Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Second rate reporter says what?

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

No one could have predicted…

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

I was promised a recession.

People are complicated. Love is not.

You are here: Home / Politics / An Unexamined Scandal / Thursday Morning Open Thread: Some Dare Call It Treason

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Some Dare Call It Treason

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As perceived by the ex-CIA, #NeverTrump candidate in 2016:

There’s an old political story about LBJ deciding not to run for reelection once the major news media started reporting unvarnished details about the ongoing war in Vietnam: “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.” Trump has only been in office for two months, but he’s already lost at least two Very Serious Media Voices. Thomas Friedman, aka ‘the Moustache of Understanding’:

… The last time our country faced such a cancer on the presidency, the Republican Party’s leadership stood up and put country before party to get to the truth. But today’s G.O.P. is a pale imitation of that party. With a few exceptions, it has declared moral bankruptcy and abdicated its responsibility to draw any red lines for President Trump…

If you say and do nothing when the nation’s leader smears his predecessor — and then maintains his fantasy as fact — not only will he never have the credibility to call on any other country to uphold the highest standards for rule of law, democracy and human rights, but neither will all of you. We will become a lesser country and the world a more dangerous place.

Friedman’s fellow NYTimesman Nick Kristof:

The greatest political scandal in American history was not Aaron Burr’s shooting of Alexander Hamilton, and perhaps wasn’t even Watergate. Rather it may have been Richard Nixon’s secret efforts in 1968 to sabotage a U.S. diplomatic effort to end the Vietnam War.

Nixon’s initiative, long rumored but confirmed only a few months ago, was meant to improve his election chances that year. After Nixon won, the war dragged on and cost thousands of additional American and Vietnamese lives; it’s hard to see his behavior as anything but treason.

Now the F.B.I. confirms that we have had an investigation underway for eight months into whether another presidential campaign colluded with a foreign power so as to win an election. To me, that, too, would amount to treason…

In the past, as when foreign funds made their way into Bill Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign, Republicans showed intense interest in foreign interference in the political process. So it’s sad to see some Republicans (I mean you, Devin Nunes!) trying to hijack today’s House investigation to make it about leaks.

Really? Our country was attacked by Russia, and you’re obsessed with leaks? Do you honestly think that the culprit in Watergate wasn’t Nixon but the famed leaker Deep Throat? Republicans should replace Nunes as head of the House Intelligence Committee; he can’t simultaneously be Trump’s advocate and his investigator.

The fundamental question now isn’t about Trump’s lies, or intelligence leaks, or inadvertent collection of Trump communications. Rather, the crucial question is as monumental as it is simple: Was there treason?

We don’t know yet what unfolded, and raw intelligence is often wrong. But the issue cries out for a careful, public and bipartisan investigation by an independent commission.

“There’s a smell of treason in the air,” Douglas Brinkley, the historian, told The Washington Post. He’s right, and we must dispel that stench.

Reader Interactions

124Comments

  1. 1.

    Van Buren

    Seems like our only hope is for the media to persuade Real America that Something Must Be Done.
    I think we’re fucked.

  2. 2.

    bystander

    Evan McMullin:

    Republican leaders have a choice: cover for Trump or protect the Republic.

    How about the choice McMullin faces? Stay a repub or refuse to be in confederacy with traitors?

  4. 4.

    bystander

    Anybody else get the feeling Tillerson is working with some sense of urgency? And the motivation is not whirled peas.

    ETA Morning, all!

  8. 8.

    trnc

    Sorry, I started reading the Friedman article but had to stop when he appealed to Tillerson because he “ran a large company.” But I probably wouldn’t have made it much further anyway, because who the hell is Friedman to lecture anyone?

  10. 10.

    Mustang Bobby

    @rikyrah: And also to you.

    There’s an old political story about LBJ deciding not to run for reelection once the major news media started reporting unvarnished details about the ongoing war in Vietnam: “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.”

    If Trump loses Fox News, he’s fucked. But that’s not gonna happen, and even if they abandon him, Trump won’t believe it.

  11. 11.

    NotMax

    What have we become?

    A 15-year-old Chicago girl was apparently sexually assaulted by five or six men or boys on Facebook Live, and none of the roughly 40 people who watched the live video reported the attack to police, authorities said.
    [snip]
    Investigators know the number of viewers because the count was posted with the video.… Source

    And what sort of barbarously twisted mentality would motivate someone to post it?

