#yes this is based off of that one image of ted cruz

[crismakesstuff]

thinking of invincible today since it’s one month until season 2

[jillmckenzie1]

Tempest in a Teapot

Cuties is streaming on Netflix

 Take a seat. Better yet, make a nice, hot cup of tea, pull up your nearest fainting couch, and get ready for some information that is sure to blow your mind. Ready?

You sure?

Okay…here goes. *takes a deep breath*

Americans are really, really stupid when it comes to both art and nuance. An example is the kerfuffle that sprang up regarding The Last Temptation of Christ. It all began with the 1955 novel written by Nikos Kazantzakis that examined the life of Jesus. Specifically, it posited the concept of Jesus briefly succumbing to temptation while on the cross and imagining a normal life. One that involved sex, love, and a family.

As you might imagine, a certain stripe of Christian was very angry with the book. This anger turned to incandescent rage in 1988, when Martin Scorsese adapted the novel into an excellent film. Now, you would think people who were taught the Gospels, to live with a love for others, to turn the other cheek, you would think those folks would either try to see the spiritual message inherent in Last Temptation* or love the people they disagreed with in brotherhood.

Nope! Thousands of people called for the film to be banned. Television evangelists denounced Scorsese. In fact, Scorsese received numerous death threats which, unless I missed big chunks of the Bible, is antithetical to the message of Christianity. There was even an attempted terrorist attack on a theater in Paris. A group of radical Catholics (Yes, seriously) set off an incendiary device that wounded thirteen people.

So based on the preceding paragraphs, I must think that conservative Christians are a bunch of gullible nitwits, right? Well…no. As much as I’d like to take a moment to clown on the right-wing outrage machine, the fact remains that both liberals and conservatives tend to live in a black and white space when it comes to artistic expression, and that space is not where nuance lives. Don’t believe me? Let’s talk about the new film Cuties, and why the controversy around it is mostly nonsense.

Amy (Fathia Youssouf) is eleven, and she has just moved from Senegal to a neighborhood in Paris. Things are very different for her. She’s in a new place with new customs and new faces, and she’s expected to help care for her two younger brothers. What about her parents, you might ask? That’s where things start to become complicated. Her mother Mariam (Maimouna Gueye) is already struggling to keep the children stable in their new home. Mariam tries to live as a righteous Muslim woman and feels pressure from her Aunt (Mbissine Therese Diop) to do better. The pressure gets worse when she receives a phone call from Senegal and the news that her husband has taken a second wife.

This is all an enormous amount for Amy to process. She needs support, and unfortunately, Mariam doesn’t have the bandwidth to provide it. So, she seeks out a support system elsewhere, and boy howdy, does she find it. A pilfered smartphone introduces her to social media and the endorphin rush that comes from likes and comments.

A chance encounter at school pinballs Amy’s life in a radically new direction. She meets the Cuties, a group of girls in her grade. They are her neighbor Angelica (Medina El Aidi), the snarky Coumba (Esther Gohourou), and the combative Jess (Ilanah Cami-Goursolas). The Cuties move through the world with the kind of bulletproof self-confidence that only exists within tweens and rich, white men. Their goal is to enter and win a dance competition, one that emphasizes barely-there costumes and dance moves that are…well, let’s go with “suggestive.”

The realization hits Amy like a thunderbolt. The Cuties are everything she isn’t and like nothing she’s ever seen before. At least, that’s what she thinks. How to get in with the cool girls? Proving yet again that the internet was a mistake, Amy dives online and immerses herself in videos. Her plan is to imitate the moves of dancers much older and copy their routines, routines that are wildly age-inappropriate. They don’t just push the envelope, they rip through the damn thing. It’s all in service of social medial likes, realizing a vague dream, and learning that actions have consequences.

A number of prominent individuals have accused Cuties of either being child pornography or sexually exploitative. Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley railed against the film. An op-ed in the conservative website The National Review wrote, “Thus, whatever their artistic intentions, in making a social commentary about the sexualization of children, the filmmakers undeniably sexualized children.” Christine Pelosi, daughter of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, tweeted, “Cuties hypersexualizes girls my daughter’s age, no doubt to the delight of pedophiles like the ones I prosecuted. Cancel this, apologize, work with experts to heal your harm.” It was all outrage, but it never came from a place rooted in liberal or conservative ideology. It was only reactionary.

By now, I imagine you’re probably thinking, “Don’t keep us in suspense, is Cuties offensive trash that comes straight from the Second Circle of Hell?” No, but it is designed to make viewers feel uneasy.

Director Maimouna Doucoure has made a clear-eyed and nuanced film about the raging desire of a child to fit in, and the poor decisions they can make that blow up in their faces. She knows exactly what kind of film she’s making; one about perspectives. When the girls practice their routines, we hear pulsing pop music as they emulate what they have seen elsewhere. I’m not sure they’re fully aware of the meaning of these suggestive dance moves, but they know on a subconscious level that they have raw power. However, watch the same routine later when adults observe. You’ll see some skeezy guys who are into it, but far more adults who are repelled and appalled. In the end, the gaze of the camera is entirely dependent upon context. There are also tiny moments of surrealism that pop in and out, such as a dress that Amy is given to wear at her father’s wedding. Watch how the shape and color of the dress slightly changes depending on Amy’s mood. It’s filmmaking that’s smart and subtle.

Doucoure based her screenplay on her own experiences as a refugee, as well as eighteen months of research regarding how social media influences the behavior of children and young teens. More relevant is her prior experience as a girl. The script is a coming of age tale in which Amy bounces between the expectations of her culture and religion to be a submissive wife, an onslaught of online images lacking in context, and the age-old growing pains we all go through. She ultimately wants to find her people and her place in the world while simultaneously wanting to rebel against the world she’s growing up in. The tragedy is that she makes decisions from the perspective of a child and is judged as an adult.

I think I was most impressed by the natural and honest performances that Doucoure was able to draw out of her cast.*** The younger actors do solid work, and I was particularly impressed with Fathia Youssouf as Amy. She’s asked to do some extremely heavy lifting from an emotional standpoint, and whether she’s about to break from pressure or giggling as she crams gummy worms into her mouth, she always feels believable. The stealth MVP of the cast is Maimouna Gueye as her mother Miriam. She has an astounding scene where she takes a phone call and learns of her husband’s decision to take another wife. Gueye’s tone of voice is all business on the phone. We can only see her feet as she hangs up the phone. For a moment there’s only silence, then we see her feet shaking as she sobs.

You’ve probably heard a variation of the old saying that depiction doesn’t equal endorsement. Odds are that the vast majority of people hysterically shrieking over Cuties either haven’t seen the film or are reading it in the most shallow manner possible. Cuties made me extremely uncomfortable. Since it’s a critique of society’s rampant sexualization of children, it’s supposed to.**** Maimouna Doucore’s film is intelligent and nuanced, and I fervently hope that her next project is viewed with more open-mindedness. Odds are, it won’t be.

  *Whether you agree with the central message of the film or not, consider that the central message is that initially Jesus profoundly does not want to take the suffering of the world entirely within himself. He wants what everyone else wants, but decides to sacrifice himself anyway. That’s far more inspirational and relatable than a savior entirely free of doubt.

**While the film isn’t exploitative, holy hell is the advertising! Someone in Netflix’s marketing department made a series of Very Bad Decisions. You can read more here.

***It bears mentioning that there was a child psychologist on-set during the shooting, as well as officials from France’s child protective services.

***In fact, I think Cuties is far less offensive than some of the odious reality TV programs like Toddlers and Tiaras.

The post Tempest in a Teapot first appeared on The Denver Guide.

from Blog https://ondenver.com/tempest-in-a-teapot/

[functioningcog]

Hitting the bail button

  "Commercial television delivers 20 million people a minute. In commercial broadcasting the viewer pays for the privilege of having himself sold. It is the consumer who is consumed. You are the product of TV. You are delivered to the advertiser who is the customer. He consumes you. The viewer is not responsible for programming - You are the end product."(Serra and Fay, 1973)

  If it was true of television, it's even more true in the interactive and widespread media platforms of today. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Their brands are omnipresent. You are not their consumer. You are their product, and your data is offered and sold to the highest bidder. I have known this for sometime, but the mountain of reasons not to participate has finally tipped me over the edge. I am deleting Facebook. This doesn't make me better than anyone else, nor am I hear to preach. I just thought I'd share with you my reasons. Do with it what you will. First, a look into the past. Both mine, and ours.

  In the fast food documentary "Super Size Me", one of the participants tells an anecdotal tale about cigarette companies of the past. Long before it became socially taboo to smoke, advertising for cigarettes was as commonplace, though maybe not as entertaining, as many ads we see today. Big Tobacco went further though; they advertised directly to children. Children far below legal smoking age were given toy cigarettes. It's hard today to see this as innocuous, but I imagine at the time most people had far bigger things to worry about. Well, those little innocuous toy cigarettes often had name brands on them. The tobacco companies were practicing "brand imprinting" on children as young as toddlers. They would pretend to smoke with their parents, and later on when they were old enough to smoke, they would unconsciously reach for the name brand they were familiar with. The sinister side of marketing, hard at work. It has not changed or improved in the years since.

  Once when I was a kid, my father sat me down to have a talk. I wasn't in trouble; just being educated. The topic was Pokémon. The adorable, ubiquitous, trademarked pocket monsters that have dominated their corner of popular media for just about the same amount of time as I have been alive. They exist in many forms, and have evolved with the times. Videogames, toys both stuffed and model-like, card games, TV shows and films, all ad infinitum. My dad told me about the addictive nature of the games; how it's designed to grab hold of your attention, and your pocket book, and never let go. I don't remember his exact words, but the message has never left me. "Pokémon is addictive. I'm not going to buy you addictive things". 

  Not only is Pokémon addictive, but my father also stressed the fact that it creates a never-ending cycle for itself. There will always be new games, new cards, etc. Many medias that we enjoy have a planned ending to them. Movies, books, most TV shows, etc. They conclude and we move on to something else. We now live in an age where some of the most pervasive means of entertainment do not end. There is no logical stopping point. You can look at memes and posts and photos as long as your heart desires. 

  Note on Pokémon: I don't think the brand itself is evil. I have played the games in recent years and enjoy them. The lesson my dad taught me about addictions and marketing just happened to feature them. I wish I could say I have continued to avoid addictive habits and tech as an adult, but the battle is a lifelong one. Other addictions, mostly minor, have come and gone. It is the most pervasive and major one that brings me here; "Facebook"

  Before I dive more into my own experience with Facebook, I'd like to share with you several of the most important influences that led me here today. The first is a fictional short story told via the anthology series "Black Mirror"; a favorite show of mine. The other two are documentaries, one from last summer and one newly released.

   If you are unfamiliar with the show Black Mirror, it is an anthology series that explores the ethics and future of technology in our world through short self-contained stories. I highly recommend it. The Season 3 episode "Nosedive" follows a young woman in a world in which social standing is determined by internet interactions. People like and rate each other based on every interaction throughout their day. On your best behavior? You get some points. Accidentally snap at someone or make an off-color joke? You lose some points. Those points determine what events you attend, what cars you drive in, what jobs you can do, etc. It's not hard to extrapolate from there how our society is already well on its way to this kind of a system. The more addicted to social media we are, the more our lives revolve around the attention we get there. Likes and comments dominate our daily mood; they certainly have mine for years. It made me uncomfortable to realize how much my emotions could be controlled by digital reactions, or lack thereof. As "Nosedive" faded to black, I immediately pulled up my Facebook feed and then froze in place for a minute. "This is it. I'm looking at it". A sobering realization, yet I didn't stop my usage. The addiction continued, but no longer felt wholly innocent.  By the by, this technology now exists in China. Look it up.

   "The Great Hack" tells the story of a British Company called Cambridge Analytica, and how it developed it's technology to a point which the British government labeled "weapons grade communication". Analytica had contracts with a number of internet companies and groups to collect data on their users and used this data to develop tools, ads and propaganda designed to affect their target audience in highly specific ways. With the knowledge freely and unwittingly offered up by social media users, the degree to which you can predict and direct the users behavior and actions is truly disturbing. It's just human psychology and sociology combined with the newest tech. Cambridge Analytica used this data to influence elections in a number of countries around the globe, most notably the U.S. 2016 and the Brexit campaign in the U.K. They were hired first by Ted Cruz, then by Donald Trump's campaign. At the peak of the election season their American home base was being funded to the tune of over a million dollars a day and by it's end they had created and shared literally millions of targeted ads on social media. Were the ads truthful or reliable? Didn't matter. They were targeted at people most likely to shift their opinion based on the right information. And it worked. I wouldn't say that they single-handedly won the election for Trump, but they played a major part. 

  Cambridge Analytica was later shut down, but the cat’s out of the bag. I would expect to see both sides playing by these new rules throughout 2020. And that's all without even mentioning Russian hackers and bots, which Cambridge Analytica had nothing to do with. This documentary disturbed me. My own internal arguments and justifications in favor of Facebook were wearing thin. I began attempting to limit my usage, and calling out unreliable news posts when I saw them. But I also kept logging on daily. Repeatedly. My awareness of my addiction was growing more acute. I noticed my own behavior and reactions to the site more than before. The camels back was just a couple straws away from breaking point.

  “Screened Out” focuses primarily on the how and why of social medias effects on us as people. The aforementioned psychology of what's happening. Turns out, it was always intended to addict us and keep us coming back for more. It's inherent in the design. Like gambling, like cocaine, our seemingly innocent social media is triggering dopamine reactions in our brain. Every like, every reaction, every notification is designed to draw your attention and satisfy the itch the system itself gave you. It was crafted this way knowingly and intentionally. The most widespread addiction in our modern world is available for all ages and free to top it off. Just like those toy cigarettes I mentioned earlier, the tech companies and marketing developers know quite well that children are more unsuspecting and susceptible to addictive behaviors and media. My childhood was predominantly internet free, and for that I am thankful; my addiction developed as an adult. But many children of today have all the access they want to social media and it's hard to argue it’s a good thing. They are becoming reliant on and obsessed with their image and perception before they even know who they are. Their addiction has drawn many of them into depression, or even suicide. Is being "connected" really worth it at this price?

  One of the most common and persistent things I've told myself: "It's a way to stay in touch with family and friends".  Yes, it certainly is. When the site was created, that goal was much more front and center and easier to enjoy. It's an admirable goal too, and if it works for you I'm happy for you. From where I'm sitting, Facebook's use for that well-meaning purpose has taken a backseat to what dominates its feed. As I scroll through multiple times a day, 80-90% of what I see is ads for things I don't need, news that I usually could do without or that is outright false, memes I could find elsewhere and people arguing and debating topics that are better discussed in person or not at all. This is what Facebook is for me now. That once enticing prospect of glimpsing the lives of my friends and family surfaces from time to time, and it's still enjoyable. Unfortunately, the bad outweighs the good these days. Again, if your experience is better than mine, please enjoy it and I'm happy for you.    Aside from "Screened Out", the last piece of this decision was caused by nature; not human, but microscopic. I already knew about how fake news is created and spread via Facebook and Twitter. Donald Trump showed us just how incredibly effective it is and more evidence is not really necessary. Enter COVID-19. A global pandemic that should unite people of all beliefs in a common goal of defending ourselves from an enemy that has no morals or code. An enemy that has no mind or plan of its own. It simply spreads. 

  What did social media do in the face of this crises? Everything negative and nefarious about it kicked into high gear and was on full display. False narratives and conspiracies that actually endanger lives in the immediate future spread like wildfire. People arguing about data and statistics that effect us all and are utterly bipartisan. Guys, this is not ok. I do not think it an exaggeration to say that social media is precipitating a partial or total collapse of society. Something must be done to fix it, and I don't know what that something is. But I'm bowing out. This is not a system that can be fixed from the inside. Picture a casino sponsoring a gambling addicts rehab right next to the slot machines. You'd be better served just not going.   As I said at the beginning, I don't want to sound preachy. My goal here was to share my decision making process and some information sources that you might appreciate. Maybe you're better at tuning out the bad side of social media than I am. Maybe you have ways by which you limit your exposure to it. I personally have addictive tendencies, and this is my way of addressing one of my longest and most insidious habits. And yes, I know that tumblr is technically another social media platform. My current intention is to use it as an outlet for my writing.

  If you read all that, hi-five. Maybe being off Facebook will lead me to write more on my blog. I wish you all well and look forward to talking to you on other platforms or in person. Peace  - JCP

[nothingman]

Republican senators are struggling to articulate why they are rushing to pass their last-ditch effort to repeal and replace Obamacare over the next 10 days before running into their September 30 deadline.

In interviews with Vox on Tuesday, nine Republican senators primarily argued that their “Hail Mary” bill — spearheaded by Sens. Lindsey Graham (SC) and Bill Cassidy (LA) — would return federal power to the states, giving them greater flexibility to improve their health systems locally. “The heart of the legislation takes the policymaking role of Washington and sends it to the states,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said.

Far less clear is exactly how Graham-Cassidy would pull off this feat without resulting in millions of Americans losing their insurance — and the number of millions is still unknown, since any vote would likely have to come before the Congressional Budget Office completes its analysis of the bill. The GOP senators insisted that the tens of billions in cuts to federal health spending proposed in the bill would not result in coverage losses because, they said, the states would have more flexibility.

“They can do it with less money,” said Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), who was unable to explain how or why.

Other Republican senators, meanwhile, fell back on political explanations for a bill that experts warn could result in millions losing their insurance. “If we do nothing, it has a tremendous impact on the 2018 elections,” said Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS). “And whether or not Republicans still maintain control and we have the gavel.”

And then some members of the upper chamber acknowledged that the spending changes might have a big impact, but argued their home states would not be negatively impacted. “Four of our states are getting a disproportionate amount of money from health care now,” Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) said. The bill, he added, “wouldn’t cut Alabama.” (Numbers from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities suggest Alabama would receive more than $1 billion in additional funding under the bill, but most states would see big cuts.)

The stakes of the Republican rush to repeal and replace Obamacare could hardly be higher. The GOP has less than two weeks to pass a repeal-and-replace plan before their budget reconciliation instructions expire, and the insurance of tens of millions of Americans hangs in the balance.

Vox conducted the interviews with nine Republican senators throughout the Capitol and Russell Senate Office Building on Tuesday.

Transcripts of those conversations follow.

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS): “If we do nothing, it has a tremendous impact on the 2018 elections”

Pat Roberts, right, of Kansas. Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

Jeff Stein

Senator, I wanted to ask you for a policy-based explanation for why you’re moving forward with the Graham-Cassidy proposal. What problems will this solve in the health care system?

Pat Roberts

That — that is the last stage out of Dodge City.

Jeff Stein

I’m just trying to explain to our readers what the policy —

Pat Roberts

What readers? Who do you represent?

Jeff Stein

It’s a website called Vox.

Pat Roberts

... [Graham-Cassidy] is the last stage out of Dodge City. I’m from Dodge City. So it’s the last stage out to do anything. Restoring decision-making back to the states is always a good idea, but this is not the best possible bill — this is the best bill possible under the circumstances.

If we do nothing, I think it has a tremendous impact on the 2018 elections. And whether or not Republicans still maintain control and we have the gavel.

Jeff Stein

But why does this bill make things better for Americans? How does it help?

Pat Roberts

Pardon me?

Jeff Stein

Why does this make things better? What is this doing?

Pat Roberts

Look, we’re in the back seat of a convertible being driven by Thelma and Louise, and we’re headed toward the canyon. That’s a movie that you’ve probably never seen —

Jeff Stein

I do know Thelma and Louise, sir.

Pat Roberts

So we have to get out of the car, and you have to have a car to get into, and this is the only car there is.

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK): “Efficiencies” from federal-state transfer “can very well make up the difference”

Jim Inhofe. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Jeff Stein

What’s the policy explanation for the Graham-Cassidy bill? What substantive problems does this solve?

Jim Inhofe

Well, first of all, as a general rule the states do things better than the federal government does [things]. And that is essentially what the bill is. We actually had a bill that passed, except at the last minute — as you know — we had one deciding vote against it that was unforeseen. And I think what we’re looking at right now is essentially the same thing.

It’s a stronger position for the states to be in, and generally, Republicans agree with that.

Jeff Stein

I understand what you’re saying with the states having the ability to make these decisions, but the bill doesn’t just “give states more freedom” — it also cuts federal funding to the states. So it’s not just about giving the states more control; it’s also about cutting federal expenditures, right?

Jim Inhofe

Well, yes, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be — I think the efficiencies that come with transferring the funding to the states can very well make up the difference between what the federal thing would be.

A philosophical difference — you know?

Jeff Stein

No, what do you mean?

Jim Inhofe

I mean it’s more efficient when it’s done from the states, and so they can do it with less money.

Jeff Stein

Are you confident, and how do you know those savings will be close to enough to protect everyone?

Jim Inhofe

Well, nothing protects everyone.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): “It lets states innovate and adopt creative solutions”

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

Jeff Stein

I’m looking for a broad policy explanation for what Graham-Cassidy will do — how does it improve the American health care system?

Ted Cruz

Well, the details of it are still being negotiated, but the heart of the legislation takes the policymaking role of Washington and sends it to the states. It lets states innovate and adopt creative solutions to local problems, which vary state by state.

Jeff Stein

But it’s not just devolving power from the federal government to the state. It also involves a 16 percent cut in federal spending [upfront] and a 34 percent cut over the next 10 years.

If you’re saying, “Let’s just devolve power to the states,” why also cut federal spending so dramatically?

Ted Cruz

My central focus from the beginning has been on lowering health insurance premiums.

The biggest reason so many millions of people are hurting under Obamacare is that it has made premiums skyrocket. And what I think is critical for Obamacare repeal is that we expand consumer freedom so that you, the consumer, can be in charge of what health insurance you want to buy, and we lower premiums so that health insurance is more affordable. ...

Jeff Stein

Why not wait until the CBO says what you’re saying about premiums? Why not confirm with them? Over the first few votes, the CBO suggested that premiums would go up and that tens of millions of people would lose health insurance.

Ted Cruz

CBO’s analysis throughout this process has been ridiculously slow, unreliable, and based on policy assumptions that are demonstrably false.

Jeff Stein

You really believe that cutting federal spending by 34 percent will not result in any other people losing their insurance?

Ted Cruz

What federal spending is cut?

Jeff Stein

Well, the Medicaid expansion would be sunset, for one, is my understanding.

Ted Cruz

The decrease in future rates of growth is not a cut. And it is only in the bizarre world of Washington that billions more money is characterized in the press as a cut rather than an increase, which is in fact what it is.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA): “Read the bill and you’ll understand”

John Kennedy. Jonathan Bachman / Stringer / Getty Images

Jeff Stein

What are the policy explanations for the bill?

John Kennedy

I think it’s an improvement over Obamacare, but I have sent four amendments to Lindsey [Graham] and Bill [Cassidy] that I think will strengthen the bill. The one I feel most strongly about is that I want the Medicaid work requirement — I don’t want it to be optional; I want it to be a requirement. Just like we did with welfare reform.

And number two, I want to get us to give guardrails to the states to say, “You cannot use these moneys to set up a state-run single-payer system.” I don’t believe in it. I think it’s a mistake.

I’ve lived under a single-payer system, and I think the bill would be stronger with that prohibition. [That’s an apparent reference to England, where Kennedy received a law degree in the 1970s and which has the National Health Service.]

[Guardian reporter] Lauren Gambino

Do you think that kind of goes against the idea of states’ rights and being able to use this money [as the states want to]?

John Kennedy

No, no. We have plenty of federal rules that apply to every state, but we still agree with states’ rights.

Jeff Stein

What are the main policy explanations for getting behind this bill? What does this bill do right, policy-wise?

John Kennedy

I think it’s an improvement over Obamacare.

Jeff Stein

Why?

John Kennedy

My position has always been that, number one, I think Obamacare has been a failure.

Number two: First chance I get to vote for repeal it, I’ll do it.

And number three: If it’s replacement, if replacement is better than Obamacare, I will vote for it.

Jeff Stein

What are the policies that make you think that?

John Kennedy

I think it spends scarce resources in a more rational manner. It will control costs. I like the idea that it encourages states to innovate.

Jeff Stein

How does it do that? Any of those things?

John Kennedy

Well, you need to read the bill.

Jeff Stein

Well, you’re voting for it, right? So what is the explanation for how it does those things?

John Kennedy

I am. Because it gives states added flexibility. Read the bill and you’ll understand.

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL): “It wouldn’t cut Alabama, though”

Richard Shelby, right Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

Jeff Stein

In broad strokes, what do you think this bill is going to accomplish?

Richard Shelby

This is what a lot of us ran on — we’ve been advocating it for years. Let the states run it. They know more about it. They run the Medicaid program. They run our highway programs. We send 80 percent of money to various transit and highway stations — there, where the rubber hits the road.

Jeff Stein

But it’s not just that it devolves power to the states — it also involves a 16 percent cut in federal health spending.

Richard Shelby

But I’ll tell you what: Our states — our 50 states — are very flexible, very innovative. Much more so than we are here. I think it will work, and it will be a big step toward federalism.

Jeff Stein

The bill would cut federal funding to states by 34 percent over the next —

Richard Shelby

But it wouldn’t cut Alabama, though.

Jeff Stein

Well, do you think the other states should deal with —

Richard Shelby

Well, you see some of our states, four of our states, are getting a disproportionate amount of money from health care now. You know which ones.

Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA): “I don't know what the numbers are going to end up looking like”

Johnny Isakson, right. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Jeff Stein

What is the policy explanation for the Graham-Cassidy health care bill?

Johnny Isakson

Policy explanation? I’m not into policy, so I don’t really know. I’m into facts.

Jeff Stein

[In a follow-up interview hours later on Tuesday] You were joking earlier, but what is the health policy in the Graham-Cassidy proposal that you like?

Johnny Isakson

More state innovation. More input from the states.

Jeff Stein

What does that mean, exactly?

Johnny Isakson

The governors — I'm from a state that didn't expand Medicaid, and the way we were going in health care looked like those states would actually be hurt worse than other states.

By going to block grants, back to the states, the control of money stays with the states, and you have less [un]predictability and external deviation in terms of funding.

Jeff Stein

So just a follow-up on that. It's one thing to say the bill gives the states power — that’s one thing.

But it doesn't just do that. It also cuts the money they have — some estimates say around 16 percent of federal funding.

Johnny Isakson

I'm not going to confirm that statement one way or another. I don't know what the numbers are going to end up looking like.

Jeff Stein

Right, but if it does cut federal spending overall, would you support it?

Johnny Isakson

You know, those are dangerous questions. I'm waiting until I see the totality of the legislation to say whether I support the whole thing or not, anyway.

I'm not a no, but I'm not a yes either — and I'm waiting for my governor to respond to me with their input as well. It’s really key what they’re doing.

Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY): “The governors who decided to expand [Medicaid] knew that they were going to lose federal funding”

John Barrasso. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Jeff Stein

I want to ask, in a big-picture way: What is the policy explanation for how this bill makes people’s lives better?

John Barrasso

It gets the money out of Washington, lets people at home make the decision, and gets state legislatures involved, and governors involved. It moves money out of Washington. It’s away from socialism.

Jeff Stein

CBPP says it will also reduce federal health spending on Medicaid and the exchanges by about [20] percent.

John Barrasso

I’d love to reduce federal spending on health insurance.

Jeff Stein

Right, but so it’s not just about moving power to the states — it’s also about cutting funding.

John Barrasso

It’s about moving power to the states, where money can be spent much more effectively.

Jeff Stein

How does it do that?

John Barrasso

Well, you have to read the formula and read the bill, and it will tell you how it moves money to the states and how much they get and how much they don’t get. ...

Jeff Stein

There’s a concern from Republican governors who have come out and said, “This is too dramatic a cut in spending; we won’t have enough money to insure everyone.”

John Barrasso

You have to interview them on that.

Jeff Stein

Do you think they’re wrong?

John Barrasso

Well, it depends on if they’re states that expanded Medicaid or not. ...

Jeff Stein

In the Medicaid expansion states, they still have a lot of people who rely on Medicaid expansion for health insurance.

John Barrasso

I opposed Medicaid expansion. I think the Supreme Court got it wrong [when it ruled in 2012 that Congress did have the constitutional authority to implement most of Obamacare].

