Masha Gessen gets it right again.
Masha Gessen, New York Times Opinion: Don’t Fight Their Lies with Lies of Your Own
The bad news is that Mr. Trump is succeeding. Fraudulent news stories, which used to be largely a right-wing phenomenon, are becoming increasingly popular among those who oppose the president. (I prefer not to add to the appeal of such stories by citing them, but an example is the string of widely shared items that purported to link every death of a more-or-less prominent Russian man to Russian interference in the election.) Each story dangles the promise of a secret that can explain the unimaginable. Each story comes with the ready justification that desperate times call for outrageous claims. But each story deals yet another blow to our fact-based reality, destroying the very fabric of politics that Mr. Trump so clearly disdains.
Proper resistance is occurring against administrative actions and in opposition to legislation. Yesterday’s victory was one of authentic resistance for which Resistance(tm) is trying to claim credit. The grassroots actually got it without the Washington bubble media campaign.
Does this add anything to Gessen’s March 6. 2017, NY Review article Russia: The Conspiracy Trap? Covered here by a few of us when it was published.
IMO, only a more clearly stated opinion of what Gessen sees as the consequential issue relative to process. And at the moment, that is valuable.
To me, it seemed clear enough in her NY Review article.
>>I prefer not to add to the appeal of such stories by citing them
he prefers not to cite them because then he’d have to prove his claim that they are “fraudulent”, which is a very strong statement that would have the writers of those other stories calling their lawyers.
Trumpian fake news is provably false. The Russia connections that you and Gessen find so unbelievable may be false, but no one has proven it. Half-truths and rumors maybe, lies no.
Masha Gessen is a woman. Suggest you read her NY Review article before making accusations.
she’s the one making accusations of fraud. up to her to convince me.
Responded below. However, as you seem to have accepted allegations of the Trump-Putin-Russia connection with evidence close to zero, no further discussion with you on this topic is possible as belief is impervious to debate.
In the American justice system, so despised by Liberals, a claim is not true until proven true. The same in academia for scientific claims.
Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics and campaign Promises. On which where is my Employee Free Choice Act? Where is my Public Option.
courtroom rules cut both ways.
Gessen is the one who used the word “fraud”. The burden of proof is now on her to show those stories are false.
If she’d stopped at saying the stories were unproven, or unbelievable, that’s just opinion I can’t argue with.
No, it’s up to those making the claims to prove that they’re true. Until then, it’s perfectly fine to label them as frauds. Although generally a softer word such as alleged or allegation instead of fraud.
Maybe one of the other sixteen GOP candidates would have had a chance if they’d used “fraud” and “liar” when referring to Trump at every opportunity. It’s not as if there was any shortage of Trump lies for them to go after.
>> it’s up to those making the claims to prove that they’re true
exactly. I apply this logic to the person making the claim of fraud. I’m not claiming I can prove the Russia connection stories are true, or even that I believe them. But if she’s going to claim falsehood I maintain it’s up to her to prove falsehood.
but she wouldn’t have used softer and truer language because it wouldn’t have let her write the both-sides-do-it story that she wanted.
Both sides do do it! I’ve never seen this clearly before until I saw “Progressives” behaving the same as TeaBaggers. No wonder the public at large rejects the Left. It’s just “The Bears vs Green Bay” in another guise. Democrat or Republican is just another sport to root for and make baseless accusations against the other side. But instead of gate receipts, you are playing with peoples’ lives. I well understand Arthur Gilroy’s disgust.
When politics becomes framed as war, even information war, all sides do indeed do it. Democrats have resisted this temptation thinking the truth would eventually out and they would prevail. The 2016 election damaged that self-confidence or maybe the closeness of too many operatives who have crossed over from Roger Stones shop as Republicans moved too far to their right or targeted them for exclusion affected Democratic party strategy.
At the moment the hall of mirrors effect is from the public’s not having any reliable source of facts on a consistent basis and the normative philosophy being selling in the marketplace of ideas. Reagan’s tactic of spin has become the dominant ideology of governance.
Yes, wars degenerate into team trash-talking before they go violent. If there’s money or power to be made from trash-talking, they go violent faster.
Both sides don’t do it to the same degree or at the same frequency. That’s horse hockey.
Example: re. the ACA repeal/replace fight, look at the things said by activists at town halls and office lobby visits, and Party leaders on the floors of Congress and in other public statements. They were assiduous in their clear, factual discussions about what the ACA has done and has not done, and what the ACHA would have done and not done.
