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babylonsister
babylonsister's Journal
babylonsister's Journal
February 3, 2019
‘I’m closing the book on remorseful ex-Trumpers’
By Leonard Pitts Jr.
February 01, 2019 07:34 PM,
snip//
Point being, there is no element of Trump’s awfulness — not the racism, not the sexism, not the narcissism, not the lying, not the incompetence, not the bullying, not the corruption and not the deep and dismaying stupidity — that was not knowable, that was not as obvious as a neon sign in a mineshaft, before he was elected. So what’s changed? What do these people suddenly see now that they couldn’t then?
Speaking up then might have mattered, might have changed something. But they were silent, implicitly vouching for this man and his team. Now they’re writing books in order to … what? Rehabilitate image? Unburden conscience? Make some coin?
Not that the reason matters to me. Spending money — or time — on some book of Trump Remorse would only add vicious insult to crippling injury.
Give me Bob Woodward’s “Fear: Trump in the White House.”
Give me David Cay Johnston’s “It’s Even Worse Than You Think: What The Trump Administration is Doing to America.”
Give me April Ryan’s “Under Fire: Reporting From the Front Lines of the Trump White House.”
But spare me some self-serving mea culpa from a Trump drone who claims to have just now figured out what the rest of us have known since Day One.
They can take their books and shelve them.
Leonard Pitts Jr.: 'I'm closing the book on remorseful ex-Trumpers'
https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article225433305.html?fbclid=IwAR21UfAmtf2zuSX6YK9pQFI2-OJzJRK3oQPznxMPbjW8Wxnh_mgkfT7x2Pw‘I’m closing the book on remorseful ex-Trumpers’
By Leonard Pitts Jr.
February 01, 2019 07:34 PM,
snip//
Point being, there is no element of Trump’s awfulness — not the racism, not the sexism, not the narcissism, not the lying, not the incompetence, not the bullying, not the corruption and not the deep and dismaying stupidity — that was not knowable, that was not as obvious as a neon sign in a mineshaft, before he was elected. So what’s changed? What do these people suddenly see now that they couldn’t then?
Speaking up then might have mattered, might have changed something. But they were silent, implicitly vouching for this man and his team. Now they’re writing books in order to … what? Rehabilitate image? Unburden conscience? Make some coin?
Not that the reason matters to me. Spending money — or time — on some book of Trump Remorse would only add vicious insult to crippling injury.
Give me Bob Woodward’s “Fear: Trump in the White House.”
Give me David Cay Johnston’s “It’s Even Worse Than You Think: What The Trump Administration is Doing to America.”
Give me April Ryan’s “Under Fire: Reporting From the Front Lines of the Trump White House.”
But spare me some self-serving mea culpa from a Trump drone who claims to have just now figured out what the rest of us have known since Day One.
They can take their books and shelve them.
February 2, 2019
Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman” is one of the greatest speeches in American rhetoric
Start Black History Month by giving it a read.
By Constance Grady@constancegrady Updated Feb 1, 2019, 4:55pm EST
Google is kicking off Black History Month this year by celebrating the legacy of Sojourner Truth, the subject of today’s Google Doodle. Which means that it’s time to reread one of the great works of American rhetoric: Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman” speech.
Sojourner Truth was born into slavery at the end of the 18th century, but she escaped — carrying her infant daughter with her — in 1826. (“I did not run off, for I thought that wicked, but I walked off, believing that to be all right,” she would later say.) When the son she left behind was sold illegally, she successfully sued for his freedom as well. Naming herself “Sojourner Truth,” she converted to Methodism and began campaigning for women’s rights and the abolition of slavery.
She improvised her “Ain’t I a Woman” speech in 1851 at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in Akron. The exact wording of the speech has been contested. In contemporary transcriptions, the famous question “ain’t I a woman?” doesn’t appear anywhere, and some historians have argued that native New Yorker Truth is unlikely to have spoken in the Southern-inflected English that tinges the most widely reproduced version of the speech.
But regardless of Truth’s precise wording, the message at the core of “Ain’t I a Woman” rings powerfully true 168 years later: that women can change the world, and that Truth’s blackness did not make her not a woman. That’s the kind of intersectionality that Truth was immensely skilled at navigating, despite the enormous pressure on women of color at the time to choose between the women’s movement and the abolitionist movement. Truth never chose. As she pointed out in her speech, she shouldn’t have to.
