Roy Moore

It is highly possible that the State of Alabama will vote today to send Roy Moore to the Senate.  Whenever I hear people say: “Do they think the people in the state of Alabama are stupid?”  I want to scream.  “People in the state of Alabama are stupid.”  And, I know.  I am from Georgia.  I grew up in a cotton manufacturing town right on the Georgia/Alabama line.  Even in the 1950s my mother was saying that we should push the state of Alabama off into the ocean and abandon it.  Roy Moore is not the exception to the rule in Alabama.  He is the rule.

As an adult, I again lived in Alabama for a while, when I moved back to the South to take care of my aging parents.  The legal system in Alabama has progressed little since the 1940s.  If you ask questions or speak as if you had a brain and any sense of the rights of citizens in a civilized society, legal officials get immediately suspicious and ask if you are a lawyer, or worse, an outside agitator.

It is time to stop whining about the poor southern working class, left behind by the economy, alienated.  It is time to stop planning to reach out to these people, to make concessions to bring them back into the fold.  We don’t want them in the fold.  They are bigots.  They are racists.  They are ignorant.  They are gleefully uninformed.  They have no interest in facts or truth, and they live in an ideologically closed world.  We must leave them behind, not cater to them.

Fox News and the Republican party helped create them and we must leave Fox News and the Republican party behind with them.

Fox News

While I’m on the subject of Fox News, the state propaganda channel, Fox News is putting their pundits out full force to defend Trump against the tightening net of the Russia investigation.  Jeanine Pirro has even gone so far as call for the “cleansing” of law enforcement agencies who are daring to investigate Trump.  She called for the whole bunch of law enforcement officials investigating Trump to be arrested.  She even called Comey a “political whore” on her show.

Pirro: “There is a cleansing needed in our FBI and Department of Justice — it needs to be cleansed of individuals who should not just be fired, but who need to be taken out in cuffs!”

This is a great podcast by journalist for VOX, Ezra Klein.  He is making the case for using impeachment.  He is arguing that people have an almost superstitious fear of impeachment and that the consequences in this instance of NOT impeaching are dire.

 

 

https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/vox/the-ezra-klein-show/e/jennifer-lawless-on-why-you-yes-you-should-run-for-office-48984807?autoplay=true

 

Summary from the Intercepted Podcast site:

Erik Prince is the most infamous mercenary in modern U.S. history. The Blackwater founder has also served as Donald Trump’s shadow adviser and secret emissary. This week on Intercepted, an exclusive interview with Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who has fought a decadeslong battle against Erik Prince. Host Jeremy Scahill, who wrote the book on Blackwater, analyzes the news that Prince established a back channel for Trump and Vladimir Putin and, as Trump meets with China’s leader at Mar-a-Lago, outlines Prince’s latest venture with Beijing. On the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s militant speech against the Vietnam War, television host and author Tavis Smiley talks about the “Santa Clausification” of Dr. King and explains why he would not be allowed to speak at his own memorial events today. Rep. Barbara Lee reflects on her own historic speech, delivered three days after 9/11, when she was the only member of Congress to oppose the blank check given to Bush and Cheney to wage an unchecked war on the world. And Vice President Mike Pence, who says he can’t be alone in a room with a woman who is not his wife, gets the Norman Bates treatment.

 

Intercepted Podcast: Trump’s Secret Little Prince

 

Podcasts

 

If you’re not familiar with Eric Prince, this is a great book.

• The anchor on MSNBC is asking whether Democrats should get credit for forcing Al Franken out of the Senate because their motives were political.  What?  What?  The Democrats were being criticized for not forcing Franken out and now they are being criticized for not having pure enough motives for doing so?  Has absolutely everybody gone bat shit crazy?
• 

 

Get some background on Steve Bannon.

