UTUSN
UTUSN's JournalIs Mitch LANDRIEU the one? Pro & con. He says no, pick BIDEN but never-say-never
Thanks to the thread by mobeau69, "Watching Mitch Landrieu on The Axe Files" https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210907558 O.P., "He's very impressive! His description of this abnormal time we find ourselves in and what we need to do to turn things around was spot on. He also gave an excellent commentary on Helsinki and the traitor."
My first impression was, "An article on him a few weeks ago fairly much convinced me he's the one for us. My own points about him: He's from the South, connects with the common touch, is politically experienced, intelligent/intellectual, and savvy, has politics in his blood, and is authentic the way CUOMO ain't."
Plus, in Googling, more recent items from the past few weeks are about his denying himself for 2020 while saying never-say-never and saying it should be BIDEN. Well, if this article says it's a sign of how far Wingnut the country has been dragged that a Centrist looks Liberal, it still is in the correct direction. BIDEN is *over* (for me, unless he's the nominee), but maybe Mitch as Veep?
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https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/07/08/mitch-landrieu-new-orleans-presidency-politics-218960
A remarkably candid interview with the former New Orleans mayor about race, political ambition and America under Trump.
By EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE
.... For a man who’s spent his entire adult life in politics, Landrieu has an almost Obama-like intellectualism. He flows between ideas he’s read in books or encountered in conversations. His mind is associative, always linking up ideas with other experiences. He can be lyrical, though sometimes to the point of sounding like he’s doling out aphorisms. There are “y’alls” and explanatory diversions. He doesn’t tweet. He says “let me finish” a lot—not because he’s annoyed about being interrupted (though that sometimes flashes, too) but because he feels like he’s in the middle of a thought, and he wants to get through the full thought.
He talks about history. About moral leadership. The power of diversity. Who the future belongs to, and who it doesn’t. But most of all, he talks directly about race and racism and reality in America. When exactly is Trump saying America was great? What was it that made it great then? He pushes people to think about the answers, and he thinks they’re frighteningly clear. He sees what he lived through in Louisiana playing out in the country, has spoken and written about how much Donald Trump reminds him of David Duke. He says he knows people can be afraid to call it out but knows what happens when they don’t. He says he can’t believe he has to be the one to say there’s no place for white supremacy in 21st-century America.
And he gives speeches like the one he delivered at the Kennedy Library in May, accepting the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award that in 2017 went to Barack Obama. In an address that sounded very Obamalike, he said, “Our democracy is counting on each and every one of you, and in your countless acts of selfless courage. When millions of us do just our small part all at the same time, there is no mountain too high, no task too daunting, no dream too big. To every American listening: You may not be the tallest or the strongest or best-looking, or richest or fastest or smartest or the most well-connected. You may look different, love different or pray different. It is of no moment nor matter. We must all choose to find a way or make one. This is our America.” He finished by quoting Tennyson’s “Ulysses” on sacred duty, invoking JFK’s call to action, sounding like a man who was building up to, “and that’s why I’m running for president.”
But he didn’t.
For now, Landrieu is more concerned about understanding why Trump happened, and figuring out what he is prepared to do about it. “If you say to yourself, ‘It’s really not about him, what were the conditions that caused us to be able to choose this level of chaos over what we thought we had?’ And then what you would have to say is, the conditions in the country should never have been where they were, because it’s clear to me, historically, without necessarily equating them, when you look at the Holocaust, you look at apartheid, you look at slavery, when you look at the Japanese internment—when we as humans did terrible things to each other,” Landrieu told me when I caught up with him two weeks later, again in Boston, where he was to say goodbye to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, “and you ask yourself, ‘What were the conditions in which human beings decided to denigrate another human being that badly?’ They were for the most part in times when people thought that they were supreme to other people because of genetics, or people were fearing for their personal livelihood or safety, and as a consequence, human beings are capable of that evil. So the bigger question for the country long term is, ‘How did we get ourselves in a position where we had to choose between bad and worse?’” ....
