Right Wing media is twisting themselves in knots trying to figure out how to make this go away. Two failed Fox News pundits are trying different approaches on their websites – one is trying to tut tut about the NYT supposedly breaking the law, and both are trying the tack of “Hey, this isn’t news. He’s just a very crafty businessman. Win some, lose some.”

The reality is fairly obvious, as is the reason why Pence’s tweeter hasn’t wanted this information to go public. It shows he’s absolutely not the business mastermind he’s played on TV, and it shows that his actual worth is a lot less than he wants people to believe.

But you’d think people would have already figured out part of this from the complete incompetence of the Pence White House.

I have been saying over and over again that no Democratic candidate should go on the air of this propaganda outlet. I agree with all of the points Ellen has discussed here.

I also agree that if any Democratic politician does wish to go on one of the propaganda shows, whether it be with Bret Baier or Tucker Carlson, their focus should be to confront the propagandists and make sure they understand that they are not going to be taken seriously.

The WCC is an extremely shady organization, and Hunsberger was not helping her cause by ducking even a basic discussion of what they do.

There’s a reason that these pseudo-clinics try to place themselves right next door to the real clinics. The idea is to confuse people who don’t realize that outfits like WCC aren’t actually medical clinics, and to have a way to immediately confront the employees and clients of the real clinics. It’s been documented that one approach has been to have the people of the WCC play “good cop” as they stay inside their building right next to the actual clinic, while more aggressive and outspoken harassers stand outside the clinic and cause problems. In some of these cases, they are able to intimidate the clients into walking into the pseudo clinic, where the WCC folk presumably shame the client into a different course of action.

I want to note that the WCC members are NOT CLINIC DOCTORS. They are advocates for an extreme anti-choice position. Hunsberger never discussed this – she only stated, with some smugness, that her clinics’ record is supposedly high on getting women to not terminate their pregnancies, once the women have actually stepped inside a WCC building. (There’s no mention of what the percentage is of harassed women who have told the outside agitators to leave them alone and not fallen for the invitation into the other building…)

MacCallum’s chipper interview of Hunsberger is yet another example of how she is absolutely NOT a journalist and should not be dignified as such. If Buttigieg is foolish enough to actually humiliate himself on Fox News, we can expect MacCallum to aggressively confront him on the WCC matter, with the questions’ tone being one of mock outrage that he would dare to interfere with their good work. And then Fox News will run that clip forever. I cannot say enough times that it is a pointless exercise for any legitimate candidate to waste their time on a propaganda outlet like Fox News.

Here’s a third option, which makes the most logistical sense, given Greenwald’s consistent approach and given the consistent way that The Intercept has dealt with Trump and the Dems. (There are currently multiple stories and podcasts up on that site discussing the Mueller Report and its aftermath, albeit not in the manner that would lead to much of a criminal judgment.)

Greenwald’s take is that the 2016 election was ruined by the Dems picking Hillary Clinton rather than Bernie Sanders, who he and other Bernie supporters think would have won in a landslide. So they agree with the Right Wing propaganda about how somehow the primaries were “rigged” for Clinton and tell themselves that one positive poll for Sanders around that time is proof that he was guaranteed to win. Greenwald has a real anger for Clinton, as well as for the Dems in general. The anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act, which Greenwald blames for his transfer from the US to Brazil, was signed into law by Bill Clinton. It’s not hard to see why Greenwald does not see either major political party as anything he would support, and particularly why he hates the Clintons.

This does not mean that Greenwald likes Trump, or that The Intercept is a support site for the Pence White House. The Intercept is actually fairly effective at exposing the vicious mendacity of the Pence team, and at challenging the open bigotry of these people. But again, Greenwald’s take on how Trump got into office is not about whether there was Russian interference but more about how the Dems picked a terrible candidate and couldn’t get their voters to show up. Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill take some open pleasure in mocking the notion of Russian interference – mostly as a way of tsk-tsking mainstream Dems who were hoping that an impeachment of Trump and Pence was in the offing.

We must also remember that Greenwald, Scahill and pretty much the entire Left media, including not only The Intercept but also Democracy Now! And Pacifica Radio, see Julian Assange as a crusading hero journalist. They’ve been delighted with the ways that Assange has exposed and embarrassed the US military and various politicians. As far as they’re concerned, Assange has done the whole world a service. (And there is some validity to that point of view – Assange has indeed exposed some truly horrifying behavior by the US, particularly in terms of deliberate killing of civilians in Iraq and elsewhere.) But they of course also ignore how Assange would indiscriminately dump massive amounts of private emails and private personal information in his exposes, which could be guaranteed to cause real harm to the people caught up in his wide nets.

Greenwald was most particularly happy to see the dump of the Podesta emails, as his take on them was that they exposed the DNC actually “rigging” the 2016 primaries against Sanders. (As opposed to what they actually show – that the DNC simply didn’t take Sanders seriously, for clear and appropriate reasons.) In taking that position, Greenwald aligned himself with the Right Wing narrative about 2016 – about how Clinton was a terrible, weak candidate who couldn’t even come out ahead of Sanders and somehow needed a massive corrupt “rigging” to let her win when she should have lost. Which therefore made Greenwald a great interview for angry Fox News pundits who wanted to use a sympathetic Left voice as a “gotcha!” card. (“See?!! Even the Lefties admit it!”)

Hannity is clearly very worried about something. He’s seemed near frantic over the past week. The most telling moments of his fawning kneel before the Pence White House’s childish spokesman was his repeated attempts to get the Tweeter to announce a prosecution of Hillary Clinton.

One must really think for a minute when looking at the fever pitch of Hannity’s increasing panic – if this White House is doing so well and if they’re so assured of re-election in a landslide, why is Hannity sweating?

And here we have Exhibit 23785 of why no Democratic candidate should go anywhere near Fox News. One more time we have Fox News’ supposed “news division” acting shamelessly as propagandists for angry Right Wingers and the GOP.

Limbaugh’s comments aren’t surprising. He’s clearly panicking about the terrible approval numbers for the Pence White House and the continuing revulsion most of the country holds for its Tweeting spokesman. So now he wants to throw as much frantic shade as he can, and we’re supposed to just believe that any of the nonsense he’s saying has any credibility.

To be honest, it’s perplexing why anyone pays any attention to desperate attention-seekers like Limbaugh. On the other hand, it’s par for the course for Fox News to encourage his vicious statements as though they were sage pronouncements of some sort.

The gall of these people is breathtaking. Not to mention their capacity for projection.

Looking at the actual Mueller Report (and not at Barr’s deceitful attempts to spin it), there’s plenty of collusion and obstruction on display. And the Report makes clear it is NOT an exoneration at all. But the Report also makes clear that Eyes’ thinking is correct – they specifically note that the DOJ policy about not indicting the POTUS had effectively stopped them from pursuing anything further (at least while he occupies the Pence White House). And even if they’d chosen to fight the policy in court, this would just have meant they would be litigating the back-and forth all the way through the 2020 election, at which point the American people could make the decision on their own.

I also find it interesting that angry Right Wingers have suddenly discovered religion when it comes to the Attorney General and the notion of “innocent until proven guilty.” Suddenly, the AG is a saint who must be respected and revered, and it is just unseemly to have any judgment about the multiple illegal acts and attempted acts spotlit in this Report. These Right Wingers must have held this same moral standard when Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch were in the AG position, right? And they certainly felt that it would be wrong to yell “Lock Her Up!” about a person who had been repeatedly investigated for political reasons and repeatedly been shown to not be a criminal? I mean, these people wouldn’t be acting as hypocrites, would they?

Regarding the despicable, vicious person known as Laura Ingraham, the only civilized way to deal with her at this point is to refuse to speak to her. The only words I would say to her would be “Shame on you.”

This is a terrible idea for all of them. They appear to be doing this out of desperation to get attention in the middle of a crowded field. But dignifying Fox News’ nonsense isn’t going to get any of them a single vote further than they would have already received. The Fox News audience has already made up their mind.

Fox News has been playing a short clip of this exchange wherever it can on its various shows. Their point has clearly been to show that “Sanders doesn’t know how to answer such a reasonable question” rather than to acknowledge that McCallum failed in her “gotcha!” attempts. (I note that McCallum played a similar game today in discussing taxes with a guest who was trying to talk about how the GOP Tax Transfer benefited the wealthy. She presented him with the usual false premise from the Right about how anyone is free to just pay more taxes if they wish. Which is another nonsensical false dilemma.)

McCallum’s behavior here just points up why it is a bad idea for any Dem candidate to legitimize this propaganda network, particularly during this election cycle. Fox News is not a legitimate news organization and they should not be treated as one.

I have no idea why Perez even agreed to talk to someone like Hemmer. Or why he would say he had so much respect for a person who does not deserve it.

This entire nonsensical discussion is based on the Pence White House’s spokesman trying to bully the rest of the country with a fantasy threat. I am frankly tired of the hot air threats coming from this childish person and his acolytes. If he really intends to break the law and throw people onto the streets of the cities he and his acolytes hate, then he should try it and see what happens to him.

There is no point in dignifying these nonsensical statements, and frankly it’s a giant waste of time. Sanders’ frantic attempts to spin this are similarly a waste of time. The only thing she’s achieving here is that she’s making her own situation a lot more difficult in two years, when she will potentially be looking for work and will need to explain this conduct. Like the rest of the deplorables, she will need to live with the consequences of her behavior.

Ellen is correct. Nunes, like most angry Right Wingers, is frantic to stop journalists from actually covering what he is doing. So he’s thinking he can SLAPP them down with a ridiculous lawsuit like this one.

Part of the point of moving the suit to California is to make sure that the anti-SLAPP laws apply, which will sink this case very quickly. I agree that sanctions are in order – not only in this nuisance suit, but also in every single case filed for the Sandmanns.

Charles Payne has no standing to be complaining about anything. Like Ed Henry, he got caught in a damaging affair that blew up his marriage. Unlike Ed Henry, Payne was suspended by Fox News while they dealt with serious allegations of harassment and favor trading and all that. (Henry simply took a “leave of absence”, but we can read between the lines to understand how that was worked out. Had he refused to take the “leave”, he would have been hit with the suspension.)

And now Payne would like us to believe that he is a paragon of virtue? Because he is lying about a city policy that isn’t even in effect yet? Seriously, do these people have no shame?

The purpose of this anti-choice and anti-women state bill is twofold.

First and most importantly, angry Right Wingers are thinking correctly that if they flood red states with these anti-choice bills, they’ll get a favorable Supreme Court decision soon. This has been a standard Right Wing play since 1992, when various states rushed anti-choice laws through their houses, thinking that Clarence Thomas would be the vote to overturn Roe. The legislators are fully aware these bills will not be enforced anytime soon – they’ll be challenged in court immediately. The idea is to appeal them all the way up to the highest court and get a ruling about how fetal tissue is actually a “person”. And if they can’t get that ruling, they can at least get what John Roberts will happily provide – a series of limitation rulings. For example, when the Louisiana clinic bill gets to the Roberts SC within the next year, we’ll almost certainly get a ruling that undoes the 2016 decision on the same matter – and which will assert the rights of the individual states to regulate things like abortion within their borders. Which will effectively end abortion in upwards of 20 states, as their “zombie laws”, like Georgia’s, will immediately go into effect. And within another few years, we’ll get another appeal, this time about “personhood”, and after a few incremental decisions, that one will be the one to finish Roe off for good.

Secondly, angry Right Wingers are hoping in the short term to keep their base fired up about the evil liberals who want to somehow murder everyone who hasn’t been born yet. It doesn’t matter that the idea is nonsense – the point is to inflame the gullible into believing it, and to get those voters out to the polls in force in November 2020. Based on the way they’ve all been playing this card, from Fox News to tinier outlets like Glenn Beck, this strategy is a big one they intend to press throughout the next 19 months.

Regarding the film and television production community in Georgia, it remains to be seen how many people will really honor this notion of refusing to go there. But if it does come to pass that a bunch of shows relocate away from Atlanta, that just means that another state will benefit from that production work. Georgia’s film industry frankly depends on heavy subsidies to continue. If the businesses start pulling out, the subsidies would likely be reduced, which would start the spiral in the other direction. (And this is the reason many film professionals only work in Georgia on a project-by-project basis)

Kelly just wants to keep her name out in the public consciousness. My thinking is that she’ll most likely just fade away, like other former Fox News personalities have. Her behavior at NBC just confirmed what actual journalism outlets have been noting for years – that Fox News hosts are not suitable to take mainstream air time.

Frankly, the best use of her time would be for her to pull the “O Reilly Maneuver” – spend her time on her own website and blog, and rail about how “the media” mistreated her.

Ellen is correct in her most important point, and we really must stress it: It is CRUCIAL that everyone show up to vote in 2020, particularly in the swing states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, etc. It is CRUCIAL that people show up even in potentially purple states like Texas. If Democratic voters stay home in 2020, like they did in the swing states in 2016, and like they did in Texas, Georgia, Missouri and Florida in 2018, they will be giving Mike Pence another 4 years to damage this country. There is NO EXCUSE for anyone to stay home in 2020. Period. Full Stop.

John’s point is well taken, in that angry Right Wingers are doing a major victory dance today when we are still over 19 months away from Election Day. I wouldn’t be so sure if I were them. On the other hand, I don’t mind that they are this overconfident. It’s causing them to make bizarre choices – like openly attacking the ACA and gloating about it, like the brazen attempt to defund the Special Olympics while putting that money into private charter schools. Nothing these idiots are doing will appeal to the 70% of this country that does not support the Pence White House. So the more they ramp up their hostility, the more they motivate Democratic voters across the country to show up and vote them out.

Truman is correct to note that NOBODY has seen the actual Mueller report. Barr’s opinion about the report is loaded with fishy legalese that indicates the actual report is extremely critical of the behavior of the Trump campaign and the Pence White House – when we finally see it, I have a feeling it will note the obvious behavior by Trumpers across the campaign that was not only seedy but flirting with illegality in multiple areas. We’ll have to see the actual report to know the details, but the Right Wing has no basis for their proclamations this week.

