Trump / Musk (other than DOGE)

[Carolina Fever]

Nobody on the right will listen to warnings about Trump from anyone. We just spent an election cycle listening to warning after warning from people within his own party. Didn’t matter.

Apparently, people who say they are independent and swing voters won't listen, either, because the other option was a black woman, and that is just too much for them to handle.

 

[gtyellowjacket]

May not be a joke. Value is between $500 million and $1 billion. As long as he is setting money on fire for kicks, why not? There are conservatives begging a billionaire or two to buy it to shut it down (and others suggesting they do the same to BSKY because meanie libs are abandoning Xitter for a place that has moderation standards).

I am not an MSNBC fan or viewer and still want to see BSKY to be less of an echo chamber, but find it pretty concerning that there are a lot of self-proclaimed free speech conservatives who are promoting acquiring and shutting down more liberal spaces.

I'm sure the stockholders would love that. And it's not like it's going to stop anything as Elon can well attest with Blue sky gaining in popularity. I'm sure someone can figure out a way to start a liberal leaning News channel to fill demand that is suddenly unsatisfied because Elon shut down their old station.

 

[Mulberry Heel]

May not be a joke. Value is between $500 million and $1 billion. As long as he is setting money on fire for kicks, why not? There are conservatives begging a billionaire or two to buy it to shut it down (and others suggesting they do the same to BSKY because meanie libs are abandoning Xitter for a place that has moderation standards).

I am not an MSNBC fan or viewer and still want to see BSKY to be less of an echo chamber, but find it pretty concerning that there are a lot of self-proclaimed free speech conservatives who are promoting acquiring and shutting down more liberal spaces.

They've already been doing this. Elon buying Twitter is such an example. They're just accelerating the program now. And it's worth noting that this is precisely how Orban took over Hungary and became a virtual dictator - they took control of pretty much every media outlet in the country and so have prevented his opponents from getting airtime in campaigns. Imagine Elon in control of MSNBC and CNN moving even more to the right. I know that younger liberals use social media and don't watch much television, but the ugly truth is that liberals are starting to run out of major media outlets to get their views out.

 

[Zoo_View]

They've already been doing this. Elon buying Twitter is such an example. They're just accelerating the program now. And it's worth noting that this is precisely how Orban took over Hungary and became a virtual dictator - they took control of pretty much every media outlet in the country and so have prevented his opponents from getting airtime in campaigns. Imagine Elon in control of MSNBC and CNN moving even more to the right. I know that younger liberals use social media and don't watch much television, but the ugly truth is that liberals are starting to run out of major media outlets to get their views out.

Kiss NPR and local public radio/TV outlets good-bye. Not that they’ve done much but sane-wash Trump and MAGA the last 9 years; but, WUNC does cover state and regional news.

 

[sringwal]

I went to college with Bradley George and we ran in the same circles. We have talked occasionally since he started working at NPR.

At the state level, NPR is doing the best they can. And I will continue to argue that NPR at the national level remains among the best services at reporting international news.

 

[JCTarheel82]

I guess we’ve reached the part of the story where the Pubs and their billionaire enablers are both ready and able to do what their (unrestricted) media outlets have been (falsely) accusing Dems of doing to them for years.

Something like “I can’t wait for my leopards to eat the faces of those I have been falsely led to believe have been trying to eat my face!”

Yep, this has been happening for a while behind the scenes but is becoming more publicly visible now. Bastardization of the 1st Amendment by the right wing media ecosystem and Pub politicians laid the ground work for this effort, and the base is fully on board. For the right, "free speech" has always meant the freedom to say whatever they want without consequence as well as propagate disinformation without limitation. Musk's claims of being a free speech advocate while acquiring sXitter and turning it into a hotbed of online right wing extremism (and silencing dissident voices on the platform) is a prime example of this. And of course they don't believe those same free speech rights (or any rights really) apply to their political opponents. All this after playing the victim and projecting that the left was doing what they are actually doing now, as you said. It's all part of the right's dangerous lurch toward fascism.

 

[superrific]

OK, so MSNBC is owned by NBC. They aren't going to sell it to Elon. It would pulverize their brand. I read somewhere they are thinking about spinning it off, but I would be surprised if the spin off would sell to Elon either. I would assume NBC would put some sort of anti-Elon provisions in the new company's certificate of incorporation (if it does get spun off).

 

[heelinhell]

John Bolton is a blood-thirsty ghoul. I’m glad no one is listening to what he has to say.

Yes he is, but his assessment of Sebastian Gorka is on the money...

 

[WaynetheDrain]

Didn’t say he was. Just don’t think anyone should be giving credence to him. A blind squirrel and all that.

