{"id":85721,"date":"2023-08-15T09:00:37","date_gmt":"2023-08-15T14:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=85721"},"modified":"2023-08-15T09:00:37","modified_gmt":"2023-08-15T14:00:37","slug":"tea-leaves-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=85721","title":{"rendered":"Tea Leaves"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Every DFL politician&#8217;s social media feed is raving about this puff piece from HuffPo which christens Tina Smith &#8220;the Velvet Hammer&#8221;.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">NEW: She never even planned to be Washington. She&#39;s fast become one of progressive advocates&#39; boldest and most strategic leaders.<br><br>Get to know Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.), the Senate&#39;s rising &#8212; and most unassuming &#8212; progressive powerhouse. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/eaocfCqDvh\">https:\/\/t.co\/eaocfCqDvh<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jbendery\/status\/1691101639585710081?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 14, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The<\/em> <em>Velvet <\/em>Hammer?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I can think of lots of adjectives to add to Smith&#8217;s hamfistedness.  Velvet ain&#8217;t one of them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And what usually happens after you see DFLers posting &#8220;attagirls&#8221; over inexplicable media. puff pieces?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some dirt comes out on them. .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example &#8211; during the session, the DFL noise machine broke out into a round of praise for Rep. Finke.  It went from zero to 60 in three seconds, as if the Representative had just pulled someone from a burning building   Clearly <em>something <\/em>had happened. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That something was Finke had charged across the House floor at another representative over retweeting a trans-skeptic account.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So am I too cynical in asking &#8220;what dirt is coming out about Smith?&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every DFL politician&#8217;s social media feed is raving about this puff piece from HuffPo which christens Tina Smith &#8220;the Velvet Hammer&#8221;. The Velvet Hammer? I can think of lots of adjectives to add to Smith&#8217;s hamfistedness. Velvet ain&#8217;t one of them. And what usually happens after you see DFLers posting &#8220;attagirls&#8221; over inexplicable media. puff [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[326,63,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-alt-media","category-lefty-alt-media","category-minnesota-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85721"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85722,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85721\/revisions\/85722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}