Ceding Leverage

Rachel Goldberg-Polin, mother of a 23-year-old man held hostage by Hamas since October 7, 2023remarked on Sunday's Face the Nation on CBS

Well, you know, this is such a painful, staggeringly indescribable odyssey that we are on. And, as you said, you can't imagine. I often say, oh, I also can't imagine what we're going through. And, yes, we are going to be returning to Washington tomorrow to have meetings with different people in the administration. And we really want to understand what is happening to ensure that these people - and remember, Margaret, we have eight American citizens who have been held for 184 days, and we are feeling extreme desperation, despair. And we've had wonderful access and sympathy and open doors and lots of hugs from everyone in the U.S. government, but this is a very binary situation. We want our people back. Period. And that's what we're going to be talking tomorrow about is, what is actually going to be happening? What leverage? What levers need to be pulled in order to make this happen? Because six months is actually a complete failure on everybody's part.

Rachel Goldberg-Polin, whose son, Hersh, is being held hostage by Hamas, says six months without the release of all hostages is a "complete failure on everybody's part."

"I have not been able to save my son...I feel that I have failed, and I feel our governments have failed." pic.twitter.com/JMoMUVCXfn

— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) April 7, 2024

It's not a failure on Hamas' part. The terrorist organization has played very well its role as hostage-taker, to hold on to individuals until it believes it has squeezed from the victimized party the maximum it's likely to achieve. Hamas did this when in 2011

Gilad Schalit, a former IDF soldier, was released from Gaza after being held captive there by the terrorist group, Hamas, for five years. He was only released when Israel agreed to a prisoner swap that involved the release of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, including those responsible for killing Israelis in terror attacks.

On the day of his release, Egyptian military officials received Shalit from Hamas control on the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing and updated the IDF command post at the Kerem Shalom crossing of the transaction earlier on Tuesday morning.

As a result, Israel transferred all the Palestinian prisoners to be released to Gaza and the West Bank to Red Cross buses.

Upon passing into Israel, Shalit was guarded by soldiers of the Israel Air Force's 669 unit, who accompanied him until he was home safe in Mitzpe Hila.

As part of a carefully orchestrated prisoner swap, Israel freed 477 Palestinian prisoners on that day, with a further 550 set for release at a later date.

It was not vey long before the deal started paying dividends- for Hamas. As we learned in July of 2015

The suspected mastermind behind a deadly West Bank terror attack last month was among 1,027 Palestinian inmates freed by Israel in exchange for the release from Gaza of the captured Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011.

On Sunday, the Shin Bet announced it had detained four members of a seven-member Hamas cell who allegedly opened fire on a car near the settlement of Shvut Rachel in June, killing Malachy Rosenfeld, 25, and wounding three others.

Rosenfeld was the sixth Israeli to be killed in attacks carried out or planned by Palestinians released under the Shalit deal since April 2014.

And that's not all because

Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, is widely believed to have helped mastermind the unprecedented Hamas attack that changed the course of Israeli-Palestinian history.

He spent more than two decades behind bars in Israel, before being freed 12 years ago in a hostage ransom deal his brother helped negotiate. In early October, Sinwar outsmarted Israel with the same hostage-taking tactic — resulting in Israel's deadliest day on record.

Israel believes in the value of human life, to the extent of releasing 1,027 terrorists, criminals, and those suspected of violent behavior in return for one human being.  Hamas believes in death, destruction, and and annihilation. That's not merely annihilation of the Jewish state- if the Muslim nation-state of Gaza, is completely demolished, all the better to the terrorist group.

There is in Israel a growing movement to get the hostages, not all of them Israeli, back with or without defeat of Hamas..  "We want our people back. Period," says Rachel Goldber- Polin, reflecting the mounting sentiment.

It is also dangerous. When Hamas hears this, they justifiably hear "anything you want; period." When the Israelis gave up 1,027 prisoners for one Israeli in 2011, they bought themselves more terrorist attacks.  After the remarks noted above, Goldberg-Polin added

And I include myself in that as a parent, that I have not been able to save my son. And I don't know – I think that you're a parent, anyone who is a parent, can appreciate our job is to keep our children safe. And when they get in a situation when they're not safe, our job is to save them. And I feel that I have failed and I feel that our governments have failed and I feel that all the parties at the table have failed to get these 133 souls back home.

The job of the parents is "to keep our children sage" and otherwise "to save them." But that is not the sole job of a government, especially one that accepts not only the importance of making whole the families of 100+ hostages but also the short-term and long-term welfare of the nation itself.

