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babylonsister
babylonsister's Journal
babylonsister's Journal
November 28, 2022
Republicans are so extreme that simply reciting their own words makes for searing attack ads
Kerry Eleveld for Daily Kos
Daily Kos Staff
Sunday November 27, 2022 · 3:00 PM EST
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Republicans have made a habit of fielding candidates who are so extreme that Democrats need do little more than showcase the candidates’ own words.
That proved true in 2008, when Saturday Night Live’s Tina Fey centered her skits on reenacting the actual words of then-GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.
This cycle, the Democratic group House Majority PAC put its own spin on that tack after it was revealed that the Republican nominee for Michigan's 3rd Congressional District, John Gibbs, had once lamented the fact that women have the right to vote—in writing, no less.
The result was far less amusing than Fey’s comedic masterpieces, but still searingly effective. House Majority PAC cut an ad titled "Actual Quotes" in which school girls read back excerpts of Gibbs' own blog posts.
Democrat Hillary Scholten ultimately defeated Gibbs by about 13 points, 55% to 42%.
But look for more ads in this genre next cycle—because the GOP won’t get any smarter, saner, or more reasonable over the next two years.
more...
Republicans are so extreme that simply reciting their own words makes for searing attack ads
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/11/27/2137189/-Republicans-are-so-extreme-that-simply-reciting-their-own-words-makes-for-searing-attack-adsRepublicans are so extreme that simply reciting their own words makes for searing attack ads
Kerry Eleveld for Daily Kos
Daily Kos Staff
Sunday November 27, 2022 · 3:00 PM EST
Share this article
Republicans have made a habit of fielding candidates who are so extreme that Democrats need do little more than showcase the candidates’ own words.
That proved true in 2008, when Saturday Night Live’s Tina Fey centered her skits on reenacting the actual words of then-GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.
This cycle, the Democratic group House Majority PAC put its own spin on that tack after it was revealed that the Republican nominee for Michigan's 3rd Congressional District, John Gibbs, had once lamented the fact that women have the right to vote—in writing, no less.
The result was far less amusing than Fey’s comedic masterpieces, but still searingly effective. House Majority PAC cut an ad titled "Actual Quotes" in which school girls read back excerpts of Gibbs' own blog posts.
"Are men smarter than women?" read one girl. "I think the answer is, Yes," continued another.
The gems from Gibbs continued.
"There is no factual basis on which to claim that it is better to have women in the workplace."
"The United States has suffered as a result of women's suffrage."
"We cannot say that women should be allowed to vote simply because they are a large part of the population."
The gems from Gibbs continued.
"There is no factual basis on which to claim that it is better to have women in the workplace."
"The United States has suffered as a result of women's suffrage."
"We cannot say that women should be allowed to vote simply because they are a large part of the population."
Democrat Hillary Scholten ultimately defeated Gibbs by about 13 points, 55% to 42%.
But look for more ads in this genre next cycle—because the GOP won’t get any smarter, saner, or more reasonable over the next two years.
more...
November 27, 2022
Posted on Sat, Nov 26th, 2022 by Jason Easley
Club Q Shooting Hero’s Conversation With Biden Shows The Difference A Decent President Can Make
Richard Fierro, one of the heroes of the Club Q shooting, mentioned his conversation with President Biden, and the interaction reveals how much better it is for the nation to have a decent person as president.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1596623009896357889
CNN’s Jim Acosta asked Fierro about his conversation with President Biden and he answered:
As the nation learned from the previous president before Biden, there is great value in having a president who is a person of good character that cares about others.
Joe Biden has restored respect and kindness to the presidency. The Biden White House didn’t put out a statement about his call with Fierro. The call wasn’t made for political gain or a photo op. The President Of The United States called a man who engaged in an act of heroism to thank him for his bravery and expressed his condolences over the loss of life at Club Q.
The president sets the moral tone for the nation, and Biden has restored decency to the Oval Office.
Club Q Shooting Hero's Conversation With Biden Shows The Difference A Decent President Can Make
https://www.politicususa.com/2022/11/26/richard-fierro-biden.htmlPosted on Sat, Nov 26th, 2022 by Jason Easley
Club Q Shooting Hero’s Conversation With Biden Shows The Difference A Decent President Can Make
Richard Fierro, one of the heroes of the Club Q shooting, mentioned his conversation with President Biden, and the interaction reveals how much better it is for the nation to have a decent person as president.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1596623009896357889
CNN’s Jim Acosta asked Fierro about his conversation with President Biden and he answered:
Well, listen, I’m just a young kid, I grew up in San Diego. I never expected to ever talk to the president, more or less be around one or any of that stuff, a governor, a mayor. I am humbled. You know, at the end of the day, I wish everybody could talk to him just to have that honor.
I’m an old soldier, so for me just to talk to a commander in chief is a big deal. The discussion was between us and I was grateful that he took the time to say thank you and just, you know, send his condolences about the families.
I’m an old soldier, so for me just to talk to a commander in chief is a big deal. The discussion was between us and I was grateful that he took the time to say thank you and just, you know, send his condolences about the families.
As the nation learned from the previous president before Biden, there is great value in having a president who is a person of good character that cares about others.
Joe Biden has restored respect and kindness to the presidency. The Biden White House didn’t put out a statement about his call with Fierro. The call wasn’t made for political gain or a photo op. The President Of The United States called a man who engaged in an act of heroism to thank him for his bravery and expressed his condolences over the loss of life at Club Q.
The president sets the moral tone for the nation, and Biden has restored decency to the Oval Office.
November 26, 2022
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump Schmooze With Qatari Royalty at World Cup
OF COURSE
Nick Schager
Entertainment Critic
Updated Nov. 25, 2022 8:07PM ET /
Published Nov. 25, 2022 8:06PM ET
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump Schmooze With Qatari Royalty at World Cup
https://www.thedailybeast.com/jared-kushner-and-ivanka-trump-schmooze-with-qatari-royalty-at-world-cup?ref=homeJared Kushner and Ivanka Trump Schmooze With Qatari Royalty at World Cup
OF COURSE
Nick Schager
Entertainment Critic
Updated Nov. 25, 2022 8:07PM ET /
Published Nov. 25, 2022 8:06PM ET
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner spent Thursday with Qatari Prime Minister Khalid bin Khalifa bin Abdulaziz Al Thani in a private box at the World Cup match between Brazil and Serbia in Qatar. Along with their three children, the couple were spied spending time with various politicians and Middle Eastern businessmen during the course of the contest, including Nasser Al-Khelaifi, a Qatari billionaire businessman and president of France’s soccer club, Paris Saint-Germain. The duo’s latest dalliance with the region’s wealthy and powerful comes on the heels of Senate finance committee chairman Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) raising questions about whether Qatar was secretly involved in a $1.2bn (£1bn) bailout—while Kushner served in Donald Trump’s White House—of a Fifth Avenue property owned by the Kushner family. Despite these geopolitically charged interactions, Ivanka says she won’t be a part of her father’s upcoming 2024 presidential campaign.
November 26, 2022
Hey, Republicans, I want my country back, too!
Dartagnan for Community Contributors Team
Community
Friday November 25, 2022 · 6:59 PM EST
Share this article
It was nice last week to see those Mastriano signs stuffed in a trash can at the Bowmansville Service Plaza on the Pennsylvania turnpike, a little more than halfway between Harrisburg and Philadelphia. In hindsight, I should have taken a picture of that, but I didn’t. Josh Shapiro had won the governor’s race a few days before, and for the first time in what seemed like years, I’d driven through the middle of Pennsylvania, seeing only a stray sign or two along the route or the roads intersecting the exits.
I didn’t notice whether the guy whose pickup truck has been parked for months on the southern side of the turnpike, just east of the Highspire Plaza, had removed his huge Trump and Mastriano signs from the sides of his truck. Or whether the guy whose “shrine” to Trump east of the Blue Mountain Tunnel (I think it might be in Franklin, Mastriano’s home county) had removed all those stones spelling out Trump’s name in a big semi-circle beneath a flagpole. I suspect the latter, at least, are still there.
When I was a kid, my dad took me fishing and hunting through a lot of the rural areas of Pennsylvania. We’d stay overnight at his friend’s places, people he’d worked with mostly, or met at the archery or rifle club. Along the way, we’d drive through small towns interspersed within state game lands and stop at diners to get breakfast in the pre-dawn cold of late November, or dinner at some nameless little restaurant after spending all day in the woods freezing our asses off. There was never much, if any, hint of local politics on these trips—no yard signs, no bumper stickers to speak of, no overt statements of political allegiance that I can ever recall seeing. For the most part, it was just beautiful land, farms, mountains, and nondescript little towns with a few worn-down shops in what passed for the town center. I liked it.
My dad and I would explore trout streams in the spring, look for deer trails and good deer hunting spots in the fall, weeks before the opening day of buck season, always the first Monday after Thanksgiving. In these trips, we’d see squirrel nests in trees, buck rubs on slender birches, and fields with ring-necked pheasants. Every once in a while, a grouse would pop out of some brush and loudly flutter away at our approach.
We’d drive in the early morning hours on dark roads through towns well off the beaten path. These were towns you’d never heard of that consisted of a few buildings, maybe a post office if you were lucky. We’d sleep at a friend of my dad’s, someone typically living in a small cabin with a big wide yard in the foothills of the same mountainside we’d trudge up the next morning in the cold, before daylight, with our guns, our seats, and our packs. Maybe there’d be an old drive-in along the way, set back well off the road and only barely illuminated by our headlights. Beyond that, nothing but a horizon dotted with distant, quiet farms.
Many of those places are gone now, replaced by strip malls, Applebee’s, and Starbucks. The fields that used to be home to the pheasants are now taken over by corporations, and the pheasants are long gone, except in special areas where they’re raised. Some areas are off-limits because of fracking. And you can no longer fish for bass in rivers and lakes or trout in streams and expect to eat what you catch unless you space it out by two fish per week, because of the mercury and other contaminants from run-off. Open hunting land is more difficult to find. In the real nether regions of the Commonwealth, though, those same small towns still exist, pretty much unchanged.
But over the last few years, there has been something new, something impossible to ignore. And it’s the reason I no longer have the same feeling when I drive through the countryside in this state. In fact, I no longer have that feeling when I leave my suburban Philadelphia enclave and drive for a few miles into the more rural areas of the surrounding counties. Because it seems like every mile or so, between those bucolic silos and fields, inevitably, there is a sign, often an oversized, hand-painted one, professing that property owner’s undying love for Donald Trump.
Occasionally these signs are accompanied by some type of overt slur against liberals or people of color, perhaps a Confederate flag or just a bumper sticker emblazoned on the back of a black pickup truck. Or it’s a “Let’s Go Brandon” banner flag hanging from someone’s porch. In all of these rural and semi-rural Pennsylvania towns, east and west of Harrisburg—Mountville, Ickesburg, Coudersport, Galeton, Hanover, Manheim, Chambersburg, Perdix, Duncannon, Mifflintown, Bradford, Clearfield, Bellefonte—it’s the same thing: we love Trump, we hate you liberals. We have guns. And we want you to know it.
So, when I walk into these country stores or eat at these diners (the same diners the New York Times loves to send its reporters to), what I feel most of all now from the people working in them and coming in and out of their doors is something akin to a sense of … not quite menace, but a kind of hostility. I don’t think this is projection on my part. There’s an attitude now that wasn’t there even ten years ago. I feel like an unwanted visitor. Invariably, of course, there’s only one news channel on in any of these little bars and restaurants. You know what that news channel is.
You also know there are liberals and Democrats in some of these towns, but for the most part, they’re invisible, some because they don’t want to rock the boat, but a lot of them now out of genuine fear. No one wants to turn out the lights, go to sleep, and wake up with an ugly slur or worse in your front yard. You don’t want someone in a black pickup truck trying to run you off the road because of your Biden bumper sticker. Because there’s a rage there now, a simmering cauldron of resentments among many rural residents, and you just don’t know which ones they are. It’s unpredictable and dangerous.
It makes no sense, but that doesn’t make it any less real. Those yard signs are no longer simply affirmations of any given property owner’s belief system: they’re more like “in your face” threats. That’s the intent of the big flags flying from their cars and trucks: to intimidate. I know others have experienced this. Pennsylvania is a so-called purple state; in red states, it’s pretty much the norm everywhere except the major cities. My perspective is that of a privileged white male who can blend into this environment to a degree, and I feel it; I’m sure any person of color experiences it a hundred times worse than I do.
Just how badly the appearance, first of Fox News, and then Donald Trump, on this country’s political landscape has damaged everything that Americans like me, only a few years ago, took for granted in our assumptions about our fellow citizens, has never really been spelled out. But by now, it’s resulted in a complete tearing of the nation’s fabric; the total negation of the bonds between Americans, the bonds we all assumed existed when we were growing up, all those decades ago. That country, the one where you didn’t have to think about or acknowledge the political environment wherever it was you were going, no longer exists. The mask has been ripped off, and what’s beneath is seething, unabashed racism, looking for an outlet.
