Ex-Host Krystal Ball: MSNBC’s Russia ‘Conspiracies’ Have Done ‘Immeasurable Harm’ to the Left

I had to stop watching MSNBC a while back for this reason.  And for some others that had to do with certain people thinking that I should be told how to interpret the news of the day that I had to go elsewhere than MSNBC and CNN to get.  The same “experts” day after day pitching theories, dramatic enough always to play to the desires of audiences that wanted to be told how to think and/or entertained rather than informed.  Corporate media gives its users what it wants with little concern for what they need.  They no longer have real reporters on air sharing what they see and hear happening except for hourly news breaks that last but a few minutes and those who facilitate the discussions with the experts made stars are stars themselves making way too much money to care much about the consequences of what they facilitate.

Yes, the focus on Trump and election misdeeds jacked ratings and while the ratings were rising interest in the really meaningful things going on each day, those related to the success of Trump gang initiatives, other forms of banditry made legal, earth plundering, and such other destructive deeds have been under reported the full stories never adequately revealed.

Krystal is a righteous kind of gypsy.

Onion: Pelosi Concerned Outspoken Progressive Flank of Party Could Harm Democrats’ Reputation as Ineffectual Cowards

The note describes people being displaced to make way for projects that will serve the wealthy and powerful while disrupting, if not destroying, the lives of those made powerless by the system.

There is also lacking a properly capable opposition force within the political system. The hope is on the democratic party to counter the evil but it has shown itself unable to act effectively in this capacity and, because we have a two party system in which both parties support an economic and political system that favors the unethical, greedy, and inhumane members of a capitalist elite, the opposition is at best weak and, in reality, complicit. Trump for a very long time found friends in the democratic party, partied with many of its leaders, he a part of the party scene for the rich and famous, no conditions made on membership for how they make their money or the effect on individuals and society caused by their use of the power they are able to buy in the American system they have paid to have shaped to favor them greatly.

I have just read a string of posts concerning the bad treatment of good people under a system of government that is supposed to serve the people by being by the people. Those who have traditionally opposed the maltreatment of people by and with the permission of the government have tried to work within the system to make it a just one. The approach has not worked, obviously, and the forces that have come to own government become stronger while the opposition tries to use over and over again tactics that have been proven over a long period of time not to work. Those now holding power and using it against people to get more for themselves will not be convinced to give up, give back power to the people. The people will have to force the change necessary to create a people’s state that is truly by and for the people. We should be talking about what kind of force that must be and how and when to strategically use it.

For the past two years plus, whenever I think I could not be made more disgusted than I already am, I am surprised to find that there are always new levels.  And so, today, I am more disgusted than was before and I can see no end to the escalation.  Here is gloating from the White House about a day that should live in infamy.

From White House 1600

The White House July 24, 2019

A bad day for the Swamp

It’s hard to understate just how badly today went for Congressional Democrats. It took a pressure campaign from the left to get former Special Counsel Robert Mueller to agree to testify before Congress in the first place. Now that he has, the reactions to today’s hearing from across the political spectrum were as ruthless as they are revealing.

Here are a few of those reflections:

• “Impeachment is over. I don’t think Nancy Pelosi is going to stand for her members bringing forth something that is going to obviously lose.” – ABC News’ Terry Moran
• “I think the Democrats have to be disappointed that [Mueller] didn’t more vigorously defend his process and the team.” – former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO)
• “Aside from difficult to watch testimony, there has been no new information and no elaboration on the 448-page report.” – CNN Commentator Alice Stewart
•  “There were also times when it seemed like [Mueller] was unfamiliar with parts of the investigation.” – CNN’s Jake Tapper
•  “One has to wonder, too, where Democrats go from here.” – Politico’s Blake Hounshell

If Democrats were looking to make headlines with today’s political theater, they got them. “This is Painful,” Mediaite reports in a pundit round-up. “A Sometimes Halting Mueller Parries Questions,” The Washington Post writes. “Democrats And Media Admit: Mueller’s Testimony Was A Total Disaster,” Townhall reports.