 

 

Joe Scarborough is scratching his head this morning wondering how the Republicans could be thinking about passing a tax bill that is so clearly unpopular, so clearly a hand out to their donors and so clearly will hurt their constituents.  Not much to wonder about.  The Trump base does not read, does not think critically, and believes everything Fox News and the Trump Administration tells them.  And, the administration has been all over television telling the base that the tax bill will benefit them.  Nothing to wonder about.  What everybody should be wondering about is how we are going to deal with a country going forward that has been so propagandized and which evidently contains at least 33% of people who are so ignorant they can’t even distinguish between fact and fiction.  That’s what Morning Joe and every other talk show should be discussing. 

  

 

Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif) has given a statement that the House of Representatives used taxpayer money to pay $15 million dollars for harassment settlements over more than a decade.  The Office of Compliance (OOC) between 1997 and 2016, has paid off settlements including complaints relating to sexual harassment, but also racial and religious discrimination as well as discrimination against people with disabilities.  The spokesperson for the (OOC) office said in a statement: “The OOC does not currently provide any breakdown for the type of discrimination payments made, the amounts of individual payments, or even the offices that the complaints generate from.”

My comment is: “How convenient.”  My questions is “Why not?”

The money to pay for these harassment complaints comes out of a special fund operated by the Treasury Department.

I intend to phone the office of (Not my) Buddy Carter and ask if he was involved in any of these settlements.  I suggest you do the same for your representative.

 

 

Interviewing Tammy Bruce a Radio Talk Show Host:
“Nullify the presidential election” that’s what the left is trying to do with the accusations against Roy Moore.  There have been false allegations, this woman says.

Tucker Carlson is celebrating his one year on the air. I”m not celebrating.  I think Tucker Carlson is an asshole.

 

On tucker Carlson: The guest says the left is “killing children moments before they are born.”  Friends don’t let friends watch Fox News.

Roy Moore

Roy Moore is the top of the news this morning.  Donny Deutsch, on Morning Joe, is predicting that if no other women come forward, Roy Moore will be elected in Alabama.  I think he’s probably right.  Nicole Wallace pointed out that this is going to be a test for the right-wing media.  Brietbart has already defended Moore and Fox News as well.  Wallace is talking about the “depravity” of the right-wing media.  And, in right-wing circles, electing a Democrat has become more offensive than electing a deviant.

Mike Flynn

There are as yet no indictments in the Flynn case.  Does this mean he’s cooperating?

Menendez

We are also waiting for a verdict in the Menendez bribery case.

Donna Brazile

I can’t stop thinking about Donna Brazile and the utterly embarrassing interviews she has given over the past week.  The one on Morning Joe was just painful.  Nobody I can come up with has an explanation for what she’s doing.  Yesterday, on Twitter, people were even speculating that she has had a minor stroke.

 

 

Mueller Going Too Easy on Manafort and Gates

This is probably one of the most important stories of the day.  The federal judge hearing the Manafort/Gates bail issue has questioned federal prosecutors from Mueller’s office about why they are being so lenient on Manafort and Gates.

Everybody in the universe of Cable News has been lauding Mueller and talking about his integrity and deluding themselves into thinking that Mueller is going to save us.  I am not so sure.  Mueller is one person, conducting one investigation and the overwhelming pressure will be to paper over this, gloss over it, prevent too great a shock to the masses (us).  Remember that Congress decided in their infinite wisdom not to impeach Reagan for the Iran/Contra affair because they thought the country couldn’t take it.  We must put pressure everywhere we can to prosecute this and not just rely on Mueller.  What I think the country can’t take is to have yet another massive scandal swept under the carpet.

Read the Raw Story coverage here:

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/judge-thinks-muellers-team-is-going-too-easy-on-manafort-and-gates-in-bail-hearing/

In this interview, Brazile accuses the reporter (Megyn Kelly) of “persecution” for asking her about giving a CNN debate question to the Clinton campaign.  Remember when you’re watching this, Brazile admitted giving the Campaign the question later.