First Franken and now Newsom and Cuomo. What a victory it will be for the Republicans if they can take out both Newsom and Cuomo, two of Party’s brightest shining stars. Both are media-friendly personalities, loved by the camera and critically tied to the Party’s future. At least they were. Sadly, like guppies, the Dems are so adept at devouring their own that it’s difficult to know to what degree and whether any one Dem politician is being targeted or is on a path to self-destruction.
It would be nice to see the Democratic Party to begin supporting its own, even if they’ve made some mistakes, as opposed to deriding and destroying careers. Moving forward with an air of self-assurance and strength rather than cowering in fear over one misstep or another. It’s what the Republicans do, and it’s worked for them.
You can be sure that had Franken been a Republican and not a Democrat, he wouldn’t have been treated like a felon, which is pretty much the position the Democratic Party took, steamrolling him into being the “Flat Stanley” of politics, even though Franken’s alleged “transgressions” took place before he had been elected to the Senate.
For many Dems, it appears forgiveness and second chances have become anathema. One wonders how many potentially great party members and future leaders will be scared off by Democratic purity tests. Is the Party at a point where saints only need apply?
Gotta get this down in writing before the devastation of the daily news-stream once again causes my brain to put up a wall to all incoming information as part of the intellectual prophylaxis that’s become a part of my new normal.
John McCain and Al Franken, were our nation’s political saving grace. One is now dead and the other was kicked to the curb. Republicans should be flogged for their rejection of McCain and their resulting dive into Fascism and Democrats, for what they did to Franken, cutting off their overly-PC collective nose to spite their overly-PC collective face.
These are things to consider, as the nation approaches 50,000 dead from the Cronavirus. A bug that might have been at least partially stopped, saving thousands of lives, had safety mechanisms put in place by the Bush and Obama Administrations been left where they were instead of being defunded by Donald J. Trump and his fascist friends with their crash and burn philosophy of non-governance. That is to say, the Bannon process, whereby you disassemble government, for, of and by the people, by defunding government, for, of and by the people, leaving the door wide open for corporate raiders and other fascist vultures to swoop in, compromising, cornering and coercing nearly everything in sight.
If you don’t want to pay taxes to support a federal or state government, then don’t complain when those same governments can doing nothing for you in a time of crisis. Which is precisely where we are.
How much of the $2.2-trillion bailout went to the very wealthy, who are in no need of a bailout, while Trump and his minions insist upon no oversight of the bailout process? According to Politico, the package contained “a $500 billion bailout fund for big businesses and a $170 billion tax break for real estate investors like the president. ”
In a very real sense, the tragedy of Covid-19 is a friend to the fascist greedheads who care only for themselves, led by a narcissist in the Oval Office who is now recommending that his medical advisors look into the possibility of injecting household disinfectant as a possible treatment for the virus while he, with his typical Roy Cohen-type diversionary nonsense, blames immigrants and Iran.
This is beyond stupid, it’s nuts. It no longer matters whether Trump actually understands what he’s doing or whether he is, as the Russians like to say, a “useful idiot.” Either way, the damage has been done. Anybody who isn’t awake enough to understand this yet has got to be in an intellectual coma. Why is anybody out there still supporting this Republican Party? Is it because their only news source is a single cable channel serving as Donald Trump’s private pipeline of belligerent blather? Or is it because the party is represented almost entirely by white men? Is that it? Fear born from racism with a healthy dose of sexism? What else can it be? These Republicans have given up on nearly every conservative economic principle ever conceived, so it can’t be that.
Kudos, to MSNBC, for bringing Al Franken back as a guest commentator. Intellectually vibrant free-thinkers like Franken, are part of the solution as we approach 50,000 deaths.
Currently, there are 49,963 and counting, adding to what will surely be the legacy of Donald J. Trump. The idiot man-child who slipped through an electoral college which failed the nation miserably, to support our enemies, betray our allies and generally just muck things up.
Is Michael Wolff really the author of this new book outlining how nutso Donald Trump is, or is that Mike Meyers doing his Dr. Evil thing? The resemblance is uncanny. Will the Donald, “He is like a child,” be able to fend off a major frontal attack by the evil one?
Whatever you might think of Wolff and his book “Fire and Fury,” it should be of interest that mainstream, credible reporters, have been checking with their White House sources to be told that generally the book gets it right. Donald J. Trump, is dangerously incompetent and possibly unstable. More than two-dozen mental health professionals wrote a book about that same frightening issue months ago. And that begs the question: Where are the Democrats? Remember those guys?
Trump’s fellow Republicans clearly care nothing for the common good of the country, only the good of their wealthy benefactors, as they support Trump’s ravings, cutting healthcare to the poor, opening the nation to more off-shore oil wells, mining in wilderness areas, the destruction of the EPA and huge tax cuts for the wealthy while they threaten to do away with Medicare and Social Security.