    (And yes, am old enough to remember Kitty Genovese, from which people apparently learned nada.)

  12. 12.

    Jeffro

    @bystander: @Baud:

    If he steps outside the tent then he’s just another one of us not-real Americans… personally I think it’s great to see him standing up and speaking so directly about what is going on, and what needs to be done.

    It would be great to see some of our up-and-coming national Democratic figures use this point in time to speak directly to the American people about what has happened here, and the need to press Congress for action.

    Take John McCain up on his offer… join forces with any sane Republicans that might be left (like McMullin)… let’s get going here , the IC can’t do all the work .

    Senators Harris, Booker, Gillibrand: it is time to summon your inner Reid or Obama and get a move on.

  16. 16.

    TriassicSands

    Republican leaders have a choice: cover for Trump or protect the Republic.

    For a Modern Republican that isn’t even a moderately difficult choice. Screw the Republic.

  17. 17.

    BlueDWarrior

    @NotMax: The bystander effect gets even worse on the internet, because there isn’t even the ‘psychic’ pressure you feel from watching something happen and knowing there are other people in your physical presence also watching it.

    I am not sure if we are so much seeing people becoming more depraved; more that that we are finally learning what the actual breadth of our depravity is. So many things were hidden because they couldn’t happen in a way we could record it, and now we can.

    Another chance to use the old saw, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

  19. 19.

    Woodrowfan

    @NotMax: The Kitty Genovese story turns out to have been exaggerated and full of errors. Wikipedia has a decent summary with some good links…

    …that does not change the horror of this story though. A couple years ago or so I was witness to a serious multi-car accident. I sat on some grass nearby waiting my turn to talk to police and I remember a car full of young people pointing and laughing as they passed the accident. It still gives me the chills as they seemed to think it was one of the funniest things they’d ever seen…

  20. 20.

    Baud

    @Jeffro:

    he’s just another one of us not-real Americans…

    Good. I’m tired of pretending we are second class citizens.

  21. 21.

    SFAW

    @TriassicSands:

    Republican leaders have a choice: cover for Trump or protect the Republic.
    For a Modern Republican that isn’t even a moderately difficult choice. Screw the Republic.

    Yeah, they read that choice as “Protect the RepublicAN”

  23. 23.

    SFAW

    @BlueDWarrior:

    Another chance to use the old saw, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

    Were Walt Kelly still alive, he might have retired Pogo by this time, out of frustration, or a desire to keep his sanity.

    Either that, or he would have been on fire, because it’s a target-rich environment.

  24. 24.

    debbie

    Nunes must lose the chairmanship. I’ve liked what Schiff has had to say, but he needs to say more. He needs to use that T-word for what Nunes has done.

  25. 25.

    Brachiator

    Trump has only been in office for two months, but he’s already lost at least two Very Serious Media Voices.

    The major difference is that there ain’t no Conkrite today. Trump could lose all the Beltway pundits, Fox News and FaceBook. His ego does not depend on them, and ultimately he is a creature of his own id.

    The Congressional Republicans will continue to support him because he continues to be useful to them. And right now, the Republicans also believe that gerrymandering and the vast wealth of the Koch Brothers, the Mercers and the rest of the plutocracy makes it difficult for anyone to dislodge them.

    The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy watched LBJ and Nixon stumble, and think that they learned to avoid their mistakes.

    Trump can be toppled and the GOP can be stopped. It’s just going to be harder.

  26. 26.

    Lalophobia

    @BlueDWarrior: Yeah. I mean we once had various monstrosities intrinsic to our potential as a people enshrined in law and protections everyone deserves not (and still not) enshrined in law. We know from history, if given the chance, what will thrive and spread and choke out the fruits and flowers in our garden. The trick is to never let up on the weeding.

  27. 27.

    Mustang Bobby

    Either Nunes is really stupid or he did it deliberately just to blow up the investigation knowing that the Very Serious People would spend the next few news cycles on the process and not the story itself.

    I’d go with the stupid option.

  30. 30.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Brachiator: Trump and his merry band of zannies are using the Nixon playbook and they think the only problem was that Nixon got caught; the problem is that Nixon, given all his faults, was a smart and skilled politician. Trump is neither.

