (particularly as showcased by Trump’s repeated invective). Kaine responded that Hillary Clinton has been known for reaching across the aisle and working with GOP politicians throughout her career. Pence responded that people just wanted “change” and that this would somehow fix everything. In other words, not a single thought toward looking out for anyone but himself.
I also note that Pence’s discussion was riddled with falsehoods, some of which were fairly outrageous. Many of Kaine’s interjections were his attempts to immediately correct the record.
My reaction was that Pence came across as smug and condescending much of the time, and that he simply had no answer for most of the criticisms that were levelled at him by Kaine. Kaine, for his part, was much more fully prepared, but undercut his own strengths with too many interjections. I note that Pence did plenty of interjections of his own throughout.
Pence’s low points in the debate were his ugly condescension and nastiness regarding women’s reproductive rights, and his really scary answer to the final question of the evening. Both men were asked how they would bring people together after such a negative and divisive campaign (particularly as showcased by Trump’s repeated invective). Kaine responded that Hillary Clinton has been known for reaching across the aisle and working with GOP politicians throughout her career. Pence responded that people just wanted “change” and that this would somehow fix everything. In other words, not a single thought toward looking out for anyone but himself.
I also note that Pence’s discussion was riddled with falsehoods, some of which were fairly outrageous. Many of Kaine’s interjections were his attempts to immediately correct the record.
Kevin Koster commented on Sean Hannity Drops ‘Hillary Clinton Brain Damage’ In Favor Of Heart Trouble
2016-10-05 00:02:27 -0400
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This is what we’ve been expecting since Trump belly-flopped last Monday. Hannity is in a full panic now. He has no actual substance to discuss and is turning to other Clinton/Obama haters like Ed Klein to lay on as much mud as possible. Hannity did the same thing in October 2012 when he realized how far behind Romney was at that time. He just went to the smear merchants and had a bit of a wallow. The end result was still the same – Hannity wound up sounding bitter and sullen the night after the election, and he continued in that vein for some months afterward. As I expect he will do this year – although one does have to wonder if Hannity will stay on a Roger Ailes-free Fox News, particularly if Trump tries to start a new channel of his own.
The only thing more desperate than Hannity’s ragefest was the right wing hysteria over what they hoped would be the major Julian Assange/WikiLeaks “October Surprise” nearly 24 hours ago. Enough to have fellow spirits of Hannity like Alex Jones openly jumping up and down to see what goodness might come their way from a group they’d repeatedly condemned in the past. Except that WikiLeaks isn’t releasing anything at this time, and may not have anything to release for some time. Even after the right wingers were led to believe by Assange that he had some major bombshell to unleash. I particularly enjoyed the Republican who quipped “We got Rick Rolled”…
The only thing more desperate than Hannity’s ragefest was the right wing hysteria over what they hoped would be the major Julian Assange/WikiLeaks “October Surprise” nearly 24 hours ago. Enough to have fellow spirits of Hannity like Alex Jones openly jumping up and down to see what goodness might come their way from a group they’d repeatedly condemned in the past. Except that WikiLeaks isn’t releasing anything at this time, and may not have anything to release for some time. Even after the right wingers were led to believe by Assange that he had some major bombshell to unleash. I particularly enjoyed the Republican who quipped “We got Rick Rolled”…
Kevin Koster commented on Watch CNN’s Reliable Sources Blast Hannity As ‘An Arm Of The Trump Campaign’
2016-10-03 11:32:23 -0400
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Eyes, I’ve got to put in a little quibble of my own.
Fox News is indeed its own bubble.
Sean Hannity is within his own bubble within their bubble.
Hence, a bubble within a bubble…
Fox News is indeed its own bubble.
Sean Hannity is within his own bubble within their bubble.
Hence, a bubble within a bubble…
Kevin Koster commented on Fox News Website Slideshow Validates Trump Smear Campaign: "Women of Bill Clinton's Past"
2016-10-01 18:48:54 -0400
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Fox News descended even farther into panic mode with the attempt to get attention to a leaked audio from February of Clinton discussing the support for Bernie Sanders. Neil Cavuto went so far as to excitedly try to play this as a much bigger story than what little there is here. (He asked John Sununu “Do you think this is Clinton’s 47 percent moment?!!” Sadly, it isn’t. But it does show the desperation the right wing is feeling now.