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bjpdgq/mitch-landrieu-should-not-be-president
Mitch Landrieu is getting some 2020 buzz, but New Orleanians can tell you about his spotty record.
Until last year’s removal of New Orleans’s Confederate statues made national news, Mayor Mitch Landrieu was largely unknown outside of his city. Today, he’s the latest Democratic flavor of the month. Landrieu followed up the release of his new book, Standing in the Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Faces Down History, with a few victory laps of the lecture and talk show circuits, from The Week to 60 Minutes to the Daily Show, where mentions of his possible 2020 presidential run were met with applause. He’s also set to receive the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in May. ....
Landrieu surely won’t end up in prison like his predecessor Ray Nagin, and he has done a few good things while in office, like help get marijuana arrests down to almost zero (arguably a much bigger blow for racial justice than taking down the statues). And his speeches around the monuments’ removal were admittedly some of the best I’ve ever heard from a politician.
But Landrieu is not the president America needs. Dig past the statue issue, and you’ll find that Landrieu is known around town as the New Orleans mayor who aided and abetted a massive wave of gentrification. While he would clearly like to be remembered for removing New Orleans’s racist symbols, many locals will remember him for the following catastrophes:
Airbnb ....
Cameras, Cameras Everywhere ....
In this and other ways, Landrieu has been to New Orleans sort of what Giuliani was to New York. Except without the drop in crime.
Avoidable Flooding ....
Hassling Music Clubs and Banning Go-Cups ....
Raiding Strip Clubs ....
So no, Mitch Landrieu is not our country’s—or Democrats'—savior. He is just more proof that American politics has been pulled so far to the right that a “run-of-the-mill centrist” (to quote the New Republic) seems not just excitingly liberal, but looks something akin to a real leader.
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The local rag keeps running my letters so far
The words “mandate” and “political capital” we used to use regarding leaders who had won landslides or good will can be deleted from our politics, since we have President Trump who won with a margin of 10,000 votes for the Electoral College. Yet he has ruled by fiat, nearly completely without Congressional legislation, and upended some 70 years of American leadership in the world.
All this done as though he had a mandate from a vast majority of the voters and done things even the worst presidents had the self-restraint not to do.
Remember when one candidate was bounced from the entire political scene because of the sound of his scream in a loud rally or another one because he shed tears when his wife was attacked? In our brave new world we have a leader who is hostile to the institutions and philosophical tenets of our democracy, hostile to the protections and well-being of We the People, and hostile to the country’s role among nations and admiring of dictatorial thugs.
He exists for his own personal enrichment and what he thinks will be glory. Here is why he wanted to talk to Kim Jong Un alone: To recruit him into the world’s Zillionaire Oligarchs’ Club, the cartel and mob literally ruling the world. This also explains why he can’t get along with “decent” people, world leaders who wouldn’t be tempted to participate in the dirty under-the-table mob games he lives by. Far fetched?
What about his supporters who really are diehard and his party in Congress who are just too craven to stand on principle? They all used to claim to be the true believers of patriotism and religion, yet are collaborating for the smallest, most short-sighted of issues.
My next-to-last defense of Bill CLINTON
Next-to-last because of a proverb in Spanish that it's your NEXT-to-last (beer/whatever) when you're leaving, because your LAST one is when you're dying.
Back then, we Dems did our barricades thing defending Bill. Yes, lots of the crap was VastRightwingConspiracy crap. It really was. But we Libs always look inward for root causes rather than Wingnut-looking-outward to blame outsiders, and Bill had a lot to account for.
And my Big Lesson from the defense-o'-Bill thing was: We lost a lot of our AGENDA time all for the defense of one charismatic leader. It takes a gawdawful time and energy to win power only to lose it all for ONE human and his personal failings.