  37. 37.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Brachiator:

    The major difference is that there ain’t no Conkrite today. Trump could lose all the Beltway pundits, Fox News and FaceBook. His ego does not depend on them, and ultimately he is a creature of his own id. The Congressional Republicans will continue to support him because he continues to be useful to them. And right now, the Republicans also believe that gerrymandering and the vast wealth of the Koch Brothers, the Mercers and the rest of the plutocracy makes it difficult for anyone to dislodge them.

    Exactly. Comparing the media landscape then and now is apples and oranges.

    Congressional Repubs will only abandon Twitler should his numbers *among Republicans* tank. They stuck by Dubya thru thick and thin…until his numbers started tanking among Republicans post-Katrina. They don’t give a shit about how he polls among anybody else because, as you say, gerrymandering and black money are ultimately what keeps them in power.

  39. 39.

    SFAW

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    President Nixon died in 1994(that’s what his headstone said when I saw it last Saturday).

    That’s what they WANT you to believe. He’s actually running things from the same island where Elvis is staying.

    You probably thought Bobby Ewing was actually dead in Season whatever.
    Amateur

  43. 43.

    Hal

    Trump has only been in office for two months…

    Trump has only been in office for two months…

    Trump has only been in office for two months…

  44. 44.

    Brachiator

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Trump and his merry band of zannies are using the Nixon playbook and they think the only problem was that Nixon got caught; the problem is that Nixon, given all his faults, was a smart and skilled politician. Trump is neither.

    Nixon appeared before the American people and said, “I am not a crook.” Trump has not divested himself of his companies, installs his family as White House operatives as they continue to work for his business interests and has the Republicans in Congress working hard to provide cover.

    Trump doesn’t need the Nixon playbook. Nor does he have to be smart. And right now, he still has the dopes who make up his base strongly behind him.

  46. 46.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @MattF: Goldwater was Nixon’s friend, when he went to the White House and told Tricky Dick that the jig was up, Nixon resigned.

    I always wonder how a young lawyer like John Dean got the job as White House counsel, he was a friend and classmate of Barry Goldwater Jr.(my Congresscritter at the time).

  48. 48.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Brachiator: They have lots of video displays of Nixon saying stuff at the Nixon Library, not once did I see that clip.

    Dolt 45 has a base, his true base, of about 19% of the country. These are people that if he told them the sky was pink, they could go outside and see the sky is blue, and still say the sky was pink.

  49. 49.

    Vhh

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Goldwater said he personally loathed Nixon as the most devious man he had ever known. From whst I have read, Goldwater was straight up, not given to shiftiness.

  52. 52.

    Tokyokie

    @bystander: Well, McMullin has another choice: He could remain a Republican and decide to run against that piece of crap Chaffetz. (McMullin lives in his district.) I’d be OK with that.

  60. 60.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    Congratulations, Republicans!

    You just elected a traitor to America. Feeling proud?

    I bet you are!

  61. 61.

    gvg

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: The internet Dick Nixon is a kind of satire by someone trying to demonstrate how much the republican party and officials have changed for the worse. I think it’s someone who actually knows the real history to do a pretty good job of staying in character but there is one flaw. Nixon acted within the political pressures of the time. It was political skill that kept him from doing some things, we have no way of saying what he would chose to do in this different time. Some things have gotten worse or we wouldn’t be here with Russia all over our politics. Other things are no longer permitted. Seriously in the 60’s I think this many Russian connections would have caused a real war to start even with the threat of nuclear. Of course both sides politicians wouldn’t have gotten to this point in the first place.

  63. 63.

    Mike in DC

    When we get word that one or more individuals under investigation are now “cooperating fully with the authorities”, look for Twitler to enter Permanent Freakout Mode.

  67. 67.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @Jeffro: I’ve been expecting McCain to put on his mavericky maverickson performance again because he’s a savant when it comes to knowing when to jump ship and lurch to the “principled” center and away from his own party. Trump is toast if McCain has bailed…he knew when the jig was up for W. If he’s bailing on Trump, nothing is going to save the cheeto Benito.

  69. 69.

    hueyplong

    @Mike in DC:
    “When we get word that one or more individuals under investigation are now “cooperating fully with the authorities”, look for Twitler to enter Permanent Freakout Mode.”