Let’s see what happens next Sunday. Maybe Trump can somehow calm himself down before then. I don’t think Trump could ever contain himself for very long – his entire history has been about self-promotion and self-celebration. Asking him to hold back on that is truly like asking him to not be Trump. To my mind, the only reason he’s even been able to stay partly competitive has been the success of the right wing in smearing the Clintons over the past 25 years. And that’s an object lesson in why intelligent people need to keep their eyes open when it comes to biased outlets like Fox News and right wing radio. With this election, these guys have very nearly been able to sway enough of the voters to dislike a candidate enough to vote in a different fashion than they otherwise would have. To the backers of Fox News, who do think incrementally, that’s a huge win. If that doesn’t scare people, it should.
Let’s see what happens next Sunday. Maybe Trump can somehow calm himself down before then. I don’t think Trump could ever contain himself for very long – his entire history has been about self-promotion and self-celebration. Asking him to hold back on that is truly like asking him to not be Trump. To my mind, the only reason he’s even been able to stay partly competitive has been the success of the right wing in smearing the Clintons over the past 25 years. And that’s an object lesson in why intelligent people need to keep their eyes open when it comes to biased outlets like Fox News and right wing radio. With this election, these guys have very nearly been able to sway enough of the voters to dislike a candidate enough to vote in a different fashion than they otherwise would have. To the backers of Fox News, who do think incrementally, that’s a huge win. If that doesn’t scare people, it should.
Kevin Koster commented on Megyn Kelly Praises Donald Trump For Boldly Allowing Sean Hannity To Admire Him After The Debate
2016-09-27 15:23:42 -0400
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Let’s not forget that Kelly followed this up by commenting on a shot of Hillary Clinton leaving the event, “Maybe she’s going home for a rest now”. Kelly must have realized how cheap of a shot this was, because she quickly tried to cover, saying that she would need a rest herself and hurriedly making the same comment as a joke about Trump.
Kelly did seem to understand intrinsically how truly awful Trump’s performance was. Even she had to note that Clinton pretty much had control throughout and that Trump found himself on defense all the way. Even right wingers are being forced to note that Trump’s answers tended to be long-winded and aimless.
I’m really curious to see how this affected the polling, but we won’t know for a couple of days.
Kelly did seem to understand intrinsically how truly awful Trump’s performance was. Even she had to note that Clinton pretty much had control throughout and that Trump found himself on defense all the way. Even right wingers are being forced to note that Trump’s answers tended to be long-winded and aimless.
I’m really curious to see how this affected the polling, but we won’t know for a couple of days.
Kevin Koster commented on Sheriff David Clarke Calls Charlotte Protests A ‘George Soros-funded Assault’ On American Culture
2016-09-25 03:57:20 -0400
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Cavuto did not distinguish himself overmuch in this discussion. In fact, he badly misrepresented Jesse Jackson’s statements, saying that Jackson had said it was the “part of their right” to riot. Jackson said no such thing. He said that the rioting could be thought of as termed by Martin Luther King as the voice of the unheard – a very different concept than Cavuto presented. King and Jackson’s point was that consistently oppressing and ignoring a group of people will result in this kind of blow-up, not that it’s anybody’s right to have a riot.
Of course Cavuto also took time in his interview with Brent Bozell to pull the usual Fox News rewrite of the 2012 Obama/Romney debate where Candy Crowley appropriately challenged Romney on the false statement he was making and then attempting to double down on.
Of course Cavuto also took time in his interview with Brent Bozell to pull the usual Fox News rewrite of the 2012 Obama/Romney debate where Candy Crowley appropriately challenged Romney on the false statement he was making and then attempting to double down on.
Kevin Koster commented on Sean Hannity Suddenly Loves Ted Cruz - Now That He Has Endorsed Trump
2016-09-24 22:31:40 -0400
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It’s pretty obvious why Cruz flip-flopped. He wants to run again in 2020, and he knows that if he doesn’t make nice with Trump, the GOP will not support him. I just don’t know if he will be able to run in 2020, as I have a feeling he may get primaried in 2018 first and not have any political clout to get away with a second failed run.
