Tag: Parler

Republicans Resurge in Midterms

Politico Again – Rating every race in play in the midterms, Politico says while the Senate remains a toss-up, the House of Representatives will likely go Republican. That’s an easy shift from the current margin of five Democratic members. 

Good news for the other side, though, on gubernatorial races. Politico predicts more Americans will be governed by Democratic governors.

Comment in the box below, or in the left column if you lean liberal, or email editors@thehustings.news.

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What Ye Hath Wrought (TUE 10/18/22)

A week after World’s Richest Man by Stock Valuation Elon Musk admonished Ye over an antisemitic tweet, the rap artist/provocateur/Kardashian-ex known by his passport as Kanye West announced in a press release he will buy the far-right social media platform Parler, USA Today reports. No details, such as price, were announced, though the deal includes parent company Parler Technologies’ private cloud and infrastructure and is to be completed by the fourth quarter. 

Consider together  Ye’s Parler purchase (Daily Beast describes it as a "MAGA cesspit") with Tesla and SpaceX CEO Musk’s apparently imminent purchase of Twitter and plans to reopen it to Donald J. Trump, and plans by tech billionaire Peter Thiel and Senate candidate J.D. Vance to buy another hard-right social media site, Rumble, and you have a new age conservative media troika that would do Rupert Murdoch proud.

--TL

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COMMENTS: Go to the comment box in this column (or the one in the left column if that’s the way you lean) or email editors@thehustings.news and identify yourself as right or left in the subject line.

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Trump Won’t Celebrate National Pancake Day

By Michelle Naranjo

“Denial is a save now, pay later scheme.”

― Gavin de Becker, "The Gift of Fear"

If you were to look at TikTok, Instagram, or Twitter, you would think it is National Pancake Day. But, alas, it is a passive-aggressive collective statement from sarcastic users to Trump supporters promoting a Million MAGA March, focused on their conclusion that there was widespread voter fraud in the recent presidential election. President Trump keeps claiming there was fraud committed, so they believe it. There are a lot of JPGs and GIFs of pancakes out there.

After 18 failed lawsuits filed in the key states that Trump would have liked to have won, the projected tally is 306 electoral votes for Biden, with Trump receiving 232: Ironically, the exact margin Trump got when he triumphed over Hillary Clinton. Like Biden, she won the popular vote, while Trump didn’t in 2016, or 2020. 

Even as the law firms representing Trump in his court battles to regain electoral votes resign from their duties, Trump has committed to proceed with his desperate battle; most recently, appointing Rudy Giuliani to be in charge of the lawsuits. Both Democratic and Republican election leaders in swings states have stated that there is no evidence. They refuse to follow Trump’s last gasp that he doesn’t have to leave office because they will not change their process for selecting state electors. International election observers also stated that there were no significant irregularities. 

Super Trump supporter Sheldon Adelson’s Nevada newspaper, The Las Vegas Review-Journal, even told the president that it was time to pack his bags, stating, “Mr. Trump lost this election because he ultimately didn’t attract enough votes and failed to win a handful of swing states that broke his way in 2016.”

A group of two-dozen chief officers of major U.S. companies met and determined that should Trump try to prevent a transition to the Biden team, they would consider stopping donations to political action committees and even relocate their corporate headquarters. 

And yet, Trump refuses to concede the election with all of the mounting lack of fraud evidence. This decision not to give in is not denial: He knows that he lost and is acting the sore loser. However, it is a decision that widens the division in the United States and makes the transition of power very difficult for the Biden/Harris team.

If not for the headlines and bizarre tweets proclaiming victory from the accounts of Trump, his children, his press secretary, a few Republican politicians who must have no desire to be re-elected, and a bunch of angry people on Parler, Biden and his team keep marching forward. The week began with a meeting of the president-elect and a Covid-19 response team. Biden may not be getting daily briefings, as is customary by this time post-election, but he is steadfast in getting to Jan. 20, 2021, also known as inauguration day.

The official Biden/Harris Transition Team website has listed the priorities: 

  • Covid-19
  • Economic recovery
  • Racial equity
  • Climate change

Clearly, Biden is determined not to acknowledge the Shrek in the room because that would give it legitimacy. What he is addressing are the issues affecting all Americans. He may not officially take office until Jan. 20, but he is already leading the way. And there will be pancakes.

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.”

― Gavin de Becker, "The Gift of Fear"

Naranjo is a freelance writer living in rural Pennsylvania.

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