    As long as we’re taking requests, mine is that such a story appears today (while the health care matter is getting ready to come to a vote) and the story names Stone as the “rat” who is cooperating.

  72. 72.

    satby

    @rikyrah: Good morning!

    I’m not counting on it, but it seems like the word treason is being used by more of the kind of people the village finds creditable, not just us dirty hippies in blogs. That’s a tiny sliver of hope, because if Trump is taken out by that, even Pence is damaged goods and the whole party will be seen by low info voters as tarnished.

  73. 73.

    Kay

    I went to a school committee meeting last night. It’s the night where we invite county commissioners and city council so many of them came. They’re all Republicans here and the loudest county commissioner is a moron Trumpster who in my memory has never had a job. He lives on renting pieces of farmland he inherited.

    Our committee leader is a very nice man who is the CFO of the second largest employer. He’s Republican. He opened the meeting with his customary budget slides but halfway thru told the group that the local economy is very good. The local economy is very good. He can’t hire enough people to run as many lines as he would like to run and they are getting applicants from Kentucky. His employees are Teamsters and they’re paid a decent wage. The Kentucky hires can’t find rental housing and we have a lot of rental housing- it’s occupied. It really just doesn’t get better than this here. This has been true for a while- a couple of years. I laughed because he’s really earnest and he wondered aloud why Donald Trump keeps saying “no one” is working and he will “put them back to work”. He said “everyone is working- this just isn’t true”

    I was glad he said it but after he said it I realized a lot of the Trumpsters I meet aren’t really involved in the local economy in that direct way where they see ebbs and flows immediately. They are people who don’t work for various reasons- disabled, retired, or own some kind of income producing asset that doesn’t require actual work. The most committed Trumpster on city council is the wife of a police officer and she’s a stay at home mom. She’s always saying there is “no work” or “no one” is working and since this is so obviously untrue I used to wonder about it but I realize maybe she really doesn’t know.

  76. 76.

    SFAW

    @Kay:

    maybe she really doesn’t know.

    Isn’t that kind of a baseline assumption with Shitgibbonistas?

  79. 79.

    Nora

    I noticed that the New York Times on its front page, instead of noting that Nunes probably violated the law and almost certainly acted unethically in going to Trump with the information he used to “vindicate” Trump, went with the headline that he came up with an alternate explanation that supports Trump’s position. I guess the Times doesn’t think it’s anything out of the ordinary if the head of the committee investigating possible treason takes information to the person being investigated.

  82. 82.

    low-tech cyclist

    The last time our country faced such a cancer on the presidency, the Republican Party’s leadership stood up and put country before party to get to the truth.

    Even in July 1974, only 7 of the 17 Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee were willing to vote for impeachment, and it took guts for them to do so. And those 17 Republicans were the ones who’d spent the most time face-to-face with the evidence and knew how bad it really was.

    Goldwater was only willing to tell Nixon that the jig was up after the ‘smoking gun’ tape was released that showed that Nixon personally had been acting to cover up the money trail to the Watergate burglary just six days after the break-in, telling the FBI not to pursue it because it involved national security. At that point there was no argument: Richard Nixon would be found guilty of obstruction of justice, if he were to go on trial.

    So the Republicans weren’t all that devoted to the truth (or even Law And Order, if it concerned one of their own) back then – don’t fool yourself. But today’s GOP is still unimaginably worse, from the perspective of 1974, than it was then.

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Got ya beat; I was a 14 year old Youth For Nixon volunteer in 1968.

  83. 83.

    Shalimar

    @bystander: IIRC, the trillion dollar pipeline that Trump was paid in Rosneft stock to facilitate also involved Exxon, so yeah, there seems to be some urgency for Tillerson to get all of this oil diplomacy done before Trump explodes and it is no longer do-able.

  84. 84.

    Baud

    @Shalimar: I really can’t understand why any U.S. company would invest millions or billions of dollars into Russia now, knowing that unstable everything is given the uncertainty of the investigation into Trump’s Russian ties. There is a real risk of capital getting stranded there if things go south quickly.

  86. 86.

