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Democrats: Politics Is War. And We’re Getting Killed.

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Unclesamwantyou

Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.
— Mao Zedong, 1938

The Democratic Party leadership’s performance over the past 365 days is clearly bullshit. This is not an Obama-bashing. This is an entire Democratic party-bashing.

I’ve never been a soldier. But I damn well know a few things about war.

First of all, you protect your most important positions. At all costs. ALL COSTS. So, for instance, when a Democratic Senate seat – a seat that’s been held by a Democrat since John F. Kennedy – fifty-six years ago, is up for grabs, during a special election – you damn well put everything you have into protecting it. And yet, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair, Robert Menendez learned just a week and a half ago that the race was tightening? And where the hell has Tim Kaine been? You remember Kaine, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee? What the heck has he done for the DNC lately? (Howard Dean, any chance you’d consider coming back?)

This is just like Maine, when we lost marriage equality in November. We had won gay marriage in the legislature just months before. And yet, we lost. Why? Complacency. The same reason Coakley lost. Complacency. Not treating a prized possession like a prized possession. Not ensuring we protected our assets. (Note to all Democratic pols: NO vacation six months before an election. Did no one learn anything from Prop 8?)

And when the hell are Democrats going to learn to communicate? When are they going to learn to explain things, like healthcare, like the stimulus, and learn to get in front of the message? You can’t be a politician and be a back-seat driver. Not at the same time.

You know, there is one good thing about being a Republican. They’re fear-based. Republicans are afraid of everything, so they act like they are at war – all the time.

Sadly, life sucks when you live in fear. But at least, from a national, political standpoint, things get taken care of. Or taken-out.

Michael Steele may be a raving lunatic, but he is out there attacking anything that’s coming toward him, and anything that might be. Even things that are just in his head.

And that’s the problem with Dems. Lack of vision.

Maybe we should just have someone sitting in a chair, with the proverbial “gun pointed at their head,” forced to come up with every possible scenario of what could happen. Think of it like the Cheney Doctrine. (After all, for Cheney, 1% was all it took to go to war.)

Make no mistake. We are at war. The stakes are that high. (Don’t believe me? How many people die a year because they have no health insurance? How many people died because there was no hate crimes bill?)

Democrats, you need to learn to fight. That’s one thing the Republicans have over us. Not that we want to be like Republicans – just use some of their strengths.

The last thing this country needs is a return to Republican leadership. If you can call it “leadership.” Because they are the ones who got us to where we were exactly one year ago today, January 19, 2009: Bush’s last full day in office, and America on the verge of collapse. Hell, Obama & Co. had to drag George W. Bush over the finish line. Have we EVER seen anything like that before? Bush practically abdicated two months before he was done. At least Sarah Palin had the good sense to resign, knowing she wasn’t going to do anything for Alaska as governor.

Anyway, I’m sick to death of the Democrats pussyfooting around. They’re like high school kids scared someone isn’t going to ask them to the prom. Well, politics is Sadie Hawkins – YOU ask someone to the dance. YOU take control. YOU throw the first punch. YOU set the agenda. YOU make the rules. (Harry Reid, are YOU listening? President Obama, are YOU listening?)

And yet, all we’re doing is countering the Rush-Beck-O’Reilly-DeMint nutjob whack-a-mole machine. How much time and money has every politician, strategist, and blogger on the left spent licking a finger and putting it up in the air to see which way the Republican wind machine is blowing?

I say it’s time to blow back.

Full force.

Take the offensive.

I am sick to death of Dems doing things half-assed. Ask yourself, what is the last thing Democrats did 100%? What is the last thing we did that we put everything we had into it? And don’t say Obama’s campaign: remember the Hillary contingent.

I’d say, in the 1960s, when Kennedy staked a claim in a national goal of “landing a man on the Moon” by the end of the decade. And before that? When Truman dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those were no-going-back, full-in, do-or-die moments.

Yes. Politics is war. And the Republicans are kicking our asses.

America cannot afford to move any further right. Too much is at stake. Healthcare, for one. Civil rights. Our relationship with the rest of the world. Infrastructure. Job creation. Financial regulation. The Supreme Court.

Yes, the Supreme Court.

As we’ll soon find out, win or lose, the Prop 8 trial that is currently on in San Francisco will force the Supreme Court to take up marriage equality in the next few years. And a conservative Supreme Court – which is what we have right now – will not hand over marriage equality to us, regardless of the merit of our case. It’s just not going to happen.

So we need to move the court to the left. Which means, we need a Democratic president to be in place to appoint more progressive judges to the bench.