The governors who decided to expand [Medicaid] knew that they were going to lose federal funding over time, and they’re objecting to that — but they knew it. You could say, “Some of them didn’t understand it, and so-and-so wasn’t there, and he wasn’t governor yet,” but they understood that this would be part of the process. So if they used the money poorly —

And my concern with Medicaid is that the people who Medicaid was designed for originally have been cut out of the process, because they’re still on the waiting list to get on Medicaid. I don’t know how much you understand about Medicaid, but this whole expansion of Medicaid went for healthy, working-age individuals — it did not go for the people who [Medicaid] was designed for, which was low-income women, children, and the disabled.

Sen. Luther Strange (R-AL): “I like the idea of sending money back to the states and letting the states experiment”

Luther Strange. Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

Jeff Stein

I had a quick question on the Graham-Cassidy bill — could you explain what the policy purpose of the bill is? What is this bill going to achieve, policy-wise?

Luther Strange

Honestly, I have a meeting to talk about that shortly — so let me get back to you on that shortly. I have to talk to my staff.

Jeff Stein

[In a follow-up conversation with Strange about eight hours later]

So what do you think?

Luther Strange

We’re still looking at the details on how it affects Alabama, so we haven’t taken a position on it yet.

I like the idea of sending money back to the states and letting each state experiment with what’s best for their citizens. But I haven’t seen enough detail to know how it affects Alabama to have taken a position on it.

Jeff Stein

Do you worry about the billions in cuts in federal health care expenditures?

Luther Strange

That’s the kind of detail I haven’t seen on how it would affect our state.

Jeff Stein

Anything in particular you’ll be looking for?

Luther Strange

How it affects the state of Alabama, and how we are treated as a non-expansion state.

Jeff Stein

Will you be looking for protections for those with pre-existing conditions? What else matters?

Luther Strange

All of the above.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA): “This is the last attempt to do what we promised in the election”

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

Jeff Stein

I was hoping you could explain, in broad detail, what the point of Graham-Cassidy is.

Chuck Grassley

Let me give you a political answer, and then I’ll give you a substance answer.

The political answer is that Republicans have promised for seven years that we were going to correct all the things that were wrong with Obamacare, and we failed the first eight months. This is the last attempt to do what we promised in the election.

The substance answer is that Obamacare starts with the principle that all knowledge about health care, and all decisions on health care, ought to rest in Washington, DC. The complete opposite of that is Graham-Cassidy, that Washington doesn’t know best and we’ll let each of the 50 states [decide what’s best].

via Vox - All

[alasdaircannon-blog]

How Much Would You Pay For Privacy?

Words by Alasdair Cannon

This is the bizarre question I have found myself pondering as of late. The question is bizarre because, well, one would assume that we have some inalienable right to privacy in a democratic nation. Right? Simply asking this question surely indicates a fundamental failure of governance, of regulation, or the market. Conversely, one might conclude that the notion of privacy has been plunged into a kind of Coasean nightmare, where our ability to be free from invasion is subject to bargaining, to the market logic of efficient distribution, to the skyscraping (campusing? If we’re gonna speak in the language of the companies in question) power differential between the individual and corporations in modern economies. One may be correct in either instance, too, which leads us to something of a truism: it is never easy when we must negotiate something we have perennially taken for granted, or when we must value what we believed to be invaluable (and not because it could not be measured, either).

In any event, the question is certainly a new one - or at least it probably isn’t something that people 30 years ago were overly concerned with. Why would they be? You (or the government) would have to be active, to the point where it was comparatively a non-issue, in telling (or collecting) your entire demographic and psychometric profile, and the history of your activities and movements, and all your wants, desires, preferences and interests. One couldn’t tacitly or incidentally just reveal all of this. Hell, even if you were utterly dedicated to revealing all these measures of your individuality to the world, even if you were possessed by a data-point exhibitionism of the most pathological kind, and you perversely wanted everybody to know you fundamentally, information-wise, you would still have a hard time of it. Data simply could not be collected comprehensively or efficiently enough to ground even individual concern over being so thoroughly revealed.

Today, however, we can and do give our whole selves away with a single click. And we do it in a manner that suggests an equilibrium solution: we value our privacy exactly in proportion to whatever it is the company stands to offer us.

Here’s an article from the Guardian that can help you freak out over that point.

No doubt, it is a question that I ask in light of recent events: yes, I specifically mean Cambridge Analytica, whose databases include ‘four to five thousand’ data points on every adult in the United States; whose platform relies on mass psychographic analysis of vast swathes of people as a means of generating a predictive model of personality for individuals and groups; whose product was employed in the most recent US election of Donald Trump, and in the primary campaign for Ted Cruz. (Watch this video to get a little taste: the man seems really quite proud of his product, and he really does give you a good salesman’s spiel about all the amazing things they know.) The public consciousness is properly fretting, perhaps for the first time ever, over the true influence of social media. We have been building to this for years of course – talk of shady contractual provisions and fake news being the breaking point for the outpouring of our collective anxieties.

I share a lot of sympathy for these emotions. The rise of social media and ICT as an overwhelming force for individual identity is something I have wondered about in increasingly panicked tones over the years, my internal intonation creeping ever closer to ‘paranoid-hysteric’, to that of a bug-eyed, frothing conspiratorialist, all fervour, dual-wielding copies of Huxley and Orwell, with Foucault buried somewhere in their coat pockets. No, I don’t own Discipline and Punish, but I certainly wasn’t far from this point. Indeed, there has been something of a positive correlate between the frequency of my tech-anxiety and ‘distance stumbled down garden path’: though mitigated to some extent by the countervailing forces of ‘kinda getting used to it’, ‘are you surprised by this?’, ‘who cares?’, and ‘there’s nothing you can do about it’, it has increased, absolutely. Crucially, I do not believe I am unjustified in feeling this way: recall, well, what I said a couple of paragraphs ago.

From when I first listened to OK Computer through to April 2018, the fear has escalated. Some discontinuous leaps were made: discovering the Google Beacon, for example, a nifty device that will be just, oh, everywhere in certain developed economies, which interacts with your smartphone as you move through public spaces, transmitting and presenting data constantly, an activity directed at unifying your subjective motives into one glorious vector of consumption. On a corollary note, here’s another good one: that day I bumped into someone I hadn’t seen for five years, and an hour later, Instagram lets me know I can follow them: now that’s convenience. Mutual benefit off the charts. There was also the day I realised (that is, I read what former Facebook developers had to say about their own platform) that, given we do not pay for Facebook or Google, that we were in fact, their products.  That was a knock-your-hair back kind of moment for sure.

Before the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the object of my concern was the advertising revenues of Facebook and Google. Check out these graphs of their lifetime advertising revenue, for example. Between them, they grossed $135bn in ad revenue in 2017 alone. Facebook boasts 2.2 billion users, and though I lack an exact statistic, I believe we can safely assume Google likely has a similar number of unique users. If we assume the groups overlap entirely, then this puts the ad revenue per user at roughly $68 per user. To be safe, if we instead calculate the ad revenue per person alive today, it comes out at $18.50. So, the real number is probably somewhere in between – and given the past performance of these companies, don’t be surprised if it keeps growing. Their net profit per user is more modest than this: search engines and social media platforms aren’t cheap to run, after all. They also do provide an undeniably valuable service, and so these figures are justified, economically speaking. Crucially, though, the entire foundation of their revenue base rests upon the willingness of the consumer to simply give away something that is, evidently, extraordinarily valuable to these companies: their life in data. Irrespective of the value they add via their database and network effects, or the advertising services they sell, or the entertainment and utility they provide for free, these companies are wholly reliant on our initial, unwitting consent to donate to them our time and information.

And for what reward? What mutual do we derive for sacrificing our privacy at the altar of the internet, for slapping our knowable selves down on the counter? Their products of course; platforms that are today extraordinarily popular, and not only because they are useful and powerful. In the words of Sean Parker, early investor in Facebook, their design motive was couched in exploiting addiction and vulnerability: ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible,’ he says. (Google is not complicit in this regard – it seems pretty hard to give a dopamine hit from a search bar, after all. Their product actually is that useful. It does, however, have a couple of implications for freedom of information and control of opinion – a topic for another time, maybe). Their bottom line relies on the maximum exploitation of the consumer at the lowest cost possible – an historic market relation that encourages continuous and absolute loyalty of the consumer to your product. And what better than the inelastic demand created by suckering the user into a state of addiction? As Thomas Pynchon writes in Gravity’s Rainbow: ‘The classic hustle is still famous for the cold purity of its execution’. Addiction, indeed, creates an ‘inelastic demand for that shit.’ It is a profoundly simple arrangement, based upon simple economics and human fallibility, reductive enough to a symbolically dichotomous relationship – despite its cynicism and denial of human good. Any degree of observation can confirm that both the consumer and the corporate giants have become entwined in an archetypal relationship, with each side of the historic dichotomy played unflinchingly: the naïve fool who, unware of the value of what they possess, is unknowingly exploited by the powerful. And in a fashion that righteously emboldens the cry of ‘abuse’, they have treated us with the disrespect a tyrant affords to the vulnerable.

Facebook’s Ad Revenue Worldwide from 2009 – 2017, in millions of dollars

Ahem. Well, if it wasn’t already self-evident, essentially, what I am saying is that these companies are no longer fucking around, socioeconomically speaking. When combined with the fact that our vulnerability and our proclivity for addiction is their product, this becomes problematic, to say the least. This therefore brings me to my point: I ask my initial question on whether we should pay for privacy in the broadest possible terms, for my concern fundamentally lies in relation to the growing dominance of the sociocultural forces constituted by social media, by search engines, by algorithmic targeting, by gargantuan psychometric databases, and by utterly pervasive online and mobile advertising. We are the known, the manipulated: the consumed and the consumer. Queue images of the snake eating itself, or perhaps more fitting for a late capitalist society, that weird rumour about Marilyn Manson and his rib surgery.

Clearly, Google and Facebook value the contents of our privacy quite dearly, and it is this fact which tacitly establishes the value of privacy in our economy. Giving it away for free, or for any amount equal to the perceived value of the product on offer is clearly foolish: to do so, unmediated by regulation or subjective concern and awareness can only serve to reinforce the pre-existing paradigm of our exploitation and disempowerment. Choosing to maintain this relationship would only attests to our indifference; to the absolute normalisation of the invasion and harvesting of our privacy; the colonisation of our mental space via the wonderful corporate algorithm; phenomena which all testify in unison to the powerlessness felt by the average consumer in a social media market controlled by some of the most advanced and powerful entities in human history. Maintaining this relationship is to welcome its logical conclusion, the inevitable and absolute extreme of personalised advertising: a utopia of prior-decidedness, of subjugated contingency. Is that a life lived in bad faith or good faith? It’s an authentic you, imposed upon you externally: a Sartrean knot if there ever was one.

Of course, the big one has only just arrived, the paradigm shifter par excellence as I would hope – the Watergate for the Zuck, if you will. Time will tell whether this brings about meaningful reform in the digital sphere. Given how long they have staggered untrammelled over the landscape of technological societies, how focused and efficient they have become in their practices of exploitation, I am not necessarily optimistic. Unless, of course, we learn from these companies, and come to realise the unmistakeable value of knowing ourselves: a condition that is inseparable from power over our own lives.

SEE MORE

http://adage.com/article/digital/sean-parker-worries-facebook-rotting-children-s-brains/311238/

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/09/facebook-sean-parker-vulnerability-brain-psychology/

https://www.statista.com/statistics/266249/advertising-revenue-of-google/

https://www.statista.com/statistics/271258/facebooks-advertising-revenue-worldwide/

[thisdaynews]

The Myth of ‘Unchained Hillary’

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/the-myth-of-unchained-hillary/

The Myth of ‘Unchained Hillary’

As most Democrats look ahead to 2020, Clinton and her fans keep using Twitter to relive and recast 2016. Online, at least, there are still plenty of people who refer to her as “Madam President,” and she tosses this club a steady stream of caustic little bonbons: subtleMean Girlsreferences, snarky clapbacks, dry comments like “Yes, I am famously underscrutinized.” Fans responded to that one with cheers and GIFs of Rihanna putting on a crown. A writer forEsquiresummed up the sentiment: “You’re having fun now, aren’t you?”

The tweets have helped conjure an image of the former candidate you might call Unchained Hillary, or, as some of her Twitter followers have dubbed it, Hillary with “zero f—s left to give.” The idea is that, unconstrained by public office, unfazed by critics and trolls, Clinton feels free to unleash a looser, truer, more spontaneous self. Her Twitter account is the most reliable vehicle for this version of Hillary, but she has shown flashes of the persona at public appearances, too: flipping through a book of her emails at a Venice Biennale art installation and filming a Halloween bit for about the scariness of the Electoral College for theDaily Show with Trevor Noah. In early December, she spent hours chatting with Howard Stern, talking trash about Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, even addressing head-on the rumors that she’s a lesbian. (“Never even been tempted,” she said.)

Unchained Hillary is perceived not just as a set of tweets but almost a new character on the political stage, the candidate her fanswishhad run in 2016. She is casual, snappy, direct and less inclined to carefully triangulate every public statement. And her presence over the past few months, online and in a string of book-related media appearances, has sparked a whole new round of speculation: Could Unchained Hillary have beaten Trump? Could she swoop into the 2020 field? Is she laying the groundwork for yet another phase of a political career?

But Clinton’s fans might want to cool off their enthusiasm. If you take the full measure of Clinton’s career, her voice appears less as a reinvention than as a kind of solar eclipse: Without the candidate version of Clinton to dominate our view, delivering cautious speeches and walking rope lines, her online persona shines through far more clearly. And that persona isn’t a new thing. It’s a side of Hillary Clinton sharpened by what you might call the default voice of Twitter: Sardonic, mildly bitter, unafraid to say what everyone else is thinking. It’s the same voice her digital staff worked hard to craft in 2016. Hillary, and whoever still might tweet for her, has been good at that for a while. So what is she using her voice for now?

***

Donald Trump may get all the attentionfor being the first candidate who used Twitter to disrupt politics, but if he’d never come along, with his unspellchecked fire hose of insult and puffery, Clinton stood a good chance of being that person. Even before young upstarts like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar made emojis and quote-tweet clapbacks the norm on political Twitter—in fact, well before the 2016 race—Clinton’s digital staff was pioneering a new political tone on social media.

