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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 2 years ago

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[The Moment That You Knew :: What CNN’s disastrous town hall showed us.]

CHARLIE SYKES :: MAY 11, 2023

Even the folks at CNN seemed to recognize how bad it was. “It’s hard to see how America was served by the spectacle of lies that aired on CNN Wednesday evening,” Oliver Darcy, the network’s senior media reporter wrote in CNN’s Reliable Sources newsletter. “It felt like 2016 all over again. It was Trump’s unhinged social media feed brought to life on stage.”

But let’s be clear about this: last night was not Kaitlan Collins’s fault. The decision to amplify Trump’s firehose of disinformation on live television doomed the whole thing from start. As Mehdi Hasan writes today, the “ridiculous town hall format and an audience seemingly recruited ‘from the Mar-a-Lago parking lot’, put its own anchor in a position to fail.”

Her bosses at CNN should have known that, but they made it clear last night that they had learned nothing. Or simply didn’t care.

Increasingly, Chris Licht is to CNN what Elon Musk is to Twitter.

The network’s defenses for all of this are bullsh*t on the surface. Of course, CNN needs to “cover” and report on the frontrunning GOP candidate. He’s news.

But this was not journalism we saw on CNN last night: this was entertainment programming, the kind of reality television show that did so much to foist Trump onto the body politic. He owned last night’s format.

In a different format, Collins could have performed a flagrant act of journalism. She could have done an in-depth taped interview with the former president, the sort that Jonathan Swan has done. She could have been given the chance to ask detailed follow-up questions, like Mehdi Hasan might do. CNN could have edited the responses, rather than simply air one lie after another.

Instead, well, you saw it… (via Rex Hupke):

Sexual abuse, like the kind a jury just found Trump liable of? That’s a laugh line for these folks. Literally. They laughed during CNN’s town hall as Trump continued to likely defame E. Jean Carroll, the woman he was just found liable of defaming.

The Jan. 6 domestic terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol? Trump said he’ll swiftly pardon most of the now-imprisoned attackers, possibly even some of the Proud Boys who were convicted of seditious conspiracy, because they’re “great people.” And that brought applause from the crowd.

A rat-a-tat-tat string of lies about the “rigged election”? The crowd chuckled.

A lie about “finishing” the border wall he barely started? You know, the one Mexico didn’t pay for. The crowd applauded.

Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie. Laugh, applaud, chuckle, clap, cheer.

This was the moment we knew.

We knew who Trump was of course. But last night showed us who we are and what’s about to happen. This is the GOP frontrunner.

He is still the star who can do anything. And it will get worse.

“Listen,” wrote author Jared Yates Sexton, “if this town hall is any indication, and I think it is, the Trump Campaign of 2024 is going to be infinitely more disturbing and upsetting. I've spent a lot of time studying this man and his movement. I'm stunned by the depths here. This is . . . awful.”

#Charlie Sykes #CNN #Steven Brodner

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gwydionmisha · 7 years ago

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#Hasan Minhaj #Donald Trump #Presidential Pardon #The Daily Show

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newagesispage · 5 years ago

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MARCH 2020

PAGE RIB

The Stones are touring the U.S. again.

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Paul Reubens is touring with Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.

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Al Franken is touring.

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Keenan Thompson and Hasan Minhaj are bringing comedy back to the White House Correspondents dinner on April 5.

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Days alert: There is some casting news but most of this won’t show up until the fall. Word is a couple of newbies will be Remington Hoffman who will play Li Shin, son of Mr. Shin and Emily O’Brien may join the cast. Nadia Bjorlin (Chloe) may be on her way back. Let’s bring the original Phillip back for her!!! Brandon Barash (Stefan) will return as well as Louise Sorel ( Vivian )and Alison Sweeney ( Sami). Judi Evans is headed back. Will she play Adrienne or Bonnie?? It looks like Casey Moss (JJ), Freddie Smith (Sonny), Chandler Massey (Will) and Galen Gering (Rafe) mill head out for awhile.

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It looks like Friends freaks will finally get their reunion on HBO. I am glad they aren’t bringing the characters back and are just getting together to talk about their time together.

*****

Downhill hit theatres on Valentine’s Day with Will Ferrell, Julia Louis- Dreyfus and Zoe Chao. The film was written and directed by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash.