George W. Bush put three conservative judges on the Supreme Court bench. We need more progressives. True progressives.

But, back to business. Democrats: get your asses in gear. Politics is war; take no prisoners. The enemy, trust me, has been given the exact same command.

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News

Hunter Biden Plans Lawsuit Against Fox News Amid ‘Conspiracy of Disinformation’

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April 29, 2024

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Attorneys for Hunter Biden have notified Fox News he plans to sue the right-wing cable TV network and its digital entities, after lawyers for the President’s son spent more than a year investigating. Among other issues the letter reportedly mentions Fox News citing a now-indicted former FBI informant, and points to “revenge porn” laws.

The letter, NBC News reports, is dated last week and specifically points to alleged bribery allegations as well as “Fox’s airing of ‘intimate images’ belonging to Hunter Biden that his lawyers claim were ‘hacked, stolen, and/or manipulated’,” that they say violate “Biden’s civil rights as well as copyright law.”

CNN, focusing in the intimate images, reports that “Hunter Biden is demanding that Fox News remove from its platforms sexually explicit images that President Joe Biden’s son says are private, according to a letter obtained by CNN, as part of his strategy to publicly fight back against conservative media.”

“The media outlet aired a mock trial of Hunter Biden on the streaming platform Fox Nation in 2022,” CNN also reports, “focused on the unproven bribery allegations, and published ‘intimate images of Mr. Biden depicting him in the nude as well as engaged in sex acts,’ according to the letter, which demands that Fox immediately remove the series from all streaming platforms.”

READ MORE: Noem Doubles Down With ‘Legal Cover’ For Shooting Her Puppy to Death

“’FOX knows that these private and confidential images were hacked, stolen, and/or manipulated digital material,’ Hunter Biden’s attorneys wrote in the letter, which contained several of the explicit images, some of which were blurred,” CNN adds. “Publishing these images, the attorneys said, violated ‘the majority of states’ laws against the nonconsensual disclosure of sexually explicit images and videos, sometimes referred to as ‘revenge porn’ laws.’ ”

In a statement Hunter Biden’s attorney, Mark Geragos, expanded on the apparently pending lawsuit.

“For the last five years, Fox News has relentlessly attacked Hunter Biden and made him a caricature in order to boost ratings and for its financial gain,” Geragos stated. “The recent indictment of FBI informant Smirnov has exposed the conspiracy of disinformation that has been fueled by Fox, enabled by their paid agents and monetized by the Fox enterprise. We plan on holding them accountable.”

Media Matters last week reported, “Fox News has mentioned Hunter Biden at least 13,440 times since January 3, 2023, when Republicans took control of the House of Representatives after promising to use their power to investigate the business interests of President Joe Biden’s son, according to a Media Matters review.”

“Fox’s on-air coverage of Hunter Biden has … plummeted in recent months,” Media Matters added. “Mentions of the president’s son on the network peaked at 2,356 in July, when his federal plea deal on two misdemeanor counts of failing to pay taxes fell apart, and mentions exceeded 1,300 in four other months, most recently in December.”

READ MORE: Peter Navarro’s Latest Attempt to Get Out of Jail Smacked Down by SCOTUS

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Peter Navarro’s Latest Attempt to Get Out of Jail Smacked Down by SCOTUS

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2 hours ago

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April 29, 2024

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Former top Trump White House advisor Peter Navarro, in prison for criminal contempt of Congress, has failed in his latest attempt to be released early, after the U.S. Supreme Court once again denied his request.

Navarro, 74, the first and only former White House official ever to be imprisoned for contempt of Congress, is serving out his four-month sentence in Miami. His efforts to stay out of jail were first denied by Chief Justice John Roberts, before he reported to the prison in mid-March. He was found guilty in September after a short trial. After his arrest he hawked his book and begged for money on national television.

CBS News reports “15 days into his sentence, Navarro renewed his request to halt his surrender to Justice Neil Gorsuch, which is allowed under Supreme Court rules. His bid for emergency relief was referred to the full court, which denied it. There were no noted dissents. Attorneys for Navarro declined to comment.”

CNN called the decision to petition Justice Gorsuch “a procedural maneuver that has not worked in decades.”

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“Gorsuch referred the request to the full court, which considered it during its closed door conference on Friday. The court denied the request on Monday without comment.”

Navarro’s prison sentence is the result of his refusal to comply with a subpoena issued by the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack. Navarro claims he had executive privilege, but offered no proof, and refused to show up as ordered.