Yes, but you stated he isn’t worth listening to. In this particular case, he is. He was also right about the threat that Trump poses to the country. So the blind squirrel found a couple of nuts.

 

[finesse]

A toddler wouldn't be believed. I don't care about or respect his opinion even though, in this case, we agree. However, it's an opinion worth hearing and there are people that will hear it from him who won't from us. It's not about insight, it's about getting the message out. Didn't we just see that this election?

 

[finesse]

There's as many people that didn't vote at all as voted for either candidate. Obviously nobody motivated them. We don't know what might. Nothing about this says we support Bolton, because I certainly don't, but it's not exactly time or even prudent to be running purity tests on favorable opinions. We need everything in our favor we can get.

 

[Zoo_View]

I don’t think the people that didn’t vote were just sitting out waiting to hear from neoconservatives. Again, isn’t that exactly what Harris did in the closing days of the campaign?

IMO, amplifying this kind of stuff has always exceptionalized Trump. It makes him seem like he’s not a normal Republican to voters or that the Republican Party is somehow distinct from Trump.

Bolton and his ilk are directly responsible for the conditions that allowed Trump to rise. They don’t get to escape blame now.

Trump and Trumpism didn’t happen because John Bolton, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Condi Rice and others trumped up invading Iraq in 2003.

The MAGAts, including Trump, supported, overwhelmingly supported, invading Iraq in 2003 and trying to orchestrate nation-change (on the cheap) in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Saxby Chambliss didn’t beat Max Cleland in the 2002 US Senate race in Georgia because Saxby opposed invading Iraq.

John Kerry wasn’t “Swift-boated” in 2004 because he was proposing escalating the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

[nycfan]

OK, so MSNBC is owned by NBC. They aren't going to sell it to Elon. It would pulverize their brand. I read somewhere they are thinking about spinning it off, but I would be surprised if the spin off would sell to Elon either. I would assume NBC would put some sort of anti-Elon provisions in the new company's certificate of incorporation (if it does get spun off).

Doesn’t Comcast own NBCUniversal? I doubt Comcast cares so long as whoever buys MSNBC takes NBC out of the name.

 

[nycfan]

At least this guy is t the Sugeon General nominee, I guess. Winning!

 

[nycfan]

 

[superrific]

Super said something about him being a tariff guy. I assumed Trump would pick someone who likes tariffs, but do we know what Bessent really thinks about them?

Here's his op-ed piece published a week ago. Tariffs are the greatest thing, even Hamilton loved them!

SCOTT BESSENT: Let's talk tariffs. It's time to revitalize Alexander Hamilton's favorite tool

Prior to the 16th Amendment, which authorized the individual income tax, tariffs had been one of the federal government’s chief sources of funding.

www.foxnews.com

 

[superrific]

Bolton puts his ideology over his country. I don’t think he cares about the Republican Party. He’s committed to American imperialism. If that means young men and women need to die in a war against Iran, so be it.

What are you arguing here? I don't think there's a single person on this thread who wants Bolton as part of the Dem coalition. Pubs can keep him.

The thing about him is that he's a straight shooter. Like, he gives you an honest assessment of what he thinks. That's what made him a really shitty ambassador, but it is useful as a commentator. Of course, a lot of what he thinks is messed up, but unusually for the GOP, he doesn't bullshit. He says, "this is what I think we should do" without all that much regard for whether people will like it.

That said, I can't imagine we really disagree about him in any meaningful way. I do think he should get props for shutting down Trump's Ukraine bullshit. Who else in Trump's administration would stand up to Trump like that. It's not nearly enough to make up for what he did in decades prior. And maybe he did it for bad reasons, but he still did it.

 

[superrific]

Doesn’t Comcast own NBCUniversal? I doubt Comcast cares so long as whoever buys MSNBC takes NBC out of the name.

Right. But how do you take NBC out of the brand name of MSNBC, without pulverizing the property you're trying to sell? You can't go with MS (that's microsoft; people don't remember that MSNBC was originally a partnership between NBC and MS).

It would be as if the state legislature passed a law requiring all sports teams in the state to have one word nicknames. We could be the UNC Tars, but come on. that would be terrible.

 

[altmin]

I went to college with Bradley George and we ran in the same circles. We have talked occasionally since he started working at NPR.

At the state level, NPR is doing the best they can. And I will continue to argue that NPR at the national level remains among the best services at reporting international news.

We have a good friend who is a reporter at NPR. Apparently behind the scenes, NPR is tearing itself apart as the upper levels seem hell bent on kowtowing and sane washing the new admin.

 

[donbosco]

Seb Gorka's wife is a UNC grad. She was a St. A. Class of ''82 I believe. She was part of the crowd that I hung out with back in those days. I can't say that we were friends though.

Katharine Cornell.