Payments to company owned by Ocasio-Cortez aide come under scrutiny
From a March 5, 2019 WaPo story.
Brand New Congress LLC, the company owned by Saikat Chakrabarti, was also paid $18,880 for strategic consulting by Ocasio-Cortez’s congressional campaign in 2017, records show. The following year, he worked as a volunteer to manage her campaign, according to his LinkedIn profile.
The arrangement, first reported by conservative outlets, left hidden who ultimately profited from the payments — a sharp juxtaposition with Ocasio-Cortez’s calls for transparency in politics. She has called dark money “the enemy to democracy.”
snip=====================================================
Brand New Congress LLC, initially called Brand New Campaign LLC, was formed by Chakrabarti to serve as a “campaign in a box, a one-stop vendor for communications, field, online organizing, fundraising and the like,” Mitrani said in his statement.
Among its clients were two PACs — Justice Democrats and Brand New Congress — which worked to recruit progressive and nontraditional candidates to run for Congress, he said.
snip=====================================================
Campaign finance experts said the relationship between Chakrabarti’s PACs and the limited-liability company obfuscated who received the payments — and raised questions about who benefited.
On his LinkedIn page, Chakrabarti identifies himself as a co-founder of both groups.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/payments-to-corporation-owned-by-ocasio-cortez-aide-come-under-scrutiny/2019/03/05/ae5045ee-3f61-11e9-9361-301ffb5bd5e6_story.html?utm_term=.1d8ff8c1c5a4
https://www.linkedin.com/in/saikatc
= new reply since forum marked as read
Is la vache qui rit so easily amused?
or just a run of the mill bone. Stuff like that is important when throwing aspersions.
...that Sharice Davids is enabling a racist system.
Someone got a screen shot of it before deleted:
One of two ever Native Americans to be elected to congress and he is calling her a racist enabler. O.M.G.This man has to go.
She has an answering machine that tells people to visit her on the web. 
but they have a fax number so you can submit your claim. Except most people had already stopped using fax machines by that point.
BTW, that insurance company was put into receivership a year or so later after I reported it to the appropriate personnel at the state insurance department.
it with that guy?
Thank you for this, lapacelle
thread earlier.
It is a RW-generated (literally) story and amplified 90% plus of the time via RW outlets. 
A conservative group alleges Ocasio-Cortez and her allies ran a PAC scam. But there's no evidence of wrongdoing.
While the structure of her campaign and its vendors might be confusing, it's not illegal, campaign finance experts said.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/fact-check-did-ocasio-cortez-her-team-break-campaign-finance-n980121
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's congressional campaign has come under scrutiny in recent days for what a conservative group has alleged is a massive violation of campaign finance law. The National Legal and Policy Center filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission on Tuesday, alleging that the New York Democrat and her allies used a corporation to skirt campaign finance reporting laws. The complaint comes after a number of conservative-leaning outlets said Ocasio-Cortez broke campaign finance laws when she hired her boyfriend for marketing work.
David Mitrani, an attorney representing Ocasio-Cortez's campaign and the related organizations named in the FEC complaint, pushed back strongly on the reports in a statement Wednesday, saying that the entities "have at all times been conducted fully in compliance with federal campaign finance laws." Ocasio-Cortez herself denied the allegation on Tuesday to Fox News: "There is no violation."
Campaign finance experts, meanwhile, told NBC News that while the structure of her campaign and its vendors might be confusing, there's no evidence of some kind of million-dollar scam as has been alleged in news reports.
snip
Conservative Ethics Group Files Campaign Spending Complaint Against Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Her Chief of Staff
Lawyers for Ocasio-Cortez say she and other Democrat activists "fully complied with the law and the highest ethical standards."
https://www.snopes.com/news/2019/03/07/aoc-chief-of-staff/
snip
The complaint states that the Policy Center “has found reason to believe [the] Respondents knowingly and willfully violated 2 U.S.C. 434(b)(5)(A),” a provision of U.S. campaign finance law that requires the treasurer of any registered political committee to report the name and address of anyone who receives more than $200 in campaign-related spending from that committee, along with the dates and purpose of that spending.
