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When You Think About Me Talking To Rick Santorum Or Pat Buchanan Or One Of These Old Guys, Part Of What Makes That A Joyful Experience For Me Is That In My Head I'm Thinking, He Has To Talk To Me. Like, Poor Pat Buchanan, All The Things You've Done And You End Up Having To Talk To Me.

-Rachel Maddow

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Rachel Maddow

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When You Think About Me Talking To Rick Santorum Or Pat Buchanan Or One Of These Old Guys, Part Of What Makes That A Joyful Experience For Me Is That In My Head I'm Thinking, He Has To Talk To Me. Like, Poor Pat Buchanan, All The Things You've Done And You End Up Having To Talk To Me.

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With The Republican Party`s Presidential Front-runner Proposing That All Muslims Should Be Banned From Entering The United States, That Perhaps There Ought To Be A National Registry Of Muslims, That We Ought To Looking Into Muslims Having To Carry Government Id Cards That State Their Religion, Now, The Word Fascist Is Being Used To Describe This Ascending And Leading Republican Politician.

I Have This Belief That Donald Trump Keeps Floating The Idea That He Will Quit The Party And Run As An Independent If The Republican Party Does Not Treat Him Fairly.

Gay People Exist. There's Nothing We Can Do In Public Policy That Makes More Of Us Exist, Or Less Of Us Exist. And You Guys Have Been Arguing For A Generation That Public Policy Ought To Essentially Demean Gay People As A Way Of Expressing Disapproval Of The Fact That We Exist, But You Don't Make Any Less Of Us Exist. You Just Are Arguing In Favor Of More Discrimination, And More Discrimination Doesn't Make Straight People's Lives Any Better.

Formula 1 Is A Huge International Phenomenon Even If An Otherwise Car Racing Obsessed American Public Has Always Found Formula 1 To Be A Little Weird.

The Sarah Palin Choice Both Its Timing And The Fact That It Was Her, It Was Really An Audacious Strategic Move By The Mccain Campaign To Try To Change The Trajectory Of The 2008 Presidential Race And The Initial Launch Was Very Successful. She Didn`t Withstand The Scrutiny Very Well Though And The Close Questioning.

These Are Career Non-partisan Apolitical Staffers With A Combined 150 Years Of Experience At The State Department Gone, Just Like That Right Off The Top [right After Secretary Rex Tillerson Was Sworn In].

It Used To Be That We Disagreed Over The Basic Facts We Were Fighting Over, And We Had Different Opinions About Them. Now I Think We Accept Different Sources Of Authority. ... And People Can Establish Credibility On Their Own Say-so As Long As Nobody Follows The Trail And Calls Them Out On It.

Six Months After 9/11, Jean-marie Le Pen Was Almost Elected President Of France. There Were A Number Of Leaders And A Number Of Parties Running In The French National Elections That Year In The Spring Of 2002. But It Ended Up Being Not Just A Shock Across France, And Not Just A Shock Across Europe. But It Ended Up Being Almost A Worldwide Shock When In The Spring Of 2002, Jean-marie Le Pen Came In Second In Those National Elections. That Put Him In A Two-man Runoff For The Presidency Of France, Spring Of 2002.

We All Now Have To Decide Whether We`re Comfortable Using This Word, Weather Fascism Is Too Over The Top To Use In This Context Of Our Politics Right Now In Our Country Or Whether It Helps Because It`s Accurate, To Basically Describe This As America`s Sir Oswald Mosley Moment.

Hopefully Life Is Long. Do Stuff You Will Enjoy Thinking About And Telling Stories About For Many Years To Come. Do Stuff You Will Want To Brag About.

[bob Ferguson] Won That Huge Ruling Against The First Version Of The Muslim Ban That Resulted In It Being Stopped Dead In The Ninth Circuit U.s. Court Of Appeals.

Americans Are Incredibly Religious As A Nation, And We Have Gotten That Way By Having The Government Stay Out Of Religion And Say Religion Is A Private Matter. The Government Doesn't Take Sides. Public Schools Don't Promote Or Denigrate Any Religion.

You May Never Have Heard Of Joseph Overton And His Proverbial Window But You Most Certainly Have Heard The Republican Presidential Campaign In 2015 Year Not Just Flinging The Window Open But Shattering All Its Glass.

Ben Carson Also Denounced [donald] Trump`s Ban All Muslims Proposal Saying We Do Not And Would Not Advocate Being Selective On One`s Religion.

Some People Feel Like Stuff Just Happens To You And You Cope As Best You Can. Some People Feel Like We Can Change What Happens Not Only To Ourselves But To Other People. That's Me, And I Like That In Anybody.

Gay People - Generally Speaking - Have A Responsibility To Our Own Community And To Future Generations Of Gay People To Come Out, If And When We Feel That We Can.

In This Country, The Most Popular Form Of Car Racing Is The Huge Multibillion Dollar Industry That`s Called Stock Car Racing. That`s What Nascar Is. That`s What The Sc Stands For In The Middle Of Nascar, Stock Cars.

Stock Car Racing

Donald Trump Announced His No Muslims Are Allowed To Come To The United States Plan And That Led To One Of The Greatest Tweets Of All Time From New York Times Columnist. Quote, "ok, I Concede I Picked The Wrong Day To Modestly Walk Back My Trumpism As Fascism Column."

There Are Some Political Issues Where Mainstream Press Attention Only Hurts. We Think About Activism As Being This Generic Model Of Consciousness-raising, Then Hopefully Media Attention, Attraction Of New People To Your Cause, Building Public Support For Your Cause, Then Decision-makers Reacting To That Change In Public Opinion. That's True For Some Types Of Activism, But It Is Not True For All Of Them.