Keep in mind that the Right Wing is only pushing this narrative about the Mueller report because they want to drown out the actual news when it finally comes out (provided that Pence doesn’t just bury it, as is quite possible). So that if the report is released on a Friday in August or September, the Right Wing will have already spent 6 months building up the story that it “totally exonerated” the Pence White House, and that narrative will already be set in stone for the Right Wing audience.

Regarding the threats now coming from Fox News and the Pence White House about launching criminal charge hunts against the Clintons, the Obamas and everyone else they hate – I’d take those extremely seriously. Donald Trump doesn’t think in terms of long range ideas or the larger good. He’s a child. He thinks in terms of who he thinks has wronged him and he loves the idea of revenge. Based on Barr’s history and his current behavior, I’m expecting to hear about a new Special Counsel fairly soon. If the Pence White House gets its way, you’ll see perp walks of both Bill and Hillary Clinton in time for the 2020 DNC Convention. I had expected these to happen much earlier in Pence’s acting presidency, but they would serve a greater propaganda purpose by happening during the campaign next year.

1. It’s fairly clear what happened in Chicago with the Smollett case. According to sources that were actually cited by actual news networks last night, the eventual outcome of a trial of Smollett was almost certain to be a sentence of community service – something that Smollett is already doing. Prior cases of false reports have been dealt with in this fashion. The DA’s office chose to avoid a show trial which would just waste everyone’s time and waste a LOT of money, simply to assign Smollett a punishment he already does, and a fine. So they kept his 10K and washed their hands of this. Smollett’s forfeiture of his bond is a direct indicator that he agreed to these terms, no matter what spin his attorney puts on it. And he’s ruined his career, so he’s not being rewarded in any case. Angry Right Wingers are upset that he’s not being thrown in jail for the rest of his life, but that’s their problem.

2. Tucker Carlson should spend a little more time reflecting on his own behavior, particularly the terrible quotes by him that he still hasn’t apologized for. He’s lost a fair amount of his sponsors and his only response has been to double down on his hatred and dog whistles. If I were him, I might think a little about where this is heading for him. Fox News may hang on to him for a bit longer, depending on how the 2020 election turns out, but he’s not looking at a long term future of being able to sustain this record. A humble public apology would be a much better idea for him.

Hannity, like the rest of the angry Right Wing media, is blatantly lying about what we know about the Mueller report.

1. The investigation was more than justified by the behavior of the Trump campaign. George Papadopoulos set things in motion when he began bragging about their antics, and there were other suspicious activities, as the investigation has shown multiple times. Nobody forced Flynn to take the actions he did. Nobody forced these guys to work with Wikileaks and play dirty tricks games with them. Even the act of consorting with a group like Wikileaks would have put the Trump gang on the radar of investigators, for obvious reasons. So the Right Wing premise that this was an unfounded political hit job is ridiculous on its face and should be slapped away the moment it’s attempted.

2. Even from what little we know about the Mueller Report from Barr’s opinion sheet on it, this was NOT an exoneration. We need to see the actual report to know the exact language, but what we’ve seen so far indicates that Mueller saw extremely suspicious behavior but didn’t feel he could prosecute a sitting president for it under current DOJ guidelines. That’s not the same thing as “total exoneration” by any means. So the second Right Wing premise is as nonsensical as the first.

3. If angry Right Wingers want to hear an apology from anyone about covering a legitimate news story and an investigation where 37 indictments were brought and multiple convictions were landed, then we’re truly in upside down world. And while we’re there, let’s ask about the apologies and “accountability” from Right Wing media for their smear jobs about:

-Fast & Furious

-Solyndra

-The IRS and Lois Lerner

-Benghazi

-Hillary Clinton’s Emails

-Joe Sestak

-President Obama’s school transcripts

And I’m barely scratching the surface. The reality is that someone like Sean Hannity has absolutely no moral ground upon which to stand when he makes nonsensical claims like these. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was playing an elaborate practical joke.

The most important thing everyone can do is VOTE in 2020, and make sure that every sane voter in the swing states actually shows up at the ballot booths and doesn’t sit it out again.

People absolutely must learn the lesson of 2016 if we are to avoid a repeat performance in 2020. It may actually help this cause that Fox News and angry Right Wingers are doing so much celebrating at the moment. They’re prematurely spiking their football and we’re still 20 months away from Election Day. This is the kind of thing that would only infuriate Democratic voters – something the Right normally doesn’t care about. But it’s exactly the kind of thing that should motivate those voters to show up in Wisconsin, in Michigan, in Florida, to tell these guys where to go.

No surprise.

To be honest, the one surprise I’ve had is that the Pence White House did not have the Clintons arrested over a year and a half ago, as soon as their legislative agenda foundered.

Fox News will no doubt work to see if they can get that perp walk of the Clintons done in time for the 2020 campaign.