Every day we're faced with new revelations, new outrage, new angst over the Circus that has become our politics. Everyone from the Bulwark to opinion writers at WAPO, NYT and the Atlantic keep us abreast of all the latest cringe-worthy details.
But less than what, 6 months?, out from campaign season, isn't it time to start hearing about coherent plans to finally shut the Circus down? How do we, as a nation, put the Crazy back on the fringes? If we don't figure this out, and soon, we will always be just one election away from the end of democracy as we know it.
I'll keep reading, but I'm way past the outrage - I want to hear strategies. Let's mobilize around a sound one, can we?
I find it odd, creepy actually, the way in which McCarthy speaks about MTG. He says…”I will never leave that woman.” “I will always take care of her.” He speaks of her as if she were his needy or disabled wife. Ugh!
Much of the MSM continues to report on what is happening in Washington as a political struggle over policies and party priorities. Tax increases vs. tax cuts. BUT, what is really going on is that The Insurrection is continuing: now from inside the government, mostly the House Republicans. The Fight to overthrow a democratically elected government and install a corrupt, greedy, authoritarian regime is being pushed hard by the Trump/McCarthy/Fox News triumvirate. To read that some of the members of Congress are visiting prisons to support the insurrectionists, shows that they don’t feel their movement has been stopped. None of the Republicans who mumble about running for president has taken a firm stand against this idea. DeSantis has come close to disavowing Trump, but his fascist aspirations are worse than Trump’s. What we need is for the Dems, the press, and local political organizations to increase their energies to protect democracy. It would certainly help if the people who designed, instigated, and orchestrated the raid on the Capitol were indicted for the many crimes they committed. But so far, only the pawns who sit in jail, the members of the Capitol Police, and all of us who continue to watch in horror, are the ones who are suffering.
"I don’t have to go to Ukraine to understand where there’s a blank check or not,” McCarthy told CNN. But Biden has to go to the border to understand that there's a migrant problem. And Buttigieg has to go to Ohio to know that a train derailed.
I don't know anything about the work Christina Buttons has done for the Daily Caller on the transgender issue, but she deserves praise and encouragement for her decision to resign. People going along to get along, like Paul Ryan, is what's gotten us into this dystopia. Whatever your opinions on the transgender issue, what Walsh, Knowles, and the Daily Caller have done, and this recent personal attack from Walsh in particular, are vile, and add nothing to the public discourse but hate, vitriol, and the seeds of eventual violence. What Walsh and the Caller did to this poor person is the sort of thing that leads to tragedy, like violence or suicide.
MTG with the gavel is an abomination. But, so was Trump in the Oval Office. So it sounds about right, if you think about it.
A very depressing but sadly not too shocking set of stories, but on the positive side that picture of MTG in the speaker’s chair is the stuff of ten thousand effective attack ads.
A speaker of the house whose allegiances are to a television network and to the most extreme members of his caucus.
And a television network that chooses lies over news.
Can we NEVER EVER hear someone compare media bias in the mainstream media to the on right wing media?
They simply are not the same.
And I even mean among respected Bulwark folks - so I call out Mona who gives her both-side-ist critique of media from time to time.
But sorry when I see a story in the NY Times (my local paper) I never ask if the reporter thinks the story is true. Nor do I ask that of PBS or NPR or of any respectable paper.
And yes, I do get annoyed at story choices. But I don’t see that they are hiding something from me.
So what do we do?
And sorry, while Mitch McConnell has admitted that the Tucker Carlson report is a lie.. when he had to power to break Trump’s power, he chose not to. And even now he lies about what the GOP has to offer. For example he may pretend that he does not want to touch medicare, but when Biden suggests a tax to bolster it - he uses the same old tax and spend talking point to criticize it. It may be an additional tax but it is not more spending. And what does he offer? Nothing.
In a world where black is white, liberal democracy is communism, and Putinism is "America First", McCarthy has basically rebirthed HUAC and he's trying his damnedest to make it as every bit as Un-American as he possibly can. Sad. #NeverMAGA
Quelle horreur! (not) at all the stories in this newsletter.