Here’s the speech in full:
Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman" is one of the greatest speeches in American rhetoric
https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/2/1/18206645/celebrating-sojourner-truth-google-doodle-aint-i-a-womanSojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman” is one of the greatest speeches in American rhetoric
Start Black History Month by giving it a read.
By Constance Grady@constancegrady Updated Feb 1, 2019, 4:55pm EST
Google is kicking off Black History Month this year by celebrating the legacy of Sojourner Truth, the subject of today’s Google Doodle. Which means that it’s time to reread one of the great works of American rhetoric: Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman” speech.
Sojourner Truth was born into slavery at the end of the 18th century, but she escaped — carrying her infant daughter with her — in 1826. (“I did not run off, for I thought that wicked, but I walked off, believing that to be all right,” she would later say.) When the son she left behind was sold illegally, she successfully sued for his freedom as well. Naming herself “Sojourner Truth,” she converted to Methodism and began campaigning for women’s rights and the abolition of slavery.
She improvised her “Ain’t I a Woman” speech in 1851 at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in Akron. The exact wording of the speech has been contested. In contemporary transcriptions, the famous question “ain’t I a woman?” doesn’t appear anywhere, and some historians have argued that native New Yorker Truth is unlikely to have spoken in the Southern-inflected English that tinges the most widely reproduced version of the speech.
But regardless of Truth’s precise wording, the message at the core of “Ain’t I a Woman” rings powerfully true 168 years later: that women can change the world, and that Truth’s blackness did not make her not a woman. That’s the kind of intersectionality that Truth was immensely skilled at navigating, despite the enormous pressure on women of color at the time to choose between the women’s movement and the abolitionist movement. Truth never chose. As she pointed out in her speech, she shouldn’t have to.
Here’s the speech in full:
Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that ‘twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what’s all this here talking about?
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?
Then they talk about this thing in the head; what’s this they call it? [member of audience whispers, “intellect”] That’s it, honey. What’s that got to do with women’s rights or negroes’ rights? If my cup won’t hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn’t you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?
Then that little man in black there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men, ‘cause Christ wasn’t a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.
If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.
Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain’t got nothing more to say.
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?
Then they talk about this thing in the head; what’s this they call it? [member of audience whispers, “intellect”] That’s it, honey. What’s that got to do with women’s rights or negroes’ rights? If my cup won’t hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn’t you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?
Then that little man in black there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men, ‘cause Christ wasn’t a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.
If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.
Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain’t got nothing more to say.
February 2, 2019
Does Russia Already Have a Favorite for 2020?
February 2, 2019 at 7:19 am EST By Taegan Goddard
Does Russia Already Have a Favorite for 2020?
https://politicalwire.com/2019/02/02/does-russia-already-have-a-favorite-for-2020/Does Russia Already Have a Favorite for 2020?
February 2, 2019 at 7:19 am EST By Taegan Goddard
“The Russian propaganda machine that tried to influence the 2016 U.S. election is now promoting the presidential aspirations of a controversial Hawaii Democrat who earlier this month declared her intention to run for president in 2020,” NBC News reports.
“An NBC News analysis of the main English-language news sites employed by Russia in its 2016 election meddling shows Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who is set to make her formal announcement Saturday, has become a favorite of the sites Moscow used when it interfered in 2016.”
“An NBC News analysis of the main English-language news sites employed by Russia in its 2016 election meddling shows Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who is set to make her formal announcement Saturday, has become a favorite of the sites Moscow used when it interfered in 2016.”
February 2, 2019
Sherrod Brown Says Howard Schultz Is a ‘Total Idiot’
February 1, 2019 at 9:29 pm EST By Taegan Goddard
Sherrod Brown Says Howard Schultz Is a 'Total Idiot'
https://politicalwire.com/2019/02/01/sherrod-brown-calls-howard-schultz-a-total-idiot/Sherrod Brown Says Howard Schultz Is a ‘Total Idiot’
February 1, 2019 at 9:29 pm EST By Taegan Goddard
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) dismissed a possible independent presidential campaign from Howard Schultz, calling the billionaire former Starbucks CEO a “total idiot,” CNN reports.