Cnn Recently Ran A Sort Of Roundup Article On Why Some Conservatives Say That Trump Talk Is Fascist. The Roundup Included This Tweet From Iowa Republican Radio Host, Very Influential Guy In Iowa Republican Caucuses, Steve Deace. Quote, "if [barack] Obama Proposed The Same Religion Registry As Trump, Every Conservative In The Country Would Call It What It Is - Creeping Fascism."

I Still Think Of Myself As The New Kid, Even Though I've Been On The Air For Two And A Half Years. But My Job Is The Same As It Ever Was, Which Is To Make 9:00 P.m. As Good As I Can.

If You Want To Achieve Immortality, See What You Can Do About Getting Yourself Turned Into A Pentagon Program.

Senator [tom] Cotton And His Fellow Lawmakers Are Back In D.c. And Republicans Are Split, They Are Divided About What To Do With The Repeal To Feel Affordable Care Act. That`s Topic That Senator Cotton Was Really Berated For At That Town Hall Event That Almost Did Not Happen.

Internet's Been Down Most Of The Day [at Work]. Doing Research By Just Asking Everyone What We Remember To Be True. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Fascist Political Gatherings Tend To Encourage Or At Least Expect A Little Violence Around The Edges, Particularly Against Counter Protesters.

The More You Push Back On Donald [trump], Whether You`re In The Media Or Whether You Are In The Gop Establishment, The Stronger His Base Of Support Comes.

Who Knows If John Mccain Could Have Won That Presidential Campaign [2008] In Any Circumstances When George W. Bush The Outgoing Republican President Had A 22 Percent Approval Rating.

Approval Rating

I Don't Think About People Watching Me On Tv. I Think It Would Stress Me Out.

The Issues Which Mattered To Me As An Activist, Mainly Things Like Prison Reform And Aids, Have Less Of A Chance Of Getting Covered On My Show Than Things I Don't Have A Personal Interest In. It's Because I Don't Trust My Antenna About Being A Good Storyteller On Those Subjects, Because I Know A Lot And Therefore Lose Touch With What The Average Person Might Find Interesting About Them.

When Ronald Reagan Spoke A Thing Aloud, He Believed It Forever And For Always. By The Time He Started Running For President, In 1976, He Had Already Developed An Unwavering And Steadfast Faith In The Correctness Of Whatever Came Out Of His Mouth.

David Jolly Is The Only Republican I Could Find Who`s Really Saying Donald Trump, You`re Out, Forget It, This Is Unacceptable, This Is Beyond The Pale.

We Got The First Wikileaks Publication Of Documents Hacked And Stolen By Russian Government Sources From The Dnc, From The Democratic Party, And They Started Publishing Those Stolen Documents From The Dnc Right Before The Democrats Started Their Convention.good Political Timing If You`re Trying To Help [donald] Trump And Hurt The Democrats.

Jean-marie Le Pen Is A Holocaust Denier Who Was Convicted And Fined For Dismissing Nazi Concentration Camps As A, Quote, "detail In History." But He Kept Running This Anti-immigrant, Anti-semitic, Populist Unapologetic Xenophobic Far Right Party In French Politics.

Marine Le Pen Is More Careful Than Her Dad Was About Saying Things Like Denying The Holocaust, Right? But It`s The Same Politics. It`s The Same Modern Anti Anti-immigrant, Anti-and The Semitic, Xenophobic Authoritarian Modern Pseudo-fascism.

John Mccain Famously Has Been Incredibly Loyal To Sarah Palin Ever Since He Picked Her As His Running Mate.

[tom Cotton] Is Seen As A Real Rising Star In The Republican Party. He`s The Youngest Member Of The United States Senate, Routinely Described As An Up And Comer.

It's Not Just The Small-potatoes Post-9/11 Homeland Spending That Feels A Little Off Mission. It's The Big-ticket Stuff Too.

I'm Undoubtedly A Liberal, Which Means That I'm In Almost Total Agreement With The Eisenhower-era Republican Party Platform.

[dan Fried ]is A Pillar Of The U.s. State Department. He`s Part Of Its Institutional Memory. He Has Been In The Room For Basically Every Important Negotiation, Every Standoff, Every Big Development, Particularly Between The United States And Russia For Decades.

I'm Not Trying To Change Things In The World And Trying To Use My Leverage To Do So. The Only Thing I'm Trying To Change In The World Is That I'm Trying To Increase The Amount Of Useful Information In It. And Entertainment, Honestly.

I Know Every Film Is Different. Every Filmmaker Is Different And Works Differently.

There`s A Reason People Pause Their Lives To Engage In Political Activism And Pressure Their Local Political Leaders. Because As A Whole, Even If You Can`t Identify Any One Instance, As A Whole Pressure Works And Sometimes It Starts With Something As Simple As Pushing The Button On The Intercom.

I Don't Want To Be President. Like, "today Your Job Is Libya, Japan, Unemployment, The Government Shutdown - Oh, And By The Way, Yemen, Syria And Jordan. That's Your Job Today. And You'd Better Get It Right."

I Wish Every Republican Wanted To Impeach [jeorge W.] Bush , But People Don't Agree With This. He's Stating A Fact About What He Believes.

Fascistic Leaders Are Aggressively Macho And Chauvinistic. They Are Xenophobic About People Who They Portray As Outsiders Or Some Sort Of Threat To The Nation Or As Weaklings They Can Denounce.