In a lengthy and detailed statement sent to Snopes, attorneys for Ocasio-Cortez and the PACs accused in the complaint said all their activities had “fully complied with the law and the highest ethical standards.”
snip
Crucially, the attorneys emphasized that the way the committees described the services provided by the company was, in brief, no less specific than the law required it to be: “Brand New Congress LLC received guidance from the Federal Election Commission as to how payments from the PACs and the various candidates to Brand New Congress LLC would need to be reported. Consistent with FEC regulations, precedent and practice, the FEC’s Reports and Analysis Division confirmed that payments by the PACs and candidates to this vendor, Brand New Congress LLC, did not need to be broken out by subcategories of service, nor would subvendors need to be itemized.”
The FEC’s website itself stipulates that “strategy consulting” is an adequately specific description of services rendered in return for PAC spending. Whether the activities of the PACs or the company violated campaign finance law, or whether the complaint has any merit, will be matters for the FEC to decide. A spokesperson confirmed to Snopes that the FEC had received the complaint but said they were legally prevented from offering any further comment.
snip
I say RW talking points because it was a RW started complaint and is 90% plus covered by RW sites
Rightwing targets Saikat Chakrabarti, chief-of-staff of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
AOC denies any impropriety in campaign financing and says “there is no violation,” and “I am 100 percent people-funded”
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The conservative media that has obsessed over Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D.-N.Y.) since the 29-year-old progressive firebrand’s advent on Capitol Hill, warning that she’s a dangerous radical socialist, are chomping at the bit after a far-right watchdog group on March 4 filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing Ocasio-Cortez’s chief-of-staff Saikat Chakrabarti of illegally funneling campaign donations to a company he owned.
Led by the likes of Fox News’ prime-time line up of President Trump’s acolytes—Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham—the conservative media pilloried Ocasio-Cortez, branding her a hypocrite for her mantra of calling for transparency in politics and that dark money is “the enemy of democracy,” even as her top aide was hiding these transfers of nearly $1 million from two political actions committees he established to his Brand New Congress LLC in 2016 and 2017. During this time period, both PACs had raised about $3.3 million.
The Fox triumvirate also made the giant leap of declaring that Ocasio-Cortez and her man Friday, Chakrabarti could go to jail for these violations, although FEC officials dismissed such dire predictions and explained that any such indictments could only be pursued if it were proven that the complaint had merit and the alleged conspirators “knowingly and willfully” violated campaign finance laws.
Ocasio-Cortez buttonholed by reporters as she was leaving her Capitol Hill office on March 5, denied any impropriety, saying, “There is no violation,” and asserting that “I’m 100 percent people-funded.”
snip
The group that filed the initial complaint is a RW group, and RW media has taken off and ran with it.
Whats next, Judicial Watch attacks posted against Democrats you or other do not happen to care for?
The National Legal and Policy Center
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Legal_and_Policy_Center
The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) is a right-leaning 501(c)(3) non-profit group that monitors and reports on the ethics of public officials, supporters of liberal causes, and labor unions in the United States. The Center files complaints with government agencies, legally challenges what they view as abuse and corruption, and publishes reports. The NLPC is described as conservative in nature.The NLPC's current chairman is Peter Flaherty.
The NLPC was founded in 1991 following the release of the Senate Ethics Committee report into the Keating Five.
snip
Lawsuit v. Hillary Healthcare Task Force
NLPC was a plaintiff in the successful 1993 lawsuit to open the meetings and records of Hillary Clinton's health care task force.
On February 24, 1993, Hillary Rodham Clinton and the six Cabinet members serving on the task force were sued under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by NLPC, along with two other groups, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons and the American Council for Health Care Reform. FACA requires government task forces to conduct its affairs in public if non-government employees, or "outsiders," take part.[5]
On March 10, 1993, Judge Royce Lamberth ruled that the task force had to open its meetings to the plaintiffs and the media.[6] Lamberth ruled that the "official" members of the task force, meaning the First Lady and the Cabinet Secretaries who comprised its membership, could not meet in secret because Clinton was not a government employee. But Lamberth also ruled that all the other people working on the plan, who were organized into "sub-groups," could continue to work in secret, because FACA was never meant to apply to staff.
