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Frank Bruni: Bristol Palin’s ‘Righteous Leadership’ Makes Limbaugh Proud

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New York Times columnist Frank Bruni today, in “The Right’s Righteous Frauds,” takes on Bristol Palin and other radical right wing hypocrites who have decided “personal circumstance and past error needn’t prevent someone from claiming righteous leadership.”

Soon after President Obama stated support for same-sex marriage, Bristol publicly weighed in. Because, you know, the world was on tenterhooks.

In a blog post she focused on the reference that Obama made to his daughters — and to the same-sex parents of some of the girls’ friends.

“It would’ve been helpful for him to explain to Malia and Sasha that while her friends (sic) parents are no doubt lovely people, that’s not a reason to change thousands of years of thinking about marriage,” wrote Bristol, making her heady debut as the new Dr. Spock for a nascent millennium. She added that “in general kids do better growing up in a mother/father home. Ideally, fathers help shape their kids’ worldview.”

Fathers like…Levi Johnston? It’s with him that she conceived her child — out of wedlock, at the age of 17 — and by most accounts, his relationship with her and the Palin family isn’t any warmer than Juneau in January. A mother/father home is not what he and Bristol have succeeded in creating.

What’s more, she has made sure that their son, Tripp, will at some point be treated to a worldview-shaping image of Dad as something akin to a date rapist. That’s the description of him immortalized in her memoir, one of her many efforts to monetize her surname. It recounts the loss of her virginity as a result of getting drunk and blacking out in the company of Levi, who pounced. What a gift that narrative is to Tripp, now being hauled into a TV reality show, “Bristol Palin: Life’s a Tripp,” already in production. Little children are known to thrive in such environments.

I hesitated before picking on Bristol because she’s an easy target. It’s like shooting moose from a helicopter flying low over the tundra.

But she so perfectly distills the double standards and audacity of so many of our country’s self-appointed moralists and supposed traditionalists: hypocrites whose own histories, along with any sense of shame, tumble out the window as soon as there’s a microphone to be seized or check to be cashed.

She proves that they’re not going away anytime soon — a new generation rises! — and that they haven’t been daunted by the ridicule justly heaped on Newt Gingrich during the Republican primaries, when he dared to cast himself as a religious conservative.

Certainly Rush thunders on. Last week he bellowed that Obama had decided to “lead a war” on traditional marriage. Seems to me Limbaugh started those hostilities long ago, if not with his first divorce then certainly with his second and third.

 

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After Oprah, Harris Resolves Interview Issue by Answering ‘Most Searched Questions’

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September 20, 2024

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The Harris-Walz campaign has been taking heat for its decision to not spend time doing formal interviews or press conferences with many mainstream media reporters, but instead, find other ways to reach voters that allow the Democratic presidential nominee help the electorate get to know her on her terms and in more casual settings.

Thursday night, Harris sat down with Oprah Winfrey for a “star-studded and, at times, deeply emotional 1.5-hour-long event, set up to mimic Winfrey’s former television show,” as Politico reported, that “was live streamed on multiple social platforms.”

“The armchair conversation allowed Harris to display a level of empathy for the challenges some Americans are facing while highlighting her personal bio, something she didn’t spend much time on during her debate with former President Donald Trump this month.”

READ MORE: Mark Robinson Scandal Could Bring Trump Down in ‘Reverse Coattails’ Effect: Expert

Democratic strategist Matt McDermott called it “a brilliant campaign strategy for Kamala Harris to do a sit down interview with Oprah Winfrey. Millions of Americans are watching across digital platforms in real time, meeting voters where they are.”

Evan Roth Smith, the lead pollster for Blueprint, commented on the Harris-Oprah event:

“Harris should do more of these! Just-released @Blueprint_2024 testing of her interview clips found:

– Every clip tested was viewed positively by 60%+
– Every clip moves support toward Harris
– Voters feel they know Harris better with every clip

Do more!”