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The more I see of it, the more I LOVE Stumptown, the best show that nobody seems to know about. Please renew ABC!!!!!

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So.. Rush Limbaugh got the Medal of Freedom. Oh my.

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Shadow Inc. owned by former Clinton and Obama staffers made an app that thoroughly fucked up the Iowa caucus. It was good at calculating the results but not delivering them. And hey.. Wolf Blitzer, stay off the phone with people that are trying to get those results. Let them just do their job!!

*****

Brooklyn 99 is back and Vanessa Bayer is there!!!

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Rod Blagojevich is out and hitting every show that will have him. Trump pardoned him along with 10 other criminals including Ed DeBartolo Jr., Mike Milken and Bernard Kerik.

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Forty thousand kids won’t get free lunch because Trump threw them off food stamps. The two usually go hand in hand. Getting food stamps automatically sets a kid up for the free lunch program.

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Over 1000 former DOJ officials have asked Bill Barr to resign.** 70 former Senators have written an open letter to congress to tell them they are not fulfilling their congressional duties.**” Yoo Hoo! Bush, Clinton, Carter, Obama, you’re up.” –Patricia Arquette

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Pete Davidson and Kaia Gerber have split.

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Indiana Beach is closing after 94 years.

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Denny Hamlin won the 2020 Daytona 500.

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Can’t we get some real gigs for Rainn Wilson and Curtis Armstrong? Ok, so Cyrtis Armstrong was on Stumptown so thank goodness for that! They can do better than Dominoes and Little Caesars ads. And how funny is it that Dominoes, known for its very Chrustian owners use a Risky Business ( a film about prostitutes) ad for their product. Hmm.

*****Hey.. Comics, quit bringing up Trump and his former womanizing. It didn’t work with Clinton and it won’t work here. People just don’t seem to care. Focus on the real damage he is doing.

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Scary Clown is working on opening nearly a million acres of land in Utah for energy exploration that had been a National monument. Redford and Romney can’t be happy about that.

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A new animated series from a brand new production company owned by Natasha Lyonne and Maya Rudolph looks promising. Look for The Hospital.

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Southern Illinois University is giving Bob Odenkirk an honorary degree.

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Ukranian immigrants Lt. Col. Vindman and his twin brother are out. Ambassador to the EU Sonland is out.

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The Democrats had a debate on Feb. 7 . At Andrew Yang’s first chance to speak, he rehashed his stump speech. I mean, c’mon give us something new. There really seemed to be a restrained nervousness on the stage that night. Klobachar seemed too needy but she got great reviews. Biden called Buttigieg ‘a friend ‘ a couple of times. Mayor Pete did quite well. ** Deval Patrick is out** Andrew Yang is out.**Michael Bennet is out** Another debate was on Feb. 19.** Bloomberg/Yang? Is this true?

*****

Check out the new series, Hunters. It is awesome, funny and terrifying!

*****

Dozens of Native American women and girls have disappeared from Big Horn county, Montana over the last few years. The victims were later found dead and Trump has put a federal task force together.

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Grassley and Wyden are trying to get lower prescription drug prices but Moscow Mitch won’t bring the proposal to the floor. Others are looking to get some traction on HR3.

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JSW Steel has sued the Trump administration for refusing to exempt it from paying the levies on slabs of steel that the company imports.

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64 women have filed sexual harassment or discrimination lawsuits against Mike Bloomberg. I’m not a fan of the guy but it does seem sort of coincidental. It does not seem to matter cuz all his ads seem to be working, he is picking up steam. Tom Steyer is gaining a bit of momentum as well.

*****

The corona virus has brought us Covid 19. 600 people are being held in quarantine camps that the military has set up. Italy has new cases and the disease is spreading. Scary Clown is trying to spin it all.

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ICE is being sent into sanctuary cities to cause trouble for immigrants.

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You have to check out Horse girl with Alison Brie, Molly Shannon and Matthew Gray Gubler on Netflix .

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Rapper Larry Sanders AKA LV is letting us in on a miscarriage of justice he has had to live thru. LV, best known for his work on Coolio’s Gangsters Paradise, was approached by police and later put on the Calgang database. The practice put about 80,000 mostly African Americans on a sort of gang list. In a 2016 audit it was found that there were many inaccuracies including the names of babes who could not possibly be gang affiliated.

