Open Thread Dec. 6: Can’t Anyone Tell the Truth Around Here?
One lie leads to another: The right-wing Washington Examiner, of all news outlets, worked out the math and realized that Roy Moore’s claim about when he met his wife means he must have started dating her while she was still married. How did this guy ever learn the 10 commandments while he was chasing young leg all over northeast Alabama?
Forgot to include this in yesterday’s parade of sexual harassers, assaulters and predators: Luffah-loving ladies’ man Bill O’Reilly apparently forgot that the gag order on settlements runs both ways. One of his accusers has sued Billo because he’s been characterizing her 2002 settlement as a shakedown.
I see it every day; it happens to me a couple of times a week. Trump or the Republicans in Congress do something so evil I start to lose hope. When that happens, I turn to stories that affirm reality, like this one from Foreign Policy, which lays out all of the signs pointing to the Trump team trying to collude with a foreign power to win an election. He might not be impeached, he might not be convicted, but he’s guilty as sin and everyone knows it, even the Republicans who pretend not to.
One of our older readers took a swipe at millennials the other day because a rather high percentage of them “believe in” astrology, indicating they’re not so bright. My riposte: Millennials are smart enough to realize capitalism is a mug’s game. The anti-Communist Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation was alarmed to find in a recent survey that 44 percent of millennials would prefer to live in a socialist country, compared with 42 percent who want to live under capitalism. The New York Times’ Michelle Goldberg explains why.
The Russian doping scandal that led to the kleptocracy’s ban from the 2018 Winter Olympics broke a few months ago, but I had no idea why the guy who led the doping program — from, naturally, the nation’s “anti-doping” program labs — spilled the beans. The story is more incredible than anything scriptwriters could make up — it basically happened by accident because a documentary maker was looking for a doping expert.
I did not include links to the Jerusalem story because it’s obviously a provocation and might not lead to anything, or the Christina School Board asking for another year to consolidate schools, because of course it did. But here, for history buffs, is an obit of 1960s London party girl Christine Keeler whose affair as a teenager with a 40-something British politician brought down the entire Conservative government. Look how far we’ve come!
FIRST! woohoooo
“Can’t Anyone Tell the Truth Around Here?”
No. We stopped demanding that they do that a number of years. It’s difficult to maintain long held beliefs in the face of actual facts and truth.
If Moore believes his own lies, is he still a liar?
Looks like Franken is going to resign.
RIP Christine Keeler.
I was just a high school kid on Long Island when reading about her in the New York Daily News gave me my first true appreciation for foreign affairs.
Well, with the upcoming Franken resignation, I have cast my last vote ever for a Democrat. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
@Alby: so you’re never voting again?
I think I’m going to do what the Hall of Fame cranks do — submit a blank ballot.
People hate fundie conservatives because they try to dictate other people’s morality. I will not condone a party doing the same thing just because their morality is more in line with mine.
Telling others how to live is a losing formula, and I won’t be a part of it.
I think we are witnessing some of the more self-destructive tendencies that has been exposed in the Democratic Party by its own congregation of electeds. We have Democratic Senators calling for a Franken resignation (regardless of any truths that might be unearthed in an investigation he has welcomed) while we are on the figurative eve of ending health care for children via the CHIP funding expiring. Now a reasonably idealistic Democrat might ask why (any or all of) you resignation-demanders are so willing to suck the media and public attention air out of the room, yet silent as lambs on an issue that threatens the health and security of tens of millions of innocent children. Could it be that your moral compasses have been frozen by the opportunity of self-promotion that will cement your credentials as an outraged and morally righteous candidate who might aspire to a higher office. Maybe your voices, unified in anger at the prospects of those children being sacrificed at the altar of corporate greed, would not be effective in changing things but (for God’s sake) “TRY IT” goddammit.
I know it must be easier to be seen and heard as a media shill wearing that cloak of righteousness you are so eager to embrace. But once, just once, try to be a true Democrat who believes in the principles of the Democratic Party. Try to be a public servant who is willing to be an idealist and fighter for justice, fairness, equal treatment and opportunity for all. The opposite of what the Republican ideologues have become and are. I honestly believe that if you paid as much or more attention to the needs and rights of all Americans you would be pleasantly surprised at how easily you would attain those ambitions because people of all stripes and parties want someone willing to fight for them and believe in them. You would also get your picture and name in all of those media outlets you seem to be so distracted by.
