So Trump could well have been found guilty and impeached at his first impeachment trial, in February 2020.Listen to Republican H.R. McMaster straight-up confirm the basis of the *first* Trump impeachment: that Trump stalled critical military aid for Ukraine to try to get election dirt on the Bidens. Sheesh. pic.twitter.com/YHVvA2cr9X
— Heath Mayo (@HeathMayo) August 25, 2024
"Do not go gentle into that good night. Blog, blog against the dying of the light"
Tuesday, August 27, 2024
Today's News: Show Me The Money! Why Trump wasn't impeached in 2020
Monday, August 26, 2024
Today's News: President of Joy
As the peaks of last week’s Democratic National Convention recede into memory I feel they are also at risk of gradually being submerged by the ocean of bullshit that will immerse us from now through Election Day...The joy and the energy that was supplied by last week’s events was due in large part to the fact that the messages of the convention were so damn straightforward that even the nattering of commentators and the counter-programming of the opposition and the disinformation of our enemies and trolls and bots and army of idiots on social media could not obscure them or diminish their power.
stop wasting Kamala’s time on bullshit, and maybe she’ll talk to you.
And Dems just wanna have fun -- we will, we will rock you!Three weeks into her presidential run was the first time the Biden campaign’s pollsters — now hers — held a deep-dive call with Kamala Harris’ inner circle to discuss what she’s been saying on the stump.Over the line came a lot of praise, but also some suggested tweaks. First, said veteran Democratic numbers man Geoff Garin, summarizing their analysis, stop saying, “We’re not going back.” It wasn’t focused enough on the future, he argued. Second, lay off all the “weird” talk — too negative.Harris’ advisers listened. They considered the arguments. They decided to stick with what the crowds were chanting in the arenas.When advisers who had been on the call briefed the vice president on the suggestions, according to CNN’s conversations with close to a dozen people involved with internal campaign decisions, she told them she wasn’t going to listen to the pollsters herself and would instead trust the instincts she had buried under self-doubt for so long.Harris has shocked even people close to her with how she’s been coming across in the just four weeks since she became a presidential candidate. Many political obsessives who had largely written off the vice president can’t understand how a woman whose early struggles they still keenly remember is now projecting as succinct and punchy, comfortable onstage and in her own skin.
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Sunday, August 25, 2024
Weekend funny stuff: from Escher to Hercules; from politics to CEOs; from ancient wonders to wonderful paintings; from funny maps to funny dogs; from dancing ostriches to Ted Lasso!
Here's a short look at politics with some compare-and-contrast posts:
Similar photos that are miles apart... pic.twitter.com/PSBWuU7Q1m
— Ab Gamble (@AbGamble1) August 20, 2024
He’s trolling Millhouse pretty hard. Keep up the good work PMJT! https://t.co/M0vd0BYFLK
— Christopher Byrne 🇨🇦🇺🇦 (@CBinVAN) August 20, 2024
Republicans have set up an asymmetrical system where Democrats are expected to be responsible adults and Republicans are expected to be petulant children.@briantylercohen captures this clearly in his new book -- Shameless. Buy it now. https://t.co/J5gZxAhy2u pic.twitter.com/Hp0sct7mPv
— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) August 16, 2024
Saturday, August 24, 2024
Today's News: RIP Expertise
Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) answers that question in his great book: "The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters" pic.twitter.com/LkyRZT7rdg
— Tony Fumano (@TonyFumano) August 20, 2024
The key phrase here is the sneering "23 letters behind her name." Experts are to be dismissed, in the Poilievre Conservative view of the world, not in spite of their expertise but because of it. https://t.co/5V8qE8XFlq
— Andrew Coyne 🇺🇦🇮🇱 (@acoyne) August 22, 2024
Friday, August 23, 2024
Today's News: Kamala Harris, the Serendipity President
FULL SPEECH: VP Kamala Harris delivers a historic and inspiring speech at the 2024 Democratic National Convention.
— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) August 23, 2024
Incredibly powerful and worth watching till the end. pic.twitter.com/4xMEkGCXqQ
I can't fathom someone who could watch Kamala Harris' speech tonight and justify voting for the other guy.
— John Pavlovitz (@johnpavlovitz) August 23, 2024
She is so far above and beyond him in intellect, character, faith, patriotism, and heart it's astounding.
She is what this nation needs.
Thursday, August 22, 2024
Today's News: "The audacity of our hope; the vitality of our vote."