In The Rest Of The World Though, Particularly In Europe, The Most Popular Form Of Racing Is Not Stock Cars. It`s Not Nascar. It Doesn`t Look Anything Like Nascar. It`s Formula 1.

The Spy Boom Has Been A Beautiful Windfall For Architects, Construction Companies, It Specialists, And Above All Defense Contractors, Enriching Thousands Of Private Companies And Dozens Of Local Economies Hugging The Capital Beltway.

It Is About Something Personal And Specific, Because When The John Mccain Campaign In 2008 Decided To Elevate Sarah Palin From Total Obscurity To Make Her His Vice Presidential Running Mate, They Knew They Were Making A Big Strategic Gamble.they Knew They Were Taking A Big Risk And It Turned Out In The End To Be A Bad Choice. It Hurt John Mccain`s Chances.

The New [donald Trump] Administration May Not Want The Benefit Of [dan Fried] Expertise In Terms Of Figuring Out What Russia Is Up To With Us Right Now But I Do. I Mean, We Can All Benefit From It As A Country As We Figure Out What`s Going On Right Now With This Presidency And With Russia In Particular.

I Think Donald Trump Is Now Kind Of In Love With The Idea Of Becoming President Of The United States. I Think He Truly Does Believe That He Can Be The Republican Nominee.

What I`m Starting To Think Of As The Mythical Beast Of The Republican Establishment, Which Is The Sort Of Inchoate Idea That We Keep Talking About What They`re Going To Do And It Never Seems To Have Much Impact Or Be Manifest In Very Visible Ways, Obviously, It Is One Thing For Donald Trump To Have Taken A Shot Like He Did Early In His Campaign At John Mccain, Calling Him Not A War Hero.

Don't Focus On What I'm Wearing. Focus On What's Coming Out Of My Face.

I Realized I Was Gay When I Was A Teenager And I Couldn't Imagine What It Meant To Be A Gay Adult. I Just Did The Next Thing That Seemed Right, And That Led Me From Activism To Media To The Kind Of Media I'm In Now. But I Like Where I've Ended Up.

I Really Believe In Trying To Increase The Amount Of Useful Information In The World And In Being Accurate In The Sense That You Can Take What I Say To The Bank, Even If You Disagree With Me.

[facism] That Incredibly Loaded Word We Do Not Associate With The Real American Politics Is Being Used By Other Conservatives, By Other Republicans To Talk About Donald Trump.

Here’s The Thing About Rights. They’re Not Actually Supposed To Be Voted On. That’s Why They’re Called Rights.

Anything I Really Want I Can Find Online.

We Are Starting To See What May Be Signs Of Continuing [russian] Influence In Our Country. Not Just During The Campaign But During The [donald Trump] Administration, Basically Signs Of What Could Be A Continuing Operation. And Those Two Things Together Are Worth Paying Attention To.

Every Popular Zillion Dollar Sport Has Its Share Of Personal Scandals Around The Sport And Its Leadership.

The Single Best Thing About Honesty Is That It Requires No Follow-up.

Part Of What The [british] Dossier Says Is This, Quote, "the Operation", Meaning The Effort To Influence Our Election, "that Has Been Conducted With The Full Knowledge And Support Of [donald] Trump And Senior Members Of His Campaign Team. In Return, In Return, The Trump Team Has Agreed To Sideline Russian Intervention In Ukraine As A Campaign Issue."

I Don't Feel Passionately About Politics, I'm Not A Political Person. Is It Easy For Me To Get Fired Up About Someone's Position On Climate Change? No, It's Not. On Most Of These Issues, I Can See Both Sides.

The Primary Agency Responsible For Rallying U.s.-led Interests Around The World Appears To Be Having The Air Sucked Out Of It. If You Are Russia And You Are Looking At That Right Now, Do You Love What You Are Seeing?

After Donald Trump`s Ban All Muslims Proposal, Candidate Jeb Bush Reacted By Calling Mr. Trump Unhinged. However, That Would Be The Same Jeb Bush Who Says We Should Only Allow Refugees Into This Country Who Are Christians.

Wikileaks Is A Lot Of Things. This Past Year, Wikileaks Was A Tool Of Russian Intelligence And The Russian Government And Their Interference Operation Against The American Presidential Election To Benefit Donald Trump.

"red Dawn" Was A Movie Made In 1984 I Think About World War Iii. If You Have Not Seen It And Plan On Watching It, You Want To Close Your Eye And Cover Your Ears But Not Really. You Can Figure It Out.

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson Says He Believes That Same Ruling That Stopped The First Version Of The Ban Should Still Apply To The Second Version Of The Ban Because It Is Basically The Same Ban. It Is Basically The Same Policy.

Britons Still Commemorate The Battle Of Cable Street In London. There Are Still Pop Songs In Britain That Reference Sir Oswald Mosley And His Black Shirts.

I Would Like To Be A Polyglot.

There Is Also Evidence That The People Close - That People Close To The [donald] Trump Campaign Had Advanced Notice Of Wikileaks Actions And May Have Had Direct Contact With Wikileaks Itself While They Were Releasing Those Documents From The Democratic Party, From The [hillary] Clinton Campaign.

Senator [tom] Cotton Has Campaigned On Wanting To Kill Obamacare. He Voted To Repeal The Affordable Care Act Back In January, But He Now Says, Despite These Marathon All-night Sessions Going On In The House, Republicans Need To Do Better, They Need To Start Over, They Need To Come Up With Something That The Senate Says Will Actually Reduce Prices For Insurance And Keep It Affordable.

