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Was ist, wenn der tosende Applaus plötzlich abebbt, gänzlich versiegt und die große Leere zum Vorschein kommt? https://letterboxd.com/andrepitz/film/opening-night/
#BenGazzara #filme #filmkritik #GinaRowlands #JoanBlondell #JohnCassavetes #JohnTuell #LauraJohnson #OpeningNight #PaulStewart #ZohraLampert #Letterboxd
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Was ist, wenn der tosende Applaus plötzlich abebbt, gänzlich versiegt und die große Leere zum Vorschein kommt? https://letterboxd.com/andrepitz/film/opening-night/
#BenGazzara #filme #filmkritik #GinaRowlands #JoanBlondell #JohnCassavetes #JohnTuell #LauraJohnson #OpeningNight #PaulStewart #ZohraLampert #Letterboxd
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“Trump’s Trickle Down,” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
No one should be surprised that Russia has gone deep into the MAGA end zone to influence the outcome of this election. Republican Congress members are among Putin’s most useful idiots. Russia has always been fond of trying to corrupt U.S. elections by using anything to turn us against each other. The DonOld’s political career trajectory shows how successful they have been recently. We will undoubtedly hear more about the Russian hoax from the dotard since his mind seems incapable of being cogent this election. However, this should get people thinking more.
Again, we must rely on independent media to hear the entire story. Lisa Needham of Public Notice has this succinct article today on the recent DOJ indictment of Tenet Media. “Russia’s useful idiots. The MAGA influencer ecosystem is even shadier than we thought.”
On Wednesday, the Department of Justice indicted two employees of RT, formerly Russia Today, a Russian state-run media outlet, for covertly shoveling millions of dollars at MAGA influencers happy to do Russia’s bidding.
This has led to the delightful specter of high-profile rightwing commentators loudly insisting they were too stupid to know that Russian money was behind the wildly exorbitant sums they received for producing content.
While watching Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, and Benny Johnson scramble is hilarious, the indictment is no joke.
Indeed, it confirms that Russia continues to manipulate American politics via willing right-wingers — the exact thing Trumpers have long insisted isn’t happening.
The indictment names Kostiantyn Kalashnikov, aka Kostya, and Elena Afanasyeva, aka Lena, as the RT employees who laundered close to $10 million through foreign shell companies, ultimately raining all that money down on an unnamed American media company, US Company-1, who then passed it along to unnamed commentators 1-6.
Though unnamed, the company and several commentators are easily discernible to anyone paying attention to the rightwing media grift. The company is most definitely Tenet Media, and its founders are most definitely Lauren Chen, who was also at BlazeTV until the indictment dropped and they fired her, and her husband, Liam Donovan.
And the commentators? Tenet’s ridiculous website describes them as “heterodox commentators” and “creators who question institutions that believe themselves to be above questioning.” That would be Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, Lauren Southern, Matt Christiansen, and Tayler Hansen.
I watched some of these Russian-backed videos on the news yesterday. These guys are basically Russian Limbaughs but are pleading ignorance about their Russian Payroll Masters. This is from Mother Jones today. “Tenet Media Shutters After Being Accused of Taking $10 Million in Covert Kremlin Funding
Nothing to see here!” Senior Reporter Anna Merlan has the lede.Tenet Media’s founders, Canadian conservative YouTuber Lauren Chen and her husband Liam Donovan, have not publicly commented on the allegations against Tenet. Nor has Canadian far-right activist Lauren Southern, a Tenet contributor who appeared in many of their videos. Other prominent contributors to the site, including far-right commentator Tim Pool, described themselves as “victims” in the Tenet scandal, who were unaware that employees of RT, the Russian state media entity, were secretly funding the company. Pool announced on Thursday that he has been contacted by federal investigators, writing, “The FBI believes I have information relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation and have requested a voluntary interview. I will be offering my assistance in this matter.”
The Daily Beast reported that Chen’s contract with Blaze TV, where she also made regular appearances, has been terminated. The company has also deleted her page on their website and wiped episodes of her podcast, “Pseudo-Intellectual,” from Spotify.
YouTube told NBC News’ Brandy Zadrozny that it had deleted Tenet Media’s channel and four others operated by Chen in light of the indictment and “after careful review,” writing the steps were part of “ongoing efforts to combat coordinated influence operations.”
For now, Tenet Media’s Twitter profile, Instagram page, TikTok, and Rumble pages all remain online—though none have been updated since the indictment was announced.
You may remember that last April, a Republican Congressman complained his colleagues were spouting Russian Propaganda on the House floor. “GOP Rep. Mike Turner: Russian propaganda is ‘being uttered on the House floor.’ House Intelligence Chair Mike Turner on Sunday said several of his GOP colleagues have repeated Russian propaganda on the House floor.” It’s evident that Putin’s plan is succeeding and that Republicans are besotted with Russian talking points. The news story was reported by NBC News.
GOP Rep. Mike Turner said Sunday that Russian propaganda has taken hold among some of his House Republican colleagues and is even “being uttered on the House floor.”
“We see directly coming from Russia … communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor,” Turner, chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“There are members of Congress today who still incorrectly say that this conflict between Russia and Ukraine is over NATO, which of course it is not,” he added.
…
McCaul, a Texas Republican, told Puck News that he thinks “Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately, and it’s infected a good chunk of my party’s base.”
Turner and McCaul each tied Russia and its leader, Vladimir Putin, to other authoritarian leaders, including President Xi Jinping of China and Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea.
“[The propaganda] makes it more difficult for us to really see this as an authoritarian versus democracy battle, which is what it is,” Turner told CNN, adding, “President Xi of China, Vladimir Putin himself have identified as such.”
McCaul described explaining to colleagues that the threat of Russian propaganda is similar to threats made by other U.S. adversaries.
“I have to explain to them what’s at stake, why Ukraine is in our national security interest,” he said. “By the way, you don’t like Communist China? Well, guess what? They’re aligned [with Russia], along with the ayatollah [of Iran]. So when you explain it that way, they kind of start understanding it.”
The committee chairs’ remarks about Russian propaganda came as they spoke about the need for Congress to approve more military aid to Ukraine.
The snips I saw on news media yesterday were primarily Tim Pool screaming that Ukraine was our enemy and that we owed Russia an apology. He was pretty hysterical and shrieked a lot about our soldiers going there to die shortly. These are similar talking points made by Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz during funding discussions early this year. This incident makes it even more clear that we need to elect Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to preserve NATO and our National Security.
I found the Tenet Media story the most disturbing this week, although what really caught my attention was the speech DonOld made to the Economic Club of New York. This is from Phillip Bump at the Washington Post. “Following Trump’s train of thought as it derails on a child care question. Trump sought out an applause line as if it were the sole exit in a flame-filled room.” The audience is supposed to have knowledge in the fields of finance and economics. Their clapping was disturbing as he rattled on about childcare as if it were an abstract notion, and his take on tariffs is basically the opposite of reality. He rambled on with a series of incomplete sentences and just weirdness. Tariffs are a tax on consumers. Period. They caused the Great Depression. The folks in the room know better. They should say something.
I’m sure these folks are getting richer by every tick of the Wall Street clock and know we’re not in an economic disaster. They’re also aware that what’s driving the entire thing is record corporate profits, too. The last equity market highs were set just 7 days ago. But, hey, tax cuts for billionaires are where it’s at! Back to Phillip Bump.
On Thursday, his push to be elected for a second term as president brought him to the Economic Club of New York. The organization prides itself on its sober, informed assessments of the economic and political worlds, meaning that Trump was already somewhat disadvantaged. His politics are not predicated on his grasp of policy but on appeals to the politically disaffected. His descriptions of how things are working are much more effective with people who don’t know how things work.
But the question that tripped him up, the one that launched a thousand criticisms and not a few memes, was one focused on something that he should theoretically have had a grasp on: child care.
“If you win in November,” a panelist asked, “can you commit to prioritizing legislation to make child care affordable and if so, what specific piece of legislation will you advance?”
Here is Trump’s entire answer, verbatim.
“Well, I would do that, and we’re sitting down — you know, I was, uh, somebody, we had Sen. Marco Rubio [(R-Fla.)] and my daughter, Ivanka, was so, uh, impactful on that issue. It’s a very important issue.”
“But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about, that — because child care is child care. It’s, couldn’t — you know, it’s something, you have to have it. In this country, you have to have it.”“But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to but they’ll get used to it very quickly. And it’s not going to stop them from doing business with us, but they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country.”
“Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about, including child care, that it’s gonna take care. We’re gonna have — I, I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time. Coupled with, uh, the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country — because I have to say with child care, I want to stay with childcare, but those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about, including growth.”
“But growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just, uh, that I just told you about. We’re gonna be taking in trillions of dollars, and as much as childcare is talked about as being expensive, it’s, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in.”
“We’re going to make this into an incredible country that can afford to take care of its people and then we’ll worry about the rest of the world. Let’s help other people. But we’re gonna take care of our country first. This is about America first. It’s about: Make America great again. We have to do it, because right now we’re a failing nation. So we’ll take care of it. Thank you. Very good question.”I know I have a doctorate in Financial Economics, teach it at the graduate level, and have worked in the industry during the Dark Reagan years, but really, as just a mother with that issue back in the day, WTF? This is one of those questions that every working family deals with and knows the parameters. This man stumbled through because he undoubtedly had children but didn’t have to think of childcare because wives and wealth. The answer was buffoonish and completely unintelligible. Digby says it all here at Salon.”Donald Trump’s incoherence makes the media’s double standard hard to hide. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris curiously don’t get the same coverage.”
It seems like only yesterday that the elite media were extremely concerned that President Joe Biden had mistakenly referred to the president of Egypt as the president of Mexico. In the course of an otherwise cogent discussion of foreign affairs, he’d made that mistake in passing but it caused a huge uproar and spawned yet another round of critical reporting about his age and mental capacities. No one in the press blew off the gaffe and the substance of his comments went virtually unreported.
That press conference came in the shadow of the Hur report, in which the special counsel made a gratuitous comment about Biden being an elderly man with a bad memory. From that moment on almost every story about Joe Biden was framed in terms of his advanced age and the question of whether he was up to the job. The drumbeat continued for months until Biden’s disastrous debate performance validated the narrative and it continued until the day he withdrew from the race. No one in the media cut Joe Biden any slack for his performance.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, has been speaking nonsense and spouting gibberish on the campaign trail and the media is covering for him by pretending that his verbal incontinence actually makes sense or by ignoring it altogether. Yes, there’s been some mordant chuckling in the media over his bizarre comments about “the late great Hannibal Lecter” and his meandering tales about electric boats and shark attacks. Those stories are all delivered with a twinkling eye-roll as if to say “Oh that wacky Trump, there he goes again” as if it’s just a funny little anecdote, apropos of nothing.
And it’s true that he’s always done this to some extent. His speeches and press conferences are surreal windows into his undisciplined, puerile mind. Despite his regular protestations that he’s “like, really smart,” he communicates at a 4th grade level (the lowest level of any of the past 15 presidents going back to Hoover) and uses the same handful of words and phrases over and over again to cover for the fact that he never really has any idea what he’s talking about.
But Trump’s getting worse and the press is failing to properly report it. Over the past couple of weeks, the problem has gotten more acute and there has been very little recognition of it. Because political reporters have normalized his unfit intellectual and emotional characteristics for so long they’re just continuing to cover him as if they are perfectly ordinary even though he is rapidly deteriorating,
The good news is here at CNBC. “Eighty-eight corporate leaders endorse Harris in new letter, including CEOs of Yelp, Box.” Looks like some business leaders want their business to thrive and not just their personal portfolios.
I’m hoping BB will really get into the weeds on this one, but I had to put the news about the Sentencing Hearing that was supposed to happen on Monday. This is from CBS News, as reported by Graham Kates. “Judge delays sentencing in Trump’s New York criminal case, pushing decision past election.” This is the hush money case in case you can’t keep them all straight like me.
A New York judge has delayed former President Donald Trump’s sentencing date in his criminal case for a second time, allowing Trump to wait until after the election to learn his fate after his conviction in his “hush money” case.
Trump had been scheduled to be sentenced in the case on Sept. 18. His attorneys asked on Aug. 14 for his sentencing to be pushed back until after the presidential election, arguing that a delay is necessary to resolve ongoing legal challenges to his conviction.
Justice Juan Merchan issued an order on Friday delaying sentencing until Nov. 26.
Merchan wrote that he made the decision “to avoid any appearance — however unwarranted — that the proceeding has been affected by or seeks to affect the approaching Presidential election in which the Defendant is a candidate.”
“The Court is a fair, impartial, and apolitical institution,” he continued, adding that the postponement “should dispel any suggestion that the Court will have issued any decision or imposed sentence either to give an advantage to, or to create a disadvantage for, any political party and or any candidate for any office.”
Trump was convicted in May by a unanimous jury on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Prosecutors said Trump signed off on a scheme to hide reimbursements to a lawyer who wired a $130,000 “hush money” payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels days before the 2016 presidential election. Trump denied the encounter and pleaded not guilty.
Merchan has wide leeway in determining Trump’s sentence. The charges carry a maximum sentence of up to four years in jail, but Merchan can also hand down a sentence that involves a variety of alternatives to incarceration, including probation. Most legal observers expect Trump to avoid jail time, given his status as a first-time offender and sentences handed down for the same crime in other cases.
Trump was originally scheduled to be sentenced on July 11, but that date was pushed back after he filed a motion seeking to set aside his conviction following a landmark Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity. The judge’s decision on that effort is expected on Sept. 16.
News on his federal election interference case also became available this week. This is from MSNBC, as reported by Jordan Rubin. “Judge Chutkan doesn’t find Judge Cannon’s ruling on Jack Smith’s appointment ‘particularly persuasive’ The judge in Trump’s D.C. case didn’t sound impressed with the Florida judge’s ruling. Ultimately, it may be the Supreme Court’s view that counts.”
Donald Trump’s federal election interference case is finally back in the trial court, where U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan held a hearing Thursday mainly to discuss how to proceed after the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling. But the hearing also gave Chutkan an opportunity to criticize U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s dismissal of Trump’s classified documents case on the grounds that special counsel Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed.
Chutkan didn’t sound impressed with Cannon’s July 15 ruling, which cited Justice Clarence Thomas’ solo concurring opinion in which he questioned Smith’s appointment just a couple of weeks earlier in the immunity decision. Chutkan said on Thursday, “You have an opinion filed by another district judge in another circuit which, frankly, this Court doesn’t find particularly persuasive.”
Still, the Republican presidential nominee’s legal team is pressing the issue in the Washington, D.C., case, alongside their immunity claims and other arguments. It makes sense for them to do so, even though there’s binding precedent in the D.C. Circuit that knocks down the unlawful appointment claim. While that precedent means that Trump is unlikely to prevail on the subject in Washington lower courts as he has in Florida (so far), it would be strange for the defense not to press the issue at this point, especially after a Supreme Court justice raised it.
Evidently, the defense team considers Justice Clarence Thomas to be part of its team. The Judge was not amused. We’ll probably hear more analysis today and over the weekend on both cases.
So, there is certainly a lot going on right now. One bit of good news since polling will start being a little more relevant now. I just tend to see if there’s a trend vs. just random variation, which is normal in every data series over time. Emerson College Polling released this today. ” September State Polling: California, Florida, Ohio, Texas.”
New Emerson College Polling/The Hill statewide polls find Donald Trump leading Kamala Harris by ten in Ohio, 53% to 43%, five in Florida, 50% to 45%, four in Texas, 50% to 46%, while Harris leads Trump in California 60% to 36%. Races in Florida and Texas are within the polls’ margin of error, while California and Ohio fall outside the polls’ margin of error.
Here’s the take from The Hill‘s Jared Gans. “New poll shows Florida, Texas within margin of error in Harris-Trump race.”
The results are a bit closer than what some other polling has found on the races but not completely out of sync with recent polls that have shown a tighter race in those states.
Not much independent polling from major institutions has been done on Texas and Florida since Harris became the Democratic nominee.
Winning either Florida, which Democrats had carried in 2008 and 2012 before the state voted for Trump twice in a row, or Texas, which Democrats have held increasing hopes about flipping blue in recent years, would be an uphill battle for Harris.
The forecast model from The Hill/Decision Desk HQ gives Trump an 83 percent chance of winning Texas and a 75 percent chance of winning Florida. But Florida is only rated as “lean Republican,” and some polls for both states have had Trump leading by single digits.
A Florida Atlantic University poll from last month had Trump’s lead in the Sunshine State at just 3 points, and a poll from two Texas universities had Trump leading in the Lone Star State by 5 points.
The Emerson poll showed Harris just behind Trump in favorability rating for the states. His net favorability rating was positive 2 points in both, while the vice president’s in both was negative 2 points.
I just think it’s good news that both Florida and Texas are at play. The Harris/Walz campaign is covering rural areas and all bases in these now in play states. This NPR article is important if you’re still following the Arlington Cemetary debacle. “Trump deputy campaign manager identified in Arlington National Cemetery dustup.”
The two staffers, according to a source with knowledge of the incident, are deputy campaign manager Justin Caporale and Michel Picard, a member of Trump’s advance team.
Caporale is a one time aide to former first lady Melania Trump who left the White House to work for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis before returning to the Trump campaign. He was also listed as the on-site contact and project manager for the Women for America First rally in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021 where Trump urged the crowd to “stop the steal” before some of them stormed the U.S. Capitol.
After Trump participated in a wreath laying ceremony on the third anniversary of the deadly bombing at Abbey Gate in Afghanistan that killed 13 U.S. service members, Trump visited Section 60 at the invitation of some family members and friends of the fallen soldiers.
ANC rules, that had been made clear to the Trump campaign in advance, say that only an official Arlington photographer can take pictures or film in Section 60. When an ANC employee tried to enforce the rules, she was verbally abused by the two Trump campaign operatives, according to a source with knowledge of the incident. Picard then pushed her out of the way according to two Pentagon officials.
I think the Trump campaign has basically let all the rabid dogs off their leashes and that the former “guard rails” have left the building. I imagine it’s going to get worse the closer we get to the election. I just hope the nation has had it with this nasty, incompetent, incoherent orange thing. Wow, this post is long! Have a great weekend!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
https://skydancingblog.com/2024/09/06/finally-friday-reads-the-russian-limbaughs/
#DonOld #Repeat1968 #JohnBuss #RussianLimbaughs #TenetMediaAndRussianElectionInterference #TrumpBlatherNYEconomicsClub #TrumpTrials #TrumpSIncoherentSpeeches #Weirdo
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“This is Based on a rough I drew months ago and was waiting to clean up and finish when Donold’s Truth Social Stock dipped below $20. Seems rather symbolic in many more ways today.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers! Happy Labor Day!!!
Just when I thought all the Olympiad festivities were over, DonOld finds some new activities to entertain us. Lisa Needham of Public Notice describes his performance thusly: “Trump’s weekend of radical flip-flopping. It’s hard to say you’re against abortion bans when you’re literally voting for them.” His performance in pandering took on some new lows, too. My guess is there will be only the medals he produces and sells. No authentic ones.
Watching Donald Trump trying to have it both ways on abortion would be hilarious if the prospect of his election didn’t signal the end of democracy in America (and if the media wasn’t simultaneously trying to make a big fuss out of Kamala Harris moving to the center on some issues).
As it is, watching Trump change his mind three times in 24 hours about one of the central issues of the race is simply grim. But that’s exactly what played out last week, with Trump being unable to clearly state how he would vote on Florida’s Amendment 4, which would provide constitutional protections for abortions in the state.
Trump’s problem is the same as the one the GOP writ large faces: the party wildly miscalculated what would happen after they succeeded in their decades-long goal of reversing Roe v. Wade, destroying the constitutional right to abortion. Due to the echo chamber that is the hallmark of the modern right, they got high on their own supply and convinced themselves the nation wanted Roe gone as badly as they did.
That’s never been true. Abortion rights are resoundingly, durably popular. Pew Research has surveyed Americans on the issue since 1995, and support for abortion being legal in all or most cases has fallen below 50 percent just once, back in 2009. Pew’s most recent research shows that 63 percent of Americans — including 41 percent of Republicans — believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. The Associated Press found that in June 2021, before Roe’s demise, roughly half of Americans thought abortion should be legal for any reason. That jumped to approximately 60 percent in the last two years.
Now, heading into the home stretch of the 2024 election, abortion is becoming the top issue for more voters, especially women. A New York Times poll conducted last month found that women under 45 report that abortion is now the most critical issue to them, eclipsing even the economy.
A functioning political party led by someone with actual policy goals might consider recalibrating their stance on this issue in order to find a more electable middle ground. Or, a functioning political party could simply dig in, fully embracing the anti-choice side and hoping that the party base would turn out in ample enough numbers. But this is the GOP, and Trump is Trump, so they’ve instead settled on a mishmash of lies and backtracking and are hoping that carries the day.
However, he’s doing so well in the Fascist Ass-Licking event to the point that even Team Republican officials are horrified. (Not that they’ll do anything.) This is from Politico.”Former GOP officials sound the alarm over Trump’s Orbán embrace. Groups seeking the former president’s favor have highlighted pro-Russian Hungarian leaders and talking points.” Heidi Przybyla and Nicholas Vinocur share the lede.
The Conservative Partnership Institute, a nerve center for incubating policies for a second Trump administration, co-sponsored a discussion in October 2022 about how to bring “peace in Ukraine” featuring Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs Peter Szijjarto.
Audience members included conservative policy and national security officials and GOP strategists, according to a person familiar with the meeting. Once seated, they were given pamphlets pushing unabashedly pro-Russia talking points.
“Russia has the will, strength, and patience to continue war,” warned the document, which was given to POLITICO by a participant. “U.S aid to Ukraine must be severely constricted and Ukrainian President Zelensky should be encouraged by U.S. leadership to seek armistice and concede Ukraine as a neutral country.”
We finally have a new view on what passes as “conservative” in this century.
CPI itself is a major arm of Trump’s MAGA movement raising significant sums of money. Its roster includes some of Trump’s most ardent loyalists, such as Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows.The Heritage Foundation, whose president, Kevin Roberts, calls Orbán’s leadership a “model for conservative governance,” has openly lobbied for influence in a future Trump administration through its Project 2025 andplayed a lead role in lobbying Congress to end congressional funding to Ukraine.
“They [Orbán allies] say things people want to hear about issues they care about. It’s ‘woke this and woke that,’ and then they pressure them with what they really want,” which is to end the Ukraine war on Putin’s terms, said a person familiar with the meetings who still works in government and asked for anonymity to speak freely about the situation.
That person isamong many members of the more hawkish Republican foreign-policy establishment who said they were concerned about how Orbán is manipulating MAGA themes to achieve Orbán’s pro-Russian aims.
The pamphlet distributed at the “peace in Ukraine” conference illustrates how “corrupt authoritarians are accessing and abusing our system to undermine U.S. national security,” said Kristofer Harrison, who was a Defense and State Department adviser during the George W. Bush administration.
Ian Brzezinski, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Europe and NATO policy under Bush, said of the pamphlet: “It looks like it was written by the Kremlin.”
Never fear; DonOld is lapping up all the Hungarian attention he can get.
Orbán Political Director Balazs Orbán said in an emailed statement that he does not wish to participate in granting “legitimacy” to this story by answering questions about whether Hungarian think tanks are advancing the interests of Russia through collaborations with U.S. think tanks. But Orban the prime minister is publicly confident about his influence over Trump.
Late last month, Viktor Orbán claimed in a speech that Hungary has “deep involvement” in the “programme-writing system of President Donald Trump’s team.” He opened by warning that if Europe does not change its policy of “supporting the war” by financially backing Ukraine, then “after Trump’s victory it will have to do so while admitting defeat, covered in shame.”
Harrison, the former Bush administration adviser, suggested that the Hungarian government is leveraging its role as a global intermediary for practical reasons more than a commitment to global conservatism.
“Orbán carries water for Russia because they’re the highest bidder,” said Harrison. “Same with China,” he said, referring to billions that China is investing in Hungary.
These are just a few snippets, but the bottom line is pretty shocking.
Of any foreign leader, Trump is arguably closest to Orbán. He calls Orbán his “friend” and a “great man.” In accepting the GOP nomination in Milwaukee, Trump singled out Orbán as a “very tough man” and noted that Orbán credits him for keeping world peace because everybody “was afraid” of Trump.
The admiration is mutual. Hungary, which recently assumed the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, is using as its slogan “Make Europe Great Again.”
If you can get through the Rolling Stone Wall, there’s more on this, as reported by Peter Wade. “Trump Praises Authoritarian Viktor Orbán and Even Republicans Are ConcernedThe Hungarian prime minister has visited Trump in Florida twice this year and boasted that he has influence over Trump’s policy proposals.” It discusses the Trump interview with Fox News that aired Saturday night.
“Viktor Orbán… I mean he’s strong. They consider him strong. It’s a good thing, not a bad thing. Runs a strong country,” Trump said in a Fox News interview that aired Saturday night.
Given their shared ideology, including affinity for Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin and opposition to arming Ukraine, it’s no surprise that Trump is cozying up to Orbán, whose country currently occupies the rotating role of European Union president. As EU president, Orbán adapted Trump’s campaign phrase, promoting an agenda to “Make Europe Great Again.”
But as Politico reports, some Republicans are worried about Trump and Orbán’s deepening relationship. Orbán has visited Trump twice this year in Florida, and the prime minister has spent billions of dollars funding Hungarian conservative foundations and paying U.S. journalist “influencers,” hoping they will influence policy in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. In 2022, Hungary partnered with the Conservative Partnership Institute and distributed materials with clearly pro-Russian talking points.
“Russia has the will, strength, and patience to continue war,” a document obtained by a participant who shared it with Politico. “U.S aid to Ukraine must be severely constricted and Ukrainian President Zelensky should be encouraged by U.S. leadership to seek armistice and concede Ukraine as a neutral country.”
In July, Orbán bragged that he was involved in writing Trump’s policy proposals.
“They [Orbán allies] say things people want to hear about issues they care about. It’s ‘woke this and woke that,’ and then they pressure them with what they really want,” a source in government told Politico. And what they really want is the end the war in Ukraine with a victory for Putin. The source added that many in GOP foreign-policy circles are worried that Orbán is using the MAGA ethos to achieve pro-Russia goals.
Orbán has boasted about his influence on Trump, saying in a speech last month that Hungary has “deep involvement” in the “programme-writing system of President Donald Trump’s team.”
This is certainly enough to indicate that DonOld is not on Team America. We’ve always known he’s out for himself and cozies up to the guys who control their countries by undemocratic means. He’s also doing well in the questionable event of Rally Holding in the Most SunDown Towns. Newsweek National Correspondent Khaleda Rahman got this tip from TikTok. “Former President Donald Trump is facing backlash for holding rallies in places described as “sundown towns.”
A TikTok user pointed out a “troubling pattern” in the locations of Trump’s recent rallies in a video that has gone viral on social media. It was also shared on X, formerly Twitter, where it amassed millions of views.
“Howell, Michigan; La Crosse, Wisconsin; Johnstown, Pennsylvania,” the man said in the video. “What do these places have in common? They’re all sundown towns.”
He added: “This is where Donald Trump is choosing to hold his rallies… You got a presidential candidate for the GOP doing a sundown town tour around the country, not looking for political gain. He’s f****** rallying the troops.”
The term “sundown towns” dates back to the segregation era, referring to communities with a wholly white population where Black people were considered unsafe after nightfall. Black people were prevented from living in those communities through discriminatory policies or intimidation and violence. Today, many of these communities with racist histories remain predominantly white.
The Trump campaign has been contacted for comment via email.
On social media, many shared their belief that the locations of Trump’s recent rallies could not be a coincidence.
Trump’s campaign “is intentionally visiting ‘sundown towns’ which violated federal law to be ‘whites only,'” journalist Jim Stewartson wrote on X.
“This isn’t a dogwhistle, it’s a KKK hood over every single person who supports Donald Trump or the GOP. ENOUGH.”
Marcy at emptywheel takes on the Washington Post for an editorial today. It purports what they believe is a strategy for Harris to win the debate by covering her policies because Trump has none. Marcy calls this “The Soft Bigotry of No Expectations on Trump.”
Trump has been running for 21 months; his campaign is more than 90% over. The Vice President has been running 43 days; her campaign still has almost 60% to go.
And yet they’re putting demands on the woman in the race, making no such demand on the white male former President.
The press has gone 21 months without throwing this kind of tantrum with Donald Trump. Given that, this column says more about the failures of journalists to hold Trump accountable than it does any shortcoming on Kamala’s part.
At some point, the traditional media needs to explain why it is so much more rabid about getting policy from Kamala than Trump.
Journalists need to come to grips, publicly, with why they apply this soft bigotry of no expectations to Donald Trump. Is it because they know he’ll deny them access if they make similar demands on him? Is it a (justifiable) fear he’ll sic a violent supporter on them, as he did the other night in Johnstown, with Trump observing, “beautiful, that’s beautiful, that’s alright, that’s okay, no, he’s on our side. We get a little itchy, David, don’t we? No, no, he’s on our side,” as the man was tased? Is it a resignation to the fact that Trump will just lie anyway?
Whatever the explanation for why the press applies so much lower expectations on the former President, who has been running for 21 months, than it does on Kamala Harris, just over a month into her campaign, the explanation is a far, far more important story to tell voters than precisely how the Vice President plans to restore the Child Tax Credit.
The only thing this comparison has done is make visible WaPo’s — and the press corp’s, generally — soft bigotry with Donald Trump, the double standard they are applying in their expectations for Kamala Harris as compared to none for Trump.
The lesson of this editorial, contrary to WaPo’s preferred punchline, is that the press is misdirecting where their attention should be focused.
We see this in all the legacy media. They no longer try to provide a public service but just find other ways of enriching and centralizing power to those who don’t need anymore. The people in power profit from clicks and reads and not by ensuring their reporters report in a way that shows people what’s happening. And in that spirit, how about this headline from The Hill’s Miranda Nazzaro. “Trump says he had ‘every right’ to interfere in election.” Bad Old DonOld always blurts the quiet part out for everyone to hear but few to report on. Notice that he’s describing what they’re trying to do in every swing state in the country.
Former President Trump in an interview broadcast late Sunday argued he had “every right” to interfere with the 2020 election while repeating his claim the criminal election interference cases against him are politically motivated.
“It’s so crazy, that my poll numbers go up. Whoever heard you get indicted for interfering with a presidential election, where you have every right to do it, you get indicted, and your poll numbers go up. When people get indicted your pull numbers go down,” Trump said in an interview on Fox News’s “Life, Liberty and Levin.”
Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, was responding to a suggestion from host and lawyer Mark Levin that President Biden or Vice President Harris could have told the attorney general to “knock it off,” in reference to the federal election interference case.
The former president faces federal charges in Washington for his alleged actions to subvert the 2020 election results. He is separately charged in Georgia with racketeering and other state counts over an alleged scheme to overturn the state’s election results.
“Well, this is the worst case of election interference that anyone’s ever seen, certainly in our country,” Trump said during the Fox News interview. “They do this in Third World countries, they have some of it in South America, they don’t do it a lot, believe it or not. But they do it.”
“And it’s such a bad precedent because people are going to think about it differently, and they’re going to think about it differently. And it’s very sad, actually,” he added.
He went on to argue those prosecuting the cases against him are politically biased against him.
“They put people in the DA’s office,” Trump said. “This was all coming out of the Department of Justice in order to get their political opponent — me.”
You can read more of the insane things he said at the link.
I hope you’re having a good Labor Day Weekend. We have Southern Decadence down here, so the Quarter is hopping with costumes and parades. The Black Man of Labor Parade is also today. It crosses the St. Claude Bridge over the Canal from the Lower 9th to the Upper 9th Ward. That’s about 5 blocks up towards the Lake from my little kathouse and always a treat. I’m sure there are many Labor Day Parades near you and around the country as we celebrate the gains we have made and bring attention to the changes we need to ensure all working people get their share of the benefits of their hard work. President Biden’s legacy and our next President Harris’s policy support the working class and an economy offering opportunities for all Americans.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
https://skydancingblog.com/2024/09/02/labor-day-reads-game-of-radical-flip-flopping/
#Repeat1968 #JohnBuss #LaborDay #TheMediaSUCKS #TrumpAndIVFAndAbortionRights #TrumpAndOrbán #TrumpFlipFlops
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Good Day,
Sky Dancers!
I wish I could say that this is the usual Labor Day Weekend start of the Silly Season heading toward the election, but I can’t. The first establishment media interview with Vice President Harris and Governor Walz went to Dana Bash, who is not exactly in the bag for MAGA but just a poor interviewer. CNN used to be the place to go for news. Now it’s the place to go for yawns and gotcha questions. I didn’t see the interview, but their follow-up panel was sleep-inducing. I did see bits and pieces last night. I waited for the Transcript and the video this morning to take in more than just the CNN-chosen ‘highlights.’ There were only two questions and comments that grabbed my attention.
BASH: On that note, you had a lot of Republican speakers at the convention. Will you appoint a Republican to your Cabinet?
HARRIS: Yes, I would.
BASH: Any one in mind—
HARRIS: Yes, I would. No, no one in particular in mind. I got — we got 68 days to go with this election, so I’m not puttin’ the cart before the horse. But I would. I think — I think it’s really important. I — I have spent my career inviting diversity of opinion. I think it’s important to have people at the table when some of the most important decisions are being made that have different views, different experiences. And I think it would be to the benefit of the American public to have a member of my Cabinet who is a Republican.
BASH: Speaking of Republicans, I want to ask you about your opponent, Donald Trump. I was a little bit surprised, people might be surprised to hear that you have never interacted with him, met him face to face. That’s gonna change soon, but what I want to ask you about is what he said last month. He suggested that you happened to turn Black recently for political purposes, questioning a core part of your identity.
HARRIS: Yeah.
BASH: Any—
HARRIS: Same old, tired playbook. Next question, please. (LAUGH)
BASH: That’s it?
HARRIS: That’s it.
It allowed Harris to share her priorities and discuss Biden/Harris’s achievements. The gotcha moments came over the misunderstanding of her role in border negotiations in North Central America, fracking, and the ‘affordability crisis.’ She answered these questions directly and succinctly. That’s not stopping the Trumplican Media from saying the interview was a Dumpsterfire. But then, it’s doubtful any of the MAGA faithful actually watch CNN. I didn’t think any of the gotcha questions landed, but then I operate in a world where I don’t want White Male Christian Dominance with a token Tulsi Gabbard and Vivek Ramaswamy added as props.
BASH: You talk about — you call it the opportunity economy. You are well aware that right now many Americans are struggling. There’s a crisis of affordability. One of your campaign themes is, “We’re not going back.” But I wonder what you say to voters who do want to go back when it comes to the economy specifically because their groceries were less expensive, housing was more affordable when Donald Trump was president.
HARRIS: Well, let’s start with the fact that when Joe Biden and I came in office during the height of a pandemic, we saw over 10 million jobs were lost. People — I mean, literally we are all tracking the numbers. Hundreds of people a day were dying because of COVID. The economy had crashed.
In large part, all of that because of mismanagement by Donald Trump of that crisis. When we came in, our highest priority was to do what we could to rescue America. And today, we know that we have inflation at under 3%. A lot of our policies have led to the reality that America recovered faster than any wealthy nation around the world.
But you are right. Prices in particular for groceries are still too high. The American people know it. I know it. Which is why my agenda includes what we need to do to bring down the price of groceries. For example, dealing with an issue like price gouging.
What we need to do to extend the child tax credit to help young families be able to take care of their children in their most formative years. What we need to do to bring down the cost of housing. My proposal includes what would be a tax credit of $25,000 for first-time home buyers so they can just have enough to put a down payment on a home, which is
part of the American dream and their aspiration, but do it in a way that allows them to actually get on the path to achieving that goal and that dream.
BASH: So you have been vice president for three and a half years. The steps that you’re talking about now, why haven’t you done them already?
So, my answer would be, “D’oh, I’m Vice President, and my job is to implement President Biden’s policy, you know.” But she’s classier than me and answered this way.
HARRIS: Well, first of all, we had to recover as an economy, and we have done that. I’m very proud of the work that we have done that has brought inflation down to less than 3%, the work that we have done to cap the cost of insulin at $35 a month for seniors. Donald Trump said he was gonna do a number of things, including allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Never happened. We did it.
So now, and I — as I travel in the state of Georgia and around our country, the number of seniors that have benefited, I’ve met — I was in Nevada recently. A grandmother who showed me her receipts. And before we capped the cost of insulin for seniors at $35 a month she was paying hundreds of dollars, up to thousands of dollars a month for her insulin. She’s not doing that any longer.
BASH: So you maintain Bidenomics is a success.
So, my answer would be: “Look at the damned economic, inflation, and job numbers, you stupid bitch!” But, again, she’s classier than me, and I guess I would have to maintain a modicum of dignity, being an economics professor and all. I would not say that to my class, but they are students, and she’s an overpaid talking head with a penchant for too much one hand then the other hand journalism even when the other hand is stealing us blind and wants to be a dictator.
HARRIS: I maintain that when we do the work of bringing down prescription medication for the American people, including capping the cost — of the annual cost of prescription medication for seniors at $2,000; when we do what we did in the first year of being in office to extend the child tax credit so that we cut child poverty in America by over 50%; when we do what we have done to invest in the American people and bringing manufacturing back to the United States so that we created over 800,000 new manufacturing jobs, bringing business back to America; what we have done to improve the supply chain so we’re not relying on foreign governments to supply American families with their basic needs, I’ll say that that’s good work. There’s more to do, but that’s good work.
But hey, what about? That came next. Read more at the link or watch the video.
Today, I was delighted by a Washington Post Op-Ed by Dana Milbank, which was witty and true. It was a definite dig at that horrid thing at the New York Times earlier in the week. In a test of character, Trump shows his true grift. In his disorientation, the GOP nominee and former president retreats to his instincts.”
The New York Times ran a fine specimen of unintentional comedy this week: an essay by conservative writer Rich Lowry titled “Trump Can Win on Character.”
The only thing that could have made it better was if it had been under the byline of Stormy Daniels.
Lowry’s argument itself wasn’t quite as absurd as the headline. He was only suggesting that Trump repeatedly call Vice President Kamala Harris “weak,” which Trump probably won’t do, because he’s too busy calling her a communist, a copycat, stupid, a recent conversion to being Black or someone with a crazy laugh who is not as good looking as he is.
Trump could win on various things: inflation, immigration, isolationism. But the notion that a felon and adjudicated sexual abuser who shouts barnyard obscenities and vulgar epithets at his rallies would return to the White House on the strength of his upstanding character? Well, let’s just say there are very fine people on both sides who would have trouble making that argument.
As though in answer to the suggestion that he can “win on character,” Trump responded over the next couple of days by:
- Holding a campaign event in front of graves at Arlington National Cemetery, where his staff reportedly pushed aside a cemetery official trying to enforce rules against politicizing the sacred ground. Trump posed graveside with a big grin and a thumbs-up, and his campaign set the Republican nominee’s cemetery visit to music and posted it as a TikTok video. When a Harris spokesman commented on the “sad” event, Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, declared that Harris herself “can go to hell.” (Vance, after a cool reception last week at a doughnut shop in Georgia, got booed by firefighters this week in Boston.)
- Announcing that two of the nation’s most prominent conspiracy theorists — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard — would be co-chairs of his presidential transition if he wins the election, with influence over key appointments and policies. Gabbard’s trumpeting of Russian propaganda has been labeled “treasonous” by Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), and Kennedy’s long-shot presidential campaign somehow fizzled after he acknowledged, among other things, having a brain worm and leaving a dead bear cub in New York’s Central Park.
- Rolling out his latest attempt to cajole his supporters to line his own pockets. This time, he offered another round of “digital trading cards” featuring a Trump superhero. Supporters who parted with $1,485 or more in this Trump-enrichment scam would be sent a piece of the fabric cut from the “knockout suit” he wore during his June debate with President Joe Biden.
- Proclaiming that it was “Biden’s fault and Harris’s fault” that he was the victim of a failed assassination attempt, asserting without evidence that they prevented the Secret Service from protecting him and that he might have been shot “because of their rhetoric.” The FBI reported that the shooter, a Republican, had searched online for both Biden and Trump events and settled on the Trump rally as a “target of opportunity.”
- Sharing another fusillade of posts on social media that cited QAnon slogans, called for the imprisonment of his opponents, and suggested that Harris used sex to advance her career.
On Thursday, Trump was in Michigan and as coarse as ever — referring twice to Harris’s running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, as “Tampon Tim”; preposterously claiming that in Democratic states “you’re allowed to kill the baby after the baby is born”; and saying of Harris: “Nobody knows who the hell she is. She does not give a damn about you.” While complaining that the Army had said he used the Arlington National Cemetery visit “to politic,” he went right on “politicking” about it. Referring to the families of the fallen he met with, Trump said Biden and Harris “killed their children as though they had a gun in their hand.”
That last bit still has me peeved. I have relatives buried in Arlington National Cemetary, and my Dad chose to be buried in a Washington State Veteran’s Cemetery, where the Pilot and Navigator of his World War II B-25 bombing crew is also buried. I am incensed about this for my family, who served in the Military from the Revolutionary War forward, including the winning side of the Civil War. Historian Heather Cox Richardson puts this into perspective in her Substack, Letters from an American.
And now the U.S. Army has weighed in on the scandal surrounding Trump’s visit to Arlington National Cemetery for a campaign photo op, after which his team shared a campaign video it had filmed. The Army said that the cemetery hosts almost 3,000 public wreath-laying ceremonies a year without incident and that Trump and his staff “were made aware of federal laws, Army regulations and [Department of Defense] policies, which clearly prohibit political activities on cemetery grounds.”
It went on to say that a cemetery employee “who attempted to ensure adherence to these rules was abruptly pushed aside…. This incident was unfortunate, and it is also unfortunate that the… employee and her professionalism has been unfairly attacked. [Arlington National Cemetery] is a national shrine to the honored dead of the Armed Forces, and its dedicated staff will continue to ensure public ceremonies are conducted with the dignity and respect the nation’s fallen deserve.”
“I don’t think I can adequately explain what a massive deal it is for the Army to make a statement like this,” political writer and veteran Allison Gill of Mueller, She Wrote, noted. “The Pentagon avoids statements like this at all costs. But a draft dodging traitor decided to lie about our armed forces staff, so they went to paper.”
The deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh said the Department of Defense is “aware of the statement that the Army issued, and we support what the Army said.” Hours later, Trump campaign manager Chris LaCivita reposted the offending video on X and, tagging the official account for Army Secretary Christine Wormuth, said he was “hoping to trigger the hacks” in her office.
In Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall reported that the Trump campaign’s plan was to lay a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery to honor the 13 members of the U.S. military killed in the suicide bombing during the evacuation of Kabul, Afghanistan, in August 2021. They intended to film the event and then attack Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden for not “showing up” for the event, which they intended to portray as an “established memorial.”
She has also some good news to share from the Financial World. I can only say that Janet Rivlin’s hands are all over this. Good for her!
Another major story from yesterday is that the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has finalized two rules that will work to stop corruption and money laundering in U.S. residential real estate and in private investment.
This is a big deal. As scholar of kleptocracies Casey Michel put it: “This is a massive, massive deal in the world of counter-kleptocracy—the U.S. is finally ending the gargantuan anti–money laundering loopholes for real estate, private equity, hedge funds, and more. Can’t overstate how important this is. What a feat.”
The White Stripes are the latest band telling the DonOld Campaign to cease and desist! “‘Fascists’: Jack White threatens to sue Trump campaign over use of music. White Stripes singer angered after Trump aide shares social media post using clip of band’s hit Seven Nation Army.” I wonder if it’s too late for Chachi to record something dismal? The display of privilege in all these acts of theft of dignity and expression is just the latest in the NepoBaby news.
Another bit of Trumplican Justice and Karma from The Hill. “Georgia election workers seek control of Giuliani’s assets to collect on $146M defamation judgment. Two Georgia election workers have asked a federal judge for control over Rudy Giuliani’s assets to collect on the $146 million defamation judgment against him for baselessly claiming they engaged in election fraud in 2020.”
The request from Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss comes just short of a month after the ex-New York City mayor’s defunct bankruptcy, filed in the aftermath of the staggering judgment, was formally closed.
“Mr. Giuliani has spent years evading accountability for his actions — first in litigation in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and then in chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings that Mr. Giuliani commenced in this District,” Aaron Nathan, an attorney for the mother-daughter duo, wrote in a Friday court filing. “Now that Mr. Giuliani’s bankruptcy case has been dismissed, Plaintiffs are finally in a position to receive a measure of compensation by enforcing their judgment.”
Freeman and Moss asked the judge to order Giuliani to turn over personal property in his possession and to give the women the power to take possession of and sell any property he does not turn over.
“Those remedies are overwhelmingly justified under New York law,” Nathan wrote. “And they are all the more appropriate in the context of this case, where Mr. Giuliani has proven time and again that he will never voluntarily comply with court orders, much less voluntarily satisfy Plaintiffs’ judgment.”
After a trial in December, a jury ordered Giuliani to pay Freeman and Moss more than $148 million, though after attorneys fees and other adjustments, the judgment was formally entered just under $146 million.
The election workers testified to their lives being turned upside down by a torrent of racist and violent threats after Giuliani, the ex-personal lawyer of former President Trump, baselessly claimed they committed widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
Giuliani froze the judgment, and other pending lawsuits against him, by filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. But the judge’s dismissal of that case enabled the two election workers to collect on the judgment — even though they are likely to recover far less than $146 million, given Giuliani disclosed only $10.6 million in assets to the bankruptcy court.