American media don't know what to make of it - they have been reduced to inane "fact-checks" about whether Trump really exchanced love letters with dictators (he did) and whether maybe we should all be offended at Obama's dick joke (we won't be)....It’s not easy to be at the top and then hand the stage to the next great star. Much has been written about Joe Biden’s selflessness in this regard. But Hillary Clinton and the Obamas offered further examples that all those at the pinnacle of influence in the Democratic Party—every single one of them—are throwing their best efforts and energies into the support of the Harris-Walz ticket.What we are seeing is an unprecedented display of spontaneous, heartfelt party unity......all the quibbling I hear among some in DC about whether she will be more of an Obama or Biden disciple is just so much dirty bathwater. Kamala Harris will not be and should not be Obama 2.0 or Biden 2.0. She will be and must be Harris 1.0, something entirely new, elevated and informed by what has come before but not limited by it, unwilling to repeat past mistakes or to let nostalgia lead her to be blind to those errors.And so the flow of this convention is getting it exactly right. Its narrative arc is that of the Democratic Pary as it has entered the current era. And it will culminate in the nomination of someone who owes much to the leaders who came before her on the stage but who is very different, very much her own person, very much the reason that this convention and the campaign of the past four years feel unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.
If you've been watching the Democratic National Convention, the story of the week has been the almost unnerving positivity, unity, and competence of the Democratic Party as they make the formal handoff ending President Joe Biden's reelection and nominating Vice President Kamala Harris to be the new torchbearer.If you've been reading about the Democratic National Convention, however, your most likely takeaway from this week's events is that it has somehow managed to break our big-league media "fact checkers" completely.Because much of the "fact checking" that the press has scrambled to do, even as they ignore the ridiculous lie-a-paloozas that take place whenever Donald Trump opens his mouth, or surrogates of Donald Trump open their mouths, or partisan ultra hacks in Congress pipe up with new theories of "okay okay, our Joe Biden investigations were all duds but what if Governor Tim Walz something something communist spy," has been ... dishonest. Just straight-up dishonest.
🤣@jaketapper was trying to get messy about @BarackObama's hand gesture and @andersoncooper didn't have time for that. #cnn#DNC2024CHICAGO 🌊 pic.twitter.com/3YoPHj8Ez6
— WillBballin 🏀 🔥 (@willbballin) August 21, 2024
Did Tim Walz just conclude his historic speech by saying the Harris-Walz vision of America is basically the Liberal vision of Canada? Then they blasted Neil Young's Rockin' in the Free World? I'm pretty sure that's what just happened. Hey PP are you getting this? 🤣 🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/QqhawLQXFX
— AMC 🇨🇦 (@AMCinHogtown) August 22, 2024
The Democrats nominated Ted Lasso for VP.
— Gerald Butts (@gmbutts.bsky.social) Aug 21, 2024 at 11:42 PM
Wednesday, August 21, 2024
Today's News: Obama Nailed it!
Ok this is a perfect comedic delivery. pic.twitter.com/7ZOUaG9j19
— Jason Kander (@JasonKander) August 21, 2024
He did. And ‘stuck’ the landing, so to speak. https://t.co/4XjbvlS1T9
— Dennis Herring (@dcherring) August 21, 2024
And today Trump tried to counter the DNC by holding his own little event, at a Michigan town known for its KKK history.The moment that will haunt Trump til his last breath. pic.twitter.com/a9wkHqxE8M
— Brian McBride (@BrianDMcBride) August 21, 2024
UPDATE: I just saw this, too:"He was clearly trying to stay on message" -- CNN sane-washes an incoherent and unhinged Trump speech for the second straight day pic.twitter.com/Khy12RMwwr
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 20, 2024
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Tuesday, August 20, 2024
Today's News: "When we fight, we win"
The Democratic Convention speeches tonight were outstanding, but none so much as Biden's - Dark Brandon was in the house tonight, and unexpectedly, I found myself crying at the end - "America, I gave my best to you."