Kevin Koster commented on Hannity Makes Actual Trump Commercial - And Fox Mostly Shrugs
2016-09-21 22:13:29 -0400
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The commercial itself is quite nauseating, and not just for all the fact-free stuff running around in it. But the participation by Hannity is quite interesting. If Hannity thought that Trump was such a strong contender to win, a notion he’s been trying to push with Newt Gingrich on the air, then why would he need to participate in a commercial for the man? If Trump is headed to victory, all Hannity would need do is cheerlead from his usual perch at Fox News.
Unless Hannity actually thinks Trump needs a much bigger push to get there.
Meaning that his presence in this thing is more of a sign of increasing panic by the right wing over this election. Hannity is doing this so he can say after it’s over that “I did everything I could to see Trump elected – it’s not my fault he lost.” It’s for the narrative he will attempt to spin starting the day after the election. And it also gets him brownie points with Trump, should that new media idea ever happen.
Given the newer polling and the likely results of next Monday, I’ll be very curious to see how Hannity deals with the impending reality of the election. My instincts say he will begin acting out in wilder ways. Expect to see a lot of Ed Klein and Gary Byrne and other professional Clinton-haters over the next 7 weeks…
Unless Hannity actually thinks Trump needs a much bigger push to get there.
Meaning that his presence in this thing is more of a sign of increasing panic by the right wing over this election. Hannity is doing this so he can say after it’s over that “I did everything I could to see Trump elected – it’s not my fault he lost.” It’s for the narrative he will attempt to spin starting the day after the election. And it also gets him brownie points with Trump, should that new media idea ever happen.
Given the newer polling and the likely results of next Monday, I’ll be very curious to see how Hannity deals with the impending reality of the election. My instincts say he will begin acting out in wilder ways. Expect to see a lot of Ed Klein and Gary Byrne and other professional Clinton-haters over the next 7 weeks…
Kevin Koster commented on Fox’s Connell McShane Wrongly Suggests Terror Attacks Benefit Donald Trump
2016-09-20 15:14:56 -0400
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It’s obvious that Fox News is pushing a narrative that “Terrorist Attacks are Good for Trump” in the hopes that this will pump up Trump’s desperate supporters and somehow unnerve Clinton and her campaign as they go into next week’s debate. Assuming of course that Trump actually shows up for this debate.
The reality that most people trust Clinton more to handle serious issues like these is not one that fits within the bias that Fox News has shown throughout their existence.
Let’s not forget that this frantic pushing of Trump as a strongman leader is happening in the light of Trump and his campaign making repeated bizarre gaffes over the past few days, including the ridiculing of GOP-admired Robert Gates, jumping the gun on the weekend attacks and the really strange one where Trump’s son used the offensive Joe Walsh image comparing refugees to Skittles.
I’m really curious what the polling shows later this week, and what happens after the debate, again assuming that Trump will show up for the debacle. I expect the Fox News and right wing radio attempts to bolster Trump will only become more panicked and frantic from now until November.
The reality that most people trust Clinton more to handle serious issues like these is not one that fits within the bias that Fox News has shown throughout their existence.
Let’s not forget that this frantic pushing of Trump as a strongman leader is happening in the light of Trump and his campaign making repeated bizarre gaffes over the past few days, including the ridiculing of GOP-admired Robert Gates, jumping the gun on the weekend attacks and the really strange one where Trump’s son used the offensive Joe Walsh image comparing refugees to Skittles.
I’m really curious what the polling shows later this week, and what happens after the debate, again assuming that Trump will show up for the debacle. I expect the Fox News and right wing radio attempts to bolster Trump will only become more panicked and frantic from now until November.
Kevin Koster commented on Fox Anchor Gives A Shout-Out To Donald Trump During Coverage Of NYC Explosion
2016-09-18 21:51:14 -0400
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Thanks, David. I couldn’t figure out what James was trying to say there. I think his ketchup thing was an attempt at a joke about the old Heinz anticipation commercials. Not really sure, as the post was mostly vitriolic and incoherent.
Not sure why he wanted to quote that scene from Good Will Hunting, in that there’s an irony I don’t think he understood in this situation.
I agree that it sounds like he frantically threw something out as fast as he could and then ran. Given the current situation for Trump, that’s understandable.
Not sure why he wanted to quote that scene from Good Will Hunting, in that there’s an irony I don’t think he understood in this situation.
I agree that it sounds like he frantically threw something out as fast as he could and then ran. Given the current situation for Trump, that’s understandable.