Lamberth's ruling was appealed by the White House, and was overturned on June 22, 1993 after the task force had supposedly already disbanded on May 30. Justice Department lawyers argued that since Hillary Rodham Clinton "functions in both a legal and practical sense as part of the government," her participation in the task force should not trigger FACA. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit agreed.
snip
Auto Bailout and 2014 General Motors Recall
NLPC was a high-profile critic of the bailout of the auto industry by the United States government. NLPC’s spokesman was Mark Modica, a former Saturn dealer business manager and wiped-out GM bondholder. Following a demand by NLPC, General Motors in 2014 recalled 1.3 million vehicles with a steering loss defect uncovered by Modica.
Senator Robert Menendez
Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) was indicted in April 2015, along with Dr. Salomon Melgen, his largest campaign contributor, partly on the basis of information made public by NLPC through a front-page New York Times story on February 1, 2013. Melgen is a wealthy south Florida eye doctor who was born in the Dominican Republic and is a naturalized U.S. citizen.
The charges related to Menendez’ attempts to derail a Medicare fraud investigation into Melgen’s practice and securing visas for three Melgen “girlfriends.” The indictment also alleged that Menendez pushed a port security deal in the Dominican Republic that would have provided a windfall for Melgen. In return, the indictment alleges Melgen provided Menendez with private jet ride rides, Dominican vacations, and donations to his legal defense fund. Information on the port security deal was provided by NLPC to the Times.
The Justice Department chose not to retry Menendez after his trial ended in a mistrial on November 16, 2017. On August 8, 2018, NLPC filed a Freedom of Information Act request for documents pertaining to the prosecution and the decision not to retry Menendez. Then-NLPC Chairman Ken Boehm suggested that Menendez was the beneficiary of political influence by pointing out that Menendez’ lawyer is Abbe Lowell, who also represents Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law. Kushner and his family are longtime donors to Democratic politicians in New Jersey, including Menendez.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
NLPC filed a Complaint with the Federal Election Commission on March 4, 2019 against Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and her chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti, alleging that they orchestrated an extensive operation to hide hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign spending during the 2018 campaign.
Rep. Maxine Waters
NLPC filed two Complaints, currently pending, against Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) with the Federal Election Commission alleging campaign finance violations in relation to her so-called slate mailer.
The first, filed on July 26, 2018, alleges that Waters violated federal election law by accepting a payment to her campaign fund from the Democratic State Central Committee of California (DSCCC) in the amount of $35,000 for the inclusion of then-Senate candidate, and now Senator Kamala Harris, on Waters’ slate mailer. Whereas candidates like Harris may legally pay Waters’ campaign for the proportional costs of their inclusion on her slate mailer, it is not legal for such payment to be made by a third party like the DSCCC.
The second, filed in October 2018, alleges that Waters violated federal election law by accepting a $25,000 payment to her campaign fund from a group called “Families and Teachers for Antonio.” The payment was to include former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on the mailer, who was running for Governor. Whereas candidates like Villaraigosa may legally pay Waters’ campaign for the proportional costs of their inclusion on her slate mailer, it is not legal for such payment to be made by a third party.[26][27][28]
Rep. Elijah Cummings
On May 20, 2019, NLPC filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service against the Center for Global Policy Solutions (CGPS), a nonprofit headed by Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, wife of Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD). Mrs. Cummings is also the principal in Global Policy Solutions, LLC, a for-profit Limited Liability Corporation that the Complaint charges is “impermissibly entwined” with the nonprofit.
Constitutional Challenge to Mueller Authority
NLPC is providing financial and logistical support to a constitutional challenge to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s appointment and authority by Andrew Miller, a former aide to indicted GOP operative Roger Stone, who has been subpoenaed in the case. Miller is represented by constitutional and appellate attorney Paul Kamenar, who is working on a partial pro bono basis.
NLPC Chairman Peter Flaherty told the New York Times on June 28, 2018, “The founders feared exactly what we see in Mueller: a runaway federal official. We hope to see Mueller’s operation disbanded, once and for all.”
snip
AOC’s chief of staff ran $1M slush fund by diverting campaign cash to his own companies
by Alana Goodman
| March 04, 2019 03:34 PM <<<< BEFORE WaPo and a RW rag
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/ocasio-cortezs-chief-of-staff-ran-1m-slush-fund-by-diverting-campaign-cash-to-his-own-companies
also before (I can go on and on)
WND
COMPLAINT: OCASIO-CORTEZ'S CHIEF OF STAFF RAN $1M SLUSH FUND
FEC alerted to alleged diversion of campaign cash to his companies
Published: 03/04/2019 at 6:27 PM <<<< BEFORE WaPo and a RW site
https://www.wnd.com/2019/03/complaint-ocasio-cortezs-chief-of-staff-ran-1m-slush-fund/
and going deeper (and this is what kicked off the RW firm to file a complaint in the first place)
PAC aligned with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez paid boyfriend $6G for marketing work
Published February 21
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pac-aligned-with-ocasio-cortez-paid-6g-her-boyfriend-for-marketing-work
these RW POS keep running with all this bullshit even though most all of it is bebunked
here is a debunking BEFORE Fox New ran with that last one
No, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Didn't Hire Her Boyfriend Riley Roberts As A Staffer
ANDREA GONZÁLEZ-RAMÍREZ
LAST UPDATED FEBRUARY 15, 2019, 8:00 PM
https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/02/224559/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-boyfriend-riley-roberts-congress-staff-email
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez found herself at the center of another right-wing Twitter conspiracy Friday morning, after a Republican strategist falsely claimed that she had employed her longtime partner Riley Roberts as a paid congressional staffer. The New York congresswoman and her team corrected the record, saying this is not true.
Conservative podcast host Luke Thompson first made the claims. Taking a screenshot from an unknown source, he tweeted: "While you were having a nice Valentine's Day, @AOC decided to put her boyfriend on staff - drawing a salary on the taxpayer's dime. Nice to see her adapting to the swamp so quickly." (The tweet was temporarily taken down because the screenshot, which includes Roberts' email and phone number, was said to be in violation of Twitter's terms of service.)
Ocasio-Cortez was quick to debunk the claim, clarifying that Roberts obtained an official House email address in order to get access to her calendar. "Actually this cal designation is a permission so he can have access to my Google Cal. Congressional spouses get Gcal access all the time. Next time check your facts before you tweet nonsense," she tweeted.
Link to tweet
snip
this whole story(s) is RW-started and RW-spread tosh
Does WaPo own a TARDIS?
took up the cause, and RW media jumped on the bandwagon, all BEFORE the WaPo story on the 5th.
The Washington Post was not the original source of anything to do with either story. (either the bogus boyfriend being paid story, which then led to the RW National Legal and Policy Center filing new charges.)
Here is a RW story about the WaPo subject BEFORE the WaPo one (no Tardis needed, lolol)
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/ocasio-cortezs-chief-of-staff-ran-1m-slush-fund-by-diverting-campaign-cash-to-his-own-companies
It makes no difference if some of the RW articles are after the WaPo article as they are the RW media and groups started it BEFORE WaPo even reported on it, and also the RWers were keeping it alive (thus you will find article on it after the Post article).
here again is the timeline and verification tht it WAS RW started and pushed
A conservative group alleges Ocasio-Cortez and her allies ran a PAC scam. But there's no evidence of wrongdoing.
While the structure of her campaign and its vendors might be confusing, it's not illegal, campaign finance experts said.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/fact-check-did-ocasio-cortez-her-team-break-campaign-finance-n980121
David Mitrani, an attorney representing Ocasio-Cortez's campaign and the related organizations named in the FEC complaint, pushed back strongly on the reports in a statement Wednesday, saying that the entities "have at all times been conducted fully in compliance with federal campaign finance laws." Ocasio-Cortez herself denied the allegation on Tuesday to Fox News: "There is no violation."
