Posts Made By: Rod Kaufman

Originally Posted by Mel Maki

Did you watch the interview? Carlson might have said something about the interview later, but during his program he said nothing indicating he was "pissed."

I watched the pertinent parts and, as noted in the CNN link: "It pissed him off," the person familiar with the matter explained to CNN on Wednesday.

More on Matt!
The Republican lawmakers chime in: 
"Few of Gaetz’s GOP colleagues are coming to the defense of the third-term Floridian in the wake of a New York Times report that the Department of Justice is investigating allegations of sexual misconduct with — and interstate trafficking of — a minor roughly two years ago. And a number of Republicans, while warning against jumping to premature conclusions about Gaetz’s conduct, also suggested they wouldn’t miss him if he were gone."
“I don’t know anything about this situation other than to say he has certainly made enemies and painted a bullseye on his back,” said one Republican lawmaker, who requested anonymity to speak freely on a sensitive topic. “This appears to be a self-inflicted wound.”
"the former DOJ official, identified by the younger Gaetz as David McGee, has been equally adamant that the extortion allegations were concocted by Gaetz to draw attention away from the probe into the congressman’s own conduct.
“It is completely false,” McGee told The Washington Post. “It’s a blatant attempt to distract from the fact that he’s under investigation for sex trafficking of minors.”
“My personal view is there are a lot of holes in his story and his denial wasn’t really a denial. ‘I never traveled with an underage woman’ isn’t exactly a denial of relations with an underage woman,” a second Republican lawmaker said.
“Everyone already knew Gaetz was a ticking time bomb and his days in the House were numbered, but this story is more bizarre than expected,” the lawmaker said. 
“I think it speaks volumes that ‘Trump World’ isn’t jumping to his defense. I can’t say concretely but his interview with Tucker did him no favors,” one former Trump aide told The Hill.
“No one named Trump is out defending him — that’s a pretty big sign.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/545850-gaetz-on-the-ropes-finds-few-friends-in-gop

Originally Posted by Mel Maki

This should be cut and dried. No action about him having relations with somebody underage a year ago?
Everybody should be more skeptical about, "...a person familiar with the..."
Seems if Carlson was pissed he will likely say something on today's program. He is a, "in your face type" of person.

 This should be cut and dried. Everybody should be skeptical comments from a Melvin.
"No action about him having relations with somebody underage a year ago?" Er, ah, investigations of members of congress take time and considering it evolved in the waning days of the last administration, it certainly isn't unreasonable to understand why time as elapsed for the investigation to proceed, unless, of course, you happen to be a Melvin.
I rarely believe anything a Fox propagandist like Carlson says so I don't care or expect him to say he was "pissed" about it on his show tonight. 
So, the bottom line is I'd much rather rely on the comments from "a person familiar with the" than those typed by a Melvin. And, in other similar situations, the comments from uncited sources, a common journalistic practice to protect anonymity, have usually proven to be correct...

Originally Posted by Jim Moscheck

Ironic that all of the QAnon folks (who these righty guys here have no idea who or what they are) believe it’s the liberals and Democrats that are into the child trafficking. That’s the basis of their whole Q belief system. Face it, a sizable percentage of Trump’s 74 million voters believe this crap, or at least some of it. Deny it all you want, but these folks are out there, they are bat shit crazy, and they are a part of the Republican Party. 

If the polls are correct, about a third of the Republican party believes it so it's a substantial number of people. You can count the lion's share of the anti-maskers and anti- vaccers in there, too. They're just as whacked out as the Q nuts, too.

Originally Posted by James Brown

Hi Jim:

Of course the above is true - the mere existence of Q-anon type crazies is not my point at all.  My point is skepticism concerning the number of Q-anon type Rs and skepticism about their actual level of influence. 

The press has an interest in inflating the number and power of the R crazies.  I have seen that time and again.  You seem to buy into this line of propaganda, although I doubt the Q-anon crazy description applies to a significant number of the Republicans you know personally or see in your shop every day.  We'll see just how influential these fringe folks are in '22 and '24.  

Jim

Your point about being skeptical on how big QAnon really is takes on new meaning because the FBI classifies it as a terrorist threat. This link discusses the same concern, ie just how big is QAnon? https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/09/how-big-a-deal-is-qanon-anyway/

Newly reported today: "Gaetz allegedly showed off to other lawmakers photos and videos of nude women he said he had slept with, the sources told CNN, including while on the House floor. The sources, including two people directly shown the material, said Gaetz displayed the images of women on his phone and talked about having sex with them. One of the videos showed a naked woman with a hula hoop, according to one source."
"It was a point of pride," one of the sources said of Gaetz."
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/01/politics/matt-gaetz-photos-women/index.html
The colleagues were presumably fellow CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICANS, were they not?

No coverage from Fox on it and I've been checking their website. Speaking of Fox, here's what a former Republican speaker of the house has to say about them: "At some point after the 2008 election, something changed with my friend Roger Ailes. I once met him in New York during the Obama years to plead with him to put a leash on some of the crazies he was putting on the air. It was making my job trying to accomplish anything conservative that much harder. I didn't expect this meeting to change anything, but I still thought it was bullshit, and I wanted Roger to know it." "I thought I could get him to control the crazies, and instead I found myself talking to the president of the club." And: , "former House Speaker John Boehner calls Texas Sen. Ted Cruz a nasty name, refers to lots of Republicans elected in 2010 as "morons" and admits that President Barack Obama had little reason to find "common cause with people who think you are a secret Kenyan Muslim traitor to America."
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/02/politics/john-boehner-roger-ailes-fox-news/index.html

Breaking: "A senior staffer in embattled GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz’s office resigned on Friday following reports the Florida Republican is under investigation for an alleged inappropriate relationship with a minor and a possible violation of sex trafficking laws, according to a GOP source.
Luke Ball formerly served as Gaetz’s communications director."
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/546170-gaetz-communications-director-resigns

Originally Posted by Jim Moscheck

I like how the cons on this forum have no idea who Matt Gaetz is. Um, he's one of the crazy ones you guys elect.

They know who he is but, like Fox news, they no longer talk about him. Out of sight is out of mind...

The response from the cons is the same as that of Fox news: