George Lakoff, the author of Don't Think of an Elephant, advises us that relentlessly fact-checking our President's numerous big lies plays right into his hands. If you ever suspected that he seems to do better when everyone's talking about him, you'll find that point sympathetic. I wouldn't say fact-checking itself is useless, but I do agree that reporters would do better to focus on what he's actually doing, rather than what he's saying. Good luck getting lazy reporters to do that, though.
Ryan Grim and Briahna Gray at The Intercept describe several "insurgent" Democrats who are making inroads into rural areas the party has long written off -- by being actual liberals, as opposed to the center-right DCCC-approved candidates who dominate other races. In these areas of the country, folks respond positively to candidates who support clean water, Medicare-for-All, and a higher minimum wage. You and I have been saying this for years, of course, but it's nice to get some solid reporting behind it.
Three men convicted of trying to murder Somali refugees cite our President's anti-Muslim rhetoric and Russian propaganda in an effort to avoid life sentences. Now, did our President set the bombs in those apartment buildings? No, he did not -- the three assholes who are about to get life sentences did that. Getting hung up on who might have influenced someone to do something horribly wrong hurts our fight against evil. And while it's true, and irritating, that "(t)he speaker with the best bully pulpit in the world is never sanctioned for spreading fear and advocating harm," that doesn't justify giving his votaries lighter sentences when they commit crimes.
Fascist ascends to power in Brazil, and naturally our financial papers are creaming their pants over how good he'll be for "the markets." Yes, I imagine Mr. Bolsonaro -- who has said out loud that his political opponents should be exterminated and (like all small men) clearly hopes other folks will do it for him -- will greatly aid the effort of Our Glorious Elites to redistribute all the people's wealth upward to themselves, but Jesus Mary and Joseph they can't seem to mute their giddiness even a little. But selling off public works projects to cronies and hello, being a murderous fascist do warrant a bit more scrutiny than that.
After being the target of an apparent Democratic campaign to paint him as the "true conservative" in this race (and thus deprive the Republican of conservative support), the Libertarian candidate in Montana's U.S. Senate race suddenly throws his support behind the Republican. I'm sure that will annoy those Libertarians who've already voted for him, but I wonder if it'll annoy the rest of them, too -- one of the reasons you become a Libertarian is you don't like people trying to manipulate you, and I bet Montana's Libertarians are even more ornery than that. I could be wrong, though. We'll see soon enough!
Finally, because I know you were waiting for this with bated breath, Kanye West now says he's "distancing myself from politics" because he's been "used to spread messages I don't believe in." Yeah sure -- that whole "slavery is a choice" thing didn't sound like a guy being "used." More likely, he used our President to get some attention for himself, though I can't say our President deserves much better than that.
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