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TRUMP. What Trump does - in an extraordinarily effective way - is he uses wave after wave of news, tweets, announcements, attacks, and over-the-top comments to basically overwhelm the press corps, as well as his political critics. There is almost too much information to grasp, too much news to digest, and too much from him almost every day.

And this is exactly how the MSM failed the American people. They did it in 2016, and again in 2024.

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Nah. This is not a failure of reporters. It is just not humanly possible to keep up with the amount of stuff that Trump throws out. I know. I'm right in the middle of it. For example, I wanted to write a bunch about Tulsi Gabbard this week. There wasn't room and there wasn't time.

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The media controls de message. So I still believe that the MSM did a disservice to this nation.

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What do you think they should have done differently?

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Tulsi Gabbard may be the scariest pick so far, and that is saying a lot.

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This is also part of the love/hate relationship the cable news media needs. Trump is good for their business since their ad business is not what it used to be.

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“If Trump tells them to get it done now, they will. If he wants it delayed, they will.”

We used to have three independent branches of government.

But republicans are cowardly filth, and proud of it. Hell, they even have moronic cultists that emend and cheer their filthiness.

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Which makes me think about the point Jamie makes so often about Congress handing over their power to the president.

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Solid typo on Luna with the D instead of R.

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I made another CSPAN clip for my collection which others might enjoy. Our silver-tongued former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who is among President-elect Trump's supporters, covers a lot of ground in this hour-plus conversation.

https://beta.c-span.org/clip/public-affairs-event/user-clip-former-house-speaker-kevin-mccarthy-still-supports-donald-trump/5141922

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Jamie: why does California take so long to count results? Do they have computers out there?

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This is a good question. First, the system - like the one used in Washington State, Oregon, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado - contributes to the long counting process. Unlike in states like Florida, where there is a deadline to submit your mail ballot, the western states allow the ballots to come in several days later, as long as they are postmarked by Election Day. Every ballot must be checked for correct ID, etc. That takes time.

But there's one more thing about California, and this may seem like a cheap shot - but it is what I have witnessed from afar. Some counties don't seem to work that hard to clear out their ballots. For example, I saw this tweet on Thursday from a guy in California who watches the results:

"Lake County, California, quite possibly the slowest election department in California, which would place it highest in the running for slowest election department worldwide, updated for the first time since election night today, adding 681 votes, w/18,961 still to go."

California still has about 1.7 million ballots to count.

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