They’re right. After taking 22 months, calling more than 500 witnesses, issuing more than 2,800 subpoenas, and spending more than $30 million in taxpayer money, Congressional Democrats didn’t get the result they were hoping for from the Special Counsel’s report. In response, they spent more than 6 hours today pressuring Mueller to say something different than what his team concluded in their 448-page analysis.

They came up empty.

While Democrats looked foolish, that isn’t what made today a bad day for the Swamp. It’s a bad day because, once again, Washington put itself first. Americans are sick of partisan theatrics and desperate for our leaders to keep their promises to the voters who sent them here. Instead, Congress spent yet another day arguing about the results of an election that happened more than two and a half years ago.

In that time, President Donald J. Trump’s attention has been on the working-class Americans who put their trust in him. There is plenty of work left to be done, but the results so far are encouraging:

• More than 6 million new jobs have been created since Election Day 2016.
• The 3.7 percent unemployment rate remains near its lowest mark in 49 years.
• Unemployment has hit record or near-record low rates for historically marginalized groups including African-Americans, Hispanics, and women.
• U.S. stock markets continue to break record highs.
• Manufacturing job growth soared to a more than two-decade high last year.

And that’s just the economy. From criminal justice reform that will make America’s streets safer while giving former inmates a second chance at life, to veterans choice programs that are holding the VA accountable to our nation’s heroes, President Trump is working each day to keep his promises to voters.

Really, the Mueller report and the Mueller investigation have been a great diversion that has caused the many to miss what is really salient, an administration using tactics that abuse the system of government invented by the founders in order to put in place a maliciously destructive agenda that, because so much attention has been stolen by the investigation, has not been properly challenged by the democratic party or by citizens who should be really afraid of how Trump’s achievements–he has achieved much–are and will be affecting how people live their lives for a long time to come.  The two appointees to the Supreme Court and appointments to the lower courts, for example, should signify for the thoughtful a radical change in how law will be established and how it will be enforced.

The continued push to use the Mueller report to undermine Trump is making Trump stronger and a stronger Trump is a menacing proposition.  How he won the election may be an important thing to know and understand in regard to how criminal behavior played a role in the outcome.  That said, he is the president now and he is using his presidential powers and some powers he has no right to use reshape the country into a Trumpian dystopia, a mean society that is petty and vengeful and hurting right now millions of people who do not deserve to be punished.  Bad behavior is being translated into the positive and ugly sentiment a proper and normal way of thinking.

Trump is a menace and he needs to be treated as such.  He is a powerful menace because the system has not worked to prevent a menace from attaining the power of the presidency.

Something more than investigation by a tragicomical opposition is needed, only one part of it the replacement of the fools who now hold positions that should be held by truly effective defenders of what is right and good.  Out with the old guard that has been accepted as the best of the left that the system can tolerate and in with a new guard make up of politicians with the intelligence and the gumption to push back hard, hard enough to move things forward for real.

Democrats are dopes.  There is no viable opposition to Trump.  Listen to the party “leadership” and prove hopelessness to be the only sensible response to the political situation in which we find ourselves.  Next election without forcing the “opposition” party to mount a meaningful rebellion to vote would be to support reinforce the delusion that the system works.  IT IS THE SYSTEM, NOT THE OFFICE HOLDERS ALONE, that needs to be changed.

Lawrence Tribe on Twitter:

It seems at this point in the Mueller hearing that Trump and his minions have much to be happy about and that the democrats have put before the American people a witness who will not or cannot answer the questions in anyway other than to allow republican accusations to be heard and stand without refutation.

The democrats’ purpose for calling Mueller is far from being achieved and the propaganda the hearing is producing for Trump and friends is great.  I see a major disaster unfolding here, the consequence of which may be monumental.

I hope the direction things unfold throughout the rest of the day changes radically.  That it can, I doubt.  The democrats seem to have decided to ask the witness to confirm what is stated in the report.  The republicans seem well prepared to question the legitimacy of the report and, Mueller, feeling he has to stick to the text of the report, will not respond to what will be understood by many as condemnation of both the process and the product.