Both sides don’t do it to the same degree or at the same frequency.
Example, more to the policy/political matter you’re focused on here: Rep. Adam Schiff is the Ranking Member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Here’s his summary of the state of what we knew on Monday when Comey and Rogers came to inform the Committee:
I can’t find one lie or misstatement in Ranking Member Schiff’s statement. Lay an alternative claim if you like. The statement shows that there is smoke billowing from the woodpile. No fire is seen yet, but that does not mean that Democrats and liberals demanding an independent investigation are engaging in the same duplicitous tactics and statements that Chairman Nunes, the White House, and Republicans throughout the country are engaging in.
Both sides don’t do it to the same degree or at the same frequency. That’s horse hockey.
The key condition, “When politics is framed as war…”
To the extent that Democrats can avoid this trap and can connect their presentations with the public even among Republican constituencies, they can make progress.
I’ve not seen traction on that in North Carolina, but it is still possible.
Demanding an independent investigation is proper, but asserting that the connections exist and are known is not. Until we see what the intelligence community is seeing that makes the call ambiguous, we have little fact to go on.
That Democrats are tempted to spin in the same way Republicans do ignores the way that weakens the Democrat’s message. That Republicans get a pass for this behavior is a failure of the media and public.
Ranking Member Schiff has seen information you and I and almost no members of Congress have seen. As seen in the video, he’s not one to cast unfounded charges. If he has developed the view that he has now seen evidence which is more than circumstantial, then it’s worth taking seriously.
Dianne Feinstein is the Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. She’s no bomb thrower, and she also seems very disturbed by what she knows. In a public meeting last week back here in California, she came close to saying she doesn’t think the President will make it thru his term.
I’m sorry to have to say this, but the assertion of privileged information by the ranking members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees is why so many Democrats voted for the authorization of force in Iraq. The information the US intelligence community gives to the Gang of Eight is politically shaped to benefit the continued funding of the intelligence community. The saw Trump and Bannon as a political threat that sought to somehow clean house and bring them to heel. There is no other explanation for so many former high-ranking retired intelligence community directors being squarely behind Hillary Clinton and currently pushing this story to delegitimize Trump. If there is truth there, it needs to become public, preferably in a special investigation or in a judicial setting.
The intelligence community no longer can depend on “Trust us”. They blew that in Iraq and other places. Unfortunately, Schiff is caught up in that lack of credibility because of Nunes’s complete obedience to Trumpublicans.
If they are disturbed by what they know, they can read the presentation to them into the Congressional Record and take the consequences.
If no one comes up with verifiable fact that without question show high crimes and misdemeanors, Trump will make it through his term. For Nixon, that finally was the tapes and the 18 missing minutes. For Clinton, that was the DNA test from the “little blue dress”. Playing on privileged information does not play politically. Convincing only the Democrats does not remove Trump from office.
And…I’m not sure that President Pence is an improvement. Restoring actual checks and balances in the legislative/executive relationship instead of political warfare–what the GOP conducted for the previous eight years–is the only sure way of checking Trump and whatever agenda he has.
Just slinging the same old party line does not get us to checks and balances. Surely 2010, 2014, and 2016 have gotten the reality through Democratic strategists. If not, this country is in deep, deep trouble.
Democrats must change the way politics has been done since 1968 or they are gone. That is not a hope of mine. It would make the situation much graver than it currently is.
But if folks enforce the party line want to persist, we will all have to deal with the future consequences. You bristle at what AG says, but it is only that the “true believers” (a reread of Eric Hoffer’s book of that name without it being an ideological reading is overdue for Democratic operative) are not acknowledging how the dominance of lobbyists, operatives, and media have turned the US political system into a one-party, false-choice, Hobson’s-choice system of politics remote from the voters.
Obama’s appeal was that he and broad public support could break that and bring about a restoration of healthy polity in the US. He failed, in part from dissension within the Democratic party and in part from Democrats who were already sold out. The rap (and I think it is false) on Obama is that he was a stealth candidate who never intended what he campaigned on but was always in the hands of lobbyists.
Trump, the con-man, offered the same promise in conservative rhetoric, but his promise was to go back to a time before lobbying was polite, the parties had some restraining norms, and it seems that the public was actually in control of policy. That time was the New Deal through Eisenhower era and the politics was the result of infrastructure that extended benefits and opportunities for the public and opened the way to imagining a society that worked for everybody. Trump of course was lying through his teeth and changing his story every time he was asked for specifics. Instead of standing for what people wanted, Hillary Clinton was explicitly giving only the half-a-loaf that the donors to the Democratic Party would permit.
The fact of the popular vote being greater than the electoral vote was of interest on election day, but now is neither here nor there unless those voters can change the Congress, the electoral prospects of which suffers from the same biases as the electoral vote. That is the fundamental grassroots challenge the Democratic Party faces but is continuing to avoid by wasting time on messaging instead of organizing.
Resistance is necessary, but it must be smart. Putting pressure on Republicans in Congress through letting folks in red states know what is in the AHCA is smart. Having Democrats in red states finally begin to actively put pressure on Republican members of Congress to represent them as well as Republicans in Congress is smart.
Going on incessantly with vague charges of Trump’s Russian involvement and increasing the fear of war with Russia is not smart. Not only that, it could actually lead to another unwanted war if Trump tilts toward the neoconservative anti-Russian Republican hawks in policy. The idea that anybody has Trump on a leash is foolish. Especially now that he lives in the illusion that he is the leader of the most powerful nation on earth.
For now, the Democrats in the Gang of Eight need to watch out for being played by the intelligence community for their own interests. In this, McCain and Graham are not their friends at all and they should start waking up to this. It was McCain and Graham’s whining that got the US bogged down in Syria and undid the rapport with Russia that was being built around the destruction of Russia’s chemical weapons. Failing to be able to coordinate operations in theater with Russia then dragged out the campaign against ISIS, and risked the “collateral damage” that did occur around Aleppo and also the destabilizing coup attempt against Erdogan.
If Democrats are disturbed by what they know, risking prosecution to get the facts before the American people is the proper action. Unless those facts are not that solid a slam dunk but ambiguous. There is no real way to play safe and assert that one is disturbed.
Eventually, disturbing information released in classified settings must be turned into public releases of information which effectively deal with the disturbing info, or the subject will be dumped as an acute issue. But it’s political malpractice, and problematic for the future of the United States, to say talking about the billowing smoke from the woodpile is not smart.
And we’re walking and chewing gum at the same time. Right after we and the Congressional Democrats defeated ACHA is a problematic time to claim that we’re going about this all wrong. Trump, his Administration and its Congressional defenders in high places are spending time and political capital trying to pull him out of the soup here. That is time and political capital they won’t have to defend their position on tax reform and other things they’re getting ready to try.
Besides, we’re talking about claims which are made credible by how much of it was happening in plain sight:
Chris Hayes said on Friday, “We’re being all careful with our language about the investigation hare and not dealing with the fact that Trump asked the Russians to hack Hillary’s emails!”
You write:
#1-Who “we,” strawman? The ACHA was defeated by an incompetent presidential operating group and a bunch of mainstream Republicans who are worried sick about their chances in upcoming elections. They are the same ones who will eventually try to force Trump out. They let the Dems do all of the smoke-talking and then voted “No.” They’ll play out the same “Who? ME???!!!” act and then vote “Yes” in an impeachment movement.
Watch.
#2-When exactly…according to you…would it not be a “problematic time” to do this? I have been saying that you…the assumed “we” of your statement, however vague that group’s membership may be (mainstream, lockstep DNC Dems as far as I have able to decipher from your various clomps)…have been going about whatever “this” you are referencing (“This” being almost everything the mainstream Dems have been doing.) since the middle of Obama’s highest popularity.
You…and your allies/controllers/bosses/whatever…are the ones who were responsible for Trump’s election. How? Why? Because you (either through sheer ignorance or quite consciously) ignored all assertations that Sanders was being sandbagged during the primaries. That’s why.
When young Sanders workers repeatedly tried to inform the public of what was happening at the street level in the mainstream political primary activities, you shouted them down.
Riiight…
Thanks a lot, “pro.”
Given a choice between Bernie Bros and Hillary Pros, I’ll go with the Bernie Bros every time.
And now here you are again, trolling your little habit lines against any and all who disagree with you and the DNC establishment.
Do you know where the whole “trolling” meme comes from?
I doubt it. Not enough data for your mechanistic learning practices.