So, today, here we are with a little reporter-on-the-make raking Bill over today's new coals about whether he has PERSONALLY apologized to Ms Monica LEWINSKY.
Here's MY apology to Monica LEWINSKY in the voice of Bill:
"I was the most powerful boss in the world. You were the lowliest of employees. As much power I had over the world, I had nothing to gain from you that I couldn't get and DID get from PRINCESSES of politics and celebrities. You came on to me and I played. It was stupid of me and I have and will continue to pay for my stupidity. It's too bad Hillary's crystal ashtray didn't kill me on my head. I apologized to you and everybody in public, but you don't deserve a personal apology in private. You played a silly immature game and I was a grown idiot."
************************* O.K., Bill, can you butt your way out of our work on our agenda? Thanks.
No, Monica, you (& Bill) were not alone. I & we were there, too, "#MeToo" as it were
Two things I don't have to prove, what a good Democratic believer on nearly all the laundry list of issues and on Equality for all (here, specifically, on supporting women - I could go on & on about the strong women in my family and the women candidates I have supported) - I am.
You and Bill BOTH rocked my world in a very bad, PTSD way. I blamed you BOTH, but despite what you went through my quandary was not being socially allowed to blame you for your part while having to defend Bill at the cost of channeling all my political energy into HIM while giving up the work on our Democratic agenda. I would have liked to throw a crystal ashtray at both your heads.
I still have carved in my sight your right palm taking the oath to testify while the journalist voiceover called you a child who was beyond responsibility despite your legal adulthood.
After all the years, I came around to letting Bill go, my being freed from having to support him and his crappy behavior and choices. As I say, since we were prohibited from criticizing you, I had long ago let you go. But in the years when you have resurfaced, I haven't gotten a vibe of your taking your share of responsibility, although I haven't paid much attention.
I will add my own little vignette from the same era: How I was a supervisor in my late 40s and a 24 year old I had hired came on to me repeatedly and I shut it down, such that I was no Bill. Within 3 or so years she not only replaced me in my job but became the top administrator (my superiors weren't so principled about handling her advances). I never made an issue of her career machinations any more than I did about your love and admiration.
But I am deeply invested in not buying into your #MeToo incarnation, any more than all the PTSD all of us were forced into by you and Bill for your short term jollies. Leave me alone.
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https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/02/monica-lewinsky-in-the-age-of-metoo
BY MONICA LEWINSKY
MARCH 2018
.... A student of Karma, I found myself seizing the moment. Whereas a decade ago I would have turned and fled the restaurant at the prospect of being in the same place as this man, many years of personal-counseling work (both trauma-specific and spiritual) had led me to a place where I now embrace opportunities to move into spaces that allow me to break out of old patterns of retreat or denial. ....
And the 20th anniversary of an annus horribilis that would almost end Clinton’s presidency, consume the nation’s attention, and alter the course of my life. ....
...a person who has been gaslighted.
To be blunt I was diagnosed several years ago with post-traumatic stress disorder, mainly from the ordeal of having been publicly outed and ostracized back then. ....
"I'm so sorry you were so alone.” Those seven words undid me. They were written in a recent private exchange I had with one of the brave women leading the #MeToo movement. ....
...I am unpacking and reprocessing what happened to me. Over and over and over again. ....
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He ain't invincible, peeps: He "almost died" when the Access H'wood tape surfaced
Here's what I don't get: We keep hearing how he fumes, explodes, is FURIOUS, whatever, then out here in public he seems implacable. When he's "interviewed" by a friendly, he's chatty and yearning and like a puppy dog. What mood swings are these?!1 So Billy Shrub took all the life changing hits over the Access Hollywood tape, while SHITLER looked like nothing fazed him. Yet now we hear from one of SHITLER's co-predators that SHITLER was really really affected by the H'wood tape. In the interests of transparency we need to see the behind-the-scenes SHITLER in public!1
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https://www.thedailybeast.com/steve-wynn-donald-trump-almost-died-over-access-hollywood-tape
In leaked comments of his pleas for support after claims of sexual misconduct, Steve Wynn confided to employees how his buddy in the White House dealt with his own bombshell.