    Chris

    @What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:

    I’ve been expecting McCain to spend the Trump years doing his Mavericky Maverickson act for the cameras while not actually voting in any way substantially different from any other Republican, like he did in the Bush years. Asking that Congress (his own organization) be taken out of the picture and responsibility assigned to some other body seems consistent with that.

  87. 87.

    BlueDWarrior

    @Baud: Like a lot of people unfortunately, the people at the New York Times just cannot admit that an entire political party has either (A) been completely taken over by a foreign government, (B) completely gone insane, or (C) both A and B

  88. 88.

    Mustang Bobby

    @OzarkHillbilly: I was the “X” in the Nixon parade in Perrysburg, Ohio, in 1960 with my Cub Scout troop, but I later found out my parents voted for JFK. I was pissed… “You let me make a fool of myself for that crook?”

  90. 90.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: I can’t understand why anyone would invest in Russia knowing what I know of how Putin treats his *enemies*.

    **What constitutes a Putin enemy changes daily.

  92. 92.

    Mike R

    During Nixon’s early days of 1969, after he and Kissinger were preparing to end the war I was preparing for my second deployment to Vietnam. Fortunately someone found me an opportunity to go on a NATO training exercise for several months instead of heading west.

  95. 95.

    Kay

    @Nora:

    I don’t know but I sometimes feel like there’s an effort by “the institutions” to prop up other institutions. It’s comforting, right? The President isn’t a complete delusional liar, he just used the wrong formulation. They also bend over backwards to allow Trump more room to fuck up because Trump is unqualified. I myself think this is a huge mistake. Trump is unqualified but unless they want more unqualified people they should stop lowering the bar for him. Donald Trump is in way over his head – the consequences of that should be reported with no special modifiers on how he’s “not a politician”. He is a politician. That he went straight to the top is not my fault but the truth is he’s there so he should be judged ON THE JOB, not a lesser version of the job.

  96. 96.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Trump and his merry band of zannies are using the Nixon playbook and they think the only problem was that Nixon got caught; the problem is that Nixon, given all his faults, was a smart and skilled politician. Trump is neither.

    Except Nixon didn’t get got on his treason with the commies, Trump has.

  99. 99.

    Baud

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Seriously, would you do a deal with with a psychopath who kills his enemies whether they are a threat to him or not?

    Hard to say. I comment here regularly, so maybe I would take the next step.

  100. 100.

    Kay

    I’m assuming they are going to pass this health care bill in the House. The moderates who could break away don’t have enough power and the Freedom Caucus are the fucking Tea Party. The people here who are the biggest Trumpsters were also the most insane Tea Partiers. They’re excessive people. I bet they connect with Trump on “belligerence” and “stupidly repeating untruths over and over”.

  101. 101.

    Mustang Bobby

    @OzarkHillbilly: Oh, yeah. By ’64 they were out of the closet and they haven’t looked back. One of Mom’s requirements when they were looking for a retirement community was that it was populated with a fair amount of liberals. Even though they settled in Cincinnati, the heartbeat of Ohio Republicanism (Tafts still live there), they have found their fair share.

  103. 103.

    Chris

    @Kay:

    Conservatism thrives on obliviousness. It’s why a non-trivial number of its adherents do wise up if reality ever slaps them in the face – like those guys we were discussing here a couple years ago who refused to get on Obamacare, then got seriously sick, started a GoFundMe page where they got a lot of criticism for refusing to go on the ACA, and later said things that indicated they’d smartened up.

    Or for a simpler example, the people who change their minds about gay marriage when their precious little son/daughter comes out of the closet.

  104. 104.

    JPL

    @Kay: The pro-life party.
    I agree that it’s going to pass, and wouldn’t be surprised if it passed the Senate also.

  106. 106.

    Chris

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    True.

    Russia is not my field of expertise, but I’ve heard that Putin’s regime thrives on a sort of generic nostalgia for the past that doesn’t exactly specify what is meant by “the past.” (Make Russia Great Again!) And that a lot of supporters actually do look back to the Soviet Union as a time of better days, but that among his wealthier supporters you have people who even wax nostalgic for the days of the Czars.

  107. 107.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @satby:

    I did some door knocking for Humphrey,

    So did I! In deep red John Birch territory. We lost. Then my 16-year-old self campaigned for George McGovern. You know how that ended. I became pariah in my little town (apparently I was a person of dubious morals as indicated by my sketchy political leanings) and escaped at the first opportunity.