It comes from fishing tactics. Trolling a lure or live bait behind a moving boat.
One of these days…if you haven’t already…you’re going to catch a fish you can’t handle.
Bet on it.
I hope it’s soon.
As the anti-establishment, mostly black street crowd repeatedly screamed when I saw the film “Jaws” in a 42nd street, pot smoke-filled theater in the mid-’70s:
I can’t wait.
AG
The people I am working with to defeat the ACA repeal/replace and other repellent policies which will continue to be proposed, none of whom are in the Democratic Party, are enjoying their success, feel empowered by having had this early and profound victory, and have played a part in helping voters know that the Parties are not the same and we all have our responsibility and the ability to stop proposals we find unacceptable.
Meanwhile, you are accomplishing NOTHING other than causing the very few people in your online thrall to feel disempowered, depressed and deluded. Totally uninspiring, with no plan whatsoever.
But, as the Ron Paul evangelist you are, some of Trump’s policy proposals surely meet your preferences. So we shouldn’t be surprised that you are concentrating your rhetorical fire on Democrats months into the Republican takeover of our Federal government.
These “people [you are] working with to defeat the ACA repeal/replace and other repellent policies which will continue to be proposed, none of whom are in the Democratic Party?”
Who are they, centerfield?
What organization is it that has truly done effective work to help “defeat the ACA” and “repeal/replace and other repellent policies which will continue to be proposed?”
If there is a non-Democratic party-affiliated group that is actually doing some good work, by all means tell us about it.
Really.
Let us in on the good news.
AG
I do not find you a trustworthy person to share that information with. When I have shared personal information in the past, you have used it in attempts to attack me.
But here’s the thing: there are plenty of places in every city to organize with fellow progressives and liberals. You can do so while avoiding sullying your pristine hands with the Democratic Party activists you hate so very much. This is particularly true in your neighborhood, There’s also infinite opportunities to organize online.
We hear literally zero about your own work to get people politically active behind any cause, candidate or Party at all. The summary of your advice here is to pull away from such things. This is why your strategy is a losing strategy. If you had had the guts to get behind Rand Paul, Stein, Johnson, or any national or local candidate or cause, you would be more honest and more admirable.
As it is, what with your peculiar support for Cliven Bundy and others of his kind, you’re not particularly trustworthy.
Copout.
Share it with all the good folks on this blog.
If it really exists.
Write a post about all the good work being done by non-Dem (or possibly ex-Dem) people.
I dare ya.
Put up or shut up.
AG
P.S. I have looked into several groups in this area that are supposedly doing good things over the years. When I get there, I invariably find a group of innocent children with no chance of getting anywhere. If a new party begins to form…headed by some reliable, experienced people…I’ll be there.
Bet on it.
Otherwise…I’ll not waste my time drinking with fools.
So it goes.
AG
Somebody stopped the ACHA. A lot of somebodies doing effective work, actually. But it’s beneath you to look further for them, you say.
It also appears you believe it is not worth your time to attempt to assemble and lead a group actually working effectively to actively influence voters. Infuence them to do what, exactly, we do not know. MediaStrike? That’ll influence the next election, for sure.
Carry on.
Trump is a loose cannon. More and more I think he is going to be put down like a mad dog. Literally! Maybe impeachment, but the “lone gunman” is cleaner and less traumatizing to the public. It lets Pence be the loyal steady hand that takes up the gauntlet of the fallen hero. It’s also the way that spies like to work, in the shadows.
Either way, bullet or ballot, he is going to be neutered.
I am not sure which method is “less traumatizing,” first of all.
Secondly, I am not sure that being less traumatizing is necessarily the way that the movers and shakers of Spookland wish to go.
I think it’s more about how they can do what they want to do and get away with it.
Always remember…a traumatized public is a controllable public.
Remember 9/11.
If in the days following 9/11 the U.S. had nuked Mecca, a majority of Americans would have cheered in relief.
Until of course the shit hit the other side of the fan.
Remember 9/11.
Americans were shocked enough…and credulous enough…to embrace that slimy son-of-bitch Rudolph Giuliani as “America’s mayor.”
Remember 9/11.
The spooks do.
They let it happen.
Bet on it
ASG
The GOP “something” that replaces the soon to be GOP nothing:
Music to the ears of Adelson and Saban and the Armageddon fundies, but how is it playing in Peoria? The MAGA Trumpsters aren’t going to go away quickly or quietly. They chose Trump because they hate the DC swamp and taking out Trump will add to their conviction/hate.
OTOH, where’s the something on the other side? Biden who has now stated that be could have won if he’d run? (He’ll have to tweak that to “if they had let me run” to get some traction.) Joe conveniently forgets that he ran in ’08 and didn’t make it out of IA, coming in at a very weak fifth.
You’re in Humpty-Dumpty land. A simple illustration.
In 2008 Larry Johnson alleged that Michelle Obama was a racist and he had a tape that could prove it. Many people believed him; whereas Obama supporters said deliver the goods. How long after he failed to deliver should others wait until calling his claim a fraud? A day, a week, a month? Surely no longer than a month. His inability to present the evidence (evidence that he claimed to have in his possession) was evidence that his claim was fraudulent.
If a “both side do it” thesis is what you got out of Gessen’s NY Review article, then you and I didn’t read the same piece. She’s a major Putin critic and even she can she that Democrats are playing a dangerous game without a net.
Newsweek – Did the London Attack Give Putin Cover to Kill an Enemy?
Why not blame Putin for the London attack — as plausible that the London attacker was a Russian “sleeper” as the Ukrainian killer was a Russian “sleeper.” If the Putin-Russia mania had started a few years earlier, he would have been blamed for the Boston bombing.
Nothing ever mysterious about the deaths of politically connected Americans. Always an accident, natural causes, or a lone wolf killer. As if Americans can be politically connected and not have domestic enemies. (Although the nutters on the right are convinced that Breitbart was murdered. The imported UK nutter takes that one a step further and claims that Putin had Breitbart murdered.) Deaths of politically connected Russians that aren’t aligned with Putin are automatically assassinations ordered by Putin. However, the recent spate of Russian ambassador deaths are not mysterious — accidents, natural causes, and lone wolf nutters.
Pretty sure that’s not how it works. If you label someone or something a fraud, like say, The Clinton Foundation or Trump University, you better be able to back it up with, you know, evidence or you’re just talking shit. I am assuming Gessen knows this and that is the reason she avoided naming names.
More Gessen from the same column: “To be sure, the 2016 election was unimaginable, and THE PARTICULARS OF RUSSIAN MEDDLING deserve further scrutiny.” Emphasis mine.
Poorly constructed accusations suppress the ability to get further scrutiny. That is how I read Gessen’s point.
I would take exception in a couple ways. In the sciences, there is the idea of falsifiability: the investigator attempts to falsify his hypothesis. If he succeeds, on to alternative hypotheses. If not, well, the hypothesis is not proven, but eventually the preponderance of the evidence supporting the hypothesis constitutes “proof”.
The idea of preponderance of the evidence is found in the law as well.
Yes, but…Tarheel!!!
There is nothing “new” here. Nothing except perhaps in terms of volume.
We have been living in a falsenews bubble since the assassination years.
The Vietnam war reportage was false.
The Watergate scam was “false.” It contained kernels of truth, but “Deep Throat” probably never even existed.
Many people believe that Clinton I’s Lewinsky downfall was an intelligence-run honeytrap, myself among them. Too many coincidences around Lewinsky. They ran her right at him.
The runup to Bush II’s Iraq War?
Proven to be false.
The entire coverup-style buildup and continuationof Obama as our new “Peace President” saviour? Rotten from the get-go.
The very idea hat there are really “two sides” to the Permanent Government is itself false at it base. Competing gangs? Yes. Constant war between them? Hell no!!! Just like someone says every good mob movie ever made:
The difference? Now? The information explosion has made it too easy for amateurs to disseminate their bullshit. More and more people are getting wise and just…looking away.
MSNBC, CNN, Fox News? No longer any more sophisticated than was Pravda or is RT now.
We can see through the curtains that used to hide the little, naked wizards.
Hell, man…that awkward little fool Turdblossom Rove gave it all away 15 years ago. To a reporter!!!
Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush-Ron Suskind, Oct. 17, 2004
What has changed is that now, many more people are refusing to “study” what any of them do.
The percentage of eligible non-voters in national elections has remained fairly constant over the past several decades…a few percentage points here and there, up or down. But…and I think that his is where the DemRat and the RatPub hustlers all got screwed up…although the percentages changed, the demographic makeup of those percentages changed drastically over the past 4 years or so…during the rise of Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites. The old “non-voters”…mostly people who were too stupid and. or lazy to go out and vote…were motivated to vote by the easy access to
falsenews that agreed with them while it began to dawn on the “smarter” voters (You know…the ones that voted DemRat?) that there was something really fishy going on.And they stayed home.
The result?
Bet on it.
How will this all work out?
Damned if I know.
Trump goes down?
Maybe.
But…who brought him down?
The lying liars of yesteryear?
Or worse.
The pros take over?
Then here we still are, aren’t we?
Up Shit’s Creek without a paddle.
What if all of the “smart people” just say “Fuck it!!! Take yer prizes and shove ’em!!!”
What then?
Could happen…
“Back in the U.S.S.R.!!!”
The Beatles as prophets.
Could hapen…
AG
Competing gangs, a good analogy. Irish mob or Italian mob, choose your side preferably by ethnicity or geography. In New York, add third Party Jewish mob (still around? or absorbed into the Italian mob?) and the Puerto Rican mob. Some minor Parties like the Russian Mob. None of them for the common citizen.
There is something new. The pretense is gone and the reality is justified as normative. We are (cough) in the post-truth civilization.
That is the signal not to go searching for facts or evidence beyond the spin….or else. That is new. The pretense of democratic governance by which movements could shame politicians into better behavior (ex. Civil Rights Movement) is gone.
“The pretense of democratic governance by which movements could shame politicians into better behavior (ex. Civil Rights Movement) is gone.”
The quick defeat of the ACA repeal-and-replace legislative effort provides strong evidence that this is not true. Our movement created a ton of phone calls/texts/faxes/emails/demonstrations and we killed the bill with the help of a bit of Republican infighting.
Yes indeed. You killed a worse bill to keep a already seriously flawed bill, and no mater how all of this DemRat/RatPub/Trumpista chicanery works out, at the end we will still be left with a medical system that…no matter how it is financed…is absolutely broken due to huge monetary interference by Big Pharma, Big Med and Big Insurance.
Nice, centerfield.
You’re on a roll.
AG
OK, Ron Paul acolyte. We shouldn’t draw any conclusions from your unhappiness with our successful defense of the ACA.
If we took advice from you, the ACHA would have passed the House on Thursday, would have passed the Senate in a couple of weeks, and in April President Trump would have signed into law a set of policies which would have hurt you, your family, friends, colleagues and neighbors.
We hold our wins and fight for more. If we don’t fight to hold our wins, we are left further away from the policies we want.
Although, given that you are a Ron Paul evangelist, I don’t think you want the policies almost everyone here at the Frog Pond want. Do you want single payer and/or Medicare For All? Do you want a public option? Do you want to strengthen or weaken Medicaid?
What do I want?
Regarding healthcare?
I want real healthcare!!!
Duh.
And in order to have that…to really “care for the health” of the residents of the United States, we need to break massive corporate money’s ongoing hold…Big Med, Big Insurance, Big Pharma and Big Food…on the politicians who supposedly represent us in Washington.
What I “want” is nothing short of a revolution in this country. Peaceful if possible, not so peaceful if necessary. Not just in healthcare…in the whole corporate-owned system as it now stands.
Will it happen?
I doubt it.
Why?
Because of the stolid mass of people…just like you, on both supposed sides of the political aisle…who think that their side is the right side. While you squabble over exactly how people are going to pay for their awful healthcare, the real criminality is that most “healthcare” in the United States makes people sicker, not healthier.
If all of this stupid fussing about insurance plans was instead aimed at the poisonous food system at work here..aisle after aisle after aisle of denatured, chemically poisoned foods in every supermarket in the country..the “health” of its residents would take a drastic turn for the better.
But NOOOOoooo…bought and sold politicians left and right approve of a toothless FDA while drug companies spend billions hyping their unnecessary, harmful drugs and other billions on making sure that the so-called “research” into drug side-effects is blocked for years. When the bad news eventually leaks out…witness the latest about the heart risks of Advil and other common ibuprofen-based NSAIDS…you can bet your bottom dollar that the drug companies will:
1-Stonewall that news
2-Pay for counter-research that supports their drugs
and
3-Release new poisons on the American public as they gradually withdraw the old ones.
This is Thalidomide 101.
Over and over and over again.
That’s what I want.
The rest of this foofaraw?
It’s total bullshit.