Well, y’all have a great long weekend and remember how many lives it has cost to make this country what it is and can be. We can’t afford to let them all down now.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
https://skydancingblog.com/2024/08/30/finally-friday-reads-10/
#Repeat1968 #ArlingtonNationalCemetery #DanaBashisms #GratuitousRudyGiulianiBashingForFun #HarrisWalzCNNInterview2024 #HarrisWalzPolicyPriorities2024 #JohnBuss
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Good Day,
Sky Dancers!
I wish I could say that this is the usual Labor Day Weekend start of the Silly Season heading toward the election, but I can’t. The first establishment media interview with Vice President Harris and Governor Walz went to Dana Bash, who is not exactly in the bag for MAGA but just a poor interviewer. CNN used to be the place to go for news. Now it’s the place to go for yawns and gotcha questions. I didn’t see the interview, but their follow-up panel was sleep-inducing. I did see bits and pieces last night. I waited for the Transcript and the video this morning to take in more than just the CNN-chosen ‘highlights.’ There were only two questions and comments that grabbed my attention.
BASH: On that note, you had a lot of Republican speakers at the convention. Will you appoint a Republican to your Cabinet?
HARRIS: Yes, I would.
BASH: Any one in mind—
HARRIS: Yes, I would. No, no one in particular in mind. I got — we got 68 days to go with this election, so I’m not puttin’ the cart before the horse. But I would. I think — I think it’s really important. I — I have spent my career inviting diversity of opinion. I think it’s important to have people at the table when some of the most important decisions are being made that have different views, different experiences. And I think it would be to the benefit of the American public to have a member of my Cabinet who is a Republican.
BASH: Speaking of Republicans, I want to ask you about your opponent, Donald Trump. I was a little bit surprised, people might be surprised to hear that you have never interacted with him, met him face to face. That’s gonna change soon, but what I want to ask you about is what he said last month. He suggested that you happened to turn Black recently for political purposes, questioning a core part of your identity.
HARRIS: Yeah.
BASH: Any—
HARRIS: Same old, tired playbook. Next question, please. (LAUGH)
BASH: That’s it?
HARRIS: That’s it.
It allowed Harris to share her priorities and discuss Biden/Harris’s achievements. The gotcha moments came over the misunderstanding of her role in border negotiations in North Central America, fracking, and the ‘affordability crisis.’ She answered these questions directly and succinctly. That’s not stopping the Trumplican Media from saying the interview was a Dumpsterfire. But then, it’s doubtful any of the MAGA faithful actually watch CNN. I didn’t think any of the gotcha questions landed, but then I operate in a world where I don’t want White Male Christian Dominance with a token Tulsi Gabbard and Vivek Ramaswamy added as props.
BASH: You talk about — you call it the opportunity economy. You are well aware that right now many Americans are struggling. There’s a crisis of affordability. One of your campaign themes is, “We’re not going back.” But I wonder what you say to voters who do want to go back when it comes to the economy specifically because their groceries were less expensive, housing was more affordable when Donald Trump was president.
HARRIS: Well, let’s start with the fact that when Joe Biden and I came in office during the height of a pandemic, we saw over 10 million jobs were lost. People — I mean, literally we are all tracking the numbers. Hundreds of people a day were dying because of COVID. The economy had crashed.
In large part, all of that because of mismanagement by Donald Trump of that crisis. When we came in, our highest priority was to do what we could to rescue America. And today, we know that we have inflation at under 3%. A lot of our policies have led to the reality that America recovered faster than any wealthy nation around the world.
But you are right. Prices in particular for groceries are still too high. The American people know it. I know it. Which is why my agenda includes what we need to do to bring down the price of groceries. For example, dealing with an issue like price gouging.
What we need to do to extend the child tax credit to help young families be able to take care of their children in their most formative years. What we need to do to bring down the cost of housing. My proposal includes what would be a tax credit of $25,000 for first-time home buyers so they can just have enough to put a down payment on a home, which is
part of the American dream and their aspiration, but do it in a way that allows them to actually get on the path to achieving that goal and that dream.
BASH: So you have been vice president for three and a half years. The steps that you’re talking about now, why haven’t you done them already?
So, my answer would be, “D’oh, I’m Vice President, and my job is to implement President Biden’s policy, you know.” But she’s classier than me and answered this way.
HARRIS: Well, first of all, we had to recover as an economy, and we have done that. I’m very proud of the work that we have done that has brought inflation down to less than 3%, the work that we have done to cap the cost of insulin at $35 a month for seniors. Donald Trump said he was gonna do a number of things, including allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Never happened. We did it.
So now, and I — as I travel in the state of Georgia and around our country, the number of seniors that have benefited, I’ve met — I was in Nevada recently. A grandmother who showed me her receipts. And before we capped the cost of insulin for seniors at $35 a month she was paying hundreds of dollars, up to thousands of dollars a month for her insulin. She’s not doing that any longer.
BASH: So you maintain Bidenomics is a success.
So, my answer would be: “Look at the damned economic, inflation, and job numbers, you stupid bitch!” But, again, she’s classier than me, and I guess I would have to maintain a modicum of dignity, being an economics professor and all. I would not say that to my class, but they are students, and she’s an overpaid talking head with a penchant for too much one hand then the other hand journalism even when the other hand is stealing us blind and wants to be a dictator.
HARRIS: I maintain that when we do the work of bringing down prescription medication for the American people, including capping the cost — of the annual cost of prescription medication for seniors at $2,000; when we do what we did in the first year of being in office to extend the child tax credit so that we cut child poverty in America by over 50%; when we do what we have done to invest in the American people and bringing manufacturing back to the United States so that we created over 800,000 new manufacturing jobs, bringing business back to America; what we have done to improve the supply chain so we’re not relying on foreign governments to supply American families with their basic needs, I’ll say that that’s good work. There’s more to do, but that’s good work.
But hey, what about? That came next. Read more at the link or watch the video.
Today, I was delighted by a Washington Post Op-Ed by Dana Milbank, which was witty and true. It was a definite dig at that horrid thing at the New York Times earlier in the week. In a test of character, Trump shows his true grift. In his disorientation, the GOP nominee and former president retreats to his instincts.”
The New York Times ran a fine specimen of unintentional comedy this week: an essay by conservative writer Rich Lowry titled “Trump Can Win on Character.”
The only thing that could have made it better was if it had been under the byline of Stormy Daniels.
Lowry’s argument itself wasn’t quite as absurd as the headline. He was only suggesting that Trump repeatedly call Vice President Kamala Harris “weak,” which Trump probably won’t do, because he’s too busy calling her a communist, a copycat, stupid, a recent conversion to being Black or someone with a crazy laugh who is not as good looking as he is.
Trump could win on various things: inflation, immigration, isolationism. But the notion that a felon and adjudicated sexual abuser who shouts barnyard obscenities and vulgar epithets at his rallies would return to the White House on the strength of his upstanding character? Well, let’s just say there are very fine people on both sides who would have trouble making that argument.
As though in answer to the suggestion that he can “win on character,” Trump responded over the next couple of days by:
- Holding a campaign event in front of graves at Arlington National Cemetery, where his staff reportedly pushed aside a cemetery official trying to enforce rules against politicizing the sacred ground. Trump posed graveside with a big grin and a thumbs-up, and his campaign set the Republican nominee’s cemetery visit to music and posted it as a TikTok video. When a Harris spokesman commented on the “sad” event, Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, declared that Harris herself “can go to hell.” (Vance, after a cool reception last week at a doughnut shop in Georgia, got booed by firefighters this week in Boston.)
- Announcing that two of the nation’s most prominent conspiracy theorists — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard — would be co-chairs of his presidential transition if he wins the election, with influence over key appointments and policies. Gabbard’s trumpeting of Russian propaganda has been labeled “treasonous” by Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), and Kennedy’s long-shot presidential campaign somehow fizzled after he acknowledged, among other things, having a brain worm and leaving a dead bear cub in New York’s Central Park.
- Rolling out his latest attempt to cajole his supporters to line his own pockets. This time, he offered another round of “digital trading cards” featuring a Trump superhero. Supporters who parted with $1,485 or more in this Trump-enrichment scam would be sent a piece of the fabric cut from the “knockout suit” he wore during his June debate with President Joe Biden.
- Proclaiming that it was “Biden’s fault and Harris’s fault” that he was the victim of a failed assassination attempt, asserting without evidence that they prevented the Secret Service from protecting him and that he might have been shot “because of their rhetoric.” The FBI reported that the shooter, a Republican, had searched online for both Biden and Trump events and settled on the Trump rally as a “target of opportunity.”
- Sharing another fusillade of posts on social media that cited QAnon slogans, called for the imprisonment of his opponents, and suggested that Harris used sex to advance her career.
On Thursday, Trump was in Michigan and as coarse as ever — referring twice to Harris’s running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, as “Tampon Tim”; preposterously claiming that in Democratic states “you’re allowed to kill the baby after the baby is born”; and saying of Harris: “Nobody knows who the hell she is. She does not give a damn about you.” While complaining that the Army had said he used the Arlington National Cemetery visit “to politic,” he went right on “politicking” about it. Referring to the families of the fallen he met with, Trump said Biden and Harris “killed their children as though they had a gun in their hand.”
That last bit still has me peeved. I have relatives buried in Arlington National Cemetary, and my Dad chose to be buried in a Washington State Veteran’s Cemetery, where the Pilot and Navigator of his World War II B-25 bombing crew is also buried. I am incensed about this for my family, who served in the Military from the Revolutionary War forward, including the winning side of the Civil War. Historian Heather Cox Richardson puts this into perspective in her Substack, Letters from an American.
And now the U.S. Army has weighed in on the scandal surrounding Trump’s visit to Arlington National Cemetery for a campaign photo op, after which his team shared a campaign video it had filmed. The Army said that the cemetery hosts almost 3,000 public wreath-laying ceremonies a year without incident and that Trump and his staff “were made aware of federal laws, Army regulations and [Department of Defense] policies, which clearly prohibit political activities on cemetery grounds.”
It went on to say that a cemetery employee “who attempted to ensure adherence to these rules was abruptly pushed aside…. This incident was unfortunate, and it is also unfortunate that the… employee and her professionalism has been unfairly attacked. [Arlington National Cemetery] is a national shrine to the honored dead of the Armed Forces, and its dedicated staff will continue to ensure public ceremonies are conducted with the dignity and respect the nation’s fallen deserve.”
“I don’t think I can adequately explain what a massive deal it is for the Army to make a statement like this,” political writer and veteran Allison Gill of Mueller, She Wrote, noted. “The Pentagon avoids statements like this at all costs. But a draft dodging traitor decided to lie about our armed forces staff, so they went to paper.”
The deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh said the Department of Defense is “aware of the statement that the Army issued, and we support what the Army said.” Hours later, Trump campaign manager Chris LaCivita reposted the offending video on X and, tagging the official account for Army Secretary Christine Wormuth, said he was “hoping to trigger the hacks” in her office.
In Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall reported that the Trump campaign’s plan was to lay a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery to honor the 13 members of the U.S. military killed in the suicide bombing during the evacuation of Kabul, Afghanistan, in August 2021. They intended to film the event and then attack Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden for not “showing up” for the event, which they intended to portray as an “established memorial.”
She has also some good news to share from the Financial World. I can only say that Janet Rivlin’s hands are all over this. Good for her!
Another major story from yesterday is that the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has finalized two rules that will work to stop corruption and money laundering in U.S. residential real estate and in private investment.
This is a big deal. As scholar of kleptocracies Casey Michel put it: “This is a massive, massive deal in the world of counter-kleptocracy—the U.S. is finally ending the gargantuan anti–money laundering loopholes for real estate, private equity, hedge funds, and more. Can’t overstate how important this is. What a feat.”
The White Stripes are the latest band telling the DonOld Campaign to cease and desist! “‘Fascists’: Jack White threatens to sue Trump campaign over use of music. White Stripes singer angered after Trump aide shares social media post using clip of band’s hit Seven Nation Army.” I wonder if it’s too late for Chachi to record something dismal? The display of privilege in all these acts of theft of dignity and expression is just the latest in the NepoBaby news.
Another bit of Trumplican Justice and Karma from The Hill. “Georgia election workers seek control of Giuliani’s assets to collect on $146M defamation judgment. Two Georgia election workers have asked a federal judge for control over Rudy Giuliani’s assets to collect on the $146 million defamation judgment against him for baselessly claiming they engaged in election fraud in 2020.”
The request from Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss comes just short of a month after the ex-New York City mayor’s defunct bankruptcy, filed in the aftermath of the staggering judgment, was formally closed.
“Mr. Giuliani has spent years evading accountability for his actions — first in litigation in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and then in chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings that Mr. Giuliani commenced in this District,” Aaron Nathan, an attorney for the mother-daughter duo, wrote in a Friday court filing. “Now that Mr. Giuliani’s bankruptcy case has been dismissed, Plaintiffs are finally in a position to receive a measure of compensation by enforcing their judgment.”
Freeman and Moss asked the judge to order Giuliani to turn over personal property in his possession and to give the women the power to take possession of and sell any property he does not turn over.
“Those remedies are overwhelmingly justified under New York law,” Nathan wrote. “And they are all the more appropriate in the context of this case, where Mr. Giuliani has proven time and again that he will never voluntarily comply with court orders, much less voluntarily satisfy Plaintiffs’ judgment.”
After a trial in December, a jury ordered Giuliani to pay Freeman and Moss more than $148 million, though after attorneys fees and other adjustments, the judgment was formally entered just under $146 million.
The election workers testified to their lives being turned upside down by a torrent of racist and violent threats after Giuliani, the ex-personal lawyer of former President Trump, baselessly claimed they committed widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
Giuliani froze the judgment, and other pending lawsuits against him, by filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. But the judge’s dismissal of that case enabled the two election workers to collect on the judgment — even though they are likely to recover far less than $146 million, given Giuliani disclosed only $10.6 million in assets to the bankruptcy court.
Well, y’all have a great long weekend and remember how many lives it has cost to make this country what it is and can be. We can’t afford to let them all down now.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
https://skydancingblog.com/2024/08/30/finally-friday-reads-10/
#Repeat1968 #ArlingtonNationalCemetery #DanaBashisms #GratuitousRudyGiulianiBashingForFun #HarrisWalzCNNInterview2024 #HarrisWalzPolicyPriorities2024 #JohnBuss
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“I know they wanted JFK Jr, but RFK Jr is a nice addition to the trump campaign.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
The Trumplican Party continues to devolve. I doubt my father would even recognize it if he were alive. The latest example is the addition of RFK Jr., a conspiracy nut with habits that the word eccentric can’t even begin to describe. This headline from The Wrap, written by Stephanie Kaloi, is something regular folks can’t wrap their head around. “RFK Jr.’s Daughter Says Dad Cut Off a Whale’s Head, Drove It 5 Hours Home. When they would accelerate, “whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet,” Kick Kennedy explained to Town & Country Magazine.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s daughter Kick Kennedy may or may not be spending time with Jennifer Lopez’s estranged husband Ben Affleck (as reported by Page Six), but she certainly spent time with Town & Country Magazine for a profile that has been resurfaced and made waves on social media, in which she shared an anecdote about her father and a dead whale that still checks out with what we know about the odd politician — especially when it comes to his love for dead animals.
When she was 6, her dad chopped off the head of a whale that washed up on Squaw Island in Hyannis Port. Due to RFK Jr.’s love of studying animal skulls and skeletons, they then strapped the dead whale’s head to the car and spent five hours driving it to their home.
“Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet,” Kennedy said. “We all had plastic bags over our heads with mouth holes cut out, and people on the highway were giving us the finger, but that was just normal day-to-day stuff for us.”
RFK Jr. made headlines earlier this month when he shared the story of taking a dead bear that he found as roadkill, intent on saving it to eat, before ultimately dumping it in a bizarre prank in New York City’s Central Park. On Friday, the independent candidate dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Donald Trump.
RFK Jr. approached the Harris/Walz campaign, but they didn’t answer his calls. That’s just some American common sense with nothing to do with political savvy. What possible benefit could his addition add to a campaign? But he’s just another (yawn) Maga Sideshow full of weirdos who generally wind up in trouble with the law, one way or another. His J6 “gala” next month will undoubtedly highlight the number of criminals that actually might actually violate his terms of release. Also, Rudy Guilliani will be there. He is definitely on the Trumplican weirdo and felon list. This information popped up on Alternet, and I just had to share it. “Trump’s ‘gala’ honoring ‘courage and sacrifice’ of J6 rioters may violate his terms of release” is written by Carl Gibson and answers my call out to all the parole officers in charge of these folks.
Convicted felon and 45th President of the United States Donald Trump is planning on hosting a gathering of other convicted felons next month. One legal expert is pointing out that the event may frustrate his efforts to remain a free man.
According to NJ.com, the ex-president is hosting a “J6 awards gala” at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club next month. Progressive group MeidasTouch reported that on September 5, Trump will be joined by former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and MAGA influencer Anthony Raimondi at the event, where he is expected to personally address participants in the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
…
However, if Trump follows through with the gala, it may complicate his own legal situation. According to attorney Tristan Snell – who prosecuted the former president over his sham Trump University while at the New York Attorney General’s office — New York state law would prohibit such an event given the expected guest list.
“Someone should alert Trump’s probation officer — because convicted felons are legally prohibited from associating with other felons,” he tweeted.
While Trump has been convicted by a jury on 34 class E felony counts, he won’t be sentenced until September 18. At that point, assuming the former president isn’t ordered to serve time behind bars (Judge Juan Merchan has the ability to sentence him to as much as 20 years in prison), he will then be issued a probation officer, who he will be required to check in with on a regular basis. This means the September 5 event will be legal, though it likely won’t help his case when he appears before Merchan less than two weeks later.
The former president narrowly dodged the ire of prosecutors at last month’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade pointed out that some of the convention’s attendees included indicted “fake electors,” and that Trump seen associating with them may have resulted in Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith and/or Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis petitioning the court to incarcerate Trump prior to his trial for consorting with criminal defendants.
DonOld is facing new lawsuits from musicians who don’t want their music to be associated with MAGA craziness. The first to take action was the son of Issa Hayes. This is reported in the Daily Beast by Clay Walker. “Isaac Hayes Estate Marks Victory in Suit Against Trump.” The candidate and the campaign continue to act like laws don’t matter.
The estate of the late soul singer Isaac Hayes is moving forward in their lawsuit against Donald Trump for using a song co-written by the artist. “The Federal Court has granted our request for an Emergency Hearing to secure injunctive relief,” the late singer’s son, Isaac Hayes III, wrote on X Friday. According to Hayes III, Trump himself will have to appear in court in September. The lawsuit was originally filed earlier this month and sought $3 million for the former president’s campaign’s unauthorized use of “Hold On, I’m Coming,” a 1960s song originally performed by duo Sam & Dave, more than 100 times. Prior to the filing, the Trump campaign was asked to discontinue the use of the song, but things came to a head on August 10, the anniversary of the singer’s 2008 death, when Trump used it again at a Montana rally. “Donald Trump represents the worst in integrity and class with his disrespect and sexual abuse of Women and racist rhetoric. We will now deal with this very swiftly,” Hayes III wrote on X.
Next up in court is the band Foo Fighters. This is from The Hill. “Trump campaign disputes Foo Fighters claim song use was unauthorized.” Laura Sforza writes on the Foo Fight.
A spokesperson for the Foo Fighters said in a statement to The Hill late Sunday the band did not give permission to the Trump campaign to use the song at a Friday campaign rally in Arizona. The spokesperson said any royalties the band earns off the song would be donated to Vice President Harris’s campaign.“Foo Fighters were not asked permission, and if they were they would not have granted it,” the spokesperson said.
However, the Trump campaign said it had permission to play the song.
“We have a license to play the song,” Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said in an email to The Hill.
He also took to the social platform X to dispute the claim.
“It’s Times Like These facts matter, don’t be a Pretender. @foofighters,” he wrote, referring to two other songs by the band.
“My Hero” could be heard playing at Trump’s rally in Glendale on Friday as the former president introduced former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who suspended his campaign earlier in the day and threw his support behind Trump.
And there’s more in the Weirdos and Felons news. We have this from the LGBTQ Nation. Seriously, we’ve gone way past the deplorable basket at this point. “MAGA ex-GOP party chair calls gay lawmaker a “f*g” on social media. She called Pete Buttigieg a “weak little girl” in 2022, before she got indicted.” This is written by Alex Bollinger.
A former high-ranking state Republican official who has been indicted in an alleged conspiracy to steal the 2020 election used an anti-gay slur to describe a gay Democratic lawmaker.
Meshawn Maddock used to be the head of the Michigan Republican Party until shortly after she was charged in connection to a scheme to make Michigan’s votes go to Donald Trump in 2020 instead of President Joe Biden, who won the state. Now she is now using slurs on social media.
She was responding to a post on X from Michigan state Rep. Jason Morgan (D), who is an out gay lawmaker and the vice chair of the state’s Democratic Party. Morgan posted a picture of the Michigan congressional delegation at the DNC last Friday, where they were smiling and holding American flags.
“F*gs and hags,” Maddock responded. X responded by reducing the visibility of her post due to a potential violation of the platform’s Hateful Conduct policy. However, the post has not been deleted by the platform.
Stay Classy you god-fearing Christians you! I have to agree with this Op-Ed headline at The Hill. “The right’s killjoy politics only fuel Harris’s momentum.” It’s written by Svante Myrick.
It’s been a couple of days since I flew home after attending the Democratic National Convention. And at the risk of sounding corny, I think I could have done it without the plane. To attend that convention was to experience a sense of joy so powerful that it made you feel like you had wings.
My organization, People for the American Way, was very excited to bring to the convention posters designed especially for us by the artist Victoria Cassinova, which we felt represented the pride and hopefulness of this campaign.
The posters featured a portrait of Harris with the single word: “Freedom.”
We had fun posting them all over the city. We were thrilled to see lots of residents and convention-goers admiring them and taking pictures and selfies. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) shared hers on Instagram.
Then, on the third night of the convention, something sad happened. A group calling itself Artists for Kennedy and Trump defaced a wall of these Harris portraits.
Capturing themselves on video, the vandals spray-painted crimson streaks across the images, focusing on the portrait’s face and eyes. They used words like “war” to describe what they were doing.
It was an ugly but galvanizing reminder of what we’re up against in this race.
I — we — have had enough of creepy authoritarians trying to censor art, ban books and steal our joy.
Because while art does give joy, it also gives strength. It has always been a tool to challenge injustice and enforced conformity, to resist oppression and authoritarianism. That’s why dictators down through history have suppressed and banned art and even murdered artists.
It’s why artists and creators face an enormous threat today, not just from vandals roaming the streets of Chicago but from the deadly serious, powerful operatives behind Project 2025, who are intent on stigmatizing and suppressing vast numbers of artworks by calling them “pornography.”
I remember being shocked and stunned by Trump stalking Hillary on the debate stage and the lack of response to it by the debate’s moderators. Now I think we know exactly how low they go, and as far as I can tell, there is no bottom. If they stage an insurrection and try to nullify votes, they’ll do anything, and we should all be prepared. So, the Harris/DonOld debate with ABC is now in jeopardy. I bet we all had this on our bingo card. This is from Marianne Levine, who is writing for the Washington Post. “Trump suggests he might skip ABC debate with Harris. The Sept. 10 debate with ABC is the only one both campaigns have agreed to.”
Former president Donald Trump suggested Sunday evening that he might skip a Sept. 10 ABC News debate with Vice President Kamala Harris (D), after agreeing earlier this month to participate.
“I watched ABC FAKE NEWS this morning, both lightweight reporter Jonathan Carl’s (K?) ridiculous and biased interview of Tom Cotton (who was fantastic!), and their so-called Panel of Trump Haters, and I ask, why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network?” Trump asked in a social media post Sunday evening.
During a campaign stop Monday after visiting Arlington National Cemetery, Trump reiterated his criticism of ABC News, calling it “the single worst network for unfairness” and saying that ABC “really should be shut out.”
The Sept. 10 debate is the only one that both campaigns have officially committed to. Trump’s renewed questioning of the ABC News debate comes as Harris has increased her lead in national polls and is gaining ground in key swing states. As of Sunday, The Washington Post polling average has the vice president leading in Wisconsin by three percentage points, in Pennsylvania by two points and in Michigan by less than one point. Trump continues to lead in four Sun Belt swing states, but Harris has significantly narrowed the gap.
The latest rift between the campaigns is about the terms and conditions about how the debate would work. Brian Fallon, the Harris campaign’s senior adviser for communications, said in a statement that the campaign has told ABC and other networks that “both candidates’ microphones should be live throughout the full broadcast.”
“Our understanding is that Trump’s handlers prefer the muted microphone because they don’t think their candidate can act presidential for 90 minutes on his own,” Fallon said.
When asked by a reporter Monday about whether he wanted his microphone muted, Trump replied, “Doesn’t matter to me, I’d rather have it probably on.”
Jason Miller, senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said the campaign agreed to the “the ABC debate under the exact same terms as the CNN debate,” referring to a June 27 debate between Trump and President Joe Biden, before Biden ended his reelection campaign.
Oh, I officially quit the New York Times a while ago. I would like to say that seeing the headline on a guest’s op-ed today reinforced my excellent decision. Here’s a brief statement: I agree with her. I can’t say
more because I refuse to read it. Rich Lowry can bite his crank for writing “Trump Can Win on Character.” RIFF NYT. Rest in Fuckery and Failure.
Now, back to the normal news. This is from Salon’s Charles R. Davis. As the Vice President said, she’s been a prosecutor and knows his type. “”He’s now terrified of debating her”: Trump’s debate flip-flop is a sign Harris has him figured out. The former president suggested Sunday that he would not attend his scheduled Sept. 10 debate with Kamala Harris.”
Donald Trump is not feeling great. This year alone he’s been found liable by a jury for sexual assault, convicted by another jury on 34 felony counts of fraud, and shot at by a young registered Republican at a campaign rally, the one previously safe space where the president could comfortably rant and complain to certain applause. Then he had to spend a week at home watching Democrats pull off their convention without a hitch, just a month after an unprecedented switch at the top of the ticket.
The former president’s own campaign is publicly predicting that Vice President Kamala Harris will now surge in the polls (after already leading, nationally, by an average of about 3.6%). In a similar situation, the current president and his team decided it was time to debate, saying a televised contest would “reset” the race; the subsequent performance cost Joe Biden the Democratic nomination.
Perhaps that’s why Trump himself is doubting his own commitments.
“Why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network?” Trump posted on social media Sunday night, complaining about an ABC News interview with Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and panel discussion earlier that day, saying the former was “biased” and the latter full of “Trump Haters.” The Republican nominee filled the rest of his post with tedious name calling — “Crooked,” “Marxist” — and attacks on the insufficiently fawning journalists of ABC.
“They’ve got a lot o questions to answer!!!” Trump posted just after 10 p.m. Eastern. “Why did Harris turn down Fox, NBC, CBS, and even CNN? Stay tuned!!!”
The former president already agreed to debate Harris on Sept. 10, which was originally slated to be the second of two televised confrontations with Biden. He did so after previously trying to pull out of the event when Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee, initially claiming the debate was off because Biden was out of the race and then trying to move it to the friendlier waters of Fox News, a media platform that was forced to pay out $787 million after admitting that it cynically aired what its knew to be MAGA lies about the 2020 election.
This last read is from the New Republic‘s Michael Tomasky. “Finally, the Democrats Have Found Trump’s Achilles’ Heel: Ridicule Him. Kamala Harris gets it. Yes, we should fear Trump—but we should also mock him mercilessly because it drives him nuts.”
Donald Trump is in free fall. Read this description from Sunday’s Washington Post of how the GOP nominee spent last week: “[A]ides did not want a situation where he was watching the convention every night, getting angry, and then just golfing all day and stewing, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private interactions. Trump also had grown annoyed with the news coverage that depicted him as not working as hard as his opponent, one person who talked to him said.”
If you didn’t know that the article was about Trump and you just read it cold without knowledge of the context, you might think it was a description of parents trying to figure out how to handle an ungovernable four-year-old. So they convinced Trump to get out of Bedminster and hit the road, trading suck-ups with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In the past, Trump has called Kennedy the “dumbest member” of the Kennedy family and a “radical left lunatic.” Kennedy has called Trump a “terrible human being” and “probably a sociopath.”
Will RFK’s endorsement get Trump a few votes? It might. But these two unprincipled freakos deserve each other, and if it ever looks like RFK might matter, all Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have to do is say something like that.
Harris’s campaign so far has been a work of genius on several levels, but maybe the most ingenious stroke of all has been the decision to mock Trump—to present him not only as someone to fear but also to ridicule. Harris perfectly encapsulated this two-pronged attack in these memorable lines from her acceptance speech: “In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences—but the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.… Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails.”
But the emphasis has been on ridicule (Tim Walz’s “weird” comment, Maryland Governor Wes Moore’s jab at Trump’s bone spurs, Barack Obama’s hilarious hand gesture when he was talking about Trump’s obsession with crowd size). It’s great on three levels. The first is that it must drive Trump nuts, and when he goes nuts, he says especially nutty things. Second, it’s arguably more persuasive to swing voters than calling Trump a fascist. Trump is a fascist, make no mistake. But he’s also ridiculous. Mocking him over his Hannibal Lecter obsession will stick in apolitical people’s minds far more strongly than warning about his plans to wreck the Justice Department, and in its way, it’s just as disqualifying. Do we really want a president who thinks an eater of human flesh, however fictional, was misunderstood?
And third and most of all: Sustained ridicule has the potential to reinforce the downward spiral Trump is now in. He probably likes it when we call him a fascist or authoritarian, because it expresses fear of him, and he aches to be feared. It acknowledges his power. This motivates him and makes him stronger.
Ridicule makes him weaker. Ridicule makes him small. Ridicule makes him desperate. He’ll try to respond with ridicule of his own, but he is not a clever man. He’s a stupid man. He has no wit. He has no sense of mischief. He doesn’t read. He doesn’t think beyond first reactions. These nicknames of his, which the press has made such a big deal of over the years—they’re nothing. They’re dick contests put into words. Little Marco, Sleepy Joe. There’s nothing remotely clever about any of them.
And now he reportedly thinks he’s come up with a great one in “Communist Kamala.” Well, it’s alliterative, I’ll give him that. But I doubt very much that it’ll play beyond the base. First of all, people under 40 barely know what a communist was. Even for older people who do know, is communism the specter it once was?
Brilliant! When he goes low, we make fun of him and call him weird. He becomes lethargic and fussy. He says weird things and makes weird decisions. That’s a daily event in Day Cares everywhere and evidently in not-so-posh Jersey Golf Clubs with Galas for Criminals. This is getting fun.
Embrace the JOY!!!!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
https://skydancingblog.com/2024/08/26/mostly-monday-reads-the-weirdo-trifecta/
#2024ABCPresidentialDebate #2024PresidentialCampaign #Repeat1968 #DonOldWeirdo #J6FelonsGala #JDVanceWeirdo #JohnBuss #KamalaHarrisForThePeople #RFKJrWeirdo
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“I know they wanted JFK Jr, but RFK Jr is a nice addition to the trump campaign.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
The Trumplican Party continues to devolve. I doubt my father would even recognize it if he were alive. The latest example is the addition of RFK Jr., a conspiracy nut with habits that the word eccentric can’t even begin to describe. This headline from The Wrap, written by Stephanie Kaloi, is something regular folks can’t wrap their head around. “RFK Jr.’s Daughter Says Dad Cut Off a Whale’s Head, Drove It 5 Hours Home. When they would accelerate, “whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet,” Kick Kennedy explained to Town & Country Magazine.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s daughter Kick Kennedy may or may not be spending time with Jennifer Lopez’s estranged husband Ben Affleck (as reported by Page Six), but she certainly spent time with Town & Country Magazine for a profile that has been resurfaced and made waves on social media, in which she shared an anecdote about her father and a dead whale that still checks out with what we know about the odd politician — especially when it comes to his love for dead animals.
When she was 6, her dad chopped off the head of a whale that washed up on Squaw Island in Hyannis Port. Due to RFK Jr.’s love of studying animal skulls and skeletons, they then strapped the dead whale’s head to the car and spent five hours driving it to their home.
“Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet,” Kennedy said. “We all had plastic bags over our heads with mouth holes cut out, and people on the highway were giving us the finger, but that was just normal day-to-day stuff for us.”
RFK Jr. made headlines earlier this month when he shared the story of taking a dead bear that he found as roadkill, intent on saving it to eat, before ultimately dumping it in a bizarre prank in New York City’s Central Park. On Friday, the independent candidate dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Donald Trump.
RFK Jr. approached the Harris/Walz campaign, but they didn’t answer his calls. That’s just some American common sense with nothing to do with political savvy. What possible benefit could his addition add to a campaign? But he’s just another (yawn) Maga Sideshow full of weirdos who generally wind up in trouble with the law, one way or another. His J6 “gala” next month will undoubtedly highlight the number of criminals that actually might actually violate his terms of release. Also, Rudy Guilliani will be there. He is definitely on the Trumplican weirdo and felon list. This information popped up on Alternet, and I just had to share it. “Trump’s ‘gala’ honoring ‘courage and sacrifice’ of J6 rioters may violate his terms of release” is written by Carl Gibson and answers my call out to all the parole officers in charge of these folks.
Convicted felon and 45th President of the United States Donald Trump is planning on hosting a gathering of other convicted felons next month. One legal expert is pointing out that the event may frustrate his efforts to remain a free man.
According to NJ.com, the ex-president is hosting a “J6 awards gala” at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club next month. Progressive group MeidasTouch reported that on September 5, Trump will be joined by former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and MAGA influencer Anthony Raimondi at the event, where he is expected to personally address participants in the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
…
However, if Trump follows through with the gala, it may complicate his own legal situation. According to attorney Tristan Snell – who prosecuted the former president over his sham Trump University while at the New York Attorney General’s office — New York state law would prohibit such an event given the expected guest list.
“Someone should alert Trump’s probation officer — because convicted felons are legally prohibited from associating with other felons,” he tweeted.
While Trump has been convicted by a jury on 34 class E felony counts, he won’t be sentenced until September 18. At that point, assuming the former president isn’t ordered to serve time behind bars (Judge Juan Merchan has the ability to sentence him to as much as 20 years in prison), he will then be issued a probation officer, who he will be required to check in with on a regular basis. This means the September 5 event will be legal, though it likely won’t help his case when he appears before Merchan less than two weeks later.
The former president narrowly dodged the ire of prosecutors at last month’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade pointed out that some of the convention’s attendees included indicted “fake electors,” and that Trump seen associating with them may have resulted in Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith and/or Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis petitioning the court to incarcerate Trump prior to his trial for consorting with criminal defendants.
DonOld is facing new lawsuits from musicians who don’t want their music to be associated with MAGA craziness. The first to take action was the son of Issa Hayes. This is reported in the Daily Beast by Clay Walker. “Isaac Hayes Estate Marks Victory in Suit Against Trump.” The candidate and the campaign continue to act like laws don’t matter.
The estate of the late soul singer Isaac Hayes is moving forward in their lawsuit against Donald Trump for using a song co-written by the artist. “The Federal Court has granted our request for an Emergency Hearing to secure injunctive relief,” the late singer’s son, Isaac Hayes III, wrote on X Friday. According to Hayes III, Trump himself will have to appear in court in September. The lawsuit was originally filed earlier this month and sought $3 million for the former president’s campaign’s unauthorized use of “Hold On, I’m Coming,” a 1960s song originally performed by duo Sam & Dave, more than 100 times. Prior to the filing, the Trump campaign was asked to discontinue the use of the song, but things came to a head on August 10, the anniversary of the singer’s 2008 death, when Trump used it again at a Montana rally. “Donald Trump represents the worst in integrity and class with his disrespect and sexual abuse of Women and racist rhetoric. We will now deal with this very swiftly,” Hayes III wrote on X.
Next up in court is the band Foo Fighters. This is from The Hill. “Trump campaign disputes Foo Fighters claim song use was unauthorized.” Laura Sforza writes on the Foo Fight.
A spokesperson for the Foo Fighters said in a statement to The Hill late Sunday the band did not give permission to the Trump campaign to use the song at a Friday campaign rally in Arizona. The spokesperson said any royalties the band earns off the song would be donated to Vice President Harris’s campaign.“Foo Fighters were not asked permission, and if they were they would not have granted it,” the spokesperson said.
However, the Trump campaign said it had permission to play the song.
“We have a license to play the song,” Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said in an email to The Hill.
He also took to the social platform X to dispute the claim.
“It’s Times Like These facts matter, don’t be a Pretender. @foofighters,” he wrote, referring to two other songs by the band.
“My Hero” could be heard playing at Trump’s rally in Glendale on Friday as the former president introduced former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who suspended his campaign earlier in the day and threw his support behind Trump.
And there’s more in the Weirdos and Felons news. We have this from the LGBTQ Nation. Seriously, we’ve gone way past the deplorable basket at this point. “MAGA ex-GOP party chair calls gay lawmaker a “f*g” on social media. She called Pete Buttigieg a “weak little girl” in 2022, before she got indicted.” This is written by Alex Bollinger.
A former high-ranking state Republican official who has been indicted in an alleged conspiracy to steal the 2020 election used an anti-gay slur to describe a gay Democratic lawmaker.
Meshawn Maddock used to be the head of the Michigan Republican Party until shortly after she was charged in connection to a scheme to make Michigan’s votes go to Donald Trump in 2020 instead of President Joe Biden, who won the state. Now she is now using slurs on social media.
She was responding to a post on X from Michigan state Rep. Jason Morgan (D), who is an out gay lawmaker and the vice chair of the state’s Democratic Party. Morgan posted a picture of the Michigan congressional delegation at the DNC last Friday, where they were smiling and holding American flags.
“F*gs and hags,” Maddock responded. X responded by reducing the visibility of her post due to a potential violation of the platform’s Hateful Conduct policy. However, the post has not been deleted by the platform.
Stay Classy you god-fearing Christians you! I have to agree with this Op-Ed headline at The Hill. “The right’s killjoy politics only fuel Harris’s momentum.” It’s written by Svante Myrick.
It’s been a couple of days since I flew home after attending the Democratic National Convention. And at the risk of sounding corny, I think I could have done it without the plane. To attend that convention was to experience a sense of joy so powerful that it made you feel like you had wings.
My organization, People for the American Way, was very excited to bring to the convention posters designed especially for us by the artist Victoria Cassinova, which we felt represented the pride and hopefulness of this campaign.
The posters featured a portrait of Harris with the single word: “Freedom.”
We had fun posting them all over the city. We were thrilled to see lots of residents and convention-goers admiring them and taking pictures and selfies. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) shared hers on Instagram.
Then, on the third night of the convention, something sad happened. A group calling itself Artists for Kennedy and Trump defaced a wall of these Harris portraits.
Capturing themselves on video, the vandals spray-painted crimson streaks across the images, focusing on the portrait’s face and eyes. They used words like “war” to describe what they were doing.
It was an ugly but galvanizing reminder of what we’re up against in this race.
I — we — have had enough of creepy authoritarians trying to censor art, ban books and steal our joy.
Because while art does give joy, it also gives strength. It has always been a tool to challenge injustice and enforced conformity, to resist oppression and authoritarianism. That’s why dictators down through history have suppressed and banned art and even murdered artists.
It’s why artists and creators face an enormous threat today, not just from vandals roaming the streets of Chicago but from the deadly serious, powerful operatives behind Project 2025, who are intent on stigmatizing and suppressing vast numbers of artworks by calling them “pornography.”
I remember being shocked and stunned by Trump stalking Hillary on the debate stage and the lack of response to it by the debate’s moderators. Now I think we know exactly how low they go, and as far as I can tell, there is no bottom. If they stage an insurrection and try to nullify votes, they’ll do anything, and we should all be prepared. So, the Harris/DonOld debate with ABC is now in jeopardy. I bet we all had this on our bingo card. This is from Marianne Levine, who is writing for the Washington Post. “Trump suggests he might skip ABC debate with Harris. The Sept. 10 debate with ABC is the only one both campaigns have agreed to.”
Former president Donald Trump suggested Sunday evening that he might skip a Sept. 10 ABC News debate with Vice President Kamala Harris (D), after agreeing earlier this month to participate.
“I watched ABC FAKE NEWS this morning, both lightweight reporter Jonathan Carl’s (K?) ridiculous and biased interview of Tom Cotton (who was fantastic!), and their so-called Panel of Trump Haters, and I ask, why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network?” Trump asked in a social media post Sunday evening.
During a campaign stop Monday after visiting Arlington National Cemetery, Trump reiterated his criticism of ABC News, calling it “the single worst network for unfairness” and saying that ABC “really should be shut out.”
The Sept. 10 debate is the only one that both campaigns have officially committed to. Trump’s renewed questioning of the ABC News debate comes as Harris has increased her lead in national polls and is gaining ground in key swing states. As of Sunday, The Washington Post polling average has the vice president leading in Wisconsin by three percentage points, in Pennsylvania by two points and in Michigan by less than one point. Trump continues to lead in four Sun Belt swing states, but Harris has significantly narrowed the gap.
The latest rift between the campaigns is about the terms and conditions about how the debate would work. Brian Fallon, the Harris campaign’s senior adviser for communications, said in a statement that the campaign has told ABC and other networks that “both candidates’ microphones should be live throughout the full broadcast.”
“Our understanding is that Trump’s handlers prefer the muted microphone because they don’t think their candidate can act presidential for 90 minutes on his own,” Fallon said.
When asked by a reporter Monday about whether he wanted his microphone muted, Trump replied, “Doesn’t matter to me, I’d rather have it probably on.”
Jason Miller, senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said the campaign agreed to the “the ABC debate under the exact same terms as the CNN debate,” referring to a June 27 debate between Trump and President Joe Biden, before Biden ended his reelection campaign.
Oh, I officially quit the New York Times a while ago. I would like to say that seeing the headline on a guest’s op-ed today reinforced my excellent decision. Here’s a brief statement: I agree with her. I can’t say
more because I refuse to read it. Rich Lowry can bite his crank for writing “Trump Can Win on Character.” RIFF NYT. Rest in Fuckery and Failure.
Now, back to the normal news. This is from Salon’s Charles R. Davis. As the Vice President said, she’s been a prosecutor and knows his type. “”He’s now terrified of debating her”: Trump’s debate flip-flop is a sign Harris has him figured out. The former president suggested Sunday that he would not attend his scheduled Sept. 10 debate with Kamala Harris.”
Donald Trump is not feeling great. This year alone he’s been found liable by a jury for sexual assault, convicted by another jury on 34 felony counts of fraud, and shot at by a young registered Republican at a campaign rally, the one previously safe space where the president could comfortably rant and complain to certain applause. Then he had to spend a week at home watching Democrats pull off their convention without a hitch, just a month after an unprecedented switch at the top of the ticket.
The former president’s own campaign is publicly predicting that Vice President Kamala Harris will now surge in the polls (after already leading, nationally, by an average of about 3.6%). In a similar situation, the current president and his team decided it was time to debate, saying a televised contest would “reset” the race; the subsequent performance cost Joe Biden the Democratic nomination.
Perhaps that’s why Trump himself is doubting his own commitments.
“Why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network?” Trump posted on social media Sunday night, complaining about an ABC News interview with Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and panel discussion earlier that day, saying the former was “biased” and the latter full of “Trump Haters.” The Republican nominee filled the rest of his post with tedious name calling — “Crooked,” “Marxist” — and attacks on the insufficiently fawning journalists of ABC.
“They’ve got a lot o questions to answer!!!” Trump posted just after 10 p.m. Eastern. “Why did Harris turn down Fox, NBC, CBS, and even CNN? Stay tuned!!!”
The former president already agreed to debate Harris on Sept. 10, which was originally slated to be the second of two televised confrontations with Biden. He did so after previously trying to pull out of the event when Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee, initially claiming the debate was off because Biden was out of the race and then trying to move it to the friendlier waters of Fox News, a media platform that was forced to pay out $787 million after admitting that it cynically aired what its knew to be MAGA lies about the 2020 election.
This last read is from the New Republic‘s Michael Tomasky. “Finally, the Democrats Have Found Trump’s Achilles’ Heel: Ridicule Him. Kamala Harris gets it. Yes, we should fear Trump—but we should also mock him mercilessly because it drives him nuts.”
Donald Trump is in free fall. Read this description from Sunday’s Washington Post of how the GOP nominee spent last week: “[A]ides did not want a situation where he was watching the convention every night, getting angry, and then just golfing all day and stewing, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private interactions. Trump also had grown annoyed with the news coverage that depicted him as not working as hard as his opponent, one person who talked to him said.”
If you didn’t know that the article was about Trump and you just read it cold without knowledge of the context, you might think it was a description of parents trying to figure out how to handle an ungovernable four-year-old. So they convinced Trump to get out of Bedminster and hit the road, trading suck-ups with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In the past, Trump has called Kennedy the “dumbest member” of the Kennedy family and a “radical left lunatic.” Kennedy has called Trump a “terrible human being” and “probably a sociopath.”
Will RFK’s endorsement get Trump a few votes? It might. But these two unprincipled freakos deserve each other, and if it ever looks like RFK might matter, all Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have to do is say something like that.
Harris’s campaign so far has been a work of genius on several levels, but maybe the most ingenious stroke of all has been the decision to mock Trump—to present him not only as someone to fear but also to ridicule. Harris perfectly encapsulated this two-pronged attack in these memorable lines from her acceptance speech: “In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences—but the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.… Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails.”
But the emphasis has been on ridicule (Tim Walz’s “weird” comment, Maryland Governor Wes Moore’s jab at Trump’s bone spurs, Barack Obama’s hilarious hand gesture when he was talking about Trump’s obsession with crowd size). It’s great on three levels. The first is that it must drive Trump nuts, and when he goes nuts, he says especially nutty things. Second, it’s arguably more persuasive to swing voters than calling Trump a fascist. Trump is a fascist, make no mistake. But he’s also ridiculous. Mocking him over his Hannibal Lecter obsession will stick in apolitical people’s minds far more strongly than warning about his plans to wreck the Justice Department, and in its way, it’s just as disqualifying. Do we really want a president who thinks an eater of human flesh, however fictional, was misunderstood?
And third and most of all: Sustained ridicule has the potential to reinforce the downward spiral Trump is now in. He probably likes it when we call him a fascist or authoritarian, because it expresses fear of him, and he aches to be feared. It acknowledges his power. This motivates him and makes him stronger.
Ridicule makes him weaker. Ridicule makes him small. Ridicule makes him desperate. He’ll try to respond with ridicule of his own, but he is not a clever man. He’s a stupid man. He has no wit. He has no sense of mischief. He doesn’t read. He doesn’t think beyond first reactions. These nicknames of his, which the press has made such a big deal of over the years—they’re nothing. They’re dick contests put into words. Little Marco, Sleepy Joe. There’s nothing remotely clever about any of them.
And now he reportedly thinks he’s come up with a great one in “Communist Kamala.” Well, it’s alliterative, I’ll give him that. But I doubt very much that it’ll play beyond the base. First of all, people under 40 barely know what a communist was. Even for older people who do know, is communism the specter it once was?
Brilliant! When he goes low, we make fun of him and call him weird. He becomes lethargic and fussy. He says weird things and makes weird decisions. That’s a daily event in Day Cares everywhere and evidently in not-so-posh Jersey Golf Clubs with Galas for Criminals. This is getting fun.
Embrace the JOY!!!!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
https://skydancingblog.com/2024/08/26/mostly-monday-reads-the-weirdo-trifecta/
#2024ABCPresidentialDebate #2024PresidentialCampaign #Repeat1968 #DonOldWeirdo #J6FelonsGala #JDVanceWeirdo #JohnBuss #KamalaHarrisForThePeople #RFKJrWeirdo
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“I know they wanted JFK Jr, but RFK Jr is a nice addition to the trump campaign.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
The Trumplican Party continues to devolve. I doubt my father would even recognize it if he were alive. The latest example is the addition of RFK Jr., a conspiracy nut with habits that the word eccentric can’t even begin to describe. This headline from The Wrap, written by Stephanie Kaloi, is something regular folks can’t wrap their head around. “RFK Jr.’s Daughter Says Dad Cut Off a Whale’s Head, Drove It 5 Hours Home. When they would accelerate, “whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet,” Kick Kennedy explained to Town & Country Magazine.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s daughter Kick Kennedy may or may not be spending time with Jennifer Lopez’s estranged husband Ben Affleck (as reported by Page Six), but she certainly spent time with Town & Country Magazine for a profile that has been resurfaced and made waves on social media, in which she shared an anecdote about her father and a dead whale that still checks out with what we know about the odd politician — especially when it comes to his love for dead animals.
When she was 6, her dad chopped off the head of a whale that washed up on Squaw Island in Hyannis Port. Due to RFK Jr.’s love of studying animal skulls and skeletons, they then strapped the dead whale’s head to the car and spent five hours driving it to their home.
“Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet,” Kennedy said. “We all had plastic bags over our heads with mouth holes cut out, and people on the highway were giving us the finger, but that was just normal day-to-day stuff for us.”
RFK Jr. made headlines earlier this month when he shared the story of taking a dead bear that he found as roadkill, intent on saving it to eat, before ultimately dumping it in a bizarre prank in New York City’s Central Park. On Friday, the independent candidate dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Donald Trump.
RFK Jr. approached the Harris/Walz campaign, but they didn’t answer his calls. That’s just some American common sense with nothing to do with political savvy. What possible benefit could his addition add to a campaign? But he’s just another (yawn) Maga Sideshow full of weirdos who generally wind up in trouble with the law, one way or another. His J6 “gala” next month will undoubtedly highlight the number of criminals that actually might actually violate his terms of release. Also, Rudy Guilliani will be there. He is definitely on the Trumplican weirdo and felon list. This information popped up on Alternet, and I just had to share it. “Trump’s ‘gala’ honoring ‘courage and sacrifice’ of J6 rioters may violate his terms of release” is written by Carl Gibson and answers my call out to all the parole officers in charge of these folks.
Convicted felon and 45th President of the United States Donald Trump is planning on hosting a gathering of other convicted felons next month. One legal expert is pointing out that the event may frustrate his efforts to remain a free man.
According to NJ.com, the ex-president is hosting a “J6 awards gala” at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club next month. Progressive group MeidasTouch reported that on September 5, Trump will be joined by former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and MAGA influencer Anthony Raimondi at the event, where he is expected to personally address participants in the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
…
However, if Trump follows through with the gala, it may complicate his own legal situation. According to attorney Tristan Snell – who prosecuted the former president over his sham Trump University while at the New York Attorney General’s office — New York state law would prohibit such an event given the expected guest list.
“Someone should alert Trump’s probation officer — because convicted felons are legally prohibited from associating with other felons,” he tweeted.
While Trump has been convicted by a jury on 34 class E felony counts, he won’t be sentenced until September 18. At that point, assuming the former president isn’t ordered to serve time behind bars (Judge Juan Merchan has the ability to sentence him to as much as 20 years in prison), he will then be issued a probation officer, who he will be required to check in with on a regular basis. This means the September 5 event will be legal, though it likely won’t help his case when he appears before Merchan less than two weeks later.
The former president narrowly dodged the ire of prosecutors at last month’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade pointed out that some of the convention’s attendees included indicted “fake electors,” and that Trump seen associating with them may have resulted in Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith and/or Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis petitioning the court to incarcerate Trump prior to his trial for consorting with criminal defendants.
DonOld is facing new lawsuits from musicians who don’t want their music to be associated with MAGA craziness. The first to take action was the son of Issa Hayes. This is reported in the Daily Beast by Clay Walker. “Isaac Hayes Estate Marks Victory in Suit Against Trump.” The candidate and the campaign continue to act like laws don’t matter.
The estate of the late soul singer Isaac Hayes is moving forward in their lawsuit against Donald Trump for using a song co-written by the artist. “The Federal Court has granted our request for an Emergency Hearing to secure injunctive relief,” the late singer’s son, Isaac Hayes III, wrote on X Friday. According to Hayes III, Trump himself will have to appear in court in September. The lawsuit was originally filed earlier this month and sought $3 million for the former president’s campaign’s unauthorized use of “Hold On, I’m Coming,” a 1960s song originally performed by duo Sam & Dave, more than 100 times. Prior to the filing, the Trump campaign was asked to discontinue the use of the song, but things came to a head on August 10, the anniversary of the singer’s 2008 death, when Trump used it again at a Montana rally. “Donald Trump represents the worst in integrity and class with his disrespect and sexual abuse of Women and racist rhetoric. We will now deal with this very swiftly,” Hayes III wrote on X.
Next up in court is the band Foo Fighters. This is from The Hill. “Trump campaign disputes Foo Fighters claim song use was unauthorized.” Laura Sforza writes on the Foo Fight.
A spokesperson for the Foo Fighters said in a statement to The Hill late Sunday the band did not give permission to the Trump campaign to use the song at a Friday campaign rally in Arizona. The spokesperson said any royalties the band earns off the song would be donated to Vice President Harris’s campaign.“Foo Fighters were not asked permission, and if they were they would not have granted it,” the spokesperson said.
However, the Trump campaign said it had permission to play the song.
“We have a license to play the song,” Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said in an email to The Hill.
He also took to the social platform X to dispute the claim.
“It’s Times Like These facts matter, don’t be a Pretender. @foofighters,” he wrote, referring to two other songs by the band.
“My Hero” could be heard playing at Trump’s rally in Glendale on Friday as the former president introduced former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who suspended his campaign earlier in the day and threw his support behind Trump.
And there’s more in the Weirdos and Felons news. We have this from the LGBTQ Nation. Seriously, we’ve gone way past the deplorable basket at this point. “MAGA ex-GOP party chair calls gay lawmaker a “f*g” on social media. She called Pete Buttigieg a “weak little girl” in 2022, before she got indicted.” This is written by Alex Bollinger.
A former high-ranking state Republican official who has been indicted in an alleged conspiracy to steal the 2020 election used an anti-gay slur to describe a gay Democratic lawmaker.
Meshawn Maddock used to be the head of the Michigan Republican Party until shortly after she was charged in connection to a scheme to make Michigan’s votes go to Donald Trump in 2020 instead of President Joe Biden, who won the state. Now she is now using slurs on social media.
She was responding to a post on X from Michigan state Rep. Jason Morgan (D), who is an out gay lawmaker and the vice chair of the state’s Democratic Party. Morgan posted a picture of the Michigan congressional delegation at the DNC last Friday, where they were smiling and holding American flags.
“F*gs and hags,” Maddock responded. X responded by reducing the visibility of her post due to a potential violation of the platform’s Hateful Conduct policy. However, the post has not been deleted by the platform.
Stay Classy you god-fearing Christians you! I have to agree with this Op-Ed headline at The Hill. “The right’s killjoy politics only fuel Harris’s momentum.” It’s written by Svante Myrick.
It’s been a couple of days since I flew home after attending the Democratic National Convention. And at the risk of sounding corny, I think I could have done it without the plane. To attend that convention was to experience a sense of joy so powerful that it made you feel like you had wings.
My organization, People for the American Way, was very excited to bring to the convention posters designed especially for us by the artist Victoria Cassinova, which we felt represented the pride and hopefulness of this campaign.
The posters featured a portrait of Harris with the single word: “Freedom.”
We had fun posting them all over the city. We were thrilled to see lots of residents and convention-goers admiring them and taking pictures and selfies. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) shared hers on Instagram.
Then, on the third night of the convention, something sad happened. A group calling itself Artists for Kennedy and Trump defaced a wall of these Harris portraits.
Capturing themselves on video, the vandals spray-painted crimson streaks across the images, focusing on the portrait’s face and eyes. They used words like “war” to describe what they were doing.
It was an ugly but galvanizing reminder of what we’re up against in this race.
I — we — have had enough of creepy authoritarians trying to censor art, ban books and steal our joy.
Because while art does give joy, it also gives strength. It has always been a tool to challenge injustice and enforced conformity, to resist oppression and authoritarianism. That’s why dictators down through history have suppressed and banned art and even murdered artists.
It’s why artists and creators face an enormous threat today, not just from vandals roaming the streets of Chicago but from the deadly serious, powerful operatives behind Project 2025, who are intent on stigmatizing and suppressing vast numbers of artworks by calling them “pornography.”
I remember being shocked and stunned by Trump stalking Hillary on the debate stage and the lack of response to it by the debate’s moderators. Now I think we know exactly how low they go, and as far as I can tell, there is no bottom. If they stage an insurrection and try to nullify votes, they’ll do anything, and we should all be prepared. So, the Harris/DonOld debate with ABC is now in jeopardy. I bet we all had this on our bingo card. This is from Marianne Levine, who is writing for the Washington Post. “Trump suggests he might skip ABC debate with Harris. The Sept. 10 debate with ABC is the only one both campaigns have agreed to.”
Former president Donald Trump suggested Sunday evening that he might skip a Sept. 10 ABC News debate with Vice President Kamala Harris (D), after agreeing earlier this month to participate.
“I watched ABC FAKE NEWS this morning, both lightweight reporter Jonathan Carl’s (K?) ridiculous and biased interview of Tom Cotton (who was fantastic!), and their so-called Panel of Trump Haters, and I ask, why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network?” Trump asked in a social media post Sunday evening.
During a campaign stop Monday after visiting Arlington National Cemetery, Trump reiterated his criticism of ABC News, calling it “the single worst network for unfairness” and saying that ABC “really should be shut out.”
The Sept. 10 debate is the only one that both campaigns have officially committed to. Trump’s renewed questioning of the ABC News debate comes as Harris has increased her lead in national polls and is gaining ground in key swing states. As of Sunday, The Washington Post polling average has the vice president leading in Wisconsin by three percentage points, in Pennsylvania by two points and in Michigan by less than one point. Trump continues to lead in four Sun Belt swing states, but Harris has significantly narrowed the gap.
The latest rift between the campaigns is about the terms and conditions about how the debate would work. Brian Fallon, the Harris campaign’s senior adviser for communications, said in a statement that the campaign has told ABC and other networks that “both candidates’ microphones should be live throughout the full broadcast.”
“Our understanding is that Trump’s handlers prefer the muted microphone because they don’t think their candidate can act presidential for 90 minutes on his own,” Fallon said.
When asked by a reporter Monday about whether he wanted his microphone muted, Trump replied, “Doesn’t matter to me, I’d rather have it probably on.”
Jason Miller, senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said the campaign agreed to the “the ABC debate under the exact same terms as the CNN debate,” referring to a June 27 debate between Trump and President Joe Biden, before Biden ended his reelection campaign.
Oh, I officially quit the New York Times a while ago. I would like to say that seeing the headline on a guest’s op-ed today reinforced my excellent decision. Here’s a brief statement: I agree with her. I can’t say
more because I refuse to read it. Rich Lowry can bite his crank for writing “Trump Can Win on Character.” RIFF NYT. Rest in Fuckery and Failure.
Now, back to the normal news. This is from Salon’s Charles R. Davis. As the Vice President said, she’s been a prosecutor and knows his type. “”He’s now terrified of debating her”: Trump’s debate flip-flop is a sign Harris has him figured out. The former president suggested Sunday that he would not attend his scheduled Sept. 10 debate with Kamala Harris.”
Donald Trump is not feeling great. This year alone he’s been found liable by a jury for sexual assault, convicted by another jury on 34 felony counts of fraud, and shot at by a young registered Republican at a campaign rally, the one previously safe space where the president could comfortably rant and complain to certain applause. Then he had to spend a week at home watching Democrats pull off their convention without a hitch, just a month after an unprecedented switch at the top of the ticket.
The former president’s own campaign is publicly predicting that Vice President Kamala Harris will now surge in the polls (after already leading, nationally, by an average of about 3.6%). In a similar situation, the current president and his team decided it was time to debate, saying a televised contest would “reset” the race; the subsequent performance cost Joe Biden the Democratic nomination.
Perhaps that’s why Trump himself is doubting his own commitments.
“Why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network?” Trump posted on social media Sunday night, complaining about an ABC News interview with Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and panel discussion earlier that day, saying the former was “biased” and the latter full of “Trump Haters.” The Republican nominee filled the rest of his post with tedious name calling — “Crooked,” “Marxist” — and attacks on the insufficiently fawning journalists of ABC.
“They’ve got a lot o questions to answer!!!” Trump posted just after 10 p.m. Eastern. “Why did Harris turn down Fox, NBC, CBS, and even CNN? Stay tuned!!!”
The former president already agreed to debate Harris on Sept. 10, which was originally slated to be the second of two televised confrontations with Biden. He did so after previously trying to pull out of the event when Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee, initially claiming the debate was off because Biden was out of the race and then trying to move it to the friendlier waters of Fox News, a media platform that was forced to pay out $787 million after admitting that it cynically aired what its knew to be MAGA lies about the 2020 election.
This last read is from the New Republic‘s Michael Tomasky. “Finally, the Democrats Have Found Trump’s Achilles’ Heel: Ridicule Him. Kamala Harris gets it. Yes, we should fear Trump—but we should also mock him mercilessly because it drives him nuts.”
Donald Trump is in free fall. Read this description from Sunday’s Washington Post of how the GOP nominee spent last week: “[A]ides did not want a situation where he was watching the convention every night, getting angry, and then just golfing all day and stewing, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private interactions. Trump also had grown annoyed with the news coverage that depicted him as not working as hard as his opponent, one person who talked to him said.”
If you didn’t know that the article was about Trump and you just read it cold without knowledge of the context, you might think it was a description of parents trying to figure out how to handle an ungovernable four-year-old. So they convinced Trump to get out of Bedminster and hit the road, trading suck-ups with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In the past, Trump has called Kennedy the “dumbest member” of the Kennedy family and a “radical left lunatic.” Kennedy has called Trump a “terrible human being” and “probably a sociopath.”
Will RFK’s endorsement get Trump a few votes? It might. But these two unprincipled freakos deserve each other, and if it ever looks like RFK might matter, all Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have to do is say something like that.
Harris’s campaign so far has been a work of genius on several levels, but maybe the most ingenious stroke of all has been the decision to mock Trump—to present him not only as someone to fear but also to ridicule. Harris perfectly encapsulated this two-pronged attack in these memorable lines from her acceptance speech: “In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences—but the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.… Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails.”
But the emphasis has been on ridicule (Tim Walz’s “weird” comment, Maryland Governor Wes Moore’s jab at Trump’s bone spurs, Barack Obama’s hilarious hand gesture when he was talking about Trump’s obsession with crowd size). It’s great on three levels. The first is that it must drive Trump nuts, and when he goes nuts, he says especially nutty things. Second, it’s arguably more persuasive to swing voters than calling Trump a fascist. Trump is a fascist, make no mistake. But he’s also ridiculous. Mocking him over his Hannibal Lecter obsession will stick in apolitical people’s minds far more strongly than warning about his plans to wreck the Justice Department, and in its way, it’s just as disqualifying. Do we really want a president who thinks an eater of human flesh, however fictional, was misunderstood?
And third and most of all: Sustained ridicule has the potential to reinforce the downward spiral Trump is now in. He probably likes it when we call him a fascist or authoritarian, because it expresses fear of him, and he aches to be feared. It acknowledges his power. This motivates him and makes him stronger.
Ridicule makes him weaker. Ridicule makes him small. Ridicule makes him desperate. He’ll try to respond with ridicule of his own, but he is not a clever man. He’s a stupid man. He has no wit. He has no sense of mischief. He doesn’t read. He doesn’t think beyond first reactions. These nicknames of his, which the press has made such a big deal of over the years—they’re nothing. They’re dick contests put into words. Little Marco, Sleepy Joe. There’s nothing remotely clever about any of them.
And now he reportedly thinks he’s come up with a great one in “Communist Kamala.” Well, it’s alliterative, I’ll give him that. But I doubt very much that it’ll play beyond the base. First of all, people under 40 barely know what a communist was. Even for older people who do know, is communism the specter it once was?
Brilliant! When he goes low, we make fun of him and call him weird. He becomes lethargic and fussy. He says weird things and makes weird decisions. That’s a daily event in Day Cares everywhere and evidently in not-so-posh Jersey Golf Clubs with Galas for Criminals. This is getting fun.
Embrace the JOY!!!!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
https://skydancingblog.com/2024/08/26/mostly-monday-reads-the-weirdo-trifecta/
#2024ABCPresidentialDebate #2024PresidentialCampaign #Repeat1968 #DonOldWeirdo #J6FelonsGala #JDVanceWeirdo #JohnBuss #KamalaHarrisForThePeople #RFKJrWeirdo
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“Come on, Mr. President. Just do it!” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
The DNC begins today in Chicago. It’s a busy schedule of what’s ahead for the future, but tonight’s focus will be on President Joe Biden’s long record of public service. Here’s the line-up of events and speakers.
This is from Axios. “DNC lineup: Who’s speaking and what to expect.”
The Democratic National Convention will open in Chicago on Monday, with President Biden speaking in prime time as he passes the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris.
Driving the news: Convention organizers released night-by-night themes and speaker details on Sunday morning. One speaker who’s not on the official agenda but Axios has confirmed will take the stage on Tuesday: former First Lady Michelle Obama.
- Monday, “For the People”: Biden and Dr. Jill Biden speak, along with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a welcome from Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.
- Tuesday, “A Bold Vision for America’s Future”: Former President Obama plus second gentleman Doug Emhoff, with a welcome from Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.
- Wednesday, “A Fight for Our Freedoms”: Vice presidential nominee Tim Walz delivers his acceptance speech, preceded by former President Clinton, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (per CNN).
- Thursday, “For Our Future”: Harris accepts the convention’s nomination for president.
Other speakers include Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
- Former President Carter’s grandson, Jason Carter, is expected to speak on behalf of his grandfather, who has said he hopes to stay alive long enough to vote for Harris.
Sneak peek: The stairs at the delegate entrance will say “History Is In Your Hands” — a quote from Biden’s Oval Office address on July 24.
- As delegates arrive on Monday ahead of Biden’s speech, digital signage in the United Center will say: “History is in your hands” and “Spread the faith.”
Robert Reich sums up what I feel about Biden’s four years. I was beginning my career as an economist when Ronald Reagan took over. I was working in a highly regulated banking industry about to be turned loose. Eventually, my first home had a fixed rate of 16.7%, which my employment turned into 12%. That’s just one of the nightmare stories I have to tell students.
I attended schools that produced ‘freshwater’ economists, which is a term that basically describes us as not coming from either coast, likely public university educated, and by no means radical. During that time, I lived through two recessions that took out my nascent savings and investment portfolio. I realized that the radical policy was not coming from the Democratic Party.
By the time I found out about the Iran-Contra affair, I was ready to vote for Bill Clinton. I didn’t lose much in the “Great Recession” because I knew another Republican meant another economic roller-coaster ride. The last Reagan recession took out most of my parents’ retirement savings, but they didn’t want to discuss why. If you know how to use derivatives, and that’s where hedge fund managers come in, you can make money in any economy. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been very accessible to regular folks until recently.
My oldest Kansas City Cousin and her husband graduated from Ivy League Schools, Princeton and Vassar. One time, when I was in high school, they drove to buy a car from Dad’s Ford Dealership in Iowa. My dad gave them the usual family price. I was their flower girl at their wedding and spent much of my young life with my Kansas City family. I adored them.
Her lawyer husband told me that the only way to grow an economy was to give massive tax cuts to the wealthy to start businesses, which would create jobs. I can’t remember exactly what started that conversation. Although, I must have said something outside of the orthodox Republican Policy Bible at the time. It sounded logical but seemed too good to be true when I started thinking about it. I’ve never gotten the chance to tell him that it doesn’t work, will never work, and actually works worse than anyone ever thought now that I’ve got my doctorate in Financial Economics, worked at the Fed, and taught and researched economics and finance since 1980. I now have the chops and the proof of why all that does is create chaos in the overall economy and siphon public funds to people who don’t need any more wealth.
I’m not sure why people fondly remember the Reagan years, but they were not economic good times. Also, I found out the Republicans will run up huge deficits as long as the rich or defense contractors get the results of whatever happened to create them. Trickle-down economics is even more of a failure with all the incentives now of not taxing capital gains and giving tax breaks for basically stock market gambling. The rich do not put their gains into actual industry anymore. They keep rolling it into the stock market, and then they’re great consumers of things like gigantic German Yachts and all kinds of goodies that mess up our trade balance. I voted for Bill Clinton because his policy came from economists and worked. Reagan was the one who put taxes on tips, unemployment, and Social Security. He had to make huge tax increases to compensate for the huge deficit with the 1981 tax cuts. So, from 1982 to 1993, there were huge tax cuts, including some from “Read My Lips” by HW Bush. Weirdly, undoing the taxes on tips and Social Security that Trump is high on is basically removing Reagan’s economic legacy.
But enough of that rant … on to the Reich commentary.
Tonight’s opening of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago will be an opportunity for the Democratic Party and the nation to take stock of Joe Biden’s term of office and thank him for his service.
He still has five months to go as president, of course, but the baton has been passed.
Biden’s singular achievement has been to change the economic paradigm that reigned since Reagan and return to one that dominated public life between 1933 and 1980 — and is far superior to the one that has prevailed since.
Biden’s democratic capitalism is neither socialism nor “big government.” It is, rather, a return to an era when government organized the market for the greater good.
The Great Crash of 1929 followed by the Great Depression taught the nation a crucial lesson that we forgot after Reagan’s presidency: markets are human creations. The economy that collapsed in 1929 was the consequence of allowing nearly unlimited borrowing, encouraging people to gamble on Wall Street, and permitting the Street to take huge risks with other people’s money.
Franklin D. Roosevelt and his administration reversed this. They stopped the looting of America. They also gave Americans a modicum of economic security. During World War II, they put almost every American to work.
Subsequent Democratic and Republican administrations enlarged and extended democratic capitalism. Wall Street was regulated, as were television networks, airlines, railroads, and other common carriers. CEO pay was modest. Taxes on the highest earners financed public investments in infrastructure (such as the national highway system) and higher education.
America’s postwar industrial policy spurred innovation. The Department of Defense and its Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration developed satellite communications, container ships, and the internet. The National Institutes of Health did trailblazing basic research in biochemistry, DNA, and infectious diseases.
Public spending rose during economic downturns to encourage hiring. Antitrust enforcers broke up AT&T and other monopolies. Small businesses were protected from giant chain stores. Labor unions thrived. By the 1960s, a third of all private-sector workers were unionized. Large corporations sought to be responsive to all their stakeholders.
But then America took a giant U-turn. The OPEC oil embargo of the 1970s brought double-digit inflation followed by Fed Chair Paul Volcker’s effort to “break the back” of it by raising interest rates so high that the economy fell into deep recession.
All of which prepared the ground for Reagan’s war on democratic capitalism. From 1981 onward, a new bipartisan orthodoxy emerged that markets functioned well only if the government got out of the way.
The goal of economic policy thereby shifted from the common good to economic growth, even though Americans already well-off gained most from that growth. And the means shifted from public oversight of the market to deregulation, free trade, privatization, “trickle-down” tax cuts, and deficit reduction — all of which helped the monied interests make even more money.
If you notice the last two Republican administrations with the emphasis on the last one, there were very few real economists who advised the President. Trump only had one with the creds but was considered insane by his peers because he fitted his papers to a political take rather than data analysis and the usual scientific method.
No matter what party you’re in, and I know Bernanke, Mankiw, Greenspan, and Krugman feel this way, the facts are the facts. Concentrating fiscal policy on Main Street and the middle and working classes is the best use of tax dollars to keep the engine of economic growth steadily growing. Biden’s stewardship of the economy has proved this. He also provided input on the Obama administration’s cleanup of the huge mess called “The Great Recession,” which was completely on the back of bad policy and lack of oversight regarding the financial economy. I am a Financial Economist. We know enough to know that these things should not happen if it wasn’t the habit of Pols to go after Dark Money and then vote to install bad policy into law. It’s also disheartening to see it on the Supreme Court, where Dark Money has completely corrupted at least two Judges.
And the crazy thing is we’re back to being called Communists again which, like capitalism, is a Marxist theoretical abstract that cannot work, has never worked, and has never actually been implemented anywhere. We live in mixed market economies, and their characteristics determine what kind of oversight they require. You cannot compare a market where there are only two providers, like airplane manufacturing and Boeing and Airbus, with the market for apples. There have never been any economies where the government owns all the production factors. The Soviet Style system was called a command economy. Even the Chinese have given up on the planned command economy and the Cubans have many markets based on private ownership. It’s not just the major ones. I can’t believe we’re back to red-baiting.
The most interesting trivia I have for you today is that Donald J. Harris, Kamala’s father, is a bona fide Emeritus Economics Professor at Stanford. His research is primarily in developing economies. He published a book in 1978, “Capital Accumulation and Income Distribution,” which relies heavily on the new statistical methods that were developing at the time and takes the field from political philosophy to using scientific methods and data to see what works! That’s my kind of pragmatism. You wonder what kind of talk the Harris family had at the dinner table.
So, while this shindig in Chicago gets going, watch the week for Trump’s further insane adventures for attention. Unfortunately, he usually succeeds at getting press attention even when it’s not newsworthy or basically a rant of a senile old man stuck in the 1980s. People need to know how bad it was 4 years ago with COVID-19 unassailed by policy and treated with denial. We are the strongest economy in the world with the strongest growth. Economists were prepared to see China become the number one economy shortly, but it’s not because of this administration’s policy. Inflation is back within normal parameters. That’s not to say there are not people who still aren’t seeing the benefits. But Kamala’s policy announcement last Friday was full of suggestions to get everyone back on track. The answer to folks left behind is not in the Project 2025 Playbook. (See BB’s post on Saturday for coverage of the Harris/Walz economic priorities in her Caturday Post.)
David R Lurie, who is writing for Public Notice, writes, “Trump’s carny act isn’t working anymore. His Folgers Coffee™ Conference showed a candidate in decline. I’m sure the DNC productions will have much better production chops, pithy content, and actual policy presentation.
Last Thursday, Donald Trump held a “press conference” outside a building in his Bedminster country club in New Jersey, done up with many American flags so as to vaguely resemble the White House.
Trump rambled on astride a tableau of groceries, ranging from brightly toned condiments and a Wheaties™ box (bearing the image of Billie Jean King) to tubs of Folgers Coffee™ (caff and decaf) and packages of sausage and bacon that lay roasting in the midsummer heat.
Trump’s team also assembled a chorus, apparently composed of club visitors, that cheered and jeered during the “news conference” when needed.
Simply put, it was quite a weird scene.
The event was all the more bizarre because Trump hardly referred to (or even acknowledged) the cornucopia of processed food arrayed around him during his typically lengthy and meandering rant before the assembled press corps.
Presumably, the food had been intended to serve as a prop for a “policy” discussion of inflation. Trump, however, spent most of his time in front of the cameras deriding Kamala Harris’s intelligence and appearance, and insisting that he’s “entitled” to “personally attack” her, because, as Trump explained, she unfairly labeled him “weird.”
To borrow an old ad meme, where’s the beef? Well, it was sitting on the table at that presser, rotting in the sun. That’s quite a metaphor for what’s happening with the DonOld/JD show. JD’s rallies look like the Time Out Room for bad behavior. And no one can take 90 minutes of Trump’s senile ramblings on sharks, batteries, and how much better he looks than Harris.
The topic that I’m looking forward to hearing about at the DNC is the presentation on how Trump proposes an existential threat to democracy. Will we see a lot of Project 2025? How do they make it not look like a school assembly event? This is from CNN. “Democrats to highlight threat to democracy they say Trump poses, giving speaking roles to January 6 committee lawmakers.”
Democrats gathered in Chicago this week for their national convention will highlight the threat to democracy that they say former President Donald Trump poses, giving prominent speaking roles to lawmakers, as well as to a Capitol Police officer injured during the January 6, 2021, riots.
An official with Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign told CNN that among those speakers are Reps. Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, who both served on the House select committee to investigate the January 6 insurrection. That committee ultimately recommended in its 2022 report that Trump be barred from holding office again.
Retired St. Aquilino Gonell, one of the Capitol Police officers injured during the January 6 attack, will also address the convention. Since responding to the attack on the US Capitol over three years ago, Gonell has become a public face of the insurrection’s toll and a vocal critic of Trump and the Republicans who continue to defend him.
“Donald Trump’s failure to denounce the violence on January 6, 2021 is a betrayal to every officer who put their life on the line that day — and to every veteran who risked everything to defend our country,” Gonell, who is supporting Harris, said in a statement provided to CNN. “You cannot say you back the police or the Constitution if you’re offering pardons to criminals who tried to destroy our democracy, hurt our leaders and attack law enforcement.”
Former Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who also served on the January 6 committee, is scheduled to address the convention Thursday, CNN previously reported. Kinzinger, who is now a CNN political commentator, was one of 10 House Republicans to vote for Trump’s impeachment for “incitement of an insurrection” in relation to his role during the attack on the Capitol.
The so-called Tennessee Three — state Reps. Justin Jones, Justin Pearson and Gloria Johnson — are also expected to speak at the convention. Jones and Pearson were expelled from the Tennessee House last year after the three lawmakers led a gun control protest on the chamber floor. They have since won reelection.
Also scheduled to speak during the week, according to the campaign official, are Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, who served in the state Legislature in 2021 when Democrats sought to block restrictive voting legislation in the state, and Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, who serves as pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. served.
Before dropping out of the 2024 race, President Joe Biden made the argument that Trump posed a threat to democracy a driving feature of his candidacy.
“Anita Dunn says Joe Biden’s speech is about looking forward, not back. “This is not a time for legacy,” the longtime Biden aide said on CNN.” This analysis can be found at Politico. It’s written by Irrie Sentner.
Anita Dunn is looking to the future — and says President Joe Biden is, too.
The former senior Biden adviser, who left the White House last month to work with the Future Forward super PAC supporting Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, said on CNN today that Biden in his speech will make a “resounding argument for why Kamala Harris should be elected president in 2024.” She joked that he is now Harris’ “volunteer in chief.”
Tonight’s speech will cap off a half-century political career for the president. But, Dunn said, it won’t be about looking back.
“This is not a time for legacy,” Dunn said. “This is a time for arguing why Kamala Harris is the best candidate.”
Biden will be speaking to a party that pushed him to drop his reelection bid — and endorsing a candidate the party has since rallied around. Those intraparty tensions are still playing out at the DNC.
Well, it’s bound to be much better than whatever the Republicans put on. I remember turning off Pat Buchanan’s racist rant in his Culture Wars speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention and was glad I didn’t attend in person. The state convention was weird enough and overrun with what we now call White Christian Nationalists. Because even though I was running as a Republican at the time, it was another one of those things that made me vote for Clinton. I could tell then that there was no saving the Republican Party. I was an Independent for a long time.
So, I’m certain there will be a lot going on that won’t include all that anger and bigotry of the other! Stay tuned! You may exit the Rabbit Hole now!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
One of my other cousins performed at the White House as Martha Jefferson in 1776 when Nixon was President in 1970 as part of the Broadway Cast. She fell asleep on a settee to the chagrin of some tourists who probably thought they’d seen a ghost. Her mother was a descendant of Hamilton. Ever so often, a glimpse at the founding fathers singing is fun. So, it seems appropriate that we watch Obama and Biden watching “One Last Time.” I’m waiting to see if this show song is played at the DNC for the President.
https://skydancingblog.com/2024/08/19/mostly-monday-reads-party-time/
#Repeat1968 #andUnemploymentBenefits #DNC #HarrisWalzPolicyPriorities2024 #JohnBuss #OneLastTime #PresidentBiden #RNC #tips #TrumpTravailsAndTribulations #TrumpUndoingReaganTaxesOnSocialSecurity
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“Come on, Mr. President. Just do it!” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
The DNC begins today in Chicago. It’s a busy schedule of what’s ahead for the future, but tonight’s focus will be on President Joe Biden’s long record of public service. Here’s the line-up of events and speakers.
This is from Axios. “DNC lineup: Who’s speaking and what to expect.”
The Democratic National Convention will open in Chicago on Monday, with President Biden speaking in prime time as he passes the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris.
Driving the news: Convention organizers released night-by-night themes and speaker details on Sunday morning. One speaker who’s not on the official agenda but Axios has confirmed will take the stage on Tuesday: former First Lady Michelle Obama.
- Monday, “For the People”: Biden and Dr. Jill Biden speak, along with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a welcome from Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.
- Tuesday, “A Bold Vision for America’s Future”: Former President Obama plus second gentleman Doug Emhoff, with a welcome from Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.
- Wednesday, “A Fight for Our Freedoms”: Vice presidential nominee Tim Walz delivers his acceptance speech, preceded by former President Clinton, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (per CNN).
- Thursday, “For Our Future”: Harris accepts the convention’s nomination for president.
Other speakers include Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
- Former President Carter’s grandson, Jason Carter, is expected to speak on behalf of his grandfather, who has said he hopes to stay alive long enough to vote for Harris.
Sneak peek: The stairs at the delegate entrance will say “History Is In Your Hands” — a quote from Biden’s Oval Office address on July 24.
- As delegates arrive on Monday ahead of Biden’s speech, digital signage in the United Center will say: “History is in your hands” and “Spread the faith.”
Robert Reich sums up what I feel about Biden’s four years. I was beginning my career as an economist when Ronald Reagan took over. I was working in a highly regulated banking industry about to be turned loose. Eventually, my first home had a fixed rate of 16.7%, which my employment turned into 12%. That’s just one of the nightmare stories I have to tell students.
I attended schools that produced ‘freshwater’ economists, which is a term that basically describes us as not coming from either coast, likely public university educated, and by no means radical. During that time, I lived through two recessions that took out my nascent savings and investment portfolio. I realized that the radical policy was not coming from the Democratic Party.
By the time I found out about the Iran-Contra affair, I was ready to vote for Bill Clinton. I didn’t lose much in the “Great Recession” because I knew another Republican meant another economic roller-coaster ride. The last Reagan recession took out most of my parents’ retirement savings, but they didn’t want to discuss why. If you know how to use derivatives, and that’s where hedge fund managers come in, you can make money in any economy. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been very accessible to regular folks until recently.
My oldest Kansas City Cousin and her husband graduated from Ivy League Schools, Princeton and Vassar. One time, when I was in high school, they drove to buy a car from Dad’s Ford Dealership in Iowa. My dad gave them the usual family price. I was their flower girl at their wedding and spent much of my young life with my Kansas City family. I adored them.
Her lawyer husband told me that the only way to grow an economy was to give massive tax cuts to the wealthy to start businesses, which would create jobs. I can’t remember exactly what started that conversation. Although, I must have said something outside of the orthodox Republican Policy Bible at the time. It sounded logical but seemed too good to be true when I started thinking about it. I’ve never gotten the chance to tell him that it doesn’t work, will never work, and actually works worse than anyone ever thought now that I’ve got my doctorate in Financial Economics, worked at the Fed, and taught and researched economics and finance since 1980. I now have the chops and the proof of why all that does is create chaos in the overall economy and siphon public funds to people who don’t need any more wealth.
I’m not sure why people fondly remember the Reagan years, but they were not economic good times. Also, I found out the Republicans will run up huge deficits as long as the rich or defense contractors get the results of whatever happened to create them. Trickle-down economics is even more of a failure with all the incentives now of not taxing capital gains and giving tax breaks for basically stock market gambling. The rich do not put their gains into actual industry anymore. They keep rolling it into the stock market, and then they’re great consumers of things like gigantic German Yachts and all kinds of goodies that mess up our trade balance. I voted for Bill Clinton because his policy came from economists and worked. Reagan was the one who put taxes on tips, unemployment, and Social Security. He had to make huge tax increases to compensate for the huge deficit with the 1981 tax cuts. So, from 1982 to 1993, there were huge tax cuts, including some from “Read My Lips” by HW Bush. Weirdly, undoing the taxes on tips and Social Security that Trump is high on is basically removing Reagan’s economic legacy.
But enough of that rant … on to the Reich commentary.
Tonight’s opening of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago will be an opportunity for the Democratic Party and the nation to take stock of Joe Biden’s term of office and thank him for his service.
He still has five months to go as president, of course, but the baton has been passed.
Biden’s singular achievement has been to change the economic paradigm that reigned since Reagan and return to one that dominated public life between 1933 and 1980 — and is far superior to the one that has prevailed since.
Biden’s democratic capitalism is neither socialism nor “big government.” It is, rather, a return to an era when government organized the market for the greater good.
The Great Crash of 1929 followed by the Great Depression taught the nation a crucial lesson that we forgot after Reagan’s presidency: markets are human creations. The economy that collapsed in 1929 was the consequence of allowing nearly unlimited borrowing, encouraging people to gamble on Wall Street, and permitting the Street to take huge risks with other people’s money.
Franklin D. Roosevelt and his administration reversed this. They stopped the looting of America. They also gave Americans a modicum of economic security. During World War II, they put almost every American to work.
Subsequent Democratic and Republican administrations enlarged and extended democratic capitalism. Wall Street was regulated, as were television networks, airlines, railroads, and other common carriers. CEO pay was modest. Taxes on the highest earners financed public investments in infrastructure (such as the national highway system) and higher education.
America’s postwar industrial policy spurred innovation. The Department of Defense and its Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration developed satellite communications, container ships, and the internet. The National Institutes of Health did trailblazing basic research in biochemistry, DNA, and infectious diseases.
Public spending rose during economic downturns to encourage hiring. Antitrust enforcers broke up AT&T and other monopolies. Small businesses were protected from giant chain stores. Labor unions thrived. By the 1960s, a third of all private-sector workers were unionized. Large corporations sought to be responsive to all their stakeholders.
But then America took a giant U-turn. The OPEC oil embargo of the 1970s brought double-digit inflation followed by Fed Chair Paul Volcker’s effort to “break the back” of it by raising interest rates so high that the economy fell into deep recession.
All of which prepared the ground for Reagan’s war on democratic capitalism. From 1981 onward, a new bipartisan orthodoxy emerged that markets functioned well only if the government got out of the way.
The goal of economic policy thereby shifted from the common good to economic growth, even though Americans already well-off gained most from that growth. And the means shifted from public oversight of the market to deregulation, free trade, privatization, “trickle-down” tax cuts, and deficit reduction — all of which helped the monied interests make even more money.
If you notice the last two Republican administrations with the emphasis on the last one, there were very few real economists who advised the President. Trump only had one with the creds but was considered insane by his peers because he fitted his papers to a political take rather than data analysis and the usual scientific method.
No matter what party you’re in, and I know Bernanke, Mankiw, Greenspan, and Krugman feel this way, the facts are the facts. Concentrating fiscal policy on Main Street and the middle and working classes is the best use of tax dollars to keep the engine of economic growth steadily growing. Biden’s stewardship of the economy has proved this. He also provided input on the Obama administration’s cleanup of the huge mess called “The Great Recession,” which was completely on the back of bad policy and lack of oversight regarding the financial economy. I am a Financial Economist. We know enough to know that these things should not happen if it wasn’t the habit of Pols to go after Dark Money and then vote to install bad policy into law. It’s also disheartening to see it on the Supreme Court, where Dark Money has completely corrupted at least two Judges.
And the crazy thing is we’re back to being called Communists again which, like capitalism, is a Marxist theoretical abstract that cannot work, has never worked, and has never actually been implemented anywhere. We live in mixed market economies, and their characteristics determine what kind of oversight they require. You cannot compare a market where there are only two providers, like airplane manufacturing and Boeing and Airbus, with the market for apples. There have never been any economies where the government owns all the production factors. The Soviet Style system was called a command economy. Even the Chinese have given up on the planned command economy and the Cubans have many markets based on private ownership. It’s not just the major ones. I can’t believe we’re back to red-baiting.
The most interesting trivia I have for you today is that Donald J. Harris, Kamala’s father, is a bona fide Emeritus Economics Professor at Stanford. His research is primarily in developing economies. He published a book in 1978, “Capital Accumulation and Income Distribution,” which relies heavily on the new statistical methods that were developing at the time and takes the field from political philosophy to using scientific methods and data to see what works! That’s my kind of pragmatism. You wonder what kind of talk the Harris family had at the dinner table.
So, while this shindig in Chicago gets going, watch the week for Trump’s further insane adventures for attention. Unfortunately, he usually succeeds at getting press attention even when it’s not newsworthy or basically a rant of a senile old man stuck in the 1980s. People need to know how bad it was 4 years ago with COVID-19 unassailed by policy and treated with denial. We are the strongest economy in the world with the strongest growth. Economists were prepared to see China become the number one economy shortly, but it’s not because of this administration’s policy. Inflation is back within normal parameters. That’s not to say there are not people who still aren’t seeing the benefits. But Kamala’s policy announcement last Friday was full of suggestions to get everyone back on track. The answer to folks left behind is not in the Project 2025 Playbook. (See BB’s post on Saturday for coverage of the Harris/Walz economic priorities in her Caturday Post.)
David R Lurie, who is writing for Public Notice, writes, “Trump’s carny act isn’t working anymore. His Folgers Coffee™ Conference showed a candidate in decline. I’m sure the DNC productions will have much better production chops, pithy content, and actual policy presentation.
Last Thursday, Donald Trump held a “press conference” outside a building in his Bedminster country club in New Jersey, done up with many American flags so as to vaguely resemble the White House.
Trump rambled on astride a tableau of groceries, ranging from brightly toned condiments and a Wheaties™ box (bearing the image of Billie Jean King) to tubs of Folgers Coffee™ (caff and decaf) and packages of sausage and bacon that lay roasting in the midsummer heat.
Trump’s team also assembled a chorus, apparently composed of club visitors, that cheered and jeered during the “news conference” when needed.
Simply put, it was quite a weird scene.
The event was all the more bizarre because Trump hardly referred to (or even acknowledged) the cornucopia of processed food arrayed around him during his typically lengthy and meandering rant before the assembled press corps.
Presumably, the food had been intended to serve as a prop for a “policy” discussion of inflation. Trump, however, spent most of his time in front of the cameras deriding Kamala Harris’s intelligence and appearance, and insisting that he’s “entitled” to “personally attack” her, because, as Trump explained, she unfairly labeled him “weird.”
To borrow an old ad meme, where’s the beef? Well, it was sitting on the table at that presser, rotting in the sun. That’s quite a metaphor for what’s happening with the DonOld/JD show. JD’s rallies look like the Time Out Room for bad behavior. And no one can take 90 minutes of Trump’s senile ramblings on sharks, batteries, and how much better he looks than Harris.
The topic that I’m looking forward to hearing about at the DNC is the presentation on how Trump proposes an existential threat to democracy. Will we see a lot of Project 2025? How do they make it not look like a school assembly event? This is from CNN. “Democrats to highlight threat to democracy they say Trump poses, giving speaking roles to January 6 committee lawmakers.”
Democrats gathered in Chicago this week for their national convention will highlight the threat to democracy that they say former President Donald Trump poses, giving prominent speaking roles to lawmakers, as well as to a Capitol Police officer injured during the January 6, 2021, riots.
An official with Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign told CNN that among those speakers are Reps. Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, who both served on the House select committee to investigate the January 6 insurrection. That committee ultimately recommended in its 2022 report that Trump be barred from holding office again.
Retired St. Aquilino Gonell, one of the Capitol Police officers injured during the January 6 attack, will also address the convention. Since responding to the attack on the US Capitol over three years ago, Gonell has become a public face of the insurrection’s toll and a vocal critic of Trump and the Republicans who continue to defend him.
“Donald Trump’s failure to denounce the violence on January 6, 2021 is a betrayal to every officer who put their life on the line that day — and to every veteran who risked everything to defend our country,” Gonell, who is supporting Harris, said in a statement provided to CNN. “You cannot say you back the police or the Constitution if you’re offering pardons to criminals who tried to destroy our democracy, hurt our leaders and attack law enforcement.”
