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Aaron Fritschner Profile picture
Aaron Fritschner
@Fritschner
Virginia Comms @KamalaHarris | past: House guy @repdonbeyer, campaign for @jenniferwexton @deborahrossnc | he/him | Hendersonville, NC native | Tweets mine/dumb
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Oct 16 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
"Donald Trump is campaigning on the most significant increase in tariffs in close to a century, preparing an attack on the international trade order that would likely raise prices, hurt the stock market and spark economic feuds with much of the world."
washingtonpost.com/business/2024/…Image "Gas prices would increase by as much as 75 cents per gallon... the Yale Budget Lab said in an estimate released Wednesday that the annual cost could be as high as $7,600 for a typical household. As a share of their income, the poorest Americans would pay 6 percent more" Image
Sep 27 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
We had hurricanes and floods in Western North Carolina growing up, but the devastation today is so much worse than anything I've ever seen or could have imagined there. Truly awful and heartbreaking Chimney Rock is just like, gone. It's impossible to process
Jul 31 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
People should note what @rachelvscott said to Trump at the end of the exchange when he attacked her: “I repeated your statements.”

Every part of Scott’s question referred to specific public statements Donald Trump previously made.

Here’s a thread documenting each one: 1: SCOTT: "You have pushed false claims about some of your rivals, from Nikki Haley to former President Barack Obama, saying that they were born in the United States, which is not true"

NPR, 1/23/24: "Trump is spreading birtherism falsehoods again — this time about Nikki Haley" Image
Jul 12 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Per the CSPAN archive, the last time Donald Trump took questions from reporters in a press conference was on February 8th. National and campaign reporters made an issue of the lack of press conferences with Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. To date, they have not done so with Trump. If you google this you'll turn up a speech Trump (and some journalists who adopted his framing) called a "press conference" on May 31 after he was convicted, but as the expert on presidential press conferences noted at the time, he did not take questions
Jul 5 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Wade through endless paragraphs of vibes and you’ll find there isn’t even a thin attempt to support the “conspiracy of silence” headline with any factual reporting in the story. Compare dates and you’ll see that if there was such a conspiracy, the author was a participant in it But of course, none of that matters right now because we don’t care about stuff like facts and sourcing! We don’t have time for things like that, this is a feeding frenzy and the sharks must have their flesh and blood
Jul 4 • 19 tweets • 7 min read
Something important, subtle, and largely un-discussed is shaping the way all of us perceive what's happening now. Shifts in editorial standards and a series of biases in reporting and especially amplification are herding the news in one direction.

I'll explain with examples– 1/ There are reasons why pretty much everything you see now describes panic, chaos, and backbiting. Reporters are looking for those things, they are getting print and headlines, and the other stuff is getting twisted, downplayed or cut. This works many ways in practice– 2/
Jul 2 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
3 bad criticisms of Biden’s speech on the Supreme Court immunity ruling-

1) “Waited hours”
He spoke in prime time. Audience >>> impatience

2) “Words, no action”
Can’t fix SCOTUS rulings with presidential announcements

3) “Didn’t take questions”
They would’ve been insanely dumb A frequent mistake politicians make (including in debates, where it is very harmful) is chasing what someone else said to argue with their point rather than strongly hitting your own message. You make YOUR point, not theirs. Arguing with press after a speech like that looks small
Jun 5 • 12 tweets • 9 min read
Stunningly bad. The purported news:

1) Biden spoke “softly” in a meeting in five months ago, sometimes referred to notes, and briefly closed his eyes
2) Republicans say he is old
3) Biden accurately described his LNG pause in ways Mike Johnson disagreed with

It’s just a hit job You can’t make this up, literally the next phrase in the story after the quote below is “including administration officials and other Democrats who found no fault in the president’s handling of the meetings. Most of those who said Biden performed poorly were Republicans.”
May 28 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Bob Good got here by defeating Denver Riggleman in a closed party convention that required in-person voting at the height of the pandemic at one location in a district that was 225 miles long. The location was Lynchburg, home to both Bob Good and his employer, Liberty University. Riggleman lived 70 miles away in Charlottesville, the most populous area in VA-5 at the time. Just 2,517 people made the drive to vote in the convention that elected Good. Over 400,000 people voted in the general election that year in VA-5, and Good ran behind Donald Trump
May 17 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Justice Alito says his wife Martha-Ann Alito had an altercation with neighbors about a "'Fuck Trump' sign that was within 50 feet of where children await the school bus in Jan 21."

Except... FCPS and ACPS were all remote in January of 2021. No children were waiting for buses:



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Image That detail doesn't make the story better for Justice Alito. If it were true, it's still a huge problem, a violation of ethics standards, a conflict of interest that should have triggered recusal, etc. But if this isn't true, what else in his story isn't true?
May 9 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
I think Ryan is wrong here, but (and I say this as someone who works for one of the earlier pro-ceasefire members of Congress) there is a separate, larger point to me- this approach to advocacy is self-defeating and wildly ineffective, if you think about it. Compare two approaches:

1) You do X. Your friend hates X, urging you to instead do Y. If you keep doing X and not Y your friendship will end.

