George Will is years past his freshness date, but just as a blind hog roots up an acorn once in a while, so Mr Will can still bring it on rare occasions. On Lawrence O'Donnell's show last night:
Money quote: "... Mr Pence is surface all the way through." Be mindful that Mr Will can trash 45* and his trained monkeys, but still miss the broader point that it's the GOP that's been putting these assholes up front for a solid 30 years. The party built these monsters. The party owns that responsibility, and a guy like George Will bought 3 or 4 houses and took nice long vacations in Europe on the money he was paid to animate the monster. So it gives us a Warm-n-Fuzzy to hear ol' George say those things about Cult45, but we've been here before. We had that same feeling when Will trashed Bush43 about 15 years ago. He tries to make it sound like he's widening out his criticism by saying Pence has given in to tribalism, but that word - "Tribal" - is great example of ducking the issue by using vague terms to invite the inference that it's a Both Sides problem, and therefor everything is equal and therefor we can go on pretending that it's not the GOP that's the fucking problem.
David McRaney's podcast looks at rationalization - particularly how we rationalize our way around an innate fear of change, and how that explains a few things about why 35 - 45% of us seem to be OK with Cult45.
Chris Savage and @LOLGOP - Eclectablog Podcast, with guest Marcy Wheeler
At about 23:00, Wheeler brings up the weirdness of how Rick Gates has fallen off the Cult45/DumFux News radar, and wonders if it has anything to do with the Koch boys starting the usual attempt to redeem the GOP. Interesting takeaway - it would appear that all the guys being investigated have a Russian oligarch assigned to them as handlers. Ed Note: Wheeler is a frequent contributor at The Intercept and Democracy Now, but I won't hold that against her. She's smart as fuck and so far, it looks like she doesn't do the Purity Warrior bullshit.
And there's a pretty strong consensus that says blowing up the Iran deal is going to make it a lot harder to get a deal with North Korea.
A foreign policy expert, not known for emotional or blunt language, told me rejecting the Iran deal was “the stupidest thing Trump has done in foreign policy.” Shows the US doesn’t care what its closest allies think and is no longer a responsible steward of international security
(Continuing to play Catch-Up) Another one that came in under the radar - early on. Gee - it's almost like Cult45 had it worked out ahead of time. WNYC's Trump, Inc podcast via Stitcher:
Put 45* together with a casino, and you get Russian Money laundering.
It takes a while to sort through all the shit - sometimes I have to listen to this kind of thing 2 or 3 times because there's so much to grok, my brain overheats and shorts out. Buzz helps me connect some of the dots and keep it more or less organized. Two really big ones:
