Civil Commotion

Apparently, Trump supporters are mad at Matt Drudge because even he can’t spin the First Felon in a positive light.

Donald Trump fans have been fuming for weeks at conservative mega-aggregator Matt Drudge, alleging that his Drudge Report has backed Democrats’ impeachment push and ignored GOP arguments in favor of the president. And now, as a measure of their dissatisfaction, would-be internet media moguls are looking to make it big by creating Drudge Report clones and, potentially, stealing his visitors.

[ … ]

But conservative anger at Drudge has ramped up alongside impeachment proceedings into Trump, threatening his exalted status in the right-wing media ecosystem. Jim Hoft, the founder of the Gateway Pundit blog, has repeatedly urged Drudge to “come home.” Pro-Trump cartoonist Ben Garrison urged his fans to abandon the site, adding a cartoon of a meter with Drudge’s face swinging left.

Clearly, Trumpists aren’t ready yet to face the dismal reality that they’ve been snookered by a con man.

Farm bankruptcies are up 24% over last year, and economists cite Trump’s trade wars as a leading cause.

The number of family farms seeking bankruptcy protection grew 24% over the last year, according to an American Farm Bureau Federation analysis of recent federal court data.

The analysis found family farm bankruptcies are rising fastest in the Northwest.

“We’ve seen low crop prices, low livestock prices for a number of years now,” said chief economist John Newton. “On the back, now, of that we have the trade war where agriculture’s been unfairly retaliated against.”

I’m not as sympathetic as I ought to be, I suppose, because Trump still has strong support in farm country.

Paula White, televangelist and brand new White House staffer, is leading a prayer initiative which aims to get Donald Trump re-elected.

Paula White, a televangelist who has been a key spiritual adviser to President Donald Trump for years and who recently joined the White House staff, has partnered with a group of other religious right activists to launch a new prayer effort aimed at getting Trump reelected in 2020.

The effort, called the One Voice Prayer Movement, finds White teaming up with fellow right-wing activists such as Cindy Jacobs, Dutch Sheets, Dave Kubal, and others. The group unveiled its efforts with an inaugural prayer call yesterday, which featured White praying against the demonic efforts that seek to undermine Trump and remove him from the White House.

So: the White House has hired a televangelist, at public expense, with no discernible skill but flim-flamming the gullible, and her job is to lead a prayer initiative for the First Felon’s re-election?

Surely this is illegal?

Rand Paul appeared in Kentucky last evening at the First Felon’s rally for gubernatorial candidate Matt Bevin, and demanded that the press “do it’s job” and reveal the name of the whistleblower whose report triggered the ongoing Ukraine investigation.

Addressing a packed arena in Lexington, Ky., Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) claimed on Monday night that he knows the identity of the whistleblower whose complaint is at the center of the impeachment inquiry against President Trump. Then, Paul delivered a pointed message to the media.

“Do your job and print his name!” the senator yelled, prompting the crowd to raucously chant, “Do your job!”

As the House Democrats’ effort to impeach Trump heats up, the president and his allies have fixated on unmasking the whistleblower, whose identity is protected by federal law, and the person’s alleged political motives. Earlier on Monday, Trump demanded public testimony from the whistleblower.

There is good reason that the whistleblower’s name is protected by federal law: neither physical nor career injury should be the cost of reporting wrongdoing. What is more, in the instant case the whistleblower’s allegations have been independently corroborated; there is no need to know the whistleblower’s name.

Surely, Paul knows all of this, and so the story is really about his commitment to clean government, about his willingness to put his country ahead of his party — about his character. And Paul’s character reveals he is unfit for office.

The Citrus County, Florida, county commission refused to fund a library subscription to the New York Times because it’s “fake news.”

The librarians of Citrus County, Fla., had what seemed like a modest wish: A digital subscription to the New York Times. For about $2,700 annually, they reasoned, they could offer their roughly 70,000 patrons an easy way to research and catch up on the news.

But when their request came before the Citrus County commission last month, local officials literally laughed out loud. One commissioner, Scott Carnahan, declared the paper to be “fake news.”

“I agree with President Trump,” he said. “I will not be voting for this. I don’t want the New York Times in this county.”

Once again, I marvel at what so many Americans don’t know about their own country.