Goldberg-Polin probably is not naive. She is focused on what she needs to be focused on. However, the military and political establishment has a broader mission. This includes return of the hostages, an aim hampered throughout this war by global pressure for a lasting ceasefire, the hostages whatever. More obviously, if a permanent ceasefire is imposed prematurely, Hamas will live to fight another day.

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Pigeonholing Palestinians

In the badly edited video below, ignore the right-wing charlatan psychiatrist, Phil McGuire. Instead, consider the message of Mosab Hassan Yousef, a son of the co-founder of Hamas, who defected to Israel in 1997 and became an undercover agent for Shin Bet, and who has since moved to the USA.

Aside from condemning Hamas, Yousef at 2:22 contends "since October 7, I personally don't differentiate between Hamas and so-called Palestinians and a minute later, "Palestine depends on the destruction of Israel. This is not acceptable and we are not going to agree with it."

Asked by one of the two Muslim women present whether Palestinians "are the same, one and the same," Yousef replied "after October 7, yes. There's no difference. The vast majority of the Palestinian people support Hamas. That is a fact. This is proven by statistics and...."

Dr. Phil confronts two female Hamas propagandists on the question of whether the October 7th Hamas massacre would be considered genocide and whether it was morally acceptable. Joining Dr. Phil is Mosab Yousef, the son of a Hamas leader. He also confronted the two kaffiyeh wearing… pic.twitter.com/SmYd5QKSUo

— The Jewish Voice (@TJVNEWS) April 3, 2024

Thursday on Morning Joe, host (co-host?) Joe Scarborough spent a few minutes bashing the very vulnerable Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for actions taken (or not taken) to keep Israel safe. He noted, as The New York Times put it, "Israeli officials obtained Hamas' battle plans for the October 7 terrorist attack more than a year before it happened." 

Additionally, beginning at 1:38 of the video, Scarborough asks rhetorically "What about Benjamin Netanyahu? What about him- has he always looked upon Hamas as Nazis?" After the response, the former Florida congressman noted

So- so let me ask you this question. I can't get an answer. Maybe we're just not covering it in the press. Maybe you can help me out. Why did Benjamin Netanyahu send the head of Mossad to Doha three weeks before the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust and told Qatar to continue funding Hamas?

Wanting to emphasize his point, at 2:41 he added "We were always angry that Qatar founded Hezbollah and Hamas. I want to know- why did Benjamin Netanyahu do that? Let me ask you this. Why did Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump know in 2018 the sources of Hamas' illicit funding and they still did nothing? They wanted that money to get to Hamas. I'd like to know because we in America- has there been any investigations in Israel to this point? 

MORNING JOE hosts erupt at Israel’s economy minister and his government’s handling of the war in Gaza.

pic.twitter.com/60KZm6f6j1

— Waleed Shahid 🪬 (@_waleedshahid) April 4, 2024

In the annals of poor judgement displayed by government leaders, the collaboration of the Israeli prime minister with Hamas ranks high. In December, we had learned

In a series of interviews with key Israeli players conducted in collaboration with Israeli investigative journalism organization Shomrim, CNN was told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continued the cash flow to Hamas, despite concerns raised from within his own government.

Qatar has vowed not to stop those payments. Qatari minister of state for foreign affairs Mohammed bin Abdulaziz Al-Khulaifi told CNN’s Becky Anderson on Monday that his government will continue to make payments to Gaza to support the enclave, as it has been doing for years.

“We’re not going to change our mandate. Our mandate is our continuous help and support for our brothers and sisters of Palestine. We will continue to do it systematically as we did it before,” Al-Khulaifi said.

Israeli sources responded by pointing out that successive governments had facilitated the transfer of money to Gaza for humanitarian reasons and that Netanyahu had acted decisively against Hamas after the October 7 attacks….

In 2018, Qatar began making monthly payments to the Gaza Strip. Some $15 million were sent into Gaza in cash-filled suitcases – delivered by the Qataris through Israeli territory after months of negotiation with Israel.

The payments started after the Palestinian Authority (PA), the Palestinian government in the Israeli occupied West Bank that is a rival of Hamas, decided to cut salaries of government employees in Gaza in 2017, an Israeli government source with knowledge of the matter told CNN at the time.

The PA opposed the Qatari funding at the time, which Hamas said was meant for the payment of public salaries as well as medical purposes.

Israel approved the deal in a security cabinet meeting in August 2018, when Netanyahu was serving his previous tenure as premier.

Even then, Netanyahu was criticized by his coalition partners for the deal and for being too soft on Hamas.

Palestinians are not all the same, not even now, though most do appear to support Hamas. They couldn't be expected to do otherwise; Hamas is fighting the war against Israel, whose bombs have killed something north of 20,000 Gazans. (Exact figures would be difficult to come by, even if they were not supplied by the Gazan Health Ministry.)  No doubt opposition to Hamas would be interpreted by many neighbors of Gazan residents as support for Israel.

It didn't have to be this way. And those Palestinians who have rallied to the side of Hamas in response to Israeli attacks prompted by the 10.7/23 terrorist attack upon Israelis are actually a little late to the game. Someone beat them to it.

The PA opposed the Qatari funding at the time. If Netanyahu at the time recognized that Israel was facing two major enemies in the West Bank and Gaza, he did not appreciate that Israel had no choice but to come to an accommodation of sorts with the lesser evil and less deadly adversary- the Palestinian Authority.  Instead, he actively facilitated the transfer of resources to the Hamas regime in Gaza.

Yousef now believes that there is no difference among Palestinians. Netanyahu seems all along to have believed the same. Alternatively, he may have thought that the PA was more dedicated to a Palestinian state and thus posed a greater threat to Israel.

He did so, at least in part because he believed, as Yousef does now, that there is no difference- none- among Palestinians. Ironically, this is something Benjamin Netanyahu has in common with most of the anti-Israel world, whether actually pro-Hamas or not. Israel is said to be bombing Palestinians, killing Palestinians, trying to exterminate Palestinians when it is exclusively Gazans, most of them Palestinians, who are the victims in the Israeli assault.

The emphasis on "Palestinians"- a distinction never defined and rarely understood- has prolonged the war by emboldening Hamas. Soon after October 7, Israel in the eyes of the world was no longer fighting Hamas or Gazans. It was not defending itself against a brutal, terroristic entity but against, in popular perception, a whole race of people. As the global community thus became ever more critical of Israel, Hamas has had no need to return the hostages it has held.

Benjamin Netanyahu has reinforced that perception.  He enabled Qatar to finance Gaza, thus Hamas, and disregarded the growing military threat posed by the terrorist group while encouraging Jewish settlements on the West Bank. While he- finally- views Hamas as the mortal enemy of Israel it always has been, he refuses to recognize other representatives of Palestinians as legitimate.  The irony of the Israeli right and of Palestinian sympathizers perceiving Palestinians as one undifferentiated mass is lost on both sides and does not bode well for regional peace.

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We've Seen This Play Before

A Puerto Rican, Sonia Sotomayor is the first Latina to serve on the United States Supreme Court. But as Mehdi Hasan understands, that's simply not good enough.

In the article in The Guardian, Hasan writes

...it is time to remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg. To recall how RBG, who had survived two bouts of cancer, refused to quit the court despite calls to do so from leading liberals during Barack Obama’s second term office. To hark back to her insistence, in multiple interviews, that it was “misguided” to insist she retire and that she would only stand down “when it’s time”. To recollect how, on her deathbed in 2020, she told her granddaughter that her “most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed” – and how it made no difference whatsoever! Donald Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett as RBG’s replacement just eight days after her death, and Senate Republicans confirmed Barrett to RBG’s vacant seat just eight days before election day.

With Joe Biden trailing Trump in several swing states and Democrats also in danger of losing their razor-thin majority in the Senate, are we really prepared for history to repeat itself? Sotomayor will turn 70 in June. Of course, only Sotomayor knows the full status of her health, still it is public knowledge that she has had type 1 diabetes since she was seven; had paramedics called to her home; and is the only sitting justice to have, reportedly, traveled with a medic. To be clear: she could easily – and God willing – survive a potential Trump second term and still be dishing out dissents from the bench come 2029.

But why take that risk? Why not retire now? Why not quit the bench at the same age that justices in Belgium, Australia and Japan are forced to do so?

"I have PTSD from 2020 [& RBG]...The Republicans are very good at stacking courts... Democrats aren't very good at seeing the power of the Supreme Court."