Former Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who also served on the January 6 committee, is scheduled to address the convention Thursday, CNN previously reported. Kinzinger, who is now a CNN political commentator, was one of 10 House Republicans to vote for Trump’s impeachment for “incitement of an insurrection” in relation to his role during the attack on the Capitol.
The so-called Tennessee Three — state Reps. Justin Jones, Justin Pearson and Gloria Johnson — are also expected to speak at the convention. Jones and Pearson were expelled from the Tennessee House last year after the three lawmakers led a gun control protest on the chamber floor. They have since won reelection.
Also scheduled to speak during the week, according to the campaign official, are Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, who served in the state Legislature in 2021 when Democrats sought to block restrictive voting legislation in the state, and Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, who serves as pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. served.
Before dropping out of the 2024 race, President Joe Biden made the argument that Trump posed a threat to democracy a driving feature of his candidacy.
“Anita Dunn says Joe Biden’s speech is about looking forward, not back. “This is not a time for legacy,” the longtime Biden aide said on CNN.” This analysis can be found at Politico. It’s written by Irrie Sentner.
Anita Dunn is looking to the future — and says President Joe Biden is, too.
The former senior Biden adviser, who left the White House last month to work with the Future Forward super PAC supporting Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, said on CNN today that Biden in his speech will make a “resounding argument for why Kamala Harris should be elected president in 2024.” She joked that he is now Harris’ “volunteer in chief.”
Tonight’s speech will cap off a half-century political career for the president. But, Dunn said, it won’t be about looking back.
“This is not a time for legacy,” Dunn said. “This is a time for arguing why Kamala Harris is the best candidate.”
Biden will be speaking to a party that pushed him to drop his reelection bid — and endorsing a candidate the party has since rallied around. Those intraparty tensions are still playing out at the DNC.
Well, it’s bound to be much better than whatever the Republicans put on. I remember turning off Pat Buchanan’s racist rant in his Culture Wars speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention and was glad I didn’t attend in person. The state convention was weird enough and overrun with what we now call White Christian Nationalists. Because even though I was running as a Republican at the time, it was another one of those things that made me vote for Clinton. I could tell then that there was no saving the Republican Party. I was an Independent for a long time.
So, I’m certain there will be a lot going on that won’t include all that anger and bigotry of the other! Stay tuned! You may exit the Rabbit Hole now!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
One of my other cousins performed at the White House as Martha Jefferson in 1776 when Nixon was President in 1970 as part of the Broadway Cast. She fell asleep on a settee to the chagrin of some tourists who probably thought they’d seen a ghost. Her mother was a descendant of Hamilton. Ever so often, a glimpse at the founding fathers singing is fun. So, it seems appropriate that we watch Obama and Biden watching “One Last Time.” I’m waiting to see if this show song is played at the DNC for the President.
https://skydancingblog.com/2024/08/19/mostly-monday-reads-party-time/
#Repeat1968 #andUnemploymentBenefits #DNC #HarrisWalzPolicyPriorities2024 #JohnBuss #OneLastTime #PresidentBiden #RNC #tips #TrumpTravailsAndTribulations #TrumpUndoingReaganTaxesOnSocialSecurity
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“For those wondering, since the press isn’t reporting what happened after the fly left Donold’s face.” John Buss @repeat1968
Good Afternoon Sky Dancers!
Sorry for being a bit late. I had to be retrained on the same things again this year and then ensure the paperwork got into the right places. I’ve been at this for two days. I must get caught up with the world outside compliance with Higher Ed. Regulations.
Whenever the Former Guy emerges from his hidey hole in Mara Lardo, his lies, bizarro stories, and slurring worsen his travails. I still refuse to watch this stuff on the Boob Tube, but I’m sure up to reading about it. There’s just something about his demeanor and voice that I cannot take. So far, he’s attacking veterans, decided that illegal immigrants have taken more than 100% of the jobs that have been created, and then there is this. “Trump Warns That if Kamala Harris Wins, ‘Everybody Gets Health Care. Donald Trump repeatedly lies about single-payer health care — an idea he and Harris both previously supported but no longer do’” That headline is in Rolling Stone. CNN also has an explanation but without the ironic headline. “Kamala Harris’ complicated history with Medicare for All becomes a Trump campaign attack line.” Harris actually dropped her support for Medicare for All when Biden pulled ahead because of his stance for just improving ObamaCare instead.
But Harris has not addressed the question herself, touting the Biden administration’s record while trying avoid any relitigation of the years-old fight, and putting out word now only through campaign aides. Now, Trump is reviving the debate as he seeks to paint Harris as both a radical liberal and a flip flopper.
“Kamala Harris’ spokespeople are once again alleging she has flip flopped on her positions – this time saying she no longer supports socialist Medicare for All,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday, calling on Harris “to explain why she is running from every liberal policy she has ever supported.”
The Trump camp’s focus on Medicare for All is emerging as the centerpiece of a wider strategy to use Harris’ 2020 primary positions against her now, less than 90 days before the general election. Harris dropped out of the Democratic primary before the first votes werecast, but her campaign that year frequently jousted with Sanders and reporters trying to pin down her position on the plan, which would eliminate private insurance plans and replace them with a government-funded and operated single-payer system.
That debate quieted when Biden consolidated the party on his way to winning the nomination and, eventually, the presidency with Harris as his running mate. Trump – who repeatedly attempted to repeal ACA, also known as Obamacare, without success and to significant electoral backlash – has never spelled out a clear plan of his own.
“She wants to outlaw private health insurance,” Trump said in late July at the conservative Turning Point Action’s Believers’ Summit in West Palm Beach. “A lot of people have private health insurance. They want to keep it that way. It’s phenomenal.”
Harris responded the next day at a fundraiser in Massachusetts, raising Trump’s 2017 campaign to end Obamacare.
“He intends to end the Affordable Care Act and take us back to a time when insurance companies had the power to deny people with preexisting conditions,” Harris said. “You guys remember what that was? It was real. Children with asthma. Breast cancer survivors. Grandparents with diabetes.”
The Harris campaign, in response to CNN, pointed to the record high number of Americans now enrolled in Obamacare and other initiatives, including moves to lower prescription drug prices.
“Vice President Harris believes real leadership means bringing all sides together to build consensus. It is that approach that made it possible for the Biden-Harris administration to achieve bipartisan breakthroughs on everything from infrastructure to gun violence prevention,” campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said. “As President, she will take that same pragmatic approach, focusing on common-sense solutions for the sake of progress.”
The Affordable Healthcare Act still continues to be popular. It may need some upgrading, but there’s no reason to invent an entirely new public option. You would think he’d move on after John McCain sunk the last attempt to get rid of it. But since he still hasn’t found a way to do his usual dirty tricks on Vice President Harris, I suppose he is just throwing anything at the wall, including ketchup. But the Harris/Walz tickets aren’t the only ones that are getting his bile and vile treatment. He’s after Vets again, which brings McCain back to mind.
This is from Politico. Cadet Bonespurs strikes again. “Trump veteran comments spark controversy — again. The former president has a history of making controversial comments about veterans, receiving backlash during both his 2016 and 2020 campaigns.” Here’s the quote first.
“But [the] civilian version, it’s actually much better because everyone [who] gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they’re soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead,” former President Donald Trump said Thursday.
Irie Sentner writes this analysis.
Former President Donald Trump is facing backlash over his comments about veterans. Again.
Trump said Thursday that the country’s top civilian honor was “much better” than its top military honor, because the service members who receive the latter are “in very bad shape” or “dead” — the latest in a yearslong pattern of inflammatory comments the former president has made about veterans as barbs over military service are being traded by both campaigns during a heated election.
Speaking at an event on antisemitism at his Bedminster, New Jersey, estate, Trump was discussing Miriam Adelson and her late husband Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire pro-Israel GOP megadonors who set a donation record in 2020 by spending over $170 million. Trump bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Miriam Adelson in 2018 for her history of contributions to U.S. national interests and “world peace.”
“That’s the highest award you can get as a civilian. It’s the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor,” Trump said Thursday. “But [the] civilian version, it’s actually much better because everyone [who] gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they’re soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead.”
Trump has a history of making controversial comments about veterans, receiving backlash for them during both his 2016 and 2020 campaigns. But now, both parties’ vice presidential candidates are veterans — and as the GOP attacks the service record of the Democratic vice presidential hopeful, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Trump’s comments Thursday gave Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign ammunition for a counterattack.
“Donald Trump knows nothing about service to anyone or anything but himself,” Harris campaign senior spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said Friday in a statement. “For him to insult Medal of Honor recipients, just as he has previously attacked Gold Star families, mocked prisoners of war, and referred to those who lost their lives in service to our country as ‘suckers’ and ‘losers,’ should remind all Americans that we owe it to our service members, our country, and our future to make sure Donald Trump is never our nation’s commander in chief again.”
“Blinded by light”, John Buss, @repeat1968
As I said, I totally missed this “press conference,” so I’m relying on sources like the AP. “FACT FOCUS: Trump blends falsehoods and exaggerations at rambling NJ press conference.”
Inflation did not take the toll Trump claimed. Growth surged under Biden
TRUMP: “As a result of Kamala’s inflation, price hikes have cost the typical household a total of $28,000. … When I left office, I left Kamala and crooked Joe Biden a surging economy and no inflation. The mortgage rate was around 2%. Gasoline had reached $1.87 a gallon. … Harris and Biden blew it all up.”
THE FACTS: Trump made numerous economic claims that were either exaggerated or misleading. Prices did surge during the Biden-Harris administration, though $28,000 is far higher than independent estimates. Moody’s Analytics calculated last year that price increases over the previous two years were costing the typical U.S. household $709 a month. That would equal $8,500 a year.
Here’s the more facts on that from CBS News.
Inflation continued to retreat in July, aided by easing price pressures for consumer staples like food and energy and physical goods like new and used cars.
The consumer price index, a key inflation gauge, rose 2.9% in July from a year ago, the U.S. Department of Labor reported Wednesday. That figure is down from 3% in June and the lowest reading since March 2021.
The CPI gauges how fast prices are changing across the U.S. economy. It measures everything from fruits and vegetables to haircuts, concert tickets and household appliances.
Bruce Plante Cartoon: Trump and the Cashier
Trump set up a little grocery store at this “presser” where he told whopper after whopper. I love this headline from Vanity Fair. “Does Anyone Know What Donald Trump Is Talking About Anymore? Hannibal Lecter? Cheerios? “Bird cemeteries?” The former president is tying himself in a knot of discursive tangents and in-jokes that only makes sense to an increasingly small sect of the American public.”
Donald Trump has never been what you’d call eloquent. An orator, he is not. And yet, the former president seems to be getting even more incoherent by the day, as his latest “press conference” underscored Thursday.
Speaking to reporters at his Bedminster country club in New Jersey, Trump stood before a display of groceries—coffee, cereal, milk—for what was billed as a presser on the economy, one of those “issues” his allies and advisers wish he’d spend more time talking about. What everyone got instead was a series of rants on subjects ranging from his anger at Kamala Harris calling him and JD Vance “weird” to the “bird cemeteries” under windmills to his math-defying contention that “beyond…100 percent” of job creation under Joe Biden in the past year has “gone to migrants.”
“It’s a much higher number than that,” Trump said, “but the government has not caught up with that yet.”
“I haven’t seen Cheerios in a long time,” he remarked at another point, saying he wanted to “take some of them back to [his] cottage and have a lot of fun.”
What, exactly, does that mean, you might ask? Well, what does any of this mean? Trump isn’t just inarticulate, trying in vain to express his thoughts and emotions with a vocabulary that seems limited to “beautiful,” “perfect,” and maybe thirty other words. He’s now riffing on riffs, becoming so self-referential and so discursive that you need to leave a trail of breadcrumbs to find your way back to the original thought. Take Trump’s latest addition to his repertoire about Hannibal Lecter, the fictional cannibal of page and screen portrayed by Anthony Hopkins: “He’d love to have you for dinner,” the former president said during a rant on immigration during his Republican National Convention speech last month. “That’s insane asylums. They’re emptying out their insane asylums.”
The media is absolutely laughing at him. “Trump’s Magical History Tour. Under siege and self-sabotaging at his New Jersey golf club, Donald Trump is reaching for old familiar faces and enablers to imbue his flailing 2024 campaign with some 2016 magic: Corey Lewandowski, Tim Murtaugh, maybe Kellyanne. Who’s next, Roger Stone? Oh wait…” This is from Puck and Tara Palmer.
I woke up Thursday morning to a storm of text messages saying that it was really happening, and then, within an hour, Trump’s team had leaked the news to Politico. The two had been talking for a while, and Lewandowski traveled with the team on the night of the debate. But from what I hear, Trump was alone in making the call to hire Lewandowski, who has been consulting for the R.N.C. since April. “People in Trumpworld try to stop things and they can’t,” said a former aide. “Sometimes when the ship has left the port, it’s left the port.”
Sheepishly, perhaps, the news of Lewandowski’s reinstatement was bundled with a handful of other, lesser-known new hires: Taylor Budowich, Alex Pfeiffer, Alex Bruesewitz, and Tim Murtaugh—all “veterans of prior Trump campaigns” with “unmatched experience,” per a campaign statement. Spokesperson Steven Cheung told me Lewandowski’s title will be “senior advisor,” and that Wiles and LaCivita will remain as co-campaign managers. (Trump himself referred to Lewandowski during a press conference on Thursday afternoon as a “personal envoy or something.”)
All around Bedminster, where Trump has relocated to escape the South Florida heat, there is a pervasive anxiety that the candidate is trying to recreate the chaos that surrounded his winning 2016 campaign. No one thinks Lewandowski and LaCivita can cohabitate for long, leading some people close to Trump to speculate that he’s trying to push LaCivita out, just as he installed Anthony Scaramucci to fire Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus. “Susie is a survivor; she’s not going anywhere. But then you have LaCivita and Corey Lewandowski, two alpha men,” said a source close to Lewandowski. “It’s like Trump just wants them to kill each other and for one to win so he doesn’t have to actually fire anyone.”
One obvious vulnerability facing LaCivita is his astronomical fee. As Trump stews over his fading poll numbers and whether a once easily winnable election is slipping away, there has been growing chatter in some corners of Mar-a-Lago about the $50,000 that LaCivita’s firm, Advanced Strategies, collects from the campaign and R.N.C. each month, which is included in the nearly $1.7 million he’s invoiced the campaign so far this year for various services like placed media, political strategy consulting, and video production, up from the $1.65 million he billed last year. (Sure, it’s not Jeff Roe money, but it has some tongues wagging.) “I have never told anyone I will be conducting a forensic audit of the campaign, nor have I alluded to, or have any understanding of, how much money Chris LaCivita may or may not have billed this campaign,” Lewandowski told me.
I’m still enjoying the interviews with people who once worked for him. Have you noticed he’s suddenly coming apart whenever someone mentions he’s coming up on his sentencing deadline in New York? “Scaramucci: Trump Is ‘Coming to Grips’ With Losing the Election, Trump’s former White House communications director says it’s going to be “rough” until Election Day.” This is from The Daily Beast. This article is by Dan Ladden-Hall.
Anthony Scaramucci, Donald Trump’s one-time White House communications director, thinks his former boss is “coming to grips” with the possibility that he’ll lose the election and is consequently “growing darker.”
“Will be a rough 81 days,” Scaramucci added in an X post Thursday, referring to the time left until Election Day in November. His comment came as Trump spoke at an hour-long press conference at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, in which the Republican nominee explicitly rejected pleas from others in his party to stop personally attacking Vice President Kamala Harris.
“I’m very angry at her that she weaponized the justice system against me and other people,” Trump said at the press conference. “Very angry at her. I think I’m entitled to personal attacks. I don’t have a lot of respect for her, I don’t have a lot of respect for her intelligence, and I think she’ll be a terrible president.”
Trump has become increasingly irate in private as Harris has surpassed him in various polls, according to an Axios report over the weekend. The former president has also reportedly referred to Harris as a “b—h” behind closed doors while growing frustrated by sustained news coverage of her.
Scaramucci was briefly Trump’s White House comms chief in 2017, losing the job after just 10 days over a foul-mouthed tirade against then-White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and strategist Steve Bannon. Scaramucci has since become an outspoken critic of his former boss, describing Trump in a Daily Beast op-ed in May as a “true narcissist” whose “ego-driven and childlike behavior” he’d witnessed up close.
No matter how befuddled or far into advanced dotage he’s become, it’s important to remember the people behind him. “Watch Undercover Video: Project 2025 Co-Author Lays Out “Radical Agenda” for Next Trump Term.” This is from Democracy Now. You may also read the Transcript at that link.
As Donald Trump tries to distance his campaign from Project 2025, those behind the right-wing policy blueprint to remake the U.S. government continue to brag in private about their close ties to the Republican presidential nominee and how they intend to push a radical right-wing agenda in a second Trump administration. In July, Project 2025 co-author Russell Vought met with two people he believed to be relatives of a wealthy conservative donor interested in funding the effort. In fact, he was meeting with two reporters with the U.K.-based Centre for Climate Reporting as part of an undercover sting captured on video. Over the course of two hours, Vought described Trump’s disavowal of Project 2025 as mere theater and laid out plans for mass deportations, restricting abortion, gutting independent government bureaucracies, using the military against racial justice protesters and more. The secret plans are “designed to ensure that this kind of radical agenda that the conservative movement has in the U.S. can be implemented from day one,” says Lawrence Carter, founder and director of the Centre for Climate Reporting and one of the reporters who spoke with Vought. “They want to make sure that the mistakes from the first Trump administration, as they see them, where not much got done, are avoided this time around.”
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show with a new undercover video that shows the co-author of Project 2025 bragging about his ties to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump — even as Trump is trying to distance himself from the right-wing blueprint for his potential second term.
The video features Russell Vought, who was director of the Trump White House Office of Management and Budget. It shows Vought meeting in a five-star Washington, D.C., hotel with two men he thought were relatives of a wealthy conservative donor. But Vought was actually talking to two undercover reporters with the Centre for Climate Reporting, an independent British news outlet. They were secretly recording him.
Here’s some happier reading. “Vice President Harris Lays Out Agenda to Lower Costs for American Families.” You may read actual policy goals and solutions there. It’s good to be back when you can see what’s on the table.
Today, Vice President Kamala Harris is announcing several proposals for her first 100 days in office to bring down costs for American families. The steps announced today will cut taxes for the middle class, reduce grocery costs, take on price gouging, lower the costs of owning and renting a home, continue to bring down the costs of prescription drugs, and relieve medical debt for millions of Americans. These bold actions will address some of the sharpest pain points American families are confronting and bolster their financial security.
These proposals are just one part of the Vice President’s economic plan, which also includes protecting and strengthening Social Security and Medicare; bringing together labor, small businesses, and major corporations to invest in America, create jobs, and deliver for Americans; lowering costs of education, child care, and long-term care; empowering workers and their right to come together to bargain for higher wages; creating a stable business environment with consistent and transparent rules; encouraging innovative technologies while protecting consumers; and so much more. Vice President Harris has made clear that building up the middle class will be a defining goal of her presidency. She will deliver for Americans who are demanding a new way forward towards a future that lifts up all Americans so that they can not just get by, but get ahead.
I’m sitting here in my little Kathouse, wondering how anyone could deny climate change as we are deep into the third intense heat wave of the summer and know that August has been the worst month for the last few years. It’s really important that we don’t go back. I was talking to one of my gay neighbors today, saying that he wasn’t going back, and watching the news felt good for a change. I said I’d already be back if I still had working ovaries and a uterus. I don’t want my girls and the granddaughters to stay where Trump and that dreadful group of throwbacks on SCOTUS put them. Our governor just signed a law that basically ensures that you will be arrested and your phone will be taken from you if you try to film police officers. We have to get the correct laws into place to ensure all the book banning, the religious interference with education, and the voter suppression stop. Join in where you can to stop this.
So, I had to skip calling this week, but I will be at it again next week. Do what you can to turn out the vote for Kamala.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
For some reason, I’m singing this song a lot these days. Have a peaceful and wonderful weekend!
#2024PresidentialCampaign #Repeat1968 #DotardDonOld #HarrisWalzPolicyPriorities2024 #JohnBuss #WTFIsTrumpTalkingAbout_
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“For those wondering, since the press isn’t reporting what happened after the fly left Donold’s face.” John Buss @repeat1968
Good Afternoon Sky Dancers!
Sorry for being a bit late. I had to be retrained on the same things again this year and then ensure the paperwork got into the right places. I’ve been at this for two days. I must get caught up with the world outside compliance with Higher Ed. Regulations.
Whenever the Former Guy emerges from his hidey hole in Mara Lardo, his lies, bizarro stories, and slurring worsen his travails. I still refuse to watch this stuff on the Boob Tube, but I’m sure up to reading about it. There’s just something about his demeanor and voice that I cannot take. So far, he’s attacking veterans, decided that illegal immigrants have taken more than 100% of the jobs that have been created, and then there is this. “Trump Warns That if Kamala Harris Wins, ‘Everybody Gets Health Care. Donald Trump repeatedly lies about single-payer health care — an idea he and Harris both previously supported but no longer do’” That headline is in Rolling Stone. CNN also has an explanation but without the ironic headline. “Kamala Harris’ complicated history with Medicare for All becomes a Trump campaign attack line.” Harris actually dropped her support for Medicare for All when Biden pulled ahead because of his stance for just improving ObamaCare instead.
But Harris has not addressed the question herself, touting the Biden administration’s record while trying avoid any relitigation of the years-old fight, and putting out word now only through campaign aides. Now, Trump is reviving the debate as he seeks to paint Harris as both a radical liberal and a flip flopper.
“Kamala Harris’ spokespeople are once again alleging she has flip flopped on her positions – this time saying she no longer supports socialist Medicare for All,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday, calling on Harris “to explain why she is running from every liberal policy she has ever supported.”
The Trump camp’s focus on Medicare for All is emerging as the centerpiece of a wider strategy to use Harris’ 2020 primary positions against her now, less than 90 days before the general election. Harris dropped out of the Democratic primary before the first votes werecast, but her campaign that year frequently jousted with Sanders and reporters trying to pin down her position on the plan, which would eliminate private insurance plans and replace them with a government-funded and operated single-payer system.
That debate quieted when Biden consolidated the party on his way to winning the nomination and, eventually, the presidency with Harris as his running mate. Trump – who repeatedly attempted to repeal ACA, also known as Obamacare, without success and to significant electoral backlash – has never spelled out a clear plan of his own.
“She wants to outlaw private health insurance,” Trump said in late July at the conservative Turning Point Action’s Believers’ Summit in West Palm Beach. “A lot of people have private health insurance. They want to keep it that way. It’s phenomenal.”
Harris responded the next day at a fundraiser in Massachusetts, raising Trump’s 2017 campaign to end Obamacare.
“He intends to end the Affordable Care Act and take us back to a time when insurance companies had the power to deny people with preexisting conditions,” Harris said. “You guys remember what that was? It was real. Children with asthma. Breast cancer survivors. Grandparents with diabetes.”
The Harris campaign, in response to CNN, pointed to the record high number of Americans now enrolled in Obamacare and other initiatives, including moves to lower prescription drug prices.
“Vice President Harris believes real leadership means bringing all sides together to build consensus. It is that approach that made it possible for the Biden-Harris administration to achieve bipartisan breakthroughs on everything from infrastructure to gun violence prevention,” campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said. “As President, she will take that same pragmatic approach, focusing on common-sense solutions for the sake of progress.”
The Affordable Healthcare Act still continues to be popular. It may need some upgrading, but there’s no reason to invent an entirely new public option. You would think he’d move on after John McCain sunk the last attempt to get rid of it. But since he still hasn’t found a way to do his usual dirty tricks on Vice President Harris, I suppose he is just throwing anything at the wall, including ketchup. But the Harris/Walz tickets aren’t the only ones that are getting his bile and vile treatment. He’s after Vets again, which brings McCain back to mind.
This is from Politico. Cadet Bonespurs strikes again. “Trump veteran comments spark controversy — again. The former president has a history of making controversial comments about veterans, receiving backlash during both his 2016 and 2020 campaigns.” Here’s the quote first.
“But [the] civilian version, it’s actually much better because everyone [who] gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they’re soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead,” former President Donald Trump said Thursday.
Irie Sentner writes this analysis.
Former President Donald Trump is facing backlash over his comments about veterans. Again.
Trump said Thursday that the country’s top civilian honor was “much better” than its top military honor, because the service members who receive the latter are “in very bad shape” or “dead” — the latest in a yearslong pattern of inflammatory comments the former president has made about veterans as barbs over military service are being traded by both campaigns during a heated election.
Speaking at an event on antisemitism at his Bedminster, New Jersey, estate, Trump was discussing Miriam Adelson and her late husband Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire pro-Israel GOP megadonors who set a donation record in 2020 by spending over $170 million. Trump bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Miriam Adelson in 2018 for her history of contributions to U.S. national interests and “world peace.”
“That’s the highest award you can get as a civilian. It’s the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor,” Trump said Thursday. “But [the] civilian version, it’s actually much better because everyone [who] gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they’re soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead.”
Trump has a history of making controversial comments about veterans, receiving backlash for them during both his 2016 and 2020 campaigns. But now, both parties’ vice presidential candidates are veterans — and as the GOP attacks the service record of the Democratic vice presidential hopeful, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Trump’s comments Thursday gave Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign ammunition for a counterattack.
“Donald Trump knows nothing about service to anyone or anything but himself,” Harris campaign senior spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said Friday in a statement. “For him to insult Medal of Honor recipients, just as he has previously attacked Gold Star families, mocked prisoners of war, and referred to those who lost their lives in service to our country as ‘suckers’ and ‘losers,’ should remind all Americans that we owe it to our service members, our country, and our future to make sure Donald Trump is never our nation’s commander in chief again.”
“Blinded by light”, John Buss, @repeat1968
As I said, I totally missed this “press conference,” so I’m relying on sources like the AP. “FACT FOCUS: Trump blends falsehoods and exaggerations at rambling NJ press conference.”
Inflation did not take the toll Trump claimed. Growth surged under Biden
TRUMP: “As a result of Kamala’s inflation, price hikes have cost the typical household a total of $28,000. … When I left office, I left Kamala and crooked Joe Biden a surging economy and no inflation. The mortgage rate was around 2%. Gasoline had reached $1.87 a gallon. … Harris and Biden blew it all up.”
THE FACTS: Trump made numerous economic claims that were either exaggerated or misleading. Prices did surge during the Biden-Harris administration, though $28,000 is far higher than independent estimates. Moody’s Analytics calculated last year that price increases over the previous two years were costing the typical U.S. household $709 a month. That would equal $8,500 a year.
Here’s the more facts on that from CBS News.
Inflation continued to retreat in July, aided by easing price pressures for consumer staples like food and energy and physical goods like new and used cars.
The consumer price index, a key inflation gauge, rose 2.9% in July from a year ago, the U.S. Department of Labor reported Wednesday. That figure is down from 3% in June and the lowest reading since March 2021.
The CPI gauges how fast prices are changing across the U.S. economy. It measures everything from fruits and vegetables to haircuts, concert tickets and household appliances.
Bruce Plante Cartoon: Trump and the Cashier
Trump set up a little grocery store at this “presser” where he told whopper after whopper. I love this headline from Vanity Fair. “Does Anyone Know What Donald Trump Is Talking About Anymore? Hannibal Lecter? Cheerios? “Bird cemeteries?” The former president is tying himself in a knot of discursive tangents and in-jokes that only makes sense to an increasingly small sect of the American public.”
Donald Trump has never been what you’d call eloquent. An orator, he is not. And yet, the former president seems to be getting even more incoherent by the day, as his latest “press conference” underscored Thursday.
Speaking to reporters at his Bedminster country club in New Jersey, Trump stood before a display of groceries—coffee, cereal, milk—for what was billed as a presser on the economy, one of those “issues” his allies and advisers wish he’d spend more time talking about. What everyone got instead was a series of rants on subjects ranging from his anger at Kamala Harris calling him and JD Vance “weird” to the “bird cemeteries” under windmills to his math-defying contention that “beyond…100 percent” of job creation under Joe Biden in the past year has “gone to migrants.”
“It’s a much higher number than that,” Trump said, “but the government has not caught up with that yet.”
“I haven’t seen Cheerios in a long time,” he remarked at another point, saying he wanted to “take some of them back to [his] cottage and have a lot of fun.”
What, exactly, does that mean, you might ask? Well, what does any of this mean? Trump isn’t just inarticulate, trying in vain to express his thoughts and emotions with a vocabulary that seems limited to “beautiful,” “perfect,” and maybe thirty other words. He’s now riffing on riffs, becoming so self-referential and so discursive that you need to leave a trail of breadcrumbs to find your way back to the original thought. Take Trump’s latest addition to his repertoire about Hannibal Lecter, the fictional cannibal of page and screen portrayed by Anthony Hopkins: “He’d love to have you for dinner,” the former president said during a rant on immigration during his Republican National Convention speech last month. “That’s insane asylums. They’re emptying out their insane asylums.”
The media is absolutely laughing at him. “Trump’s Magical History Tour. Under siege and self-sabotaging at his New Jersey golf club, Donald Trump is reaching for old familiar faces and enablers to imbue his flailing 2024 campaign with some 2016 magic: Corey Lewandowski, Tim Murtaugh, maybe Kellyanne. Who’s next, Roger Stone? Oh wait…” This is from Puck and Tara Palmer.
I woke up Thursday morning to a storm of text messages saying that it was really happening, and then, within an hour, Trump’s team had leaked the news to Politico. The two had been talking for a while, and Lewandowski traveled with the team on the night of the debate. But from what I hear, Trump was alone in making the call to hire Lewandowski, who has been consulting for the R.N.C. since April. “People in Trumpworld try to stop things and they can’t,” said a former aide. “Sometimes when the ship has left the port, it’s left the port.”
Sheepishly, perhaps, the news of Lewandowski’s reinstatement was bundled with a handful of other, lesser-known new hires: Taylor Budowich, Alex Pfeiffer, Alex Bruesewitz, and Tim Murtaugh—all “veterans of prior Trump campaigns” with “unmatched experience,” per a campaign statement. Spokesperson Steven Cheung told me Lewandowski’s title will be “senior advisor,” and that Wiles and LaCivita will remain as co-campaign managers. (Trump himself referred to Lewandowski during a press conference on Thursday afternoon as a “personal envoy or something.”)
All around Bedminster, where Trump has relocated to escape the South Florida heat, there is a pervasive anxiety that the candidate is trying to recreate the chaos that surrounded his winning 2016 campaign. No one thinks Lewandowski and LaCivita can cohabitate for long, leading some people close to Trump to speculate that he’s trying to push LaCivita out, just as he installed Anthony Scaramucci to fire Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus. “Susie is a survivor; she’s not going anywhere. But then you have LaCivita and Corey Lewandowski, two alpha men,” said a source close to Lewandowski. “It’s like Trump just wants them to kill each other and for one to win so he doesn’t have to actually fire anyone.”
One obvious vulnerability facing LaCivita is his astronomical fee. As Trump stews over his fading poll numbers and whether a once easily winnable election is slipping away, there has been growing chatter in some corners of Mar-a-Lago about the $50,000 that LaCivita’s firm, Advanced Strategies, collects from the campaign and R.N.C. each month, which is included in the nearly $1.7 million he’s invoiced the campaign so far this year for various services like placed media, political strategy consulting, and video production, up from the $1.65 million he billed last year. (Sure, it’s not Jeff Roe money, but it has some tongues wagging.) “I have never told anyone I will be conducting a forensic audit of the campaign, nor have I alluded to, or have any understanding of, how much money Chris LaCivita may or may not have billed this campaign,” Lewandowski told me.
I’m still enjoying the interviews with people who once worked for him. Have you noticed he’s suddenly coming apart whenever someone mentions he’s coming up on his sentencing deadline in New York? “Scaramucci: Trump Is ‘Coming to Grips’ With Losing the Election, Trump’s former White House communications director says it’s going to be “rough” until Election Day.” This is from The Daily Beast. This article is by Dan Ladden-Hall.
Anthony Scaramucci, Donald Trump’s one-time White House communications director, thinks his former boss is “coming to grips” with the possibility that he’ll lose the election and is consequently “growing darker.”
“Will be a rough 81 days,” Scaramucci added in an X post Thursday, referring to the time left until Election Day in November. His comment came as Trump spoke at an hour-long press conference at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, in which the Republican nominee explicitly rejected pleas from others in his party to stop personally attacking Vice President Kamala Harris.
“I’m very angry at her that she weaponized the justice system against me and other people,” Trump said at the press conference. “Very angry at her. I think I’m entitled to personal attacks. I don’t have a lot of respect for her, I don’t have a lot of respect for her intelligence, and I think she’ll be a terrible president.”
Trump has become increasingly irate in private as Harris has surpassed him in various polls, according to an Axios report over the weekend. The former president has also reportedly referred to Harris as a “b—h” behind closed doors while growing frustrated by sustained news coverage of her.
Scaramucci was briefly Trump’s White House comms chief in 2017, losing the job after just 10 days over a foul-mouthed tirade against then-White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and strategist Steve Bannon. Scaramucci has since become an outspoken critic of his former boss, describing Trump in a Daily Beast op-ed in May as a “true narcissist” whose “ego-driven and childlike behavior” he’d witnessed up close.
No matter how befuddled or far into advanced dotage he’s become, it’s important to remember the people behind him. “Watch Undercover Video: Project 2025 Co-Author Lays Out “Radical Agenda” for Next Trump Term.” This is from Democracy Now. You may also read the Transcript at that link.
As Donald Trump tries to distance his campaign from Project 2025, those behind the right-wing policy blueprint to remake the U.S. government continue to brag in private about their close ties to the Republican presidential nominee and how they intend to push a radical right-wing agenda in a second Trump administration. In July, Project 2025 co-author Russell Vought met with two people he believed to be relatives of a wealthy conservative donor interested in funding the effort. In fact, he was meeting with two reporters with the U.K.-based Centre for Climate Reporting as part of an undercover sting captured on video. Over the course of two hours, Vought described Trump’s disavowal of Project 2025 as mere theater and laid out plans for mass deportations, restricting abortion, gutting independent government bureaucracies, using the military against racial justice protesters and more. The secret plans are “designed to ensure that this kind of radical agenda that the conservative movement has in the U.S. can be implemented from day one,” says Lawrence Carter, founder and director of the Centre for Climate Reporting and one of the reporters who spoke with Vought. “They want to make sure that the mistakes from the first Trump administration, as they see them, where not much got done, are avoided this time around.”
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show with a new undercover video that shows the co-author of Project 2025 bragging about his ties to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump — even as Trump is trying to distance himself from the right-wing blueprint for his potential second term.
The video features Russell Vought, who was director of the Trump White House Office of Management and Budget. It shows Vought meeting in a five-star Washington, D.C., hotel with two men he thought were relatives of a wealthy conservative donor. But Vought was actually talking to two undercover reporters with the Centre for Climate Reporting, an independent British news outlet. They were secretly recording him.
Here’s some happier reading. “Vice President Harris Lays Out Agenda to Lower Costs for American Families.” You may read actual policy goals and solutions there. It’s good to be back when you can see what’s on the table.
Today, Vice President Kamala Harris is announcing several proposals for her first 100 days in office to bring down costs for American families. The steps announced today will cut taxes for the middle class, reduce grocery costs, take on price gouging, lower the costs of owning and renting a home, continue to bring down the costs of prescription drugs, and relieve medical debt for millions of Americans. These bold actions will address some of the sharpest pain points American families are confronting and bolster their financial security.
These proposals are just one part of the Vice President’s economic plan, which also includes protecting and strengthening Social Security and Medicare; bringing together labor, small businesses, and major corporations to invest in America, create jobs, and deliver for Americans; lowering costs of education, child care, and long-term care; empowering workers and their right to come together to bargain for higher wages; creating a stable business environment with consistent and transparent rules; encouraging innovative technologies while protecting consumers; and so much more. Vice President Harris has made clear that building up the middle class will be a defining goal of her presidency. She will deliver for Americans who are demanding a new way forward towards a future that lifts up all Americans so that they can not just get by, but get ahead.
I’m sitting here in my little Kathouse, wondering how anyone could deny climate change as we are deep into the third intense heat wave of the summer and know that August has been the worst month for the last few years. It’s really important that we don’t go back. I was talking to one of my gay neighbors today, saying that he wasn’t going back, and watching the news felt good for a change. I said I’d already be back if I still had working ovaries and a uterus. I don’t want my girls and the granddaughters to stay where Trump and that dreadful group of throwbacks on SCOTUS put them. Our governor just signed a law that basically ensures that you will be arrested and your phone will be taken from you if you try to film police officers. We have to get the correct laws into place to ensure all the book banning, the religious interference with education, and the voter suppression stop. Join in where you can to stop this.
So, I had to skip calling this week, but I will be at it again next week. Do what you can to turn out the vote for Kamala.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
For some reason, I’m singing this song a lot these days. Have a peaceful and wonderful weekend!
#2024PresidentialCampaign #Repeat1968 #DotardDonOld #HarrisWalzPolicyPriorities2024 #JohnBuss #WTFIsTrumpTalkingAbout_
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Rest in peace Gena Rowlands. You were a great artist, and I’m grateful for what your work brought to us.
I’m also remembering how much my mum liked you (« Elle est formidable ! ») and the sense I got that her dream life was close to yours. “Gloria” is a movie that always makes me think of her. All this makes your departure a bit harder today 😢
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Gena Rowlands, ‘The Notebook’ and ‘A Woman Under the Influence’ Star, Dies at 94
#Variety #News #Obituaries #PeopleNews #GenaRowlands #JohnCassavetes #NickCassavetes -
“Every time Trump opens his mouth, he lies.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Every day, it becomes more clear that DonOld is so old and addlepated that he is unsuited for anything but a front porch rocker in a place where he can’t harm himself or others. This quote from a Laura Ingraham interview on July 29th pretty much sums up exactly how far his mental deterioration has advanced. This is from The Hill and reported by Brett Samuels. “Trump on Vance’s ‘childless’ comments: ‘He likes family.’” Even the polygamist inventor of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, wasn’t up to this task.
Former President Trump on Monday offered cover for his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), as Vance faces a firestorm over his past comments mocking “childless cat ladies.”
Trump told Fox News host Laura Ingraham that Vance has “tremendous support,” and argued he does particularly well among “people that like families.”
“He made a certain statement having to do with families. That doesn’t mean that people that aren’t a member of a big and beautiful family with 400 children around and everything else, it doesn’t mean that a person doesn’t have — he’s not against anything. But he loves family. It’s very important to him,” Trump said of Vance.
Okay, that’s weird. Meanwhile, we are likely to find out Vice President Harris’ choice of a VEEP sometime tomorrow in a videotaped announcement. This is from Eugene Daniels writing for Politico. “Harris VP announcement coming Tuesday with likely video. Biden’s 2020 introduction of Harris is a likely model, campaign insiders say.”
Vice President Kamala Harris is bringing her crash search for a running mate to a close, with a final decision expected over the next 24 hours with a video announcement likely to follow sometime Tuesday, according to people familiar with the selection process.
While the precise nature of the rollout is not final, campaign insiders are pointing to President Joe Biden’s 2020 video introduction of Harris as a likely model. A media leak of the pick could upend those plans, they said.
The planned rollout will follow a closely watched final weekend of deliberations. A vetting team led by former Attorney General Eric Holder briefed Harris on the roughly half-dozen final candidates.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker have also been reviewed by the Harris campaign vetting team.
Biden in 2020 formally introduced Harris in a two-minute video released five days before the Democratic National Convention that included video of the future president calling Harris to ask her to join the ticket. Media reports, however, broke the news the night before the video was released, which the Biden campaign acknowledged with online postings.
Harris is scheduled to make her first appearance with her new running mate at a Philadelphia rally Tuesday, kicking off a five-day barnstorming tour to seven battleground states.
All of this stands in sharp contrast to the Vance roll-out. But would you expect from a Geezer that confuses Nancy Pelosi with Nikki Haley? Or E. Jean Carrol with Marla Maples? How refreshing is it to have our daily moments of Black Girl Joy compared to the constant misogyny of DonOld the Addlepated? Even the Australians don’t like seeing, hearing, or dealing with Trump’s Trauma. This is from The Guardian. “Trump and Vance’s misogyny and cynical identity politics mean Australians can’t ‘just chill’ about the US election. America remains the west’s most influential nation – which is why I fear for a world where Republican leaders could be in power. ” This Op-Ed is written by Paul Daley.
The litany of Trump’s actual (and verbal) offences against women is notorious. This seems too often forgotten or overlooked by admirers the world over – especially among sections of the political class here in Australia – to the file marked “character’’ and made, therefore, somehow irrelevant.
But such character traits are as highly relevant globally, as Trump attacks the reproductive (and human) rights of American women and deploys vicious slurs against women who threaten – or call out – their misogyny. The latest to come to lightseems to be Vance’s weaponisation of parenthood, in 2021 labelling senior Democrats – including now presidential nominee Kamala Harris and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – “childless cat ladies’’.
Trump’s latest attack on Kamala Harris – saying she had “turned black’’, an unsustainably false challenge to her racial identity – makes him less worthy. Just as this will give succour to racists the world over, it also enables politicians, including here, who would weaponise racial identity for cynical gain.
While Trump and Vance, like all populists, are perilously short on constructive policy and plans and optimism for the future, their prescriptive visions for social design when it comes to families and how they reckon they should look are coming into very sharp – and alarming – focus.
If this is all starting to sound, well, somewhat dystopic, that’s because it is. The most alarming thing for me, a world away, about the re-emergence of Trump (twice impeached, 34 felony convictions) and the upwardly-managing Vance is the global licence they give others to ape, voice and enact their misogyny. If it’s good enough for the leader of the free world and his apprentice …
With Trump’s cozying up to despots and dictators and his own dictatorial fantasies (having denied the last election result then incited a 6 January lynch mob to attack the capitol in pursuit of his then vice-president, Mike Pence, who certified the legitimate election of Joe Biden), Trump is the embodiment of autocracy. The danger he poses potentially extends far and away beyond the US, and with a deputy like Vance (who would not stand up to him the way Pence did), Trump’s power would be unfettered. So, “responsible’’? No. Don’t just chill. Be vigilant.
Liz Dye writes, “It’s fine to laugh at JD Vance and his couch. Having fun with a viral joke is not the same as lying relentlessly.” This is from Public Notice.
Since Trump named him as his running mate, the media has unearthed an endless stream of videos of Vance saying deeply weird things. He inveighs against “childless cat ladies” like Vice President Kamala Harris, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He suggests that parents should be entitled to cast votes for their minor children because if you’re childless “you don’t have as much of an investment in the future of this country” and “maybe you shouldn’t get nearly the same voice.” He says that childcare subsidies are “class war against normal people.” He responds to racist attacks on his wife, who is Indian, by protesting that he loves her and she’s a good mother.
Vance suggests that women should stay in violent marriages and writes actual elegies about his grandparents’ marriage, which was mired in abuse and alcohol and began when his grandmother was a pregnant 13-year-old child.
Even as he holds the exact same job that Harris had four years ago, he demands to know what Harris, a former senator, prosecutor, and state attorney general, has done with her life “other than collect a check.” He also supports ending birthright citizenship, which would delegitimize Harris (and also his own wife Usha Chilukuri Vance).
The choice is to laugh or cry or VOTE! And I’m not even going to elucidate on RFK Jr and that poor dead bear.
But, the good news is the more DonOld and JD lean into extremism. The worse it gets for them. This Guardian article explains how Trump has been rilling up his White Christian Nationalist base. “Trump leans into religious extremism to energize rightwing evangelicals. Ex-president turning to Christian nationalists for support as Kamala Harris’s potential nomination poses hard challenge.”
Donald Trump, now facing a tougher challenge in the US election after Joe Biden stepped down in favor of Kamala Harris, is increasingly leaning into religious extremism aimed at energizing a key section of his support base: socially conservative Christians.
Fears that Trump would be an authoritarian leader if elected seemed to be realized last week, when he told a group of Christian supporters they “would not have to vote” in four years if he becomes president.
“My theory would be that since Harris has entered the race, Trump has recognized that he’s on shakier ground,” said Matthew D Taylor, author of The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy.
“If you watched the RNC and saw the discourse there, [Republicans] really were quite confident that they were going to kind of have a cakewalk to victory in November.
“I think there’s, there’s more anxiety there now. I think Trump is dialing up religious dog whistles, and sometimes just straight up whistles to really galvanize and submit that religion’s religious support.”
Since 2016, Trump has become an unlikely hero for Christian nationalists – a loose grouping of evangelical Christians who believe the US was founded as a Christian nation, and want to see Christianity feature prominently in American life and politics.
After a stumbling start – during his first run for president the thrice-married Trump struggled to name a single Bible verse, referred to the Eucharist as a “little cracker”, and put money in the communion plate during a church visit – the relationship was cemented when Trump-installed supreme court justices overturned Roe v Wade.
Writing at The New Republic, Greg Sargent explains that extremist policies are moving the voters towards Haris. “Surprise Poll Reveals a Key Trump Weakness Against Kamala Harris’ A new survey finds Harris substantially ahead of Trump among Latinos, a sign that she may be rebuilding the Democratic coalition—which is essential to defeating him.”
Now a new poll—apparently the first large-sample poll of Latinos since Harris became presumptive Democratic nominee—provides fresh grounds for that optimism. It finds that Harris holds a nearly 20-point lead over Donald Trump among Hispanics in the battleground states, a surprisingly large expansion of Biden’s ailing support among them—and that her candidacy has room to grow that lead, suggesting she may be putting back in play Sun Belt states that appeared lost under Biden.
