Progressives (Liberals)

lots of suggestions that they can't think of any questions they aren't afraid of getting answers to

when nobody gets what I post.

Of all the things that President Trump’s former personal lawyer revealed in his remarkable day of congressional testimony Wednesday, the one that shed the greatest light was this: Trump never expected — or even really wanted — to win the 2016 election.

“Donald Trump is a man who ran for office to make his brand great, not to make our country great. He had no desire or intention to lead this nation — only to market himself and to build his wealth and power,” Michael Cohen told the House Oversight Committee. “Mr. Trump would often say, this campaign was going to be the ‘greatest infomercial in political history.’ ”

Quote:

when nobody gets what I post.

I'm not sure what you mean here.

joke

At the End of a Long, Tedious Cohen Hearing, AOC Was Sharp and Crisp

Until today, I had been skeptical about the hype over new congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She is, after all, a backbencher from a safe Democratic district in a heavily Democratic state. She won an impressive upset primary victory last year, but is still south of 30 years old and belongs to the small if interesting tribe of self-identified democratic socialists (to which I do not happen to belong). Maybe I don’t spend enough time on social media to understand her mastery of latter-day communications. But I figured she had become a self-perpetuating legend probably resented by her colleagues who spent years toiling for a tiny fraction of the attention she’s attracted.

But at the end of a long, tedious day in the House Oversight Committee marked by clumsy questioning of Michael Cohen by Democrats, and shrieking hostility to the witness from Trump-loving Republicans, AOC (as she is universally known in the political universe — you know, like FDR and JFK) put in perhaps the single most impressive appearance of the hearing.

She was crisp, succinct, and very focused on raising some previously undiscussed potential criminal liability issues for Trump that Cohen’s testimony suggested (e.g, insurance fraud), including several where the hot-button issue of Trump’s missing tax returns might be germane. I wasn’t the only viewer who was impressed; so was the fact-checker from the Washington Post, another person unlikely to be excessively biased toward AOC:

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Glenn Kessler
✔@GlennKesslerWP
Some lessons that other lawmakers could learn from @AOC's good questioning of Cohen: a) follow-up on previously asked questions that still need answers b) be precise and detailed and c) avoid much grandstanding. You might elicit news.

Indeed, she was the opposite of a grandstander. True, she’s lucky to be the rare member of Congress who will get attention no matter what she does. But this time, she earned it, and if nothing else it’s a solid indication that she hasn’t let her early celebrity go to her head.

I knew that, Mr edgar

integrity and a great work-ethic

Daniel Dale
‏Verified account
@ddale8
CPAC speakers are talking about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez more than any other Democrat. Ingraham says she takes Ocasio-Cortez seriously because "she is the thought leader of the Democrat Party right now. She is.”

Daniel Dale
‏Verified account
@ddale8
Ocasio-Cortez is the primary individual villain of CPAC so far. The main thematic target is "socialism." The specific proposal being talked about most is the Green New Deal.

a robust belief in democracy.

ANDERSON COOPER (HOST): I want to pick up on a conversation that Senator Santorum and Carl Bernstein were having before the break, questioning why people in the Trump orbit continue to lie about Russia. I mean, does it -- is there an explanation for you in this? On just the number of lies related to Russia, senator?

RICK SANTORUM: Well, I guess the point I was trying to make to Carl is the -- the president doesn't tell the truth about a lot of things fairly consistently, and so, the fact that he's not telling the truth about Russia fairly consistently, at least in the eyes of people around here, why is that any different?

I mean, it's -- it's not like he's doing something out of character with the Russia investigation that he's not doing in any other areas.

So, that -- that's -- so, you make the point, "oh, he lies about Russia all the time." Well, according to what I hear on this -- this roundtable and the network, he lies about everything all of the time, so, what's the difference?

Rick Santorum has like a genius mind