I debated & defended my Guardian piece calling for Justice Sotomayor to retire so a Dem president + Senate can replace her. pic.twitter.com/JEPMWaA2g2

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) April 3, 2024

Unfortunately, Sotomayor could not announce a retirement effective January 1, 2025 or January 7, 2025, the day after Congress presumably will certify the presidential election results, reserving the option to withdraw her resignation if Trump prevails. There is nearly a 50% chance that Biden will be re-elected while the math for Democrats holding on to the Senate is clearly absent.

Also unfortunate: Sotomayor is unlikely to retire, in part because there will be little pressure on her to do so. Hasan notes

In 2021, the progressive group Demand Justice sent a billboard truck to circle the supreme court building with the message: “Breyer, retire.” I joined in, too. “Retire, retire, retire,” I said in a monologue for my Peacock show in 2021. “Or history may end up judging you, Justice Breyer.”

So why is it okay to pressure Breyer to retire but not Sotomayor? 

There is no good reason, but thee is a reason and

This time round, Demand Justice isn’t taking a position on whether an older liberal justice should quit while a Democratic president and Senate can still replace them and, as HuffPost reports, “on the left, there is little open debate about whether she should retire.”

Well, of course, there isn't. And the reason there isn't echoes the reason why there is no push at all for Kamala Harris to step down. Karen Finney, the Democratic strategist who is quite pleased this state of affairs, believes that the risk of losing the presidency is an acceptable price to pay to maintain demographic purity. Citing an initial interest in a presidential bid

When you had people who were trying to test the waters, the party rose up and made it clear to those individuals — who were mostly white men — that to disrespect the vice president would not be well received by women and people of color within the party. They got a little bit of a smack in the face.

There are powerful figures in or about the Democratic Party who are less concerned with turning over the presidency to Donald Trump- or losing another Supreme Court seat to a selection made by a President Trump- than they are to the idea of losing a first. That would be the first black Vice President or the chance of the first black female President, and the first American of Latin descent to serve on the USA Supreme Court.

As Hasan advocates, Ginsburg might make the courageous and patriotic decision to step down. But Ruth Bader Ginsburg didn't, Kamala Harris won't, and it's not likely that Sonia Sotomayor will, either.

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Whomever You Are, Please Stand Up

Will the real Joe Biden please stand up? On March 31, the Office of The White House issued a Statement maintaining

Jill and I send our warmest wishes to Christians around the world celebrating Easter Sunday. Easter reminds us of the power of hope and the promise of Christ’s Resurrection.

As we gather with loved ones, we remember Jesus’ sacrifice. We pray for one another and cherish the blessing of the dawn of new possibilities. And with wars and conflict taking a toll on innocent lives around the world, we renew our commitment to work for peace, security, and dignity for all people.

From our family to yours, happy Easter and may God bless you.

With "the promise of Christ's Resurrection" and "Jesus sacrifice," the President couldn't have gotten any more Christian without risking the praise of even his sycophants on MSNC. But not to worry because

Created by a Michigan-based transgender activist, Rachel Crandall, in 2009, International Transgender Day of Visibility (often shortened to Trans Visibility Day) falls on March 31 every year. In 2024, that date coincidentally falls on Easter Sunday, which is determined annually by marking the first Sunday after the full moon occurring on or after the Spring Equinox.

President Joe Biden marked the push for transgender rights with a statement recognizing Trans Visibility Day on Friday that immediately set off alarm bells on the far right.

Left-leaning reporter Rachel Dobkin at right-leaning Newsweek wrote "On Friday, the White House sent out an announcement proclaiming March 31, 2024, as Transgender Day of Visibility. This announcement is just a formality as the date of this annual event has already been set and is a way for the Biden administration to celebrate the holiday." Yet midway through this "formality," the President took a sharp left turn as he proclaimed

extremists are proposing hundreds of hateful laws that target and terrify transgender kids and their families — silencing teachers; banning books; and even threatening parents, doctors, and nurses with prison for helping parents get care for their children.  These bills attack our most basic American values:  the freedom to be yourself, the freedom to make your own health care decisions, and even the right to raise your own child.  It is no surprise that the bullying and discrimination that transgender Americans face is worsening our Nation’s mental health crisis, leading half of transgender youth to consider suicide in the past year.

Acknowledging International Transgender Day of Visibility would be a formality, much as it was when Biden acknowledged World Hearing Day on March 3, World Obesity Day on March 4, or International Client's Day on March 19. You may have missed the President's proclamation issued on those days. We all did.