Sir Oswald Mosley Thought His Job Is Not Just Keep Britain From Going To War With His Beloved Germany, He Saw It As His Job To Organize A Complementary Fascist Movement Inside The U.k. So, He Formed This Organization As The British Union Of Fascists In `32. In 1936, They Changed Their Name To The British Union Of Fascists And National Socialists

I Still Think Of Myself As The New Kid.

[donald] Trump Is A Fascist And That`s Not A Term I Use Loosely Or Often But He Has Earned It.

Particularly When We Are A Country Where Leaders Turn Over Every Few Years And - I Mean, In Russia, Vladimir Putin Has Been In Charge For 17 Years And Counting, Right? That`s A Disadvantage For Us In Terms Of Knowing The Players, Having A Long-term Plan, Right?

Francois Hollande Is The President Of France. He Got All Sorts Of Accolades For His Leadership In France After The Paris Attacks.

The [donald] Trump Campaign Turned On A Dime Instantly As Soon As Those Wikileaks Dumps Started.

The Cia Has Concluded In A Secret Assessment That Russia Intervened In The 2016 Election To Help Donald Trump Win The Presidency Rather Than Just To Undermine Confidence In The U.s. Electoral System.

The [donald] Trump Administration Got Rid Of The Number One And Number Two Most Senior People Ahead Of [dan Fried] In The Foreign Service, So That Did Make Him The Most Senior Person Still Standing - But Now He`s Out, Too.

The British Union Of Fascists, Oswald Mosley`s Group, The Black Shirts, They Were Banned In Britain In 1940. And Max Mosley`s Dad, Sir Oswald Mosley, Ended Up Spending Three Years In World War Ii, 1940 To 1943, Interned In The U.k. As Basically An Enemy Of The State. He Spent That Time In Prison, As Did Max Mosley`s Mother.

Ridding Iraq Of Weapons Of Mass Destruction. That Was The Whole Idea, Right? That‘s Why We Went. I Am Reluctant To Let That Fact Disappear Down The Memory Hole, Because If — As The War Ends, Or At Least Starts To End — If, At This Time, The History Of The War Is Written As Us Going There To Topple The Regime Of A Bad Man When That Frankly Isn‘t Why Were Told That We Were Going There — Aren‘t We Still At Risk Of Making This Horrific Mistake Again? And, Aren‘t We Letting The People Who Foisted The Wmd Idea On Us, Not Many Years Ago, Aren‘t We Sort Of Letting Them Get Away With It?

Marco Rubio Calling [donald] Trump`s Ban All Muslims Proposal, Quote, "offensive And Outlandish," It`s The Same Rubio Who Was One Upping Trump`s Promise To Shut Down Mosques. Mr. Rubio Was Saying He Would Shut Down Not Just Mosques But Any Place Where Muslims Might Be Radicalized - Cafes, Diners, Any Place.

After [donald] Trump And His Campaign Manager Both Initially Denied Having Anything To Do With The Platform Change, A Trump Campaign Official Now Admits That The Campaign Pushed To Soften The Russian Language In The Platform. It Says It Was Done Specifically At Trump`s Request.

Russian Language

The Whole Straight Talk Thing, Which John Mccain Kind Of Turned Into A Slogan At One Point In One Of His Presidential Campaigns, What That Is, Is A Symptom Of Somebody Who Has No Time For Messing Around. Because He`s Trying To Get Stuff Done Constantly.

I'm A National Security Liberal, Which I Tell People Because It's Meant To Sound Absurd.

The [donald] Trump Folks Chose Not To Keep [dan Fried] On. He Was Actually - I Said He Was Actually The Third-most Senior Diplomat In The Foreign Service.

Clearly, There Has Been A Lack Of Imagination About How Much Can Go Wrong.

I`m Not Sure, But [russia] Might Be Happy To See This Guy [dan Fried] Exiting Stage Left.

[tom Cotton] Is Known For His Efforts To Scale Back Legal Immigration. Legal. He Wants To Stop Legal Immigrants From Coming To This Country. That`s Very Popular In Republican Politics .

I Am A Woman, And Sometimes That Impacts What Stories I Want To Do.

I'm Not A Screamer. I'm Confrontational, But I Don't Think That Translates Into Anger.

I'm In Favor Of Outing When People Have Demonized Or Scapegoated Gay People For Their Own Public Gain. I Don't Think Just Being A Republican Is Reason Enough.

The Republican Front-runner, Has Made A Name For Himself In The Last Months By Trafficking Prejudice And Paranoia. His Latest Insult Is His Call To Stop All Muslims From Entering The United States.

I Loved Being On The Radio. Being Paid To Talk? It's Like Being Paid To Eat.

After We Graduate Tonight, We No Longer Have To Let Society Happen To Us. We Get To Create Our Own.

The Constitutional Convention Debated Whether America Should Even Have A Standing Army. ... They Worried That A Powerful Military Could Rival Civilian Government For Power In Our New Country, And Of Course They Worried That Having A Standing Army Around Would Create Too Much Of A Temptation To Use It.

Sarah Palin Is Backing In Be To Republican Presidential Politics In A Big Way With A Big High Profile Endorsement Decision.that Is, I Think, Probably Going To Cause A Lot Of Upset In One Particular Part Of The Republican Establishment.

[dan Fried] Served Six Presidents Over A 40-year Career Dating Back To The [jimmy] Carter Administration.

If You Want To Make The Government Take A Religious Side, Then Make The Case, It Should Be Christian Republic.

Senator [tom Cotton] Got A Ton Of Blowback. He Became The Star Of Fake Missing Person`s Signs, Encouraging Folks To Call If They Saw Him And Also To Call Him And Ask Why He Had Been Missing While His Constituents Were Looking For Him.