Early on, the Clinton team understood how to seize the made-for-internet moments that fell in their laps, as shown by one well-known episode in 2012 when Clinton was secretary of State and Reuters published a candid photo of her wearing sunglasses and staring at her BlackBerry. Two young Washington public relations hands launched a Tumblr blog featuring imagined text exchanges between this boss-lady version of Clinton and various public figures. One sample exchange from the blog went like this: Barack Obama: “Hey Hil, Whatchu doing?” Clinton: “Running the world.” Clinton’s staff had the instinct to capitalize on the moment: They quickly reached out to the bloggers, contributing an entry and inviting them to meet her. It was proof not just that she could get a joke, but that she could toss it back in fluent internet-speak. (There is a cautionary tale embedded here, too: It was literally that photo of Clinton on her Blackberry that prompted the initial questions about her use of a private email server.)

Imagewise, the moment felt like a stake in the ground, a sign of new-media savvy at a time when many veteran politicians found the internet a mystifying entity. And in the 2016 race, Clinton doubled down. To run her digital operations, she hired Teddy Goff, who had been President Barack Obama’s digital director in 2012, and led a staff of Brooklyn-based “content producers” who aimed for a savvy, conversational voice. “We’re not competing with Donald Trump on Facebook,” Goff told theNew York Timesat the time. “We’re competing with your best friend, your spouse, your mom, last night’s Olympics clips.”

Ultimately, though, Clintonwascompeting against Trump. And when you look back at the candidates’ bodies of social media work, you can see how hard Clinton’s campaign worked to match the energy of Trump’s insane, magnetic feed—and how successful it was in crafting something to meet the moment.

Trump wielded the medium much as he does now, with a reflexive mix of anger, pride, insults and oddball jokes. His tweets were an extension of his mood, his brain and his ego, and they felt like a manifestation of his true self. When his staff tweeted for him, it was often obvious: No one else could have crafted that voice. Clinton’s feed—which, like many other politicians’, was largely ghostwritten—was more tightly attuned to the social trends of the moment. Her staff balanced sly references to the Trump campaign with the salty terseness of Twitter clapbacks. “Delete your account,” read her most-retweeted entry. It came in response to a snide comment from Trump about Obama’s endorsement of Clinton. “(It’s only Wednesday.),” she tweeted in May 2016, above an image of a statement from her campaign chairman describing a rash of questionable behavior by Trump that week. “Vote your conscience,” read another, a reference to a speech Ted Cruz had made an hour and a half earlier at the Republican National Convention. (That tweet was paired with a link to a voter registration page.) Her feed was also savvy about pop culture; when Trump used an image of “Frozen” merchandise to defend himself against charges of anti-Semitism, Clinton shot back with a “Frozen” reference that eviscerated his argument.

Woven in with these grabs for clicks and cash were videos of the candidate at African American churches and talking with little girls—the kind of anodyne fare that, in a previous campaign, might have been the entire social media program. Clinton’s team didn’t have the luxury to fall back on feel-good messaging, so it made the most of the sometimes odd combination of her wonkish, earnest persona and Twitter’s hard-edged cynicism. The feed could be informal, curt, and bold. It aimed at looking effortless, even when tweets were layered with carefully considered meaning. In the case of the “Wednesday” tweet, for instance, Clinton was essentially dunking the ball after an alley-oop pass, adding humor on top of a substantive point—a tested social media trick to make the original point spread farther and wider than it would have on its own. “If there is one thing that the internet likes, it’s being really direct. If there’s been a change in how Hillary engages online, then that’s probably it,” Goff told Elle magazine in the summer of 2016.

The effort didn’t always hit the mark. Both supporters and critics on the left complained about the glibness of a tweet that asked, “How does your student loan debt make you feel? Tell us in 3 emojis or less.” Overall, though, Clinton’s social media operation was noted for its fluency in internet. “Hillary Clinton’s Twitter game is #Strong,” read one Elle social headline. A piece in Mashable explained “How the Clinton campaign is slaying social media.” By the July before the election, she had about 7 million Twitter followers, compared to Trump’s 10 million. (They’re now at 26 million and 68 million, respectively.)

The trademark success of her digital team was taking a candidate frequently knocked for her lack of charisma and building a charismatic online presence around the parts of her personality that matched. And in some ways, Twitter’s snarky milieu made that easy. In real life, Clinton “has a very biting, sharp sense of humor, or a very sharp, humorous way of making serious points,” says Philippe Reines, Clinton’s longtime aide, spokesman and debate-prep sparring partner. “Twitter allows us to say things that ordinarily would stay in your head, or in the room you’re in, and share it with the world.”

***

Today, Clinton’s staff is largely gone,and it’s safe to assume her Twitter voice is more reliably her own. “She has a very small office, and it’s mostly scheduling, correspondence—so there’s no ‘they,’” Reines tells me. Sometimes a staff member will have an idea for a tweet, he says, “but she’s not one of these absentee landlords on her Twitter account at all. And certainly nothing goes out without her, you know, putting her imprimatur on it.” Goff declined to comment for this story; another longtime Clinton spokesperson ghosted.

Clearly, there’s something real about the Clinton we see now, but the campaign DNA remains.

There’s the same dry sarcasm, as when she tweeted a clip of Trump talking about Ukraine to news reporters and commented, “Someone should inform the president that impeachable offenses committed on national television still count.” There’s a very non-boomery engagement with current pop culture. Over the summer, she had a brief exchange with pop singer Lizzo; last spring, she tweeted at Trump with a famousMean GirlsGIF in which Regina George asks, “Why are you so obsessed with me?” She wields hashtags like #tbt, which she artfully used to reference her time spent, as a young lawyer, on the Watergate impeachment inquiry. And she tweeted a fake letter from John F. Kennedy to Nikita Khrushchev, lifted from Jimmy Kimmel writers, that was obviously primed to spread like wildfire—much like the made-to-go-viral tools her campaign created, like a “Trump Yourself” filter that let users overlay Trump quotes on social media photos.

On the other hand, Clinton issues even more tweets that feel like official communications from an ongoing campaign. There are plenty of cheery, milquetoast tweets promotingGutsy Women, the book she co-wrote with her daughter. Policy endorsements get threaded in, sometimes less artfully; after the World Series, she turned a congratulatory tweet for the Washington Nationals into an endorsement for Washington, D.C., statehood. Still pinned to the top of her feed is a line from her 2016 concession speech about the value of little girls.

Reines agrees with the notion that there’s nothing new about Clinton’s public persona—and that, over her decades of public life, as she’s taken on a broad range of public roles, people have always tried to search for hidden meaning in the same old communications. “Look, I started to work for her in 2002. I’ve gone through this ‘something’s changed’ routine,” he tells me. “I really think it’s in the ear of the beholder.”

So if she’s still maintaining the persona, and the presence, her staff built to run for president in 2016, what’s it all for this time? Clinton has publicly pushed back on the idea that she’ll run again. But there are clues scattered throughout her 2017 postelection memoir,What Happened. The book was mostly infused with a sense of mourning for a presidential administration that wasn’t to be and a place in history as the first female president. At one point, she shared a passage from her planned election night victory speech, in which she imagined meeting her mother as an 8-year-old and telling her that her future daughter would grow up to be president. It seemed clear that she saw her loss, not just as a shock or a thwarting of ambition, but as something closer to personal tragedy. It was an emotional defeat she could manage in part by retreating from public life: walking in the woods, spending time with her grandchildren, going to the theater.

Now, though, she has recovered and rebounded is and back on the public stage, through some combination of circumstance and calculation. She wrote a book about successful upstart women, with a massive book tour scheduled for the run-up to an election year—and a built-in reason to maintain a Twitter presence. And the fact that her book appearances coincide with the Trump impeachment drama makes her loyal fans cling even more fiercely to their alternate vision of 2016, the fact that she won the popular vote, the lingering “I-told-you-so” factor. She’s still a political player, but the campaign is different this time: It’s a bid to solidify her place in history. And without the grueling work of actually going out on the stump, she still gets to act like a candidate. Occasionally.

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[nievefergie]

Time After Time

In March of 2017, the television network American Broadcasting Company (ABC) aired the pilot of Time After Time, a television show mainly based off of the 1979 movie of the same name directed by Nicholas Meyers. Though the 1979 movie was based off of the 1979 book also titled Time After Time, the 2017 adaptation uses the basis of the movie as its platform due to its structure as a film. The pilot, titled Pilot, and the second episode called “I Will Catch You” aired back to back on 5 March 2017 with a total 2.54 million US viewers tuning in for the premiere. The pilot begins the murder of a simple prostitute on a small foggy London street by a doctor as he stabs her abdomen. Afterwards, the scene changes to H.G. Wells hosting a dinner party in Victorian London in 1893, five years after the canonical five were murdered by Jack the Ripper in 1888. Wells talks to his guests about his predictions for the future and how society will have become a utopia of medicine and technology and how he means to invent a time machine so he can see it for himself. His friends believe him to be absolutely mad, seeing as he has already invented one in his basement. Only John Stevenson, a well-respected surgeon, seems interested in the machine and if it would ever work, though he argues that time will not change the world into a utopia, and that fear rules the world and that people are animals. Upstairs, Scotland Yard arrives looking for John, believing him to be Jack the Ripper. They check his doctor bag and find a bloodied butchers knife, and run to the basement to arrest John. However, John is nowhere to be found because he escaped using Wells’s time machine. H.G. Wells then follows John Stevenson to 3 March 2017, among to bring him back to 1893 to pay for his crimes as Jack the Ripper. Throughout the season, Wells befriends Jane Walker, an assistant curator that he becomes romantically interested in. He also meets his wealthy great-great-granddaughter Vanessa Anders, who wishes to help Wells capture John and bring him back to 1893. The story’s main plot revolves around using the alternate history where Victorian writer H.G. Wells not only writes his famous The Time Machine but invents it as well, and uses it to catch his friend who turns out to be Jack the Ripper. Cultural historians can use ABC’s Time After Time to interpret the memory of Jack the Ripper in 2016 through its uses of allusions of historical truth and its ability to address society’s views of murderers and how time cannot change their interests in them.

Even though the show aired in early 2017, Time After Time by show-runner Kevin Williamson and Warner Brothers Television was picked up to series on 12 May 2016 by ABC. 2016 is a mere two years away from the 130th anniversary of the Whitechapel murders. As big anniversaries come up, more attention is payed. Therefore many movies and television series regarding Jack the Ripper were produced in 2016 all around the world. Jack the Ripper: The London Slasher was released 29 November 2016 in Germany as a TV thriller special. The film revolves around 19th-century London and a German photographer named Anna who’s brother is accused of being Jack the Ripper who attempts to prove him innocent by finding the real killer. In 2016, Razors: The Return of Jack the Ripper came out as another horror film based on the Whitechapel murders. Razors, however, is a modern continuation rather than a direct adaptation. The story revolves around a group of screenwriters who gather together in an abandoned building in London to write a horror script. When the screenwriters find the knives used by Jack the Ripper, they attempt to tell his story and each of the writers begins to disappear. Both these 2016 films about Jack the Ripper got awful reviews and are not well-known Jack the Ripper stories, nor are they well known normal films. This only further proves the point that 2016 was not a good year for fictional representations of the Jack The Ripper murders, because even ABC’s Time After Time was cancelled five episodes in, not even lasting the whole month of March when it premiered. Throughout the first two episodes, many themes from the original Whitechapel murders come through. The main allusion that comes across is that of the common belief that Jack the Ripper was a doctor. The idea that the Whitechapel murders were committed by a doctor was commonly spread throughout the press. The Evening Post consulted a spiritual medium to find answers to who committed the Whitechapel murders. The medium, Mrs. Charles Spring, warned against the military medicals, “fallen ones now they cannot get bodies from the hospital soon after death. They have a particular purpose; they want to find something”. The media in 1888 loved the idea that Jack the Ripper could be a well-respected doctor walking among the public. It would explain the killer’s anatomical knowledge of the female human body as he so brutally mutilated them, stealing their internal organs.

In Time After Time, the show introduces the audience to the silhouette of Jack the Ripper with a close up shot of John Stevenson’s medical bag. He places the bag on a crate and him and the prostitute he picks up kiss. The camera then goes to another shot of just the medical bag, and the woman asks if John is a doctor. He replies yes, and she asks if he likes it. He tells her it has its moments. After he murders her, he grabs his bag and top hat and leaves for H.G. Wells’s home. When Scotland Yard arrives doing a house to house search, they inspect John’s doctor bag. Wells objects, defending John to be a well-respected surgeon, only to find out that the doctors bag is filled with blood and the murder weapon. During the second half of the episode, John holds Jane hostage at an apartment along with another girl. Jane and the other hostage make an attempt to escape, and Jane falls down the stairs. Knowing that Jane is his only leverage to get Wells’s key to the time machine, John requests to treat her wounds. Jane, obviously not trusting John, is reluctant to have him help her, but he reminds her that he is a doctor and is enamoured by the first-aid kit so readily available. He cleans her wounds and tells her he specialises in stitches. She asks John why he kills and if he likes the idea of playing God — deciding who lives and who dies. Eventually, he answers her question, claiming, “You want to know why I kill? Because the only thing more fulfilling than saving a life is taking one. The instant sensation, the release it brings that slicks my thirst”. Not only is this incarnation of Jack the Ripper a doctor, but he is also shown to be obsessed with the power that comes with being a well-decorated doctor. Cultural historians can use this television show to interpret the memory of Jack the Ripper in 2016 through its uses of allusions of historical truth and its ability to address society’s views of murderers and time. One of the most pivotal moments in the pilot is when Wells and John are reunited in a hotel bar. The bar is lined with television sets showings news from 2016. They show images of school shootings, military invasions, ISIS, immigration, protests, and Trump. H.G. Wells watches on in horror, tears down his face. When John appears, Wells informs him he is there to take him back to Victorian London and back to Scotland Yard. Wells claims they are not in their time, and that they don’t belong in the 21st century. John disagrees, pointing to the news saying, “There it is, H.G. - There’s your utopia. Nothing but violence and bloodshed. Not quite what you envisioned. ‘We don't belong here’? On the contrary, I belong here completely. In our time, I was a freak. Today, I'm an amateur… You know you can walk into a shop here and purchase a rifle or a revolver, and it's perfectly legal? These people encourage it. No, I'm not going anywhere. I've yet to begin in this age”.