But already, America is moving on -- David Rothkopf writes that This is the first Convention of the Post-Trump era:Biden: America, I gave my best to you. pic.twitter.com/h5T3F2h7pd
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 20, 2024
The new Democratic "Freedom" ad speaks to this too - "when we fight, we win":...the big difference between the Biden Era and the Harris Era to come is that the Biden Era took place in a moment in our history when the specter of Trump and MAGA and the end of democracy and a national movement founded in hate and division was always near.... part of the genius of Harris’ approach to this campaign 2024 is that she has chosen to turn the page, to look to the future rather than to respond to Trump. While her opponent in this election is Trump and MAGA, she is running this campaign as the first post-Trump, post-MAGA campaign almost a decade.And this is the first post-Trump convention in that period. Old, tired, devoid of ideas, burdened by his horrific record and his many crimes, Trump is faint orange shadow of his former self. There is no doubt he must be stopped. But it is clear that the Vice President and the Governor of Minnesota understand that the way to stop him is to deny him the chance to set the terms of the election, to stop letting outrage at his antics and more grave threats be the core Democratic message and to say, “Enough. We will lead. We will set the terms. This is between us and the American people. We will not let extremists hijack our elections or threaten our system any longer. We will win by tapping into the idea of America that is shared by the vast majority of Americans. We will win by charting our own course.”It is satisfying to see a candidate who you believe in be celebrated. But I think it will be hard for anyone who is under say 40 or so to understand how deeply gratifying and reassuring it is to see the hopes and dreams you had for the future seemingly be restored, to see a reality you had only imagined come into focus, to be within reach.
Here is AOC's speech, who I am convinced will be the Democratic presidential nominee for 2040 (after two terms each for Harris and for Walz, AOC will still only be 52):DNC airs new “Freedom” ad to kick off the Democratic Convention pic.twitter.com/lXLqKi2rAN
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) August 20, 2024
AOC’s full DNC speech pic.twitter.com/4jHnHEl0mo
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 20, 2024
America is singing tonight:This is the best convention speech since Bill Clinton in 2012, and AOC is a huge asset to the Democratic Party
— Evan Scrimshaw (@EScrimshaw) August 20, 2024
This is 🔥🔥🔥 Kamala Harris is going to be the next president of the United States — and women in America are not going back. Trump and his fascist manifesto Project 2025 will not succeed in making women second class citizens. 🙌👏👊💪 #DNCConvention2024 pic.twitter.com/C4b1RGN7IV
— Bill Madden (@maddenifico) August 19, 2024
Monday, August 19, 2024
They pulled that creepy "morning in Canada" video? Oh, waaaahhhh!
The most unbelievable part of the very weird Pierre Poilievre speech video that The Conservative Party of Canada has now deleted, was that after showing footage of numerous other countries trying to depict Canada, the big finale was to say ...
— Roddy 🇨🇦 (@RodKahx) August 18, 2024
"We're Home."
Absolute farce.
Today's News: Kamala and Tim are cooking!
I wonder if they'll ever do it?On a side note, maybe Tim and Kamala could have a "hot dish" cookoff?
— Cathie from Canada 🇨🇦 😷🏳️🌈 🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@CathieCanada) August 16, 2024
With Martha and Snoop as the judges?
I'd be down for that!
If Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris wins the election in November, she may be the first president with a platform on dry-brining turkey.She's in favor, and also recommends a rub of butter and herbs under the skin...."I take it very seriously," Harris said about cooking ...When Harris was young, her mother told her she better learn how to cook, because anyone who loved food that much needed to know how to make it. As Harris became a national figure, she kept cooking. The vice president turned a passion for baking, broiling and sautéing, which might have sunk the prospects for female politicians of an earlier generation, into a political asset...
A Hotdish dynasty is born. Get the recipes here: https://t.co/VQrWFSWUq4 Thanks to @MinnesotaTurkey for producing the key ingredient!
— Fmr. Rep. Tim Walz (@RepTimWalz) May 11, 2016
“You know what ‘picante’ is for him?” @KamalaHarris quips about her running mate @Tim_Walz. “Black pepper.” (Harris likes spicy food.) pic.twitter.com/eIblwsJyEN
— Jeff Mason (@jeffmason1) August 10, 2024
I'm so excited about all the great food tips we will get from this ticket. Forget about running the country, I want a 24/7 Whitehouse cooking channel. https://t.co/1iSMPizagd
— EvanJellyCools4Harris (@JellyCoolHarris) August 18, 2024
Sunday, August 18, 2024
Today's News: Our wannabe Emperors
Is it me or does it feel like someone hit a switch and all of a sudden a whole lot more people in this country were like, "Oh, wow, yeah...Trump is f*cking nuts." And then his campaign just started to spiral.
— Rex Huppke (@RexHuppke) August 12, 2024
Meanwhile, in Canada:It’s never the wrong time to start doing the right thing. pic.twitter.com/X5cFY1QZ23
— Veterans For Responsible Leadership (@VetsForRL) August 17, 2024
The #FuckTrudeau flags aren't flying anymore:One month ago I would have said that the CPC had a stranglehold on a majority victory . Today.... not nearly so clear. Linked to Trump implosion? Harris charisma? Declining interest rates? Olympic buzz? Poilievre serial mendacity ? No idea but things have changed.