And, boy, do they hate us. The truth is a lot of them would be more than happy to kill us. That’s the natural result of all the nonstop demonization that Fox News pours into their ears and eyeballs every day. Ultimately it doesn’t matter what ginned-up grievance motivates them, because they’ve been taught to hate. As long as Fox News and Donald Trump have told them, it’s fine, that’s all they need to know.
I’d read about the history of the McCarthy period during the 1950s, when Americans were turned against each other through the machinations of a corrupt, alcoholic, and unscrupulous senator from the state of Wisconsin. I knew how he ruined so many lives through sheer demagoguery, spreading a pestilent, paranoid anti-Communism that gripped the nation for a few years, targeting the liberals of the day, actors, writers, politicians, even icons like Charlie Chaplin with sinister insinuations, accusations, and threats. He was finally brought down by a public shaming, although not before doing irrevocable damage.
But it’s a different kind of McCarthyism that’s out there now, one that smolders just beneath the thin veneer of civility, one that gets its juices recharged every night through Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and the never-ending panoply of virulent racists yammering away on addictive social media platforms. It’s not one susceptible to being wiped out simply by taking one individual out of the picture. It can’t be shamed because it knows no shame in the first place. And it’s channeling something far more lethal and longstanding in this country than fear of Communism ever was.
So, I expect most of those big hand-painted signs may be gone for a year or two. But they’ll be back in 2024 and well beyond that, defacing the idyllic Pennsylvania landscape until this nation collectively figures out that allowing hatred, racism, and grievance to be monetized by unscrupulous people and corporations for profit is a recipe for societal destruction. Until then, the countryside I loved so much as a boy will never have the same appeal to me.
These people always say they “want their country back.” Well, I’d dearly love to have my country back, too. But I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen anytime soon.
"Hey, Republicans, I want my country back, too!"
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/11/25/2105681/-Hey-Republicans-I-want-my-country-back-tooHey, Republicans, I want my country back, too!
Dartagnan for Community Contributors Team
Community
Friday November 25, 2022 · 6:59 PM EST
Share this article
It was nice last week to see those Mastriano signs stuffed in a trash can at the Bowmansville Service Plaza on the Pennsylvania turnpike, a little more than halfway between Harrisburg and Philadelphia. In hindsight, I should have taken a picture of that, but I didn’t. Josh Shapiro had won the governor’s race a few days before, and for the first time in what seemed like years, I’d driven through the middle of Pennsylvania, seeing only a stray sign or two along the route or the roads intersecting the exits.
I didn’t notice whether the guy whose pickup truck has been parked for months on the southern side of the turnpike, just east of the Highspire Plaza, had removed his huge Trump and Mastriano signs from the sides of his truck. Or whether the guy whose “shrine” to Trump east of the Blue Mountain Tunnel (I think it might be in Franklin, Mastriano’s home county) had removed all those stones spelling out Trump’s name in a big semi-circle beneath a flagpole. I suspect the latter, at least, are still there.
When I was a kid, my dad took me fishing and hunting through a lot of the rural areas of Pennsylvania. We’d stay overnight at his friend’s places, people he’d worked with mostly, or met at the archery or rifle club. Along the way, we’d drive through small towns interspersed within state game lands and stop at diners to get breakfast in the pre-dawn cold of late November, or dinner at some nameless little restaurant after spending all day in the woods freezing our asses off. There was never much, if any, hint of local politics on these trips—no yard signs, no bumper stickers to speak of, no overt statements of political allegiance that I can ever recall seeing. For the most part, it was just beautiful land, farms, mountains, and nondescript little towns with a few worn-down shops in what passed for the town center. I liked it.
My dad and I would explore trout streams in the spring, look for deer trails and good deer hunting spots in the fall, weeks before the opening day of buck season, always the first Monday after Thanksgiving. In these trips, we’d see squirrel nests in trees, buck rubs on slender birches, and fields with ring-necked pheasants. Every once in a while, a grouse would pop out of some brush and loudly flutter away at our approach.