It Is Hard To Stay Patient About Policy Matters Where Everybody Agrees About What Needs To Be Done And Then It Just Doesn't Happen, Like Reforming The Immigration System And Getting Rid Of Family Immigration Jails And Closing Guantanamo And Criminal-justice Reform. All These Issues, There Is Basically Consensus. There's No Rational Objections Whatsoever, But It Can't Happen Because Of Other Stupid Steps We Have To Take In Politics.

If Something Is Being Done On A Secret Basis In National Security, That's A Great Reason For Elected Officials To Not Talk About It. And That's A Great Way To Shirk Accountability For It With The Public.

For The Same Work, Dudes Get Paid More.

My Idea Of What Was Going On In Politics Was Driven By Activism. I Came Out When I Was 17, And Right Away I Started Working In The Aids Activist Movement. For Me, Politics Was About Getting Drugs Approved And Getting Prisoners Access To The Same Kind Of Drugs That You Could Get On The Outside. It Was About Getting Needle Exchanges Approved. That Was Politics. These Were Policy Problems That Were Killing People, And We Were Trying To Get Them Changed.

Pentagon Dollars Are Essentially Seen As A Different Kind Of Funding That Doesn't Have To Stand For Itself And Make An Argument For Itself In The House Of Congress.

" [donald] Trump May Indeed Be A Little Fascistic."new York Times Wrote.

There's Nothing About The Way My Life Unfolded That Should Be Seen As At All Prescriptive For What Anybody Else Wants To Do.

Donald Trump Removed All Doubt. He Is Running For President As A Fascist Demagogue.

John Mccain Has Refused To Ever Criticize Sarah Palin, To Ever Admit There Was Anything Wrong About Her Choice. He Has Been Capital "l" Loyal To Her In Such An Unwavering Way, Even Has His Entire Party Has Turned Against This Is Decision That He Made For Obvious Reasons. He Has Been Unflinchingly Loyal To Her.

After A Generation Or Two Of Shedding The Deliberate Political Encumbrances To War ... Of Dropping Congress From The Equation Altogether, Of Super-empowering The Presidency With Total War-making Power And With Secret New War-making Resources That Answer To No One But Him, Of Insulating The Public From Not Only The Cost Of War But Sometimes Even The Knowledge That It's Happened - War Making Has Become Almost An Autonomous Function Of The American State. It Never Stops.

Famously In 1936, Oswald Mosley Led A March Of His British Black Shirts Through A Mostly Jewish Neighborhood, In The East End Of London. What Resulted Was What They Called The "battle Of Cable Street", Where Oswald Mosley And His Fascists Basically Got The Snot Beaten Out Of Them When East London Rose Up Against Them And Beat Them Up.

What Was Particularly Impressive By The [donald] Trump Campaign At The Time Is How They Were So Organized Around The Wikileaks Stuff.

I Don't Want To Insert Myself Into The Story. I Just Want To Give A Useful Analysis Of It To Help People Come To Their Own Conclusions.

Liberals Say That We Are Secular Country With A Majority Of Christians, Absolutely.

That`s How You End Up With A Guy Like Dan Fried, Overseeing The U.s. Sanctions Against Russia For Russia Did In Ukraine And Crimea.russia Hates Those Sanctions More Than They Love Life. They Hate Those Sanctions. So, Of Course, You Need Your Toughest And Most Experienced Guy Running Those Sanctions.

If The Military Contractors Are Out Of Afghanistan, Karzai Is Out 15 Minutes Later.

I Never Had Any Facial Hair In My Life.

When People Get To Speak About Themselves And The Things That Matter To Them, On Their Own Terms, We See Them As Who They Are. They Can't Be Reduced To Objects Of Derision.

Formula 1 Racing Had A Personal Scandal Right Up At The Top Of Its Governing Body That Was So Weird, That Was So Flagrantly Salacious And Bizarre, That I Think It Not Only Reassured American Racing Fans That Formula 1, Yes, Really Is Kind Of Weird.

I Recommend Sports, I Don't Recommend Gambling.

We Are Willing To Follow Leaders Only To The Extent We Believe They Call On Our Best, Not Our Worst.

Fascism Is Not Just A Word. It`s Not Just A Way To Insult Someone With Whom You Disagree. It Is A Specific Thing. It Is A Specific Form Of Far Right Politics That Involves A Sort Of Narcissistic Cult Of Superman Action Around The Leader Of The Party.

People Who Disagree On Important Issues Don't Agree On The Facts.

Who Knows What Exactly Changed Tom Cotton`s Mind. I Mean, Maybe It Was That Woman Who Said Her Husband Was Dying And Only Alive Thanks To The Affordable Care Act. Maybe It Was The Young Woman On Your Right Side Of Your Screen Who Said That Without The Treatment She Could Only Receive Through The Affordable Care Act She Herself Would Be Dead.

The Highest Percentage Of Respondents Say That Biggest Problem In The Country Is The Government. The Biggest Problem Facing Our Country Today Is That Our Government Is Terrible. Dissatisfaction With The Government, Problem Numero Uno By A Mile.

It Is Sometimes Hard To Know What Sarah Palin Means, Just On A Day To Day Basis. Sometimes It Is Hard To Follow What She Is Talking About.

Oswald Mosley`s Movement, It Was A Big Movement. It Was Obviously Anti-immigrant, Anti-semitic, It Was Populist. Mosley Wanted To Replace The Parliamentary System Of Government In Britain With A Government That Was Based On Business Interests, That Was Based On The Idea That Business Interests Were The Real Interests Of That Country And Business Interests. And Reorganizing The Government To Serve Business Interests, That Would Be A Way To Get Stuff Done Faster And More Efficiently.

When You Think About Me Talking To Rick Santorum Or Pat Buchanan Or One Of These Old Guys, Part Of What Makes That A Joyful Experience For Me Is That In My Head I'm Thinking, He Has To Talk To Me. Like, Poor Pat Buchanan, All The Things You've Done And You End Up Having To Talk To Me.

Military Preparedness Is Absolutely A Form Of Strength.

I Like Explaining Things, And I Believe That You Can Do Very High-level Explanation On Basic Cable News Provided You Are Willing To Work Hard Enough To Be A Good Storyteller.

In The Little Town Where I Live In Hampshire County, Massachusetts, We Now Have A 'public Safety Complex' Around The Corner From What Used To Be Our Hokey Andy Griffith-esque Fire Station.

I Am Too Old To Know How To Put A Naked Photograph Of Myself On The Internet.

A Russian Citizen Who Worked For The [donald] Trump Campaign Manager In Ukraine, Worked For Paul Manafort When Manafort Was Working In Ukraine, That Russian Citizen Visited The United States Around The Time Of The Republican Convention.

I Think It's Both Annoying And Beneficial That There's So Much Freedom Online.

Russia And [vladimir] Putin`s Antipathy Toward Hillary Clinton From Her Time As Secretary Of State, Russia`s Antipathy And Loathing And Fear Of The U.s. State Department In General, Those Two - Those Things That We Know About Russia They Put A Worrying Cast Over How Successfully The New Administration Here Has Hollowed Out And Emptied Out The U.s. State Department In Just The Few Weeks Since Then Been In Charge.

As Proud And Capable As It Is, I Think The Idea That The Military Can Build New Countries Is A Tall Order, And It's The Sort Of Thing That We Would Only Expect From A Military That We Have Superresourced And Thought Of As Supercapable.

I Definitely Feel Like It Took Me A While To Learn The Baseline Things You Have To Do If You Want People To Hear You. That's Why I've Had The Same Haircut For The Entire Time That I've Been On Television And That's Why I Wear Literally The Same Jacket Every Day. I Keep All The Clothes I Wear On Tv In My Office On A Little Hanging Rack. My Girlfriend Calls It All The Colors Of The German Rainbow. Grays, Blacks, A Slightly Greenish Gray For The Days That I'm Feeling Particularly Festive. I'm Not Trying To Accomplish Anything In The Way I Look Other Than To Be Boring Enough For People To Hear Me.

Flint And Its Lead Contaminated Water Are Now The Focus Of Sustained National Attention Including Political Attention.

John Mccain From The Very Beginning Has Been Unflinchingly Loyal To Sarah Palin. He Has Never Thrown Her Under The Bus. He Has Never Conceded It Was A Bad Decision To Pick Her. He Has Never Ever Said A Bad Word Against Her.

For Months, The [donald] Trump Campaign Denied Full Stop That Anybody Associated With Their Campaign Had Any Ties With Russia Or Any Contacts With Russia Full Stop.

In That First National Election After 9/11 In France, Jean-marine Le Pen Did Not Win The Presidency, But He Did Get To The Final Round. He Was In The General Election. Now, This Week, In The First National Elections In France After What Many People Have Been Calling The French 9/11, The Attacks In Paris Three Weeks Ago, This Time It`s Jean-marie Le Pen`s Daughter, Marine Le Pen And The National Front, Which Is Still A Far Right Pseudo- Fascistic Party, They Came In First Place In France.

Social Security Isn’t A Ponzi Scheme. It’s Not Bankrupting Us. It’s Not An Outrage. It Is Working.

Those Policies [of Jean-marie Le Pen ]i Find Repellent. I Believe Many People Right Across Consist The World Do. There Is No Future In That Type Of Narrow Minded Racism And Nationalism.

After [dan Fried] Was Initially Hired Into The Foreign Service In 1977, Five Subsequent Presidents Of Both Parties Thought It Would Be A Good Idea To Keep Him On. That His Deep Understanding, His Knowledge Of All The Players And So Many Of The Secrets It Would Make Him An Indispensable Asset, Particularly When It Comes To Dealing With Russia.

Deep Understanding

Bernie Sanders Are The Only Person Who Talks About The Kinds Of Things That Might Be Driving People To Support Donald Trump In Such Large Numbers In The Republican Party.

I Don't Feel There's Anything About My Experience Of Being Gay That Gives Me More Insight Into "don't Ask, Don't Tell," For Example, Than Anybody Else.

This [british] Dossier Is Still Considered To Be Mostly Uncorroborated But It`s Overall Allegation Is That The Trump Folks Knew, The [donald] Trump Folks Knew About The Russian Campaign To Interfere In Our Election, They Supported It, They Cooperated With It, And In Exchange, They Made Promises To The Russians.

The Downside Of Playing Dumb Is That You Sound Dumb.

I Feel Like Americans Have Always Studied Nationalism As A Foreign Phenomenon. And Now, We`ve Got A Nationalist Movement In Our Country That Has A Very Articulate Spokesman In The Senior Counselor To The President [donald Trump].

We`ve Got [evidence] Of Direct Russian Government Connections With The [donald] Trump Campaign, During The Campaign, While The Russian Government Was Interfering In Our Election To Try To Elect Trump.