Harris leads Trump by 55 percent to 37 percent in the head-to-head finding, which sampled 800 Latinos across Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, and North Carolina. The survey—provided to The New Republic in advance of its release on Monday—was conducted July 23–26, well after Biden stepped aside on July 21.
The poll dovetails with other national polls finding similar advantages for Harris among Latino voters. But, significantly, the larger Latino sample size in the survey—commissioned by the voter engagement group Somos PAC and conducted by Latino pollster Gary Segura—provides a stronger basis for confidence that Harris’s lead among Hispanics is real.
“Harris enters as the nominee with a very strong lead among Latinos,” says Segura, whose firm BSP Research did the poll (Segura’s business partner, Matt Barreto, polls separately for the Harris campaign). “We focused only on the battlegrounds, with a large enough sample in them to arrive at a confident estimate of the two-party vote in the states that will actually decide the election—not in states where the outcome is already determined, like Texas and California.”
This is leaving Trump in a very confused place. Alexander Bolton at The Hill writes this. “GOP senators say Trump caught ‘off guard’ by Harris’s strength.”
They see Trump’s awkward discussion about Harris’s racial heritage at the National Association of Black Journalists convention as a clear sign the Trump campaign hasn’t yet hammered out a workable strategy for the battle against Harris.
GOP lawmakers also view Trump’s selection of Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate as evidence that the former president didn’t expect Biden to drop out of the race. They worry Vance’s outspoken views on restricting abortion and his claim that “childless cat ladies” run the country play right into the message that Harris and Democrats will center their campaign on in the fall.
One Republican senator who spoke to Trump before he announced Vance as his running mate said the former president expressed skepticism that Biden would drop out of the race.
“I think they were caught off guard. I think they were surprised,” the senator said. “I think there was shock when the Democrats revived [their party] really quickly” and unified support behind Harris.
“I think she’s more formidable than Republicans give her credit for. It’s going to be a short election. That favors her. It’s going to be sprint. We’re used to these long elections; this one’s going to end up being short. That helps her,” the lawmaker said of Harris, who announced she had raised $310 million for her campaign in July.
The lawmaker said Trump’s selection of Vance as his running mate to combat Biden’s strength in Michigan and Pennsylvania, specifically, showed he expected the incumbent to be his opponent in the fall.
A second GOP senator in contact with Trump who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the campaign said the GOP nominee and his team weren’t ready for the entire Democratic Party to rally behind Harris within a few days of Biden dropping his reelection bid.
How about he’s just an addlepated, mean old man who’s a convicted felon, lies and cons his way to money, and has policies that will lead everyone but white male Christians into a less free and equitable space in this country? Doesn’t character mean anything anymore? What is rather odd to me is that JD Vance appears to be stalking Harris and whoever becomes her running mate around the campaign trail. This is in Politico and is written by Alex Isenstadt. “JD Vance is touring the same states as Harris this week. The Republican vice presidential nominee is “bracketing” Harris as she introduces her runningmate.” I’m not particularly sure that contrast will go well for Vance, who is still weird. It reminds me of when Donald stalked Secretary Clinton around a stage.
JD Vance is planning to trail Kamala Harris to a series of battleground states over the coming week, a move that comes as the Republican vice presidential nominee is carving out a more defined role for himself on Donald Trump’s campaign.
Vance will take part in a three-day tour following Harris — or “bracketing” in political parlance — to four key states, according to a schedule shared first with POLITICO. His first stop on Tuesday will be in Philadelphia, the same day Harris will be there to introduce her newly minted vice presidential candidate.
The Ohio senator is expected to use the appearances to target Harris on immigration, crime and the economy – three areas where the Trump campaign plans to focus attacks on the vice president. Vance has been sketching out a role for himself as the campaign’s chief policy attack dog, looking to define Harris as out-of-the mainstream on a number of issues
Vance is also looking to take to the media circuit, including on less traditionally conservative-friendly outlets. He is expected to be an active participant on podcasts geared toward younger voters: Last week the 40-year-old Vance made an appearance on “Full Send,” a podcast that is particularly popular among young men.
I guess we’ll see who is out of touch with the values of America when all they can do is lie to hide the truth of their plans.
So, that’s it for me today. I’m doing more phone banking on Wednesday. It will be fun to see which state I get to call next. There are many more states in play than when I first started, which is the best news I can give you from my vantage point.
Hope you have a great week! The best thing may be for you to turn off the TV after we get the VEEP candidate. Then, start writing postcards for Kamala. Action always beats passively watching the media trying to go for the clicks.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
https://skydancingblog.com/2024/08/05/mostly-monday-reads-ye-olde-addlepated-donald/
#DonOld #Repeat1968 #DonaldTheAddlepated #HarrisVeepstakes #JohnBuss #PattiSmith #PeopleHaveThePower #VanceIsWEIRD
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“Every time Trump opens his mouth, he lies.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Every day, it becomes more clear that DonOld is so old and addlepated that he is unsuited for anything but a front porch rocker in a place where he can’t harm himself or others. This quote from a Laura Ingraham interview on July 29th pretty much sums up exactly how far his mental deterioration has advanced. This is from The Hill and reported by Brett Samuels. “Trump on Vance’s ‘childless’ comments: ‘He likes family.’” Even the polygamist inventor of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, wasn’t up to this task.
Former President Trump on Monday offered cover for his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), as Vance faces a firestorm over his past comments mocking “childless cat ladies.”
Trump told Fox News host Laura Ingraham that Vance has “tremendous support,” and argued he does particularly well among “people that like families.”
“He made a certain statement having to do with families. That doesn’t mean that people that aren’t a member of a big and beautiful family with 400 children around and everything else, it doesn’t mean that a person doesn’t have — he’s not against anything. But he loves family. It’s very important to him,” Trump said of Vance.
Okay, that’s weird. Meanwhile, we are likely to find out Vice President Harris’ choice of a VEEP sometime tomorrow in a videotaped announcement. This is from Eugene Daniels writing for Politico. “Harris VP announcement coming Tuesday with likely video. Biden’s 2020 introduction of Harris is a likely model, campaign insiders say.”
Vice President Kamala Harris is bringing her crash search for a running mate to a close, with a final decision expected over the next 24 hours with a video announcement likely to follow sometime Tuesday, according to people familiar with the selection process.
While the precise nature of the rollout is not final, campaign insiders are pointing to President Joe Biden’s 2020 video introduction of Harris as a likely model. A media leak of the pick could upend those plans, they said.
The planned rollout will follow a closely watched final weekend of deliberations. A vetting team led by former Attorney General Eric Holder briefed Harris on the roughly half-dozen final candidates.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker have also been reviewed by the Harris campaign vetting team.
Biden in 2020 formally introduced Harris in a two-minute video released five days before the Democratic National Convention that included video of the future president calling Harris to ask her to join the ticket. Media reports, however, broke the news the night before the video was released, which the Biden campaign acknowledged with online postings.
Harris is scheduled to make her first appearance with her new running mate at a Philadelphia rally Tuesday, kicking off a five-day barnstorming tour to seven battleground states.
All of this stands in sharp contrast to the Vance roll-out. But would you expect from a Geezer that confuses Nancy Pelosi with Nikki Haley? Or E. Jean Carrol with Marla Maples? How refreshing is it to have our daily moments of Black Girl Joy compared to the constant misogyny of DonOld the Addlepated? Even the Australians don’t like seeing, hearing, or dealing with Trump’s Trauma. This is from The Guardian. “Trump and Vance’s misogyny and cynical identity politics mean Australians can’t ‘just chill’ about the US election. America remains the west’s most influential nation – which is why I fear for a world where Republican leaders could be in power. ” This Op-Ed is written by Paul Daley.
The litany of Trump’s actual (and verbal) offences against women is notorious. This seems too often forgotten or overlooked by admirers the world over – especially among sections of the political class here in Australia – to the file marked “character’’ and made, therefore, somehow irrelevant.
But such character traits are as highly relevant globally, as Trump attacks the reproductive (and human) rights of American women and deploys vicious slurs against women who threaten – or call out – their misogyny. The latest to come to lightseems to be Vance’s weaponisation of parenthood, in 2021 labelling senior Democrats – including now presidential nominee Kamala Harris and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – “childless cat ladies’’.
Trump’s latest attack on Kamala Harris – saying she had “turned black’’, an unsustainably false challenge to her racial identity – makes him less worthy. Just as this will give succour to racists the world over, it also enables politicians, including here, who would weaponise racial identity for cynical gain.
While Trump and Vance, like all populists, are perilously short on constructive policy and plans and optimism for the future, their prescriptive visions for social design when it comes to families and how they reckon they should look are coming into very sharp – and alarming – focus.
If this is all starting to sound, well, somewhat dystopic, that’s because it is. The most alarming thing for me, a world away, about the re-emergence of Trump (twice impeached, 34 felony convictions) and the upwardly-managing Vance is the global licence they give others to ape, voice and enact their misogyny. If it’s good enough for the leader of the free world and his apprentice …
With Trump’s cozying up to despots and dictators and his own dictatorial fantasies (having denied the last election result then incited a 6 January lynch mob to attack the capitol in pursuit of his then vice-president, Mike Pence, who certified the legitimate election of Joe Biden), Trump is the embodiment of autocracy. The danger he poses potentially extends far and away beyond the US, and with a deputy like Vance (who would not stand up to him the way Pence did), Trump’s power would be unfettered. So, “responsible’’? No. Don’t just chill. Be vigilant.
Liz Dye writes, “It’s fine to laugh at JD Vance and his couch. Having fun with a viral joke is not the same as lying relentlessly.” This is from Public Notice.
Since Trump named him as his running mate, the media has unearthed an endless stream of videos of Vance saying deeply weird things. He inveighs against “childless cat ladies” like Vice President Kamala Harris, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He suggests that parents should be entitled to cast votes for their minor children because if you’re childless “you don’t have as much of an investment in the future of this country” and “maybe you shouldn’t get nearly the same voice.” He says that childcare subsidies are “class war against normal people.” He responds to racist attacks on his wife, who is Indian, by protesting that he loves her and she’s a good mother.
Vance suggests that women should stay in violent marriages and writes actual elegies about his grandparents’ marriage, which was mired in abuse and alcohol and began when his grandmother was a pregnant 13-year-old child.
Even as he holds the exact same job that Harris had four years ago, he demands to know what Harris, a former senator, prosecutor, and state attorney general, has done with her life “other than collect a check.” He also supports ending birthright citizenship, which would delegitimize Harris (and also his own wife Usha Chilukuri Vance).
The choice is to laugh or cry or VOTE! And I’m not even going to elucidate on RFK Jr and that poor dead bear.
But, the good news is the more DonOld and JD lean into extremism. The worse it gets for them. This Guardian article explains how Trump has been rilling up his White Christian Nationalist base. “Trump leans into religious extremism to energize rightwing evangelicals. Ex-president turning to Christian nationalists for support as Kamala Harris’s potential nomination poses hard challenge.”
Donald Trump, now facing a tougher challenge in the US election after Joe Biden stepped down in favor of Kamala Harris, is increasingly leaning into religious extremism aimed at energizing a key section of his support base: socially conservative Christians.
Fears that Trump would be an authoritarian leader if elected seemed to be realized last week, when he told a group of Christian supporters they “would not have to vote” in four years if he becomes president.
“My theory would be that since Harris has entered the race, Trump has recognized that he’s on shakier ground,” said Matthew D Taylor, author of The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy.
“If you watched the RNC and saw the discourse there, [Republicans] really were quite confident that they were going to kind of have a cakewalk to victory in November.
“I think there’s, there’s more anxiety there now. I think Trump is dialing up religious dog whistles, and sometimes just straight up whistles to really galvanize and submit that religion’s religious support.”
Since 2016, Trump has become an unlikely hero for Christian nationalists – a loose grouping of evangelical Christians who believe the US was founded as a Christian nation, and want to see Christianity feature prominently in American life and politics.
After a stumbling start – during his first run for president the thrice-married Trump struggled to name a single Bible verse, referred to the Eucharist as a “little cracker”, and put money in the communion plate during a church visit – the relationship was cemented when Trump-installed supreme court justices overturned Roe v Wade.
Writing at The New Republic, Greg Sargent explains that extremist policies are moving the voters towards Haris. “Surprise Poll Reveals a Key Trump Weakness Against Kamala Harris’ A new survey finds Harris substantially ahead of Trump among Latinos, a sign that she may be rebuilding the Democratic coalition—which is essential to defeating him.”
Now a new poll—apparently the first large-sample poll of Latinos since Harris became presumptive Democratic nominee—provides fresh grounds for that optimism. It finds that Harris holds a nearly 20-point lead over Donald Trump among Hispanics in the battleground states, a surprisingly large expansion of Biden’s ailing support among them—and that her candidacy has room to grow that lead, suggesting she may be putting back in play Sun Belt states that appeared lost under Biden.
Harris leads Trump by 55 percent to 37 percent in the head-to-head finding, which sampled 800 Latinos across Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, and North Carolina. The survey—provided to The New Republic in advance of its release on Monday—was conducted July 23–26, well after Biden stepped aside on July 21.
The poll dovetails with other national polls finding similar advantages for Harris among Latino voters. But, significantly, the larger Latino sample size in the survey—commissioned by the voter engagement group Somos PAC and conducted by Latino pollster Gary Segura—provides a stronger basis for confidence that Harris’s lead among Hispanics is real.
“Harris enters as the nominee with a very strong lead among Latinos,” says Segura, whose firm BSP Research did the poll (Segura’s business partner, Matt Barreto, polls separately for the Harris campaign). “We focused only on the battlegrounds, with a large enough sample in them to arrive at a confident estimate of the two-party vote in the states that will actually decide the election—not in states where the outcome is already determined, like Texas and California.”
This is leaving Trump in a very confused place. Alexander Bolton at The Hill writes this. “GOP senators say Trump caught ‘off guard’ by Harris’s strength.”
They see Trump’s awkward discussion about Harris’s racial heritage at the National Association of Black Journalists convention as a clear sign the Trump campaign hasn’t yet hammered out a workable strategy for the battle against Harris.
GOP lawmakers also view Trump’s selection of Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate as evidence that the former president didn’t expect Biden to drop out of the race. They worry Vance’s outspoken views on restricting abortion and his claim that “childless cat ladies” run the country play right into the message that Harris and Democrats will center their campaign on in the fall.
One Republican senator who spoke to Trump before he announced Vance as his running mate said the former president expressed skepticism that Biden would drop out of the race.
“I think they were caught off guard. I think they were surprised,” the senator said. “I think there was shock when the Democrats revived [their party] really quickly” and unified support behind Harris.
“I think she’s more formidable than Republicans give her credit for. It’s going to be a short election. That favors her. It’s going to be sprint. We’re used to these long elections; this one’s going to end up being short. That helps her,” the lawmaker said of Harris, who announced she had raised $310 million for her campaign in July.
The lawmaker said Trump’s selection of Vance as his running mate to combat Biden’s strength in Michigan and Pennsylvania, specifically, showed he expected the incumbent to be his opponent in the fall.
A second GOP senator in contact with Trump who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the campaign said the GOP nominee and his team weren’t ready for the entire Democratic Party to rally behind Harris within a few days of Biden dropping his reelection bid.
How about he’s just an addlepated, mean old man who’s a convicted felon, lies and cons his way to money, and has policies that will lead everyone but white male Christians into a less free and equitable space in this country? Doesn’t character mean anything anymore? What is rather odd to me is that JD Vance appears to be stalking Harris and whoever becomes her running mate around the campaign trail. This is in Politico and is written by Alex Isenstadt. “JD Vance is touring the same states as Harris this week. The Republican vice presidential nominee is “bracketing” Harris as she introduces her runningmate.” I’m not particularly sure that contrast will go well for Vance, who is still weird. It reminds me of when Donald stalked Secretary Clinton around a stage.
JD Vance is planning to trail Kamala Harris to a series of battleground states over the coming week, a move that comes as the Republican vice presidential nominee is carving out a more defined role for himself on Donald Trump’s campaign.
Vance will take part in a three-day tour following Harris — or “bracketing” in political parlance — to four key states, according to a schedule shared first with POLITICO. His first stop on Tuesday will be in Philadelphia, the same day Harris will be there to introduce her newly minted vice presidential candidate.
The Ohio senator is expected to use the appearances to target Harris on immigration, crime and the economy – three areas where the Trump campaign plans to focus attacks on the vice president. Vance has been sketching out a role for himself as the campaign’s chief policy attack dog, looking to define Harris as out-of-the mainstream on a number of issues
Vance is also looking to take to the media circuit, including on less traditionally conservative-friendly outlets. He is expected to be an active participant on podcasts geared toward younger voters: Last week the 40-year-old Vance made an appearance on “Full Send,” a podcast that is particularly popular among young men.
I guess we’ll see who is out of touch with the values of America when all they can do is lie to hide the truth of their plans.
So, that’s it for me today. I’m doing more phone banking on Wednesday. It will be fun to see which state I get to call next. There are many more states in play than when I first started, which is the best news I can give you from my vantage point.
Hope you have a great week! The best thing may be for you to turn off the TV after we get the VEEP candidate. Then, start writing postcards for Kamala. Action always beats passively watching the media trying to go for the clicks.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
https://skydancingblog.com/2024/08/05/mostly-monday-reads-ye-olde-addlepated-donald/
#DonOld #Repeat1968 #DonaldTheAddlepated #HarrisVeepstakes #JohnBuss #PattiSmith #PeopleHaveThePower #VanceIsWEIRD
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“Ketchup is flying.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
While the Wall Street Journal and the other “big” newspapers were busy writing about how President Biden looked so old and tired and ignoring the insane things Dotard DonOld was saying at his rallies, President Biden was busy negotiating a complex deal with multiple countries to get a WSJ writer and other hostages released from Russian Prison. There are so many amazing things about this series of negotiations that it’s hard to list. Still, one of the many amazing things was that there were no leaks of any ongoing processes, that included other countries, the CIA, the State Department, the Vice President, and other U.S. officials.
The Wall Street Journal is even being gracious today with its news and headlines about their freed reporter Evan Gershkovich, who is now in San Antonio for medical exams and has been reunited with his mother. They have even acknowledged the role Vice President Harris played in the Swap.
Vice President Kamala Harris played a role in negotiations with allies to secure the prisoner-swap deal. Harris met with both German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob separately in intimate settings during the Munich Security Conference in February to urge both leaders to push the deal through, according to a White House official.
Harris’s meeting with Scholz was particularly critical to securing the exchange because releasing Krasikov was a key Russian demand. The two first had a normal bilateral meeting before Harris asked Scholz to stay back for a “restricted bilateral,” the official said. Harris asked everyone to leave except Scholz and one aide on each side.
“They had a back and forth about how to best move forward about that, but ultimately, she was pressing Scholz to take action on this,” the official said.
Harris has met Scholz previously on several occasions and had a “good working relationship with him,” the official said. That is “part of the reason why she was able to have a really good, frank conversation with him.”
Harris had never met Golob before the conference. Their meeting was the highest-level U.S. engagement at the time with the Slovenian government, which was holding two Russian nationals Moscow wanted released. That meeting was also restricted to just Harris, Golob and two aides.
Separately, Harris spoke to Yulia Navalnaya, widow of Alexey Navalny, on Thursday, according to a White House official. Russian political prisoners who had worked with Navalny were released as part of the swap.
The German Chancellor and the Slovenian Prime Minister were key to the deal. The AP reports the swap as a “landmark.”
The United States and Russia completed their biggest prisoner swap in post-Soviet history on Thursday, with Moscow releasing journalist Evan Gershkovich and fellow American Paul Whelan, along with dissidents including Vladimir Kara-Murza, in a multinational deal that set two dozen people free.
Gershkovich, Whelan and Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist with dual U.S.-Russia citizenship, arrived on American soil shortly before midnight for a joyful reunion with their families. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris also were at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland to greet them and dispense hugs all around.
The trade unfolded despite relations between Washington and Moscow being at their lowest point since the Cold War after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Negotiators in backchannel talks at one point explored an exchange involving Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, but after his death in February ultimately stitched together a 24-person deal that required significant concessions from European allies, including the release of a Russian assassin, and secured freedom for a cluster of journalists, suspected spies, political prisoners and others.
I don’t care that some bad guys got sent back to Russia. That’s a type of punishment, even though Putin played them up as heroes. I can’t imagine they will be completely safe there. However, we brought the good folks home to thrive.
I keep reporting that my phone banking response is just about the most uplifting since I did my first phone back as a junior in high school. The election updates are getting more positive as the Harris Campaign raked in more than twice Team Weird. This is from NBC News. Election 2024 live updates: Harris team says it raised $310M in July, more than double what Trump’s team announced. Vice President Kamala Harris’ team said it raised $200 million during the first week of her campaign.”
Vice President Kamala Harris’ team announced today that it raised $310 million in July. That would trounce the $138.7 million former President Donald Trump’s team said it raised last month. NBC News cannot verify those reports until Federal Election Commission reports for July are released.
Tara Sutter, reporting for The Hill, has this headline. “Pritzker says Trump ‘bewildered’ by Harris, new Dem excitement.” I’m getting trolled on social media whenever I produce my mini-report on what people say to me. On my Wednesday calls this week, I got to talk to seniors in places like Tennessee, Missouri, and Illinois this week. They are fired up and ready to go! They’re talking to their family and friend circles to pass a better world to our children and their children! I feel very positive. Some of these folks live in deeply red corners of their states. Yet, they’ve decided to talk about how excited they are about Harris to friends, family, and neighbors. One woman said she saw a woman wearing a Kamala t-shirt in a restaurant, which surprised her. She talked to the woman, and they said they would stand up for the future! The couple from Tennessee asked how they could volunteer! They said they knew they had to fight for the future. I guess I’m not the only granny for sanity.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) said Thursday he believes former President Trump is “bewildered” by Vice President Harris and the excitement she has generated among Democrats.
“Kamala Harris is the perfect person at this moment,” Pritzker said on MSNBC’s “The Beat” to anchor Ari Melber. “We’ve got the kind of palpable excitement, the energy, that we really need in the party to carry us to victory in November, and of course Donald Trump is, I think, bewildered by it all. I don’t know that he has any idea how to handle the excitement that’s happening on the Democratic side, or Kamala Harris herself.”
Pritzker is among the many names floated as a possible running mate for Harris, the likely Democratic presidential nominee. His home state will also host this year’s Democratic National Convention later this month in Chicago.
“We’re planning a phenomenal convention here in Chicago. … the excitement is palpable,” Pritzker said. “The United Center, which is where the convention will happen, is being spruced up, lookin’ terrific.”
Besides Pritzker, other names on the vice presidential shortlist include Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Democratic Governors are all speaking out with enthusiasm. They’re also nailing Donald and the guy who changed his name three times to the wall. DonOld is ratcheting up the racism and misogyny. This is from Susan B. Glasser reporting for The New Yorker. “Trump’s Racist Attack on Kamala Harris Was No Accident. Is it, perhaps, a sign that the Vice-President’s swift rise in the polls has him panicked?”
Spoiler alert: he meant it. When Donald Trump claimed, on Wednesday afternoon, in a combative onstage interview at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago, that Kamala Harris had adopted her identity as a Black woman in an effort to gain political advantage, he drew appalled gasps from the audience. “She was Indian all the way, and then all of a sudden she made a turn and she became a Black person,” he said. This was an inaccurate slur as well as a bizarre one. Harris has always been proudly biracial: she is the daughter of an Indian mother and a Black, Jamaican father, both of whom immigrated to the U.S. She attended Howard, a historically Black college, where she joined one of Black America’s most storied sororities. Nonetheless, Trump doubled down on this particularly Trumpian form of hate speech. In a post on his Truth Social platform, he wrote, “Crazy Kamala is saying she’s Indian, not Black. This is a big deal. Stone cold phony. She uses everybody, including her racial identity!” That evening, in a rally in Pennsylvania, his campaign even projected an old news headline proclaiming Harris the first Indian American U.S. senator. Trump’s embattled Vice-Presidential nominee, J. D. Vance, joined in, too, calling Harris a “total phony who caters to whatever audience is in front of her.”
By Thursday morning, as the liberal commentariat feasted on its horror over his remarks and right-leaning pundits struggled to explain and excuse it, Trump mocked them all, posting an old photo of Harris alongside relatives on the Indian side of her family. He wrote, “Thank you Kamala for the nice picture you sent from many years ago! Your warmth, friendship, and love of your Indian Heritage are very much appreciated.” In another post, he circulated the conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer’s idea that, because Harris’s birth certificate says her father’s “color or race” is “Jamaican,” not Black, she is a “liar” who is “NOT black and never has been.”
How much clearer does it have to get? America, you are being trolled.
Laura Loomer probably holds the Guinness World Record for being the largest piece of shit ever. Meanwhile, I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Atlanta rally Tuesday night. I got to stick around for some campaign insider stuff and a Zoom visit from the Vice President. It’s been a long time since I’ve been this hyped up to volunteer my ass off. This is from the Washington Post. “Harris events: Not your father’s campaign rallies (or Biden’s). If there was ever any indication of the head-snapping transition that Democrats have gone through, it was the one that occurred on Tuesday night in Atlanta when 10,000 people danced and cheered to Megan Thee Stallion before Harris took the stage for a campaign rally.”
If there was ever any indication of the head-snapping transition that Democrats have gone through, it was the one that occurred on Tuesday night in Atlanta when 10,000 people danced and cheered to Megan Thee Stallion before Vice President Harris took the stage for a campaign rally to the strains of Beyoncé’s “Freedom.” Biden forecast this kind of a change four years ago when he talked about a bridge to a new generation, but that transformation didn’t take place until the past two weeks when he officially relinquished his grip on the party.
In fact, Joe Biden never came up.
From the music to the outfits — and, most tellingly, the crowd size — it was clearer than ever that the shift to a new Democratic generation was complete.
By and large, it is the same campaign aides who were putting on Biden events that are now in charge of Harris ones. But the types of crowds interested in attending Harris events — and the musicians willing to perform at them — are very different. The new playlist, even if controlled by the same staffers who curated Biden’s soundtrack (a mix including Whitney Houston’s “Higher Love,” Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down,” and Elton John’s “Philadelphia Freedom”), has a certain Harris flair, and is put together based on her personal input.
Campaign aides say they are still thinking about how Harris events will be different, and they are determined to not only do large-scale rallies but want to put her in smaller settings as well. The coming days will provide more of a test case as Harris picks a running mate and launches a seven-state tour that will probably include a range of venues.
In Atlanta, the baton was fully passed to Kamala Harris. This was now her party. Her campaign. Her playlist.
Even though this headline comes with my usual admonition about trusting polls, it’s a good sign. “Kamala Harris Now Leads Donald Trump in Eight National Polls.” That’s eight data points, so that’s good. This reporting comes in Newsweek by Martha McHardy AND Andrew Stanton.
The new polls show the presumptive Democratic nominee is leading the former president by between 1 and 4 points.
RMG Research is the latest pollster to find Harris leading Trump in the national popular vote. The firm released a survey on Friday showing her with a 5-point lead (47 percent to 47 percent) over the former president. The poll was conducted among 3,000 registered voters from July 29 to July 31.
A poll conducted by Civiqs between July 27 and July 30 also showed Harris with a 5-point lead over Trump. Among 1,123 registered voters, Harris leads Trump 49 percent to 45 percent. Her lead is outside the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Harris is ahead of the Republican presidential nominee by 3 points in a poll by Leger conducted between July 26 and July 28. The poll, which surveyed 1,002 U.S. residents and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, showed she was leading Trump with 49 percent of the vote to his 46 percent. That represents a 4-point increase for the Democrat since Leger’s June poll.
When third-party candidates were included in the Leger poll, Harris’ lead over Trump grew to 7 points, to 48 percent, compared to the former president’s 41 percent.
Harris had a smaller lead of 2 points over Trump in four other national polls. These include a poll conducted by The Economist and YouGov, where the vice president polled at 46 percent among 1,434 registered voters—a lead within the poll’s 3 percent margin of error.
The other polls, conducted between July 23 and July 30 by Redfield and Wilton Strategies, Angus Reid, and Florida Atlantic University, showed Harris leading by 2 points—within each poll’s margin of error.
We just have to keep up the Momala Momentum. This is an interview from Elle on her role as stepmom to two young adults. To hell with J.D. Vance and his parade of stereotypes.
Cole and Ella could not have been more welcoming. They are brilliant, talented, funny kids who have grown to be remarkable adults. I was already hooked on Doug, but I believe it was Cole and Ella who reeled me in.
To know Cole and Ella is to know that their mother Kerstin is an incredible mother. Kerstin and I hit it off ourselves and are dear friends. She and I became a duo of cheerleaders in the bleachers at Ella’s swim meets and basketball games, often to Ella’s embarrassment. We sometimes joke that our modern family is almost a little too functional.
A few years later when Doug and I got married, Cole, Ella, and I agreed that we didn’t like the term “stepmom.” Instead they came up with the name “Momala.”
Our time as a family is Sunday dinner. We come together, all of us around the table, and over time we’ve fallen into our roles. Cole sets the table and picks the music, Ella makes beautiful desserts, Doug acts as my sous-chef, and I cook.
So, that’s it for me today. We’re on our 4th heatwave and have perpetual Severe Heat warnings. I’m at the point where I just fill my soaking tub up with cold water and literally chill out. I’m watching the Tropical Storm headed to Southern Florida. The Gulf Waters are hot. This could become a big wet one; southernmost Florida is on the Dirty Side. CNN is calling it this way. “Tropical Storm Debby forecast to hit Florida this weekend with torrential rain and wind.” It’s going straight up the East Coast and could become a Cyclone Level Four. So, be safe if you’re on its path.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
https://skydancingblog.com/2024/08/02/finally-friday-reads-we-understand-the-assignment/
#Repeat1968 #HarrisForPresident2024 #HostageSwap #JohnBuss #Racism
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“I wanted to get this right, so I took my time. I have no respect for the bully pulpit; they didn’t do anything other than give themselves undeserved pats on the back. That being said, we have an election to win. Kamala 2024!” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
And it is a good day! I became part of the Vice President’s Ground Game last Wednesday! I took a deep breath and shook off my phone anxiety. Then, I called Georgia Voters. I’m giving my Wednesday off to do this until my birthday, which is the day before the election. I’m one of the many people delighted to see a Harris Presidency. The Obamas were the last to join the chorus and finally endorsed Harris today. I can tell you that this ride to victory is a joyous one! Everyone I know and follow is ready to go!
Historian Steven Beschloss made these observations in his America, America blog. “A Joyful Campaign Ahead. With an exuberant laugh, Kamala Harris is energizing Democrats and renewing confidence about the coming election.”
Donald Trump and all the other arrogant, woman-hating Republican geniuses think attacking Kamala Harris’ laugh is a smart play. As if putting her down for her exuberance and joyfulness will reveal her to be unserious, unattractive, unfit for the job. As if a majority of Americans are not sick to death of the nasty, joyless, hateful and degrading mentality and agenda of Trump and his enablers. As if American voters—more than half of whom are women—really want to be told how to behave by a 78-year-old convicted felon who’s been found liable for sexual assault and has made exceedingly clear throughout his life what he thinks of women.
Last Sunday Joe Biden jolted the political world by announcing that he was stepping aside and endorsing his vice president—an inspiring act of patriotism that has led to a swift and electric surge of fundraising, endorsements and delegate support for now-presumptive nominee Harris. That same weekend, the ever-degrading Trump was mocking Harris’ laugh: “I call her laughing Kamala. Have you seen her laughing? She is crazy. You can tell a lot by a laugh. She is nuts.” That was followed by calling Nancy Pelosi crazy, too.
Honestly, we should hope that he and his VP pick, J.D. Vance, keep reminding American voters how much they despise Kamala Harris for her gender and her laughter. Because it’s my view that the more they say so—including their woman-hating views on reproductive rights and marriage and family—the more that VP Harris will rise in the polls and in the eyes of voters who’ve had it with Trump’s lust for carnage and yearn to avert the grim future that he promises.
Take note of how the vice president, aware of the sexist mockery, described the origins of her laugh in a conversation with Drew Barrymore in April. “Let me just tell you something: I have my mother’s laugh,” Harris told Barrymore, who hosts a daytime television show and had just told her guest that she loves her laugh. Harris continued:
And I grew up around a bunch of women in particular who laughed from the belly. They laughed. They would sit around the kitchen, drinking their coffee, telling big stories with big laughs…And I think it’s really important to remind each other and our younger ones, don’t be confined by other people’s perception about how you should act…It’s really important.
Contrast that with the sour, humorless, grievance-filled Trump and his running mate who supports a national ban on abortion and who has said that he believes women should stay in abusive marriages for the good of their children. J.D. Vance is also the guy who attempted to smear Harris as one of a group of “childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made.” (Never mind that Harris is part of a blended family and has been a stepmother for over a decade.) Do they really think that denigrating women like this is a winning strategy? Have at it and find out.
The last days have been stunning, providing a kind of joyful whiplash for all of us who have gravely worried about the state of the race and the expanding prospect that Trump was careening toward victory. The speed with which the vice president has shifted from a question to a declarative answer about how to defeat Donald Trump has been overwhelming in the best sense.
The great news is that Harris and her choice of Veep candidate can get on state ballots. This is from CNN. “Exclusive: CNN survey finds 48 states say Harris can get on ballot instead of Biden, rejecting claim switch breaks state laws.”
The election authorities of at least 48 states, both Republicans and Democrats, say there are no obstacles that would prevent Vice President Kamala Harris from getting on election ballots if she becomes the official Democratic presidential nominee, as expected.
The findings of a CNN survey of all 50 states undercut the claims of House Speaker Mike Johnson, who said both before and after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday that there are legal “impediments” in some states to a party switching presidential candidates as the Democrats did. There was not a single state election authority that told CNN Harris would face a ballot issue as the official nominee; election authorities in two states, Florida and Montana, did not respond to requests for comment, but a review of the states’ ballot access rules suggests Harris is not likely to face an issue there either.
Johnson, a lawyer, said on ABC News Sunday that “it would be wrong and I think unlawful in accordance to some of these state rules for a handful of people to go in the backroom and switch it out because they’re – they don’t like the candidate any longer.” He said on CNN Monday that “in some of the states, there are impediments to just switching someone out like that.”
But experts on election law say that is not true, since the Democrats never named Biden as the official 2024 nominee or submitted his name to the states as their 2024 nominee. And election authorities around the country have now confirmed – telling CNN or saying in public statements that Harris will not face any obstacles getting on their ballots if she is formally chosen as the Democratic nominee next month.
The 48 states (plus the District of Columbia) whose election authorities have said the official Democratic nominee will not have ballot issues include the seven states with the closest margins in the 2020 election, which are widely considered the key swing states again in 2024: Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Michigan and Nevada. The 48 states also include the 15 states where former President Donald Trump, the Republicans’ 2024 nominee, had his highest share of the vote in 2020.
Johnson’s office did not respond to CNN’s requests to identify the “impediments” he claimed some states have.
One of my favorite things to listen to on the news the last few days is the profuse use of the word “weird” to describe the Republican ticket. Its association with J.D. Vance is hysterical because he and his policy suggestions are weird. This is from ABC News. The story is reported by Julia Reinstein. “Democrats’ new line of attack on Republicans? ‘You’re being weird’. “I think it’s really elegant in its simplicity,” one Democratic strategist said.”
Democrats have recently begun adopting a fresh new line of attack on Republicans: quite simply, calling them weird.
In a press release Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign responded to an appearance by former President Donald Trump on Fox News.
Under a bulleted list of “main takeaways” from Trump’s appearance was one that quickly captured the public’s attention: “Trump is old and quite weird?”
The dig appeared to be a callback to what Harris once said she would do, according to CNN, if Trump followed her around the debate stage like he did to Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Harris reportedly said she would turn around and ask him, “Why are you being so weird?”
After the anecdote circulated widely online, more Democrats began leaning into the “just call them weird” strategy.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz adopted the new party line in an MSNBC interview on Tuesday.
“These are weird people on the other side,” Walz said. “They want to take books away, they want to be in your exam room, that’s what it comes down to. … These are weird ideas.”
Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz also picked up on it. In an X post on Thursday, he shared a clip of a 2021 speech by Sen. JD Vance, in which the now–Republican vice presidential nominee said Americans without children should not get “nearly the same voice” in elections as those who do have children.
“This is quite weird,” Schatz wrote. “Like, a very very bad idea, but also weird. And presumably, unpopular.
The Former Guy’s Campaign is stumbling and bumbling. His usual nasty labeling is not working. The choice of JD Vance puts attention on Vance. I think he’s not going to stand for that very much longer. This is from the Guardian. “Conservatives’ racist and sexist attacks on Kamala Harris show exactly who they are. Conservatives’ racist and sexist attacks on Kamala Harris show exactly who they are. Hatred will continue to ooze from the right. Pay attention – because that bigotry isn’t just talk, it’s Republican policies.” The analysis is provided by Judith Levine.
Like a warm compress drawing pus from a wound, the Democratic presidential candidacy of Kamala Harris immediately brought out the misogyny and racism of the Maga Republican party.
Tim Burchett, the Tennessee Republican representative, called Harris, the child of a Black Jamaican father and an Indian mother, a DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) hire – picked, that is, because she is Black, not because she’s qualified. Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, insinuated that Harris is a welfare queen. “What the hell have you done other than collect a check?” he asked at a Michigan rally of Harris, a former state attorney general, US senator and now the vice-president. At the same time, social media posts showing Harris with her parents falsely claim she’s not really Black, because her father is light-skinned.
Popping up again are rumors circulated in 2020 by Trump lawyer John Eastman that Harris is ineligible to run for office because she might not be a citizen. Like Barack Obama, about whom Trump stirred the same “birther” calumny, Harris was born in the US.
Far-right blogger Matt Walsh and former Fox host Megyn Kelly suggested Harris slept her way to the top. Conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer went further, alleging that the veep was “once an escort” who started out by “giving blow jobs to successful, rich, Black men”. The founder of Pastors for Trump tweeted: “Both Joe + the Ho gotta go!”
While allegedly copulating with all comers, Harris is slammed for failing in her womanly duty to reproduce. In a video that recently turned up, Vance, the father of three, told Tucker Carlson in 2021 that the US was being run by “childless cat ladies” – Harris among them – who don’t “have a direct stake” in the country’s future. Will Chamberlain, a lawyer who worked on Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign, proclaimed that “people without kids … are highly susceptible to corruption and perversion. They have no care for the future and live in the present.”
Being a step-parent – as Harris is to her husband’s biological children – doesn’t count, Chamberlain added. This criticism has never been leveled against the childless George Washington – although, to be fair, he was the Father of Our Country.
And if misogyny and racism are not sufficient, the right keeps searching for plain weirdness to use against the Democratic candidate. All they’ve come up with, though, is one of her more charming characteristics, her laugh, from which Trump derives his lamest-yet political nickname: “Laughing Kamala”.
This stuff is vile to watch. But as with drained pus, it’s got to be exposed to the air. Because it’s not just talk. It reveals what a Trump presidency would mean. By exposing what’s festering barely under the skin of Trumpism, the Republican party is telling us to vote against him.
Margaret Sullivan writes this in the Guardian. “The media is already failing in its duty to fairly cover Kamala Harris. Sure, Harris deserves scrutiny. But she doesn’t deserve smears and stereotypes amplified by journalists and pundits addicted to clicks.” I have been more selective about whose coverage I watch these days and which newspapers I rely on. You may have noticed this in my cites recently.
It’s going to be ugly, that much is already clear.
In the few days since Kamala Harris began her 2024 campaign for president, the media has shown us where some of their coverage is headed: no place good.
Both the rightwing and traditional media are making some predictable blunders. Add in the swill that circulates endlessly on the social media platforms, and you’ve got a mess.
Take, for example, the recent coverage of a Republican congressman’s smear of Harris.
“One hundred percent she is a DEI hire,” Tim Burchett of Tennessee said on CNN, using the acronym for “diversity, equity and inclusion” to claim that she was ascending because of her race, not on merit. “Her record is abysmal at best.”
An NBC headline was one of many to hand a giant megaphone to this racist trope: “GOP Rep Tim Burchett calls Kamala Harris a ‘DEI vice-president’.” Plenty of others did the same – parroting and thus amplifying the slur.
Some news organizations added a fig leaf to their coverage, like the Tampa TV station whose headline read: “GOP representative called Harris a ‘DEI hire’: what does this mean?”
There was a more responsible way to go. USA Today, for one, brought helpful context in a piece headlined: “DEI candidate: what’s behind the GOP attacks on Kamala Harris.” It did a good job of explaining that this phrase is all part of the right’s anti-“woke” culture wars. “DEI has become GOP shorthand to impugn the qualifications of people of color who ascend to positions of power and influence.” The reporter quoted the author Mita Mallick noting that the DEI label is an attempt to “discredit, demoralize and disrespect leaders of color by labeling them ‘diversity hires’ – or otherwise misappropriating the language of diversity, equity, and inclusion as thinly veiled racist insults.” You come away with greater understanding.
Some insults are even more transparently racist, as when the perpetual liar and propagandist Kellyanne Conway went on Fox News in order to trash Harris: “She does not speak well. She does not work hard. She should not be the standard bearer for the party.”
These stereotypes, painting a woman of color as unintelligent and lazy, echo well-established white-grievance themes, causing the author Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who studies authoritarian movements, to warn: “Propagandists know that you should build on existing prejudices when introducing a new hate object or theme.”
Some commentary wasn’t racist but just pointless – as when Katy Tur asked, on MSNBC, if Harris was the kind of person voters would want to have a beer with. The “likeability” question certainly seems to come up for women candidates more than men.
It’s a familiar election-cycle cliche, but the former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacob didn’t find it harmless. He posted his disgust: “I want a president who won’t turn our country into a fascist hellscape. I’m not auditioning barstool partners.”
So, this is obviously going to get more heated and weirder as the next 100 days unfold. Here are some things that I’m looking out for. First, are we going to know more about Trump’s booboo that’s still wearing its Kotex? This is from Time Magazine. “What We Do and Don’t Know About Trump’s Ear Wound” This is another one of Trump’s braggadocious weirdness that’s like a lie. He did not take a bullet for us. He most likely caught a piece of shrapnel.
Trump’s ear wound from an assassination attempt at a rally on July 13 quickly became a symbol of solidarity for many of his supporters, and a grim reminder of political violence in the U.S.
But new comments by FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday indicated there’s much the American public still does not know about the injury. Wray suggested in congressional testimony that the wound may have been caused by shrapnel, while Trump and his former White House physician have said it was caused by a bullet.
The former guy is incapable of telling the truth. I don’t even think he recognizes it. He just makes things that make him feel good about himself and then repeats them incessantly. Will J.D. Vance be removed from the ticket for being too open about his weirdness and upstaging Donald in media coverage? This is from Matthew Chapman of Raw Story. “Trump will ‘blow’ J.D. Vance ‘to smithereens’ rather than be upstaged: ex-aide.” How many Scaramuccis will he last?
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) has a big problem, former Trump administration communications chief Anthony Scaramucci told CNN’s Boris Sanchez Thursday. He is constantly at risk of overshadowing former President Donald Trump himself.
And that is a dangerous thing for anyone in Trump’s orbit to do, he warned.
This comes amid reporting that Trump is already regretting his choice of Vance, which he made at a moment when he felt that he had already locked up the race and didn’t think he needed a running mate who balanced the ticket pragmatically.
“Given that vantage point that you’ve had into Donald Trump, how do you think he’s absorbing these comments by J.D. Vance about ‘childless cat people‘ and the sort of blowback that he’s gotten on social media and elsewhere from women notably, a subset of voters that Republicans haven’t had the most success with?”
“What made Vice President Mike Pence successful as a vice presidential candidate is he understood President Trump’s personality,” said Scaramucci, who became a sharp Trump critic after a catastrophic and brief 10-day stint in the administration.
Any questions to add?
So, have a great weekend. We can breathe easier but we must also work harder. I have two friends–one from here and one from Minneapolis–addressing and writing notes to votes with postcards. The number of us grannies on my Zoom phone bank retraining and calling was amazing. There were also a lot of grandpas too. You can also just ensure your family and neighbors get out to vote and encourage them to use mail-in and early voting if it’s available. GOTV work is just really empowering and it keeps you away from the stressful stuff. I’m doing as much as I can to save my daughters and my now 3-year-old granddaughters from a Donald, J.D., and Project 2025 nightmare! Just send out information on that all over Social Media! Everything helps!
What’s on your reading and blogging list?
#Repeat1968 #CatLadiesForKamala #DonaldSWeirdEarBooBoo #JohnBuss #MediaCoverageOfTheHarrisCampaign #WeirdDonald #WeirdJDVance #WeirdRepublicanBigotry #WeirdRepublicanPolicyAndValues
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“I wanted to get this right, so I took my time. I have no respect for the bully pulpit; they didn’t do anything other than give themselves undeserved pats on the back. That being said, we have an election to win. Kamala 2024!” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
And it is a good day! I became part of the Vice President’s Ground Game last Wednesday! I took a deep breath and shook off my phone anxiety. Then, I called Georgia Voters. I’m giving my Wednesday off to do this until my birthday, which is the day before the election. I’m one of the many people delighted to see a Harris Presidency. The Obamas were the last to join the chorus and finally endorsed Harris today. I can tell you that this ride to victory is a joyous one! Everyone I know and follow is ready to go!
Historian Steven Beschloss made these observations in his America, America blog. “A Joyful Campaign Ahead. With an exuberant laugh, Kamala Harris is energizing Democrats and renewing confidence about the coming election.”