We’d drive in the early morning hours on dark roads through towns well off the beaten path. These were towns you’d never heard of that consisted of a few buildings, maybe a post office if you were lucky. We’d sleep at a friend of my dad’s, someone typically living in a small cabin with a big wide yard in the foothills of the same mountainside we’d trudge up the next morning in the cold, before daylight, with our guns, our seats, and our packs. Maybe there’d be an old drive-in along the way, set back well off the road and only barely illuminated by our headlights. Beyond that, nothing but a horizon dotted with distant, quiet farms.
Many of those places are gone now, replaced by strip malls, Applebee’s, and Starbucks. The fields that used to be home to the pheasants are now taken over by corporations, and the pheasants are long gone, except in special areas where they’re raised. Some areas are off-limits because of fracking. And you can no longer fish for bass in rivers and lakes or trout in streams and expect to eat what you catch unless you space it out by two fish per week, because of the mercury and other contaminants from run-off. Open hunting land is more difficult to find. In the real nether regions of the Commonwealth, though, those same small towns still exist, pretty much unchanged.
But over the last few years, there has been something new, something impossible to ignore. And it’s the reason I no longer have the same feeling when I drive through the countryside in this state. In fact, I no longer have that feeling when I leave my suburban Philadelphia enclave and drive for a few miles into the more rural areas of the surrounding counties. Because it seems like every mile or so, between those bucolic silos and fields, inevitably, there is a sign, often an oversized, hand-painted one, professing that property owner’s undying love for Donald Trump.
Occasionally these signs are accompanied by some type of overt slur against liberals or people of color, perhaps a Confederate flag or just a bumper sticker emblazoned on the back of a black pickup truck. Or it’s a “Let’s Go Brandon” banner flag hanging from someone’s porch. In all of these rural and semi-rural Pennsylvania towns, east and west of Harrisburg—Mountville, Ickesburg, Coudersport, Galeton, Hanover, Manheim, Chambersburg, Perdix, Duncannon, Mifflintown, Bradford, Clearfield, Bellefonte—it’s the same thing: we love Trump, we hate you liberals. We have guns. And we want you to know it.
So, when I walk into these country stores or eat at these diners (the same diners the New York Times loves to send its reporters to), what I feel most of all now from the people working in them and coming in and out of their doors is something akin to a sense of … not quite menace, but a kind of hostility. I don’t think this is projection on my part. There’s an attitude now that wasn’t there even ten years ago. I feel like an unwanted visitor. Invariably, of course, there’s only one news channel on in any of these little bars and restaurants. You know what that news channel is.
You also know there are liberals and Democrats in some of these towns, but for the most part, they’re invisible, some because they don’t want to rock the boat, but a lot of them now out of genuine fear. No one wants to turn out the lights, go to sleep, and wake up with an ugly slur or worse in your front yard. You don’t want someone in a black pickup truck trying to run you off the road because of your Biden bumper sticker. Because there’s a rage there now, a simmering cauldron of resentments among many rural residents, and you just don’t know which ones they are. It’s unpredictable and dangerous.
It makes no sense, but that doesn’t make it any less real. Those yard signs are no longer simply affirmations of any given property owner’s belief system: they’re more like “in your face” threats. That’s the intent of the big flags flying from their cars and trucks: to intimidate. I know others have experienced this. Pennsylvania is a so-called purple state; in red states, it’s pretty much the norm everywhere except the major cities. My perspective is that of a privileged white male who can blend into this environment to a degree, and I feel it; I’m sure any person of color experiences it a hundred times worse than I do.
Just how badly the appearance, first of Fox News, and then Donald Trump, on this country’s political landscape has damaged everything that Americans like me, only a few years ago, took for granted in our assumptions about our fellow citizens, has never really been spelled out. But by now, it’s resulted in a complete tearing of the nation’s fabric; the total negation of the bonds between Americans, the bonds we all assumed existed when we were growing up, all those decades ago. That country, the one where you didn’t have to think about or acknowledge the political environment wherever it was you were going, no longer exists. The mask has been ripped off, and what’s beneath is seething, unabashed racism, looking for an outlet.
And, boy, do they hate us. The truth is a lot of them would be more than happy to kill us. That’s the natural result of all the nonstop demonization that Fox News pours into their ears and eyeballs every day. Ultimately it doesn’t matter what ginned-up grievance motivates them, because they’ve been taught to hate. As long as Fox News and Donald Trump have told them, it’s fine, that’s all they need to know.