Fox isn’t worse than I thought, they are awful and have been for decades, Kevin is a sad man who sold his soul a long time ago, the woman from The Daily Wire is still a transfobe, just wants to be less shitty about her hate, anybody with a brain knows Trump lawyers are idiots at best or malevolent actors at worst.
Sadly, this album (iTunes digital purchase for the youngest among us) is on repeat and has been for a really long time 😕
The Republican House has a 100% negative agenda. They have no agenda for strengthening America. What they want--what they need politically--is for their side to viscerally hate the other side. This, of course, encourages the left to react and then McCarthy et al. can react to that. The House is 90% performance art and 10% embarrassed members who actually work to pass bills, hoping to goodness no one pays any attention to their work (Attention = death to legislation these days!)
I really feel like the Fox debacle has to end with the anchors and hosts (actual faces of the company to the viewers), in jail and held personally financially liable for their election denial shtick.
They knew it was bullshit, and they went on air and promoted it for the sake of their careers and finances. So take away their careers by putting them in jail. Then I hope capitol officers and their families start suing these SOBs. .
It was just a ratings game to them, but people fucking died. Brian Sicknick is dead. Ashley Babbitt is dead. Howard Liebengood and Jeffrey Smith are dead. And Tucker Carlson lives in a three million dollar oceanside mansion in Florida with a pool. Unless that's remedied, there will be a proliferation of Tucker Carlsons.
"As part of an agreement in the case, Ellis admits that multiple statements she made in late 2020 about the presidential election being stolen were 'misrepresentations.'”
What I saw mentioned in the article was "censure". Is that it? No, disbar these so-called lawyers at the least. This is not a lawyer who lied and got a car thief off, or a bank robber, or even a murderer. This is a so-called lawyer who used her legal title to assist in preventing the peaceful transfer of power and was a co-conspirator in weakening (if not overturning) democracy in our country. Lack of "priors" is no mitigating factor for actions like these. It's called accountability.
Reader's comments are always interesting; maybe curious is a better word. We've come to understand, two things can be true at once. Biden has done well given his age, and no i don't want him hanging around for 4 more years. Sorry, but we have to break this infatuation over old people running our government.
Let's start with this: A discussion on a mandatory retirement age for all branches of the government, including the supreme court. Pick a reasonable number; 65, 70, 75 and then push forward with a strategic plan to do get it done. And before anyone moans and groans, i am soon to be 75. I Have spent the past 20 years "volunteering" my expertise but have left the heavy lifting to those working for a living. It would give a whole new meaning to "service to their country," when they are doing it for free.
Next up, this idea that the Bulwark should be taking down the radical right is in fact exactly what they have been doing since inception. I learned long ago there were three functions i relied on for effecting change: Communication, Education and Participation. I would argue long and loudly Bulwark has embraced all three as well or better than anyone.
Finally, they get it. I am comfortable in stating the Bulwark has brought those of us both the right and the left together in ways never imaginable bt (before trump). As a bleeding heart liberal, i found myself attacking the right because that's what we did to one another. Charlie and the gang have freely admitted, they too have moved more center stage and understand the importance of the mushy middle becoming the moving force in preserving all the good things this country has to offer.
For right now, for my nickels worth, we are on the right path to addressing the challenges of 2024. Keep communicating. keep educating and encourage participating. The only way to "win" is to grow the circle and leave the fringes where they belong...outside looking in.
We all heard (too much) about McCarthy's goal of becoming speaker of the house. Apparently his unstated goal is to be worse than the other McCarthy who was in Congress.
"Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it."
Mona Charen referenced this quote from Judge Learned Hand in her podcast with Charlie a day or two ago. What Hand says about the ideal of Liberty and what is required to keep it alive can be said about any ideal. Trumpism, at bottom, is a barbaric assertion that all ideals are shams. Thus Tucker Carlson's violation of the ideal of basic honesty will cost him nothing with MAGA. I wholehearted agree with David Frum's insight in the tweet Charlie cited.