Donald Trump and all the other arrogant, woman-hating Republican geniuses think attacking Kamala Harris’ laugh is a smart play. As if putting her down for her exuberance and joyfulness will reveal her to be unserious, unattractive, unfit for the job. As if a majority of Americans are not sick to death of the nasty, joyless, hateful and degrading mentality and agenda of Trump and his enablers. As if American voters—more than half of whom are women—really want to be told how to behave by a 78-year-old convicted felon who’s been found liable for sexual assault and has made exceedingly clear throughout his life what he thinks of women.
Last Sunday Joe Biden jolted the political world by announcing that he was stepping aside and endorsing his vice president—an inspiring act of patriotism that has led to a swift and electric surge of fundraising, endorsements and delegate support for now-presumptive nominee Harris. That same weekend, the ever-degrading Trump was mocking Harris’ laugh: “I call her laughing Kamala. Have you seen her laughing? She is crazy. You can tell a lot by a laugh. She is nuts.” That was followed by calling Nancy Pelosi crazy, too.
Honestly, we should hope that he and his VP pick, J.D. Vance, keep reminding American voters how much they despise Kamala Harris for her gender and her laughter. Because it’s my view that the more they say so—including their woman-hating views on reproductive rights and marriage and family—the more that VP Harris will rise in the polls and in the eyes of voters who’ve had it with Trump’s lust for carnage and yearn to avert the grim future that he promises.
Take note of how the vice president, aware of the sexist mockery, described the origins of her laugh in a conversation with Drew Barrymore in April. “Let me just tell you something: I have my mother’s laugh,” Harris told Barrymore, who hosts a daytime television show and had just told her guest that she loves her laugh. Harris continued:
And I grew up around a bunch of women in particular who laughed from the belly. They laughed. They would sit around the kitchen, drinking their coffee, telling big stories with big laughs…And I think it’s really important to remind each other and our younger ones, don’t be confined by other people’s perception about how you should act…It’s really important.
Contrast that with the sour, humorless, grievance-filled Trump and his running mate who supports a national ban on abortion and who has said that he believes women should stay in abusive marriages for the good of their children. J.D. Vance is also the guy who attempted to smear Harris as one of a group of “childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made.” (Never mind that Harris is part of a blended family and has been a stepmother for over a decade.) Do they really think that denigrating women like this is a winning strategy? Have at it and find out.
The last days have been stunning, providing a kind of joyful whiplash for all of us who have gravely worried about the state of the race and the expanding prospect that Trump was careening toward victory. The speed with which the vice president has shifted from a question to a declarative answer about how to defeat Donald Trump has been overwhelming in the best sense.
The great news is that Harris and her choice of Veep candidate can get on state ballots. This is from CNN. “Exclusive: CNN survey finds 48 states say Harris can get on ballot instead of Biden, rejecting claim switch breaks state laws.”
The election authorities of at least 48 states, both Republicans and Democrats, say there are no obstacles that would prevent Vice President Kamala Harris from getting on election ballots if she becomes the official Democratic presidential nominee, as expected.
The findings of a CNN survey of all 50 states undercut the claims of House Speaker Mike Johnson, who said both before and after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday that there are legal “impediments” in some states to a party switching presidential candidates as the Democrats did. There was not a single state election authority that told CNN Harris would face a ballot issue as the official nominee; election authorities in two states, Florida and Montana, did not respond to requests for comment, but a review of the states’ ballot access rules suggests Harris is not likely to face an issue there either.
Johnson, a lawyer, said on ABC News Sunday that “it would be wrong and I think unlawful in accordance to some of these state rules for a handful of people to go in the backroom and switch it out because they’re – they don’t like the candidate any longer.” He said on CNN Monday that “in some of the states, there are impediments to just switching someone out like that.”
But experts on election law say that is not true, since the Democrats never named Biden as the official 2024 nominee or submitted his name to the states as their 2024 nominee. And election authorities around the country have now confirmed – telling CNN or saying in public statements that Harris will not face any obstacles getting on their ballots if she is formally chosen as the Democratic nominee next month.
The 48 states (plus the District of Columbia) whose election authorities have said the official Democratic nominee will not have ballot issues include the seven states with the closest margins in the 2020 election, which are widely considered the key swing states again in 2024: Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Michigan and Nevada. The 48 states also include the 15 states where former President Donald Trump, the Republicans’ 2024 nominee, had his highest share of the vote in 2020.
Johnson’s office did not respond to CNN’s requests to identify the “impediments” he claimed some states have.
One of my favorite things to listen to on the news the last few days is the profuse use of the word “weird” to describe the Republican ticket. Its association with J.D. Vance is hysterical because he and his policy suggestions are weird. This is from ABC News. The story is reported by Julia Reinstein. “Democrats’ new line of attack on Republicans? ‘You’re being weird’. “I think it’s really elegant in its simplicity,” one Democratic strategist said.”
Democrats have recently begun adopting a fresh new line of attack on Republicans: quite simply, calling them weird.
In a press release Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign responded to an appearance by former President Donald Trump on Fox News.
Under a bulleted list of “main takeaways” from Trump’s appearance was one that quickly captured the public’s attention: “Trump is old and quite weird?”
The dig appeared to be a callback to what Harris once said she would do, according to CNN, if Trump followed her around the debate stage like he did to Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Harris reportedly said she would turn around and ask him, “Why are you being so weird?”
After the anecdote circulated widely online, more Democrats began leaning into the “just call them weird” strategy.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz adopted the new party line in an MSNBC interview on Tuesday.
“These are weird people on the other side,” Walz said. “They want to take books away, they want to be in your exam room, that’s what it comes down to. … These are weird ideas.”
Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz also picked up on it. In an X post on Thursday, he shared a clip of a 2021 speech by Sen. JD Vance, in which the now–Republican vice presidential nominee said Americans without children should not get “nearly the same voice” in elections as those who do have children.
“This is quite weird,” Schatz wrote. “Like, a very very bad idea, but also weird. And presumably, unpopular.
The Former Guy’s Campaign is stumbling and bumbling. His usual nasty labeling is not working. The choice of JD Vance puts attention on Vance. I think he’s not going to stand for that very much longer. This is from the Guardian. “Conservatives’ racist and sexist attacks on Kamala Harris show exactly who they are. Conservatives’ racist and sexist attacks on Kamala Harris show exactly who they are. Hatred will continue to ooze from the right. Pay attention – because that bigotry isn’t just talk, it’s Republican policies.” The analysis is provided by Judith Levine.
Like a warm compress drawing pus from a wound, the Democratic presidential candidacy of Kamala Harris immediately brought out the misogyny and racism of the Maga Republican party.
Tim Burchett, the Tennessee Republican representative, called Harris, the child of a Black Jamaican father and an Indian mother, a DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) hire – picked, that is, because she is Black, not because she’s qualified. Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, insinuated that Harris is a welfare queen. “What the hell have you done other than collect a check?” he asked at a Michigan rally of Harris, a former state attorney general, US senator and now the vice-president. At the same time, social media posts showing Harris with her parents falsely claim she’s not really Black, because her father is light-skinned.
Popping up again are rumors circulated in 2020 by Trump lawyer John Eastman that Harris is ineligible to run for office because she might not be a citizen. Like Barack Obama, about whom Trump stirred the same “birther” calumny, Harris was born in the US.
Far-right blogger Matt Walsh and former Fox host Megyn Kelly suggested Harris slept her way to the top. Conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer went further, alleging that the veep was “once an escort” who started out by “giving blow jobs to successful, rich, Black men”. The founder of Pastors for Trump tweeted: “Both Joe + the Ho gotta go!”
While allegedly copulating with all comers, Harris is slammed for failing in her womanly duty to reproduce. In a video that recently turned up, Vance, the father of three, told Tucker Carlson in 2021 that the US was being run by “childless cat ladies” – Harris among them – who don’t “have a direct stake” in the country’s future. Will Chamberlain, a lawyer who worked on Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign, proclaimed that “people without kids … are highly susceptible to corruption and perversion. They have no care for the future and live in the present.”
Being a step-parent – as Harris is to her husband’s biological children – doesn’t count, Chamberlain added. This criticism has never been leveled against the childless George Washington – although, to be fair, he was the Father of Our Country.
And if misogyny and racism are not sufficient, the right keeps searching for plain weirdness to use against the Democratic candidate. All they’ve come up with, though, is one of her more charming characteristics, her laugh, from which Trump derives his lamest-yet political nickname: “Laughing Kamala”.
This stuff is vile to watch. But as with drained pus, it’s got to be exposed to the air. Because it’s not just talk. It reveals what a Trump presidency would mean. By exposing what’s festering barely under the skin of Trumpism, the Republican party is telling us to vote against him.
Margaret Sullivan writes this in the Guardian. “The media is already failing in its duty to fairly cover Kamala Harris. Sure, Harris deserves scrutiny. But she doesn’t deserve smears and stereotypes amplified by journalists and pundits addicted to clicks.” I have been more selective about whose coverage I watch these days and which newspapers I rely on. You may have noticed this in my cites recently.
It’s going to be ugly, that much is already clear.
In the few days since Kamala Harris began her 2024 campaign for president, the media has shown us where some of their coverage is headed: no place good.
Both the rightwing and traditional media are making some predictable blunders. Add in the swill that circulates endlessly on the social media platforms, and you’ve got a mess.
Take, for example, the recent coverage of a Republican congressman’s smear of Harris.
“One hundred percent she is a DEI hire,” Tim Burchett of Tennessee said on CNN, using the acronym for “diversity, equity and inclusion” to claim that she was ascending because of her race, not on merit. “Her record is abysmal at best.”
An NBC headline was one of many to hand a giant megaphone to this racist trope: “GOP Rep Tim Burchett calls Kamala Harris a ‘DEI vice-president’.” Plenty of others did the same – parroting and thus amplifying the slur.
Some news organizations added a fig leaf to their coverage, like the Tampa TV station whose headline read: “GOP representative called Harris a ‘DEI hire’: what does this mean?”
There was a more responsible way to go. USA Today, for one, brought helpful context in a piece headlined: “DEI candidate: what’s behind the GOP attacks on Kamala Harris.” It did a good job of explaining that this phrase is all part of the right’s anti-“woke” culture wars. “DEI has become GOP shorthand to impugn the qualifications of people of color who ascend to positions of power and influence.” The reporter quoted the author Mita Mallick noting that the DEI label is an attempt to “discredit, demoralize and disrespect leaders of color by labeling them ‘diversity hires’ – or otherwise misappropriating the language of diversity, equity, and inclusion as thinly veiled racist insults.” You come away with greater understanding.
Some insults are even more transparently racist, as when the perpetual liar and propagandist Kellyanne Conway went on Fox News in order to trash Harris: “She does not speak well. She does not work hard. She should not be the standard bearer for the party.”
These stereotypes, painting a woman of color as unintelligent and lazy, echo well-established white-grievance themes, causing the author Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who studies authoritarian movements, to warn: “Propagandists know that you should build on existing prejudices when introducing a new hate object or theme.”
Some commentary wasn’t racist but just pointless – as when Katy Tur asked, on MSNBC, if Harris was the kind of person voters would want to have a beer with. The “likeability” question certainly seems to come up for women candidates more than men.
It’s a familiar election-cycle cliche, but the former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacob didn’t find it harmless. He posted his disgust: “I want a president who won’t turn our country into a fascist hellscape. I’m not auditioning barstool partners.”
So, this is obviously going to get more heated and weirder as the next 100 days unfold. Here are some things that I’m looking out for. First, are we going to know more about Trump’s booboo that’s still wearing its Kotex? This is from Time Magazine. “What We Do and Don’t Know About Trump’s Ear Wound” This is another one of Trump’s braggadocious weirdness that’s like a lie. He did not take a bullet for us. He most likely caught a piece of shrapnel.
Trump’s ear wound from an assassination attempt at a rally on July 13 quickly became a symbol of solidarity for many of his supporters, and a grim reminder of political violence in the U.S.
But new comments by FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday indicated there’s much the American public still does not know about the injury. Wray suggested in congressional testimony that the wound may have been caused by shrapnel, while Trump and his former White House physician have said it was caused by a bullet.
The former guy is incapable of telling the truth. I don’t even think he recognizes it. He just makes things that make him feel good about himself and then repeats them incessantly. Will J.D. Vance be removed from the ticket for being too open about his weirdness and upstaging Donald in media coverage? This is from Matthew Chapman of Raw Story. “Trump will ‘blow’ J.D. Vance ‘to smithereens’ rather than be upstaged: ex-aide.” How many Scaramuccis will he last?
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) has a big problem, former Trump administration communications chief Anthony Scaramucci told CNN’s Boris Sanchez Thursday. He is constantly at risk of overshadowing former President Donald Trump himself.
And that is a dangerous thing for anyone in Trump’s orbit to do, he warned.
This comes amid reporting that Trump is already regretting his choice of Vance, which he made at a moment when he felt that he had already locked up the race and didn’t think he needed a running mate who balanced the ticket pragmatically.
“Given that vantage point that you’ve had into Donald Trump, how do you think he’s absorbing these comments by J.D. Vance about ‘childless cat people‘ and the sort of blowback that he’s gotten on social media and elsewhere from women notably, a subset of voters that Republicans haven’t had the most success with?”
“What made Vice President Mike Pence successful as a vice presidential candidate is he understood President Trump’s personality,” said Scaramucci, who became a sharp Trump critic after a catastrophic and brief 10-day stint in the administration.
Any questions to add?
So, have a great weekend. We can breathe easier but we must also work harder. I have two friends–one from here and one from Minneapolis–addressing and writing notes to votes with postcards. The number of us grannies on my Zoom phone bank retraining and calling was amazing. There were also a lot of grandpas too. You can also just ensure your family and neighbors get out to vote and encourage them to use mail-in and early voting if it’s available. GOTV work is just really empowering and it keeps you away from the stressful stuff. I’m doing as much as I can to save my daughters and my now 3-year-old granddaughters from a Donald, J.D., and Project 2025 nightmare! Just send out information on that all over Social Media! Everything helps!
What’s on your reading and blogging list?
#Repeat1968 #CatLadiesForKamala #DonaldSWeirdEarBooBoo #JohnBuss #MediaCoverageOfTheHarrisCampaign #WeirdDonald #WeirdJDVance #WeirdRepublicanBigotry #WeirdRepublicanPolicyAndValues
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“Nice of All The King’s Men to provide their exalted Royal with an easy-to-read version of Project 2025 with lots of pictures.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I spent some time this weekend talking to happy and relieved friends from the UK and France. I cannot say that anyone I know in this country is either happy or relieved right now. For the first time in 40 years, the Tories lost control. One of my friends, a retired secondary school teacher for a Catholic school in the Midlands, expressed joy at the possibility of what’s ahead. Can you imagine that feeling here? The BBC is reporting on what’s up next as the new government is formed.
Sir Keir Starmer is the UK’s new prime minister, after his Labour Party swept to power in a landslide general election victory.
The Conservative Party suffered a dramatic collapse after a tumultuous 14 years in power, which saw five different prime ministers run the country. It lost 250 seats over the course of a devastating night.
Rishi Sunak – the outgoing PM – accepted responsibility for the result and apologised to defeated colleagues during a brief statement outside a rainy 10 Downing Street. He said he would resign as party leader in the coming weeks.
In his first speech as prime minister after greeting dozens of jubilant Labour supporters who had lined Downing Street, Sir Keir vowed to run a “government of service” and to kick start a period of “national renewal”.
“For too long we’ve turned a blind eye as millions slid into greater insecurity,” he said. “I want to say very clearly to those people. Not this time.”
“Changing a country is not like flicking a switch. The world is now a more volatile place. This will take a while, but have no doubt the work of change will begin immediately.”
The French are also celebrating in the streets. I discussed the results with my exchange High School French Teacher, who also taught in Southeast Asia and was in Vietnam with his now wife when Saigon fell. They presently run a Vietnamese restaurant in Nice. He expressed relief. This report is by CNN’s Christian Edwards. “What happened in France’s shock election, and what comes next?”
It was meant to be a coronation. Crowds of supporters had crammed into election night events at the RN party HQ in Paris and at outposts all over the country, to watch the moment many felt had been decades in the making: Confirmation that their party, and its long-taboo brand of anti-immigrant politics, had won the most seats in the French parliament.
That wasn’t to be. The fervent atmosphere soured as supporters saw the RN had slumped to third place. Jordan Bardella, the 28-year-old leader handpicked by Le Pen to freshen the party’s image and purge it of its racist and antisemitic roots, was dyspeptic. He railed against the “dangerous electoral deals” made between the NFP and Ensemble which had “deprived the French people” of an RN-led government.
“By deciding to deliberately paralyze our institutions, Emmanuel Macron has now pushed the country towards uncertainty and instability,” Bardella said, dismissing the NFP as an “alliance of dishonor.”
“Of course the conflicted convicted felon claims to know nothing about Project 2025.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Well, Bardella sounds rather grumpy Trumpy, doesn’t he? Still, both of our oldest allies have shown us the path away from Donald and MAGA. Notice it means we have to absolutely swamp the voting booths. It appears that Project 2025 is scaring Americans, which it rightly should. Amplification of the Fascist Manifesto has gotten us to the point that Donald denies he knows anything about it. Historian Timothy Synder has an excellent analysis of the situation in his Thinking About Substack. “Fascism and Fear. The Moment, The Media, The Election.”
It should seem odd that media calls to step down were not first directed to Trump. If we are calling for Biden to step aside because someone must stop Trump from bringing down the republic, then surely it would have made more sense to first call for Trump to step aside? (The Philadelphia Inquirer did). I know the counter-arguments: his people wouldn’t have cared, and he wouldn’t have listened. The first misses an important point. There are quite a few Americans who have not made up their minds. The second amounts to obeying in advance. If you accept that a fascist is beyond your reach, you have normalized your submission.
When media folks describe discussions among Democrats as chaos and disarray, they are implicitly suggesting that it is better for a leader of a party to never be questioned. (Why, after all, is being part of an array a good thing?) An obvious point goes missed: Democrats can say what they want, because none of them is afraid. And that is good! Governor Maura Healey can express her dissent and Joe Biden can express his frustration with her — but no one is worried about her physical safety.
Trump, by contrast, controls his party through stochastic terror, threats issued through social media that his cult followers can be expected to realize. Republicans leave politics because they fear for themselves and their families. Those who remain all obey in advance. That is new, and it should not be normal, and it should not spread any further. But it becomes normal when we treat discussions, and not coercion, as abnormal.
If I am right that much of the energy behind the Biden pile-on is displaced fear of a regime change, much of the media will continue to generate fascist froth for Trump, whether or not Biden is the Democratic nominee — unless, of course, journalists confront their fears, and keep the issue of regime change inside the story, and provide a constructive alternative alongside personal criticism.
Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen of Axios focus on “Behind the Curtain: Trump’s dream regime.”
So let’s dig into each component of the Republican fantasy:
- A strong president indifferent to pressure. Well, that’s Trump. He has long held that his power in office is virtually unchecked. The Supreme Court just added another layer of protection. The Justices ruled in Trump v. U.S. that presidents enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within their core constitutional duties, and presumptive immunity for other official acts. It’ll take years to sort out the elasticity of immunity — but it’s wide.
- A compliant, Republican-controlled Congress. It’s a coin toss who wins the House and Senate this year — much like it has been throughout this era of a 50-50 America. The Senate looks promising for the GOP, thanks to a favorable map that has Democrats playing defense in deep-red West Virginia, Montana and Ohio, plus five swing states. The House is harder, mainly because there are lots more Republicans in Biden-won districts than vice versa.
- A conservative Supreme Court. A 6-3 majority is significant, as the most recent decisions showed. It was the six Republican-appointed justices who expanded presidential power. The three Democrats warned of a looming monarchy.
- A weakened administrative state. The Court, in a series of rulings but most notably the reversal of the Chevron decision, handed Republicans a massive triumph in a 40-year war to weaken independent agencies. It basically ruled that individual bureaucrats and independent agencies can no longer set the rules for business regulation.
- Purge hostile federal employees. Right now, a lot of the nitty-gritty of governing is handled by full-time civil servants who aren’t political appointees and often operate outside the full control of the president. But Trump has threatened to fire tens of thousands of these civil servants and replace them with pre-vetted loyalists.
The intrigue: Trump last week tried to distance himself from the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which is recruiting loyalists to help carry out radical plans to transform the U.S. government.
- He claimed to “know nothing about Project 2025.” Truth is, Project 2025 was largely written by his allies and encapsulates a lot of what he hopes to do — and how he might do it, longtime Trump officials tell us.
Between the lines: We’ve written extensively about Trump’s plans to stretch the power of the presidency on everything from punishing critics to using the U.S. military for domestic action.
Instead of continually polling about Biden’s age and debate performance, why don’t they poll on Project 2025? Frankly, if I were up there on the campaign staff right now, I’d actually be pushing polling on it. Donald is aware of how much of the language plays with mainstream America. This Washington Post article by Michael Scherer and Josh Dawsey makes me wonder what the result could be. “Trump proposes scaled-back platform that softens language on abortion, same-sex marriage. The draft was circulated Monday among members of the 2024 Republican convention platform committee. It will be discussed and voted on later this week.”
The 2024 Republican convention platform committee quickly adopted the plank that Donald Trump and his aides had drafted during a meeting Monday in Milwaukee, despite the concerns of some antiabortion activists that the document stopped short of explicitly calling for a constitutional amendment to give embryos or fetuses constitutional rights and does not call for any national bans on abortion.
The final vote, according to a person who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the closed-door proceedings, was 84-18.
The document, with a long introduction in the voice of Trump, the presumptive nominee, says that existing constitutional rights to due process grants states the power “to pass laws protecting those rights.”
“After 51 years, because of us, that power has been given to the states and to a vote of the people,” the document says, according a copy of the document obtained by The Washington Post. “We will oppose late term abortion while supporting mothers and policies that advance prenatal care, access to birth control, and IVF (fertility treatments).”
The document was presented Monday to members of the Republican convention platform committee, a group handpicked by leaders of the Trump campaign that includes some members who want stronger language around abortion. The 2016 platform, which Trump used in his 2020 reelection campaign, called for a constitutional amendment to affirm the constitutional due process rights of embryos and fetuses, and a national law that would ban abortion, with some exceptions, after about 20 weeks of gestation.
Trump has changed his position on the issue since that Supreme Court overturned the fundamental right to the procedure in earlier stages of pregnancy. He now argues that each state should come up with its own regulations. He no longer calls for a constitutional amendment that would bar all states from allowing the procedure, a point of contention for many antiabortion activists.
It’s a good thing most voters ignore a Party’s platform because this one now has weasel wording. Weasel wording is basically the tool of the right-wing majority on the Supreme Court, too. This is from Vox and is written by Ian Millhiser. “The Supreme Incompetents. The justices are awful at their jobs, and they don’t know that they are awful at their jobs.”
The justices are barely able to manage their own docket, even though it’s been shrinking for decades. They publish incompetently drafted decisions that sow confusion throughout the judiciary, then refuse to accept responsibility when those decisions lead to ridiculous and immoral outcomes. They take liberties with the facts of their cases, and they can’t even be trusted to read the plain text of an unambiguous statute correctly. In just the last few years, they’ve overruled so many seminal precedents that law professors no longer know how to teach their classes.
If the justices did not wield such awesome power, and if lawyers who practice before them did not have to treat them with ritualized obsequiousness, most of the justices would be laughingstocks. Few people this famous are so ostentatiously bad at their jobs.
And yet, despite their incompetence, the justices continue to claim more and more power — even though they simply do not have the personnel or expertise needed to address every policy question they’ve added to their own plates.
I used to believe that Trump and his followers and the Federalist Society, the conservative legal group that played an enormous role in choosing his judges, were two distinct authoritarian movements that shared power during Trump’s four years in office. The MAGA movement is a cult of personality that seeks to elevate a singularly chaotic man. The Federalist Society and its allies prefer a distinctly lawful tyranny that still follows predictable rules.
But then the Federalist Society’s picks took over the Supreme Court. And they have behaved so haphazardly, with such eagerness to smash institutions built over decades or even centuries, that it’s hard to see them as anything other than Donald Trump with a law degree. Unlike Trump, the Court’s Republican majority speaks in polished legal prose when they decide to hurl decades worth of settled expectations into the sun. But their behavior on the bench is no less chaotic than that of the insurrectionist president who appointed half of them.
Worse, the United States has what might be called a Dunning-Kruger Supreme Court — after the psychological phenomenon where incompetent people fail to recognize their own incompetence.
The justices aren’t just very bad at their jobs; they appear to be blissfully unaware of just how terrible they are at those jobs. How else can one explain, say, their decision to replace all of American Second Amendment law with a novel and impossible-to-apply legal test — one that led to astonishingly depraved results — and then to offer no new guidance to lower court judges after all but one of the justices realized just how badly they’d screwed up?
What is that old saying about the ends justify the means? We’re under another intense heat warning today. The western half of the state is dealing with Hurricane Beryl. Climate change denial should be getting much more difficult down here in the South, but denial is strong in this Republican Party. They prefer to stew like that proverbial frog in a pot. Let’s just hope we can turn voters out like the UK and France and be rid of these suckers for a long time.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
https://skydancingblog.com/2024/07/08/mostly-monday-reads-american-should-be-better-than-this/
#Repeat1968 #FranceElections2024 #JohnBuss #Project2025 #RepublicanPartyPlatform2024 #UKElections2024
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Friday Reads: Twilight’s Last Gleaming
““No Mortal Man is Above the Law,” sayeth the Supremes. Enjoy your Independence Day; if the Conflicted Convicted Felon is elected, it’ll be our last.” John Buss, Repeat 1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Independence Day has always been my favorite holiday, and it’s my youngest daughter’s too. When we lived in the Quarter, we would always walk our 2 blonde labs to the Mississippi River Bank and watch the left and east bank boats launch a huge fireworks display. Down here in the Bywater, it’s still the same short walk to the riverbank, but the Poland Avenue Wharf or the newest Crescent Park are the favorite places to go. Cars always turn to our local NPR station for patriotic music and blast it loud. You can tell when it’s time for the display because all the bars and houses empty into the streets and head south to the banks of the Mississippi River. I have always wondered what past celebrations were like, but that’s a rabbit hole for another day.
I spent the pre-show hours with friends listening to his industrial band livestream their efforts while sitting in their driveway patio. It seemed like a normal fourth. While everyone headed to the river, I headed home to Temple to let her dig a burrow under me to hide from the noise. No displays for me in the last 10 years. Just time at home in bed comforting Temple. The weird thing this year was the fireworks didn’t seem to bother her, and she spent most of the time spooning me. Maybe she sensed that my fear was far greater than hers today. It’s a thought.
Twilight’s last gleaming from last night at my neighbor’s driveway patio.
The swiftboating of the democratic candidate season has begun. My friend who owns the bar on the corner told me she’s hearing from others besides me who are looking for places to become expats. Given the Le Pen elections, I’m researching the south of France right now, although they may soon have their counter-revolution. Russia is happy about that one. I’m sure they have high hopes for us.
If you haven’t seen this little speech, you really should. “Leader of the pro-Trump Project 2025 suggests there will be a new American Revolution. Kevin Roberts said the revolution will be bloodless “if the left allows it to be.” This is from the AP but sourced at Politico.
The leader of a conservative think tank orchestrating plans for a massive overhaul of the federal government in the event of a Republican presidential win said that the country is in the midst of a “second American Revolution” that will be bloodless “if the left allows it to be.”
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts made the comments Tuesday on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, adding that Republicans are “in the process of taking this country back.”
Democrats are “apoplectic right now” because the right is winning, Roberts told former U.S. Rep. Dave Brat, one of the podcast’s guest hosts as Bannon is serving a four-month prison term. “And so I come full circle on this response and just want to encourage you with some substance that we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
Roberts’ remarks shed light on how a group that promises to have significant influence over a possible second term for former President Donald Trump is thinking about this moment in American politics. The Heritage Foundation is spearheading Project 2025, a sweeping road map for a new GOP administration that includes plans for dismantling aspects of the federal government and ousting thousands of civil servants in favor of Trump loyalists who will carry out a hard-right agenda without complaint.
His call for revolution and vague reference to violence also unnerved some Democrats who interpreted it as threatening.
“This is chilling,” former Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson wrote on the social platform X. “Their idea of a second American Revolution is to undo the first one.”
James Singer, a spokesperson for President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, pointed to this week’s Fourth of July holiday in an emailed statement.
“248 years ago tomorrow America declared independence from a tyrannical king, and now Donald Trump and his allies want to make him one at our expense,” Singer said, adding that Trump and his allies are ”dreaming of a violent revolution to destroy the very idea of America.”
Roberts, whose name Bannon recently floated to The New York Times as a potential chief of staff option for Trump, also said on the podcast that Republicans should be encouraged by the Supreme Court’s recent immunity ruling.
Bannon is in jail right now, serving time for contempt of Congress. The New Republic‘s Parker Malloy has a good point here. “Why Does the Media Insist on Helping Steve Bannon Act the Martyr? NBC and ABC snagged pre-prison interviews with the far-right globalist. But to what end? They became tools in his propaganda machine.” The press just falls right in line by normalizing this behavior.
NBC News’s Vaughn Hillyard and ABC News’s Jonathan Karl recently made a journalistic misstep by interviewing Steve Bannon right before he reported to prison. This move, which might seem innocuous at first glance, actually elevates Bannon’s “political prisoner” narrative, a misleading storyline that does little but bolster the War Room host’s victim complex.
By interviewing Bannon just before he heads to prison, both NBC and ABC are essentially giving him a platform to paint himself as a martyr.
It allows Bannon to control the narrative. This plays directly into the hands of Bannon and his supporters, who are eager to cast any legal action against them as part of a broader conspiracy to silence dissent. It’s a classic tactic: position yourself as a victim to garner sympathy and rally support.
But Bannon is not going to prison for his political beliefs or his support for Donald Trump. He’s going to prison because he defied a congressional subpoena. By allowing Bannon to put some focus on his claims of political persecution, these interviews shift attention away from his actual misconduct and the legal consequences of that misconduct. This undermines the rule of law and gives credence to the idea that powerful individuals can evade accountability by crying foul.
Beyond that, it normalizes extremist rhetoric. In his interview with Karl, Bannon doubled down on his inflammatory language, discussing “retribution” and the need for investigations and potential imprisonments of political figures. Bannon listed former FBI Director James Comey, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and former Attorney General Bill Barr as people who should be “very worried” about prosecution under a second Trump administration. Bannon defended his use of the slogan “Victory or Death!” at the recent Turning Point Action convention and rolled his eyes at Karl for even asking him about his 2020 comments about beheading Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Also, from TNR is this headline about the black man running for governor on the insanity platform. “MAGA Gov Candidate’s Ugly, Hateful Rant: “Some Folks Need Killing!” Mark Robinson, the GOP nominee for governor in North Carolina, has a long history of incendiary comments. But he may have topped himself this time.”
Mark Robinson, the extremist GOP nominee for governor in North Carolina, appeared to endorse political violence in a bizarre and extended rant he delivered on June 30 in a small-town church.
“Some folks need killing!” Robinson, the state’s lieutenant governor, shouted during a roughly half-hour-long speech in Lake Church in the tiny town of White Lake, in the southeast corner of the state. “It’s time for somebody to say it. It’s not a matter of vengeance. It’s not a matter of being mean or spiteful. It’s a matter of necessity!”
Robinson’s call for the “killing” of “some folks” came during an extended diatribe in which he attacked an extraordinary assortment of enemies. These ranged from “people who have evil intent” to “wicked people” to those doing things like “torturing and murdering and raping” to socialists and Communists. He also invoked those supposedly undermining America’s founding ideals and leftists allegedly persecuting conservatives by canceling them and doxxing them online.
In all this, Robinson appeared to endorse lethal violence against these unnamed enemies, particularly on the left, though he wasn’t exactly clear on which “folks” are the ones who “need killing.”
Robinson, a self-described “MAGA Republican,” has a long history of wildly radical and unhinged moments. He has linked homosexuality to pedophilia, called for the arrest of trans women, pushed hallucinogenic antisemitic conspiracy theories, endorsed the vile “birther” conspiracy about Barack Obama, described Michelle Obama as a man, hinted at the need to violently oppose federal law enforcement and the government, and posted memes mocking and denying the brutal, violent assault on Nancy Pelosi’s husband, among many other things.
My belief is he said the quiet part out loud. My governor isn’t calling for the death penalty for anyone who doesn’t fit the White Christian Nationalist mold or stays quiet, afraid, and hidden, but I do believe he’d do it if any other MAGA governor started the trend. As JJ says, fear for people you love. As to the swiftboating of Biden for a cold, let’s show you this oldie but goodie of just a smidgen of the swiftboating of Hillary. “Remember when Hillary Clinton had pneumonia and showed up anyway at a 9/11 memorial & media ripped her for that?” (via @joannebamberg with Karolic Kuns and me in the amen corner.)
Even New York Magazine is in on it. “The Conspiracy of Silence to Protect Joe Biden. The president’s mental decline was like a dark family secret for many elite supporters.” Biden, meanwhile, is on a prove-them all full of a shit tour of duty. Here’s another ‘nattering nabob of negatism’ NBC News. (With no apologies to rotten apple dead Spiro Agnew.)
President Joe Biden will hold a rally Friday in Wisconsin and then sit for his first televised interview since his disastrous debate performance last week, events could be crucial in determining whether he can salvage his embattled candidacy.
The interview with anchor George Stephanopoulos of ABC News is shaping up to be one of the most high-stakes moments for a president or a candidate in many years. Democratic elected officials, donors and voters will be closely watching to see whether he can still deliver in an adversarial setting and turn in a performance worthy of being the party’s nominee to defeat Donald Trump this fall.
The interview will “air in its entirety as a primetime special” at 8 p.m. ET Friday, ABC said, adding that a “transcript of the unedited interview will be made available the same day.”
Before that, Biden is expected to speak this afternoon at a campaign rally in Madison, Wisconsin. At the rally, Biden will “underscore the stakes of this election for our democracy, our rights and freedoms, and our economy,” a campaign official said. Also speaking will be Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, and Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., among others.
The White House said the interview team from ABC “will be with us all day in Wisconsin” and able to cover the rally event and to observe the president as he participates in his schedule, and said it has “some flexibility” around the length of the sit-down but “no exact estimate” of the duration of the conversation.
Read the next paragraph, which I will not print here, and try not to bang your head against your desk, wall, or coffee table. Law Professor Richard W. Painter is floating a Constitutional Amendment on X.
Const. Amend. 28: “The President and the judges of the United States courts including the Supreme Court, shall be bound by the criminal laws of the United States and also by financial disclosure and conflict of interest laws enacted by Congress.” So who votes against?
If you want a real shock, go see The Economist Cover Picture today with the heading “No way to Run a Country.” The attached story is “Biden Must Withdraw.” This is from a country where the General Election just kicked the Conservative PM (a hedge fund manager) and replaced him with a Human Rights Lawyer and member of the Labour Party. Fourteen years of Conservative Rule has just been tossed for something different. Of course, CNN has joined the swiftboating effort. This is from Dr. Sanjay Gupta at CNN. “It’s time for President Biden to undergo detailed cognitive and neurological testing and share his results.”
So, I have to share this one from the New York Times even though I’m about to cancel my subscription. “Biden Tells Governors He Needs More Sleep and Less Work at Night. The president’s opening remark to a group of key Democratic leaders — that he was in the race to stay — chilled any talk of his withdrawal, participants said.” The usual suspects, Reid J. Epstein and Maggie Haberman, reported it.
President Biden told a gathering of Democratic governors that he needs to get more sleep and work fewer hours, including curtailing events after 8 p.m., according to two people who participated in the meeting and several others briefed on his comments.
The remarks on Wednesday were a stark acknowledgment of fatigue from the 81-year-old president during a meeting intended to reassure more than two dozen of his most important supporters that he is still in command of his job and capable of mounting a robust campaign against former President Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Biden’s comments about needing more rest came shortly after The New York Times reported that current and former officials have noticed that the president’s lapses over the past few months have become more frequent and more pronounced.
But Mr. Biden told the governors, some of whom were at the White House while others participated virtually, that he was staying in the race.
He described his extensive foreign travel in the weeks before the debate, something that the White House and his allies have in recent days cited as the reason for his halting performance during the debate. Initially, Mr. Biden’s campaign blamed a cold, putting out word about midway through the debate amid a series of social media posts questioning why Mr. Biden was struggling.
Mr. Biden said that he told his staff he needed to get more sleep, multiple people familiar with what took place in the meeting said. He repeatedly referenced pushing too hard and not listening to his team about his schedule, and said he needed to work fewer hours and avoid events scheduled after 8 p.m., according to one of the people familiar with what took place at the meeting.
After Gov. Josh Green of Hawaii, a physician, asked Mr. Biden questions about the status of his health, Mr. Biden replied that his health was fine. “It’s just my brain,” he added, according to three people familiar with what took place — a remark that some in the room took as a joke, including Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, according to a person close to her. But at least one governor did not, and was puzzled by it.
Jen O’Malley Dillon, Mr. Biden’s campaign chair, who attended the meeting, said in a statement that he had said, “All kidding aside,” a recollection confirmed by another person briefed on the meeting. Ms. O’Malley Dillon added: “He was clearly making a joke.”
So, I fully admit to being depressed and worried. I know that BB stopped her NYT subscription. I hope John Buss doesn’t mind. I shared this bit he posted to his FaceBook about canceling his. I seriously worry about him in North Carolina, too. None of us in the old Confederate States are safe right now.
This is from a poll taken in April and reported by the AP on May 1. “Half of US adults mistrust media coverage of 2024 elections, a poll finds. About half of Americans say they are extremely or very concerned that news organizations will report inaccuracies or misinformation during the election. According to a poll, 42% express worry that news outlets will use generative artificial intelligence to create stories. (AP Video: Serkan Gurbuz)”
I think it’s likely that if they redid that this month, they’d find a statistically significant increase in the number of people saying that. However, I admit that I live in the Southern City that promptly surrendered when Captain David Farragut of the Union Navy bombed two forts and arrived at the port. We are a haven for the GLBT community. We also have a strong Jewish presence and are well known for being a place of refuge for many diasporas. Our new governor hates us and wants to take away our city charter, which is the legal means by which we don’t become the rest of the state. You have to wonder how many cities like ours will come under direct attack if MAGA either gets its way or doesn’t.
The only way out of this is to VOTE and get everyone you know to VOTE because our lives depend on it.
I really hope you got to enjoy a little celebration on Independence Day. I’m still on board with ensuring liberty and justice for all. I am also standing by the Biden/Harris ticket. Again, you realize that I have had a lot of gripes in the past about Biden and what happened to Anita Hill. It is somewhat karmic that what is going on now is somewhat built in by the bad decision he, Teddy Kennedy, and John Kerry made about Clarence Thomas. Forty-eight percent of the Senate was against his confirmation. He should’ve been Borked. That, unfortunately, is toxic water under the bridge of democracy, but we have what we have now, and it is what it is. Remember the words of Benjamin Franklin and fight for it. The Roberts Supreme Court just took down the republic.
“A republic, if you can keep it.”
–Benjamin Franklin’s response to Elizabeth Willing Powel’s question: “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
I’m sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can’t stand the scene
And I’m neither left or right
I’m just staying home tonight
Getting lost in that hopeless little screen
But I’m stubborn as those garbage bags
That time cannot decay
I’m junk but I’m still holding up
This little wild bouquet
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A#Repeat1968 #aRepublicIfYouCanKeepIt #CoupAttempt #democracy #IndependenceDay #insurrection #JohnBuss #LeonardCohen #MediaAndSwiftboating #Project2025 #Swiftboating
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““No Mortal Man is Above the Law,” sayeth the Supremes. Enjoy your Independence Day; if the Conflicted Convicted Felon is elected, it’ll be our last.” John Buss, Repeat 1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Independence Day has always been my favorite holiday, and it’s my youngest daughter’s too. When we lived in the Quarter, we would always walk our 2 blonde labs to the Mississippi River Bank and watch the left and east bank boats launch a huge fireworks display. Down here in the Bywater, it’s still the same short walk to the riverbank, but the Poland Avenue Wharf or the newest Crescent Park are the favorite places to go. Cars always turn to our local NPR station for patriotic music and blast it loud. You can tell when it’s time for the display because all the bars and houses empty into the streets and head south to the banks of the Mississippi River. I have always wondered what past celebrations were like, but that’s a rabbit hole for another day.
I spent the pre-show hours with friends listening to his industrial band livestream their efforts while sitting in their driveway patio. It seemed like a normal fourth. While everyone headed to the river, I headed home to Temple to let her dig a burrow under me to hide from the noise. No displays for me in the last 10 years. Just time at home in bed comforting Temple. The weird thing this year was the fireworks didn’t seem to bother her, and she spent most of the time spooning me. Maybe she sensed that my fear was far greater than hers today. It’s a thought.
Twilight’s last gleaming from last night at my neighbor’s driveway patio.
The swiftboating of the democratic candidate season has begun. My friend who owns the bar on the corner told me she’s hearing from others besides me who are looking for places to become expats. Given the Le Pen elections, I’m researching the south of France right now, although they may soon have their counter-revolution. Russia is happy about that one. I’m sure they have high hopes for us.
If you haven’t seen this little speech, you really should. “Leader of the pro-Trump Project 2025 suggests there will be a new American Revolution. Kevin Roberts said the revolution will be bloodless “if the left allows it to be.” This is from the AP but sourced at Politico.
The leader of a conservative think tank orchestrating plans for a massive overhaul of the federal government in the event of a Republican presidential win said that the country is in the midst of a “second American Revolution” that will be bloodless “if the left allows it to be.”
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts made the comments Tuesday on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, adding that Republicans are “in the process of taking this country back.”
Democrats are “apoplectic right now” because the right is winning, Roberts told former U.S. Rep. Dave Brat, one of the podcast’s guest hosts as Bannon is serving a four-month prison term. “And so I come full circle on this response and just want to encourage you with some substance that we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
Roberts’ remarks shed light on how a group that promises to have significant influence over a possible second term for former President Donald Trump is thinking about this moment in American politics. The Heritage Foundation is spearheading Project 2025, a sweeping road map for a new GOP administration that includes plans for dismantling aspects of the federal government and ousting thousands of civil servants in favor of Trump loyalists who will carry out a hard-right agenda without complaint.
His call for revolution and vague reference to violence also unnerved some Democrats who interpreted it as threatening.
“This is chilling,” former Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson wrote on the social platform X. “Their idea of a second American Revolution is to undo the first one.”
James Singer, a spokesperson for President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, pointed to this week’s Fourth of July holiday in an emailed statement.
“248 years ago tomorrow America declared independence from a tyrannical king, and now Donald Trump and his allies want to make him one at our expense,” Singer said, adding that Trump and his allies are ”dreaming of a violent revolution to destroy the very idea of America.”
Roberts, whose name Bannon recently floated to The New York Times as a potential chief of staff option for Trump, also said on the podcast that Republicans should be encouraged by the Supreme Court’s recent immunity ruling.
Bannon is in jail right now, serving time for contempt of Congress. The New Republic‘s Parker Malloy has a good point here. “Why Does the Media Insist on Helping Steve Bannon Act the Martyr? NBC and ABC snagged pre-prison interviews with the far-right globalist. But to what end? They became tools in his propaganda machine.” The press just falls right in line by normalizing this behavior.
NBC News’s Vaughn Hillyard and ABC News’s Jonathan Karl recently made a journalistic misstep by interviewing Steve Bannon right before he reported to prison. This move, which might seem innocuous at first glance, actually elevates Bannon’s “political prisoner” narrative, a misleading storyline that does little but bolster the War Room host’s victim complex.
By interviewing Bannon just before he heads to prison, both NBC and ABC are essentially giving him a platform to paint himself as a martyr.
It allows Bannon to control the narrative. This plays directly into the hands of Bannon and his supporters, who are eager to cast any legal action against them as part of a broader conspiracy to silence dissent. It’s a classic tactic: position yourself as a victim to garner sympathy and rally support.
But Bannon is not going to prison for his political beliefs or his support for Donald Trump. He’s going to prison because he defied a congressional subpoena. By allowing Bannon to put some focus on his claims of political persecution, these interviews shift attention away from his actual misconduct and the legal consequences of that misconduct. This undermines the rule of law and gives credence to the idea that powerful individuals can evade accountability by crying foul.
Beyond that, it normalizes extremist rhetoric. In his interview with Karl, Bannon doubled down on his inflammatory language, discussing “retribution” and the need for investigations and potential imprisonments of political figures. Bannon listed former FBI Director James Comey, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and former Attorney General Bill Barr as people who should be “very worried” about prosecution under a second Trump administration. Bannon defended his use of the slogan “Victory or Death!” at the recent Turning Point Action convention and rolled his eyes at Karl for even asking him about his 2020 comments about beheading Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Also, from TNR is this headline about the black man running for governor on the insanity platform. “MAGA Gov Candidate’s Ugly, Hateful Rant: “Some Folks Need Killing!” Mark Robinson, the GOP nominee for governor in North Carolina, has a long history of incendiary comments. But he may have topped himself this time.”
Mark Robinson, the extremist GOP nominee for governor in North Carolina, appeared to endorse political violence in a bizarre and extended rant he delivered on June 30 in a small-town church.
“Some folks need killing!” Robinson, the state’s lieutenant governor, shouted during a roughly half-hour-long speech in Lake Church in the tiny town of White Lake, in the southeast corner of the state. “It’s time for somebody to say it. It’s not a matter of vengeance. It’s not a matter of being mean or spiteful. It’s a matter of necessity!”
Robinson’s call for the “killing” of “some folks” came during an extended diatribe in which he attacked an extraordinary assortment of enemies. These ranged from “people who have evil intent” to “wicked people” to those doing things like “torturing and murdering and raping” to socialists and Communists. He also invoked those supposedly undermining America’s founding ideals and leftists allegedly persecuting conservatives by canceling them and doxxing them online.