  111. 111.

    Captain C

    @BlueDWarrior: In the case of the Times, doing so would mean they’d have to admit that they’ve been aiding and abetting this trend since the mid-’90s.

  112. 112.

    PJ

    @Chris: Or the people who believe that drugs are only used by criminals, or minorities (practically the same thing with them), who change their mind about prison reform, or reform of drug laws, when its their innocent child who becomes addicted.

  113. 113.

    cmorenc

    @What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:

    @Jeffro: I’ve been expecting McCain to put on his mavericky maverickson performance again because he’s a savant when it comes to knowing when to jump ship and lurch to the “principled” center and away from his own party. Trump is toast if McCain has bailed…he knew when the jig was up for W. If he’s bailing on Trump, nothing is going to save the cheeto Benito.

    McCain only still has that kind of influential standing among the traditional beltway media and GOP establishment – who no longer control the GOP. Notice that Trump attracted a sufficient portion of the GOP base to win the nomination and election despite Trump’s sneeringly contemptuous insult to McCain’s war hero status as a seven-year captive of the N. Vietnamese. If McCain still had the kind of status and influence you ascribe to him within the GOP, Trump’s asshole-boorish comments about McCain would have sunk his candidacy immediately.

  114. 114.

    Chris

    @cmorenc:

    I don’t think the point is that McCain is a trendsetter, more of an indicator, though I don’t know if it’s true.

  115. 115.

    gene108

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Seriously, would you do a deal with with a psychopath who kills his enemies whether they are a threat to him or not?

    They are taking notes. In their black little hearts, they wish they had the power of Putin, here in America to crush dissent and be loved for hoarding absolute power.

  116. 116.

    lollipopguild

    @Chris: The folks who run russia have dreams of russia being great again without having to do any heavy lifting. .Russia has an economy about the size of Italy? If russia was run in the right way they -in theory- should have an economy that would allow them to be a major player for all of the right reasons. This is not going to happen because it is so much easier to steal almost everything than it is to build a healthy economy. Russia is a third world country with nukes.

  117. 117.

    bemused

    @Kay:

    I love your accounts of meetings and events in your area. Now I want to know how the rest of the meeting went.

  118. 118.

    Ronnie Pudding

    LOL to the notion that losing Freidman and Kristof is anything like losing Cronkite. I’m sorry, but few people care. Trump is still super popular among conservatives.

  119. 119.

    Elizabelle

    @Ronnie Pudding: conservatives are not reachable. They’re in fantasy land.

    But middle of the roaders are.

    I do agree that Friedman is nothing close to Cronkite. Kristof is a predictably liberal columnist.

    I think Rupert Murdoch and Rush Limbaugh should hang for what they have done to this country.

  122. 122.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @gene108: Indeed. Let’s not forget that in the story of Tianenmen Square (sp?) Trump came out on the side of the tanks!

  123. 123.

    Kay

    @bemused:

    Well, after that he had to explain that we have an 11 million dollar “surplus” so the city council start grumbling because we’re always asking everyone for money but then he has to explain that public school budgets aren’t like their personal budgets and the surplus is a good thing and doesn’t mean “cut taxes!” It means they can weather the uncertainty of the state budget which doesn’t come in until September. I wish I had his patience but I no longer do. I don’t feel like he should have to explain to adults that a public school budget is not the same as their personal budget and if you have an 11 million dollar surplus that means that it’s well-managed, not “waste, fraud and abuse”. They can’t run at a deficit, ever, it’s in and out, real money, so they keep quite a bit back.

    We need higher expectations – they have to try harder. No more explanations. This class is moving on :)

  124. 124.

    Brachiator

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    They have lots of video displays of Nixon saying stuff at the Nixon Library, not once did I see that clip.

    You’re joking, right?

    ‘Cause the “I am not a crook” clip is all over the place. Like here.

    Wait. Might make sense that the Nixon Library skipped it.

    Dolt 45 has a base, his true base, of about 19% of the country. These are people that if he told them the sky was pink, they could go outside and see the sky is blue, and still say the sky was pink.

    Trump and the GOP are going to work this base for all they can. Also, the conservative Establishment is backing Trump hard. It’s tighter than when Nixon was the LA Times’ best boy.

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