Robert P. Robitaille

[Carolyn 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇦 (we must save us) @AskMe_idareyou]

@DemocraticWins @usamattersmedia You guys let one of the best Senators we've ever had, Al Franken, be run out of the Senate because of a joke photo & lies of a conservative radio anchor. The only woman accusing Plattner of anything inappropriate is the one conservative who was interviewed. Fire your consultants!

[PaulCA - Be humorous, we're only here once. @BabbleBabble11]

@DemocraticWins Wow, your group just wants Republicans to win. Mills has already lost, stop beating a dead horse and gossiping about Platner. You want the child rapist party to win?

[Headquarters @HQNewsNow]

Here is over 2 minutes of your boss completely passed out on live television. Cope and seethe

[Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) 🇺🇸🇺🇦 @AdamKinzinger]

Dear Russia:

Build fast, cuz in 2.5 years we’re sawing it in half or letting Ukrainian troops use it

[Ryan Grim @ryangrim]

It's kind of wild to find out that the Republican in the NYT story that says she had a toxic relationship with Graham Platner is Lyndsey Fifield. Having been in DC for too long, I know a decent number of people who know her quite well. For a long time she was the co-host of a podcast with her best friend Bethany Mandel, called Ladybrains, though she has also worked for multiple super PACs, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Heritage Foundation.

Some background, presented without judgment: In 2014, Fifield began work as digital director for American Action Network, a Republican Super PAC that oversees House races. The next year she became social media manager for the Heritage Foundation, where she stayed for the next seven years.

In 2022, she joined the Super PAC backing Nikki Haley for president, switching to the official campaign side the next year, and staying until the campaign flamed out. She now lists herself as a visiting fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum, a prominent dark money group that is best known for helping usher Brett Kavanaugh on to the Supreme Court and giving Susan Collins the talking points she needed to make her decisive speech in his favor.

The NYT breezed past all this, saying she was "a Virginia conservative who has worked for right-leaning groups and Republican campaigns."

In an interview for a news outlet called Red Alert Politics that named her to a “30 under 30” list back in 2016, she said that she wanted to “emulate the late conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart’s approach to online activism.” Breitbart, known for pushing the boundaries when it came to political combat, is perhaps best remembered for having exposed Anthony Weiner’s penchant for sending nudes to young girls, and for his work elevating James O’Keefe.

That she worked for Independent Women's Forum recently is even wilder since IWF played a critical role in Kavanaugh's confirmation and in persuading Collins to support it.

Heather Higgins, chair of IWF, laid out the group’s role in a talk several years ago. “We wrote a memo. It was used by a lot of members of the Senate and the House, Fox News, and elsewhere. Most important, Susan Collins told me that without that memo, she would not see how to support him,” Higgins said. “And if you look at the speech she gave on the Senate floor, it’s entirely the playing out and architecture of how we said to structure the argument — what to say and how to say it, which is just so gratifying. We’re watching TV and we’re like, ‘That’s ours! That’s ours!’”

Meanwhile, the timeline Fifield gives of their relationship is confusing, because during at least some of that time she was actually dating a different person, her longterm boyfriend who became her fiancee before she called off the wedding in 2018. We all know this because she and Mandel did a podcast episode on it that went mega-viral in Republican circles back then. Apparently this is the kind of thing the NYT thinks is important now, so I guess it requires more reporting. I'll report back.

Here is Heather Higgins celebrating IWF's role in getting Susan Collins to confirm Kavanaugh:

[Tom Nichols @RadioFreeTom]

I have to admit it has been fascinating to hear about how I and a bunch of professors single-handedly lost every war over the past 30 years while the new A-team is losing to Iran in record time.

[Martina Navratilova @Martina]

Is he gay??? Roflmao!!!

[John Jackson @hissgoescobra]

Look at @RepLuna claiming an “assault” by an elderly woman. Are you serious? This is pathetic. Well Russia and MAGA have one thing in common: they both always claim to be the victims

[Kyle Clark @KyleClark]

GOP Gov candidate Scott Bottoms says he’d probably offer a role in his administration to his good friend Joe Oltmann, the MAGA podcaster who has called for the executions of the “Synagogue of Satan Jews” running Colorado.

“Assuming it’s not around Jewish people,” Bottoms said.

[Kyle Clark @KyleClark]

GOP Gov candidate and ministry leader Victor Marx says his qualification to be Governor is that he builds strong teams.

I asked what voters should make of a string of recent errors he blamed on his team, deflecting responsibility from himself.

[Acyn @Acyn]

Ungar-Sargon: The American people who voted for Donald Trump are hurting. He has to somehow alleviate the pain. The best way to do that is a stimulus check. He needs to give them a tariff rebate.

Phillip: Weren’t you an advocate for the tariffs?

Ungar-Sargon: Yes

Phillip: Why are you asking for a rebate?

Ungar-Sargon: We brought in $200 billion in tariffs. And we should now take some of that money and give it to Americans who are struggling.

Phillip: That money already has to be refunded because most of it was illegal.

Ungar-Sargon: That’s actually not clear they have to be refunded.

Phillip: There refunds are happening right now. If tariffs are a good idea—

Ungar-Sargon: Yes, I’m so glad we have that money

Phillip: Why would we have to rebate that money in stimulus checks?

[Acyn @Acyn]

Matthews: I will say that during my time working as deputy press secretary in the first Trump administration, Kaitlan Collins was the one reporter that scared Kayleigh Mcenany. And President Trump the most.

[Hunter Biden 2028 @HunterFor2028]

Hunter Biden: "There is no laptop … they cobbled together stolen, fabricated digital information, largely, which is thousands and thousands and thousands of emails from 25 years."

Hunter must run for President to seek revenge.

[Gandalv @Microinteracti1]

He wanted to look tough. He posted a painting of himself surrounded by oiled-up shirtless men in tiny shorts waving pompoms. Safe to say this did not land quite the way he intended.

[Marc E. Elias @marceelias]

Justice Sonia Sotomayor blasted the court’s conservative majority for a ruling that “debases the democratic process” by allowing Alabama to use a congressional map that the justices had previously found intentionally discriminated against Black voters. https://t.co/ahoPNpCSNd

[Micah Erfan @micah_erfan]

DOGE was just a cover for the largest robbery of the American people in history.

[Patrick Skinner @SkinnerPm]

Thursday breakfast with The Eastside Orangeys. Chubba Wubbs Mommy simply has to waddle over and scratch the tire. It’s her favorite thing. Hippy Limpers was there. He’s a huge cat. The gang barely tolerates him. No drama but they don’t love tourists.

[Hunter Biden @HunterBiden]

Trump hasn’t made a public appearance in 8 days. This after an unscheduled visit to the hospital- because he “likes getting check ups.” Thank God Jake Tapper (or as I like to call him- the Brick Tamland of his generation) is on the case hunting down clues in a book about my mom’s experience as First Lady four years ago.

[Richard W. Painter @RWPUSA]

As I've said many times, @POTUS had better be careful or he will end up being the "Defendant in Chief."
https://t.co/3d7AcATEgN

[Adam Klasfeld @KlasfeldReports]

Just now, @Lawrence flagged how Trump cleaned up his comments about Jan. 6 rioters.

Initially saying “they went there to,” Trump stopped and said: “They went there with love.”

“He knows what they went there to do, and he knows he can’t say it,” Lawrence noted.