Wednesday, August 07, 2019

Left & Right July 31, 2019



Newspaper publisher Mark Guerringue sits in the left chair for this episode. The producer gives us two questions to start with: Are Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren too far left to beat Trump? I answer that if the election were held today, Trump would win, but it's a long way off and anything could happen in the next fifteen months. The Democrat field is so far left that what we used to consider centrist has also shifted considerably to the left to the point where John Delaney is called moderate. Mark believes Delaney, Hickenlooper and Bullock to be moderate because they're capitalist and don't want to give free medical care to undocumented immigrants. Mark also contends that Mitch McConnell is blocking efforts to monitor/regulate social media, thus enabling Russians and others to continue influencing elections. I say all that is overblown and an issue manufactured by Democrats to harass the Trump Administration. Mark asked what I think of Meuller's appearance before Congress. I said Meuller appeared doddering, incompetent, showing signs of dementia. Mark emphasized that Meuller responded "Yes" to a Democrat congressman's question: "Would you have recommended indictment if Trump were not president?" Mark believes there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in spite of the Mueller report claim that there wasn't. I question whether Meuller wrote the report, that he appeared incompetent at the hearing and I believe the entire Russia collusion affair was invented by the Obama Administration intelligence apparatus, the Hillary Campaign, and the DNC, that they all spied on the Trump Campaign, the Trump Transition Team, and the Trump White House. I believe there will be indictments of several people associated with those organizations. A grand jury is right now investigating this under special prosecutor Durham. I contend there is little or no evidence for the ubiquitous charges that Trump is racist. All his "evidence" is circumstantial, that he questioned Obama's birthplace only because Obama was black -- that he criticized the Squad because only because they're brown and black. He [Trump] just is [racist], Mark claims. It's obvious, he says. Not to me it isn't. I claim Trump's criticism of the squad is because of the Squad's views, but the left, including Mark in this case, says it's only because of their skin color. I contend that cities around the country that Democrats have run for sixty years are hell-holes. Mark says they're thriving, that they're centers of entrepreneurship. He discounts that the murders in Chicago and Baltimore have anything to do with Democrat leadership.

7 comments:

CaptDMO said...

I guess MY big question is, now that Mr. G has been "on" a few times, are his
musings what he thinks, or are they simply following the editorial business model that's been established for The Conway Daily Sun?

Brian said...

And I wonder whether Tom's musings are what he thinks or if he is simply following the talking points established by the talking heads of the radical right.

I also wonder if he at least hears the dings of facts thrown at him as they bounce up against his bubble. Do they at least get his attention and make him think..."oooh, gotta ignore that, it would disturb my pre-conceived notions"

Whichever it is, he sure has gotten adept at hiding from facts, questions, and reality. Head in the sand syndrome.

Steve said...

Mueller’s report did not conclude there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia as you wrote. The report includes this passage: “Collusion is not a specific offense or theory of liability found in the United States Code, nor is it a term of art in federal criminal law,” Mueller writes. “For those reasons, the Office’s focus in analyzing questions of joint criminal liability was on conspiracy as defined in federal law.” Mueller’s conclusion is they could not find sufficient evidence to support criminal charges. That fact and your interpretation of it are not the same thing. Either you’re intentionally misleading your readership, or your conservative opinion sources are intentionally misleading you. There were nearly 150 instances of direct contact between Trump, his campaign officials and Russian government linked individuals, and most, if not all, lied about those contacts. Why would so many top-tier individuals on the same team make the same lie? Why would Trump’s campaign manager and his chief of staff meet with Konstantin Kilimnik to share internal polling data and then all leave out of different exits? Why would Trump Jr. take a meeting with the Russians on the promise of receiving dirt on Clinton and then lie by saying the meeting never happened, and the lie again to say the meeting was actually about adoption? Why would Trump Sr. lie about his role in drafting Jr.’s response? All of those campaign officials including Trump himself lied about their contacts with Russian government officials and oligarchs. With those lies now public knowledge, those individuals are no longer blackmailable assets for the Russian government, unless there are more lies we don’t know about. Is it possible that the Special Counsel wasn’t able to ferret out EVERY lie told by Trump and his administration? Let that sink in.

Trump asked WH lawyer McGahn to fire Mueller. McGahn refused. Trump lied and said that never occurred. When that was revealed, Trump then asked McGahn to create a White House document falsely claiming Trump never asked him to fire Trump, which is falsifying evidence. Trump lied about that also. Keep in mind, Trump claims there was never any attempt, successful or otherwise, to conspire or collude with the Russians. Why so much lying and obstructing into events that, according to Trump, simply never occurred?

Mueller, from the onset, obligated the Special Counsel’s office to observe the ruling that a sitting President cannot be indicted. Mueller never intended to reach a conclusion on obstruction, but rather lay out the ample evidence of it, and he wrote they have found insufficient evidence to meet the legal definition of conspiracy. Does that mean Mueller is not the unethical, renegade, conviction-happy law enforcement official you were so quick to portray him as?

So, board-certified physician, Dr. McLaughlin, you see evidence of dementia in Mueller? Is your diagnosis peer-reviewed by other esteemed physicians like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity or Laura Ingrahm? To quote Dennis Miller in his reference to Ross Perot’s running mate James Stockdale after the 1994 Vice Presidential debate, “He committed the unpardonable sin of looking bad on TV.” But dementia? You'll forgive me if I seek a second opinion.

Brian said...

ding...ding...ding...ding...ding.....

The sound of inconvenient facts bouncing off the protective bubble of those that don't want to believe their president is a racist who had dirty dealings with an enemy nation.

And who is also dumb as a rock: "Our army manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over airports,"

nathan kimble said...

Someone posed as Prince Pombo Mafumba in an attempt to stoke xenophobia and anger among Mainers. The account was picked up by the Maine First Project, a conservative political organization run by Republican state Rep. Larry Lockman, who has repeatedly pursued anti-immigrant legislation and echoed President Trump’s “fake news” talking points.


https://www.pressherald.com/2019/08/01/migrant-in-portland-shocked-to-learn-his-image-is-used-to-smear-fellow-asylum-seekers/

Tom McLaughlin said...

I saw that story Nathan, but I'm not sure I buy it. Prince Pombo sets off my bull**** alarm. He says he's a democrat activist who was persecuted, then he said he's a college professor. Then he said he took three years to travel from the Congo to Portland Maine but along the way he picked up a Brazilian wife and had a child. Why didn't he seek asylum in Brazil? Why the "harrowing" journey to Portland?

And, why does he jump in front of 18,000 other poor Mainers waiting years on a list for Section 8 housing? He's assimilating very well to American victim, identity politics it looks like to me.

And it's very true that the so-called "asylum seekers" turned down housing in Brunswick, Bath, Lewiston, and elsewhere. Was he really the victim of a false Twitter account? I have my doubts.

See here: https://fraudscrookscriminals.com/2019/08/04/maine-prince-pombo-says-twitter-account-in-his-name-is-fake/

Sami Gay said...

Hardly surprising that Tom would salivate over Ann Corcoran's dog whistle.