Totally false news.
Deal wid it.
AG
The successful defense of the ACA was in holding the House Democratic caucus together to force the Republican caucus to pass it on their own and take responsibility for the consequences.
Which Republican members of Congress did you move?
Which Democratic members of Congress did you hold in place with those calls/texts/demonstrations?
Having pulled the bill before a vote prevents everyone from knowing that information and from knowing where the lines of cleavage exist in the Republican caucus.
I’m reluctant to accept that today’s Republican can yet be shamed, or wayward Democrats either. I’m open to the possibility because at some point the fever will break, but I don’t see it yet.
What killed the bill is the impossibility of creating a bill that is better without granting an opening for Medicare for All and single payer. There are politicians who understand that killing the guarantee of coverage for people with pre-existing conditions is a political risk if not a third rail. Those politicians are in both parties. The division as I understand it is between those Republicans who don’t want to kick out people with pre-existing conditions and those Republicans who want a clean repeal bill that repeals every single line (and especially those lines in Bernie Sanders’s amendments on medical loss ratios and community clinics).
It is not shame, it is fear that is motivating the Republican opponents of AHCA.
Of the Congressmembers whose voters we contacted and patched thru, Senator Heller announced himself as a No on the ACHA, other Senators had not announced their support, and a few of the Representatives from California had either intimated opposition or refused to come out in support, even on the day of the vote.
I don’t care if fear or shame are the prime motivators of a good vote, but if you want to look at that video of the woman at Senator Cotton’s Town Hall and maintain belief that the callow young Senator didn’t feel shame after facing that sort of treatment for an hour or two in front of a couple thousand of his constituents, then I think your cynicism is overcoming your analytical skills. Cotton ended up being one of the hardest “No’s” in the Senate.
Here’s more, from the same Town Hall:
This can reach the coldest, most corrupted heart, particularly since the Senator heard the crowd roar their approval for what the boy said.
Senator Cotton felt anger that he was not in control of the message.
His future behavior will tell whether he felt shame. Will he keep open town hall meetings? Will he incorporate policy directions mentions in those uncomfortable conversations? Or will he further shut down communication with the public and increase his one-way messaging?
Getting overconfident by celebrating victories and sitting on laurels is exactly what Democrats do not need to do right now. ACHA was a battle, not the war.
The next battle is the 2017 appropriations. Heads up.
Of course. It never ends. I’m not constantly looking for reasons to hate my country, or what I do for a living.
Victories must be celebrated. This is a big victory which can lead to more victories.
Appropriations will give us opportunities to win again. We’ll suffer a lot of unpleasant outcomes during this Administration. But we’ll defend some people and principles as well.
Returning to DC has the property of chilling the most recently warmed heart in the district.
Citizens United was constructed as giant political freezer unit.
I refuse to live in the belief that nothing can be done. It’s now more difficult than it’s been in our lifetimes, but positive change is achievable. Evidence that this is true is available to you.
The experiences you are going thru in North Carolina lay to waste your claim elsewhere on this thread that post-Citizens United conditions “…have turned the US political system into a one-party, false-choice, Hobson’s-choice system of politics remote from the voters”.
Art Pope, Reverend Barber, thousands of activists, millions of voters and other residents in your State disagree with this claim.
The current Congressional Democratic caucuses have much fewer moderates than previous Dem caucuses. And the most conservative Senate Democrat is far more liberal than the most liberal Senate Republican. These are undeniable facts supported by recent voting records, and they won’t change in this Congress.
The glass is nowhere near half full. But let’s not fight the circumstances with mischaracterizations of your own.
Matt Taibbi at his finest — when he combines actual reporting with his voice — Trump the Destroyer.
From there he quickly highlights why Trump is incomprehensible to everybody. His cognitive process fires randomly and while he does get from A to B, both A and B are weird. His fans either don’t listen or don’t care that whatever he says doesn’t make sense to them and therefore, Trump must be a genius.
What Democrats, liberals, and progressives need is another gifted and skilled huckster to explain how Trump does it and how a huckster can be taken down.
RE: Roman Emperor – More and more he reminds me of Caligula. And remember Caligula was assassinated by a group of Senators sick of his abuse and treatment of them. The German (Batavian) guards, personally sworn to him, he had installed to replace the Praetorian Guard were sent back to Germany. Who said, “History doesn’t repeat itself but it rhymes”?