I’d read about the history of the McCarthy period during the 1950s, when Americans were turned against each other through the machinations of a corrupt, alcoholic, and unscrupulous senator from the state of Wisconsin. I knew how he ruined so many lives through sheer demagoguery, spreading a pestilent, paranoid anti-Communism that gripped the nation for a few years, targeting the liberals of the day, actors, writers, politicians, even icons like Charlie Chaplin with sinister insinuations, accusations, and threats. He was finally brought down by a public shaming, although not before doing irrevocable damage.
But it’s a different kind of McCarthyism that’s out there now, one that smolders just beneath the thin veneer of civility, one that gets its juices recharged every night through Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and the never-ending panoply of virulent racists yammering away on addictive social media platforms. It’s not one susceptible to being wiped out simply by taking one individual out of the picture. It can’t be shamed because it knows no shame in the first place. And it’s channeling something far more lethal and longstanding in this country than fear of Communism ever was.
So, I expect most of those big hand-painted signs may be gone for a year or two. But they’ll be back in 2024 and well beyond that, defacing the idyllic Pennsylvania landscape until this nation collectively figures out that allowing hatred, racism, and grievance to be monetized by unscrupulous people and corporations for profit is a recipe for societal destruction. Until then, the countryside I loved so much as a boy will never have the same appeal to me.
These people always say they “want their country back.” Well, I’d dearly love to have my country back, too. But I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen anytime soon.
November 24, 2022
President Joe Biden Says He’ll ‘Count Votes’ For Assault Weapon Ban
‘IT’S JUST SICK’
Published Nov. 24, 2022 12:00PM ET
Read it at Bloomberg
President Joe Biden Says He'll 'Count Votes' For Assault Weapon Ban
https://www.thedailybeast.com/president-joe-biden-says-hell-count-votes-for-assault-weapon-ban?ref=homePresident Joe Biden Says He’ll ‘Count Votes’ For Assault Weapon Ban
‘IT’S JUST SICK’
Published Nov. 24, 2022 12:00PM ET
President Joe Biden said in a brief press gaggle on Thursday that he'll “count votes” in an attempt to pass through a federal assault rifle ban in a lame-duck session of Congress this winter. “I’m going to try and get rid of assault weapons,” Biden said, according to MSNBC. “The idea we still allow semiautomatic weapons to be purchased is sick, it’s just sick. It has no social redeeming value, zero, none. Not a single, solitary rationale for it.”
The declaration came after one of the most violent stretches of gun violence in recent memory, with shootings at a Walmart in Virginia, the University of Virginia and an LGBTQ club in Colorado—all within the last two weeks—claiming the lives of 14 Americans. Speaking from Nantucket, Massachusetts, on Thanksgiving, Biden also said he believes there is enough support in Congress to provide further aid to Ukraine. He closed his remarks by adding that oil price cap talks for Russia are still “in play.”
The declaration came after one of the most violent stretches of gun violence in recent memory, with shootings at a Walmart in Virginia, the University of Virginia and an LGBTQ club in Colorado—all within the last two weeks—claiming the lives of 14 Americans. Speaking from Nantucket, Massachusetts, on Thanksgiving, Biden also said he believes there is enough support in Congress to provide further aid to Ukraine. He closed his remarks by adding that oil price cap talks for Russia are still “in play.”
Read it at Bloomberg
November 23, 2022
Posted on Tue, Nov 22nd, 2022 by Jason Easley
Star Washington Post Reporter Yearns For Trump And Says Biden Lies
The Washington Post’s Ashley Parker claimed that both the Biden and Trump White Houses lie as she set up a flawed and inaccurate false equivalency.
Parker tweeted:
https://twitter.com/AshleyRParker/status/1595076163315056641
The DC reporters are mad because they were not allowed in to cover the Biden family wedding, but Vogue got a photo shoot before the wedding.
Parker’s claim that both the Biden and Trump White Houses lie is journalistic malpractice because she is creating a total false equivalency by ignoring what each White House supposedly “lied” about.
Biden’s White House “lied” about a family wedding and press access. Trump lied about an election being stolen and staged a bloody coup attempt to overthrow the government.
All administrations don’t tell the truth to reporters. It is the conflict in the relationship between the free press and elected leaders, but the DC press is accusing of Biden of lying about a privately funded wedding that did not use taxpayer resources or have to do with the government.
The two situations are not in the same universe, much less merit any sort of worthy comparison.