READ MORE: ‘Straight Up Fascist Project’: Vance Slammed for Vowing to Call Legal Immigrants ‘Illegal’

Meanwhile, Fox News has been attacking Vice President Harris, at times daily, with reports like this one on Friday: “61 days: Kamala Harris has yet to do formal press conference since emerging as Democratic nominee.”

On Friday, WIRED published its “Autocomplete Interview” with the Democratic presidential nominee, another opportunity for Harris to sit in a less formal setting while letting voters get to know her better.

“Vice President Kamala Harris talked about her childhood, her debate with Donald Trump, her gun ownership, and the policies that define her campaign in this special edition of the WIRED Autocomplete Interview.”

WIRED calls it a “wide-ranging” interview and a “lively tour of Harris’ past and a preview of her plans for the future.”

Essentially, WIRED gave Harris large cards that look like Google search windows, and had her “respond to some of the most-searched terms about” her. “In this case, the prompts hit on her policies around reproductive rights, gun ownership, marriage equality, and more. But Harris also talks about more personal details, like her relationship with her stepchildren and her deep ties to her college sorority.”

“Most of all,” WIRED reports, “Harris took the opportunity to highlight the differences between her perspective and Donald Trump’s. ‘His vision for our country is very grounded in the past,’ she says, ‘and frankly an attempt to take us backward.'”

Watch the interview below or at this link.

READ MORE: Donald Trump Just Made One of His Most Racist Attacks Yet – and the Media Is Ignoring It

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Silence from GOP as Experts Demand Answers Amid Latest Gaetz Sex Scandal Allegations

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September 20, 2024

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U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz has not issued any public response to overnight bombshell reporting citing sworn court testimony alleging the Florida Republican lawmaker in 2017 attended a “drug-fueled sex party” that had at least one underaged minor present. Nor has any Republican in the House or Senate called for his resignation.

The damning report from NOTUS‘s investigative reporter Jose Pagliery reveals prosecutors have “geolocated cell phone records” that show the owner of the Florida home where the party was held “communicated constantly with the congressman that day.”

“The defense’s court filings show a hired digital forensic examiner identified Gaetz’s number, which has a Florida panhandle 850 area code and texted back and forth 30 times that day and then called Dorworth twice in the hours before the evening revelry.”

“The minor, who was a junior in high school at the time, arrived in her mother’s car for a July 15, 2017, party at the Florida home of Chris Dorworth, a lobbyist and friend of Gaetz’s, according to a court filing written by defense attorneys who interviewed witnesses as part of an ongoing civil lawsuit Dorworth brought in 2023,” NOTUS reports.

READ MORE: Mark Robinson Scandal Could Bring Trump Down in ‘Reverse Coattails’ Effect: Expert

Democratic strategist and pollster Matt McDermott remarked, “Last night we learned that Rep. Matt Gaetz was at a drug-fueled sex party in the summer of 2017 with a 17-year-old high school junior. As of this morning, not a single national Republican has called for his resignation.”

Gaetz is not in hiding — he has been tweeting from his personal account Friday morning, casually promoting what he calls “the transformation happening in El Salvador,” and attacking a fellow Republican, the junior U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, for an alleged stock purchase.

“This should be illegal,” Gaetz wrote.

Meanwhile, experts are demanding answers from the U.S. Dept. of Justice, which closed the books on its investigation into Gaetz.

“We really need to know why the DOJ decided not to criminally charge Matt Gaetz despite reports suggesting an abundance of evidence that he likely violated sex-trafficking laws,” wrote Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Government (CREW). “We’re suing for records.”

Former Lincoln Project executive director Fred Wellman asked, “I want to know why this useless DOJ isn’t pursuing crimes against Gaetz? Why does Garland consistently give Republicans a pass?”

Olga Lautman, a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) and researcher of organized crime and intelligence operations in Russia and Ukraine demanded to know: “Why was the Gaetz investigation dropped?”

