RedWedge
RedWedge's JournalI Was A Hardcore Conservative: What Changed My Mind
Lots of good stuff here, and none of it requires you to personally reach out to people who endorse your oppression if you don't want to.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/what-helped-convince-me-to-stop-being-hardcore-republican/
I still remember the time I heard a very respected church couple say, "You can be a good Christian and vote Democrat." I think I had to sit down. My head was spinning. Up was down. Down was up.
I knew this couple was "good" on every part of the Good Christian checklist -- they would have been anti-gay-marriage at the time, among other things. And for me (remember, up was down), this meant they were cool on every point except the crazy thing they just said about DEMONcrats (or DemoRATS).
It turns out that I, and most people, are more likely to take seriously "otherwise good people" with "one crazy idea" than someone who is different from me in every way and wants me to change everything.
(snip)
Non- or less-religious people may say, "But I use Bible quotes all the time to tell religious people they are wrong and it doesn't work." Of course it doesn't. I never listened to that kind of argument from someone who didn't actually believe in the Bible, because what is this, some kind of game to you? You think you found some loophole in my Dungeons And Dragons rule book? You don't believe the quote you are throwing at me, but you think I am dumb enough to fall for it because I am dumb enough to do whatever my magic book says. This is not a good setup for a cooperative response.
Reporter: What about anti-Semitism? Trump: I WON THE ELECTION and my daughter's Jewish. Thank you.
Reporter: Also, how about that two-state solution?
Trump: And I -- you know, something that was very important to me.
Like it or not, he's the man in charge.
And I have to say, so far I agree with almost every decision he has made. Some of those decisions have been controversial, and I know a lot of people don't like him, but he has surrounded himself with some of the greatest minds and most talented people in the world. I'm confident that history will judge him as one of the best. There's absolutely no denying his amazing leadership qualities.
Wouldn't hurt to call Franken and Klobuchar on Sessions.
Doesn't do to take things for granted. The phone lines are pretty busy this morning so you'll probably just go right to voice mail. It takes literally less than one minute.
Franken's office: (202) 224-5641
Klobuchar's office: (202) 224-3244
About that Explosive Trump Story: Take a Deep Breath
https://lawfareblog.com/about-explosive-trump-story-take-deep-breathSecond, while unproven, the allegations are being taken quite seriously. The President and President-elect do not get briefed on material that the intelligence community does not believe to be at least of some credibility. The individual who generated them is apparently a person whose work intelligence professionals take seriously. And at a personal level, we can attest that we have had a lot of conversations with a lot of different people about the material in this document. While nobody has confirmed any of the allegations, both inside government and in the press, it is clear to us that they are the subject of serious attention.
Third, precisely because it is being taken seriously, it isdespite being unproven and, in public anyway, undiscussedpervasively affecting the broader discussion of Russian hacking of the election. CNN reported that Senator John McCain personally delivered a copy of the document to FBI Director James Comey on December 9th. Consider McCains comments about the gravity of the Russian hacking episode at last weeks Armed Services Committee hearing in light of that fact. Likewise, consider Senator Ron Wydens questioning of Comey at todays Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, in which Wyden pushed the FBI Director to release a declassified assessment before January 20th regarding contact between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. (Comey refused to comment on an ongoing investigation.) So while people are being delicate about discussing wholly unproven allegations, the document is at the front of everyones minds as they ponder the question: Why is Trump so insistent about vindicating Russia from the hacking charges that everyone else seems to accept?
Fourth, it is significant that the document contains highly specific allegations, many of which are the kind of facts it should be possible to prove or disprove. This is a document about meetings that either took place or did not take place, stays in hotels that either happened or didnt, travel that either happened or did not happen. It should be possible to know whether at least some of these allegations are true or false.
Profile Information
Member since: Thu Dec 1, 2016, 07:07 PMNumber of posts: 618