*****

Nature does not need people. People need nature. –Harrison Ford

*****

The Clark bar is back. The roll out has started in Pittsburgh and will soon spread across the country.

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Scientists have found some turtle fossils that are the size of a car in South America.

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U can donate to the Trump campaign and may win a yaqut and hunting trip with Don Jr. The Beach Boys will perform.

*****

The Oscars were held Feb. 9. Brad Pitt and the production design team won for Once upon a Time in Hollywood. Woo Hoo! Word is that Pitt has hired a speech writer to write his acceptances. JoJo Rabbit won for adapted screenplay. Little Women won for Little Women and Toy Story 4 for animated film. Laura Dern won best supporting actress. Renee Zellweger and Joaquin Phoenix too home the top actor prizes. Parasite surprised everybody and won best pic and got Bong Joon Ho a best director statue. My best dressed were Billy Porter, Antonio Banderes and his date, Janelle Monae ( her opening seemed to make some in the audience uncomfortable), Robert DeNiro, Laura Dern, Diane Ladd, Geena Davis, Regina King, Charlize Theron, Adam Driver, Joanne Tucker, Cynthia Erivo, Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman and Kathy Bates, I don’t know what Kristen Wiig and Idina Menzel were thinking. Wiig always has a unique style so I have to admire that. ** The ratings were down. I have heard people saying they just don’t watch award shows or late night shows anymore because they are afraid things will get political. Funny, that is part of the reason I watch!

*****

Tom Papa was pontificating about a real dog show that should have REAL dogs. It would make a great weekly show with people bringing on their dogs.

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The goalies of the Hurricanes were out of commission and David Ayres, the Zamboni driver was brought in to help and the won against the Maple Leafs. Woo Hoo!!

*****

Hooray for New Hampshire and their use of paper ballots. Things in the campaign got a little shook up with Bernie taking the top followed by Pete and Amy.

*****

2 years of research in Canada has brought the announcement of a new discovery. Skull fragments that were cleaned and collected about 10 years ago have been named Thanatotheristes or the reaper of death. The discovery helps us all learn more about the early times of Tyrannosaurids, a sub group that includes T.Rex.

*****

New Jersey has a ban on self- serve pumps and another state is talking about getting in on the action. The gas station attendant act has been proposed in Illinois.

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Van Jones was right when he said we shouldn’t give Trump any press coverage for a week. He would hate it. Trump loves the old adage of bad publicity is better than none because he just must have attention. It would never work for they just can’t resist.** Joe Mcguire is out after he warned of Russian interference. If you want to keep your job in this administration, do not tell the truth. Now at the Department of National Intelligence is Johnny Mcentee , a 29 year old former football player who worked on the campaign. He immediately called department heads and said he wanted lists of never Trumpers in their offices. ** And who is in charge of weeding out the people in the government who may be disloyal to Scary Clown? Well, it is none other than Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court justice Clarence. She calls it the list of snakes. Trump is now saying he even wants liberal judges on the Supreme Court to recuse themselves when it comes to “Trump related cases”. It just keeps getting worse.

*****

Trump had fun in India. He should, his business has 5 projects going there right now worth 1.5 billion.

*****

Harvey Weinstein was found guilty of rape and criminal sexual assault. He was not found guilty of all the charges that included predatory behavior.

*****

Andrew Yang is a new correspondent at CNN. He tells us that he is getting word from former donors that Bloomberg is calling those big donors. Allegedly he is telling them they do not have to donate to his campaign because he can afford his own campaign but he still won’t forget them. He would like them to save their money and not give money to other democrats running either.** And I am so sick of talking heads trying to tell us to play it safe. We are not as stupid as we look, thank you!! ** Now there is a firestorm about Bernie telling the world that the education program that Castro implemented was a good thing. I understand the anger and it could not have come at a worse time and he did it to himself. BUT.. We are adults and we have to be able to talk about things as they really are, not in sound bites. Castro sucked and history teaches us that bad people do good things occasionally and good people do bad things once in a while. ** It seems that everyone was in agreement that we would all gather behind the winner of the democratic campaign to beat Trump. Suddenly when it could be Bernie, everybody is bitching.

*****

This month held 2 more Democratic debates. The Nevada debate got pretty heated. I see that Mayor Pete and Bloomberg are lefties (left handed that is). Pete always looked poised and articulate which I appreciate and he got in a good one when he mentioned that the party should choose someone who is actually a democrat. Bernie seemed a little rattled by that. Later Pete really dressed down Amy Klobuchar and made himself look like a dick. Joe Biden jumped in with his credits occasionally but often seemed a bit lost. He slammed back that they were all talking about the health care plane he helped to create and that he himself had dealt with the Mexican President. His name came up after it was mentioned that Amy could not remember the President’s name. The gloves were off with Bloomberg as Elizabeth Warren called him out on Billionaires and NDA’s. I loved the interaction but realistically Mr. Mike can’t just release people from agreements they made in an NDA, especially if it did not involve him. Bloomberg sounded pompous and clueless about the world outside of his company. He got a moan when he said he couldn’t exactly use turbo tax and when he said he may have told a few jokes that women didn’t like. He brushed off his taxes much like Trump does. The former mayor of NY called out socialists as communists. Klobuchar had the best comeback of the night when she was told her health care plan could fit on a post it. She proclaimed that the post it was invented in her state of Minnesota. Again, there were people shouting from the audience as Joe tried to talk. C’mon give everybody an equal chance.

*****

The South Carolina debate was fiery as well. The CBS debate was hosted by Gayle King and Norah O’Donnell. Bloomberg was booed right off the bat about Russia helping Bernie but he late had many cheers. He and Biden and Steyer had some real support there. Tom Steyer was actually quite impressive and seemed well spoken. He was the only one who brought up the impeachment. He had a great point that we all know that republicans who did not convict Trump are complicit in the Russian meddling. Then he ruined it all by being alarmist with his fear. He warned us off the former republican and the socialists. I loved Bernie’s ideas about small business’s getting in on the marijuana business and not letting big corporations taking it over. He is also the only one in debates that I have seen consistently bring up Native Americans. Biden again kept jumping in to tell us that he did this or that. Amy disagreed about a bill he claimed to have written. Warren said “dig in” numerous times. She went for the jugular with Bloomberg when she said a former female employee of his said to “kill it” in response to her pregnancy. He denied it but it sure is memorable. She did make great points that he has given much money to Linsey Graham’s campaign as well as other republican runs including against her. BTW he also gave 2.3 mil to Rick Snyder, the Gov of Michigan after the water crisis was well known. I love that Amy is always saying that we shouldn’t fight amongst ourselves but she just does not have the votes so she needs to go. Bernie got some boos about guns for he seems the softest in that area.

*****

Joe Biden won the South Carolina primary in a big way.

*****

Dick Van Dyke, Sarah Silverman and Public Enemy among others will be at the Bernie Sanders rally in L.A. on March 1.

*****

Just think what the 400 million that Bloomberg spent on his campaign could have done for the debt of the average American. Instead of a campaign for a presidency that he can’t win, he could have helped so many get a leg up.

*****

I don’t understand why “respected” journalists like Chuck Todd don’t throw W H reps off the set when they disrespect him or his colleagues with fake news jabs.

*****

Bob Moore of Bob’s Red Mill is giving his company away to his employees. Now, that’s a boss!!

*****

Bone, Thugs and Harmony have made a deal with Buffalo Wild Wings to rename themselves Boneless thugs and Harmony. The publicity stunt is to promote boneless wings.

*****

NASA is hiring.

*****

Scotland has made feminine sanitary products free!!

*****

Is this true? There were pigeons in Nevada with MAGA hats glued to their heads??

*****

The final Criminal Minds has aired. CBS often aired double episodes which made it seem like they really wanted to get rid of it. Kirsten Vangsness and Erica Messer wrote the final episode which seemed to give special attention to Penelope and Reid as they were the originals. The other characters seemed a little overlooked but they all had happy endings. Where was Reid’s new girlfriend? I was hoping to see Shemar Moore but it was great to see Reisgraf and Howell which are old favorites.

*****

Animal Kingdom returns to TNT on May 28.

*****

So there is a bit of a mess with the Roger Stone sentencing. Trump is hopping mad about the long sentence recommendation, Barr is said to be pretending to spar with the Prez, the DOJ is backing down and people are resigning.

*****

R.I.P. Shirley Jean Cade, Robert Conrad, Katherine Johnson, Lyle Mays, B. Smith, A.E. Hotchner, Bashir Jackson, Ja’net Dubois, Pat Agee, victims of the Molson Coors shooting and Orson Bean.

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phroyd · 6 years ago

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Impeach The Fucking Bastard! - Phroyd

DEAR HOUSE DEMOCRATS,

You told us to be patient. You told us to be cautious. You told us to wait for Robert Mueller.

Well, the time for waiting is over. And the moment for impeachment hearings has arrived.

Forget the mendacious Attorney General William Barr, and his repeated — and repeatedly dishonest — attempts to summarize and spin the special counsel’s report prior to publication.

You now have access to the report itself, and even the “lightly redacted” 448 pages provide you with a clear and detailed road map for impeaching Donald Trump, in line with Article II, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution: “The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Listen to special counsel Robert Mueller. “With respect to whether the President can be found to have obstructed justice by exercising his powers under Article II of the Constitution, we concluded that Congress has authority to prohibit a President’s corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice,” he writes, adding: “The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President’s corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law.”

Got that? The special counsel — who listed 11 instances of potential obstruction of justice in his report and refused to “exonerate” the president — placed the decision firmly in your court. This is the impeachment referral you claimed you were waiting for.

Trump, in Mueller’s view, may not have committed an “underlying crime” in relation to Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election — but this is frankly irrelevant to the case for impeachment. Listen to one of the 13 managers sent from your august body to prosecute the case against President Bill Clinton in the Senate in 1999. “You don’t even have to be convicted of a crime to lose your job [as president] in this constitutional republic if this body determines your conduct as a public official is clearly out of bounds in your role,” said then Republican representative — and now senator — Lindsay Graham. The process of impeachment, he argued, “is about restoring honor and integrity to the office.”

This is your duty — your obligation! You must restore some sense of honor and integrity to the office of the presidency.

Listen to your Republican and Democratic predecessors, who served on the House Judiciary Committee in July 1974 and published three articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon. The first article focused on obstruction of justice and cited the president’s “false or misleading public statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States.” It also cited Nixon’s efforts “to cause prospective defendants, and individuals duly tried and convicted, to expect favored treatment and consideration in return for their silence or false testimony, or rewarding individuals for their silence or false testimony.”

I defy any of you to read the special counsel’s report and conclude that this president did not lie, lie, and lie again. He lied about Russian interference in the 2016 election; he lied about his campaign’s contacts with Russians; he lied about the covering up of his campaign’s contacts with Russians. Take the infamous Trump Tower meeting in June 2016. The president personally dictated a statement on behalf of his son, Donald Trump Jr., which claimed that the latter and a Russian lawyer had met in Trump Tower to “primarily” discuss “a program about the adoption of Russian children.” Here is what Mueller says, however, about the purpose of that meeting: “The Campaign anticipated receiving information from Russia that could assist candidate Trump’s electoral prospects, but the Russian lawyer’s presentation did not provide such information.”

I also defy any of you to read the special counsel’s report and conclude that this president did not try and offer “favored treatment” and “rewards” to witnesses and defendants in the Russia investigation, à la Nixon. (Sample quote from Mueller: “Many of the President’s acts directed at witnesses, including discouragement of cooperation with the government and suggestions of possible future pardons, occurred in public view … And no principle of law excludes public acts from the scope of obstruction statutes.”)

Listen to former Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman, who served on the House Judiciary Committee in 1974 and is author of the recent book, “The Case for Impeaching Trump.” “In light of the Nixon precedent,” she told me over the phone on Thursday, evidence from the Mueller report “strengthens the claim that Trump committed impeachable offenses.” The parallels between Trump and Nixon, Holztman said, “are much stronger than they were before.”

Look, I get it. You’re afraid. You’re afraid of the backlash from your Republican counterparts. You’re afraid of losing in the Senate, where — right now — you lack a majority to convict Trump. You’re afraid that impeachment hearings will distract from your party’s 2020 presidential campaign.

But your job, first and foremost, is to preserve democracy and protect the rule of law. That’s the job assigned to you by the Constitution and also what’s expected of you by the American people. You cannot walk away from it.

Your leader in the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said last month — prior to the publication of the Mueller report — that she believes impeaching Trump is “just not worth it.” Sorry, what? If a president who has repeatedly and brazenly misled the American people; welcomed the interference of a foreign government in the U.S. election process while also trying to benefit from it; obstructed justice on multiple occasions in order to try and cover it all up; and also — lest we forget! — praised neo-Nazis as “very fine people,” is not “worth” impeaching, then … which president is? When will it ever be “worth” it?