READ MORE: ‘Straight Up Fascist Project’: Vance Slammed for Vowing to Call Legal Immigrants ‘Illegal’

That question floats amid another damning report. Congressman Gaetz reportedly had asked then-President Donald Trump for a pardon related to the DOJ’s investigation.

“An aide to former President Donald Trump testified to the House Select Committee investigating January 6 that GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida sought a preemptive presidential pardon relating to a Justice Department investigation examining whether Gaetz violated federal sex trafficking laws,” CNN reported in September of 2022, citing “a source familiar with the aide’s testimony.”

Also dropped was the first of two investigations into Gaetz’s behavior, including allegations that while on the House floor, he repeatedly showed fellow members of Congress photos and videos of nude women he said he had had sex with, CNN reported in 2021.

The Ethics Committee re-opened its investigation into Gaetz last year, and currently is looking into, as Vanity Fair reported in June, “allegations that the Florida congressman ‘engaged in…illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, dispensed special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct.’”

READ MORE: Donald Trump Just Made One of His Most Racist Attacks Yet – and the Media Is Ignoring It

 

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Mark Robinson Scandal Could Bring Trump Down in ‘Reverse Coattails’ Effect: Expert

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22 hours ago

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September 19, 2024

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Thursday’s bombshell revelations about North Carolina Republican Mark Robinson could not only doom his gubernatorial candidacy, but Donald Trump’s campaign as well, according to one of the most respected political experts.

According to CNN, Robinson, the current Lt. Governor who is the GOP’s gubernatorial nominee, “made a series of inflammatory comments on a pornography website’s message board more than a decade ago, in which he referred to himself as a ‘black NAZI!’ and expressed support for reinstating slavery.”

CNN’s KFile also reveals that Robinson, a far-right Christian nationalist who has targeted the LGBTQ community, “said he enjoyed watching transgender pornography, a review of archived messages found in which he also referred to himself as a ‘perv.'”

On the website Nude Africa, “Robinson discussed his affinity for transgender pornography.”

READ MORE: ‘Straight Up Fascist Project’: Vance Slammed for Vowing to Call Legal Immigrants ‘Illegal’

“I like watching tranny on girl porn! That’s f*cking hot! It takes the man out while leaving the man in!” Robinson wrote, according to CNN. “And yeah I’m a ‘perv’ too!”

The article also notes that “CNN is reporting only a small portion of Robinson’s comments on the website given their graphic nature.”

Professor of politics Larry Sabato, the highly-respected political scientist and political analyst and founder and director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and Sabato’s Crystal Ball says his team has held an “emergency session” to review the report and is moving its prediction for governor of North Carolina from “Lean Democratic” to “Likely Democratic”:

“The Crystal Ball team has just met in emergency session, and in the fastest rating change in our history, we are moving NC GOVERNOR from Lean D to LIKELY D.”

READ MORE: Donald Trump Just Made One of His Most Racist Attacks Yet – and the Media Is Ignoring It

Sabato adds, “Our Crystal Ball rating for NC Governor has been Lean D. Mark Robinson (R) was going to lose even before this new story. The question is whether Robinson brings down the top of the ticket (Donald Trump) with him. Those 16 electoral votes could be the whole election.”

Asked on social media, “What kind of drag can the Gov race have on the Presidential race in NC?” Sabato replied: “Reverse coattails. It happens from time to time. Can dampen a party’s turnout.”

Trump also vociferously and enthusiastically endorsed Robinson. The Harris campaign was quick to post video of that endorsement after the scandal broke.

Political analysts have been saying North Carolina is a critical state given the current Electoral map.

“There are really only three states that will decide the presidential election: Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia,” Politico reported Thursday morning. “If Vice President Kamala Harris can’t carry Pennsylvania, her only hope is on a Southern strategy. Harris must win either Georgia or North Carolina. She has no other path to the White House.”

And if Trump “wins the East Coast trio of Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia, he will go back to the White House,” Politico added.

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: Yes, Republicans Are Lying — and They’re Not Going to Stop: ‘Enjoy It’

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