One Of The Manifestations Of Depression For Me Is That I Lose My Will. And I Thereby Lose My Ability To Focus. I Don't Think I'll Ever Have The Day-to-day Consistency In My Performance That Something Like This American Life Has. If I'm Not Depressed And I'm On And I Can Focus And I Can Think Through Something Hard And Without Interruption And Without Existential Emptiness That Comes From Depression, That Gives Me - Not Mania. But I Exalt. I Exalt In Not Being Depressed.

I Have A File Of Letters And Bits Of Ephemera From Friends Who Have Died. I Have Had Lots Of Friends Who Died Of Aids.

Lots Of Friends

It Makes Sense In That Environment That You Would Hold On In The U.s. Government To The People Who Know Their Way Around This Particular Block.

Humans Are Ambitious And Rational And Proud. And We Don't Fall In Line With People Who Don't Respect Us And Who We Don't Believe Have Our Best Interests At Heart. We Are Willing To Follow Leaders, But Only To The Extent That We Believe They Call On Our Best, Not Our Worst.

I Have Learned When Two Republicans Are Talking About Legalizing Drugs To Shut Up.

A Handkerchief Can Never Be Put In Another Pocket After It Has Been In One Pocket. I Don't Walk Under Ladders. I Have Items Of Clothing That Are Lucky For Me. That Rotates, But I Am Luck-oriented.

I Have A Constitutional Weakness In Which I Am Very Easily Distracted By Flashing Lights. If There Is A Tv On In The Room, I Can't Have A Conversation With You. I Won't Eat, I Won't Sleep, I'll Just Meld With My Couch.

It Is Hard To Know What Sarah Palin Means In Republican Politics Anymore.

I Think Obama Has Been Skilled And Farsighted In A Lot Of The Stuff That He's Done. And In Other Things, Unskilled And Not Farsighted. On Balance I'd Say That He Is Doing Most Of What He Said He'd Do.

Since His Arrival, The New Secretary Of State Has Not Held A Single Press Conference. On His First Big Trip To Europe Last Month For The G20 Summit, Rex Tillerson Said Less Than 50 Words In Total In Response To Press Questions.

What's Insulting To The American People, The Senate, To This Whole Process Is That The Republicans, With All Other Nominees, Have Said Democrats Are Being Obstructionist For Wanting To See Documents, For Wanting To See A Paper Trail, For Wanting To Get Questions Answered In The Judiciary Committee Hearings, And Now All Of A Sudden, The Republicans Want Those Things For This.

I Don't Think Vodka Is Useful. I Think It's For People Who Don't Like Alcohol, In Which Case, You Probably Shouldn't Be Drinking It.

I End Up Liking Politicians, Both Left And Right, Who Talk About Political Matters As If They Are Addressing A Bunch Of Adults, As If They Are Capable Of Handling Both Complexity And Emotional Responsibility.

[dan Fried] Is The Department`s Foremost Russia Expert And He, Too, Is Now Leaving At A Time When Arguably The State Department Needs It Most, The State Department Will Not Have The Benefit Of His Insight Going Forward.

Sarah Palin Is Now The Guy Who Hangs Out In The High School Parking Lot, Showing Off His Car, Five Years After He Graduated.

I Think Of My Job On Television As Explaining Things.

It Matters That There's Diversity On The Court. I Think It Makes For Better Lawmaking, Because You Have People With More Diverse Range Of Judgment And Who Are Going To Make A Better Decision On The Law.

We Do Have Evidence The [donald] Trump Campaign Was Working To Sideline Russian Intervention In Ukraine As A Campaign Issue.

[dan Fried] Served Under President [barack] Obama And Under President George W. Bush Before That And Under President [bill] Clinton Before That And Under President George H.w. Bush Before That And Under [ronald] Reagan Before That And Under [jim] Carter Before That. He Has Been There A Long Time.

Activism Is Setting A Goal Of Something You Would Like To Be Different, And Figuring Out What Would Have To Change To Achieve That Goal. It's Sort Of Like Math.

Two Committees In The House Were Up All Night Long Trying To Get A Version Of The Repeal Of The Affordable Care Act Passed. House Republicans Are Just Fighting Tooth And Nail To Pass It In The House, To Try To Get It Into The Senate, To Try To Make It Then So That The Senate Will Get On Board. But You Know Who One Of The Republican Senators Is Who`s Not On Board With This Anymore? Senator Tom Cotton.

Senator John Mccain Is Unlike Anybody Else In Not - Not Just In The Senate But In American Politics. He`s Unlike Anybody Else In American Life. In His Public Life And In His Heroics In War. He`s A Singular Figure In American Life And American History. I Think For Everybody Who Has Ever Had A Political Difference With Him That Just Instantly Evaporates In The Face Of Wanting The Best For Him Because Of Cancer.

If Everybody Can Author Their Own Story, If Media Is Democratizing Because Everybody Can Make A Really Good-looking Website... That's The Way We Learn Now Instead Of In Books. It Means That More People Get To Tell Their Own Story In Their Own Terms Rather Than Having To Go Through Publishers And Editors And Executives.

Russian Government Attacked Our Election.

Russian Government

I Think Scandal Probably Attracted More American Attention To Formula 1 Than Anything Else In American News In Decades. And That`s Because It Was A Sex Scandal, A Particularly Lurid Sex Scandal Involving This Guy Max Mosley.

If You Took A Cracked Pot And You Cracked That Cracked Pot, You'd Be Approaching The Level Of Cracked Pottery We Are Talking About Here.

The Single Best Thing About Coming Out Of The Closet Is That Nobody Can Insult You By Telling You What You've Just Told Them.

[tom Cotton] Has Been An Absolute Champion Of The Idea Of Getting Rid Of Obamacare, Scrapping The Affordable Care Act.

The American Public Has Been Delicately Insulated From The Actuality Of Our Ongoing Wars. While A Tiny Fraction Of Men And Women Fighting Our Wars Are Deploying Again And Again, Civilian Life Remains Pretty Much Isolated In Cost-free Complacency.

But There's A Reason That We Have Different Laws For Juveniles Than We Do For Adults. And It's Because Kids Are Not Liable For The Things They Do In The Way That Adults Are, Because We Think That Kids Are Different.

There Is No News Value To The Content Of Those [newtown 911] Tapes. The Actual Audio Is Of No News Value At All, Unless You Want The Thrill Of Hearing The Sound Of The Actual Individual Gunshot That Might Have Killed A 7 Year-old.

There Had Been A Proposed Plank For The Platform That Said The Republican Party Believed The United States Should Support Ukraine In Any Way That We Could Up To And Including Providing Them Weapons, So They Could Fight Off Russian Incursions Into Ukraine.that Was The Proposed Plank In The Republican Party Platform. The [donald] Trump Folks Didn`t Care About Anything Else.

Silencing The U.s. State Department, Putting A Friend Of Vladimir Putin`s In Charge At The U.s. State Department, Who Stands By Quietly While The State Department Gets Hollowed Out, Gets Gutted, That`s A Dream For The Russian Government, Right? That`s A Dream For Putin.

Having A Place Out Of The City Is A Shortcut Toward The Mental Reset I Need.

If You're Working On Better Conditions For Prisoners, If You Make That A Popular Issue And You Invite Mainstream Media To Weigh In On That Subject, You're Going To End Up With A Much More Regressive Public-policy Environment Than If You Approach It In A Quieter Way. It's Not Because The Public Is Stupid, It's Just That People With Only A Cursory Interest In Something Are Going To Have A Knee-jerk Reaction To It. That's Impossible To Explain In A Cable-news Media... It Doesn't Make Sense.

David Petraeus, The Best Known American General Of His Generation. After Commanding The American War Effort In Both Iraq And Afghanistan, He Was Serving As Cia Director When He Stepped Down Suddenly Following Revelations That He`d Had An Extramarital Affair. That Same Investigation That Turned Up Evidence Of The Affair Also Eventually Turned Up Evidence That General. Petraeus Had Passed Classified Information To His Mistress.

News About The Russia Connections To The [donald Trump] Administration And What We Are Continuing To Learn About Those Connections. What`s Getting To Be, I Think, Particularly Unsettling Is That Simultaneously We Are Right Now What`s Going On, I Think, Is That We Are Number One Nailing Down More Direct Connections Between The Trump Campaign And The Russian Government At The Time The Russian Government Was Influencing Our Election.

Continuing To Learn

I Like Big Drinks That Aren't Afraid Of The Alcohol In Them. Not Big In Size, But In Flavor, And The Way I Can Allow Myself To Enjoy Them Is By Making Them In Very Small Quantities. I Make Tiny Glasses Of Very Big Drinks.

I Don't Have Any Option. I'm Not Going To Be Less Gay Or More Pretty. I Can't Try To Have Less Personality Or Fewer Controversial Opinions.

Chris Christie Who Proposes Accepting Syrian Refugee Orphans Under The Age Of 5 Because They May Not Be Vetted Well Enough. You Can`t Trust Them. The 5-year-olds Might It Be Terrorists. After All, They`re From Syria.

Russian Government Was In Contact With Multiple [donald] Trump Campaign Sources While They Were Doing [attacks]. Russian Nemesis In The American Government, U.s. State Department, Cia, Are Not Faring Well Since Donald Trump Came To Power.

The Day After The Republican Convention Ended, There Was Another Political Bomb That Was Dropped On The U.s. Presidential Election [2016] From Russia. The Day After The Republican Convention Ended, Right Before The Democratic Convention Began We Got What U.s. Intelligence Agencies Believed To Be The Next Big Russian Incursion Into Our Election. We Got The First Wikileaks Dump.

October 7th [2016], Indeed, Wikileaks Released Its Whole New Dump. A Whole New Bunch Of E-mails And Documents, This Time From [hillary] Clinton Campaign Chief John Podesta, E-mails That U.s. Intelligence Say Were Hacked By Russia. Apparently, Again, They Were Waiting For The Best Possible Timing On The Release.

At A Time When America Should Be Doing Everything We Can To Lead The Fight To Defeat Isis And Other Radical Jihadists, Donald Trump Is Playing Right Into Their Hands.

The Democratic Party Likes To Remind People That The Russian Force Around That Was Very Strong, Remarkably Strong.

If You Have To Hire Paid Actors To Impersonate People Who Politically Support You, People Don't Actually Natively Politically Support You. You Are Not A Political Animal That Exists In Nature.

New York Congressmen Have Recently Been Plagued By A String Of Embarrassing Scandals. Shirtless Craigslist Hunk Chris Lee, Nonconsensual Staff Tickle Monster, Eric Massa, Naked Texter Anthony Weiner, So This Guy Is Now Running To Join Those Dubious Ranks And Win The Michael Grimm Seat. And He`s Campaigning On The Promise That He`s Too Old To Be Too Gross. And I`m Not Paraphrasing The Campaign Pledge.

We Do Not Need To Endorse That [agains Muslims]type Of Activity Nor Should We.

I Feel That Gay People Not Being Able To Get Married For Generations, Forever, Meant That We Came Up With Alternative Ways Of Recognizing Relationships. And I Worry That If Everybody Has Access To The Same Institutions That We Lose The Creativity Of Subcultures Having To Make It On Their Own. And I Like Gay Culture.

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