December 12, 2016

Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) is on the Senate Armed Services Committee and has some strongly inauspicious concerns about this cabinet that Trump is forming. She labeled the nominees as the 3-Gs: Goldman (Sachs), generals and gazillionaires. Sadly, she is not being hyperbolic at all, this is the truth. If we are subscribing to the 'logic' of Republicans and Trump apologists, we cannot say facts anymore. Facts? Nope. Just truth via Twitter. The host sought McCaskill's opinion on the latest pro-Putin, anti-environmentalist and billionaire, Trump's likely Secretary of State pick who's also the Exxon-Mobil CEO.

Thanks to "This Week" for the transcript.

STEPHANOPOULOS: It appears that Rex Tillerson is going to be the pick for secretary of state, even though, as Reince Priebus said, it's not a completely done deal yet. What kind of questions do you have about that?

MCCASKILL: Well, first of all, his cabinet or -- I call it the 3-G cabinet, Goldman, generals and gazillionaires. And I think it's one of the things that for someone who has worked around the world for profit, it is different than working around the world to make sure we have strong alliances and to make sure that we are in the strongest position to protect our country.

And I worry about the lack of experience that he has had on the diplomatic front and, frankly, I think that's true for many of the appointments to Trump's cabinet. They haven't had experience in the areas that they're being asked to manage in a very complicated world and a very complicated government.

STEPHANOPOULOS: On another matter, your outgoing leader, Senator Harry Reid, thinks that the FBI director, James Comey, should resign because he underplayed information that Russia was involved in these elections.

Do you agree with that?

MCCASKILL: Well, I know this, that there were thousands and thousands of hours given to Hillary Clinton's e-mail server and Benghazi. It seems to me we need bipartisanship now to look at exactly what happened in this election and exactly the things that people like James Comey did and put it in context to make sure we have all the facts, because I don't think anyone is comfortable with how this election played out.

I'm not questioning that Donald Trump won the election. But there's nothing more sacred than our democratic process in the United States. And we have got to make sure that -- put aside partisan politics and make sure that we're getting to the bottom of all of this.

STEPHANOPOULOS: One of the things we know for sure in this election -- and Rand Paul just talked about it -- Hillary Clinton got decimated in rural and small-town America, not only in Kentucky, but in places like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. How do Democrats get their act together, win back those rural, small-town voters that they have lost?

Thank goodness the Missouri Democrat called him out, albeit not too strongly, about this last question comprised of malarkey. She agreed we need to communicate with these folks specifically, BUT WE HAVE! That message was covered up with what amounts to a media full burka.

MCCASKILL: You know, I was really shocked this week that, after all of this talk about coal miners and all of this talk about Buy America, the Republicans and the House of Representatives gutted health care and pension protections for coal miners and removed the Buy America provision that had been put in the bill in a bipartisan basis.

So I think we have got to call out the Republicans, where their walk doesn't match their talk, and I think we also have to make sure that we communicate clearly that we are the party that cares deeply in our core about working people in this country.

Here's the part that will receive no attention, but we'll hear folks like George Stephanopoulos and Chuck Todd and even some of the 'liberal' MSNBC folks like Kornacki and Hayes. They subscribe to the myth that Hillary Clinton and the entire Democratic party didn't even try to reach out to the rust belt, rural segment of voters in the states that Trump won by a suspiciously minimum margin of victory, such as Pennsylvania. Michigan and Wisconsin.

How do Democrats get their act together, win back those rural, small-town voters that they have lost?

Why don't you, George, start by doing your job like a responsible journalist who does not simply excoriate the Democratic Party for the media's abject FAILURE to report some very pertinent facts? Wouldn't it be nice if they called out the GOP for lying about, well, everything? Some of my wisest friends list the both-sides-do-it as the most vicious of lies, that legitimizes any false narrative, like this economic populism that Hillary Clinton absolutely spoke on more often and more substantively than El Mango Mussolini.

Liberal champion and person who has been consistently calling out the corrupt both-siderist media, Driftglass pointed out some of the FACTS, you know, those pesky things Trump sycophants deem no longer relevant. He demolishes Stephanopoulos' sickening fallacy about Democrats not appealing to this specific group of voters, and puts the blame where it's due. Here are just a few listed.

  • White House announces the Office of Manufacturing Policy
  • Another Step for American Manufacturing -- August 11, 2010:
  • President Obama Announces Two New Public-Private Manufacturing Innovation Institutes and Launches the First of Four New Manufacturing Innovation Institute Competitions" -- February 25, 2014:
  • President Obama Awards $2.3 Billion for New Clean-Tech Manufacturing Jobs" -- January 08, 2010
  • President Obama Speaks on Manufacturing in Ohio -- November 14, 2013

There's so many more, that you've never heard about. Hillary Clinton spoke ad nauseum about these ACTUAL improvements to the lives of all of these voters she allegedly 'lost.' In fact, as a 'third term' of Obama's, she would have implemented real change, not P.R. stunts that do nothing and cost the taxpayers millions. Driftglass explains.

Hundreds and hundreds. So ask yourself why you never even heard about Obama Administration policies actually saving of 1,200 jobs at ArcelorMittal in Cleveland, but you can't escape the deafening roar from Il Douche's smoke-and-mirror-and-seven-million-tax-dollar Carrier scam?

U.S. manufacturing is making a comeback, with more than 800,000 new jobs added since the sector turned the corner after the Great Recession in 2010. For the last four years in a row, global CEOs have named the United States the best place to make and invest, and new capital investment is flowing in to a broad range of manufacturing technologies.

Did you hear that once? I sure as hell did not, and Stephanopoulos' comment about Democrats 'getting their act together' is patently false AND a dangerous statement.

One aside from this 'post fact' American 'reality,' if you hear a Republican say something like as a matter of fact or the fact of the matter is, ask them to rephrase that to use a definitive proven truth, not a non-existent term. Those qualifiers are null and void.

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon