- On Tuesday afternoon, as Gordon Sondland was winding things up in his eventful meeting with the House Intelligence Committee, I was starting to despair that no one would point out that he’s still a smug plutocrat who bought himself an ambassadorship for which he was not qualified. And that, had the whistleblower not blown the whistle, Sondland would still be a willing participant in the Ukraine shakedown. And, in fact, had other witnesses not completely shredded his previous testimony, Sondland would be blissfully walking the streets of Brussels, pretending to be a man of international influence, and waiting to be served with a warrant for perjury.
Saw it live. To me, that alone has earned Maloney re-election in 2020. And there’s plenty of other reasons to re-elect the guy.
foxnews.com’s homepage has literally zero articles related to yesterday’s hearing. The #2 or #3 spot is an article about how The Clinton Foundation is rumored to be going broke. Trump’s defense is now “but Sondland confirmed no quid pro quo, because there was that one time I told him explicitly that this wasn’t quid pro quo”. So, guys, just keep a written record denying any crimes you may be committing at the time! Simple.
... "They and their predecessors engineered a perpetual misinformation machine, and then a bunch of people addicted to their product took over the government.”A decades-long effort on the right has resulted in a parallel set of institutions meant to encourage tribal epistemology. They mimic the form of mainstream media, think tanks, and the academy, but without the restraint of transpartisan principles. They are designed to advance the interests of the right, to tell stories and produce facts that support the tribe. That is the ultimate goal; the rhetoric and formalisms of critical thinking are retrofit around it.
You're preaching to the choir, yo. The right wing here in America (and "accelerationists") have capitalized on the chaotic transition from traditional information distribution networks to the internet. Aside from tech-savvy members like AOC, the Dems' have pulled a David Brooks, meticulously plumping the pillows of his newpaper-reading chair. ...Say, can anyone find that article? I've just spent nearly 10 minutes Googling "David Brooks plumping newspaper", scouring #lolbrooks on Hubski, to no avail. And that feels bad, honestly
First of all, you can shelve my flood of impeachment crap for another day. There won't be many more days as momentous as today, in all likelihood. I have suspended my opinion of Sondland. He is perhaps entirely a useful idiot, hi-jacked by his superiors. Watching the entirety of this is worth it: He seems like a genuinely likeable guy. Certainly came across as pompous to some, but it could be the demeanor of someone who just realized they got played, and bigtime. Then again, sympathizing with billionaires is not really a favorite past time of mine. Anyway, Sondland's also the subject of the funniest thing I've seen over the last few days: Nope, not that, but that's where it begins. It ended today, four minutes into a Republican congressman's monologue, which culminated in him demonstrating that he did not understand the slang, clearly thinking that the emphasis was "loves your ASS" instead of "LOVES your ass" (edit: you'll have to fast forward on the embedded 'Tube link, Hubski doesn't embed the timestamps): This guy, Michael Turner (R), is actually walking around thinking that Zelensky is now being held to account for making comments on Trump's buttocks. There's a 0% chance that Zelensky and Ukraine in general haven't already been given the correct slang translation. C'mon, that's some bright silver lining. Until tomorrow, at least, when I re-face reality, which involves Turner's transparent attempt to attack a witness instead of admitting that Mr. Holmes's specific recall and Sondland's corroboration are two pieces of incredibly solid evidence implicating Trump 100% directly in a huge chunk of everything.