Kevin Koster commented on Fox’s Jenna Lee Smacks Down Trump Spox Attempts To Blame Birtherism On Hillary Clinton
2016-09-16 19:54:32 -0400
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The narrative that is being played on Fox News this evening is “Birtherism is bad, but Hillary did it first”. They’re desperately trying to blame the whole thing on Clinton as a way to make it go away from Trump, which really isn’t going to work with anyone who actually looks into this.
The approach taken on multiple shows today has been to say that yeah, Trump shouldn’t be bringing this up again, but hey, Clinton’s people did it first. How do they justify this? Three specific items, all of which are easily laughed through once you actually look at them.
1. A vile email from Mark Penn from early in the 2008 campaign, wherein he discussed the notion of Obama being foreign but said that this shouldn’t be used as a direct attack. Instead, Penn went with things like the 3am phone call commercial.
2. An interview with Clinton after the idea went public, wherein she said she had no reason to believe that Obama was Muslim but, in the right wing view, wasn’t emphatic enough that she totally, utterly and overwhelmingly repudiated the notion.
3. A tweet today from left winger James Asher saying that Sid Blumenthal told him that he thought Obama was born in Kenya.
One would think that Fox News had just found the key to the BIG STORY. This is incredible stuff, isn’t it? Half-truths and tweets!
So let’s remember the actual facts. The Birther story was born from two different right wing blogs in March 2008. They were willfully being ignorant about a professor’s blog post at that time which posited a hypothetical about someone saying that Barack Obama wasn’t born in the US. (I believe the professor did this in response to people discussing McCain’s eligibility, noting that it was a silly topic to spend any time on.) So it was a right wing invention, period. About a month later, when it became clear that Obama was on his way to take the nomination, a few Clinton supporters, in Texas I believe, decided they were not going to support the winning candidate and declared their group to be called “PUMA”, or “Party Unity My Ass”. They then cited the right wing blog posts about Obama’s possible non-Hawaiian birth, in much the same way that many Sanders supporters this year foolishly cited long-debunked right wing conspiracy theories about Clinton. These people had no credibility, and as seen in that interview, Clinton was frankly surprised to be asked about something as ridiculous as whether Obama was a Muslim or wasn’t an American. Obama went on to win the nomination and two terms as President. In 2011, Donald Trump decided to really fan the flames of the birther idea again, and then crowed when Obama got the state of Hawaii to break its own legal rules to release the long form version of his birth certificate – and even then, the birthers and Trump weren’t satisfied.
We must never forget that Donald Trump also told us that he had investigators in Hawaii “and they can’t believe what they’re finding.” Nobody has ever taken Trump to task on that – I’d love to see someone ask this at one of the debates – “Mr. Trump, what did your investigators find that was so unbelievable in Hawaii?” Nobody calls him on these statements and it’s frankly irritating to watch him continue to get away with it.
But to answer the Fox News and right wing conspiracy memes of the day, let’s dispense with Fox News’ latest attempt to smear Hillary Clinton and her people.
1. Mark Penn made several offensive comments and emails while he was a chief strategist for the 2008 campaign. He was and is a bare knuckles brawler in campaigns. He eventually alienated enough of the staff from his positions that he was removed from his senior position although not from the campaign itself – he was essentially demoted. Not fired, but demoted in a meaningful way. And his nastier ideas about campaigning were never followed. Meaning that Clinton had no interest in going into the gutter – the 3am phone call commercial was about as far as she was willing to go, and to me, that was already too far, given that right wingers have tried to eat out on it for the past 8 years. So Penn wrote a memo that nobody used for strategy, among other fairly nasty writings, and wound up demoted. Not seeing how this means that Hillary Clinton started the Birther movement.
2. It’s funny that the right wingers want to see Hillary Clinton issue a blanket statement of condemnation in an interview, when she was clearly surprised and frankly shocked to be asked about ridiculous assertions. The tone of her answer is clear: “Are you seriously asking me about something like that rather than a real issue? REALLY?” Could she have been more forceful in her denial of the question’s merits? Sure, but she clearly thought she already HAD been from her tone. She wasn’t as appropriately dismissive as she was when Ed Henry tried to gotcha her about her “wiping the server”, but her tone is pretty clear on this. So if the right wing wants to say that she didn’t deny this strongly enough, we could get into all kinds of discussions about GOP candidates and presidents if they really want to go there. This is an obviously silly ruse, and really just meant as a way to smear Clinton as untrustworthy again.