And what, then, is the point of Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution? If you’re not willing to remove this president from office, in the wake of this damning report, you might as well remove the impeachment clause from the Constitution. If not Trump, who?

According to the special counsel’s report, Trump’s response to Mueller’s appointment in May 2017 was to exclaim, “Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m fucked.”

Well, House Democrats, the truth is that he isn’t “fucked” until you do your job.

Sincerely,

Mehdi Hasan

Phroyd

#trump #mueller #impeachment

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supertrendingnewsarticles · 5 years ago

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Like the vast majority of Americans, I have been effectively disenfranchised in the last few presidential elections. In 2011, I moved to Washington, D.C., which is so heavily Democratic that any vote for president is totally meaningless — in 2016, Hillary Clinton won with 93 percent of the vote. But last year, I moved to famously swingy Pennsylvania, and suddenly I'm a full citizen again. (I'm already lording it over my friends from California and New York.)As I have written on many occasions, I think Bernie Sanders is the best candidate. But given the abominable Trump presidency, I have also said that I'll vote for whoever wins the Democratic nomination.However, that was before Mike Bloomberg became a serious presidential contender (currently in third place in national polls and rising fast). I have given it very serious thought, and while I would happily vote for Elizabeth Warren, grudgingly vote for Joe Biden or Amy Klobuchar, or secure an entire bottle of Southern Comfort to get sufficiently hammered to vote for Pete Buttigieg, I will not vote for Mike Bloomberg in November if he is nominated.To start with, it is not at all obvious that Bloomberg would even be a better president than Trump. As Alex Pareene writes at The New Republic, he is a right-wing authoritarian with nakedly racist views who constantly violated civil rights laws during his time as mayor of New York City. He locked up thousands of protesters during the 2004 Republican National Convention (where he gave a speech warmly endorsing George W. Bush, and thanked him for starting the war in Iraq), and a judge held the city in contempt for violating due process law. He created what amounted to a police state for New York Muslims, subjecting the entire community to dragnet surveillance and harassment, and filling mosques with spies and agent provocateurs. The city had to pay millions in settlements for violating Muslims' civil rights. (All this did precisely nothing to prevent terrorism, by the way.)As Nathan Robinson writes at Current Affairs, he drastically escalated the infamous "stop-and-frisk" program in New York, in which innocent black and brown youths were jacked up by cops literally millions of times. Ninety-nine percent of the stops found nothing, and many police used it as a handy pretext to vent their racist prejudice. At its peak in 2011, there were more stops of black men than there were black men in the entire city. And because it was mainly young men being targeted, some were stopped dozens of times. Innocent people were routinely beaten senseless.Bloomberg justified the policy with straightforwardly racist collective guilt. In a 2015 speech, he said "it's controversial, but first thing is, all of your — 95 percent of your murders, murderers and murder victims, fit one M.O. ... They are male minorities, 15 to 25."These statistics are hideously inaccurate. In reality, the relatively few whites stopped under stop-and-frisk were more likely to be carrying weapons, and as The Atlantic's Adam Serwer points out, after the program was halted, crime continued to fall unabated. The whole thing was completely useless — unless the point was to constantly remind black and brown New Yorkers that they were second-class citizens. Bloomberg also espouses the racist theory that the financial crisis was caused by government efforts to reduce prejudice in home lending — thus scapegoating minorities to deflect blame from the real culprit, Wall Street oligarchs like himself.Bloomberg's newfound commitment to progressive policies is so transparently fraudulent that his campaign apparently plagiarized huge chunks of his campaign platform. He is just trying to trick the Democratic electorate with a tidal wave of cash (with evident success).Now, Bloomberg does have a legitimate history of supporting gun control and climate policy. But it is exceedingly unlikely that he will be able to get past a Senate filibuster on gun control, especially given his sneering know-it-all approach. And given his politics and personal wealth, his climate policy would probably look a great deal like Emmanuel Macron's diesel tax in France — a carbon tax whose revenues would go towards cutting taxes on the rich. Macron's move sparked violent protests and was quickly abandoned.Does this sound like a guy who would do anything substantial to reverse Trump's worst policies? If we're lucky, he might reverse the Muslim ban and let a few people out of the CBP camps. If we're not, he'll implement a much quieter and more effective version of the same policies, and partisan Democrats will reverse-engineer justifications for these being somehow necessary (or just ignore them, as they did during the Obama years). Recall that Bloomberg once argued that every Social Security card should have fingerprints so unauthorized immigrants would be unable to get jobs.On the other hand, in some areas Bloomberg would likely be worse than Trump. As Mehdi Hasan writes at The Intercept, Bloomberg is a committed and pitiless warmonger — he supported the war in Iraq and repeated the Bush administration's lie that Saddam Hussein had plotted 9/11. (In January he said he had no regrets about doing so.) He opposed President Obama's Iran deal, and had few complaints about Trump's assassination of Iran's Qassem Soleimani. While Trump has escalated conflicts across the globe, he appears to have at least a mild hesitation about starting new full-scale wars of aggression. The chances of a shooting war with Iran probably increase if Bloomberg wins in 2020.Given his wretched politics, even Bloomberg's superior competence is a mark against him. Right now one tiny silver lining of the Trump administration is that the people trying to commit atrocities through the federal bureaucracy are so inept they keep fumbling the legal procedures and getting stopped in the courts. Bloomberg is sure to appoint competent authoritarian maniacs.And for all the people who complain that Bernie Sanders is not a real Democrat, Bloomberg was literally a Republican up until 2007, and worked to elect Republicans until very recently. In 2014, he or his political action committee donated to the senate campaigns of Susan Collins in Maine and Bob Dold in Illinois. In 2016, he donated $11.7 million to Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania — making it the most expensive Senate race in history up to that point, and likely securing victory for Toomey, who won by less than two points. Though he has also donated a lot to Democrats, Bloomberg is a guy who did more than almost anyone to help protect Mitch McConnell's Republican majority in the Senate, and hence to put two more conservatives on the Supreme Court.At bottom, Bloomberg is basically just like George W. Bush, with a dollop of maddening nanny-state condescension. Without question he would be one of the top five worst major-party presidential nominees in the last century of American history.This stance will no doubt infuriate the "vote blue no matter who" crowd who view Donald Trump as some kind of Lovecraftian nightmare. But even aside from how horrible a president Bloomberg would be, perhaps the most compelling reason not to vote for him is what his nomination would reveal about American democracy. It would mean that the oligarch class has so thoroughly corrupted the system that the voice of the people is drowned. His entire candidacy is a cartoonishly blatant instance of how money can corrupt democracy. Right now he is scooping up thousands of campaign operatives and field organizers by offering them as much as $6,000 a month — creating a desperate shortage for other campaigns. He's racking up endorsement after endorsement — of representatives, mayors, and one governor, so far — who have cashed checks from his vast empire of bribery. His nomination would mean the Democratic Party can be "bought over the counter like so many pounds of cheese."Partisan Democrats insist that everyone has an obligation to vote tactically — that is, to always pick the lesser of two evils in the voting booth. But as Daniel Davies argues, given that one's individual vote has virtually no chance of actually deciding the outcome, the truly tactical choice is to not bother to vote at all. The only compelling reason to vote is about civic duty and one's patriotic conscience. And as Davies writes, "it seems pretty clear that there is some point at which it becomes obvious that a morally and politically valid response is simply to declare that the fundamental basis of the implied contract has broken down, and that it's a reasonable choice to simply refuse to participate further." If the choice is Cthulhu versus Nyarlathotep, I for one see little point in voting for the candidate that might have one fewer grasping eldritch tentacle.Among Bernie Sanders supporters, I am far from the most die-hard. If I simply cannot countenance putting my name down for Bloomberg in November, there are millions more who would do the same — plus no small number of supporters of the other candidates, in all likelihood. Then there is the general fact that Bloomberg's extreme wealth and extensive record of racism and sexual harassment would negate most of the strongest attacks against Trump. Bloomberg would be highly likely to bleed enough support to third parties (or no one) to lose to Trump, just as Hillary Clinton did.Luckily, it will be easy to avoid this dreadful possibility. Simply vote against Michael Bloomberg in the Democratic primary.More stories from theweek.com The Democratic Party is weak. Mike Bloomberg could break it. What if Trump stopped tweeting? Trump adds former NYPD commissioner, financier convicted in fraud schemes to pardon spree

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