“While talking with voters in Iowa’s Dallas County after a farmers’ roundtable, the Ohio Democrat, who’s also considering a presidential bid, introduced himself to a voter who expressed concern about dark money in politics.”
Said Brown: “Yeah, I mean you got this idiot Schultz running, maybe. He’s an idiot. I mean, he’s a total idiot.”
“While talking with voters in Iowa’s Dallas County after a farmers’ roundtable, the Ohio Democrat, who’s also considering a presidential bid, introduced himself to a voter who expressed concern about dark money in politics.”
Said Brown: “Yeah, I mean you got this idiot Schultz running, maybe. He’s an idiot. I mean, he’s a total idiot.”
February 2, 2019
The Great American Heist
A new Cabinet has coalesced around Donald Trump entering Year Three of his presidency, one that seems poised to pull the United States further—and more efficiently—towards kleptocracy.
image
By Jack Holmes
Jan 30, 2019
A defense contractor running the Department of Defense. A self-styled tycoon who allegedly stole $120 million from his business partners. A coal lobbyist regulating coal. A senior Commerce Department official who once lobbied for whale hunters. Ivanka.
Donald Trump’s improbable ascension to the American presidency was a Bat Signal to some of the most accomplished grifters and scoundrels this fine country has to offer. They jumped on the nearest airplane—preferably private, and paid for by someone else—and jetted off to Washington, D.C., to carve out their piece of the action. The United States and its territories have always been home to some of history’s great scammers, fraudsters, confidence men, and snake-oil salesmen. It is a relentless feature of the national character in a country built by people trying to make a buck, however they could, on the ragged edge of civilization. It’s just the very greasiest operators don’t often pry their way into the Cabinet of the United States president. More rarely, still, do they capture it—and the Executive Branch of government.
“This is the Teapot Dome scandal on steroids,” Douglas Brinkley, a professor of history at Rice University and a CNN contributor, told me. He’s referring to the orgy of bribery and crony capitalism that devoured the presidency of Warren G. Harding in the 1920s. Harding’s crew, known as the Ohio Gang, featured oil-industry insiders who proceeded to operate in public office on behalf of their old friends in the business. For Brinkley, the 45th president has a similar recruiting strategy.
And it seems he’s found them. As we embark on a third year of The Trump Era, a new group has filtered in to populate the most senior levels of his government. The Class of 2019 is different in kind to the right-wing oddballs and ravenous feeders at the public trough that went barreling into the administration in January 2017. Often, those characters flamed out early, and now they’ve been replaced.
more...
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a25989196/donald-trump-cabinet-members-2019-list/?fbclid=IwAR028yyBURHOwxVXLEidE8Ytxvt9eTNNLLrInp2MRuyhbRg4wjFWBMoPWFM
The Great American Heist
The Great American Heist
A new Cabinet has coalesced around Donald Trump entering Year Three of his presidency, one that seems poised to pull the United States further—and more efficiently—towards kleptocracy.
image
By Jack Holmes
Jan 30, 2019
A defense contractor running the Department of Defense. A self-styled tycoon who allegedly stole $120 million from his business partners. A coal lobbyist regulating coal. A senior Commerce Department official who once lobbied for whale hunters. Ivanka.
Donald Trump’s improbable ascension to the American presidency was a Bat Signal to some of the most accomplished grifters and scoundrels this fine country has to offer. They jumped on the nearest airplane—preferably private, and paid for by someone else—and jetted off to Washington, D.C., to carve out their piece of the action. The United States and its territories have always been home to some of history’s great scammers, fraudsters, confidence men, and snake-oil salesmen. It is a relentless feature of the national character in a country built by people trying to make a buck, however they could, on the ragged edge of civilization. It’s just the very greasiest operators don’t often pry their way into the Cabinet of the United States president. More rarely, still, do they capture it—and the Executive Branch of government.
“This is the Teapot Dome scandal on steroids,” Douglas Brinkley, a professor of history at Rice University and a CNN contributor, told me. He’s referring to the orgy of bribery and crony capitalism that devoured the presidency of Warren G. Harding in the 1920s. Harding’s crew, known as the Ohio Gang, featured oil-industry insiders who proceeded to operate in public office on behalf of their old friends in the business. For Brinkley, the 45th president has a similar recruiting strategy.