2) You do X. Your friend hates X and ends your friendship. They urge you to stop X and do Y, but your friendship is over no matter what.
Apr 23 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
I've now read numerous entries in the "How Johnson Did It" genre and imo in asking "how" he decided on Ukraine and the haste to compare him to Winston Churchill, Paul of Tarsus, etc they missed the more illuminating story of WHAT he did.

I will call this "the Johnson Maneuver" — I get the fixation on the epiphany of an Aw-Shucks-y backbencher thrust into the spotlight, intelligence briefings and Very Serious quotes from guys named Mike, his background, faith, family, etc. Details like this capture the imagination. Newspapers exist for such details. BUT-
Apr 18 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Marjorie Taylor Greene offers an amendment to make funds from the Israel funding bill available “for the development of space laser technology on the southwest border.”

This is real, not made up— it’s amendment 11 here

H/T @juliegraceb rules.house.gov/bill/118/hr-PI…
Image I say this with hesitation and concern, but…

…Jewish…Space… Lasers?
Apr 17 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Have been thinking on this. We loathed the guy for a long time for many reasons but January 6th towers above them. Many have forgotten (or never reckoned with) his central role in the aftermath becoming a partisan dispute rather than a bipartisan moment of reckoning. We have not. Mike Johnson didn’t cover himself in glory on this either but he wasn’t the leader, McCarthy was. It was a time when his choices and leadership really mattered, and he chose very badly for very bad reasons. It colored all that followed and did serious, lasting harm to the country
Apr 12 • 25 tweets • 12 min read
Finally read the Uri Berliner piece on NPR biasand I'm baffled by how little the enormous media controversy it spawned has resulted in scrutiny of its claims for factual accuracy. There are significant problems with the piece including obvious, verifiable falsehoods To recap, the premise is "I'm a lib who worked at NPR for 25 years and it's too lib now." The author's argument begins with deeply flawed polling analysis (to which I will return) and then proof points based on NPR's coverage of three Trump-era stories, all of which he gets wrong
Mar 19 • 5 tweets • 4 min read
Marjorie Taylor Greene emails her constituents a Rome News-Tribune write-up of her press release boasting she "secured over $3.8 million in federal funding for the runway extension at Richard B. Russell Regional Airport."

The story fails to note that she voted against the bill.


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Image The story says she "netted earmarks for smaller projects in Gordon, Dade, Whitfield, Paulding and Cobb counties in the Fiscal Year ’24 budget signed into law Saturday by President Joe Biden," with an MTG quote on her own "meticulous" work on earmarks in a bill she voted against
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Mar 12 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Ken Buck represents CO-4; Lauren Boebert, who represents CO-3, is running to replace him. If Boebert wins a special election to replace Buck she'll have to resign CO-3, creating a new vacancy. But if she doesn't run in the special she risks losing her chance to remain in Congress Colorado law requires the Governor to schedule a special election if a vacancy in the congressional delegation occurs more than 90 days before the general election, and Ken Buck says he is resigning next week. Boebert has to make a quick decision here, and imo it’s a tough one Image
Mar 6 • 15 tweets • 7 min read
Virginia 538 average: Trump +49
Virginia results (87% in): Trump +28
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Image Nobody ever polled Colorado but the state party endorsed Trump two months ago; with most of the vote in he's at +29. Haley leads in several counties, including Denver and Boulder
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Feb 29 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Rep. Anna Luna (R-FL), the only Republican in either chamber of Congress cosponsoring legislation to codify protections for IVF access nationwide, just withdrew her cosponsorship of the bill: That bill is H.R. 7056, the Access to Family Building Act, sponsored by @RepSusanWild (D-PA). Text here:

It is the House companion to @SenDuckworth's bill that Republicans prevented passing in the Senate this afternoon
congress.gov/bill/118th-con…
Feb 9 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
The exact point I’ve been making all night. Biden addressed their concern, gave the access they wanted, patiently waited through wildly screamed questions, and gave a long substantive answer that marked a shift in US foreign policy on a major conflict. They’re fixating on a slip. Was it a national story when the Speaker of the House talked about supporting Iran instead of Israel four days ago? No it wasn’t!

Maybe that was because, especially compared to matters like US foreign policy and a war that’s killing thousands of people, IT DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER
Feb 7 • 15 tweets • 6 min read
The future of Republicans' push to impeach Sec. Mayorkas is imo more complex than it seems. The question of when they might try again could vary greatly based on procedural, practical, electoral, and political factors. Some thoughts, with an explanation of why none of it matters– Procedural. Last night's vote failed 215-215. Blake Moore changed his vote so he could seek reconsideration of the resolution, which he then did. His request for a recorded vote on a motion to reconsider was postponed (by Speaker Johnson), under Rule XX