Campaign finance experts, meanwhile, told NBC News that while the structure of her campaign and its vendors might be confusing, there's no evidence of some kind of million-dollar scam as has been alleged in news reports.
snip
here is an article from WEEKS before the WaPo article that shows how this all got started
No, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Didn't Hire Her Boyfriend Riley Roberts As A Staffer
ANDREA GONZÁLEZ-RAMÍREZ
LAST UPDATED FEBRUARY 15, 2019, 8:00 PM
https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/02/224559/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-boyfriend-riley-roberts-congress-staff-email
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez found herself at the center of another right-wing Twitter conspiracy Friday morning, after a Republican strategist falsely claimed that she had employed her longtime partner Riley Roberts as a paid congressional staffer. The New York congresswoman and her team corrected the record, saying this is not true.
Conservative podcast host Luke Thompson first made the claims. Taking a screenshot from an unknown source, he tweeted: "While you were having a nice Valentine's Day, @AOC decided to put her boyfriend on staff - drawing a salary on the taxpayer's dime. Nice to see her adapting to the swamp so quickly." (The tweet was temporarily taken down because the screenshot, which includes Roberts' email and phone number, was said to be in violation of Twitter's terms of service.)
Ocasio-Cortez was quick to debunk the claim, clarifying that Roberts obtained an official House email address in order to get access to her calendar. "Actually this cal designation is a permission so he can have access to my Google Cal. Congressional spouses get Gcal access all the time. Next time check your facts before you tweet nonsense," she tweeted.
Link to tweet
snapshot of that tweet
snip
Both stories were RW-started and RW-spread and certainly not original work by WaPo, so nope no Tardis needed by them, as they were reporting after it all was long out of the bag
Paul Krugman sums it up
Link to tweet
Paul Krugman
Verified account
@paulkrugman
Follow Follow @paulkrugman
More Paul Krugman Retweeted Brendan Fischer
Aha -- so that's where the "lock her up" thing about AOC is coming from; some of her campaign funds went to a consulting group, which is ... normal practice and completely legal. But if a progressive does it, it becomes a huge scandal.,
Brendan Fischer
@brendan_fischer
Setting up a PAC to recruit candidates and solicit contributions for candidates is legal.
Setting up an LLC to provide campaign consulting services to that PAC and those candidates is also legal.
…
Show this thread
2:37 PM - 6 Mar 2019
319 Retweets 1,310 Likes
Link to tweet
Paul Krugman
Verified account
@paulkrugman
Follow Follow @paulkrugman
More Paul Krugman Retweeted Brendan Fischer
Aha -- so that's where the "lock her up" thing about AOC is coming from; some of her campaign funds went to a consulting group, which is ... normal practice and completely legal. But if a progressive does it, it becomes a huge scandal.,
Brendan Fischer
@brendan_fischer
Setting up a PAC to recruit candidates and solicit contributions for candidates is legal.
Setting up an LLC to provide campaign consulting services to that PAC and those candidates is also legal.
…
Show this thread
2:37 PM - 6 Mar 2019
319 Retweets 1,310 Likes
75. Two things
1. He did not call her a racist.
My bad, he only said she was enabling racists. And before you start...saying she enables a "racist system" is calling her a racist.
Doubling down on his criticism, Chakrabarti added, “I don’t believe Sharice is a racist person, but her votes are showing her to enable a racist system.”
In a public jab at the chief of staff, the House Democrats’ account posted a screenshot of Chakrabarti’s old tweet on Friday, asking why he was singling out Davids and telling him to “keep her name out of your mouth.” The account also accused him of “singling out a Native American woman of color.”
Link to tweet
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/house-democrats-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-saikat-chakrabarti_n_5d29dd8be4b02a5a5d5b68b0
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211671721
What happened there? Let me guess..you found out she's actually a progressive.