In all this, Robinson appeared to endorse lethal violence against these unnamed enemies, particularly on the left, though he wasn’t exactly clear on which “folks” are the ones who “need killing.”
Robinson, a self-described “MAGA Republican,” has a long history of wildly radical and unhinged moments. He has linked homosexuality to pedophilia, called for the arrest of trans women, pushed hallucinogenic antisemitic conspiracy theories, endorsed the vile “birther” conspiracy about Barack Obama, described Michelle Obama as a man, hinted at the need to violently oppose federal law enforcement and the government, and posted memes mocking and denying the brutal, violent assault on Nancy Pelosi’s husband, among many other things.
My belief is he said the quiet part out loud. My governor isn’t calling for the death penalty for anyone who doesn’t fit the White Christian Nationalist mold or stays quiet, afraid, and hidden, but I do believe he’d do it if any other MAGA governor started the trend. As JJ says, fear for people you love. As to the swiftboating of Biden for a cold, let’s show you this oldie but goodie of just a smidgen of the swiftboating of Hillary. “Remember when Hillary Clinton had pneumonia and showed up anyway at a 9/11 memorial & media ripped her for that?” (via @joannebamberg with Karolic Kuns and me in the amen corner.)
Even New York Magazine is in on it. “The Conspiracy of Silence to Protect Joe Biden. The president’s mental decline was like a dark family secret for many elite supporters.” Biden, meanwhile, is on a prove-them all full of a shit tour of duty. Here’s another ‘nattering nabob of negatism’ NBC News. (With no apologies to rotten apple dead Spiro Agnew.)
President Joe Biden will hold a rally Friday in Wisconsin and then sit for his first televised interview since his disastrous debate performance last week, events could be crucial in determining whether he can salvage his embattled candidacy.
The interview with anchor George Stephanopoulos of ABC News is shaping up to be one of the most high-stakes moments for a president or a candidate in many years. Democratic elected officials, donors and voters will be closely watching to see whether he can still deliver in an adversarial setting and turn in a performance worthy of being the party’s nominee to defeat Donald Trump this fall.
The interview will “air in its entirety as a primetime special” at 8 p.m. ET Friday, ABC said, adding that a “transcript of the unedited interview will be made available the same day.”
Before that, Biden is expected to speak this afternoon at a campaign rally in Madison, Wisconsin. At the rally, Biden will “underscore the stakes of this election for our democracy, our rights and freedoms, and our economy,” a campaign official said. Also speaking will be Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, and Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., among others.
The White House said the interview team from ABC “will be with us all day in Wisconsin” and able to cover the rally event and to observe the president as he participates in his schedule, and said it has “some flexibility” around the length of the sit-down but “no exact estimate” of the duration of the conversation.
Read the next paragraph, which I will not print here, and try not to bang your head against your desk, wall, or coffee table. Law Professor Richard W. Painter is floating a Constitutional Amendment on X.
Const. Amend. 28: “The President and the judges of the United States courts including the Supreme Court, shall be bound by the criminal laws of the United States and also by financial disclosure and conflict of interest laws enacted by Congress.” So who votes against?
If you want a real shock, go see The Economist Cover Picture today with the heading “No way to Run a Country.” The attached story is “Biden Must Withdraw.” This is from a country where the General Election just kicked the Conservative PM (a hedge fund manager) and replaced him with a Human Rights Lawyer and member of the Labour Party. Fourteen years of Conservative Rule has just been tossed for something different. Of course, CNN has joined the swiftboating effort. This is from Dr. Sanjay Gupta at CNN. “It’s time for President Biden to undergo detailed cognitive and neurological testing and share his results.”
So, I have to share this one from the New York Times even though I’m about to cancel my subscription. “Biden Tells Governors He Needs More Sleep and Less Work at Night. The president’s opening remark to a group of key Democratic leaders — that he was in the race to stay — chilled any talk of his withdrawal, participants said.” The usual suspects, Reid J. Epstein and Maggie Haberman, reported it.
President Biden told a gathering of Democratic governors that he needs to get more sleep and work fewer hours, including curtailing events after 8 p.m., according to two people who participated in the meeting and several others briefed on his comments.
The remarks on Wednesday were a stark acknowledgment of fatigue from the 81-year-old president during a meeting intended to reassure more than two dozen of his most important supporters that he is still in command of his job and capable of mounting a robust campaign against former President Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Biden’s comments about needing more rest came shortly after The New York Times reported that current and former officials have noticed that the president’s lapses over the past few months have become more frequent and more pronounced.
But Mr. Biden told the governors, some of whom were at the White House while others participated virtually, that he was staying in the race.
He described his extensive foreign travel in the weeks before the debate, something that the White House and his allies have in recent days cited as the reason for his halting performance during the debate. Initially, Mr. Biden’s campaign blamed a cold, putting out word about midway through the debate amid a series of social media posts questioning why Mr. Biden was struggling.
Mr. Biden said that he told his staff he needed to get more sleep, multiple people familiar with what took place in the meeting said. He repeatedly referenced pushing too hard and not listening to his team about his schedule, and said he needed to work fewer hours and avoid events scheduled after 8 p.m., according to one of the people familiar with what took place at the meeting.
After Gov. Josh Green of Hawaii, a physician, asked Mr. Biden questions about the status of his health, Mr. Biden replied that his health was fine. “It’s just my brain,” he added, according to three people familiar with what took place — a remark that some in the room took as a joke, including Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, according to a person close to her. But at least one governor did not, and was puzzled by it.
Jen O’Malley Dillon, Mr. Biden’s campaign chair, who attended the meeting, said in a statement that he had said, “All kidding aside,” a recollection confirmed by another person briefed on the meeting. Ms. O’Malley Dillon added: “He was clearly making a joke.”
So, I fully admit to being depressed and worried. I know that BB stopped her NYT subscription. I hope John Buss doesn’t mind. I shared this bit he posted to his FaceBook about canceling his. I seriously worry about him in North Carolina, too. None of us in the old Confederate States are safe right now.
This is from a poll taken in April and reported by the AP on May 1. “Half of US adults mistrust media coverage of 2024 elections, a poll finds. About half of Americans say they are extremely or very concerned that news organizations will report inaccuracies or misinformation during the election. According to a poll, 42% express worry that news outlets will use generative artificial intelligence to create stories. (AP Video: Serkan Gurbuz)”
I think it’s likely that if they redid that this month, they’d find a statistically significant increase in the number of people saying that. However, I admit that I live in the Southern City that promptly surrendered when Captain David Farragut of the Union Navy bombed two forts and arrived at the port. We are a haven for the GLBT community. We also have a strong Jewish presence and are well known for being a place of refuge for many diasporas. Our new governor hates us and wants to take away our city charter, which is the legal means by which we don’t become the rest of the state. You have to wonder how many cities like ours will come under direct attack if MAGA either gets its way or doesn’t.
The only way out of this is to VOTE and get everyone you know to VOTE because our lives depend on it.
I really hope you got to enjoy a little celebration on Independence Day. I’m still on board with ensuring liberty and justice for all. I am also standing by the Biden/Harris ticket. Again, you realize that I have had a lot of gripes in the past about Biden and what happened to Anita Hill. It is somewhat karmic that what is going on now is somewhat built in by the bad decision he, Teddy Kennedy, and John Kerry made about Clarence Thomas. Forty-eight percent of the Senate was against his confirmation. He should’ve been Borked. That, unfortunately, is toxic water under the bridge of democracy, but we have what we have now, and it is what it is. Remember the words of Benjamin Franklin and fight for it. The Roberts Supreme Court just took down the republic.
“A republic, if you can keep it.”
–Benjamin Franklin’s response to Elizabeth Willing Powel’s question: “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
I’m sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can’t stand the scene
And I’m neither left or right
I’m just staying home tonight
Getting lost in that hopeless little screen
But I’m stubborn as those garbage bags
That time cannot decay
I’m junk but I’m still holding up
This little wild bouquet
Democracy is coming to the U.S.Ahttps://skydancingblog.com/2024/07/05/friday-reads-twilights-last-gleaming/
#Repeat1968 #aRepublicIfYouCanKeepIt #CoupAttempt #democracy #IndependenceDay #insurrection #JohnBuss #LeonardCohen #MediaAndSwiftboating #Project2025 #Swiftboating
-
Friday Reads: Twilight’s Last Gleaming
““No Mortal Man is Above the Law,” sayeth the Supremes. Enjoy your Independence Day; if the Conflicted Convicted Felon is elected, it’ll be our last.” John Buss, Repeat 1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Independence Day has always been my favorite holiday, and it’s my youngest daughter’s too. When we lived in the Quarter, we would always walk our 2 blonde labs to the Mississippi River Bank and watch the left and east bank boats launch a huge fireworks display. Down here in the Bywater, it’s still the same short walk to the riverbank, but the Poland Avenue Wharf or the newest Crescent Park are the favorite places to go. Cars always turn to our local NPR station for patriotic music and blast it loud. You can tell when it’s time for the display because all the bars and houses empty into the streets and head south to the banks of the Mississippi River. I have always wondered what past celebrations were like, but that’s a rabbit hole for another day.
I spent the pre-show hours with friends listening to his industrial band livestream their efforts while sitting in their driveway patio. It seemed like a normal fourth. While everyone headed to the river, I headed home to Temple to let her dig a burrow under me to hide from the noise. No displays for me in the last 10 years. Just time at home in bed comforting Temple. The weird thing this year was the fireworks didn’t seem to bother her, and she spent most of the time spooning me. Maybe she sensed that my fear was far greater than hers today. It’s a thought.
Twilight’s last gleaming from last night at my neighbor’s driveway patio.
The swiftboating of the democratic candidate season has begun. My friend who owns the bar on the corner told me she’s hearing from others besides me who are looking for places to become expats. Given the Le Pen elections, I’m researching the south of France right now, although they may soon have their counter-revolution. Russia is happy about that one. I’m sure they have high hopes for us.
If you haven’t seen this little speech, you really should. “Leader of the pro-Trump Project 2025 suggests there will be a new American Revolution. Kevin Roberts said the revolution will be bloodless “if the left allows it to be.” This is from the AP but sourced at Politico.
The leader of a conservative think tank orchestrating plans for a massive overhaul of the federal government in the event of a Republican presidential win said that the country is in the midst of a “second American Revolution” that will be bloodless “if the left allows it to be.”
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts made the comments Tuesday on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, adding that Republicans are “in the process of taking this country back.”
Democrats are “apoplectic right now” because the right is winning, Roberts told former U.S. Rep. Dave Brat, one of the podcast’s guest hosts as Bannon is serving a four-month prison term. “And so I come full circle on this response and just want to encourage you with some substance that we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
Roberts’ remarks shed light on how a group that promises to have significant influence over a possible second term for former President Donald Trump is thinking about this moment in American politics. The Heritage Foundation is spearheading Project 2025, a sweeping road map for a new GOP administration that includes plans for dismantling aspects of the federal government and ousting thousands of civil servants in favor of Trump loyalists who will carry out a hard-right agenda without complaint.
His call for revolution and vague reference to violence also unnerved some Democrats who interpreted it as threatening.
“This is chilling,” former Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson wrote on the social platform X. “Their idea of a second American Revolution is to undo the first one.”
James Singer, a spokesperson for President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, pointed to this week’s Fourth of July holiday in an emailed statement.
“248 years ago tomorrow America declared independence from a tyrannical king, and now Donald Trump and his allies want to make him one at our expense,” Singer said, adding that Trump and his allies are ”dreaming of a violent revolution to destroy the very idea of America.”
Roberts, whose name Bannon recently floated to The New York Times as a potential chief of staff option for Trump, also said on the podcast that Republicans should be encouraged by the Supreme Court’s recent immunity ruling.
Bannon is in jail right now, serving time for contempt of Congress. The New Republic‘s Parker Malloy has a good point here. “Why Does the Media Insist on Helping Steve Bannon Act the Martyr? NBC and ABC snagged pre-prison interviews with the far-right globalist. But to what end? They became tools in his propaganda machine.” The press just falls right in line by normalizing this behavior.
NBC News’s Vaughn Hillyard and ABC News’s Jonathan Karl recently made a journalistic misstep by interviewing Steve Bannon right before he reported to prison. This move, which might seem innocuous at first glance, actually elevates Bannon’s “political prisoner” narrative, a misleading storyline that does little but bolster the War Room host’s victim complex.
By interviewing Bannon just before he heads to prison, both NBC and ABC are essentially giving him a platform to paint himself as a martyr.
It allows Bannon to control the narrative. This plays directly into the hands of Bannon and his supporters, who are eager to cast any legal action against them as part of a broader conspiracy to silence dissent. It’s a classic tactic: position yourself as a victim to garner sympathy and rally support.
But Bannon is not going to prison for his political beliefs or his support for Donald Trump. He’s going to prison because he defied a congressional subpoena. By allowing Bannon to put some focus on his claims of political persecution, these interviews shift attention away from his actual misconduct and the legal consequences of that misconduct. This undermines the rule of law and gives credence to the idea that powerful individuals can evade accountability by crying foul.
Beyond that, it normalizes extremist rhetoric. In his interview with Karl, Bannon doubled down on his inflammatory language, discussing “retribution” and the need for investigations and potential imprisonments of political figures. Bannon listed former FBI Director James Comey, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and former Attorney General Bill Barr as people who should be “very worried” about prosecution under a second Trump administration. Bannon defended his use of the slogan “Victory or Death!” at the recent Turning Point Action convention and rolled his eyes at Karl for even asking him about his 2020 comments about beheading Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Also, from TNR is this headline about the black man running for governor on the insanity platform. “MAGA Gov Candidate’s Ugly, Hateful Rant: “Some Folks Need Killing!” Mark Robinson, the GOP nominee for governor in North Carolina, has a long history of incendiary comments. But he may have topped himself this time.”
Mark Robinson, the extremist GOP nominee for governor in North Carolina, appeared to endorse political violence in a bizarre and extended rant he delivered on June 30 in a small-town church.
“Some folks need killing!” Robinson, the state’s lieutenant governor, shouted during a roughly half-hour-long speech in Lake Church in the tiny town of White Lake, in the southeast corner of the state. “It’s time for somebody to say it. It’s not a matter of vengeance. It’s not a matter of being mean or spiteful. It’s a matter of necessity!”
Robinson’s call for the “killing” of “some folks” came during an extended diatribe in which he attacked an extraordinary assortment of enemies. These ranged from “people who have evil intent” to “wicked people” to those doing things like “torturing and murdering and raping” to socialists and Communists. He also invoked those supposedly undermining America’s founding ideals and leftists allegedly persecuting conservatives by canceling them and doxxing them online.
In all this, Robinson appeared to endorse lethal violence against these unnamed enemies, particularly on the left, though he wasn’t exactly clear on which “folks” are the ones who “need killing.”
Robinson, a self-described “MAGA Republican,” has a long history of wildly radical and unhinged moments. He has linked homosexuality to pedophilia, called for the arrest of trans women, pushed hallucinogenic antisemitic conspiracy theories, endorsed the vile “birther” conspiracy about Barack Obama, described Michelle Obama as a man, hinted at the need to violently oppose federal law enforcement and the government, and posted memes mocking and denying the brutal, violent assault on Nancy Pelosi’s husband, among many other things.
My belief is he said the quiet part out loud. My governor isn’t calling for the death penalty for anyone who doesn’t fit the White Christian Nationalist mold or stays quiet, afraid, and hidden, but I do believe he’d do it if any other MAGA governor started the trend. As JJ says, fear for people you love. As to the swiftboating of Biden for a cold, let’s show you this oldie but goodie of just a smidgen of the swiftboating of Hillary. “Remember when Hillary Clinton had pneumonia and showed up anyway at a 9/11 memorial & media ripped her for that?” (via @joannebamberg with Karolic Kuns and me in the amen corner.)
Even New York Magazine is in on it. “The Conspiracy of Silence to Protect Joe Biden. The president’s mental decline was like a dark family secret for many elite supporters.” Biden, meanwhile, is on a prove-them all full of a shit tour of duty. Here’s another ‘nattering nabob of negatism’ NBC News. (With no apologies to rotten apple dead Spiro Agnew.)
President Joe Biden will hold a rally Friday in Wisconsin and then sit for his first televised interview since his disastrous debate performance last week, events could be crucial in determining whether he can salvage his embattled candidacy.
The interview with anchor George Stephanopoulos of ABC News is shaping up to be one of the most high-stakes moments for a president or a candidate in many years. Democratic elected officials, donors and voters will be closely watching to see whether he can still deliver in an adversarial setting and turn in a performance worthy of being the party’s nominee to defeat Donald Trump this fall.
The interview will “air in its entirety as a primetime special” at 8 p.m. ET Friday, ABC said, adding that a “transcript of the unedited interview will be made available the same day.”
Before that, Biden is expected to speak this afternoon at a campaign rally in Madison, Wisconsin. At the rally, Biden will “underscore the stakes of this election for our democracy, our rights and freedoms, and our economy,” a campaign official said. Also speaking will be Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, and Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., among others.
The White House said the interview team from ABC “will be with us all day in Wisconsin” and able to cover the rally event and to observe the president as he participates in his schedule, and said it has “some flexibility” around the length of the sit-down but “no exact estimate” of the duration of the conversation.
Read the next paragraph, which I will not print here, and try not to bang your head against your desk, wall, or coffee table. Law Professor Richard W. Painter is floating a Constitutional Amendment on X.
Const. Amend. 28: “The President and the judges of the United States courts including the Supreme Court, shall be bound by the criminal laws of the United States and also by financial disclosure and conflict of interest laws enacted by Congress.” So who votes against?
If you want a real shock, go see The Economist Cover Picture today with the heading “No way to Run a Country.” The attached story is “Biden Must Withdraw.” This is from a country where the General Election just kicked the Conservative PM (a hedge fund manager) and replaced him with a Human Rights Lawyer and member of the Labour Party. Fourteen years of Conservative Rule has just been tossed for something different. Of course, CNN has joined the swiftboating effort. This is from Dr. Sanjay Gupta at CNN. “It’s time for President Biden to undergo detailed cognitive and neurological testing and share his results.”
So, I have to share this one from the New York Times even though I’m about to cancel my subscription. “Biden Tells Governors He Needs More Sleep and Less Work at Night. The president’s opening remark to a group of key Democratic leaders — that he was in the race to stay — chilled any talk of his withdrawal, participants said.” The usual suspects, Reid J. Epstein and Maggie Haberman, reported it.
President Biden told a gathering of Democratic governors that he needs to get more sleep and work fewer hours, including curtailing events after 8 p.m., according to two people who participated in the meeting and several others briefed on his comments.
The remarks on Wednesday were a stark acknowledgment of fatigue from the 81-year-old president during a meeting intended to reassure more than two dozen of his most important supporters that he is still in command of his job and capable of mounting a robust campaign against former President Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Biden’s comments about needing more rest came shortly after The New York Times reported that current and former officials have noticed that the president’s lapses over the past few months have become more frequent and more pronounced.
But Mr. Biden told the governors, some of whom were at the White House while others participated virtually, that he was staying in the race.
He described his extensive foreign travel in the weeks before the debate, something that the White House and his allies have in recent days cited as the reason for his halting performance during the debate. Initially, Mr. Biden’s campaign blamed a cold, putting out word about midway through the debate amid a series of social media posts questioning why Mr. Biden was struggling.
Mr. Biden said that he told his staff he needed to get more sleep, multiple people familiar with what took place in the meeting said. He repeatedly referenced pushing too hard and not listening to his team about his schedule, and said he needed to work fewer hours and avoid events scheduled after 8 p.m., according to one of the people familiar with what took place at the meeting.
After Gov. Josh Green of Hawaii, a physician, asked Mr. Biden questions about the status of his health, Mr. Biden replied that his health was fine. “It’s just my brain,” he added, according to three people familiar with what took place — a remark that some in the room took as a joke, including Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, according to a person close to her. But at least one governor did not, and was puzzled by it.
Jen O’Malley Dillon, Mr. Biden’s campaign chair, who attended the meeting, said in a statement that he had said, “All kidding aside,” a recollection confirmed by another person briefed on the meeting. Ms. O’Malley Dillon added: “He was clearly making a joke.”
So, I fully admit to being depressed and worried. I know that BB stopped her NYT subscription. I hope John Buss doesn’t mind. I shared this bit he posted to his FaceBook about canceling his. I seriously worry about him in North Carolina, too. None of us in the old Confederate States are safe right now.
This is from a poll taken in April and reported by the AP on May 1. “Half of US adults mistrust media coverage of 2024 elections, a poll finds. About half of Americans say they are extremely or very concerned that news organizations will report inaccuracies or misinformation during the election. According to a poll, 42% express worry that news outlets will use generative artificial intelligence to create stories. (AP Video: Serkan Gurbuz)”
I think it’s likely that if they redid that this month, they’d find a statistically significant increase in the number of people saying that. However, I admit that I live in the Southern City that promptly surrendered when Captain David Farragut of the Union Navy bombed two forts and arrived at the port. We are a haven for the GLBT community. We also have a strong Jewish presence and are well known for being a place of refuge for many diasporas. Our new governor hates us and wants to take away our city charter, which is the legal means by which we don’t become the rest of the state. You have to wonder how many cities like ours will come under direct attack if MAGA either gets its way or doesn’t.
The only way out of this is to VOTE and get everyone you know to VOTE because our lives depend on it.
I really hope you got to enjoy a little celebration on Independence Day. I’m still on board with ensuring liberty and justice for all. I am also standing by the Biden/Harris ticket. Again, you realize that I have had a lot of gripes in the past about Biden and what happened to Anita Hill. It is somewhat karmic that what is going on now is somewhat built in by the bad decision he, Teddy Kennedy, and John Kerry made about Clarence Thomas. Forty-eight percent of the Senate was against his confirmation. He should’ve been Borked. That, unfortunately, is toxic water under the bridge of democracy, but we have what we have now, and it is what it is. Remember the words of Benjamin Franklin and fight for it. The Roberts Supreme Court just took down the republic.
“A republic, if you can keep it.”
–Benjamin Franklin’s response to Elizabeth Willing Powel’s question: “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
I’m sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can’t stand the scene
And I’m neither left or right
I’m just staying home tonight
Getting lost in that hopeless little screen
But I’m stubborn as those garbage bags
That time cannot decay
I’m junk but I’m still holding up
This little wild bouquet
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A#Repeat1968 #aRepublicIfYouCanKeepIt #CoupAttempt #democracy #IndependenceDay #insurrection #JohnBuss #LeonardCohen #MediaAndSwiftboating #Project2025 #Swiftboating
-
““No Mortal Man is Above the Law,” sayeth the Supremes. Enjoy your Independence Day; if the Conflicted Convicted Felon is elected, it’ll be our last.” John Buss, Repeat 1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Independence Day has always been my favorite holiday, and it’s my youngest daughter’s too. When we lived in the Quarter, we would always walk our 2 blonde labs to the Mississippi River Bank and watch the left and east bank boats launch a huge fireworks display. Down here in the Bywater, it’s still the same short walk to the riverbank, but the Poland Avenue Wharf or the newest Crescent Park are the favorite places to go. Cars always turn to our local NPR station for patriotic music and blast it loud. You can tell when it’s time for the display because all the bars and houses empty into the streets and head south to the banks of the Mississippi River. I have always wondered what past celebrations were like, but that’s a rabbit hole for another day.
I spent the pre-show hours with friends listening to his industrial band livestream their efforts while sitting in their driveway patio. It seemed like a normal fourth. While everyone headed to the river, I headed home to Temple to let her dig a burrow under me to hide from the noise. No displays for me in the last 10 years. Just time at home in bed comforting Temple. The weird thing this year was the fireworks didn’t seem to bother her, and she spent most of the time spooning me. Maybe she sensed that my fear was far greater than hers today. It’s a thought.
Twilight’s last gleaming from last night at my neighbor’s driveway patio.
The swiftboating of the democratic candidate season has begun. My friend who owns the bar on the corner told me she’s hearing from others besides me who are looking for places to become expats. Given the Le Pen elections, I’m researching the south of France right now, although they may soon have their counter-revolution. Russia is happy about that one. I’m sure they have high hopes for us.
If you haven’t seen this little speech, you really should. “Leader of the pro-Trump Project 2025 suggests there will be a new American Revolution. Kevin Roberts said the revolution will be bloodless “if the left allows it to be.” This is from the AP but sourced at Politico.
The leader of a conservative think tank orchestrating plans for a massive overhaul of the federal government in the event of a Republican presidential win said that the country is in the midst of a “second American Revolution” that will be bloodless “if the left allows it to be.”
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts made the comments Tuesday on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, adding that Republicans are “in the process of taking this country back.”
Democrats are “apoplectic right now” because the right is winning, Roberts told former U.S. Rep. Dave Brat, one of the podcast’s guest hosts as Bannon is serving a four-month prison term. “And so I come full circle on this response and just want to encourage you with some substance that we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
Roberts’ remarks shed light on how a group that promises to have significant influence over a possible second term for former President Donald Trump is thinking about this moment in American politics. The Heritage Foundation is spearheading Project 2025, a sweeping road map for a new GOP administration that includes plans for dismantling aspects of the federal government and ousting thousands of civil servants in favor of Trump loyalists who will carry out a hard-right agenda without complaint.
His call for revolution and vague reference to violence also unnerved some Democrats who interpreted it as threatening.
“This is chilling,” former Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson wrote on the social platform X. “Their idea of a second American Revolution is to undo the first one.”
James Singer, a spokesperson for President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, pointed to this week’s Fourth of July holiday in an emailed statement.
“248 years ago tomorrow America declared independence from a tyrannical king, and now Donald Trump and his allies want to make him one at our expense,” Singer said, adding that Trump and his allies are ”dreaming of a violent revolution to destroy the very idea of America.”
Roberts, whose name Bannon recently floated to The New York Times as a potential chief of staff option for Trump, also said on the podcast that Republicans should be encouraged by the Supreme Court’s recent immunity ruling.
Bannon is in jail right now, serving time for contempt of Congress. The New Republic‘s Parker Malloy has a good point here. “Why Does the Media Insist on Helping Steve Bannon Act the Martyr? NBC and ABC snagged pre-prison interviews with the far-right globalist. But to what end? They became tools in his propaganda machine.” The press just falls right in line by normalizing this behavior.
NBC News’s Vaughn Hillyard and ABC News’s Jonathan Karl recently made a journalistic misstep by interviewing Steve Bannon right before he reported to prison. This move, which might seem innocuous at first glance, actually elevates Bannon’s “political prisoner” narrative, a misleading storyline that does little but bolster the War Room host’s victim complex.
By interviewing Bannon just before he heads to prison, both NBC and ABC are essentially giving him a platform to paint himself as a martyr.
It allows Bannon to control the narrative. This plays directly into the hands of Bannon and his supporters, who are eager to cast any legal action against them as part of a broader conspiracy to silence dissent. It’s a classic tactic: position yourself as a victim to garner sympathy and rally support.
But Bannon is not going to prison for his political beliefs or his support for Donald Trump. He’s going to prison because he defied a congressional subpoena. By allowing Bannon to put some focus on his claims of political persecution, these interviews shift attention away from his actual misconduct and the legal consequences of that misconduct. This undermines the rule of law and gives credence to the idea that powerful individuals can evade accountability by crying foul.
Beyond that, it normalizes extremist rhetoric. In his interview with Karl, Bannon doubled down on his inflammatory language, discussing “retribution” and the need for investigations and potential imprisonments of political figures. Bannon listed former FBI Director James Comey, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and former Attorney General Bill Barr as people who should be “very worried” about prosecution under a second Trump administration. Bannon defended his use of the slogan “Victory or Death!” at the recent Turning Point Action convention and rolled his eyes at Karl for even asking him about his 2020 comments about beheading Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Also, from TNR is this headline about the black man running for governor on the insanity platform. “MAGA Gov Candidate’s Ugly, Hateful Rant: “Some Folks Need Killing!” Mark Robinson, the GOP nominee for governor in North Carolina, has a long history of incendiary comments. But he may have topped himself this time.”
Mark Robinson, the extremist GOP nominee for governor in North Carolina, appeared to endorse political violence in a bizarre and extended rant he delivered on June 30 in a small-town church.
“Some folks need killing!” Robinson, the state’s lieutenant governor, shouted during a roughly half-hour-long speech in Lake Church in the tiny town of White Lake, in the southeast corner of the state. “It’s time for somebody to say it. It’s not a matter of vengeance. It’s not a matter of being mean or spiteful. It’s a matter of necessity!”
Robinson’s call for the “killing” of “some folks” came during an extended diatribe in which he attacked an extraordinary assortment of enemies. These ranged from “people who have evil intent” to “wicked people” to those doing things like “torturing and murdering and raping” to socialists and Communists. He also invoked those supposedly undermining America’s founding ideals and leftists allegedly persecuting conservatives by canceling them and doxxing them online.
In all this, Robinson appeared to endorse lethal violence against these unnamed enemies, particularly on the left, though he wasn’t exactly clear on which “folks” are the ones who “need killing.”
Robinson, a self-described “MAGA Republican,” has a long history of wildly radical and unhinged moments. He has linked homosexuality to pedophilia, called for the arrest of trans women, pushed hallucinogenic antisemitic conspiracy theories, endorsed the vile “birther” conspiracy about Barack Obama, described Michelle Obama as a man, hinted at the need to violently oppose federal law enforcement and the government, and posted memes mocking and denying the brutal, violent assault on Nancy Pelosi’s husband, among many other things.
My belief is he said the quiet part out loud. My governor isn’t calling for the death penalty for anyone who doesn’t fit the White Christian Nationalist mold or stays quiet, afraid, and hidden, but I do believe he’d do it if any other MAGA governor started the trend. As JJ says, fear for people you love. As to the swiftboating of Biden for a cold, let’s show you this oldie but goodie of just a smidgen of the swiftboating of Hillary. “Remember when Hillary Clinton had pneumonia and showed up anyway at a 9/11 memorial & media ripped her for that?” (via @joannebamberg with Karolic Kuns and me in the amen corner.)
Even New York Magazine is in on it. “The Conspiracy of Silence to Protect Joe Biden. The president’s mental decline was like a dark family secret for many elite supporters.” Biden, meanwhile, is on a prove-them all full of a shit tour of duty. Here’s another ‘nattering nabob of negatism’ NBC News. (With no apologies to rotten apple dead Spiro Agnew.)
President Joe Biden will hold a rally Friday in Wisconsin and then sit for his first televised interview since his disastrous debate performance last week, events could be crucial in determining whether he can salvage his embattled candidacy.
The interview with anchor George Stephanopoulos of ABC News is shaping up to be one of the most high-stakes moments for a president or a candidate in many years. Democratic elected officials, donors and voters will be closely watching to see whether he can still deliver in an adversarial setting and turn in a performance worthy of being the party’s nominee to defeat Donald Trump this fall.
The interview will “air in its entirety as a primetime special” at 8 p.m. ET Friday, ABC said, adding that a “transcript of the unedited interview will be made available the same day.”
Before that, Biden is expected to speak this afternoon at a campaign rally in Madison, Wisconsin. At the rally, Biden will “underscore the stakes of this election for our democracy, our rights and freedoms, and our economy,” a campaign official said. Also speaking will be Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, and Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., among others.
The White House said the interview team from ABC “will be with us all day in Wisconsin” and able to cover the rally event and to observe the president as he participates in his schedule, and said it has “some flexibility” around the length of the sit-down but “no exact estimate” of the duration of the conversation.
Read the next paragraph, which I will not print here, and try not to bang your head against your desk, wall, or coffee table. Law Professor Richard W. Painter is floating a Constitutional Amendment on X.
Const. Amend. 28: “The President and the judges of the United States courts including the Supreme Court, shall be bound by the criminal laws of the United States and also by financial disclosure and conflict of interest laws enacted by Congress.” So who votes against?
If you want a real shock, go see The Economist Cover Picture today with the heading “No way to Run a Country.” The attached story is “Biden Must Withdraw.” This is from a country where the General Election just kicked the Conservative PM (a hedge fund manager) and replaced him with a Human Rights Lawyer and member of the Labour Party. Fourteen years of Conservative Rule has just been tossed for something different. Of course, CNN has joined the swiftboating effort. This is from Dr. Sanjay Gupta at CNN. “It’s time for President Biden to undergo detailed cognitive and neurological testing and share his results.”
So, I have to share this one from the New York Times even though I’m about to cancel my subscription. “Biden Tells Governors He Needs More Sleep and Less Work at Night. The president’s opening remark to a group of key Democratic leaders — that he was in the race to stay — chilled any talk of his withdrawal, participants said.” The usual suspects, Reid J. Epstein and Maggie Haberman, reported it.
President Biden told a gathering of Democratic governors that he needs to get more sleep and work fewer hours, including curtailing events after 8 p.m., according to two people who participated in the meeting and several others briefed on his comments.
The remarks on Wednesday were a stark acknowledgment of fatigue from the 81-year-old president during a meeting intended to reassure more than two dozen of his most important supporters that he is still in command of his job and capable of mounting a robust campaign against former President Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Biden’s comments about needing more rest came shortly after The New York Times reported that current and former officials have noticed that the president’s lapses over the past few months have become more frequent and more pronounced.
But Mr. Biden told the governors, some of whom were at the White House while others participated virtually, that he was staying in the race.
He described his extensive foreign travel in the weeks before the debate, something that the White House and his allies have in recent days cited as the reason for his halting performance during the debate. Initially, Mr. Biden’s campaign blamed a cold, putting out word about midway through the debate amid a series of social media posts questioning why Mr. Biden was struggling.
Mr. Biden said that he told his staff he needed to get more sleep, multiple people familiar with what took place in the meeting said. He repeatedly referenced pushing too hard and not listening to his team about his schedule, and said he needed to work fewer hours and avoid events scheduled after 8 p.m., according to one of the people familiar with what took place at the meeting.
After Gov. Josh Green of Hawaii, a physician, asked Mr. Biden questions about the status of his health, Mr. Biden replied that his health was fine. “It’s just my brain,” he added, according to three people familiar with what took place — a remark that some in the room took as a joke, including Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, according to a person close to her. But at least one governor did not, and was puzzled by it.
Jen O’Malley Dillon, Mr. Biden’s campaign chair, who attended the meeting, said in a statement that he had said, “All kidding aside,” a recollection confirmed by another person briefed on the meeting. Ms. O’Malley Dillon added: “He was clearly making a joke.”
So, I fully admit to being depressed and worried. I know that BB stopped her NYT subscription. I hope John Buss doesn’t mind. I shared this bit he posted to his FaceBook about canceling his. I seriously worry about him in North Carolina, too. None of us in the old Confederate States are safe right now.
This is from a poll taken in April and reported by the AP on May 1. “Half of US adults mistrust media coverage of 2024 elections, a poll finds. About half of Americans say they are extremely or very concerned that news organizations will report inaccuracies or misinformation during the election. According to a poll, 42% express worry that news outlets will use generative artificial intelligence to create stories. (AP Video: Serkan Gurbuz)”
I think it’s likely that if they redid that this month, they’d find a statistically significant increase in the number of people saying that. However, I admit that I live in the Southern City that promptly surrendered when Captain David Farragut of the Union Navy bombed two forts and arrived at the port. We are a haven for the GLBT community. We also have a strong Jewish presence and are well known for being a place of refuge for many diasporas. Our new governor hates us and wants to take away our city charter, which is the legal means by which we don’t become the rest of the state. You have to wonder how many cities like ours will come under direct attack if MAGA either gets its way or doesn’t.
The only way out of this is to VOTE and get everyone you know to VOTE because our lives depend on it.
I really hope you got to enjoy a little celebration on Independence Day. I’m still on board with ensuring liberty and justice for all. I am also standing by the Biden/Harris ticket. Again, you realize that I have had a lot of gripes in the past about Biden and what happened to Anita Hill. It is somewhat karmic that what is going on now is somewhat built in by the bad decision he, Teddy Kennedy, and John Kerry made about Clarence Thomas. Forty-eight percent of the Senate was against his confirmation. He should’ve been Borked. That, unfortunately, is toxic water under the bridge of democracy, but we have what we have now, and it is what it is. Remember the words of Benjamin Franklin and fight for it. The Roberts Supreme Court just took down the republic.
“A republic, if you can keep it.”
–Benjamin Franklin’s response to Elizabeth Willing Powel’s question: “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
I’m sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can’t stand the scene
And I’m neither left or right
I’m just staying home tonight
Getting lost in that hopeless little screen
But I’m stubborn as those garbage bags
That time cannot decay
I’m junk but I’m still holding up
This little wild bouquet
Democracy is coming to the U.S.Ahttps://skydancingblog.com/2024/07/05/friday-reads-twilights-last-gleaming/
#Repeat1968 #aRepublicIfYouCanKeepIt #CoupAttempt #democracy #IndependenceDay #insurrection #JohnBuss #LeonardCohen #MediaAndSwiftboating #Project2025 #Swiftboating
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Friday Reads: Twilight’s Last Gleaming
““No Mortal Man is Above the Law,” sayeth the Supremes. Enjoy your Independence Day; if the Conflicted Convicted Felon is elected, it’ll be our last.” John Buss, Repeat 1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Independence Day has always been my favorite holiday, and it’s my youngest daughter’s too. When we lived in the Quarter, we would always walk our 2 blonde labs to the Mississippi River Bank and watch the left and east bank boats launch a huge fireworks display. Down here in the Bywater, it’s still the same short walk to the riverbank, but the Poland Avenue Wharf or the newest Crescent Park are the favorite places to go. Cars always turn to our local NPR station for patriotic music and blast it loud. You can tell when it’s time for the display because all the bars and houses empty into the streets and head south to the banks of the Mississippi River. I have always wondered what past celebrations were like, but that’s a rabbit hole for another day.
I spent the pre-show hours with friends listening to his industrial band livestream their efforts while sitting in their driveway patio. It seemed like a normal fourth. While everyone headed to the river, I headed home to Temple to let her dig a burrow under me to hide from the noise. No displays for me in the last 10 years. Just time at home in bed comforting Temple. The weird thing this year was the fireworks didn’t seem to bother her, and she spent most of the time spooning me. Maybe she sensed that my fear was far greater than hers today. It’s a thought.
Twilight’s last gleaming from last night at my neighbor’s driveway patio.
The swiftboating of the democratic candidate season has begun. My friend who owns the bar on the corner told me she’s hearing from others besides me who are looking for places to become expats. Given the Le Pen elections, I’m researching the south of France right now, although they may soon have their counter-revolution. Russia is happy about that one. I’m sure they have high hopes for us.
If you haven’t seen this little speech, you really should. “Leader of the pro-Trump Project 2025 suggests there will be a new American Revolution. Kevin Roberts said the revolution will be bloodless “if the left allows it to be.” This is from the AP but sourced at Politico.
The leader of a conservative think tank orchestrating plans for a massive overhaul of the federal government in the event of a Republican presidential win said that the country is in the midst of a “second American Revolution” that will be bloodless “if the left allows it to be.”
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts made the comments Tuesday on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, adding that Republicans are “in the process of taking this country back.”
Democrats are “apoplectic right now” because the right is winning, Roberts told former U.S. Rep. Dave Brat, one of the podcast’s guest hosts as Bannon is serving a four-month prison term. “And so I come full circle on this response and just want to encourage you with some substance that we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
Roberts’ remarks shed light on how a group that promises to have significant influence over a possible second term for former President Donald Trump is thinking about this moment in American politics. The Heritage Foundation is spearheading Project 2025, a sweeping road map for a new GOP administration that includes plans for dismantling aspects of the federal government and ousting thousands of civil servants in favor of Trump loyalists who will carry out a hard-right agenda without complaint.
His call for revolution and vague reference to violence also unnerved some Democrats who interpreted it as threatening.
“This is chilling,” former Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson wrote on the social platform X. “Their idea of a second American Revolution is to undo the first one.”
James Singer, a spokesperson for President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, pointed to this week’s Fourth of July holiday in an emailed statement.
“248 years ago tomorrow America declared independence from a tyrannical king, and now Donald Trump and his allies want to make him one at our expense,” Singer said, adding that Trump and his allies are ”dreaming of a violent revolution to destroy the very idea of America.”
Roberts, whose name Bannon recently floated to The New York Times as a potential chief of staff option for Trump, also said on the podcast that Republicans should be encouraged by the Supreme Court’s recent immunity ruling.
Bannon is in jail right now, serving time for contempt of Congress. The New Republic‘s Parker Malloy has a good point here. “Why Does the Media Insist on Helping Steve Bannon Act the Martyr? NBC and ABC snagged pre-prison interviews with the far-right globalist. But to what end? They became tools in his propaganda machine.” The press just falls right in line by normalizing this behavior.
NBC News’s Vaughn Hillyard and ABC News’s Jonathan Karl recently made a journalistic misstep by interviewing Steve Bannon right before he reported to prison. This move, which might seem innocuous at first glance, actually elevates Bannon’s “political prisoner” narrative, a misleading storyline that does little but bolster the War Room host’s victim complex.
By interviewing Bannon just before he heads to prison, both NBC and ABC are essentially giving him a platform to paint himself as a martyr.
It allows Bannon to control the narrative. This plays directly into the hands of Bannon and his supporters, who are eager to cast any legal action against them as part of a broader conspiracy to silence dissent. It’s a classic tactic: position yourself as a victim to garner sympathy and rally support.
But Bannon is not going to prison for his political beliefs or his support for Donald Trump. He’s going to prison because he defied a congressional subpoena. By allowing Bannon to put some focus on his claims of political persecution, these interviews shift attention away from his actual misconduct and the legal consequences of that misconduct. This undermines the rule of law and gives credence to the idea that powerful individuals can evade accountability by crying foul.
Beyond that, it normalizes extremist rhetoric. In his interview with Karl, Bannon doubled down on his inflammatory language, discussing “retribution” and the need for investigations and potential imprisonments of political figures. Bannon listed former FBI Director James Comey, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and former Attorney General Bill Barr as people who should be “very worried” about prosecution under a second Trump administration. Bannon defended his use of the slogan “Victory or Death!” at the recent Turning Point Action convention and rolled his eyes at Karl for even asking him about his 2020 comments about beheading Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Also, from TNR is this headline about the black man running for governor on the insanity platform. “MAGA Gov Candidate’s Ugly, Hateful Rant: “Some Folks Need Killing!” Mark Robinson, the GOP nominee for governor in North Carolina, has a long history of incendiary comments. But he may have topped himself this time.”
Mark Robinson, the extremist GOP nominee for governor in North Carolina, appeared to endorse political violence in a bizarre and extended rant he delivered on June 30 in a small-town church.
“Some folks need killing!” Robinson, the state’s lieutenant governor, shouted during a roughly half-hour-long speech in Lake Church in the tiny town of White Lake, in the southeast corner of the state. “It’s time for somebody to say it. It’s not a matter of vengeance. It’s not a matter of being mean or spiteful. It’s a matter of necessity!”
Robinson’s call for the “killing” of “some folks” came during an extended diatribe in which he attacked an extraordinary assortment of enemies. These ranged from “people who have evil intent” to “wicked people” to those doing things like “torturing and murdering and raping” to socialists and Communists. He also invoked those supposedly undermining America’s founding ideals and leftists allegedly persecuting conservatives by canceling them and doxxing them online.
In all this, Robinson appeared to endorse lethal violence against these unnamed enemies, particularly on the left, though he wasn’t exactly clear on which “folks” are the ones who “need killing.”
Robinson, a self-described “MAGA Republican,” has a long history of wildly radical and unhinged moments. He has linked homosexuality to pedophilia, called for the arrest of trans women, pushed hallucinogenic antisemitic conspiracy theories, endorsed the vile “birther” conspiracy about Barack Obama, described Michelle Obama as a man, hinted at the need to violently oppose federal law enforcement and the government, and posted memes mocking and denying the brutal, violent assault on Nancy Pelosi’s husband, among many other things.
My belief is he said the quiet part out loud. My governor isn’t calling for the death penalty for anyone who doesn’t fit the White Christian Nationalist mold or stays quiet, afraid, and hidden, but I do believe he’d do it if any other MAGA governor started the trend. As JJ says, fear for people you love. As to the swiftboating of Biden for a cold, let’s show you this oldie but goodie of just a smidgen of the swiftboating of Hillary. “Remember when Hillary Clinton had pneumonia and showed up anyway at a 9/11 memorial & media ripped her for that?” (via @joannebamberg with Karolic Kuns and me in the amen corner.)
Even New York Magazine is in on it. “The Conspiracy of Silence to Protect Joe Biden. The president’s mental decline was like a dark family secret for many elite supporters.” Biden, meanwhile, is on a prove-them all full of a shit tour of duty. Here’s another ‘nattering nabob of negatism’ NBC News. (With no apologies to rotten apple dead Spiro Agnew.)
President Joe Biden will hold a rally Friday in Wisconsin and then sit for his first televised interview since his disastrous debate performance last week, events could be crucial in determining whether he can salvage his embattled candidacy.
The interview with anchor George Stephanopoulos of ABC News is shaping up to be one of the most high-stakes moments for a president or a candidate in many years. Democratic elected officials, donors and voters will be closely watching to see whether he can still deliver in an adversarial setting and turn in a performance worthy of being the party’s nominee to defeat Donald Trump this fall.
The interview will “air in its entirety as a primetime special” at 8 p.m. ET Friday, ABC said, adding that a “transcript of the unedited interview will be made available the same day.”
Before that, Biden is expected to speak this afternoon at a campaign rally in Madison, Wisconsin. At the rally, Biden will “underscore the stakes of this election for our democracy, our rights and freedoms, and our economy,” a campaign official said. Also speaking will be Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, and Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., among others.
The White House said the interview team from ABC “will be with us all day in Wisconsin” and able to cover the rally event and to observe the president as he participates in his schedule, and said it has “some flexibility” around the length of the sit-down but “no exact estimate” of the duration of the conversation.