Legal experts accurately had predicted a “quick conviction” after Navarro, called a “conspiracy theorist” who promotes “fringe” economic theories, had called no witnesses. The jury deliberated for under five hours. He faced up to two years in prison.

CBS News adds Navarro “is not the only member of the Trump administration to be convicted of the charge. Steve Bannon, former White House chief strategist, was found guilty of two counts of contempt of Congress and sentenced to four months in prison. The judge overseeing that case, however, put his prison term on hold while Bannon appeals.”

READ MORE: Noem Doubles Down With ‘Legal Cover’ For Shooting Her Puppy to Death

 

 

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Noem Doubles Down With ‘Legal Cover’ For Shooting Her Puppy to Death

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3 hours ago

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April 29, 2024

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South Dakota Republican Governor Kristi Noem has been under bipartisan fire since Friday after an excerpt from her soon-to-be published book reveals her bragging about shooting to death her 14-month old puppy, and later that day, a goat. Noem, considered at least until last week a top contender to be Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate, is doubling-down defending herself but now she’s serving up some “legal cover” as well.

“I can understand why some people are upset about a 20 year old story of Cricket, one of the working dogs at our ranch, in my upcoming book — No Going Back. The book is filled with many honest stories of my life, good and bad days, challenges, painful decisions, and lessons learned,” she wrote on Sunday, after The Guardian‘s damning report. “The fact is, South Dakota law states that dogs who attack and kill livestock can be put down. Given that Cricket had shown aggressive behavior toward people by biting them, I decided what I did.”

Law & Crime on Monday reports the governor is “providing herself legal cover for the act.”

Noem “acknowledged that ‘some people’ were upset about the story — and she specified that it happened two decades ago, seeming to place the incident well beyond the statute of limitations.”

RELATED: Noem Defends Shooting Her 14-Month Old Puppy to Death, Brags She Has Media ‘Gasping’

“Noem additionally cited South Dakota law in support of her decision,” Law & Crime adds, noting the “reported book excerpt had said that Cricket tried to bite Noem and attacked her chickens.”

“The fact is, South Dakota law states that dogs who attack and kill livestock can be put down,” Noem wrote, an apparent attempt to preempt any possible legal issues. “Given that Cricket had shown aggressive behavior toward people by biting them, I decided what I did.”

Law & Crime explains that “South Dakota notes that an exemption to animal cruelty laws is the ‘destruction of dangerous animals.’ The law specifies that ‘[a]ny humane killing of an animal’ and ‘[a]ny reasonable action taken by a person for the destruction or control of an animal known to be dangerous, a threat, or injurious to life, limb, or property’ are exempt from prosecution.”

Noting that Noem’s attempt “to lean into the right’s embrace of political incorrectness … didn’t fly with members of her own party,” The Daily Beast pointed to well-known Republicans including former Trump White House communications director Alyssa Farrah Griffin and Meghan McCain who publicly condemned Noem’s actions.

READ MORE: President Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off

The Guardian’s excerpt from Noem’s book does not state that Cricket bit people, although Noem states Cricket “whipped around” to bite her. It’s possible biting others is in the book but did not make it into The Guardian’s report.

Describing Cricket killing chickens, Noem “grabbed Cricket, she says, [and] the dog ‘whipped around to bite me’. Then, as the chickens’ owner wept, Noem repeatedly apologised, wrote the shocked family a check ‘for the price they asked, and helped them dispose of the carcasses littering the scene of the crime’.”

“Through it all, Noem says, Cricket was ‘the picture of pure joy’,” The Guardian reports. “’I hated that dog,’ Noem writes, adding that Cricket had proved herself ‘untrainable’, ‘dangerous to anyone she came in contact with’ and ‘less than worthless … as a hunting dog’.”

Meanwhile, MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski on Monday said Noem’s pride and decision making surrounding killing the puppy make her unfit to be “in charge.”

Describing how she grew up on a family farm, Brzezinski said they hunted, and “there was absolutely a dense of life and death.” There was “never a joy in killing and there was a respect to it, and a process if you were hunting.”

READ MORE: CNN Smacks Down Trump Rant Courthouse So ‘Heavily Guarded’ MAGA Cannot Attend His Trial

“But this story was more about how she felt killing an animal, and that’s what’s scary about it – the impatience, kind of like a switch flipped in her brain and she decided she needed to kill it? Like this is not someone you want in charge, not someone thinking through the process of life and death.”

“The most remarkable part of it,” Scarborough added, “is that the conservative movement has been so corrupted by Donald Trump and his reached such new lows, that she actually put that in, about the killing of a happy puppy because she thought it would help her with the base.”

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