Oh, melman. Frankly other than being caught up in the so named squad I am still very impressed with her. Was then and am now I don't see her tweeting a dozen times a day. Fact is she is actually is focused on her job and her constituents. She is not from my distinct, yet from MA and I love our representatives here.
Now this is just silly:
What happened there? Let me guess..you found out she's actually a progressive.
Fact is, mel? I am a Democrat and so is she. I support Democrats, always. Ya'll can give yourself and tag ya want. I am a Democrat.
Thanks so much! Great talking to as always, melman.
1. That's not the whole thread
2. No, it's actually not the same.
As for the rest of that stuff....
So ya got nothing.
However that was a really great gif.
second response here
over two hours later, btw...
That second response indicates otherwise.
You can pretend you don't like AOC because she "tweets two dozen times a day" or she wants to be famous..etc. and whatever other nonsense.
But the real reason you don't like her is because you think she's too left. Because she's a progressive.
And as far as Ayanna Pressley, do you think it's by accident she aligns herself with Omar, Tlaib and Ocasio-Cortez? It's not.
Link to tweet
In January you argued quite forcefully that she was not a progressive.
You were very determined to make that point..[here
It clearly mattered a lot then. Now that there's no doubt she is a progressive we're supposed to believe it no longer matters?
I don't. You can "oh melman" and
, and post all the face-palm gifs you want..but I don't believe you.
Just gonna respond to one part of your post.
You are scaring me a bit following me. This is the third time you have dug up my posts to make a point, when in fact you need to reread cause you are waaaay of base.
Okay.
106. This
In January you argued quite forcefully that she was not a progressive.
You were very determined to make that point..[here]
Gonna add my posts here so all can read where I forcefully (your words) said she wasn't a progressive 
admired Pressley and her endorsement by our AG Maura Healey.
We will start here, mel.
Star Member sheshe2 (56,751 posts)
119. And a Hillary Supporter!!!!
Bringing Hills progressive platform forward!
Awesome win, I agree. She was not in my district so was not able to vote for her.
Star Member sheshe2 (56,751 posts)
112. This woman was a HUGE ENDORSEMENT
Ayanna Pressley Just Landed a Huge Endorsement: Maura Healey
Once thought of as kind of a long shot, Ayanna Pressley’s bid for long-term incumbent Michael Capuano’s seat in Congress is looking pretty formidable right about now. Maura Healey, Massachusetts’ influential Attorney General, announced Monday morning that she is backing Pressley in the primary.
“Ayanna isn’t just my City Councilor. She’s not just my partner in government. She’s someone who shares our values, and our priorities, who I’ve depended on for years,” Healey wrote in a statement she shared on Twitter. She added: “Ayanna stood by me and supported me in my first campaign, at a time very few elected leaders were willing to take a chance on an outsider candidate like me.”
Link to tweet
https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2018/07/30/ayanna-pressley-maura-healey/
Star Member sheshe2 (56,751 posts)
115. Not that I have heard or seen.
As you stated, nothing on Ayanna's page. I have tried google...nothing, George
Star Member sheshe2 (56,751 posts)
14. Also endorsed by our AG Maura Healey.
I have the utmost respect for Healey. No mention of them on her site? Not surprised, they all just want to jump on her win.
Thanks, seaglass.
Late and gonna go. NOWHERE did I argue she was not progressive, forcefully or otherwise. Just because I don't trust JD does not mean I don't like the candidate or support her. Not my district and I can't vote for her. However I voted for Healey. Maura Healey first openly gay AG supports her and so do I.
As I said to you before as you follow me around, I am not into labels, that is your thing. I don't need a label to define me. I am a Democrat. Period. Full Stop.
Now I ask you, melman to back off and stop researching me and my posts and leave the hell alone. Stalking is not good. Not good at all.
2:30 gotta go.
Luv ya!
I forgot about that one!
One Repuke?
Say it ain't so. I was told that they are all progressives.
Oh my!
oneself through the Western world's zestiest.
Then again, I am young, so perhaps it always was so. In fact, upon further and fleeting refection, I know that to be a truism.
that they resort to straw-grasping and dirt-digging because they can't attack the message.