“Donald Trump understands people that are greedy,” he said. “When he’s dealing with the public lands and the environment, he wants people that are into making cash out of resources, not preservation. He doesn't trust preservation. It's because they have ethics. He trusts people who see that there's gold in them there hills.”
And it seems he’s found them. As we embark on a third year of The Trump Era, a new group has filtered in to populate the most senior levels of his government. The Class of 2019 is different in kind to the right-wing oddballs and ravenous feeders at the public trough that went barreling into the administration in January 2017. Often, those characters flamed out early, and now they’ve been replaced.
more...
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a25989196/donald-trump-cabinet-members-2019-list/?fbclid=IwAR028yyBURHOwxVXLEidE8Ytxvt9eTNNLLrInp2MRuyhbRg4wjFWBMoPWFM
February 1, 2019
Jane Goodall has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize!
Myron Shekelle
Bellingham, WA, United States
Jane Goodall has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize
https://www.change.org/p/a-nobel-peace-prize-for-jane-goodall/u/24101222?cs_tk=AksNmqYX902FADhoVlwAAXicyyvNyQEABF8BvL-9fvN_FfVHpWquLbqjOLg%3D&utm_campaign=b9bdc12b5b064abfa9a168b6ee280b18&utm_medium=email&utm_source=petition_update&utm_term=cs&fbclid=IwAR3lzgWLsdW2VVvtq1K-VnO6pGZ92IHkNl-2HIxaRBdtOL2Sg5t8AWLizikJane Goodall has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize!
Myron Shekelle
Bellingham, WA, United States
Jan 31, 2019 —
To ALL of the supporters of this process,
CONGRATULATIONS! A short while ago our team nominated Jane Goodall for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Step One is now complete. Now it is time to let the Norwegian Nobel Institute do their work. In the meanwhile, our team will begin releasing translations of our documents into additional languages.
--Myron
To ALL of the supporters of this process,
CONGRATULATIONS! A short while ago our team nominated Jane Goodall for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Step One is now complete. Now it is time to let the Norwegian Nobel Institute do their work. In the meanwhile, our team will begin releasing translations of our documents into additional languages.
--Myron
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2019 11:16 AM
Subject: Nomination successfully submitted
Your nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize 2019 has been successfully submitted. The Norwegian Nobel Committee appreciate your effort in making this nomination.
Kind regards,
The Norwegian Nobel Institute
Subject: Nomination successfully submitted
Your nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize 2019 has been successfully submitted. The Norwegian Nobel Committee appreciate your effort in making this nomination.
Kind regards,
The Norwegian Nobel Institute
February 1, 2019
Inside Trump’s Reality
February 1, 2019 at 12:51 pm EST By Taegan Goddard
Inside Trump's Reality
https://politicalwire.com/2019/02/01/inside-trumps-reality/Inside Trump’s Reality
February 1, 2019 at 12:51 pm EST By Taegan Goddard
Susan Glasser: “It’s hardly surprising that, in the days since his shutdown humiliation, Trump has retreated into the virtual seclusion of Twitter, holed up watching cable news and tweeting his alternative reality as America struggles with an actual deep freeze. For Trump, the fake world is much better than the real one. There is no extreme weather in his White House; in fact, climate change does not exist inside its walls. Trump’s policy has decreed it.”
“He’s avoiding more than just the frigid air outside; in the cocoon of the Oval Office, there are only invited guests and staff who, while they may be secretly leaking unflattering accounts, at least have the good sense to be nice to Trump’s face. In recent days, the Democratic Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, has compared Trump to a petulant toddler and openly wondered what Russia has on him. Why would Trump want to spend his time negotiating with her?”
“Much better, from Trump’s point of view, to simply announce, as he did to reporters on Thursday, that ‘Nancy Pelosi will be begging for a wall,’ and spend the day with his own press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who this week told an interviewer that God ‘wanted Donald Trump to become President.’”
“He’s avoiding more than just the frigid air outside; in the cocoon of the Oval Office, there are only invited guests and staff who, while they may be secretly leaking unflattering accounts, at least have the good sense to be nice to Trump’s face. In recent days, the Democratic Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, has compared Trump to a petulant toddler and openly wondered what Russia has on him. Why would Trump want to spend his time negotiating with her?”