The reality is that corporate DC media types like Parker miss Trump because his constant lies, corruption, and drama elevated them. DC reporters got book deals and became celebrities during the Trump administration. Trump made the cynical and decaying corporate press a lot of money, and they miss him because they have slipped back into near irrelevance during the Biden administration.
more...
https://www.politicususa.com/2022/11/22/star-washington-post-reporter-yearns-for-trump-and-says-biden-lies.html
Star Washington Post Reporter Yearns For Trump And Says Biden Lies
https://www.politicususa.com/2022/11/22/star-washington-post-reporter-yearns-for-trump-and-says-biden-lies.htmlPosted on Tue, Nov 22nd, 2022 by Jason Easley
Star Washington Post Reporter Yearns For Trump And Says Biden Lies
The Washington Post’s Ashley Parker claimed that both the Biden and Trump White Houses lie as she set up a flawed and inaccurate false equivalency.
Parker tweeted:
https://twitter.com/AshleyRParker/status/1595076163315056641
The DC reporters are mad because they were not allowed in to cover the Biden family wedding, but Vogue got a photo shoot before the wedding.
Parker’s claim that both the Biden and Trump White Houses lie is journalistic malpractice because she is creating a total false equivalency by ignoring what each White House supposedly “lied” about.
Biden’s White House “lied” about a family wedding and press access. Trump lied about an election being stolen and staged a bloody coup attempt to overthrow the government.
All administrations don’t tell the truth to reporters. It is the conflict in the relationship between the free press and elected leaders, but the DC press is accusing of Biden of lying about a privately funded wedding that did not use taxpayer resources or have to do with the government.
The two situations are not in the same universe, much less merit any sort of worthy comparison.
The reality is that corporate DC media types like Parker miss Trump because his constant lies, corruption, and drama elevated them. DC reporters got book deals and became celebrities during the Trump administration. Trump made the cynical and decaying corporate press a lot of money, and they miss him because they have slipped back into near irrelevance during the Biden administration.
more...
https://www.politicususa.com/2022/11/22/star-washington-post-reporter-yearns-for-trump-and-says-biden-lies.html
November 22, 2022
Republicans attack military for supporting diversity but experts say it leads to success
By Oliver Willis -
November 22, 2022 11:26 AM
A new report released by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) criticizes military efforts to increase diversity, even though the U.S. military itself, along with experts and military leaders, say increased diversity improves military effectiveness.
Rubio and Roy provided early access to the report, titled "Woke Warfighters," to Fox News, which has publicly campaigned against anti-LGBTQ equality for years.
The report features photos of Black and transgender military leaders and members and claims that programs aimed at diversity have become so much of a priority in the armed forces that they are undermining their fighting capability.
The Army has put emphasis on diversity in the military since before Joe Biden became president. In 2020, while Trump was in office, the Army launched "Project Inclusion," an initiative designed to increase diversity and equity across the branch.
In a document accompanying the program's announcement, the Army stated that it was important because "The strength of the Army comes from its diversity. Developing and maintaining qualified and demographically diverse leadership is critical for mission effectiveness and is essential to national security."
more...
https://americanindependent.com/republicans-attack-military-for-diversity-success/
Republicans attack military for supporting diversity but experts say it leads to success
Republicans attack military for supporting diversity but experts say it leads to success
By Oliver Willis -
November 22, 2022 11:26 AM
A new report released by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) criticizes military efforts to increase diversity, even though the U.S. military itself, along with experts and military leaders, say increased diversity improves military effectiveness.
Rubio and Roy provided early access to the report, titled "Woke Warfighters," to Fox News, which has publicly campaigned against anti-LGBTQ equality for years.
"We need to spend more time thinking about how to counter Chinese aircraft carriers and less time thinking about pronouns," Rubio wrote in the report. Roy wrote, "[President Joe] Biden's woke Pentagon is using taxpayer dollars to promote blatant anti-American ideology."
The report features photos of Black and transgender military leaders and members and claims that programs aimed at diversity have become so much of a priority in the armed forces that they are undermining their fighting capability.
The Army has put emphasis on diversity in the military since before Joe Biden became president. In 2020, while Trump was in office, the Army launched "Project Inclusion," an initiative designed to increase diversity and equity across the branch.
