Night Owls, a themed open thread, appears at Daily Kos seven days a week
Driftglass writes—Over at True Conservatism HQ...
...it only took Republican strategist Mike Murphy and retired Rush Limbaugh imitator Charlie Sykes ten minutes to break out that old, reliable jug of Both Siderist popskull...
Murphy: ...well there's such corrosive cynicism. And you saw it on the Left with Bush... uh... uh...Blood for Oil, that's what it's all about! Y'know, there're...there're... there're...activists on either ideological side or...uh...I wouldn't even say if Trump is ideological. It's more of a cult of personality/populism. He's more Juan Peron than anything else. But they...they need chew toys to believe in. You know, simple unified field theories...
No matter how loudly the Never Trumpers may bark and bray about the awfulness of "Trump world" and "Trumpists," if they want to stay on good paper with the establishment media, they must eventually get around to reciting the obligatory "Both Siderist" shibboleth of the establishment media tribe.
It is their "Danegeld"—the tax or tribute that must be paid in order to stay in the good graces of the people who decide who gets to be on camera in front of millions of people and who gets to shout impotently from [the] peanut gallery.
Dare to publicly suggest that the fatal problem with American politics is The. Republican. Party. Period. and you risk a reduction in your status within the Insiders Clubs.
Dare to publicly suggest that the reason Donald Trump exists is because the Republican Party has been a shitpile of bigots and imbeciles for decades and that party and media elite damn well knew it and tacitly approved of it because it was winning them elections and making them wealthy and you will never be heard from again.
(Check out ProLeftPod.com run by Driftglass and Blue Gal.)
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“Education, if it means anything, should not take people away from the land, but instill in them even more respect for it, because educated people are in a position to understand what is being lost. The future of the planet concerns all of us, and all of us should do what we can to protect it. As I told the foresters, and the women, you don't need a diploma to plant a tree.”
~~Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and author of Unbowed (2006)
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At Daily Kos on this date in 2013—NRSC makes itself and Gomez ridiculous in Massachusetts Senate race:
This is just stupid. A super PAC created by California billionaire Tom Steyer, NextGen PAC, is talking about launching a campaign against Republican Gabriel Gomez in the Massachusetts Senate race with Ed Markey. Markey doesn't want anything to do with it and "has called on Steyer to stay out of the race." That's because Markey has signed a pledge (that Gomez has not signed) to limit outside spending in his campaign—the "People's Pledge."
With that established, enter the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), which sent out a press release whining that Markey "is the first to violate the 'People’s Pledge.'" You know, the pledge that isn't in effect because Gomez hasn't signed it. Which Markey couldn't technically violate because it isn't in effect, and because he's asked Steyer to stay out of it, and because it hasn't actually happened anyway because Steyer hasn't spent any money yet.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: It’s actually May 28th, 2019’s show, because Memorial Day. Bad New Bore Goes to Japan. Reminder: Trump's impeachable. More guns, more crime. Bannon meddles in EU elections from arm's length. "Jetset fascism." Suckers build MAGA guy a free fence.
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