“Much better, from Trump’s point of view, to simply announce, as he did to reporters on Thursday, that ‘Nancy Pelosi will be begging for a wall,’ and spend the day with his own press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who this week told an interviewer that God ‘wanted Donald Trump to become President.’”
February 1, 2019
Eugene Robinson: The tweeting of a crackpot
By Eugene Robinson | The Washington Post
· Published: 14 hours ago
Washington • Of all the crackpots on social media, is any more untethered to reality than the president of the United States?
Seriously, there are tinfoil-hatted lunatics yelling on street corners who make more sense than President Trump’s increasingly loopy Twitter feed. Think about it: Most mornings, and some evenings as well, the most powerful man in the world rants and raves like someone you’d urgently tell the gate agent about if you were waiting to board the same airplane. This is not normal. This is alarming.
I know, there's a school of thought that says Trump's tweets are nothing but weapons of mass distraction and should be ignored. But if you want to know the administration's policy on just about anything, what other reliable source is there? Surely not press secretary Sarah Sanders and the other White House mouthpieces, whose main job is to invent "evidence" to back up Trump's misstatements, distortions and pants-on-fire lies.
And surely not Trump’s own high-level appointees. After Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told Congress this week that North Korea is unlikely ever to give up its nuclear weapons, Trump tweeted that there is a “decent chance of Denuclearization ... Progress being made — big difference.” After CIA chief Gina Haspel said that Iran is abiding by the terms of the nuclear deal that Trump renounced, the president used a tweet to slap her down: “The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong! ... Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!”
Take a moment to absorb how crazy this is. The informed assessments of Trump's intelligence chiefs disagree with Trump's uninformed or misinformed prejudgments — so he attacks and belittles his own handpicked team.
more...
https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2019/02/01/eugene-robinson-tweeting/?fbclid=IwAR3yPluWuLaZa_ibKMxpEyPGBlG3_OzafNnFv1RxGxKAs6pHzo5p7_mjMF0
Eugene Robinson: The tweeting of a crackpot
Eugene Robinson: The tweeting of a crackpot
By Eugene Robinson | The Washington Post
· Published: 14 hours ago
Washington • Of all the crackpots on social media, is any more untethered to reality than the president of the United States?
Seriously, there are tinfoil-hatted lunatics yelling on street corners who make more sense than President Trump’s increasingly loopy Twitter feed. Think about it: Most mornings, and some evenings as well, the most powerful man in the world rants and raves like someone you’d urgently tell the gate agent about if you were waiting to board the same airplane. This is not normal. This is alarming.
I know, there's a school of thought that says Trump's tweets are nothing but weapons of mass distraction and should be ignored. But if you want to know the administration's policy on just about anything, what other reliable source is there? Surely not press secretary Sarah Sanders and the other White House mouthpieces, whose main job is to invent "evidence" to back up Trump's misstatements, distortions and pants-on-fire lies.
And surely not Trump’s own high-level appointees. After Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told Congress this week that North Korea is unlikely ever to give up its nuclear weapons, Trump tweeted that there is a “decent chance of Denuclearization ... Progress being made — big difference.” After CIA chief Gina Haspel said that Iran is abiding by the terms of the nuclear deal that Trump renounced, the president used a tweet to slap her down: “The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong! ... Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!”
Take a moment to absorb how crazy this is. The informed assessments of Trump's intelligence chiefs disagree with Trump's uninformed or misinformed prejudgments — so he attacks and belittles his own handpicked team.
more...
https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2019/02/01/eugene-robinson-tweeting/?fbclid=IwAR3yPluWuLaZa_ibKMxpEyPGBlG3_OzafNnFv1RxGxKAs6pHzo5p7_mjMF0
February 1, 2019
WH Cancels Trump's Daily Intelligence Briefing Amid His Anger At Intel Chiefs
It's not like he listens to them anyway.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/white-house-cancels-trump-daily-intelligence-briefing-anger-at-chiefs?fbclid=IwAR2pvSdb_NlylhRFoASnyDiLgLvrGEzhCmfJjjGP1vIjPR2YjZ8yKCIkZnU
WH Cancels Trump’s Daily Intelligence Briefing Amid His Anger At Intel Chiefs
By Kate Riga
February 1, 2019 7:37 am
The White House abruptly cancelled President Donald Trump’s daily intelligence briefing with his chiefs Wednesday, a day after CIA Director Gina Haspel and DNI Dan Coats gave Congress a yearly threat assessment during which they contradicted many of Trump’s favorite talking points.