3. James Asher, who is not a friend of the Clintons, says that Sid Blumenthal told him he thought Obama was born in Kenya. Great. Are we supposed to infer that this means that Blumenthal then told Hillary to go to Texas and set off a couple of wingnuts on a bizarre campaign while they refused to support the Democrat nominee? Or maybe we’re supposed to think that the Clintons secretly thought this. Either way, the assertion makes no sense. Maybe Blumenthal did say this to Asher. So what? Even if Blumenthal believed that kind of nonsense, it was NEVER a part of the campaign and NEVER something that Hillary Clinton or any other official in her campaign would litigate in the press.
So once again, we end up with Fox News and the right wing frantically trying to project their own issues onto their opponents. One would think they would take a minute and just look in the mirror.
And just so we’re very clear on this, as Brit Hume tried to dismiss this today. Birtherism IS racism. It’s not a quantifiable thing where you separate out the birthers from the racists. Birtherism was born from the racist sentiment that Barack Obama should not be President, based specifically on his being an “other” and maybe even an African rather than an African-American. The purpose of the implication was always to provide comfort to racists who hated the notion of a black man becoming President since, hey, he’s not really an American anyway. The fact that Brit Hume would even TRY this line of thinking is extremely telling.
Fox News may well be trying to distance Trump from the Birther movement he so lovingly embraced, but they’re not doing so out of any actual concern for the reality of what happened. They really do just want to blame its existence on Hillary Clinton.
The approach taken on multiple shows today has been to say that yeah, Trump shouldn’t be bringing this up again, but hey, Clinton’s people did it first. How do they justify this? Three specific items, all of which are easily laughed through once you actually look at them.
1. A vile email from Mark Penn from early in the 2008 campaign, wherein he discussed the notion of Obama being foreign but said that this shouldn’t be used as a direct attack. Instead, Penn went with things like the 3am phone call commercial.
2. An interview with Clinton after the idea went public, wherein she said she had no reason to believe that Obama was Muslim but, in the right wing view, wasn’t emphatic enough that she totally, utterly and overwhelmingly repudiated the notion.
3. A tweet today from left winger James Asher saying that Sid Blumenthal told him that he thought Obama was born in Kenya.
One would think that Fox News had just found the key to the BIG STORY. This is incredible stuff, isn’t it? Half-truths and tweets!
So let’s remember the actual facts. The Birther story was born from two different right wing blogs in March 2008. They were willfully being ignorant about a professor’s blog post at that time which posited a hypothetical about someone saying that Barack Obama wasn’t born in the US. (I believe the professor did this in response to people discussing McCain’s eligibility, noting that it was a silly topic to spend any time on.) So it was a right wing invention, period. About a month later, when it became clear that Obama was on his way to take the nomination, a few Clinton supporters, in Texas I believe, decided they were not going to support the winning candidate and declared their group to be called “PUMA”, or “Party Unity My Ass”. They then cited the right wing blog posts about Obama’s possible non-Hawaiian birth, in much the same way that many Sanders supporters this year foolishly cited long-debunked right wing conspiracy theories about Clinton. These people had no credibility, and as seen in that interview, Clinton was frankly surprised to be asked about something as ridiculous as whether Obama was a Muslim or wasn’t an American. Obama went on to win the nomination and two terms as President. In 2011, Donald Trump decided to really fan the flames of the birther idea again, and then crowed when Obama got the state of Hawaii to break its own legal rules to release the long form version of his birth certificate – and even then, the birthers and Trump weren’t satisfied.
We must never forget that Donald Trump also told us that he had investigators in Hawaii “and they can’t believe what they’re finding.” Nobody has ever taken Trump to task on that – I’d love to see someone ask this at one of the debates – “Mr. Trump, what did your investigators find that was so unbelievable in Hawaii?” Nobody calls him on these statements and it’s frankly irritating to watch him continue to get away with it.
But to answer the Fox News and right wing conspiracy memes of the day, let’s dispense with Fox News’ latest attempt to smear Hillary Clinton and her people.