His statement on Easter Sunday was not a mere formality but a hearty endorsement. Nor was, to be fair to the President, the blessing he bestowed upon Easter.  So on the same day that Biden referred to Christ's resurrection and sacrifice, he spent five paragraphs (before the standard "Now, therefore, I") issuing brazenly political remarks. 

The issue is not whether Biden's remarks reflected good policy or values but one of context, especially when it's likely transgender day was set intentionally to fall periodically on Easter Sunday or Good Friday.. When it occurs on almost any other day on the calendar, the timing of Biden's remarks would have been more appropriate.

But it didn't, and they weren't, no matter the President's habit of inserting "God" into speeches. Conventional wisdom would argue that the "Easter" Joe Biden is the real Joe Biden, a good, traditional Catholic and Christian, who periodically must pander to woke progressives. Alternatively, the real Joe Biden is the one who told transsexual- uh, er, transgender- Americans yesterday "you are America" rather than "you are as American as anyone else" or "you are America, just as all of us are." In that case, the Joe of faith and religious conviction is the man of deception and diversion.

The devout and dedicated Catholic he usually presents as would not have delivered a slap to the face of committed Christians that he did early yesterday- unless he was coerced into the transgender statement or didn't know what was being issued in his name. It's only fair, then, in the face of an election pitting himself against a candidate who is not physically and mentally well, that we ask who the real Joseph Robinette Robinette Biden is.

 

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All Lies Are Not Created Equal

Some say "it is what it is." However, as Bill Maher understands, sometimes it isn't what it appears to be. 

A misguided tweet prompted by Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher:

Fareed Zakaria and Bill Maher discuss Ronna McDaniel's firing from NBC News:
Zakaria: "How much do you punish her for her past lies? Bill Clinton lied under oath. Last time I checked he's been on MSNBC. She's an election denier. Well Stacey Abrams was an election denier and… pic.twitter.com/7mt7iudoaZ

— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) March 30, 2024

Maher responded (bad audio on the video, with relevant portion beginning at 17:53)

Also, when you say "a third of the country." It' a third of the country that thinks the election was stolen. But it's another, something like 14%- almost half that thinks the election was stolen and doesn't care because they're still going to vote for Trump,. So it is almost half the country. For that reason, I'm with you. 

But I don't agree with you on the idea that a lie is a lie. Bill Clinton's lie, Obama's lies, whoever lies, is different that that the election doesn't count when our guy doesn't win. That is a separate thing- - I totally get that point of view.

Zakaria then stated that he had once interviewed (or tried to interview) Gus Hall, once a Communist Party candidate for President of the USA, inferring that would have been analogous NBC putting Ronna McDaniel on the air. However, this point was mute. NBC's issue was not whether the former RNC chairperson should be a guest, but instead a $300,000 a year contributor.

A lie is a lie but one lie differs in magnitude and effect than another. Or as another tweeter explained, "Clinton lied about an erection. Ronna lied about an election. Very different things."

 

                                              HAPPY EASTER

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Uplifting the Hostile Workplace

In October 2021 Charlotte Bennett, a health policy aide in the administration of New York governor Andrew Cuomo- forced out of office after a series of sexual abuse allegations- stated that

what emboldened her to come forward — and bolster the claims of an earlier accuser — was also the feeling that she was part of a community of survivors who had each other’s back.

“I was really scared to come forward,” Bennett said. “But something that reassured me even in that moment of fear was that there were women before me … (it wasn’t) Charlotte versus the governor, but a movement, moving forward. And I am one small event and one small piece of reckoning with sexual misconduct, in workplaces and elsewhere.”

Because things- especially in the workplace- can change dramatically in less than four years. 

An attorney for Lizzo’s former backup dancers, Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams and Noelle Rodriguez, is fuming that the Democratic National Committee hired the “Good As Hell” singer to headline the Dem’s big fundraiser Thursday night at Radio City Music Hall.

“It’s shameful that Lizzo would be chosen to headline an event like this amid such egregious allegations,” Ron Zambrano told me. “Without getting into the politics, I can’t imagine why anyone would want Lizzo representing them in any way given her reprehensible behavior. It’s just a terrible look."

Lizzo is facing accusations of sexual harassment and discrimination by Davis, Williams and Rodriguez who sued Lizzo last August, accusing her of “creating a hostile work environment through a wide range of legal wrongdoing, including not just sexual harassment but also religious and racial discrimination,” according to Billboard. The women allege Lizzo forced them to attend sex shows and eat a banana protruding from a woman’s vagina, among other allegations. Last month, a judge denied Lizzo’s request to toss the lawsuit, allowing the majority of the case to proceed to trial later this year.