So much of today’s obsession with Jack the Ripper revolves around the fact that it was so long ago. Could time have changed anything? Could H.G. Wells’s optimistic view of time helping to progress the future into a utopia be real? Does the future hold such problems solved? Or does John Stevenson’s belief hold some truth to it — that people cannot change, and they are inherently animalistic and full of fear? Because looking at the news from 2016 to 2017, one could argue that society is just the same as it was in Victorian London. We still abuse the news to spread stories exploiting violence. We still have unknown famous murder mysteries unsolved. Ted Cruz gained popularity in 2016 while running for president when he became a meme about being the infamous Zodiac Killer. Fact and fiction continues to be blurred to this day. Our lifelong obsession with true crime and our need for answers has not changed since 1888. The value of this television show only further shows that the Jack the Ripper story is timeless because it can always be related back to the present day. There will always be serial killers who’s identities remain unknown. There will always be connections and allusions to use. Each remake of this classic Karl Alexander story takes place during a scary time — the 1979 movie takes place after the Jonestown massacre and the murders of Harvey Milk and George Moscone. The joke is always that the Ripper finds every timezone to be more promising than Victorian London, because every timezone can be just as dark and just as cruel, and just as good of an opportunity. The need to know Jack the Ripper’s identity and motive will always be here, and media will keep creating new ideas until we find the truth, and finding out the truth is very unlikely.

[kacydeneen]

Could Beto O'Rourke Turn Texas Into a Battleground State?

Former U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke told Oprah Winfrey Tuesday that he would decide by the end of the month whether he is going to run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. O'Rourke suggested he's leaning toward entering race, hoping to build on the momentum he gained during his 2018 U.S. Senate campaign against Republican Ted Cruz.

The state of Texas hasn't voted for a Democrat in a presidential election since the state's electoral votes went to Jimmy Carter in 1976. In fact, the Lone Star State hasn't even elected a Democrat to a statewide office since Bob Bullock was reelected lieutenant governor in 1994, along with a handful of other statewide — but not national — wins.

Armed Texas Man Arrested After Carjacking, Chase

There are several other factors working against O'Rourke. An incumbent president has failed to win reelection just twice since World War II – Carter in 1980 and George H.W. Bush in 1992.

But Democrats have dreamed of turning Texas blue for decades, and O'Rourke showed in 2018 that it might be on the cusp of turning purple, though the party still did not win a statewide post in the midterm elections.

Political Crisis Engulfs Virginia's Top 3 Elected Officials

While it wouldn't be impossible for O'Rourke to win Texas as the Democratic nominee, it would likely take a perfect storm for him to do so.

"A presidential run, where more people are engaged, more people are excited about the process, that will only push Texas even more to the brink of being a battleground state," The Dallas Morning News political writer Gromer Jeffers Jr. said. "Now, that means Republicans will come out too."

Democrats Launch New Probe of Trump's Finances, Russia Ties

But the most influential aspect of the 2020 general election campaign might be something the eventual Democratic nominee can't control.

The Trump Effect "The main thing (O'Rourke) can't control is Trump and what Trump does and how the country experiences what he does over the next year," SMU political science professor Cal Jillson said. "Because the second year (2020) is the campaign."

An October 2018 University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll found that a combined 48 percent of Texans either "approved strongly" or "approved somewhat" of Trump, while a combined 45 percent either "disapproved strongly" or "disapproved somewhat."

Those numbers indicate Trump has solidified support among Republicans since he was elected president. In an October 2016 University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll, just 31 percent of respondents had a "very favorable" or "somewhat favorable" view of then-candidate Trump, while a combined 58 percent had a "somewhat unfavorable" or "very unfavorable" opinion.

"Trump remains popular with moderate Republicans and independents," Jeffers said. "He is strong with the base and, being a sitting president, he's going to have probably a little more strength than he did as Trump the candidate."

Nationally, Trump steadily holds an approval rating between 38 and 42 percent, Jillson said. But in Texas that number is consistently eight to 10 percentage points higher.

"If you're with Trump after the last two years, you're with him in a determined sort of way," he added. "And if you're off him, you're off him in a very determined way and looking for an alternative. I think those numbers do reflect ongoing polarization."

A Full-Time Candidate After losing to Ted Cruz in the 2018 U.S. Senate race, O'Rourke no longer holds elected office. It could be a strength and a weakness.

As recently as 2016, neither major party's presidential candidate held public office and Mitt Romney was not in office when he won the Republican party's nomination in 2012.

However, before Trump, no one has won the presidency without being in office since Ronald Reagan did so in 1980, after he served as California's governor from 1967-75. He did not seek a third term because he ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1976, but lost to Gerald Ford.

Is that a place where similarities between O'Rourke and Reagan could begin and end?

"It will be an ongoing fight to remain in the public eye when he's one of 15, 20, 25 Democrats running for the nomination," Jillson said. "But on the other hand, it means that he can run for president full time. He's got nothing else demanding his time and attention, and that has been something that has worked well."

Jillson added not holding office would give O'Rourke extra time to campaign, put a team together and fundraise. One of the former congressman's strengths in the 2018 Senate race was the time he spent traveling around Texas, something he could devote even more time to nationally if he's not in office.

"O'Rourke will still be in the minds of the public, in the minds of Texans – not just Texans, but the entire country," Jeffers said. "The enthusiasm will probably still be there for him and just like with any candidate, he's going to have to try to keep it going, especially in a big field."

Texas' Largest Counties If a candidate O'Rourke were to win the nomination, one of the places he'd have to find growth to turn Texas into a battleground state, would be in its largest counties.

Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton received a combined 53.9 percent of the vote in the 10 largest counties, while O'Rourke upped it to 59.2 percent in 2018.

"If Trump continues to be erratic and continues to worry suburban white women, who normally vote Republican – and increasingly their husbands – then yes, you could get a continuing erosion of the Republican grip on suburban districts, which they have had for a half-century or more in Texas," Jillson said.

Of North Texas' four largest counties, three — Collin, Denton and Tarrant — have voted reliably Republican for decades. However, O'Rourke narrowly won Tarrant County against Cruz in 2018 and received 46.5 percent of the vote in Collin County.

Jeffers said he thought an erratic president could make O'Rourke more palatable to Collin County voters.

"You have a lot transplants moving into Collin County. The Toyota plant over there, people from California plus the East Coast are moving into Collin County and counties like that. They're more prone to look to a candidate like O'Rourke, whereas people in Denton County — although Denton County is growing too — still contains some of the state's most conservative voters and they're likely to support Trump, just as they have supported other Republicans."

O'Rourke earned 45.5 percent of the vote in Denton County in 2018 and still had eight-point gap to reach Cruz.

Most of the state's largest counties have turned reliably blue. The two largest counties, Harris and Dallas, have voted for the Democratic nominee in each presidential election since 2008. Bexar County has voted for the Democrat in five of the last seven; and Travis County, the fifth-largest in the state, has voted for the Democratic nominee for president in each election since 1992, with the exception of 2000.

Tarrant County is the only one of the five largest that has not voted for a Democrat for president dating to 1992, but O'Rourke won the county in his Senate race against Cruz by 0.7 percentage points.

Working in O'Rourke's favor is that he is a Texan and Clinton was not.

Republican George W. Bush garnered landslide victories in Texas in 2000 and 2004, winning by nearly 22 points in his first run for office and almost 23 points four years later. In fact, in 2000, Bush even turned Travis County, where Austin is located, red — the only time the county has voted for a Republican for president since 1992.

Julian Castro There is another Texan running for the Democratic nomination. Former San Antonio mayor and House and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro launched his campaign Jan. 12.

However, Jillson and Jeffers agreed, by playing it safe in the years leading up to 2019, Castro, while still popular, may have missed his opportunity.

"I think Democrats in Texas are still very favorably disposed to Julian Castro. But O'Rourke took the state by storm very unexpectedly in 2018 and he was just a shooting star that eclipsed Castro, partly because O'Rourke did it and Castro whiffed," Jillson said. "Castro didn't think it was possible and so he didn't make the run O'Rourke did and almost beat Cruz."

"It'll be hard for Castro to get traction, not just in the early primary states, but in his home state of Texas," Jeffers said. "Because what Beto has done, is become the most popular Democrat in the state now. There's just no other way to put it."

In a Jan. 30 Politico/Morning Consult poll of potential 2020 Democratic candidates, Castro received just one percent of the vote. O'Rourke received six percent, while former vice president Joe Biden held a substantial lead with 33 percent.

There are a lot of "what-ifs" involved in O'Rourke's run for president. First of all, he'd have to survive the early primary states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina and stay relevant until Texans vote. He could be helped by Texas moving up its primary to Super Tuesday — March 3, 2020 — something California has done as well, which could help a candidate like Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif.

O'Rourke, still, has not received the same level of interest as the top two people named in the Jan. 30: Biden and Bernie Sanders. O'Rourke sits in a tie for third with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

But if everything were to come together perfectly, it's conceivable that the former congressman from El Paso could capture lightning in a bottle twice.

"It's very difficult to have a dramatic run like he had in 2018 and then reprise that two years later, because people have already looked at you, they've already gotten excited about you," Jillson said. "That excitement wasn't rewarded, and to sort of reproduce it completely is very difficult to do, but certainly not impossible."

Photo Credit: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images Could Beto O'Rourke Turn Texas Into a Battleground State? published first on Miami News

[internetbasic9]

Business Donald Trump gets sweet revenge on Ted Cruz today in Texas

Business Donald Trump gets sweet revenge on Ted Cruz today in Texas Business Donald Trump gets sweet revenge on Ted Cruz today in Texas https://ift.tt/2J8Db9p

Business

(CNN)On Monday night in Houston, Donald Trump will dunk on Ted Cruz one last time.

Trump will travel to Texas to hold a massive get-out-the-vote rally for Cruz in the final days of a closer-than-expected race against Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D).

For Cruz, the rally is borne of necessity — polling shows him with a mid-to-upper single digit lead over O’Rourke, but the incumbent badly needs an energized Republican base in order to ensure victory. And no one rallies the Republican base like President Trump.

For Trump, it’s the latest example of a former political foe — and one who he attacked (and was attacked by) fiercely — seeking to make peace, with an acknowledgment that, well, standing against him just wasn’t worth it.

From Sens. Rand Paul to Lindsey Graham to Cruz, Trump has watched as his fiercest critics have turned into, at least in the case of Paul and Graham, two of his staunchest allies. That willingness to seek political peace speaks to Trump’s total and complete takeover of the Republican Party over the past three years. There is simply no safe political space for Republicans on the wrong side of Trump. Retiring Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake (R) is retiring because he wrote a book questioning Trump’s grip on the GOP. Retiring Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker (R) is retiring, at least in part, because he took a hit when he stepped out and criticized some of Trump’s controversial comments.

Which brings us back to Cruz. And Trump.

Somewhat amazingly, the 2016 Republican primary fight left these men as the last two standing — albeit with a clear edge for Trump, who had opened a significant delegate lead thanks to a series of early wins. (Prior to the race narrowing, Cruz had repeatedly — and publicly — refused to attack Trump, insisting that was only doing what the media wanted.)

As winter turned to spring, however, Trump took direct aim at Cruz — labeling him “Lyin’ Ted.” Over and over again, Trump said some version of this: “Lyin’ Ted. Lies. Ooh, he lies. You know Ted. He brings the Bible, holds it high, puts it down, lies.” From March 13 to May 6 — the heart of their heated battle, Trump tweeted the phrase a whopping 27 times,

according to the Dallas Morning News

.

It wasn’t just the name-calling, though. Trump also attacked the fact that Cruz was born in Canada, suggesting that the Texas senator, whose mother was a US citizen, was not sufficiently loyal to the country.

“Why would Texans vote for ‘liar’ Ted Cruz when he was born in Canada, lived there for 4 years-and remained a Canadian citizen until recently,”

Trump asked in a tweet

in February 2016. Trump also obliquely suggested that Cruz’s father, Rafael, might have been involved in the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy because a picture existed showing someone resembling the elder Cruz and Lee Harvey Oswald together. (The Cruz campaign denied that it was Rafael Cruz in the picture.)

The breaking point between Trump and Cruz wasn’t any of that, however. (And, yes, that is amazing.) It was when

Trump tweeted

an unflattering picture of Heidi Cruz, the senator’s wife, next to a picture of his own wife Melania; “The images are worth 1,000 words,”

read text on the picture

.

Cruz went bananas. In an angry press conference, he said Trump had gone too far.

“I don’t get angry often,” said Cruz. “But you mess with my wife, you mess with my kids, that will do it every time. Donald Trump, you’re a sniveling coward. Leave Heidi the hell alone.”

Eventually, the math caught up with Cruz. He bowed out. But he didn’t endorse Trump. Despite that lack of full support, Cruz was given a primetime speaking slot at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland; the Trump forces believed Cruz was ready to publicly throw his full backing behind the nominee.

NOPE!

“We deserve leaders who stand for principle,”

Cruz said at the close of his speech

. “Unite us all behind shared values. Cast aside anger for love. Every one of us has an obligation to follow our conscience.” The next morning, Cruz was defiant. “I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father,” he said.

Trump was reportedly livid but tried to play off Cruz’s snub as NBD. “Wow, Ted Cruz got booed off the stage, didn’t honor the pledge!,”

tweeted Trump

. “I saw his speech two hours early but let him speak anyway. No big deal!”

Despite insisting he didn’t want and wouldn’t accept Cruz’s endorsement following the convention snub, Trump did just that in late September 2016. “A year ago, I pledged to endorse the Republican nominee, and I am honoring that commitment,”

Cruz wrote in a Facebook post

. “And if you don’t want to see a Hillary Clinton presidency, I encourage you to vote for him.”

Fast forward to now. Cruz has avoided any direct criticism of Trump since the election, a) knowing the danger that presents to any Republican and b) being mindful of his need to win a second term.

In late August, all of Cruz’s playing nice with Trump paid off.