1. Mark Penn made several offensive comments and emails while he was a chief strategist for the 2008 campaign. He was and is a bare knuckles brawler in campaigns. He eventually alienated enough of the staff from his positions that he was removed from his senior position although not from the campaign itself – he was essentially demoted. Not fired, but demoted in a meaningful way. And his nastier ideas about campaigning were never followed. Meaning that Clinton had no interest in going into the gutter – the 3am phone call commercial was about as far as she was willing to go, and to me, that was already too far, given that right wingers have tried to eat out on it for the past 8 years. So Penn wrote a memo that nobody used for strategy, among other fairly nasty writings, and wound up demoted. Not seeing how this means that Hillary Clinton started the Birther movement.
2. It’s funny that the right wingers want to see Hillary Clinton issue a blanket statement of condemnation in an interview, when she was clearly surprised and frankly shocked to be asked about ridiculous assertions. The tone of her answer is clear: “Are you seriously asking me about something like that rather than a real issue? REALLY?” Could she have been more forceful in her denial of the question’s merits? Sure, but she clearly thought she already HAD been from her tone. She wasn’t as appropriately dismissive as she was when Ed Henry tried to gotcha her about her “wiping the server”, but her tone is pretty clear on this. So if the right wing wants to say that she didn’t deny this strongly enough, we could get into all kinds of discussions about GOP candidates and presidents if they really want to go there. This is an obviously silly ruse, and really just meant as a way to smear Clinton as untrustworthy again.
3. James Asher, who is not a friend of the Clintons, says that Sid Blumenthal told him he thought Obama was born in Kenya. Great. Are we supposed to infer that this means that Blumenthal then told Hillary to go to Texas and set off a couple of wingnuts on a bizarre campaign while they refused to support the Democrat nominee? Or maybe we’re supposed to think that the Clintons secretly thought this. Either way, the assertion makes no sense. Maybe Blumenthal did say this to Asher. So what? Even if Blumenthal believed that kind of nonsense, it was NEVER a part of the campaign and NEVER something that Hillary Clinton or any other official in her campaign would litigate in the press.
So once again, we end up with Fox News and the right wing frantically trying to project their own issues onto their opponents. One would think they would take a minute and just look in the mirror.
And just so we’re very clear on this, as Brit Hume tried to dismiss this today. Birtherism IS racism. It’s not a quantifiable thing where you separate out the birthers from the racists. Birtherism was born from the racist sentiment that Barack Obama should not be President, based specifically on his being an “other” and maybe even an African rather than an African-American. The purpose of the implication was always to provide comfort to racists who hated the notion of a black man becoming President since, hey, he’s not really an American anyway. The fact that Brit Hume would even TRY this line of thinking is extremely telling.
Fox News may well be trying to distance Trump from the Birther movement he so lovingly embraced, but they’re not doing so out of any actual concern for the reality of what happened. They really do just want to blame its existence on Hillary Clinton.
Kevin Koster commented on Megyn Kelly Confronts Trump Spokeswoman About Birtherism But…
2016-09-16 20:01:52 -0400
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I just posted in that thread, but the short version is that multiple Fox News shows are actually trying to smear Clinton and her 2008 campaign with this nonsense. The new Line of the Day seems to be that the idea is ridiculous and anyway, the Dems did it first. Instead of the No-Spin Zone, how about the No-Fact Zone?
Kevin Koster commented on Fox News Settles With Gretchen Carlson For $20 Million And Tacitly Admits Guilt
2016-09-06 16:25:24 -0400
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Thanks for catching the Greta news, Eyes.
I have a feeling there will be a post from Ellen on that any minute…
I have a feeling there will be a post from Ellen on that any minute…
Kevin Koster commented on Don’t Expect Chris Wallace To Correct Any Donald Trump Falsehoods At The Presidential Debate
2016-09-06 03:08:02 -0400
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How about the fact that Bush’s AG had to resign in total disgrace, where Eric Holder continued to do his job in spite of dozens of GOP attempts to drive him from office? And the fact that the Bush Admin was mired in very real illegality and scandal, but the GOP has desperately spent the past 8 years trying to generate anything they could to smear the Obama group?
If anything, I would fault the Obama Admin for being too naïve to understand that these people really did want to obliterate them. The Clinton people won’t be taken in so easily.
If anything, I would fault the Obama Admin for being too naïve to understand that these people really did want to obliterate them. The Clinton people won’t be taken in so easily.