Conservatives Story About How Republicans Are Born Backfires Spectacularly

Anti-tax activist Grover Norquist seemed to think he had the perfect example to explain his problem with taxes, and to illustrate ― as he put it ― “how Republicans are born.”

On Sunday, the head of the conservative Americans for Tax Reform wrote on Twitter:



The post quickly went viral, but probably not for the reasons Norquist expected. Of the more than 4,500 comments, many explained exactly what the tax on that guitar would be used for.

Here are some examples:

TOON: THIS MODERN WORLD--Health Care Solutions

TOON: Tom Tomorrow on Trump's cabinet lovefest

Why acts like this shooter's are not just wrong but counter-productive & stupid

Assuming this guy had any kind of political motive, which is still up in the air.

Early on in the War on Terror, I wondered what the commies thought about terrorism, and stumbled across this quote by Trotsky. By citing it here, I imply to agreement with any other communist thought. It was just ironic that one of our enemies nailed this idea.

Before I read it, I was mystified by terrorism since if it was committed on the perpetrator's enemy's home turf, it would galvanize and unite the enemy's people who might otherwise have pockets sympathetic to their cause.

After reading this, these lone wolf acts seem stupid in terms of the effect on the perpetrator's side too:

"

When will someone in Congress start making noise about Trump's organized crime connections?

That part of it would be easier for the public to understand, especially the less educated, and still have the Russian connection.

The problem with playing the Russian government angle by itself is it could be spun as jumping the gun on diplomacy.

Obviously, asking for help to change the outcome of the election is worse than that, but low information voters don't tend to listen or read beyond the headline or tweet.

Being mobbed up is tougher to talk your way out of.

Gates Foundation failures show philanthropists shouldnt be setting America's public school agenda

This is an LA Times editorial.

Can the Democrats finally admit that letting billionaires dictate education policy ends up wasting taxpayer dollars and harms our kids?

Can't the Democratic Party pick at least a few areas like education for one, where donors don't pay set policy and the rest of suffer the consequences of their whims?

If they did so, they might win back the full enthusiastic support of teachers and parents of school age kids.

TOON: health care plans

Poll: Mass Media Has Duped Democrats Into Believing Russia Hacked Voting Machines

59% of Democrats believe Russia hacked vote totals in the US to give the election to Donald Trump though no credible evidence of that has been given.

Much like the 70% of Americans who believed Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11 even though Bush and most of the media were careful to never say this directly.

When Democrats say "Russia hacked our election" and low info voters don't dig into it, it sure sounds like they mean Russia hacked the vote doesn't it?

Is Trump financially compromised by his financial ties to the Russian mob and maybe even Russian government? Very likely.

Did Russia hacked some or all of the Democratic emails? Maybe (I'm willing to believe once intel agencies show their evidence).

Did Trump ASK Russia to hack emails? Definitely.

Should that be enough to get him impeached? Definitely.

So why mislead people?

What is the end game here?

Russia gave up communism decades ago. Whatever their sins, we've got allies who have done and are even doing the same or worse.

Who is demanding escalating tensions with Russia to the brink of war and probably farther?

How the hell will average Americans benefit from that?

And if that doesn't bother you, how do Democrats expect to win elections based on brinksmanship with a nuclear armed power when Hillary lost to Obama in 2008 because he was perceived as the more anti-war candidate?

...These corporate media outlets fell all over themselves last week in a mad scramble to make sure that everyone in America felt dirty and ashamed if they took any interest in the Seth Rich case, but they have expended exactly zero energy correcting an outrageous, xenophobia-inducing fact-free conspiracy theory that they themselves helped promulgate, and which is far more widespread than interest in the Seth Rich case has ever been. This proves beyond a doubt that the false belief that Russia literally hacked America’s voting system has been intentionally inflicted upon the public by the mass media propaganda machine.

In late 2003, half a year after US and coalition forces invaded Iraq, a poll by USA Today found that 70 percent of Americans still believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11. They didn’t believe this because the mass media was directly saying “Saddam did 9/11”; they would have lost the public’s trust if they’d directly promulgated such an outrageous falsehood. The public subscribed to this false belief because corporate media reporters consistently mentioned the September 11 terrorist attacks in the same breath as they mentioned the falsified intelligence reports stating that the Iraqi government had weapons of mass destruction and intended to facilitate their use on American soil. This misperception successfully manufactured public support for a regime change invasion that claimed the lives of a million innocent Iraqis.

In exactly the same way, reports and headlines marrying the words “election” and “hacking” have deliberately created this misperception among liberal Americans. Establishment politicians have been using their mass media-aided platforms to advance this false narrative as well, with corporate Democrats like Cory Booker openly claiming that Russia directly undermined the ability of Americans to express their opinions at the polls, as in this Facebook video which received over a million views...

In order to escalate tensions with a nuclear superpower for nothing but geopolitical power that benefits no one other than a few plutocrats, America’s power establishment needs to manufacture the consent of the governed. Without that consent, they’d be dealing with 320 million angry, heavily-armed Americans who’ve got a problem with the way their government is risking their lives by playing nuclear brinkmanship with NATO troop amassment long the Russian border and a needless military presence in Syria.

Without the mass media propaganda machine, it would never in a million years occur to any American that any of this is normal. It would never occur to normal Americans that they should worry about some icy potato patch on the other side of the planet unless the media was constantly telling them it’s attacking their democracy. It would never occur to normal Americans that their government should be involving itself in the affairs of other nations while they themselves face growing poverty and go without healthcare. The insane behaviors of the US oligarchs would never be consented to without the constant assurance of the oligarch-owned media conglomerates that this is all a perfectly normal and healthy way to go about life.

https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/poll-mass-media-has-duped-democrats-into-believing-russia-hacked-voting-machines-e0cd0e7e9d17