Every day we're faced with new revelations, new outrage, new angst over the Circus that has become our politics. Everyone from the Bulwark to opinion writers at WAPO, NYT and the Atlantic keep us abreast of all the latest cringe-worthy details.
But less than what, 6 months?, out from campaign season, isn't it time to start hearing about coherent plans to finally shut the Circus down? How do we, as a nation, put the Crazy back on the fringes? If we don't figure this out, and soon, we will always be just one election away from the end of democracy as we know it.
I'll keep reading, but I'm way past the outrage - I want to hear strategies. Let's mobilize around a sound one, can we?
I find it odd, creepy actually, the way in which McCarthy speaks about MTG. He says…”I will never leave that woman.” “I will always take care of her.” He speaks of her as if she were his needy or disabled wife. Ugh!
Much of the MSM continues to report on what is happening in Washington as a political struggle over policies and party priorities. Tax increases vs. tax cuts. BUT, what is really going on is that The Insurrection is continuing: now from inside the government, mostly the House Republicans. The Fight to overthrow a democratically elected government and install a corrupt, greedy, authoritarian regime is being pushed hard by the Trump/McCarthy/Fox News triumvirate. To read that some of the members of Congress are visiting prisons to support the insurrectionists, shows that they don’t feel their movement has been stopped. None of the Republicans who mumble about running for president has taken a firm stand against this idea. DeSantis has come close to disavowing Trump, but his fascist aspirations are worse than Trump’s. What we need is for the Dems, the press, and local political organizations to increase their energies to protect democracy. It would certainly help if the people who designed, instigated, and orchestrated the raid on the Capitol were indicted for the many crimes they committed. But so far, only the pawns who sit in jail, the members of the Capitol Police, and all of us who continue to watch in horror, are the ones who are suffering.
"I don’t have to go to Ukraine to understand where there’s a blank check or not,” McCarthy told CNN. But Biden has to go to the border to understand that there's a migrant problem. And Buttigieg has to go to Ohio to know that a train derailed.
I don't know anything about the work Christina Buttons has done for the Daily Caller on the transgender issue, but she deserves praise and encouragement for her decision to resign. People going along to get along, like Paul Ryan, is what's gotten us into this dystopia. Whatever your opinions on the transgender issue, what Walsh, Knowles, and the Daily Caller have done, and this recent personal attack from Walsh in particular, are vile, and add nothing to the public discourse but hate, vitriol, and the seeds of eventual violence. What Walsh and the Caller did to this poor person is the sort of thing that leads to tragedy, like violence or suicide.
MTG with the gavel is an abomination. But, so was Trump in the Oval Office. So it sounds about right, if you think about it.
The impressive thing about Mccarthy is how he combines moral shallowness with mammoth stupidity.
A very depressing but sadly not too shocking set of stories, but on the positive side that picture of MTG in the speaker’s chair is the stuff of ten thousand effective attack ads.
So we have:
A speaker of the house whose allegiances are to a television network and to the most extreme members of his caucus.
And a television network that chooses lies over news.
Can we NEVER EVER hear someone compare media bias in the mainstream media to the on right wing media?
They simply are not the same.
And I even mean among respected Bulwark folks - so I call out Mona who gives her both-side-ist critique of media from time to time.
But sorry when I see a story in the NY Times (my local paper) I never ask if the reporter thinks the story is true. Nor do I ask that of PBS or NPR or of any respectable paper.
And yes, I do get annoyed at story choices. But I don’t see that they are hiding something from me.
So what do we do?
And sorry, while Mitch McConnell has admitted that the Tucker Carlson report is a lie.. when he had to power to break Trump’s power, he chose not to. And even now he lies about what the GOP has to offer. For example he may pretend that he does not want to touch medicare, but when Biden suggests a tax to bolster it - he uses the same old tax and spend talking point to criticize it. It may be an additional tax but it is not more spending. And what does he offer? Nothing.
In a world where black is white, liberal democracy is communism, and Putinism is "America First", McCarthy has basically rebirthed HUAC and he's trying his damnedest to make it as every bit as Un-American as he possibly can. Sad. #NeverMAGA
Quelle horreur! (not) at all the stories in this newsletter.
