The hard way!
I almost feel sorry for him.
His impeachment paperwork met with a significant backlash and guess what?
His fellow signatories bailed on him.
Democrats being Democrats!
More fairly, it’s Politicians, being Politicians.
He may actually think that he’s justified, (who knows, he might be,) but he just found out that he’s nothing but a pawn. They had him float impeachment to see how it would play in the court of public opinion, and when the wind changed, they tossed him aside like he was nothing.
I’d say it’s 50/50 that he survives his next election.
He was obscure before the impeachment paperwork. After this, he’ll return to obscurity. Without allies or usefulness he’s toast.
Politics is tough.
What concerns me, is that now that he’s popped his head up with this impeachment stuff, suddenly there’s dirt on him in some corners of the media.
The Republican and Democrat parties are both full of politicians. You can count on politicians to be scum 98% of the time. So suddenly “Finding” that Thanedar left lab animals to starve in a lab he owned suggests to me that either this is a bogus story, or that there’s more to it. (He may have owned the lab, but did he run it?)
More worrisome is why now? Surely, someone had dirt on him for a while. How is this just coming to light, and why is the timing so convenient?
No matter what you think about Trump, or his administration. We should all be watching this stuff like a hawk. Otherwise we run the risk of replacing one shitty way of governing with another.
I have mixed feelings about Trump’s EO to cut funding for NPR and PBS. I don’t listen to either of them precisely because I find them to be so biased & liberal all they do is piss me off.
Even Jerry, who was very liberal, gave up on them. He subscribed to PBS for a year or two so that he could catch concerts, symphonies, and a couple of musical history shows. He’d turn them off the minute there was something “News” related.
For me, I used to listen to NPR sometimes while I was driving to work. Sometime in the Obama administration, NPR began to sound like propaganda, especially when there was anything controversial about the Obama Presidency.
I was looking toward them for balance, what I heard, was minimization of the issue and chronic blaming of Republicans for raising the issue. Hence my feeling they were nothing more than a propaganda outlet. In many regards, they sounded as radically left, as Patriot XM is to the right, (I also, as a rule, don’t listen to them).
I suppose I was looking for reasoned, balanced analysis of both sides of current issues. I wonder why we can’t seem to have that these days.
When you get to it, all radio is public. As is all network television. So that begs the question for me, “Why does NPR get public funding?”
If NPR presented both sides of every issue in a thoughtful and well researched way… In other words if they didn’t view issues through the lens of political party at all, and reported just the facts, then discussed the pros and cons of a policy dispassionately, I’d be very in favor of funding them.
I’ve recently noticed that I really tune out if hosts and guests on any show start talking over each other, or raising their voices. This is particularly true if the hosts are women. There’s some indefinable point where two or more women talking over each other and raising voices to be heard, just sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard. (Not that young people really know what that actually means these days.)
I’d like to see a show with a format that took an issue like Tariffs, then explained what they are, why they exist, how they work, why some countries have them, and others don’t.
Then I’d like to see/hear a dispassionate pro/con debate. Neither side of the debate should have to “Win”, but they should be able to defend their position with logic and fact.
I’d listen to two hours of that because I’d learn something.
That’s what I think of about tax dollars funding something like NPR or PBS. They should be educational and informative, without attempting to sway the listener in any particular direction. It should be the listener’s responsibility to make up their own mind about the information presented.
That’s the up side, the optimal outcome.
Further, I think when that balance and education is lost, we shouldn’t be paying for it.
That brings to mind another thought.
Perhaps it would be better for NPR and PBS to be completely decoupled from government funding so that they never fear government control. Obviously, if these organizations receive tax dollars, then can we really say they’re unbiased in their reporting? Might the apparent extreme left lean, be the inevitable outcome of funding sources?
How can you have unbiased reporting when you know if you offend someone on “The Hill”, it could affect your budget next year?
I sincerely hope that Trump cutting NPR / PBS funding & The sudden “Dirt” on Thanedar aren’t about retribution or revenge from the White House.
I’m a pretty vengeful person, I’m petty, and easily annoyed. I don’t want that in government from either party.