“I will be doing a major rally for Senator Ted Cruz in October,”

Trump tweeted

. “I’m picking the biggest stadium in Texas we can find. As you know, Ted has my complete and total Endorsement. His opponent is a disaster for Texas – weak on Second Amendment, Crime, Borders, Military, and Vets!”

That “major rally” is tonight. But even on the eve of what is expected to be a massive event in Houston, Cruz still seemed somewhat sparse in his praise of Trump in

a story that aired on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” on Sunday

.

“He’s the President,” said Cruz. “I work with the President in delivering on our promises. What I told the President the week after the election, I said, ‘Mr. President,

I want to do everything humanly possible

to roll up my sleeves and lead the fight in the Senate to deliver on our promises.”

While Cruz may not love having to need Trump, he knows it’s his best chance at surviving in 15 days. And Cruz is far from the first former foe to bow down to the President’s political power.

Rand Paul once blasted Trump as a “

delusional narcissist and an orange-faced windbag

” during the 2016 race but, by 2018, was comparing Trump to Ronald Reagan when it comes to diplomacy. Following Trump’s attacks in July 2015 on the late Sen. John McCain’s military service,

Lindsey Graham called Trump a “jackass”

and said the billionaire “shouldn’t be commander in chief.” By April 2017, Grahan’s tune on Trump had changed markedly; “I am like the happiest dude in America right now,”

he said on Fox News Channel

. “We have got a President and a national security team that I’ve been dreaming of for eight years.”

Like Cruz, it’s hard to separate out the conversion experiences of Paul and Graham from political concerns. All three men have taken on water, politically, with their attacks on Trump. Getting right with Trump was the only option unless they wanted to face the prospect of losing their seats the next time they ran for reelection.

That reality is Trump’s ultimate revenge on all his former foes. This is HIS party now. They either need to recognize it and kiss the ring or run the risk of not having a job. And so, because they are politicians, they kiss the ring. (Or at least most of them do.)

So, when he takes the stage in Houston on Monday night, Trump is doing so ostensibly to support Cruz. But Trump is also asserting his total control over Cruz — and that’s the part Trump likely enjoys more.

Read More | Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large,

Business Donald Trump gets sweet revenge on Ted Cruz today in Texas, in 2018-10-22 09:39:40

[captainblogger100posts]

Business Donald Trump gets sweet revenge on Ted Cruz today in Texas

Business Donald Trump gets sweet revenge on Ted Cruz today in Texas Business Donald Trump gets sweet revenge on Ted Cruz today in Texas http://www.nature-business.com/business-donald-trump-gets-sweet-revenge-on-ted-cruz-today-in-texas/

Business

(CNN)On Monday night in Houston, Donald Trump will dunk on Ted Cruz one last time.

Trump will travel to Texas to hold a massive get-out-the-vote rally for Cruz in the final days of a closer-than-expected race against Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D).

For Cruz, the rally is borne of necessity — polling shows him with a mid-to-upper single digit lead over O’Rourke, but the incumbent badly needs an energized Republican base in order to ensure victory. And no one rallies the Republican base like President Trump.

For Trump, it’s the latest example of a former political foe — and one who he attacked (and was attacked by) fiercely — seeking to make peace, with an acknowledgment that, well, standing against him just wasn’t worth it.

From Sens. Rand Paul to Lindsey Graham to Cruz, Trump has watched as his fiercest critics have turned into, at least in the case of Paul and Graham, two of his staunchest allies. That willingness to seek political peace speaks to Trump’s total and complete takeover of the Republican Party over the past three years. There is simply no safe political space for Republicans on the wrong side of Trump. Retiring Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake (R) is retiring because he wrote a book questioning Trump’s grip on the GOP. Retiring Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker (R) is retiring, at least in part, because he took a hit when he stepped out and criticized some of Trump’s controversial comments.

Which brings us back to Cruz. And Trump.

Somewhat amazingly, the 2016 Republican primary fight left these men as the last two standing — albeit with a clear edge for Trump, who had opened a significant delegate lead thanks to a series of early wins. (Prior to the race narrowing, Cruz had repeatedly — and publicly — refused to attack Trump, insisting that was only doing what the media wanted.)

As winter turned to spring, however, Trump took direct aim at Cruz — labeling him “Lyin’ Ted.” Over and over again, Trump said some version of this: “Lyin’ Ted. Lies. Ooh, he lies. You know Ted. He brings the Bible, holds it high, puts it down, lies.” From March 13 to May 6 — the heart of their heated battle, Trump tweeted the phrase a whopping 27 times,

according to the Dallas Morning News

.

It wasn’t just the name-calling, though. Trump also attacked the fact that Cruz was born in Canada, suggesting that the Texas senator, whose mother was a US citizen, was not sufficiently loyal to the country.

“Why would Texans vote for ‘liar’ Ted Cruz when he was born in Canada, lived there for 4 years-and remained a Canadian citizen until recently,”

Trump asked in a tweet

in February 2016. Trump also obliquely suggested that Cruz’s father, Rafael, might have been involved in the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy because a picture existed showing someone resembling the elder Cruz and Lee Harvey Oswald together. (The Cruz campaign denied that it was Rafael Cruz in the picture.)

The breaking point between Trump and Cruz wasn’t any of that, however. (And, yes, that is amazing.) It was when

Trump tweeted

an unflattering picture of Heidi Cruz, the senator’s wife, next to a picture of his own wife Melania; “The images are worth 1,000 words,”

read text on the picture

.

Cruz went bananas. In an angry press conference, he said Trump had gone too far.

“I don’t get angry often,” said Cruz. “But you mess with my wife, you mess with my kids, that will do it every time. Donald Trump, you’re a sniveling coward. Leave Heidi the hell alone.”

Eventually, the math caught up with Cruz. He bowed out. But he didn’t endorse Trump. Despite that lack of full support, Cruz was given a primetime speaking slot at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland; the Trump forces believed Cruz was ready to publicly throw his full backing behind the nominee.

NOPE!

“We deserve leaders who stand for principle,”

Cruz said at the close of his speech

. “Unite us all behind shared values. Cast aside anger for love. Every one of us has an obligation to follow our conscience.” The next morning, Cruz was defiant. “I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father,” he said.

Trump was reportedly livid but tried to play off Cruz’s snub as NBD. “Wow, Ted Cruz got booed off the stage, didn’t honor the pledge!,”

tweeted Trump

. “I saw his speech two hours early but let him speak anyway. No big deal!”

Despite insisting he didn’t want and wouldn’t accept Cruz’s endorsement following the convention snub, Trump did just that in late September 2016. “A year ago, I pledged to endorse the Republican nominee, and I am honoring that commitment,”

Cruz wrote in a Facebook post

. “And if you don’t want to see a Hillary Clinton presidency, I encourage you to vote for him.”

Fast forward to now. Cruz has avoided any direct criticism of Trump since the election, a) knowing the danger that presents to any Republican and b) being mindful of his need to win a second term.

In late August, all of Cruz’s playing nice with Trump paid off.

“I will be doing a major rally for Senator Ted Cruz in October,”

Trump tweeted

. “I’m picking the biggest stadium in Texas we can find. As you know, Ted has my complete and total Endorsement. His opponent is a disaster for Texas – weak on Second Amendment, Crime, Borders, Military, and Vets!”

That “major rally” is tonight. But even on the eve of what is expected to be a massive event in Houston, Cruz still seemed somewhat sparse in his praise of Trump in

a story that aired on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” on Sunday

.

“He’s the President,” said Cruz. “I work with the President in delivering on our promises. What I told the President the week after the election, I said, ‘Mr. President,

I want to do everything humanly possible

to roll up my sleeves and lead the fight in the Senate to deliver on our promises.”

While Cruz may not love having to need Trump, he knows it’s his best chance at surviving in 15 days. And Cruz is far from the first former foe to bow down to the President’s political power.

Rand Paul once blasted Trump as a “

delusional narcissist and an orange-faced windbag

” during the 2016 race but, by 2018, was comparing Trump to Ronald Reagan when it comes to diplomacy. Following Trump’s attacks in July 2015 on the late Sen. John McCain’s military service,

Lindsey Graham called Trump a “jackass”

and said the billionaire “shouldn’t be commander in chief.” By April 2017, Grahan’s tune on Trump had changed markedly; “I am like the happiest dude in America right now,”

he said on Fox News Channel

. “We have got a President and a national security team that I’ve been dreaming of for eight years.”

Like Cruz, it’s hard to separate out the conversion experiences of Paul and Graham from political concerns. All three men have taken on water, politically, with their attacks on Trump. Getting right with Trump was the only option unless they wanted to face the prospect of losing their seats the next time they ran for reelection.

That reality is Trump’s ultimate revenge on all his former foes. This is HIS party now. They either need to recognize it and kiss the ring or run the risk of not having a job. And so, because they are politicians, they kiss the ring. (Or at least most of them do.)

So, when he takes the stage in Houston on Monday night, Trump is doing so ostensibly to support Cruz. But Trump is also asserting his total control over Cruz — and that’s the part Trump likely enjoys more.

Read More | Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large,

Business Donald Trump gets sweet revenge on Ted Cruz today in Texas, in 2018-10-22 09:39:40

[internetbetterforall]

Business Donald Trump gets sweet revenge on Ted Cruz today in Texas

Business Donald Trump gets sweet revenge on Ted Cruz today in Texas Business Donald Trump gets sweet revenge on Ted Cruz today in Texas http://www.nature-business.com/business-donald-trump-gets-sweet-revenge-on-ted-cruz-today-in-texas/

Business

(CNN)On Monday night in Houston, Donald Trump will dunk on Ted Cruz one last time.

Trump will travel to Texas to hold a massive get-out-the-vote rally for Cruz in the final days of a closer-than-expected race against Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D).

For Cruz, the rally is borne of necessity — polling shows him with a mid-to-upper single digit lead over O’Rourke, but the incumbent badly needs an energized Republican base in order to ensure victory. And no one rallies the Republican base like President Trump.

For Trump, it’s the latest example of a former political foe — and one who he attacked (and was attacked by) fiercely — seeking to make peace, with an acknowledgment that, well, standing against him just wasn’t worth it.

From Sens. Rand Paul to Lindsey Graham to Cruz, Trump has watched as his fiercest critics have turned into, at least in the case of Paul and Graham, two of his staunchest allies. That willingness to seek political peace speaks to Trump’s total and complete takeover of the Republican Party over the past three years. There is simply no safe political space for Republicans on the wrong side of Trump. Retiring Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake (R) is retiring because he wrote a book questioning Trump’s grip on the GOP. Retiring Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker (R) is retiring, at least in part, because he took a hit when he stepped out and criticized some of Trump’s controversial comments.

Which brings us back to Cruz. And Trump.

Somewhat amazingly, the 2016 Republican primary fight left these men as the last two standing — albeit with a clear edge for Trump, who had opened a significant delegate lead thanks to a series of early wins. (Prior to the race narrowing, Cruz had repeatedly — and publicly — refused to attack Trump, insisting that was only doing what the media wanted.)

As winter turned to spring, however, Trump took direct aim at Cruz — labeling him “Lyin’ Ted.” Over and over again, Trump said some version of this: “Lyin’ Ted. Lies. Ooh, he lies. You know Ted. He brings the Bible, holds it high, puts it down, lies.” From March 13 to May 6 — the heart of their heated battle, Trump tweeted the phrase a whopping 27 times,

according to the Dallas Morning News

.

It wasn’t just the name-calling, though. Trump also attacked the fact that Cruz was born in Canada, suggesting that the Texas senator, whose mother was a US citizen, was not sufficiently loyal to the country.

“Why would Texans vote for ‘liar’ Ted Cruz when he was born in Canada, lived there for 4 years-and remained a Canadian citizen until recently,”

Trump asked in a tweet

in February 2016. Trump also obliquely suggested that Cruz’s father, Rafael, might have been involved in the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy because a picture existed showing someone resembling the elder Cruz and Lee Harvey Oswald together. (The Cruz campaign denied that it was Rafael Cruz in the picture.)

The breaking point between Trump and Cruz wasn’t any of that, however. (And, yes, that is amazing.) It was when

Trump tweeted

an unflattering picture of Heidi Cruz, the senator’s wife, next to a picture of his own wife Melania; “The images are worth 1,000 words,”

read text on the picture

.

Cruz went bananas. In an angry press conference, he said Trump had gone too far.

“I don’t get angry often,” said Cruz. “But you mess with my wife, you mess with my kids, that will do it every time. Donald Trump, you’re a sniveling coward. Leave Heidi the hell alone.”

Eventually, the math caught up with Cruz. He bowed out. But he didn’t endorse Trump. Despite that lack of full support, Cruz was given a primetime speaking slot at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland; the Trump forces believed Cruz was ready to publicly throw his full backing behind the nominee.

NOPE!

“We deserve leaders who stand for principle,”

Cruz said at the close of his speech

. “Unite us all behind shared values. Cast aside anger for love. Every one of us has an obligation to follow our conscience.” The next morning, Cruz was defiant. “I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father,” he said.

Trump was reportedly livid but tried to play off Cruz’s snub as NBD. “Wow, Ted Cruz got booed off the stage, didn’t honor the pledge!,”

tweeted Trump

. “I saw his speech two hours early but let him speak anyway. No big deal!”

Despite insisting he didn’t want and wouldn’t accept Cruz’s endorsement following the convention snub, Trump did just that in late September 2016. “A year ago, I pledged to endorse the Republican nominee, and I am honoring that commitment,”

Cruz wrote in a Facebook post

. “And if you don’t want to see a Hillary Clinton presidency, I encourage you to vote for him.”

Fast forward to now. Cruz has avoided any direct criticism of Trump since the election, a) knowing the danger that presents to any Republican and b) being mindful of his need to win a second term.

In late August, all of Cruz’s playing nice with Trump paid off.

“I will be doing a major rally for Senator Ted Cruz in October,”

Trump tweeted

. “I’m picking the biggest stadium in Texas we can find. As you know, Ted has my complete and total Endorsement. His opponent is a disaster for Texas – weak on Second Amendment, Crime, Borders, Military, and Vets!”

That “major rally” is tonight. But even on the eve of what is expected to be a massive event in Houston, Cruz still seemed somewhat sparse in his praise of Trump in

a story that aired on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” on Sunday

.

“He’s the President,” said Cruz. “I work with the President in delivering on our promises. What I told the President the week after the election, I said, ‘Mr. President,

I want to do everything humanly possible

to roll up my sleeves and lead the fight in the Senate to deliver on our promises.”

While Cruz may not love having to need Trump, he knows it’s his best chance at surviving in 15 days. And Cruz is far from the first former foe to bow down to the President’s political power.

Rand Paul once blasted Trump as a “

delusional narcissist and an orange-faced windbag

” during the 2016 race but, by 2018, was comparing Trump to Ronald Reagan when it comes to diplomacy. Following Trump’s attacks in July 2015 on the late Sen. John McCain’s military service,

Lindsey Graham called Trump a “jackass”

and said the billionaire “shouldn’t be commander in chief.” By April 2017, Grahan’s tune on Trump had changed markedly; “I am like the happiest dude in America right now,”

he said on Fox News Channel

. “We have got a President and a national security team that I’ve been dreaming of for eight years.”

Like Cruz, it’s hard to separate out the conversion experiences of Paul and Graham from political concerns. All three men have taken on water, politically, with their attacks on Trump. Getting right with Trump was the only option unless they wanted to face the prospect of losing their seats the next time they ran for reelection.

That reality is Trump’s ultimate revenge on all his former foes. This is HIS party now. They either need to recognize it and kiss the ring or run the risk of not having a job. And so, because they are politicians, they kiss the ring. (Or at least most of them do.)

So, when he takes the stage in Houston on Monday night, Trump is doing so ostensibly to support Cruz. But Trump is also asserting his total control over Cruz — and that’s the part Trump likely enjoys more.

Read More | Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large,

Business Donald Trump gets sweet revenge on Ted Cruz today in Texas, in 2018-10-22 09:39:40

[blogparadiseisland]

Business Donald Trump gets sweet revenge on Ted Cruz today in Texas

Business Donald Trump gets sweet revenge on Ted Cruz today in Texas Business Donald Trump gets sweet revenge on Ted Cruz today in Texas http://www.nature-business.com/business-donald-trump-gets-sweet-revenge-on-ted-cruz-today-in-texas/

Business

(CNN)On Monday night in Houston, Donald Trump will dunk on Ted Cruz one last time.

Trump will travel to Texas to hold a massive get-out-the-vote rally for Cruz in the final days of a closer-than-expected race against Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D).

For Cruz, the rally is borne of necessity — polling shows him with a mid-to-upper single digit lead over O’Rourke, but the incumbent badly needs an energized Republican base in order to ensure victory. And no one rallies the Republican base like President Trump.

For Trump, it’s the latest example of a former political foe — and one who he attacked (and was attacked by) fiercely — seeking to make peace, with an acknowledgment that, well, standing against him just wasn’t worth it.

From Sens. Rand Paul to Lindsey Graham to Cruz, Trump has watched as his fiercest critics have turned into, at least in the case of Paul and Graham, two of his staunchest allies. That willingness to seek political peace speaks to Trump’s total and complete takeover of the Republican Party over the past three years. There is simply no safe political space for Republicans on the wrong side of Trump. Retiring Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake (R) is retiring because he wrote a book questioning Trump’s grip on the GOP. Retiring Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker (R) is retiring, at least in part, because he took a hit when he stepped out and criticized some of Trump’s controversial comments.

Which brings us back to Cruz. And Trump.

Somewhat amazingly, the 2016 Republican primary fight left these men as the last two standing — albeit with a clear edge for Trump, who had opened a significant delegate lead thanks to a series of early wins. (Prior to the race narrowing, Cruz had repeatedly — and publicly — refused to attack Trump, insisting that was only doing what the media wanted.)

As winter turned to spring, however, Trump took direct aim at Cruz — labeling him “Lyin’ Ted.” Over and over again, Trump said some version of this: “Lyin’ Ted. Lies. Ooh, he lies. You know Ted. He brings the Bible, holds it high, puts it down, lies.” From March 13 to May 6 — the heart of their heated battle, Trump tweeted the phrase a whopping 27 times,

according to the Dallas Morning News

.

It wasn’t just the name-calling, though. Trump also attacked the fact that Cruz was born in Canada, suggesting that the Texas senator, whose mother was a US citizen, was not sufficiently loyal to the country.

“Why would Texans vote for ‘liar’ Ted Cruz when he was born in Canada, lived there for 4 years-and remained a Canadian citizen until recently,”

Trump asked in a tweet

in February 2016. Trump also obliquely suggested that Cruz’s father, Rafael, might have been involved in the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy because a picture existed showing someone resembling the elder Cruz and Lee Harvey Oswald together. (The Cruz campaign denied that it was Rafael Cruz in the picture.)

The breaking point between Trump and Cruz wasn’t any of that, however. (And, yes, that is amazing.) It was when

Trump tweeted

an unflattering picture of Heidi Cruz, the senator’s wife, next to a picture of his own wife Melania; “The images are worth 1,000 words,”

read text on the picture

.

Cruz went bananas. In an angry press conference, he said Trump had gone too far.

“I don’t get angry often,” said Cruz. “But you mess with my wife, you mess with my kids, that will do it every time. Donald Trump, you’re a sniveling coward. Leave Heidi the hell alone.”

Eventually, the math caught up with Cruz. He bowed out. But he didn’t endorse Trump. Despite that lack of full support, Cruz was given a primetime speaking slot at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland; the Trump forces believed Cruz was ready to publicly throw his full backing behind the nominee.

NOPE!

“We deserve leaders who stand for principle,”

Cruz said at the close of his speech

. “Unite us all behind shared values. Cast aside anger for love. Every one of us has an obligation to follow our conscience.” The next morning, Cruz was defiant. “I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father,” he said.

Trump was reportedly livid but tried to play off Cruz’s snub as NBD. “Wow, Ted Cruz got booed off the stage, didn’t honor the pledge!,”

tweeted Trump

. “I saw his speech two hours early but let him speak anyway. No big deal!”

Despite insisting he didn’t want and wouldn’t accept Cruz’s endorsement following the convention snub, Trump did just that in late September 2016. “A year ago, I pledged to endorse the Republican nominee, and I am honoring that commitment,”

Cruz wrote in a Facebook post

. “And if you don’t want to see a Hillary Clinton presidency, I encourage you to vote for him.”

Fast forward to now. Cruz has avoided any direct criticism of Trump since the election, a) knowing the danger that presents to any Republican and b) being mindful of his need to win a second term.

In late August, all of Cruz’s playing nice with Trump paid off.

“I will be doing a major rally for Senator Ted Cruz in October,”

Trump tweeted

. “I’m picking the biggest stadium in Texas we can find. As you know, Ted has my complete and total Endorsement. His opponent is a disaster for Texas – weak on Second Amendment, Crime, Borders, Military, and Vets!”

That “major rally” is tonight. But even on the eve of what is expected to be a massive event in Houston, Cruz still seemed somewhat sparse in his praise of Trump in

a story that aired on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” on Sunday

.

“He’s the President,” said Cruz. “I work with the President in delivering on our promises. What I told the President the week after the election, I said, ‘Mr. President,

I want to do everything humanly possible

to roll up my sleeves and lead the fight in the Senate to deliver on our promises.”

While Cruz may not love having to need Trump, he knows it’s his best chance at surviving in 15 days. And Cruz is far from the first former foe to bow down to the President’s political power.

Rand Paul once blasted Trump as a “

delusional narcissist and an orange-faced windbag

” during the 2016 race but, by 2018, was comparing Trump to Ronald Reagan when it comes to diplomacy. Following Trump’s attacks in July 2015 on the late Sen. John McCain’s military service,

Lindsey Graham called Trump a “jackass”

and said the billionaire “shouldn’t be commander in chief.” By April 2017, Grahan’s tune on Trump had changed markedly; “I am like the happiest dude in America right now,”

he said on Fox News Channel

. “We have got a President and a national security team that I’ve been dreaming of for eight years.”

Like Cruz, it’s hard to separate out the conversion experiences of Paul and Graham from political concerns. All three men have taken on water, politically, with their attacks on Trump. Getting right with Trump was the only option unless they wanted to face the prospect of losing their seats the next time they ran for reelection.

That reality is Trump’s ultimate revenge on all his former foes. This is HIS party now. They either need to recognize it and kiss the ring or run the risk of not having a job. And so, because they are politicians, they kiss the ring. (Or at least most of them do.)

So, when he takes the stage in Houston on Monday night, Trump is doing so ostensibly to support Cruz. But Trump is also asserting his total control over Cruz — and that’s the part Trump likely enjoys more.

Read More | Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large,

Business Donald Trump gets sweet revenge on Ted Cruz today in Texas, in 2018-10-22 09:39:40

[algarithmblognumber]

Business Donald Trump gets sweet revenge on Ted Cruz today in Texas

Business Donald Trump gets sweet revenge on Ted Cruz today in Texas Business Donald Trump gets sweet revenge on Ted Cruz today in Texas http://www.nature-business.com/business-donald-trump-gets-sweet-revenge-on-ted-cruz-today-in-texas/

Business

(CNN)On Monday night in Houston, Donald Trump will dunk on Ted Cruz one last time.

Trump will travel to Texas to hold a massive get-out-the-vote rally for Cruz in the final days of a closer-than-expected race against Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D).

For Cruz, the rally is borne of necessity — polling shows him with a mid-to-upper single digit lead over O’Rourke, but the incumbent badly needs an energized Republican base in order to ensure victory. And no one rallies the Republican base like President Trump.

For Trump, it’s the latest example of a former political foe — and one who he attacked (and was attacked by) fiercely — seeking to make peace, with an acknowledgment that, well, standing against him just wasn’t worth it.

From Sens. Rand Paul to Lindsey Graham to Cruz, Trump has watched as his fiercest critics have turned into, at least in the case of Paul and Graham, two of his staunchest allies. That willingness to seek political peace speaks to Trump’s total and complete takeover of the Republican Party over the past three years. There is simply no safe political space for Republicans on the wrong side of Trump. Retiring Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake (R) is retiring because he wrote a book questioning Trump’s grip on the GOP. Retiring Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker (R) is retiring, at least in part, because he took a hit when he stepped out and criticized some of Trump’s controversial comments.

Which brings us back to Cruz. And Trump.

Somewhat amazingly, the 2016 Republican primary fight left these men as the last two standing — albeit with a clear edge for Trump, who had opened a significant delegate lead thanks to a series of early wins. (Prior to the race narrowing, Cruz had repeatedly — and publicly — refused to attack Trump, insisting that was only doing what the media wanted.)

As winter turned to spring, however, Trump took direct aim at Cruz — labeling him “Lyin’ Ted.” Over and over again, Trump said some version of this: “Lyin’ Ted. Lies. Ooh, he lies. You know Ted. He brings the Bible, holds it high, puts it down, lies.” From March 13 to May 6 — the heart of their heated battle, Trump tweeted the phrase a whopping 27 times,

according to the Dallas Morning News

.

It wasn’t just the name-calling, though. Trump also attacked the fact that Cruz was born in Canada, suggesting that the Texas senator, whose mother was a US citizen, was not sufficiently loyal to the country.

“Why would Texans vote for ‘liar’ Ted Cruz when he was born in Canada, lived there for 4 years-and remained a Canadian citizen until recently,”

Trump asked in a tweet

in February 2016. Trump also obliquely suggested that Cruz’s father, Rafael, might have been involved in the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy because a picture existed showing someone resembling the elder Cruz and Lee Harvey Oswald together. (The Cruz campaign denied that it was Rafael Cruz in the picture.)

The breaking point between Trump and Cruz wasn’t any of that, however. (And, yes, that is amazing.) It was when

Trump tweeted

an unflattering picture of Heidi Cruz, the senator’s wife, next to a picture of his own wife Melania; “The images are worth 1,000 words,”

read text on the picture

.

Cruz went bananas. In an angry press conference, he said Trump had gone too far.

“I don’t get angry often,” said Cruz. “But you mess with my wife, you mess with my kids, that will do it every time. Donald Trump, you’re a sniveling coward. Leave Heidi the hell alone.”

Eventually, the math caught up with Cruz. He bowed out. But he didn’t endorse Trump. Despite that lack of full support, Cruz was given a primetime speaking slot at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland; the Trump forces believed Cruz was ready to publicly throw his full backing behind the nominee.

NOPE!

“We deserve leaders who stand for principle,”

Cruz said at the close of his speech

. “Unite us all behind shared values. Cast aside anger for love. Every one of us has an obligation to follow our conscience.” The next morning, Cruz was defiant. “I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father,” he said.

Trump was reportedly livid but tried to play off Cruz’s snub as NBD. “Wow, Ted Cruz got booed off the stage, didn’t honor the pledge!,”

tweeted Trump

. “I saw his speech two hours early but let him speak anyway. No big deal!”

Despite insisting he didn’t want and wouldn’t accept Cruz’s endorsement following the convention snub, Trump did just that in late September 2016. “A year ago, I pledged to endorse the Republican nominee, and I am honoring that commitment,”

Cruz wrote in a Facebook post

. “And if you don’t want to see a Hillary Clinton presidency, I encourage you to vote for him.”

Fast forward to now. Cruz has avoided any direct criticism of Trump since the election, a) knowing the danger that presents to any Republican and b) being mindful of his need to win a second term.

In late August, all of Cruz’s playing nice with Trump paid off.

“I will be doing a major rally for Senator Ted Cruz in October,”

Trump tweeted

. “I’m picking the biggest stadium in Texas we can find. As you know, Ted has my complete and total Endorsement. His opponent is a disaster for Texas – weak on Second Amendment, Crime, Borders, Military, and Vets!”

That “major rally” is tonight. But even on the eve of what is expected to be a massive event in Houston, Cruz still seemed somewhat sparse in his praise of Trump in

a story that aired on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” on Sunday

.

“He’s the President,” said Cruz. “I work with the President in delivering on our promises. What I told the President the week after the election, I said, ‘Mr. President,

I want to do everything humanly possible

to roll up my sleeves and lead the fight in the Senate to deliver on our promises.”

While Cruz may not love having to need Trump, he knows it’s his best chance at surviving in 15 days. And Cruz is far from the first former foe to bow down to the President’s political power.

Rand Paul once blasted Trump as a “

delusional narcissist and an orange-faced windbag

” during the 2016 race but, by 2018, was comparing Trump to Ronald Reagan when it comes to diplomacy. Following Trump’s attacks in July 2015 on the late Sen. John McCain’s military service,

Lindsey Graham called Trump a “jackass”

and said the billionaire “shouldn’t be commander in chief.” By April 2017, Grahan’s tune on Trump had changed markedly; “I am like the happiest dude in America right now,”

he said on Fox News Channel

. “We have got a President and a national security team that I’ve been dreaming of for eight years.”

Like Cruz, it’s hard to separate out the conversion experiences of Paul and Graham from political concerns. All three men have taken on water, politically, with their attacks on Trump. Getting right with Trump was the only option unless they wanted to face the prospect of losing their seats the next time they ran for reelection.

That reality is Trump’s ultimate revenge on all his former foes. This is HIS party now. They either need to recognize it and kiss the ring or run the risk of not having a job. And so, because they are politicians, they kiss the ring. (Or at least most of them do.)

So, when he takes the stage in Houston on Monday night, Trump is doing so ostensibly to support Cruz. But Trump is also asserting his total control over Cruz — and that’s the part Trump likely enjoys more.

Read More | Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large,

Business Donald Trump gets sweet revenge on Ted Cruz today in Texas, in 2018-10-22 09:39:40

[theconservativebrief]

I didn’t watch all of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in which Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s latest nominee for the Supreme Court, defended himself against accusations of sexual assault brought by Christine Blasey Ford.

But with every moment I saw of Kavanaugh’s angry opening statement, of him shouting at Democratic senators, of his generally loud blast of self-defense, I had a distinct feeling: I know what this is. I’ve seen this on TV.

The impassioned, overly emotional cry of a man who’s not used to being questioned as he’s pushed on something he never even imagined would be used against him? It was an all-too-familiar cadence.

It took me a second to figure out why Kavanaugh sounded so familiar: It was because Fox News — the 24-hour news network I watch more than any other, both because I’m writing something about it and because I find it endlessly fascinating — is a constant dress rehearsal of tomorrow’s talking points today.

So when many of my fellow left-leaning social media participants took Kavanaugh’s loud and angry testimony as a sign that he had let emotion get the better of him — in contrast with the much more restrained Ford — the assumption was that he and the Republican Party had played themselves. And to be clear, I don’t imagine that Kavanaugh’s testimony will play well with the general public, which (polling suggests) is already skeptical of the guy.

But the important thing to remember is that Kavanaugh’s performance wasn’t aimed at me or anybody else who’s not already ensconced in the right-wing bubble. It was for Fox News viewers, and in that regard, it was a home run. Because one of Fox News’s most devoted fans sits in the Oval Office.

George W. Bush made his redemption narrative a big part of his run for president. David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images

Since the allegations against Kavanaugh were made public, I’ve wondered why, if they’re true, he didn’t just admit that he drank heavily in high school and did things he wasn’t proud of, or something similar. Such an admission wouldn’t excuse sexual assault — in my mind, it would actually disqualify him from sitting on the Supreme Court.

But I don’t get to vote on his confirmation, and I find it eminently plausible that if Kavanaugh had owned up and pleaded that it was a long time ago, he easily could have earned just enough votes to get through.

Indeed, we don’t have to look back all that far in history to find an example of a Republican who did just that. The youthful, alcohol-fueled exploits of George W. Bush, America’s 43rd president, didn’t extend to sexual assault allegations (so far as we’ve heard), but they did involve drunk driving and youthful jackassery and so on.

What’s easy to forget, due to Bush’s tendency to not admit mistakes while he was in office, was that much of what propelled him to first the Republican nomination and then the presidency in 2000 was his ability to confess to wrongdoing in his past, beg for forgiveness, and seek redemption. Performative atonement was a big part of Bush’s appeal to evangelical Christians, who have always loved narratives of people who sin and then have their lives turned around by God. (Convicted Watergate conspirator Chuck Colson is a good example of this; he became a big figure in evangelical circles after turning toward Christ while in prison.)

But something has changed in the larger right-wing sphere, and it changed during the eight years of Bush’s presidency. Today, admitting to wrongdoing or even having second thoughts about something is seen as a weakness worth of punishment. And the default posture of many prominent conservative figures — including Trump and Kavanaugh, apparently — is that of a constantly aggrieved piety. They are right; you, no matter how much evidence you have, are wrong, and honestly, how dare you.

Night after night, this dynamic plays out on Fox News, especially on Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity’s respective shows. But there, the hosts control the game by immediately tilting their guests off-balance. You might be brought in to do a segment on some left-leaning issue with the impression that you’ll be defending the progressive position, only to end up talking about some other story entirely, with just a tangential connection to the news, designed to make Carlson or Hannity look like the justifiably angry but ultimately sane voice in the wilderness.

Reality obviously doesn’t play by these rules. But the tone that defines them — a high dudgeon meant to suggest not just righteousness but moral spotlessness — carries throughout almost everything influential Republicans do. It’s the voice Ted Cruz speaks in, though he’s a bit nerdier about it, and it’s absolutely core to Trump’s appeal. He’s so used to having privilege, to being told he’s right, that it never occurs to him when he’s wrong.

Fox News didn’t invent this strategy — it’s been a fixture of right-wing media for half a century, and Fox News’s version of it, specifically, grew out of talk radio — but the network did perfect it, and made it the oxygen that many of America’s Republican politicians and voters breathe. And it’s easy to see why.

It’s intoxicating to live in a world where you’re never wrong, where you don’t have to question the way the world is changing or how you might have to change to fit in. When all you have to do is be outraged at the fact of change itself, well, it’s a lot harder to step outside of your superior status. To do so is to show weakness.

In the case of Kavanaugh, I’m genuinely curious as to how everything will play out. He might have impressed the president with his performance (and Trump insists the Senate must vote on him). But did he impress the handful of shaky Republican senators he needs to win over, figures like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski? I’m just cynical enough to think that, yes, they will vote to confirm him. He performed in the way their constituents — and their president — are used to supporting, and the long-held Republican dream of a lockstep conservative majority on the Supreme Court will be too hard to pass up.

To me, that’s a huge strategic mistake, a misreading of a moment in history when the ways that women have been systematically abused, assaulted, and denied their rights are increasingly being dragged out into the sunlight. But when your base is constantly exposed to the idea that questioning long-established institutions is, in and of itself, an unacceptable overreach by the liberal elites — because after all, they never hear evidence to the contrary — well, maybe they don’t want nuance. Maybe they just want a guy who yells a lot, a guy who “fights,” even if what he’s fighting for is to further entrench a cruel status quo.

Original Source -> Brett Kavanaugh’s angry testimony made him sound like a Fox News host

via The Conservative Brief

[adambstingus]

The Ted Cruz merch store is the best place on the Internet

Republican presidential hopeful and soup aficionado Ted Cruz is many things to many people: a liar to Donald Trump, an anointed prophet in the eyes of Glenn Beck, the cause of death for five young adults in northern California between the late 1960s and early ’70s. But one thing he has yet to receive praise for is perhaps his strongest asset: his on-point merch game.

Candidates running for president of the United States are required to hock as much merchandise as possible as a show of good faith to the gods of capitalism. Like all aspects of campaigning, some are just better at it than others.

Bernie Sanders, for example, has raked in millions of dollars from small donors despite having a weak offering on the merch front that has mostly failed to capitalize on the most iconic images to arise out of his campaign. HisBirdie Sandersstickers were a limited offering only available to a few donors at the right time while the Vermont senator never once touched the Jumpman Bernie Sandersmotif. This could be because Sanders just isn’t that into capitalism (he prefers a moral economic model) or it might be that he’s just not a big T-shirt guy.

Ted Cruz, on the other hand, is all in when it comes to politically charged novelty items. There’s seemingly nothing the Texas senator won’t put his name on. The Ted Cruz store is the online equivalent of pulling off of the highway and walking into a small-town truck stop that sells T-shirts with jokes that only the locals understand but are amusing just the same.

Currently, Cruz is pushing his spring gear the hardest. His store prominently features a $75 BBQ pack that includes a spatula, cooler, and beer kooziewhich has also been rebranded as a beer “Cruzie,” because of course it has.

It’s part of a larger collection of tailgating and sports-themedparaphernalia that seem to focus primarily on football even though it’s the only major sport not currently in play. By kickoff of the 2016 football season, Cruz could already be out of the running for president.

Always the clever marketer, Cruz has opted not to specifically mention football despite selling a jersey that looks suspiciously like one that a football player might wear and a foam ball that is shaped an awful lot like a football.

In a true stroke of genius, he’s even labeled the beer holders with the phrase “Are You Ready for Some Cruzball?” It’s a question Cruz probably asks his friends every Sunday, thinking it to be a hilarious play on words, though no one has ever once answered “yes” when asked.

The best of Cruz is yet to come, however. On Friday, he unveiled his Trumpertantrums packa one-piece and bib for your favorite liberty-loving toddler that reads “Enough with the Trumpertantrums already!”

Whining so much youre getting tired of whining? Get your #TrumperTantrum starter pack now: https://t.co/61dK4xyGQX pic.twitter.com/a8s0qTl7oq

Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) April 16, 2016

It doesn’t appear to be a thing Ted Cruz has ever actually saidaloud, but was probably a zinger that he thought of three hours after a debate and decided it needed to go somewhere.

If you want people to know your baby is part of the #NeverTrump movement, you’re going to have to wait; the Trumpertantrums pack is available for pre-order only at the moment.

The Trump gear is Cruz’s true bread and butter when it comes to his merch, which is a great bit of hustle. It’s hard to sell Cruz to most people but it’s pretty easy to sell them on Anyone But Trump.

His campaign’s best bit of shade against the frontrunner is its Trump University shirt, which sports the slogan “I Applied to Trump University and All I Got Was This Shirt.” The shirt has been available since the March debate in which Cruz tried to make Trump’s failed and fraudulent school a central issue because the man just intuitively understands the importance of branding synergy.

Some have made the case that Cruz’s ability to wrangle delegates shows his competency as an executive and speaks to his qualifications to be president, but based on his merch game, he’d be the finest regional manager Spencer’s Gifts has ever hadthough the sex toy section would probably be lackingunder his leadership.

Illustration by Jason Reed (Licensed)

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/2017/08/06/the-ted-cruz-merch-store-is-the-best-place-on-the-internet/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/163882809277

[jimdsmith34]

The Ted Cruz merch store is the best place on the Internet

Republican presidential hopeful and soup aficionado Ted Cruz is many things to many people: a liar to Donald Trump, an anointed prophet in the eyes of Glenn Beck, the cause of death for five young adults in northern California between the late 1960s and early ’70s. But one thing he has yet to receive praise for is perhaps his strongest asset: his on-point merch game.

Candidates running for president of the United States are required to hock as much merchandise as possible as a show of good faith to the gods of capitalism. Like all aspects of campaigning, some are just better at it than others.

Bernie Sanders, for example, has raked in millions of dollars from small donors despite having a weak offering on the merch front that has mostly failed to capitalize on the most iconic images to arise out of his campaign. HisBirdie Sandersstickers were a limited offering only available to a few donors at the right time while the Vermont senator never once touched the Jumpman Bernie Sandersmotif. This could be because Sanders just isn’t that into capitalism (he prefers a moral economic model) or it might be that he’s just not a big T-shirt guy.

Ted Cruz, on the other hand, is all in when it comes to politically charged novelty items. There’s seemingly nothing the Texas senator won’t put his name on. The Ted Cruz store is the online equivalent of pulling off of the highway and walking into a small-town truck stop that sells T-shirts with jokes that only the locals understand but are amusing just the same.

Currently, Cruz is pushing his spring gear the hardest. His store prominently features a $75 BBQ pack that includes a spatula, cooler, and beer kooziewhich has also been rebranded as a beer “Cruzie,” because of course it has.

It’s part of a larger collection of tailgating and sports-themedparaphernalia that seem to focus primarily on football even though it’s the only major sport not currently in play. By kickoff of the 2016 football season, Cruz could already be out of the running for president.

Always the clever marketer, Cruz has opted not to specifically mention football despite selling a jersey that looks suspiciously like one that a football player might wear and a foam ball that is shaped an awful lot like a football.

In a true stroke of genius, he’s even labeled the beer holders with the phrase “Are You Ready for Some Cruzball?” It’s a question Cruz probably asks his friends every Sunday, thinking it to be a hilarious play on words, though no one has ever once answered “yes” when asked.

The best of Cruz is yet to come, however. On Friday, he unveiled his Trumpertantrums packa one-piece and bib for your favorite liberty-loving toddler that reads “Enough with the Trumpertantrums already!”

Whining so much youre getting tired of whining? Get your #TrumperTantrum starter pack now: https://t.co/61dK4xyGQX pic.twitter.com/a8s0qTl7oq

Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) April 16, 2016

It doesn’t appear to be a thing Ted Cruz has ever actually saidaloud, but was probably a zinger that he thought of three hours after a debate and decided it needed to go somewhere.

If you want people to know your baby is part of the #NeverTrump movement, you’re going to have to wait; the Trumpertantrums pack is available for pre-order only at the moment.

The Trump gear is Cruz’s true bread and butter when it comes to his merch, which is a great bit of hustle. It’s hard to sell Cruz to most people but it’s pretty easy to sell them on Anyone But Trump.

His campaign’s best bit of shade against the frontrunner is its Trump University shirt, which sports the slogan “I Applied to Trump University and All I Got Was This Shirt.” The shirt has been available since the March debate in which Cruz tried to make Trump’s failed and fraudulent school a central issue because the man just intuitively understands the importance of branding synergy.

Some have made the case that Cruz’s ability to wrangle delegates shows his competency as an executive and speaks to his qualifications to be president, but based on his merch game, he’d be the finest regional manager Spencer’s Gifts has ever hadthough the sex toy section would probably be lackingunder his leadership.

Illustration by Jason Reed (Licensed)

source http://allofbeer.com/2017/08/06/the-ted-cruz-merch-store-is-the-best-place-on-the-internet/ from All of Beer http://allofbeer.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-ted-cruz-merch-store-is-best-place.html