In a document accompanying the program's announcement, the Army stated that it was important because "The strength of the Army comes from its diversity. Developing and maintaining qualified and demographically diverse leadership is critical for mission effectiveness and is essential to national security."
more...
https://americanindependent.com/republicans-attack-military-for-diversity-success/
November 22, 2022
It's Weird, but Democrats Actually Have Their Sh*t Together in Congress
It’s Weird, but Democrats Actually Have Their Sh*t Together in Congress
WHAT DISARRAY?
I know, I can hardly believe it either. But the Party of Pelosi is peacefully functional while the GOP is at war with itself.
Matt Lewis
Senior Columnist
Published Nov. 22, 2022 4:43AM ET
Don’t look now, but Dems are in… array. The latest example is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to step down from her leadership post. Pelosi’s exodus looks to be an orderly attempt to pass the torch to a new generation of leaders. Imagine that.
Coming on the heels of a surprisingly good midterm where candidate quality and stability helped Dems, this (so far) seamless transition is another good sign. The troika (Pelosi, Rep. Steny Hoyer, and Rep. Jim Clyburn) who have been running the House Democrats are riding off into the sunset, while a new guard is riding in. Pelosi has set a smooth glidepath for Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and a new team to take their place.
Who knows if it’ll work out (in sports, coaches notoriously struggle with picking their own successors), but as the late business and leadership guru Peter Drucker said, “There is no success without a successor.”
Contrast that orderly transition with what is happening in the GOP: Ten Republicans tried (and failed) to oust Mitch McConnell as minority leader in the U.S. Senate, and Kevin McCarthy’s elevation to Speaker of the House is still questionable.
more...
https://www.thedailybeast.com/its-weird-but-democrats-actually-have-their-sht-together-in-congress?ref=home
November 22, 2022
Posted on Sun, Nov 20th, 2022 by Jason Easley
Eric Swalwell Vows To Keep Fighting Even If Kevin McCarthy Kicks Him Off Committees
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) won’t stop fighting against Trump and MAGA even if Kevin McCarthy kicks him off his committees.
Swalwell tweeted:
https://twitter.com/ericswalwell/status/1594408493297057797
Kevin McCarthy tried and failed to kick Rep. Swalwell off the Intelligence Committee. He has vowed to strip Swalwell of his committee assignments once Republicans officially take back the majority.
Kevin McCarthy has it out for Eric Swalwell because Rep. Swalwell is suing Donald Trump over the attack on the Capitol. McCarthy and Marjorie Taylor Greene want to punish Swalwell because he is taking on Trump and trying to hold him accountable in court for the 1/6 attack.
Removing an experienced and competent member of the House from his committee assignment is about pleasing Donald Trump and getting revenge on those who seek to hold him accountable.
It won’t matter if Eric Swalwell and Adam Schiff lose their committee assignments because the House majority that is coming into power looks temporary.
Republicans got control of the House due to gerrymandering, and in 2024 one should expect that if Trump is at the top of the Republican ticket, Democrats will roll back into the majority.
Eric Swalwell Vows To Keep Fighting Even If Kevin McCarthy Kicks Him Off Committees
https://www.politicususa.com/2022/11/20/eric-swalwell-mccarthy-committees.htmlPosted on Sun, Nov 20th, 2022 by Jason Easley
Eric Swalwell Vows To Keep Fighting Even If Kevin McCarthy Kicks Him Off Committees
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) won’t stop fighting against Trump and MAGA even if Kevin McCarthy kicks him off his committees.
Swalwell tweeted:
https://twitter.com/ericswalwell/status/1594408493297057797
Kevin McCarthy tried and failed to kick Rep. Swalwell off the Intelligence Committee. He has vowed to strip Swalwell of his committee assignments once Republicans officially take back the majority.
Kevin McCarthy has it out for Eric Swalwell because Rep. Swalwell is suing Donald Trump over the attack on the Capitol. McCarthy and Marjorie Taylor Greene want to punish Swalwell because he is taking on Trump and trying to hold him accountable in court for the 1/6 attack.
Removing an experienced and competent member of the House from his committee assignment is about pleasing Donald Trump and getting revenge on those who seek to hold him accountable.
It won’t matter if Eric Swalwell and Adam Schiff lose their committee assignments because the House majority that is coming into power looks temporary.
Republicans got control of the House due to gerrymandering, and in 2024 one should expect that if Trump is at the top of the Republican ticket, Democrats will roll back into the majority.
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