Even now, Republicans are ignoring the storm clouds - Joe Scarborough

[DonViejo]

By Joe Scarborough January 26 at 7:30 PM

We learned this week that President Trump in June ordered the firing of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, but few Republicans on Capitol Hill bothered to raise an eyebrow. In more settled times, this kind of presidential assault on an independent investigation would have stirred grave concerns throughout the halls of Congress. But Trump’s corrupted coalition has instead trotted out one twisted conspiracy theory after another, all designed to distract the president’s most fevered fans and concoct a case against Mueller’s investigation.

Wild tales of secret societies, Obama wiretaps and “deep-state” conspiracies flow freely from the tongues of Trump apparatchiks. Those preposterous narratives are then spread across cable news networks and inside Capitol Hill cloakrooms.

Not so long ago, Republican leaders prided themselves on protecting middle-American minds from the liberal intellectual rot being spread by politicians and college professors they viewed as being hostile to law enforcement, contemptuous of constitutional traditions, indifferent to personal morality and accommodating to Russian tyrants. They claimed to be the intellectual heirs of Edmund Burke, Russell Kirk and William F. Buckley Jr. Now those same politicians debase themselves daily in service to Trump.

In the Age of Trump, it is no longer in vogue to stand athwart history in defense of American institutions, constitutional norms and cultural traditions. These days, Republicans’ intellectual firepower is rather focused on defending Stalinist attacks on the press and pricey payoffs to porn stars.

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/even-now-republicans-are-ignoring-the-storm-clouds/2018/01/26/a6b727e6-02d9-11e8-8acf-ad2991367d9d_story.html

[ailsagirl]

1. Good

Evidently they never heard the phrase "forewarned is forearmed"

They do so at their own peril

[irisblue]

2. The article is worth the read, even in incognito mode or straight on.

He's laid out a damning list. The 30% base won't care; it seems it is aimed at the educated culturally & politically literate.

[jimmil]

10. So no Gump supporters will ever read this...

In reality he is just preaching to the choir.

[Botany]

3. Joe seems to forget his work for bush in bush v Gore now

And bush v Gore help to lay the groundwork that now gives us Trump.

[Honeycombe8]

5. I disagree. This Trump thing is different. nt

[Botany]

11. No bush v Gore No HAVA ** (help America vote act) ...

... No Supreme Court w/Roberts & Alito = No Citizen's United* which allowed unlimited
dark money (much of which was from Russia) to swamp our election.


* In Ohio in the US Senate race a good man named Ted Strickland was overwhelmed
with non stop lies before the month of Sept. even started ..... thanx to Citizen's United
the NRA was able to spend $50 million in bullshit ads using lots of dark Russian money.

The shit bush and the GOP pulled helped to make a Trump Presidency possible.


** after HAVA we have seen a "red state shift" in voting even though the population
demographics have been all going for the Ds.

[Amaryllis]

15. EXACTLY! You nailed it, Botany. THere is a lot more that could be said about SCOTUS with

Bush appointees that paved the way for Trump, like that they gutted the Voting Rights Act. Just one relatively small thing out of many. Not to mention that HAVA opened the way for far more electronic meddling with elections by providing billions in fed $ for paperless, unauditable electronic voting systems.

[Cosmocat]

12. He is a POS

he was EVERYTHING he now righteously derides when he was in the House in the 90s.

[Botany]

13. MSNBC had Joe's faux protest folk song giving the sound as ....

.... video of the Women's marches from last weekend was being broadcast. Please
the mother fucker made his bones working to take women's health care choices
away. Somebody from DU posted it

[Honeycombe8]

4. Thanks. Good piece. nt

[BobTheSubgenius]

6. It's not that "...it is no longer in vogue..." in that circle.

It's that what IS in vogue is to stack one soapbox after another in an attempt to be seen and heard above the rest of the rabble. Once up there, find that screeching as loud as possible is no longer enough, so the most ridiculous and outrageous lines of drivel are vomited up in the hope of getting a few seconds of cable news time, or a few column inches, if only as a curiosity... a sideshow geek...a latter day Elmer Gantry.

Any of us could make a case that "institutions, constitutional norms and cultural traditions," FAR from being defended, are under vicious attack almost daily, and could make it blindfolded, without immediate research....so I won't. Not only would it be a tedious and "old news" read, it's being done for us, right out in the open by these malevolent troglodytes.

They make no pretense about their intentions; they are openly hostile to government in general, at least government that concerns itself with doing the actual business of the people, and various parts of the government specifically - education, environment, advancement of science.

They are the most aggressive and malignant Luddites imaginable.

[AZ8theist]

7. Fuck you, Joe

If you weren't a drumpf boot licker during the campaign, putting him on the air the instant he phoned in, (providing him how many millions of $$$ of free air time) we probably wouldn't be in this shitstorm now.

You're part of the problem, not the solution. But go ahead, flap in the breeze till your hearts content. Maybe it will cleanse your conscience, but unlike the MORANS on the right, we on the left have long memories. Your contribution to American fascism will not be forgotten.

[ginnyinWI]

9. You overestimate the power of any cable news show.

Most people are not glued to them. I'm glad he has become "part of the solution" now.

[Boomerproud]

8. K&R for the replies, not the article.

Amen to all.

[Skittles]

14. YOU ignored them for a long time Joe you asshole

and "liberal intellectual rot"? FUCK YOU JOE.