“His fans either don’t listen or don’t care that whatever he says doesn’t make sense to them and therefore, Trump must be a genius.” Sort of like, “It must be eleventh dimensional chess.”
Does Trump still have his own private security now that he has the full entourage of Security Service security?
Remember — everything Trump knows comes from Fox and cable news. Studies have revealed that such viewers are less well informed than people that consume no news at all. Plus Trump has a weak foundation in general education. Not because he didn’t attend good schools but because he is uninterested in anything not directly related to making a buck for him.
Yes, moves beyond Gessen in analysis. Especially this.
Fighting in his terms has turned out be “becoming the dragon to defeat the dragon”. That too destroys the town.
The reality is the House that could not agree on repeal of Obamacare must agree on the 2017 appropriations (a continuing resolution kicked the can down the road) in a month. Democrats in the House will have to hold firm again to expose the disunity in the Republican House caucus and the dangerous policies being forced into the appropriations bill. And they must have a high price for voting to help Ryan get beyond the obstruction of one or another of his factions. And that high price must be popular as all get-out in Trump majority areas. Any idea what meets those political requirements? And the Senate must play the same game with the possibility that McConnell can hold his folks together or squeeze out a situation with a VP vote. Having stopped the juggernaut and exposed the fraud of Obamacare repeal, are the Congressional Democrats up to that sort of hardball.
And can they walkback the rush to war with Russia now that Trump is for the moment leaning neo-conservative. Standing up for human rights and anti-trust and against oligarchy with out the New Cold War hype to my mind would be a beneficial position to take with some authentic commitment. Even seeking detente to allow US business opportunities to make money in China’s One Belt-One Road infrastructure development would be a dramatic turn that like European businesses during the Marshall Plan and rebuilding the European economy would provide insight into rebuilding the US economy and US domestic markets.
I disagree with the need for a gifted huckster; that comes too close too bringing either Clinton or Obama back into the political conversation. Until the toxicity of their image in red states dramatically diminishes through the moderation of time, let them age into statesmen. Same moreso for Hillary Clinton. “Miss me yet” is a counter-productive tactic.
Good summary of this reality. Argues for focus on what the Cabinet and Congress are actually doing and not taking the distraction bait from the White House. The White House in fact does not have a set agenda, just general directions, as far as I can tell. Start allowing the internal politics within the cabinet have the public space to show the fractures as much as the Obamacare repeal vote showed the fractures in the House. (Actually, the whole point of pulling the vote is to prevent showing exactly where the fractures were and which members of Congress were responsible for what.)
A procedural tactic for Congressional Democrats might be to put in succinct one-page bills that would have wide popular approval and if they happened to pass would set progressive policies in place. Something visual and accountable. Anti-trust protection of small independent contractors from oligarchic monopsonists like Uber, for example.
“And can they walkback the rush to war with Russia now that Trump is for the moment leaning neo-conservative. “
Walk back? They are leading the charge!
… that comes too close too bringing either Clinton or Obama back into the political conversation.
Not at all what I meant. Plus, if either of them had the huckster skill level that I had in mind, Trump wouldn’t be in the White House.
I meant someone that knows and can explain all the tricks that Trump uses and how those tricks can be defeated. I most definitely wasn’t suggesting that Democrats recruit another narcissistic huckster to do battle with Trump as a political candidate. Appears that when hucksters duel, the winner gets stronger and the loser weaker, and at the moment, it would be very difficult to find another huckster that has better skills/talent than Trump.
Nor was I suggesting that Democrats learn how Trump does it and adopts the tricks. While individual hucksters and their cons can have a long shelf-life, sooner or later it catches up with most of them (perhaps excluding the most successful religious frauds).
Neera Tanden (recently a future WH big cheez):
Adam H. Johnson responses
My problem with the quote in the posted item is that it implies fake news is at the heart of the suspicions about Russian meddling in the US election. But that is not the case. The evidence for Russian meddling, if it holds up, is independent of fake news. The focus on fake news is itself a sort of distraction, as the narrative about fake news always seems to be along the lines of, well, such and such is fraudulent nonsense, therefore the entire line of argument is fraudulent. Sorry, that’s logically ridiculous. I’m reminded of helping organize anti-intervention rallies and getting all worked up about the fact that folks from some tiny cultish Maoist groups planned to show up and wave their signs and sell their newspapers.