— Frank Graves (@VoiceOfFranky) August 17, 2024
Someone gave Prime Minister Trudeau some GREAT advice: Don’t release his travel itinerary until he has physically arrived at the event, location, or venue. 3rd Party Contractors who might be indirectly connected to conservatives are unable to mobilize “rent a crowd” to… pic.twitter.com/9RNGxqjRKU
— Clinton Desveaux (@ClintonDesveaux) August 17, 2024
Saturday, August 17, 2024
Weekend Reading Extravaganza: from Da Vinci to Venice; from maps to world wonders; from bridges to train stations; from rock history to Canadian history
Many aren't aware it's a mural, painted on the wall of a church refectory in Milan.
— Culture Critic (@Culture_Crit) July 30, 2024
It's survival today is a miracle — it came inches from destruction in WW2, and has faded so much that monks once felt happy to knock through Christ's feet for a new doorway. pic.twitter.com/AQEwurO2Jr
Friday, August 16, 2024
Today's News: "Poilievre delivered a plethora of lies"
Does Poilievre actually think community newspapers were operating back when Menes was the pharaoh of Egypt -- funny, because papyrus had only just been invented then; The Times of London wasn't founded until 1785. And, as Niagara Now says, it was the internet that has destroyed newspaper profits.Federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre doesn’t believe outlets that serve the nation’s “news deserts” deserve financial help to continue giving Canadians the important and accurate information that affects the areas they work and live.The man who hopes to be the next prime minister of Canada said the Local Journalism Initiative, which provides rural and small community news outlets with funding to hire reporters to cover specific areas outside the reach or interest of large media organizations, is nothing more than a sounding board for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s liberal government.“It is terrible … how local journalism has done under nine years of Trudeau,” he told The Lake Report in an interview last Thursday after speaking to a Conservative-friendly crowd at a NOTL food co-operative.“He’s tried to take it over and basically wants everyone to work for the government so that he can have regurgitated propaganda paid for by taxpayers.”News deserts — areas that have little or no regular news coverage — have grown enormously over the past 15 years as scores of newspapers have closed.Launched in 2019, the Local Journalism Initiative gives grants to independent publishers, such as The Lake Report.Those organizations then hire reporters to cover specific areas, such as agriculture or civic government. Those reporters have no connection to the federal government nor does the government tell the publishers what stories should be covered.Publications pick and choose what news items to cover without threat of reprisal from any form of government.The Lake Report, for example, often tackles issues that do not align with the federal Liberals’ agenda and messaging.Poilievre claimed the program threatens free speech and when asked what he would do with it if elected prime minister, he did not directly answer.“I am looking into it. But more important than that, the question is how do we bring back free speech,” he said.“The answer is journalists getting eyeballs so they can sell subscriptions and advertising, get sponsorships and do what media have done for, I don’t know, 3,000 years.”“How has the media funded itself for 3,000 years?” he asked. “Subscriptions, advertising, sponsorships. That’s how it has worked for 3,000 years.”Today’s journalists have to contend with the internet, where stories are often shared by people not trained in journalism and whose ethical standards or motivations may be suspect. Their work is often distributed free via social media and digital platforms.This practice, combined with online giants like Google and Meta sharing legitimate news items on their platforms without compensating publications for the content, has deeply dug into news organizations’ bottom lines.Poilieve seemed fine with letting what is often illegitimate news be the source of information for Canadians...
This Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre delivered a plethora of lies during his visit to NOTL, forcing The Lake Report to respond with the longest editorial it has ever published....There are a litany of problems with citizen journalism and Poilievre’s mindset that journalism is doing just fine because every Bob and Sue can post on Twitter is not appropriate for someone who wants to run this country.Run it into the ground is more like it.We realize this is probably the longest editorial we’ve ever published. Yet, it might be one of the most necessary editorials yet.Because one of Poilievre’s tactics is to throw out so much misinformation, that it’s almost impossible to fact check it all, especially on the spot.It’s why he often appears to eat journalists and other politicians alive. Because he’s on another planet and it’s almost impossible to have a rational conversation with someone who just makes things up.So it’s our duty as a free press — one that isn’t going to take anything at face value from any political party — to call out Poilievre’s dangerous lies. Or his inability to comprehend the truth.Either he’s lying to you and knows it. Or he’s just incompetent.And because he’s not a stupid man, it’s not hard to figure out. If you think critically about what he says.