.... According to Wynn, Trump talked about how difficult he found the election campaign—saying he wouldn’t have done it if he’d known how hard it would be — and addressed the Access Hollywood tape that nearly brought down his campaign a month before Election Day. ....
.... Talking about the Access Hollywood leak, Wynn recalled Trump saying: “It was so scary. When those tapes came out, I almost died.” ....
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Counting/ranking SHITHOLE's deplorablenesses: How many enough, the NIEMOLLER scale:
(Anybody pooh-poohing the Nazi analogies, please skip past here. Thanks.)
Seems like decades since the SHITHOLE inflicted himself on the country, am trying to remember everybody he has deprecated, insulted, marked for hatred,
He started with the Mexicans. Who else, veterans, Gold Star families, (add on here, my memory's failing...)
Counting/ranking is why I'm making the NIEMOLLER analogy:
1) I despised him from before I ever imagined he would inflict himself on the country. He was a George BABBITT - absurd, ridiculous, a non-entity.
2) When I saw his shirts & ties at Burlington's I would turn my face and entire self away.
3) I checked into his t.v. crap the same as I did the KARDASHIAN crap, to keep up with the basics of pop culture, and ended in about 2 seasons with the estimation: CRAP.
4) I thought I could dismiss him, including in the early times he was threatening to run for Prez.
5) Even when he made the absurd DESCENT on the (de-)escalator, I thought we were safe.
6) When he took the Repuke nomination I still thought we were safe.
7) Election night, you know.
8) The daily outrage ensued.
9) I've had it with daily outrage. There is no reason/cause for anybody to credit anything he says, he's ignorant about policy and a complete liar.
10) Forget his 33 1/2% supporters, his Repuke office holders are despicable for supporting him for their own power and greed and most of all for their using him as a tool, since he has no agenda but they have theirs.
So, what this is about: We have always known what a piece of Roy COHN filth he is. We don't need to obsess and be outraged over every NEW example of what a piece of filth he is. We know enough. We knew enough a long time ago.
The NIEMOLLER screed is addressed these days to the unscrupulous Repuke politicians who keep supporting him.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...
is a poem written by German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984). It is about the cowardice of German intellectuals following the Nazis' rise to power and subsequent purging of their chosen targets, group after group. Many variations and adaptations in the spirit of the original have been published in the English language. It deals with themes of persecution, guilt and responsibility. ....
Martin Niemöller was a German Lutheran pastor and theologian born in Lippstadt, Germany, in 1892. Niemöller was an anti-Communist and supported Adolf Hitler's rise to power at first. But when Hitler insisted on the supremacy of the state over religion, Niemöller became disillusioned. He became the leader of a group of German clergymen opposed to Hitler. In 1937 he was arrested and eventually confined in Sachsenhausen and Dachau. He was released in 1945 by the Allies. He continued his career in Germany as a clergyman and as a leading voice of penance and reconciliation for the German people after World War II. His statement, sometimes presented as a poem, is well-known, frequently quoted, and is a popular model for describing the dangers of political apathy. ....
The best-known versions of the speech are the poems that began circulating by the 1950s. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum quotes the following text as one of the many poetic versions of the speech:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. ....
Niemöller created multiple versions of the text during his career, but evidence identified by professor Harold Marcuse at the University of California Santa Barbara indicates that the Holocaust Memorial Museum version is inaccurate because Niemöller frequently used the word "communists" and not "socialists." The substitution of "socialists" for "communists" is an effect of anti-communism, and most ubiquitous in the version that has proliferated in the USA. According to Marcuse, "Niemöller's original argument was premised on naming groups he and his audience would instinctively not care about... The omission of Communists in Washington, and of Jews in Germany, distorts that meaning and should be corrected."
Niemöller's earliest speeches, written in 1946, list the Communists, incurable patients, Jews or Jehovah's Witnesses, and civilians in countries occupied by Nazi Germany. In all versions, the impact is carefully built up, by going from the "smallest, most distant" group to the largest, Jewish, group, and then finally to himself as a by then outspoken critic of Nazism. ... ....
A 1955 version of the speech, mentioned in an interview of a German professor quoting Niemöller, lists Communists, socialists, schools, Jews, the press, and the Church. ....
Nonetheless, the wording remains controversial, both in terms of its provenance, and the substance and order of the groups that are mentioned in its many versions. While Niemöller's published 1946 speeches mention Communists, the incurably ill, Jews or Jehovah's Witnesses (depending on which speech), and people in occupied countries, the 1955 text, a paraphrase by a German professor in an interview, lists communists, socialists, "the schools, the press, the Jews, and so on", and ends with "the Church". Based on the explanation given by Niemöller himself in 1976, this refers to the German Protestant ('Evangelische') Church, and not to the German Catholic Church.
However, as claimed by Richard John Neuhaus in the November 2001 issue of First Things, when "asked in 1971 about the correct version of the quote, Niemöller said he was not quite sure when he had said the famous words but, if people insist upon citing them, he preferred a version that listed 'the Communists', 'the trade unionists', 'the Jews', and 'me'." ...
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My stages of TWITLER Grief
* Way back, before there was any imagination that TWITLER would inflict himself on us in our civic life, I detested him but as a gnat. I had checked out his t.v. circus and had dismissed him as a clown. When I shopped at Burlington's I would be revulsed at seeing his shirts and ties.
* So when he started his flirting with running for prez, I scoffed.
* Then when he finally did it, the descending elevator crap, I was shocked at the audacity but dismissed it as a stunt that nobody could ever give credence to.
* But when he took the nomination, I detested him for all the easily-Googled crap about his detestable life, the mob cartel life, the Roy COHN protege crap, all of him.
* There was ALWAYS so much *known* about what a repulsive, detestable crap-heap he is, and my stage was to be OUTRAGED over him.
* But all the knowledge was always out there. I never needed to KNOW MORE, always KNEW *enough*.
* Yet, here he is.
* And now with the tabloid book adding more and more crap-knowledge, I don't need more, always KNEW ENOUGH to detest him and be repulsed by him.
* So where I am now: The nugget of truth is what Senator TURTLE said: "He'll sign anything we put in front of him." It's what all the yakkers have been saying, that he's "not ideological," that he doesn't KNOW anything about policy, that it doesn't matter what he SAYS, that he can't be BELIEVED, and most of all, what Senator TURTLE said, he's useful for them who HAVE agendas because they can do ANYTHING THEY WANT.
He, as a human/person/player is irrelevant because why talk/report/deal with somebody who is ignorant, is a liar?
Updated my old Demopedia entry on Tweety to expand on his "juvenile" Catholic school boy misogyny
NEW: paragraphs 4, 5, 6.
Etymology of "Tweety". During Campaign 2000 the media noise machine was swooning over the nicknames Shrub was giving some of them. Media Whores Online ran a contest to nickname Chris MATTHEWS. In the first three or so weeks, there was no clear, catchy front runner, with "The Screamer" sort of leading. Then one of MATTHEWS's own Hardball staff leaked to MWO that they themselves called him "Tweety" because of the Clairol shade of hair coloring he favored. This was immediately declared the winner. But in some quarters, it wasn't entirely satisfactory. For one thing, by the time the name was declared, the shade had changed to platinum, leading to a suggestion he be called "Carole LOMBARD".
Plus, "Tweety" sounded too affectionate.
His Misogyny. Then M-TV held its 20th or 25th or whatever anniversary, and all the cable echo chambers were doing segments of Britney shedding her duds down to almost nothing. Not to be left behind, Tweety followed suit, with a guest "culture" commentator from Time Mag, the young humor columnist, Joel STEIN. The staff kept re-running the Britney clip, and Tweety was clearly DROOLING disgustingly. STEIN said, "You're beginning to creep me out." Tweety responded, "Yeah, well, wait till YOU're 50." This led to the suggestion that "Tweety" be modified to "Tweezer" to retain the hair reference while canceling out the affection factor and also adding the (dirty old) "geezer" angle.
Back when, misogyny was a wink-wink/smirk-smirk thing among the old style flunkies like him, there were many examples of his, with HRC being his prime target for years until she was becoming a real contender, when he yearned to host her, but the bridges had been burned.
But here's a vignette from back in the day, regarding his wife Kathleen. He deigned to host her or let her co-host a segment or so, this time with him and another recycled miscreant Mike BARNICLE. She was standing like at the front of a class and they two were sitting like the smirking, spit-balling, Catholic schoolboy-jerks that they really are. She trudged through her presentation, taking her subject seriously while the two of them smirked, giggled, and mocked all the way. But regarding Kathleen, he exemplifies one signature characteristic of misogynists: Despite the obviously hostile behaviors, they claim to adore, honor, put-on-a-pedestal women. And Tweety frequently does that over-compensating, protests-too-much thing by referring to her as, "MY QUEEN."
*************So flash forward decades to the TWITLER atrocious era, specifically calling Senator WARREN “Pocahontas.” Tweety hosted her soon after a TWITLER episode of it, besides a manic outburst of his sputtering interrupting, almost giggling every time he said that name, catching himself each time then protesting that it was a horrible thing, like Beavis/Butthead giggling at a dirty word. So WARREN kept to the high road and that TWITLER was not going to silence her. So then he struck, like when he lashed out at DONAHUE. He was in bursting giggle mode and said, "So, for you 'Pocahontas' will be like a clarion call for you to come charging out!1" and he busted his gut. WARREN looked sucker punched.
Darrell HAMMOND "Doing" Tweety on SNL. Tweety's ego was massively stroked after the debut of HAMMOND's impersonation of him, either in 2001 or 2002. He said, "I am now an ICON: I have been 'done' on Saturday Night Live'." The funniest line in the debut was HAMMOND as Tweety, cracking himself up with, "For the ... FIFTY ... people who watch this show...” (Hardball, not SNL). In the first few times HAMMOND featured him, the target was Tweety himself -- manically interrupting, spitting, and drooling. However, the characterization evolved, not true to the original, where Tweety became the "rational" character surrounded by oddball, extremist "guests", with HAMMOND-Tweety shaking his head in disbelief at their partisan spin.
"Turning" from Being a Democrat. He (like G.E.RUSSERT and Pat CADDELL) still trades on having been a Democrat in the CARTER/O'NEILL era. In the hothouse of big time political flunkydom, STATUS and POWER come from the SUCCESS of your boss. RAYGUN kicked Tweety's bosses' rears, and Tweety gravitated to admiring that "success". When he started up his media career he was mentored by G.E. RUSSERT, who had himself already started "turning" by "reaching out" to LIMBOsevic and expending his formerly-Lib-bleeding-heart on those poor wingnuts who had been maligned and marginalized by the Liberal Elite, lo those many years. Tweety started doing video valentines to RAYGUN, promenading arm in arm with Nancy. He might have tapped into the frenzy of the FAKE impeachment, but "hatred of the CLINTONs" isn't what made him turn. The last time he was identifiably a Democrat was sometime around 1988 when Hardball (the book) was published. Throughout the year of Campaign 2000 he savaged the Dem candidate daily and went on to years of bromance over Shrub, renouncing any Democratic heritage. He said his parents were “cloth coat" (Rethugs), and that basically what first drew him to the Dem side was Irish-Catholic pride over JFK. Not ideology, not idealism. He said the reason he joined the Peace Corps was specifically to avoid going to Vietnam.