Fox isn’t worse than I thought, they are awful and have been for decades, Kevin is a sad man who sold his soul a long time ago, the woman from The Daily Wire is still a transfobe, just wants to be less shitty about her hate, anybody with a brain knows Trump lawyers are idiots at best or malevolent actors at worst.
Sadly, this album (iTunes digital purchase for the youngest among us) is on repeat and has been for a really long time 😕
The Republican House has a 100% negative agenda. They have no agenda for strengthening America. What they want--what they need politically--is for their side to viscerally hate the other side. This, of course, encourages the left to react and then McCarthy et al. can react to that. The House is 90% performance art and 10% embarrassed members who actually work to pass bills, hoping to goodness no one pays any attention to their work (Attention = death to legislation these days!)
I really feel like the Fox debacle has to end with the anchors and hosts (actual faces of the company to the viewers), in jail and held personally financially liable for their election denial shtick.
They knew it was bullshit, and they went on air and promoted it for the sake of their careers and finances. So take away their careers by putting them in jail. Then I hope capitol officers and their families start suing these SOBs. .
It was just a ratings game to them, but people fucking died. Brian Sicknick is dead. Ashley Babbitt is dead. Howard Liebengood and Jeffrey Smith are dead. And Tucker Carlson lives in a three million dollar oceanside mansion in Florida with a pool. Unless that's remedied, there will be a proliferation of Tucker Carlsons.
For the "good news":
"As part of an agreement in the case, Ellis admits that multiple statements she made in late 2020 about the presidential election being stolen were 'misrepresentations.'”
What I saw mentioned in the article was "censure". Is that it? No, disbar these so-called lawyers at the least. This is not a lawyer who lied and got a car thief off, or a bank robber, or even a murderer. This is a so-called lawyer who used her legal title to assist in preventing the peaceful transfer of power and was a co-conspirator in weakening (if not overturning) democracy in our country. Lack of "priors" is no mitigating factor for actions like these. It's called accountability.
Reader's comments are always interesting; maybe curious is a better word. We've come to understand, two things can be true at once. Biden has done well given his age, and no i don't want him hanging around for 4 more years. Sorry, but we have to break this infatuation over old people running our government.
Let's start with this: A discussion on a mandatory retirement age for all branches of the government, including the supreme court. Pick a reasonable number; 65, 70, 75 and then push forward with a strategic plan to do get it done. And before anyone moans and groans, i am soon to be 75. I Have spent the past 20 years "volunteering" my expertise but have left the heavy lifting to those working for a living. It would give a whole new meaning to "service to their country," when they are doing it for free.
Next up, this idea that the Bulwark should be taking down the radical right is in fact exactly what they have been doing since inception. I learned long ago there were three functions i relied on for effecting change: Communication, Education and Participation. I would argue long and loudly Bulwark has embraced all three as well or better than anyone.
Finally, they get it. I am comfortable in stating the Bulwark has brought those of us both the right and the left together in ways never imaginable bt (before trump). As a bleeding heart liberal, i found myself attacking the right because that's what we did to one another. Charlie and the gang have freely admitted, they too have moved more center stage and understand the importance of the mushy middle becoming the moving force in preserving all the good things this country has to offer.
For right now, for my nickels worth, we are on the right path to addressing the challenges of 2024. Keep communicating. keep educating and encourage participating. The only way to "win" is to grow the circle and leave the fringes where they belong...outside looking in.
We all heard (too much) about McCarthy's goal of becoming speaker of the house. Apparently his unstated goal is to be worse than the other McCarthy who was in Congress.
I'd say he's off to a roaring start.
"Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it."
Mona Charen referenced this quote from Judge Learned Hand in her podcast with Charlie a day or two ago. What Hand says about the ideal of Liberty and what is required to keep it alive can be said about any ideal. Trumpism, at bottom, is a barbaric assertion that all ideals are shams. Thus Tucker Carlson's violation of the ideal of basic honesty will cost him nothing with MAGA. I wholehearted agree with David Frum's insight in the tweet Charlie cited.