Last October, two years after Charlotte Bennett's account, Holly Corbett noted in Forbes "While some people may argue that #MeToo is dead or is not needed anymore, the truth is that change with any social movement is slow, nonlinear, and doesn't all the time." Yet she misleadingly added "The #MeToo movement of 2017 and 2018 grew with survivors finding community and resulted in holding hundreds of powerful men accountable."

Powerful men, arguably; influential women, not a chance. The performer of such classy and traditional lyrics as "Woo child, tired of the bullshit Go on dust your shoulders off, keep it moving Yes Lord, tryna get some new shit In there, swimwear, going to the pool shit" is not being held accountable. Ron Zambrano is trying to do so- but the last three Democratic presidents have not only given her a pass, but have now celebrated her, honoring her with prominence at the New York City gala.

This is what the #MeToo movement has come to. While many Americans flounder as victims of the vagaries of life, moral outrage vanishes when the alleged offender is a wealthy celebrity.  It turns out that if the wrongdoer is not among the "hundreds of powerful men," three of the most powerful Americans of the last quarter century can't be bothered. Perhaps the #MeToo movement should acknowledge it no longer serves a useful purpose and simply call it a day.

 

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Claiming a Non-Existent Right

The press secretary to President George W. Bush inadvertently reminds us of how bad a President his boss was.

Very few issues unify the Republican Party as much as media bias.

NBC’s behavior - hiring numerous
Ds who say objectionable and radical things - while shunning Ronna is just another example of how the media looks down its nose at Trump voters.

NBC just helped Trump. https://t.co/HP4FpUjrsb

— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) March 26, 2024

This is how NBC "shunned" Ronna McDaniel, who was Ronna Romney McDaniel before Donald Trump made dropping her middle name as a condition of obtaining employment as Republican National Committee chairman:

\\\                  

Ronna McDaniel was given an opportunity to present her take of the Republican Party and Donald J. Trump. Neither NBC nor its offspring, MSNBC, is under any legal requirement to give a contract to someone pro-Trump, just as it is not a requirement that Fox News do so for Tom Perez, Donna Brazile, or Terry McAuliffe.

Also misguided was Geraldo Rivera, who in slamming superstar host Rachel Maddow for comparing the contract with McDaniel to hiring a "mobster to work at the DA's office, stated "I think that Rachel Maddow is guilty of malignant wokeism. God did not anoint her the arbiter of who was appropriate for her network to hire or what their point of view is."

The incident had far less to do with "wokeism," however Rivera defines it, than with actively supporting an effort to overthrow a fair and legal election. And obviously God did not anoint an arbiter, given that Mrs. McDaniel was selected without input from any on-air talent. The revolt did not come until weeks after the agreement between McDaniel and NBC. While short of being "arbiters," MSNBC hosts decided that blindly following their leaders- management at the parent company- was not part of their job description. 

Fleischer, whose role in the White House was to spout the company line blindly and vociferously- may not fully understand this. And the "media bias" he cites is, at most, a counterpoint of the bias at Fox News (and Newsmax and OANN), but with a healthy dose of fact. 

NBC did not "shun" Mrs. McDaniel. There is no constitutional right to a media contract. No one is entitled to such a privilege. That was understood within the cable news network as

Across MSNBC they have been cutting contributors,” an unnamed host told Politico. “So everyone’s like, what the fuck? You found 300 for her?”

Later on Monday, the union group NBC News Guild, said on social media: “Two weeks before NBC News proudly announced the hiring of Ronna McDaniel, execs illegally terminated 13 union journalists.”

No explanation was offered for the layoffs, the Guild said, adding: “Actions speak clearly – NBC prioritized an election denier over its own reporters.

So NBC executives offered an election-denying, Trump-worshipping ex-RNC head a gig made possible only by axing legitimate journalists. On the parent network or, better yet, MSNBC, Republicans and conservatives should appear- as guests, asked real questions with follow-up, as was done on Meet the Press. But for contributors, it can do far better than Ronna "not Romney" McDaniel. As one right-wing Republican explained on Sunday

Ronna facilitated Trump's corrupt fake elector plot & his effort to pressure MI officials not to certify the legitimate election outcome. She spread his lies & called 1/6 'legitimate political discourse.' That's not 'taking one for the team.' It's enabling criminality & depravity.

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