How Tweety "Executed" DONAHUE on MSNBC. Tweety was on his book tour for another one of his "books" (large type, wide spaces between lines, blank half-pages). It was in the jingoistic hysteria in the run-up to the illegal Iraq attack. The book was about supposed "Americanism" -- an American Civ 101 ripoff about books and movies and cultural stuff that are essentially American (think, "The Great Gatsby" ). So Phil welcomed him as a colleague and peer on Phil's MSNBC show for the full hour to plug the book. From the moment he appeared, there was a strange, deadly snake look in Tweety's snake eyes. Phil was walking around the audience, apparently not sensing anything, while Tweety was motionless, following him only with his eyes. Phil brought up something or other questioning blind, kneejerk jingoism, and Tweety STRUCK! He started out with venom dripping, "You see, THIS is EXACTLY what's wrong with YOU Liberals: You are NEGATIVE about this country, you find NOTHING good about it," and on and on. It took awhile before Phil figured out what was happening. Later, Phil, devastated and spent, was sitting at the table with Tweety and, weaker and weaker, did some of his trademark shoulder shrugging and arm waving. Tweety delivered the coup de grace, "What's THIS (mimicking the movements)??!! What's with the --APE-- movements???!" Days or a week or two later, Phil's cancellation was announced and took effect.
How Tweety "Triggered" a Gun Incident (re: Kathleen WILLEY). At the height of the FAKE impeachment, Ms WILLEY claimed that a mystery jogger had threatened her or her cat or somebody, with the insinuation that there was a CLINTON connection. Several months later, there was gossip that the jogger had been identified. Tweety hosted her and it appeared they had discussed the identity off camera. He tried mightily to get her to say the name on the air, which she wouldn't do. Finally, he himself blurted it out, "Was it (Name/Surname)?" She wouldn’t confirm it. Within days there was a bizarre incident, with the mentally disabled brother of Pat and Bay BUCHANAN going with a gun to the house of the supposed jogger named by Tweety, where there were only some foreign exchange students present. Later it was determined that the person Tweety named on the air had NOTHING to do with the supposed jogger incident.
"Heroes" Tweety and Tom DeLAY. In the aftermath of the 07-24-98 shooting of two Capitol police officers when the slain officers were duly eulogized and called heroes, Tweety latched on to this, the way we have seen him attempt to glorify himself in other instances: Like saying he was assigned to Africa in the Peace Corps and "WALKED THE SAME GROUND" THAT CHURCHILL had passed through. Or when he said, "I am an ICON! I have been 'done' by SNL!". So now that the Capitol policemen were being called heroes, Tweety came forward to say that HE had been a Capitol policemen, TOO, JUST LIKE THEM, when he was starting out. It turns out that he had worked a (temporary?) job for three months as that. In all the years before the officers were shot and eulogized, he probably NEVER referred to that job, most likely thinking of it as a rent-a-cop turn, until he could see in retrospect the glory that he had been DESTINED to from the beginning.
But he is not the only glory hog. When that incident was happening, the news of the moment reported that Tom DELAY had hopped a plane out of town and immediately turned around in Houston when the incident was over. This show of courage is why he has been dubbed, "Tom-DePLANE!-DePLANE!-DELAY".
But searches of countless news reports of that time show no mention of the hopping-the-plane. Only this is left:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm /... "...House members, many rushing out of town, did not have to remain behind. DeLay slipped out the main door of the Capitol less than 15 minutes after the shooting. He looked stricken. Asked if he'd seen anything, he said, "Did I ever. I don't want to talk about it." Aides rushed him into his waiting car. ...."
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KELLY had me sputtering at the talk radio, then Dana LOESH was orgasming over him
I've posted a few times, when KELLY was lauded YES-HERE for being the adult somehow reining TWITLER in, that when he was at DHS he was a brute on Border policy.
He's been turned into the aw-shucks Gary COOPER/John "Draft Dodger" WAYNE type of testosterone hero.
Listening to several minutes of his press conference one question led to another:
* Since when do chiefs of staff hold press conferences?
I don't recall any by Rahm EMANUEL, PANETTA, or any of the other ones, full list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_White_House_Chiefs_of_Staff
* Why does TWITLER have to use others as crutches for defending and explaining his fuck-ups - not to mention never facing real and extended questions himself, always having a hapless visiting head of state standing next to him, and yukking it all off without the semblance of actual thought?!1
* When did the CIVILIAN CONTROL of American government get superceded by military prototypes?
Viz., reporters getting "qualified" to ask questions according to being or knowing Gold Star families.
* Who has degraded the principles of American government, not to mention Gold Star families, more than TWITLER?
* Why does an unelected flunky (you, KELLY) have more First Amendment privilege than a congresscritter who was elected to represent the constituents, besides having a personal relationship with the deceased veteran and his wife?
* Why do wingnuts exemplified by LOESH believe that KELLY personifies American values by dint of his gender and the stereotypical physical characteristics of it and of degrading his dead son's memory?
***********I'm hoping for DUers to add on to this list better than I can sputter.
Brit HUME & HANNITY act out hypocrisy for wingnuts re WEINSTEIN vis a vis TWITLER/AILES/OREILLY
Among the many words wingnuts don’t “get”, hypocrisy and irony are prime, so the aforesaid boys do performance art (quoted below) as demonstration.
My theorem: When malefactors (bribery, chicanery, turpitude, et al.) who had been calling themselves “Democrats” before are revealed as malefactors, they forfeit even the semblance of any Democratic identity, since right action is a major component of being Democratic.
So, back when the Philadelphia “doctor” was murdering pregnant women and fetuses under the guise of abortions, the wingnuts gloried in calling him an “abortion doctor.” No. He was a serial killer who used medical techniques and an “abortion clinic” as his m.o., having nothing to do with Pro Choice. Same thing when a previously labeled “Democratic” congresscritter was found to have bundles of cash in his freezer, or whatever other criminals: They FORFEIT the *using* the Democratic party label.
So, WEINSTEIN trafficked in fashionable cash donations, but his nefarious personal perversions have nothing to do with actually being a Democrat.
This is to burst that balloon of glee the wingnuts have been riding over WEINSTEIN while they continue to be totally silent over AILES, O’LOOFAH, and above all TWITLER.
********QUOTE*******
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/brit-hume-seems-to-believe-weinsteins-sexual-assault-allegations-but-not-trump-or-ailes/
.... It’s almost shocking to see someone so skeptical suddenly seem this receptive — and this is where Hume’s intentions seem to shine through. The truth, as I see it, is that Hume doesn’t seem to give a damn about sexual assault victims and their allegations unless believing them is positive for his career, his media allies, or his political views.
As others have noted, it’s difficult to find moral distinctions between the accusations made against Weinstein or Clinton and Trump or Ailes, other than the fact that Weinstein and Clinton are Democrats and Trump and Ailes are Republicans. And this ultimately explains exactly why Hume chose now — and with Clinton — to suddenly believe victims of sexual assault.
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/hannity-slams-left-for-hypocrisy-on-weinstein-forgets-he-just-had-bill-oreilly-on-as-guest/
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/msnbcs-chris-hayes-shows-damning-montage-of-trumps-sexual-misconduct-allegations/
.... “The President of the United States, almost exactly one year ago the famous (sic) Access Hollywood was released, which we don’t need to play because everyone remembers that tape, but what is not always remembered is what happened right after that tape was released. Woman after woman came forward, nearly a dozen in all, accusing Donald Trump of inappropriate behavior and sexual assault.” ....
********UNQUOTE********
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