the hallmark elements of the president’s political style:
- ignorance,
- stupidity,
- pettiness, and
- malice.
.. the FCC does not license networks or cable channels. NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox News, etc., do not have FCC licenses to review or revoke. The FCC licenses individual stations.
.. Bill Mitchell, the Trump sycophant whose comprehensive lack of self-respect makes Paul Begala look like Cincinnatus, went on to argue that print publications such as Vanity Fair and the Washington Post should have their licenses revoked, too
There is no such thing as a newspaper license in the United States. There is the First Amendment.
.. Gutting the First Amendment is one of the top priorities of the Democratic party, which seeks to revoke its protection of political speech — i.e., the thing it’s really there to protect — so that they can put restrictions on political activism, which restrictions they call “campaign-finance reform.”
.. They abominate the Supreme Court’s solid First Amendment decision in Citizens United, a case that involved not “money in politics” but the basic free-speech question of whether political activists should be allowed to show a film critical of Hillary Rodham Clinton in the days before an election. (Making a film and distributing it costs money, you see, hence “money in politics.”) They lost that one, but every Democrat in Harry Reid’s Senate — every one of them — voted to repeal the First Amendment.
.. Right-wing populists, too, are an illiberal bunch
.. They are repeating the progressives’ mistake: imagining what their guy could do with vast new antidemocratic powers while never bothering to consider that the other side’s guy is probably going to get in there one of these days and enjoy the same powers.
.. Free speech is extraordinarily unpopular on college campuses, and California has just enacted a flatly unconstitutional law that would empower the government to put people in jail for failing to use the preferred pronoun of a transgender person.
Mark Levin: Mooch’s ’Absolutely Disgusting’ Remarks to ‘Liberal Rag’ Make WH Look ‘Moronic, Pathetic’
Conservative talk radio host Mark Levin blasted new White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci on Thursday for going to a “liberal rag” and making “absolutely disgusting” comments about White House Chief Strategist Steve K. Bannon.
.. Levin marveled at the fact that Scaramucci called a “liberal reporter at a liberal rag” and spoke in that way about his colleagues.
“What the hell has Steve Bannon done to this guy?” Levin asked. “Nothing!”Levin, who is the author of the current best-selling book Rediscovering Americanism, said that “if you support Donald Trump, then you don’t sit back and excuse all this.”.. Levin, a Reagan administration alum who has written some of the most seminal books of the modern conservative movement like Liberty and Tyranny, which became a runaway bestseller despite scant to no coverage in the legacy media, asked, “Do you think this kind of internecine warfare makes America great again?”“It makes these guys look stupid, moronic, pathetic! That’s not how you serve your president, in my view,” he said... “The president is under brutal attack, and he really needs some pros around him,” he continued.
.. On Fox News, conservative radio host Laura Ingraham slammed Scaramucci for “trashing Steve Bannon, who has been carrying the conservative populist banner for years, loyal to this president,” and said Scaramucci’s comments were “humiliating to the president.”
Levin had a reminder for Scaramucci about the position he holds.
“You’re communications director to the president of the United States,” Levin said. “You hold a public trust.”
How Trump May Save the Republic
.. When he confesses the problem to mother, she responds with the most reproachful reassurance in movie history:
“We are protected by the enormity of your stupidity — for a time.”
Just so with our 45th president. His views are often malevolent, and his conduct might ultimately prove criminal. But we, too, are protected, for a time, by the enormity of his stupidity.
.. In corporate life, the usual practice when firing someone is either to say nothing or to say something nice, on the theory that the unlucky person is likelier to respond in kind. Trump has now given his former director the opportunity and incentive to do the opposite. Congressional hearings, should they happen, will be fun.
Can Trump Take Health Care Hostage?
Mr. Trump, as you may have noticed, isn’t big on accepting responsibility for his failures. Instead, he has decided to blame Democrats for not cooperating in the destruction of their proudest achievement in decades.
.. in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, he openly threatened to sabotage health care for millions if the opposition party doesn’t give him what he wants.
In that interview, the president of the United States sounded just like a mobster trying to extort protection payments from a shopkeeper.
.. Mr. Trump is trying to bully Democrats by threatening to hurt millions of innocent bystanders — ordinary American families who have gained coverage thanks to health reform.
.. remember, we’re talking about a man who once cut off health benefits to his nephew’s seriously ill 18-month-old son to gain the upper hand in a family dispute.
.. Implicitly, he’s saying that hurting innocent people doesn’t bother him as much as it bothers his opponents.
.. So the Trump health care threat is, as I said, stupid as well as nasty.
.. he may already have done much of the threatened damage. Insurers are deciding right now whether to participate in the 2018 Obamacare exchanges. Mr. Trump’s tough talk is creating a lot of uncertainty, which in itself may undermine coverage for many Americans.