Thursday, August 15, 2024
Today's News: Harris/Walz v. the national press
We wanted to know if the enthusiasm for Kamala Harris is real. So we talked to two Trump campaign officials at a golf club in Palm Beach.
— New York Times Pitchbot (@DougJBalloon) August 11, 2024
On his substack, Jeff Tiedrich writes hey media: Kamala doesn’t owe you jackals a press conference, so stuff it...A presidential candidate’s job is to win. That’s it! So pray tell, how does talking to The New York Times or any other national media outlet help that cause? Either journalists will ask ridiculous, shallow questions and waste everyone’s time, or they’ll fish for a gotcha quote they can use to generate “controversy” and clicks. Or they might actually ask a policy question, which … no one cares. Literally, no one. For decades, Democrats issued reams of policy white papers, and no one cared. At best, those policy proclamations are ignored; at worst, they become attack fodder for the other party.There are two candidates this election, and no one is basing their decision on the finer points of a policy platform. They are basing it on values. Republicans have known this and wielded it to great electoral success, and now Democrats are finally there.
...the Times has been pulling this crap for years. they pretend they want to “understand” an issue, so they round up five MAGA dipshits in an Arbys in Midland, Texas, listen to them pontificate on crap they know nothing about, and then write it up as here’s the scoop on what Real Amurricans think.just once, I’d love to see the Times round up five Harris fans in a Whole Foods in Greenwich, Connecticut and ask them what they think.but no, that would destroy The Narrative that it’s only the cOnSeRvATiVes fRoM tHe HeArTLand who are the “real” face of America.......hey, Washington Post, I’m demanding that you sit down for an interview with me. my first question is what the fuck are you doing, publishing this misogynistic twaddle?Without her beauty, Harris might be joining Biden in retirement. All you have to do is imagine her spoken words coming from a less-attractive package. Or put her on radio.Harris remains the person she has been for the past 3½ years: a sometimes bumbling beauty with a stride that conveys confidence if not precisely competence.I shit you not, this is from a Kathleen Parker hit job entitled “News flash: Kamala Harris is not a remake of Barack Obama.” Parker’s premise, in this Year of our Lord 2024, is that Kamala is a vacuous bubblehead who has been coasting on her looks.is Kamala now supposed to reward these journalistic jackoffs with a sit-down interview? I think not.news flash for our media:Kamala Harris does not owe you a press conference, and you have no right to demand one.let’s imagine that Kamala agreed to hold a presser tomorrow. we all know what would happen: it would devolve into a shit-show. the press would waste everyone’s time — and drop our collective IQ by three points — by asking worthless questions.“Madam Vice President, Donald Trump says you only recently became Black. what is your response?”who fucking cares? what fresh insight could possibly be gained by asking these kinds of questions? what’s Kamala going to say, that Donny’s a racist lunatic? we already know this. what would be the point of bringing up the toxic sludge that oozes out of Donny’s rancid anus-mouth“do you still have confidence in Tim Walz despite the controversy over his military service?”by the way, THERE IS NO CONTROVERSY. this is a 100% Republican smear job. stop legitimizing it by pretending it’s real.“when you were Border Czar—”the media and the wingnuts love this completely fictitious talking point: Kamala was in charge of the border and as a result, eighty skillionty illegals are now criming up a storm. they’re jimmying the lock on your frail old granny’s front door right now.fun fact: Kamala Harris was never a “border czar.” she was tasked with —leading diplomatic efforts to reduce poverty, violence and corruption in Central America’s Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.this mission has nothing to do with administering border policy — but Republicans decided that assignment somehow made Kamala the “border czar,” and voila — now it’s right-wing gospel.Kamala doesn’t need to cater to the banal Narrative of the national media. she’s been taking her case straight to the people, and the people fucking love her...
Don't let up on the support of Harris, folks.
— Rocky Mountain Views 🪷🌊 (@RockyMountViews) August 14, 2024
Hillary was ahead in the polls, too.
“When the Harris team wins and prevents the sudden death of American democracy, we can joyfully return to arguing over marginal tax rates and the role of government in healthcare…”
— Andrew Coyne 🇺🇦🇮🇱 (@acoyne) August 14, 2024
'Republicans for Harris' hold virtual rally for Democratic ticket https://t.co/bnhe0My1I4