Where are the Democrats? Will they ever grow a spine? They should be at the forefront, screaming about Trump’s possible mental instability, his family’s admitted Russia connection and demanding that the Republicans begin impeachment proceedings in the House immediately. Or at least get the IRS to show us his tax returns. Some of us are still waiting.
Nothing much is at stake here, just the future of the country.
It’s one thing to stay out of the way as your opponent destroys himself. It’s entirely another to run away like scared little mice, holding your silence, while the nation remains in very real jeopardy from an executive inner-circle that resembles a Looney Tunes cartoon with Daffy Duck in the lead.
With the mostly silent Democrats going all weak in the knees before swooning and falling to the ground, it is perhaps fitting that none other than Dr. Evil should come to our rescue. Somebody had to do it. These cowardly Dems couldn’t even see to it that Al Franken was given the due process he deserved. Oh no, the party of the weak and neurotic was only too eager to help boot Franken out the door.
Can’t wait for Mini-Me to get here. With Donald, the Doctor will need all the support he can get. FDR, Teddy Kennedy and now even Al Franken are unfortunately, long gone.
Is it safe to say anything remotely good about Al Franken? Particularly if you happen to be a man and even with his record of support for women’s issues in Congress?
Is it safe to even suggest that he was abandoned by his party and apparently his base back in Minnesota, before being given a fair hearing before the Ethics Committee?
Is it safe to imagine that not each and every one of his accusers was credible, and seeing how the potential of what were mostly unproven accusations doesn’t come close to what’s been proven about the leadership on the Republican side, that his party and base should have withheld judgment until the Ethics Committee had been permitted to hold hearings on the matter, hearings Franken had requested?
Is it reasonable to even suggest that the Democrats have lost one of their best and brightest by their own hand, while the opposition continues to support and promote the very worst the Republican Party has to offer?
Perhaps Franken did some of what his accusers are saying. Does that merit treating him like a rapist, with the loss of his career, not to mention a future of being labeled a groping masher for the rest of his life? And there is no proof he groped anybody. There’s just a photo showing him mimicking a grope during an entertainment tour. Bad taste? Yes? But that’s all. Why is he being treated like a child molester? The woman making the charges is a right-winger, and she’s accepted his apology. Come on Democrats, get over it. There isn’t a man alive who hasn’t done something he doesn’t regret. In both parties.
It’s okay to suggest that men need to respect women and that there is a process going forward that will hopefully make us all better at respecting one another, but isn’t it also possible that Al Franken may have been crushed by a rush to judgment? Is it safe for Democrats who were so eager to abandon Franken to even discuss both sides of this issue while Republicans continue to say anything about anybody, no matter how outrageous, in their blind push to win?
Of course we need to listen to what women have to say, but we also have to try and determine whether some of those same women might be political operatives out to control the system by torpedoing careers.
You don’t win a political war by throwing one of your best fighters under the bus based upon a pack of mostly unproven allegations.
Is it okay for me to say I don’t feel so hot about being a Democrat right now? In fact, I’d leave the party and go back to being an independent were it not for the antiquated closed primary system here in Maryland.
Watching the pundits and other news oriented shows it becomes apparent that California politicians are carrying much of the weight for the Democratic Party. There is always, of course, political maneuvering behind the scenes and away from the cameras, but that’s not what shapes public opinion. It’s what happens out in front of the cameras that causes most people to remember and react, and out there in the limelight, in the heat of the moment, Californians like Ted Lieu, Maxine Waters, Jackie Speier, Barbara Lee, Dianne Feinsten and Adam Schiff, are shining stars. I’m not including Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer on the list, because for the most part they have been out of sight, apparently playing duck and cover somewhere, and are nothing close to the firebrands the Dems currently need to lead them out of the patch of tangled weeds they’re in.
Dianne Feinstein, is turning out to be the party’s iron lady, leaving her spot on the Senate Intelligence Committee for only days after a brief absence to have a pacemaker implanted. This might be unremarkable except that Feinstein is 83.
A few others, like Al Franken of Minnesota, pop up now and then, only to disappear for weeks or months at a time, and that’s not what’s needed right now. What’s needed are talking heads that are available to go on camera even when it’s inconvenient, like over this current holiday weekend, to continue holding the Trump Administration’s feet to the fires of Russiagate, Trump’s taxes, North Korea, diversionary bombings and all the other unacceptable issues of this erratic presidency.
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are tireless warriors for the left, but beyond them mostly it’s the Californians who are picking up the slack for a Democratic Party that needs to be making a lot more noise. The country needs at least two viable parties. Three or four would be even better. Unfortunately the idea of a proportional government has not yet caught on in the U.S., leaving millions of Americans left out and feeling alienated from the process.
In the meantime, California rocks. If the party can just come up with some way to bring the progressive heat of the California sun together with the more moderate climes of the Middle West and elsewhere – then they’ll really have something.