Representative John Kowalko
As with the pretense that Hillary was a good candidate, the notion that this is a politically wise move shows what poor practitioners of politics these people are.
There seem to be two schools of distractible Democrats who wanted Franken out: those who want it done for moral reasons, because “it’s the right thing to do,” and those who find it politically advantageous because “otherwise we can’t criticize Moore and Trump.”
With all due respect to the right-thing-to-doers, I think the right thing to do is investigate first, sentence after. It worked with Bob Packwood, though it took time — following laws and procedures always does. Otherwise I am endorsing, frankly, vigilante justice. And even if it is morally the right thing for Franken to do, it is, IMHO, immoral for others to demand it. That’s in essence saying the investigation should not take its course. If we can take the time to investigate Trump, surely we can take the time to investigate Franken. Or are these people saying vigilante justice is preferable? I have a sinking feeling they are. Not all autocrats are conservatives.
So why aren’t people willing to wait? Because they are trying to use sexual misbehavior as a weapon against Roy Moore and Donald Trump, and they think they can’t do that unless they show they’re serious by expelling one of their own. The flaw in this thinking should be obvious: It won’t weaken support for Moore or Trump one iota, and nobody can show anything but their belief it would.
But I’m sure it will be easier for those who disagree to point out that I’m a misogynist, as if that had any effect at all on the quality of the points raised. I feel about this issue exactly as I feel about abortion — I support the liberal position on both, but I think neither belongs in the political arena. I understand why women have to fight back — the restrictions conservatives try to place on women are meted out politically, certainly in the case of abortion but also in the fact that Stand Your Ground laws cannot be cited by victims of domestic abuse — but I don’t have to endorse foolish decisions.
Since those people can’t even reason their way out of this conundrum, I don’t expect they’ll understand a word I’ve written. All I can do in return is vow not to support their party for moral reasons, as I am in favor of the rule of law rather than vigilante justice.
I would also point out that Kirsten Gillibrand, who initiated the call for his resignation, is one of the leading names for 2020. And that the 7th allegation that supposedly triggered this was from a “Democratic aide,” which hardly makes her unbiased. The opposition to Moore, after all, came from Republicans, not Democrats, and who’s to say she isn’t working for another Democrat who wants to see the progressive wing hobbled? Which, obviously, would come out in an investigation. Now do you see why we shouldn’t want one?
C’mon, tell me this is all about morality, that there are no political considerations here. How willfully naive can people be?
Alby
I totally agree with your comment but I am terribly disappointed in the reality that we hear barely a peep in support of good policies or in opposition to bad and harmful policies from Democrats. In fact the Democratic party seems to condone and reward apathetic and unsympathetic posturing since there is no risk of failure if you don’t give a damn or take a stance against ideological evil (Bannon, Trump, McConnel, Graham, oh hell all Republicans). But I find that type of selfish dispassion as evidence of complicity and inexcusable behavior and quite frankly immoral.
Representative John Kowalko
Innocent until proven guilty does not come into play when acts of a sexual nature are involved.
“…why (any or all of) you resignation-demanders are so willing to suck the media and public attention air out of the room…” this question was answered back in 1982, “Dirty little secrets
Dirty little lies
We got our dirty little fingers in everybody’s pies
We love to cut you down to size
We love dirty laundry”
For those too young to remember, “Dirty Laundry” was a hit for Don Henley, who wasn’t happy with the coverage of his drug arrest.
It’s been scrubbed from YouTube, which is IMO no great loss.
Senator Wife Beater is now calling for Franken’s resignation according to TNJ. What is wrong with this guy?
Uh, he’s a robot and his handlers program him on what to say?
Since Alby is checking out of the political process, can you please stop publishing that hack
Delawareleft, you sound a lot like Tom Kline; dumb as shit. Your critique is noted and disregarded. Thanks just the same.
“Publishing”? Dumb as shit indeed.
Thanks for your input, though. It will be duly noted.
Weird to play a semantics game about the word “publishing” when it’s referenced in the reply field at the end of every blog