According to a Thursday Daily Beast report, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders gave no specific reason as to why the briefing was cancelled: “It was moved,” she said.
After spending Wednesday criticizing his own intelligence officers on Twitter, Trump changed his stance and began blaming the media for making it “appear” that the chiefs undermined many of his claims.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1091088740947320833
February 1, 2019
Joe Conason
My Last Cup Of Starbucks
February 1, 2019 2:54 am
snip//
Now that Schultz plans to participate in politics — and go straight to the top — he might be expected to tell Americans why they should elect him and what he wants to do. Whenever he is asked to offer a rationale for his candidacy, his responses sound vacuous — as weak and lukewarm as a bad cup of brew with an unpleasant hint of bitterness. If he has any fresh ideas, he isn’t pouring them.
Only one policy issue truly appears to animate Schultz: the progressive Democrats’ call for billionaires to pay higher taxes, which makes him angry. At the same time, he complains about the country’s ballooning deficits and national debt as if he doesn’t understand the math. Everyone else knows that tax cuts for the rich, imposed by Republican regimes, have depleted the Treasury and starved public services.
The most troubling aspect of Schultz’s vanity campaign is, of course, the possibility that he will spend enough money to become a spoiler, and thus, help re-elect Trump. Evidently, a few self-serving political consultants have persuaded the rather dull Schultz that he is compelling enough to win on a third-party line. They know very well that he is far more likely to join the ranks of Ralph Nader and Jill Stein, third-party losers who drew just enough votes to elect George W. Bush and Donald Trump.
It was ominous to watch the “progressive” Stein blathering on Fox News Channel this week with white nationalist host Tucker Carlson, both thrilled by a candidacy that could destroy Democratic hopes. All the Trump sycophants on Fox are urging Schultz forward with their usual subtlety. Let’s hope he is smart enough to take that hint — and cancel this asinine project.
Until then, I’ve tasted my last cup of Starbucks.
Joe Conason: My Last Cup Of Starbucks
http://www.nationalmemo.com/my-last-cup-of-starbucks/?fbclid=IwAR0jr0Rxpd-i49GLEEcD79SM0oqt1y9w0myMrAnXhYqaJpm-2EmfkoMxV4M&cn-reloaded=1Joe Conason
My Last Cup Of Starbucks
February 1, 2019 2:54 am
snip//
Now that Schultz plans to participate in politics — and go straight to the top — he might be expected to tell Americans why they should elect him and what he wants to do. Whenever he is asked to offer a rationale for his candidacy, his responses sound vacuous — as weak and lukewarm as a bad cup of brew with an unpleasant hint of bitterness. If he has any fresh ideas, he isn’t pouring them.
Only one policy issue truly appears to animate Schultz: the progressive Democrats’ call for billionaires to pay higher taxes, which makes him angry. At the same time, he complains about the country’s ballooning deficits and national debt as if he doesn’t understand the math. Everyone else knows that tax cuts for the rich, imposed by Republican regimes, have depleted the Treasury and starved public services.
The most troubling aspect of Schultz’s vanity campaign is, of course, the possibility that he will spend enough money to become a spoiler, and thus, help re-elect Trump. Evidently, a few self-serving political consultants have persuaded the rather dull Schultz that he is compelling enough to win on a third-party line. They know very well that he is far more likely to join the ranks of Ralph Nader and Jill Stein, third-party losers who drew just enough votes to elect George W. Bush and Donald Trump.
It was ominous to watch the “progressive” Stein blathering on Fox News Channel this week with white nationalist host Tucker Carlson, both thrilled by a candidacy that could destroy Democratic hopes. All the Trump sycophants on Fox are urging Schultz forward with their usual subtlety. Let’s hope he is smart enough to take that hint — and cancel this asinine project.
Until then, I’ve tasted my last cup of Starbucks.
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