Read the next paragraph, which I will not print here, and try not to bang your head against your desk, wall, or coffee table. Law Professor Richard W. Painter is floating a Constitutional Amendment on X.
Const. Amend. 28: “The President and the judges of the United States courts including the Supreme Court, shall be bound by the criminal laws of the United States and also by financial disclosure and conflict of interest laws enacted by Congress.” So who votes against?
If you want a real shock, go see The Economist Cover Picture today with the heading “No way to Run a Country.” The attached story is “Biden Must Withdraw.” This is from a country where the General Election just kicked the Conservative PM (a hedge fund manager) and replaced him with a Human Rights Lawyer and member of the Labour Party. Fourteen years of Conservative Rule has just been tossed for something different. Of course, CNN has joined the swiftboating effort. This is from Dr. Sanjay Gupta at CNN. “It’s time for President Biden to undergo detailed cognitive and neurological testing and share his results.”
So, I have to share this one from the New York Times even though I’m about to cancel my subscription. “Biden Tells Governors He Needs More Sleep and Less Work at Night. The president’s opening remark to a group of key Democratic leaders — that he was in the race to stay — chilled any talk of his withdrawal, participants said.” The usual suspects, Reid J. Epstein and Maggie Haberman, reported it.
President Biden told a gathering of Democratic governors that he needs to get more sleep and work fewer hours, including curtailing events after 8 p.m., according to two people who participated in the meeting and several others briefed on his comments.
The remarks on Wednesday were a stark acknowledgment of fatigue from the 81-year-old president during a meeting intended to reassure more than two dozen of his most important supporters that he is still in command of his job and capable of mounting a robust campaign against former President Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Biden’s comments about needing more rest came shortly after The New York Times reported that current and former officials have noticed that the president’s lapses over the past few months have become more frequent and more pronounced.
But Mr. Biden told the governors, some of whom were at the White House while others participated virtually, that he was staying in the race.
He described his extensive foreign travel in the weeks before the debate, something that the White House and his allies have in recent days cited as the reason for his halting performance during the debate. Initially, Mr. Biden’s campaign blamed a cold, putting out word about midway through the debate amid a series of social media posts questioning why Mr. Biden was struggling.
Mr. Biden said that he told his staff he needed to get more sleep, multiple people familiar with what took place in the meeting said. He repeatedly referenced pushing too hard and not listening to his team about his schedule, and said he needed to work fewer hours and avoid events scheduled after 8 p.m., according to one of the people familiar with what took place at the meeting.
After Gov. Josh Green of Hawaii, a physician, asked Mr. Biden questions about the status of his health, Mr. Biden replied that his health was fine. “It’s just my brain,” he added, according to three people familiar with what took place — a remark that some in the room took as a joke, including Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, according to a person close to her. But at least one governor did not, and was puzzled by it.
Jen O’Malley Dillon, Mr. Biden’s campaign chair, who attended the meeting, said in a statement that he had said, “All kidding aside,” a recollection confirmed by another person briefed on the meeting. Ms. O’Malley Dillon added: “He was clearly making a joke.”
So, I fully admit to being depressed and worried. I know that BB stopped her NYT subscription. I hope John Buss doesn’t mind. I shared this bit he posted to his FaceBook about canceling his. I seriously worry about him in North Carolina, too. None of us in the old Confederate States are safe right now.
This is from a poll taken in April and reported by the AP on May 1. “Half of US adults mistrust media coverage of 2024 elections, a poll finds. About half of Americans say they are extremely or very concerned that news organizations will report inaccuracies or misinformation during the election. According to a poll, 42% express worry that news outlets will use generative artificial intelligence to create stories. (AP Video: Serkan Gurbuz)”
I think it’s likely that if they redid that this month, they’d find a statistically significant increase in the number of people saying that. However, I admit that I live in the Southern City that promptly surrendered when Captain David Farragut of the Union Navy bombed two forts and arrived at the port. We are a haven for the GLBT community. We also have a strong Jewish presence and are well known for being a place of refuge for many diasporas. Our new governor hates us and wants to take away our city charter, which is the legal means by which we don’t become the rest of the state. You have to wonder how many cities like ours will come under direct attack if MAGA either gets its way or doesn’t.
The only way out of this is to VOTE and get everyone you know to VOTE because our lives depend on it.
I really hope you got to enjoy a little celebration on Independence Day. I’m still on board with ensuring liberty and justice for all. I am also standing by the Biden/Harris ticket. Again, you realize that I have had a lot of gripes in the past about Biden and what happened to Anita Hill. It is somewhat karmic that what is going on now is somewhat built in by the bad decision he, Teddy Kennedy, and John Kerry made about Clarence Thomas. Forty-eight percent of the Senate was against his confirmation. He should’ve been Borked. That, unfortunately, is toxic water under the bridge of democracy, but we have what we have now, and it is what it is. Remember the words of Benjamin Franklin and fight for it. The Roberts Supreme Court just took down the republic.
“A republic, if you can keep it.”
–Benjamin Franklin’s response to Elizabeth Willing Powel’s question: “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
I’m sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can’t stand the scene
And I’m neither left or right
I’m just staying home tonight
Getting lost in that hopeless little screen
But I’m stubborn as those garbage bags
That time cannot decay
I’m junk but I’m still holding up
This little wild bouquet
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A#Repeat1968 #aRepublicIfYouCanKeepIt #CoupAttempt #democracy #IndependenceDay #insurrection #JohnBuss #LeonardCohen #MediaAndSwiftboating #Project2025 #Swiftboating
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“I’ve got the real debate covered, so you can watch baseball this debate night. Here it is in one screenshot. You’re welcome.” John Buss, @Repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancing!
The last thing I remember about the debate last night was Donald spewing the usual christofascist lies about abortion. At some point, I refilled my wine glass, turned it all off, and fell asleep looking at real estate in Mexico. I even tried to comment at the start, but it became too shocking for me to continue with that at some point. I didn’t get a live thread up last night. I woke up at 5 a.m., unable to process what I had seen.
I remember why I never watch CNN anymore, and I’m more firmly committed to that decision. Here’s the best they could do this morning. It’s a healthy dose of bothsiderism. “Fact-checking the CNN presidential debate — Both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump made false and misleading claims during CNN’s presidential debate on Thursday – but Trump did so far more than Biden, just like in their debates in 2020. — Trump made more than 30 false claims at the Thursday debate.”
The entire thing was a clusterfuck. I’m going with Rebecca Solnit first today. Here is her headline at the Guardian. “The true losers of this presidential debate were the American people. We didn’t need this show. Each candidate has had time to show us who they are, and one is a felon trying to destroy democracy.”
The American people lost the debate last night, and it was more painful than usual to watch the parade of platitudes and evasions that worked in the debate format run by CNN. The network’s glossy pundit-moderators started by ignoring the elephants in the room – that one of the two men standing at the podiums was a convicted felon, the leader of a coup attempt, an alleged thief of national security documents who was earlier this year found liable in a civil court for rape, and has promised to usher in a vengeful authoritarian regime if he returns to office.
Instead they launched the debate with the dead horse they love to beat in election years, the deficit and taxes. Throughout the excruciating evening, Joe Biden in a hoarse voice said diligent things that were reasonably true and definitely sincere; Donald Trump in a booming voice said lurid things that were flamboyantly untrue. The grim spectacle was a reminder that this is a style over substance game.
Debates are a rite in which not truth but showmanship wins the day, and in which participants get judged as though it was a sporting event – which it pretty much is, in high school and college debate events. Before 2016, presidential debates were relatively decorous events in which the participants slammed each other, but more or less within the parameters of the true and the real with maybe a little distortion and exaggeration.
Then came Trump. You cannot win a debate with a shameless liar, because what you’re supposed to be debating are facts and positions. A lie is a kind of poison; once it’s in the room it makes an impression that is hard to undo, and trying to undo it only amplifies it.
Trump’s positions on anything and everything shift and slide at will, and he lies about his own past with pathological confidence – in this debate he both denied that he had sex with Stormy Daniels and that he praised the white supremacists who stormed Charlottesville in 2017. More substantively he lied – unchallenged, except by Biden – about his role in the January 6 coup attempt, and the CNN pundits did not trouble him further about his crimes. Trump talked about whatever he wanted – asked about the opiates crisis, he reverted to the lurid stories about sex crimes and open borders that obsess him and inflame his followers.
Most outrageous of all, and of course utterly unchecked, was one of the falsehoods Trump has been pushing for years – the claim that abortion continues on into infanticide, that doctors and new mothers are murdering babies at birth. That one candidate has long supported reproductive rights and the other has led the attack on them was not something you would learn from this debate.
I will also share this analysis by Historian Heather Cox Richardson from her substack Letters from an American.
Tonight was the first debate between President Joe Biden and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, and by far the most striking thing about the debate was the overwhelming focus among pundits immediately afterward about Biden’s appearance and soft, hoarse voice as he rattled off statistics and events. Virtually unmentioned was the fact that Trump lied and rambled incoherently, ignored questions to say whatever he wanted; refused to acknowledge the events of January 6, 2021; and refused to commit to accepting the result of the 2024 presidential election, finally saying he would accept it only if it met his standards for fairness.
Immediately after the debate, there were calls for Biden to drop out of the race, but aside from the fact that the only time a presidential candidate has ever done that—in 1968—it threw the race into utter confusion and the president’s party lost, Biden needed to demonstrate that his mental capacity is strong in order to push back on the Republicans’ insistence that he is incapable of being president. That, he did, thoroughly. Biden began with a weak start but hit his stride as the evening wore on. Indeed, he covered his bases too thoroughly, listing the many accomplishments of his administration in such a hurry that he was sometimes hard to understand.
In contrast, Trump came out strong but faded and became less coherent over time. His entire performance was either lies or rambling non-sequiturs. He lied so incessantly throughout the evening that it took CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale almost three minutes, speaking quickly, to get through the list.
Trump said that some Democratic states allow people to execute babies after they’re born and that every legal scholar wanted Roe v. Wade overturned—both fantastical lies. He said that the deficit is at its highest level ever and that the U.S. trade deficit is at its highest ever: both of those things happened during his administration. He lied that there were no terrorist attacks during his presidency; there were many. He said that Biden wants to quadruple people’s taxes—this is “pure fiction,” according to Dale—and lied that his tax cuts paid for themselves; they have, in fact, added trillions of dollars to the national debt.
Dale went on: Trump lied that the U.S. has provided more aid to Ukraine than Europe has when it’s the other way around, and he was off by close to $100 billion when he named the amount the U.S. has provided to Ukraine. He was off by millions when he talked about how many migrants have crossed the border under Biden, and falsely claimed that some of Biden’s policies—like funding historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and reducing the price of insulin to $35 a month—were his own accomplishments.
I refuse to listen to calls for Joe to quit. Me, the nagging naysayer about Joe’s days in the Senate.
This morning, we woke up to more bad news. This is from the Washington Post. “Supreme Court curbs federal agency power, overturning Chevron precedent. The Chevron precedent was targeted by conservatives who say the government gives too much power to federal bureaucrats.” This is reported by Ann E. Marimow. They are shamelessly turning us over to their Corporate Overlords. I wonder what gratuity Alito and Thomas get for this one?
The Supreme Court on Friday curtailed the power of federal government agencies to regulate vast swaths of American life, overturning a 40-year-old legal precedent long targeted by conservatives who say the government gives unaccountable bureaucrats too much authority.
For decades, the court’s decision in Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council directed judges to defer to the reasonable interpretations of federal agency officials in cases that involve how to administer ambiguous federal laws.
Writing for the majority in the 6-3 ruling, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said that framework has proved “unworkable” and allowed federal agencies to change course even without direction from Congress.
The court is finally ending “our 40-year misadventure with Chevron deference,” Roberts said, reading parts of his opinion from the bench.
The court’s three liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — dissented, with Kagan writing that the majority has turned itself into “the country’s administrative czar,” taking power away from Congress and regulatory agencies.
“A rule of judicial humility gives way to a rule of judicial hubris,” she said, reading part of her dissent from the bench.
The precedent, established in 1984, gave federal agencies flexibility to determine how to implement legislation passed by Congress. The framework has been used extensively by the U.S. government to defend regulations designed to protect the environment, financial markets, consumers and the workplace.
While lower courts have relied on the Chevron in tens of thousands of cases evaluating federal rules and orders, conservatives have balked at the legal precedent, and the approach has fallen out of favor in the last decade as the Supreme Court moved to the right. The high court’s conservative supermajority includes three justices nominated by President Donald Trump, whose administration put a premium on judges skeptical of federal government power and the so-called administrative state.
The second decision announced today was an Appeal from one of the January 6th rioters. This is from the Washington Post. “Supreme Court says prosecutors improperly charged hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters Supreme Court’s decision on obstruction charge will impact trials of hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters and, potentially, former president Donald Trump.” It’s also reported by Ann E. Marimow.
Federal prosecutors improperly charged hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants with obstruction, a divided Supreme Court ruled on Friday, upending many cases against rioters who disrupted the certification of the 2020 presidential election.
After the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, federal prosecutors charged more than 350 participants in the pro-Trump mob with obstructing or impeding an official proceeding. The charge carries a 20-year maximum penalty and is part of a law enacted after the exposure of massive fraud andshredding of documents during the collapse of the energy giant Enron.
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the government’s broad reading of the statute would give prosecutors too much discretion to seek a 20-year maximum sentence “for acts Congress saw fit to punish only with far shorter terms of imprisonment.”
One last debate thought from David Frum’s article today for the Atlantic. “Trump Should Never Have Had This Platform. The debate was a travesty—because its whole premise was to treat a failed coup leader as a legitimate candidate for the presidency.”
The first question about January 6 was asked at minute 41.
Donald Trump replied with a barrage of crazy lies, ending by seeming to blame Nancy Pelosi’s documentarian daughter.
Then, just to be fair, CNN moderator Jake Tapper followed up with a question to President Joe Biden. Did he really mean to imply that Trump’s voters were a danger to democracy?
Biden fumbled the answer, as he fumbled so many other answers. The octogenarian president delivered a fiasco of a performance on the Atlanta debate stage. But the fiasco was not his alone.
Everything about the event was designed to blur the choice before Americans. Both candidates—the serving president and the convicted felon—were addressed as “President.” The questions treated an attempted coup d’état as one issue out of many. The candidates were left to police or fail to police the truth of each other’s statements; it was nobody else’s business.
Today, CNN is hinting a producer thinks it was just terrific. But as Frum states, this is not a choice between Colgate and Crest, which is basically how the Nixon-Kennedy debate was presented back in the days of real Don Drapers. David Kurtz of Talking Points Memo has a similar analysis. How can you present a debate highlighting a sociopath with a proven performance of madness as just another presidential choice regardless of the presumed issues with President Biden?
I’m going to the dentist this afternoon. It’s a nice, mundane thing to walk down the street, head into the office, and sit in the waiting room with everyone else. Not my favorite mundane thing, but mundane none the less. I’m going to try escapism again like retired Lt. General Honore. I’m not sure what the form will be, but I enjoyed seeing all those nice little houses in Mexico.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
https://skydancingblog.com/2024/06/28/finally-friday-reads-cnn-shame-shame-shame/
#2024SupremeCourtRulings #Repeat1968 #DonaldLiesMoreThanHeBreathes #JohnBuss #June2024PresidentialDebate
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“Of course, Donald gets his cake and eats it too. SCOTUS gives him a nice birthday gift.” John Buss, @Repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
It’s a busy news day. The Supremes and the Loose Cannon are busy slowing down the many prosecutions of Donald the Traitorous. Today is the second anniversary of the Dobbs Decision. The Court released another decision today that was sound. “Supreme Court Upholds Law Disarming Domestic Abusers. The justices rejected a Second Amendment challenge to a federal law that makes it a crime for people subject to domestic violence restraining orders to possess a gun.” This was reported today in the NYT by Adam Liptak.
The Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the government may disarm a Texas man subject to a domestic violence order, limiting the sweep of its earlier blockbuster decision that vastly expanded gun rights.
That decision, issued in 2022, struck down a New York law that put strict limits on carrying guns outside the home. It also established a new legal standard for assessing laws limiting the possession of firearms, one whose reliance on historical practices has sown confusion as courts have struggled to apply it, with some judges sweeping aside gun control laws that have been on the books for decades.
The new case, United States v. Rahimi, explored the scope of that new test. Only Justice Clarence Thomas, the author of the majority opinion in the 2022 decision, dissented.
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said that Second Amendment rights had limits.
“When a restraining order contains a finding that an individual poses a credible threat to the physical safety of an intimate partner, that individual may — consistent with the Second Amendment — be banned from possessing firearms while the order is in effect,” he wrote. “Since the founding, our nation’s firearm laws have included provisions preventing individuals who threaten physical harm to others from misusing firearms.”
The case started in 2019 when Zackey Rahimi, a drug dealer in Texas, assaulted his girlfriend and threatened to shoot her if she told anyone, leading her to obtain a restraining order. The order suspended Mr. Rahimi’s handgun license and prohibited him from possessing firearms.
Mr. Rahimi defied the order in flagrant fashion, according to court records.
He threatened a different woman with a gun, leading to charges of assault with a deadly weapon. Then, in the space of two months, he opened fire in public five times.
Now, if gun dealers would just follow the law. We’re still waiting for the big decision on absolute immunity. It’s now unlikely Donald will be put to trial for his insurrection. We also remember the murders of Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner as they fought for voting rights. If you haven’t watched the movie Mississippi Burning, you really should. Here’s a link to the FBI site and information on the case.
60 years later, we still struggle to achieve the ability to vote for every eligible voter.
And in other news, the state of Louisiana is getting national attention for going after the separation of Church and State. When people think of Louisiana, they usually think of good food, music, and fun! It’s a beautiful, diverse state in terms of geography and people. Now we’re in the headlines for this utter idiot that a very small number of people voted into the Governor’s House. The biggest lesson here is to go vote no matter what! Despite SCOTUS’s decisions over the years, he’s itching to take this case to court. Governor Klandry wants the state to create posters of the White Christian Nationalists’ version of the 10 commandments in every Louisiana public school classroom. The funny thing is the bill that’s now signed into law has 11 commandments. There are so many versions that you wonder why the Calvinist version always takes precedence. Oh, yes, White Christian Evangelicals want the ones positing the most control.
Still, I wonder if having a rainbow in your classroom is “grooming,” why is having to explain adultery to a kindergartner something else? Given the Dobbs Anniversary today, I’m not sure we rely on stare decisis. Remember when the late and not-so-great Roy Moore tried to get them displayed at Alabama courthouses? That didn’t go over so well with the court. Neither did the attempt to put them in classrooms in 1978. This current law violates longstanding Supreme Court precedent and the First Amendment. Stone v. Graham, the Supreme Court overturned a similar state statute. The finding stated that the First Amendment bars public schools from posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms. That was over 40 years ago. But remember, they ignored all kinds of precedents to dump Roe and are gunning for birth control. We need to vote and be vigilant
I found this CNN interview with Louisiana State Representative Lauren Ventrella conducted by Boris Sanchez. She actually makes Marjorie Taylor Greene seem a bit less unhinged. She screams and interrupts so much that it’s difficult to watch. At one point, she attacks the interviewer personally. (Check the tape at 2:54) I can’t believe these Republican women are getting more obnoxious than Michelle Bachman. At least this one wears professional clothing well do performance politics. Moses was that the first historical law giver. That would be Babalyonia’s Hammarubi about 500 years prior to the entire mountain event. The first time I went to the Louvre I had my exhusband take a picture of me standing next to a stone displaying his code. He presented 282 case laws over all kinds of subject areas too. That’s how impressed with it I was when I was studying ancient history in grade school and at university.
Much of the political press is yammering on about Trump’s big fundraising leap and speculation about the VEEP Sweepstakes with folks even saying Marco Rubio might be a game changer. However, let’s not forget the main point about Trump which is what my state did when the looked at the last govenor’s race and sat it out. his is from Stephen Robinson writing at Public Notice. ” Don’t be gaslit: Trump’s corruption is unparalleled. His egregious self-dealing is disqualifying no matter how much Republicans yell about Hunter Biden.” The author calls the move “classic swift-boating.”
“While I am not mandated to do this under the law, I feel it is visually important, as President, to in no way have a conflict of interest with my various businesses,” Trump tweeted on November 30, 2016.
It quickly became clear, however, that Trump’s divestment plan was a joke: He merely turned over active control to his two sons, Don Jr. and Eric, which hardly satisfied ethics experts. For instance, Richard Painter, former ethics counsel to Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, argued that Trump should “put all his conflict-generating assets in a true blind trust run by an independent trustee.”
Trump held a press conference a week before his inauguration that was supposed to clarify how he planned to hand the family business over to his sons. However, the documents placed next to him as evidence of his complex financial preparations were just props, binders filled with blank paper.
There’s no way we can face any more of his monkey business in the Oval Office. However, there’s another court trying slow down the application of Justice. This is from Politico. “Is Jack Smith’s appointment constitutional? Trump’s Florida judge is set to decide. A hearing starting Friday will delve into Trump’s claim that the special counsel lacks authority.” It’s hard to see such frivolous issues tie things up. This is written by Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein.
Special counsel Jack Smith’s case against Donald Trump for allegedly stealing national security secrets is on trial Friday — just not in the way Smith intended.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has punted the case indefinitely and seems many months away from preparing it to go before a jury (assuming the case even makes it that far). Meanwhile, she has scheduled a multi-day hearing in her Fort Pierce, Florida, courtroom focused on whether Smith, the prosecutor leading the case, was unconstitutionally appointed or is otherwise acting without legal authority.
The claim is a far-fetched bid by Trump to scuttle the case altogether. Numerous courts have rejected nearly identical constitutional challenges to other special counsels.
And in a case that has moved like molasses for a year, Cannon’s decision to devote substantial time and resources to the argument is just the latest, and perhaps most blatant, example of her unusual approach. Her management of the case has frustrated the special counsel’s team and prompted critics to accuse her of being in the tank for Trump, who appointed her to the bench during his final year in office.
And in a case that has moved like molasses for a year, Cannon’s decision to devote substantial time and resources to the argument is just the latest, and perhaps most blatant, example of her unusual
The hearing on Trump’s challenge to Smith’s authority is set to begin Friday and to continue Monday morning. Later on Monday, Cannon plans to hear arguments on Smith’s request for an order barring Trump from lying about the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago that led to the criminal charges in the case. And then, on Tuesday, Cannon has scheduled an additional hearing on another Trump motion that could derail the case.
This comes after it was reported that at least two colleagues approached her to ask her to not take the case. Here’s some information on that. This is from LA Magazine. “Judge Aileen Cannon Rebuffed Senior Colleagues’ Plea to Step Aside From Trump’s Classified Documents Case. Cannon is the first judge in American history to preside over a criminal trial of the president who nominated that judge.”
New reports came out Thursday from the New York Times that Judge Aileen Cannon was encouraged to step aside by senior judges from her position as the assigned judge to ex-president Donald Trump’s classified documents case.
In June 2023, Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon was just two years and seven months into her tenure as a federal judge for the Southern District of Florida, her first job as a judge, when she was assigned one of the highest-profile cases of our time — namely, the prosecution of Donald Trump in the classified documents case.
After Cannon was assigned the case a year ago, private expressions of Cannon-related concerns were raised across the courthouse due to her experience and lack of impartiality by her own colleagues.
Two senior judges — Chief Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga was one — waged an extraordinary effort to privately urge Cannon to step aside and allow a judge with more time on the bench to take over the case. Cannon refused.
Since then, Cannon has slow-walked pretrial motions and delayed the trial indefinitely — declining to set to a date for the trial to begin — although prosecutors have said they are prepared to start.
Well, that’s it for me! Have a great weekend!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
https://skydancingblog.com/2024/06/21/finally-friday-reads-putting-the-lousy-in-lousyiana/
#10CommandmentsInClassroom #2024PresidentialCampaign #Repeat1968 #JohnBuss #JusticeMolassesStyle #seperationOfChurchAndState
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I’m now convinced he is who we knew he was. John Buss, @repeat 1968″
Good Day, Sky Dancers!!
We’re having 2 weeks of unpleasantly hot weather here. This weather is usually reserved for the Dog Days of Summer, not the precursor to Summer. We have another 10 days before it’s officially Summer. When we got KKKLandry for Governor, we got a Climate Change denier who is even trying to run one of the great Climate Change Science researchers in the country out of one of our state universities. I’m reminded of this from The Guardian, published three months ago. “What has Louisiana’s governor done his first month in office? Boost fossil fuels. Republican Jeff Landry, who has labeled climate change ‘a hoax’, has elevated fossil fuel executives to key environmental posts.” MAGA Republicans simply don’t care about anything but their corporate overlords and the donations they receive from them. They all are massive, selfish narcissists, as far as I can tell.
Donnie Dotard said the quiet part out loud in the 105-degree F heat of Nevada yesterday at a rally. This is from The New Republic, as reported by Talia Jane. “Trump Finally Admits What He Thinks of His Supporters. Donald Trump revealed exactly how he feels about his supporters at his campaign rally in Las Vegas.” How is this not a “horrible thing”?
“The press will take that and they’ll say ‘he said a horrible thing,” Trump accurately predicted after telling supporters in Nevada on Sunday, “I don’t care about you. I just want your vote. I don’t care.”
The comments came as Trump remarked on a passing breeze during a scorching outdoor rally in Las Vegas where temperatures climbed above 100 degrees. Six people were hospitalized, and 24 more were treated by EMTs on-site for heat-related illness. Sunday’s rally followed a similar event in Arizona on Thursday where at least 11 people were hospitalized for heat exhaustion, which Team Trump wrote off as “enthusiasm.”
Trump’s recent rallies, which either occur outdoors or involve long lines outside waiting to be let in, have been punctuated by people boiling in the sun. Team Trump has taken no efforts to mitigate the heat for his followers—and in fact booked the Nevada rally after his supporters collapsed in Arizona. This comes despite the fact that a third of Trump’s supporters are those most sensitive to heat.
Though Trump’s sun-fried supporters let out laughs at his remark, Trump has a history of despising his supporters. During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Trump expressed gratitude for the highly contagious disease because it meant he didn’t have to shake hands with “these disgusting people.”
“He talked all the time about the people themselves being disgusting,” Olivia Troye, former homeland security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence and member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, told The New York Times in 2020 while discussing Trump’s view of his supporters. “It was clear immediately that he wanted nothing to do with them.”
Eleven people were transported to hospital with heat exhaustion in Arizona. The event happened at an overcrowded Mega Church. The Nevada Rally goers were a bit smarter. A lot were walking out before his speech was over. Maybe they were tired of his shark tales. This is from Newsweek, as reported by Ewan Palmer. “Donald Trump Mocked Over ‘Bizarre Rant’ About Sharks.”
Donald Trump has been mocked online after going on a tirade against sharks and sinking boats during his recent campaign rally in Las Vegas.
During his speech in the key swing state of Nevada on Sunday, the former president posed a hypothetical scenario in which a boat with a large battery sinks while a shark was nearby.
“If the boat is sinking, water goes over the battery, the boat is sinking, do I stay on top of the boat and get electrocuted?” Trump said. “Or do I jump over by the shark and not get electrocuted?”
Author and frequent Trump critic Stephen King was one of those who criticized the former president for his remarks.
“This is like listening to your senile uncle at the dinner table after he has that third drink,” King posted on X, formerly Twitter.
Writer Ian Fraser described the moment as a “bizarre rant.”
The Independent also has delicious coverage of the event from Jim Bowden. “Trump tells rally-goers not to die in searing Vegas heat: ‘I don’t care about you, I just want your vote.’ Remark get laughs at the rally – but also draws raised eyebrows on social media as critics argue Trump was being truthful.”
Despite his humor, the ex-presiden’t couldn’t resist complaining about the heat as his rally went on.
“It’s 110, but it doesn’t feel it to me,” Trump said. “I’m up here sweating like a dog. They don’t think about me. This is hard work.”
Yes, yes, it’s always only about you. Amanda Marcotte, writing for Salon, has this to say about recent outreach by Donald and his surrogates to black voters. “Donald Trump and Byron Donalds racial stunts are for white racists, not “outreach” to Black voters. Trump’s alliances with rappers and Donalds praising Jim Crow are about validating MAGA’s racist stereotypes.”
Because we keep hearing so much about how convicted felon Donald Trump is doing “outreach” to Black voters, much of the press assumed that was what was going on with a recent Bronx rally where Trump made a big deal of appearing with a few D-list rappers who are facing criminal charges of their own. “Courting Black Voters, Trump Turns to Rappers Accused in Gang Murder Plot,” declared the headline at the New York Times, which characterized the event as “clumsy” while taking Trump’s purported overtures to Black voters at face value. Most outlets did, even though the rally itself was rather small.
This follows Trump and his media allies repeatedly claiming that his 2023 mug shot, from his arrest in Georgia on charges related to his attempt to steal the 2020 presidential election, would endear him to Black voters. “That’s why the Black people like me,” Trump said of his mug shot,” because they see what’s happening to me happens to them.” Fact check: While there are a couple of Black defendants who were in the conspiracy, the vast majority of people charged with crimes related to the coup or the January 6 insurrection are white.
Trump’s invocation of “the Black people” should be your first clue, but despite all the “outreach” chatter, such stunts and rhetorical gambits are not really meant to appeal to Black voters themselves. Sure, Trump would like to grab a few people of color caught up in these theatrics, but that’s not the intended audience for this. The actual target was neatly illustrated last week when dopey white bro icon, Joe Rogan, gloated on his disturbingly popular podcast, “So many rappers are showing support for Trump now. It’s crazy. Cause now he’s got a felony.” Fellow pasty white “comedian” Tony Hinchcliffe, in a cloud of marijuana smoke, replied on behalf of the Black community with, “I don’t think they were counting on the black voter” supposedly relating to Trump being convicted for leading an election interference conspiracy.
In reality, polls show the opposite: 20% of Black voters who previously said they were backing Trump say they are now switching to Biden.
Here’s another public insanity display from Donald, reported by The Daily Beast. “Trump Demands Biden Remove Ad of Him Calling Dead Soldiers ‘Suckers’ and ‘Losers.’ The former president said only a “psycho” or a “very stupid person” would’ve made such statements.”
Donald Trump on Sunday called for President Joe Biden to take down an attack ad featuring a series of quotes attributed to the Republican in which he mocks dead soldiers.
The former president’s demand came on the same day that Biden honored fallen troops in a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France, the burial ground that Trump chose not to visit in 2018 and was later reported to have done so while describing the site as “filled with losers.” Trump has denied making the remark—and another in which he allegedly called more than 1,800 Marines “suckers” for being killed—ever since The Atlanticfirst published his purported words in 2020.
Those denials continued Sunday, first at a rally in Las Vegas. “He said I stood over graves of soldiers and I said: ‘These people are suckers and losers, the dead soldiers from World War I,’’ Trump said, referring to Biden. He went on to claim the whole episode was “made up” and, despite the Biden campaign knowing it’s “phony,” they still “took an ad using it—these are sick people.”
Trump appeared to be referring to an attack ad launched by the Biden campaign on Friday during the president’s visit to Normandy for ceremonies commemorating the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings. The video featured the reported “suckers” and “losers” quotes, along with audio of Trump mocking the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) as being thought of as a “war hero” because he was captured during the Vietnam War. “I like people that weren’t captured,” Trump added.
“Donald Trump doesn’t know a damn thing about service to his country,” read a post on Biden’s X account featuring the clip.
The Rolling Stone has a not-so-shocking story on Just Ice Alito. “Justice Alito Caught on Tape Discussing How Battle for America ‘Can’t Be Compromised.’ In a new, secret recording, the Supreme Court justice says he “agrees” that the U.S. should return to a place of godliness. The exclusive is reported by Tessa Stuart and Tim Dickinson. You can read the basic information as reported by David Badash at The New Civil Rights Movement. “‘Godliness’: Alito in Secret Recording Says No Compromise for ‘Fundamental’ Moral Differences;” This should surprise no one.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, in a secretly recorded conversation about morality in America says there are “fundamental” differences between the left and the right that “can’t be compromised,” and agreed the nation needs to return to “godliness.”
The 74-year old Bush-43 appointee who has served on the nation’s highest court since 2006 was recorded by documentary filmmaker Lauren Windsor, who also secretly recorded him in 2023. Windsor shared her audio on social media (below) but also exclusively with Rolling Stone.
Justice Alito spoke casually and unguardedly, prompted by Windsor who, according to audio she published, reminded him of their conversation last year “about the polarization in this country,” and, “everything that’s been going on in the past year.”
She identified herself “as a Catholic and as someone who like really cherishes my faith,” and added, “I just don’t, I don’t know that we can negotiate with the left in the way that needs to happen for the polarization to end.”
“I think that it’s a matter of, like, winning,” she concluded.
The Justice responded, saying, “I think you’re probably right.”
“On one side or the other — one side or the other is going to win. I don’t know,” Alito continued. “I mean, there can be a way of working — a way of living together peacefully, but it’s difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised. They really can’t be compromised. So it’s not like you are going to split the difference.”
Agreeing with him, Windsor adds, “I think that the solution really is like winning the moral argument, like people in this country who believe in God, have got to keep fighting for that, to return our country to a place of godliness.”
“I agree with you,” Alito tells her.
Read this article at The Atlantic and ask yourself why no one sees this? “The U.S. Economy Reaches Superstar Status’ No, really.” This is written by Rogé Karma. I’ve selected a few choice bites here. The big story is usually the GDP growth rate, which is super.
A recent analysis from the Economic Policy Institute found that from the end of 2019 to the end of 2023, the lowest-paid decile of workers saw their wages rise four times faster than middle-class workers and more than 10 times faster than the richest decile. A recent working paper by Dube and two co-authors reached similar conclusions. Wage gains at the bottom, they found, have been so steep that they have erased a full third of the rise in wage inequality between the poorest and richest workers over the previous 40 years. This finding holds even when you account for the fact that lower-income Americans tend to spend a higher proportion of their income on the items that have experienced the largest price increases in recent years, such as food and gas. “We haven’t seen a reduction in wage inequality like this since the 1940s,” Dube told me.
Pay in America is becoming more equal along race, age, and education lines as well. The wage gap between Black and white Americans has shrunk to its lowest point since at least the 1980s. Pay for workers younger than 25 has increased twice as fast as older workers’ pay. And the so-called college wage premium—the pay gap between those with and without a college degree—has shrunk to its lowest measure in 15 years. (The gender pay gap has also narrowed slightly, but far less than the others.)
What explains this sudden boost in lower- and middle-class wages? The answer lies in the post-pandemic American labor market, which has been unbelievably strong. The unemployment rate—defined as the percentage of workers who have recently looked for a job but don’t have one—has been at or below 4 percent for more than two years, the longest streak since the 1960s. Even that understates just how good the current labor market is. Unemployment didn’t fall below 4 percent at any point during the 1970s, ’80s, or ’90s. In 1984—the year Ronald Reagan declared “It’s morning again in America”—unemployment was above 7 percent; for most of the Clinton boom of the 1990s, it was above 5 percent.
Could it be this good news that’s making Trump’s base boiling mad and causing CEOS to run towards him despite everything? This is from Sam Sutton, who writes for Politico. “The Mooch’s warning to Trump’s new pals on Wall Street.”
Republicans on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley have reopened their hearts (and wallets) to former President Donald Trump. They should not expect a tranquil relationship, says former Trump supporter and hedge fund executive Anthony Scaramucci.
“I have empathy for them. I was there. I did it. I did exactly what they’re doing,” said Scaramucci, who was one of the first financiers to back Trump during the 2016 campaign. “I did the hopeless equivocation. I did cognitive dissonance. I’ve been through the cycle.”
Scaramucci was fired as Trump’s communications director in the White House after just 10 days in 2017. Two years later, the SkyBridge Capital founder publicly broke with Trump, saying he’d become too erratic and divisive to effectively lead. After supporting former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in the Republican primary in 2024, Scramucci is now backing President Joe Biden in the general election.
Among GOP financiers, that political position has become exceedingly rare.
As your host reports, “Many high-dollar donors at banks, hedge funds and other financial firms had turned their backs on Trump as he spun unfounded claims that the 2020 election had been stolen and savaged the judicial system with attacks. Today, they’re setting aside those concerns, looking past qualms about his personality and willingness to bulldoze institutional norms and focusing instead on issues closer to the heart: how he might ease regulations, cut their taxes or flex U.S. power on the global stage.”
Three years after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, Trump’s return to the good graces of top-tier Wall Street financiers is a direct rejoinder to Biden’s claim that the former president poses a danger to the legal system that underpins the U.S. economy and its markets.
But many Republican donors – including those who had said they’d never support Trump again after Jan. 6 — believe the current regulatory climate for businesses is also an existential danger. Kathy Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City — a nonprofit organization representing the city’s top business leaders — said Republicans have conveyed to her that they consider that “the threat to capitalism from the Democrats is more concerning than the threat to democracy from Trump.”
One of these days, people will drop the philosophical rantings of the early 18th and late 17th centuries and realize there’s no such thing as capitalism or communism. We all live in mixed markets, and ours is doing reasonably well even with the corporate greedos.
Anyway, that’s it for me today. Have a great week, and see you on Friday!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
https://skydancingblog.com/2024/06/10/mostly-monday-reads-crazy-from-the-heat/
#Repeat1968 #DarkBrandonSSuperstarEconomy #DonaldMeltDowns #DonaldRallies #JohnBuss #JustIceAlito
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Filling a void while living the dream. John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Back in 1982, I was finishing up my first Masters in 1982, taking a much-needed vacation to Europe to celebrate the event, trying to save the Savings and Loan Industry after the rug was pulled out of fixed rate assets with 30-year obligations, yet Congress decided in 1980 to let their liabilities be “open to the market” which was running amok with double-digit inflation. I also was pregnant with my oldest. I had a modest two-story, two-bedroom townhouse with a 30-year loan fixed at 16.7% but mercifully put to 12% because I worked at the Lender. I also could do nothing to stop them from heading to bankruptcy. I’d worked at a small commercial bank where the problem was having to pay interest now on checking accounts. This upset of the status quo left over from the Depression Days basically threatened homeownership and business. Repricing their liabilities more to market was a killer but considered necessary because savings funds were going to money market accounts. I also spent some time trying to explain these things to Congress. The only good advice I got there was never to get in an elevator with Strom Thurmond. The eighties economy was a mess, but you’d never know if you had read anything besides economic studies in journals. It didn’t really get better until we got what we call a regime change.
I planned on attending law school, taking the exams while noticeably pregnant with my oldest daughter, getting accepted to several, etc. I visited the University of Chicago as an undergrad. All I could think was there were too many damn lawyers around the country. So, I became a Financial Economist with eyes on my doctorate. I missed this seminal event in American History where a group of people worked to undermine the Justice System to benefit the wealthy. The Federalist Society, nicknamed FedSoc, was founded that same year. I don’t often rely on Wikipedia, but when I do, I make sure they’ve got citations.
The Federalist Society was founded in 1982 by a group of students from Yale Law School, Harvard Law School, and The University of Chicago Law School with the aim of challenging liberal or left-wing ideology within elite American law schools and universities. The organization’s stated objectives are “checking federal power, protecting individual liberty and interpreting the Constitution according to its original meaning”,[1] and it plays a central role in networking and mentoring young conservative lawyers.[5] According to Amanda Hollis-Brusky, the Federalist Society “has evolved into the de facto gatekeeper for right-of-center lawyers aspiring to government jobs and federal judgeships under Republican presidents.”[8] It vetted President Donald Trump‘s list of potential U.S. Supreme Court nominees; in March 2020, 43 out of 51 of Trump’s appellate court nominees were current or former members of the society.[10]
In 2018, Politico Magazine wrote that “it is no exaggeration to suggest that it was perhaps the most effective student conference ever—a blueprint, in retrospect, for how to marry youthful enthusiasm with intellectual oomph to achieve far-reaching results.”[13] The society states that it “is founded on the principles that the state exists to preserve freedom, that the separation of governmental powers is central to our constitution, and that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be.”[2]
The society looks to Federalist Paper Number 78 for an articulation of the virtue of judicial restraint, as written by Alexander Hamilton: “It can be of no weight to say that the courts, on the pretense of a repugnancy, may substitute their own pleasure to the constitutional intentions of the legislature … The courts must declare the sense of the law; and if they should be disposed to exercise WILL instead of JUDGMENT, the consequence would equally be the substitution of their pleasure to that of the legislative body.”
“Trump is an expert in lawfare, and his life has revolved around manipulating the judicial system. He’s out on bail while facing 54 more criminal charges and awaiting sentencing for conviction of 34 felonies. It is entertaining listening to MAGA whine about the corrupt DOJ while the corruption is all Trump.” John Buss @repeat1968
That sounds almost mundane, doesn’t it? The virtue of judicial restraint? Protecting individual liberty? However, we now have judges so far off the rails of restraint that it’s not even funny. Some of them are now vehemently anti-MAGA and Donald, but they’re still very much at the root of the problem. I found this ironic when I read it last year at WAPO. “Conservative Case Emerges to Disqualify Trump for Role on Jan. 6. Two law professors active in the Federalist Society wrote that the original meaning of the 14th Amendment makes Donald Trump ineligible to hold government office.”
Two prominent conservative law professors have concluded that Donald J. Trump is ineligible to be president under a provision of the Constitution that bars people who have engaged in an insurrection from holding government office. The professors are active members of the Federalist Society, the conservative legal group, and proponents of originalism, the method of interpretation that seeks to determine the Constitution’s original meaning.
The professors — William Baude of the University of Chicago and Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St. Thomas — studied the question for more than a year and detailed their findings in a long article to be published next year in The University of Pennsylvania Law Review.
“When we started out, neither of us was sure what the answer was,” Professor Baude said. “People were talking about this provision of the Constitution. We thought: ‘We’re constitutional scholars, and this is an important constitutional question. We ought to figure out what’s really going on here.’ And the more we dug into it, the more we realized that we had something to add.”
He summarized the article’s conclusion: “Donald Trump cannot be president — cannot run for president, cannot become president, cannot hold office — unless two-thirds of Congress decides to grant him amnesty for his conduct on Jan. 6.”
Yet, this is the same group that vetted all of Trump’s appointments. But it didn’t start there, and it doesn’t end there. This is from The New Republic. “Clarence Thomas Is Hiding Even More Money Than We Knew. The justice has received millions of dollars worth of gifts, far more than his colleagues, but only reported a fraction of it.” These judges are not only activists whose findings are not based on anything in the Constitution or precedent, but they take cash for their positions. The news on Clarence Thomas is so bad that I cannot believe Dick Durbin won’t open an investigation or call him and his enablers to a hearing.
Crime doesn’t pay, but it seems that Justice can get you millions.
A new report from Fix the Court, a judicial watchdog and advocacy group, found that justices on the U.S. Supreme Court received close to a total of $3 million in gifts, at least, over the last 20 years—with more than $2.4 million of those gifts being directed solely to Justice Clarence Thomas.
Thomas has repeatedly been the focus of ethical scrutiny over reports that he received exorbitant gifts and vacations from Republican billionaires, never paid back a loan for his beloved R.V., and cavorted with the Koch brothers, while failing to adequately disclose many of the perks he’s received. All of this has been reported on extensively by publications such as ProPublica. Now, Fix the Court has worked to add it all up.
Fix the Court was able to identify 103 gifts that Thomas received between 2004 and 2024, totaling a value of $2,402,310. Overall, it found 193 when counting some gifts that were received before that period. These gifts could be a number of things: often meals or lodging, with a free flight counting as one gift and a round-trip journey counting as two.
The court’s gift-reporting threshold has slowly risen over the course of 20 years. In 2004, it was $285, and in 2023, it was $480. Of those 193 gifts, Thomas only disclosed receiving 27.
Fix the Court was also able to identify 101 “likely gifts”—mostly trips to exclusive clubs Bohemian Grove and Topridge—Thomas received during those 20 years, which added an additional value of $1,787,684. Including those “likely gifts,” Thomas has reportedly received $4,189,994 worth of perks.
For context, in January 2001, an associate Supreme Court justice like Thomas would’ve made $194,300, a sum that has since risen to $285,400, according to the National Taxpayers Union Foundation. Through gifts, Thomas has roughly doubled his official published income from the last 20 years, which would sit at approximately $4,747,700. To Thomas, being bought and paid for appears to be a second job altogether. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
When counting “likely gifts” furnished to Thomas, justices seated on the U.S. Supreme Court received an astounding 445 gifts valued at $4,780,720. Without those “likely gifts,” the justices’ tallies still hit 344, worth $2,993,036.
Here’s the report from Fix the Court, which details the massivCourtunts of grift. Of course, it’s the darlings of FedSoc that run amok with the bribes.
The tally captures the value of Thomas’ yacht trips to Russia, the Greek Isles and Indonesia, as well as some new information on the Thomas flights Tony Novelly paid for and the Scalia and Alito fishing trips Robin Arkley paid for that’s included in the congressional record. The value of the gifts Scalia received on his ill-fated trip to Marfa, Tex., in 2016 are also included.FTC estimated the value of most of the medals, plaques and trophies the justices received over the years and didn’t list on their disclosures — and there were several dozen, including 62 accepted by O’Connor — at $200, i.e., under the gift-reporting threshold. Several similar awards were accepted by Ginsburg, many of which have been auctionedoff by the Potomack Company to benefit various charities. That said, in some instances — namely for three of Ginsburg’s recent awards, two of which appear to be above the reporting threshold — FTC reached out to the gift-givers to inquire about value and is waiting to hear back.
Other awards unearthed by FTC include a blanket and gift basket Minnesota Law gave to Chief Justice Roberts; personalized Louisville Slugger bats given to Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett by the University of Louisville’s McConnell Center; silver julep cups given to Gorsuch by UK’s Heyburn Initiative; and football “gear” (likely a sweatshirt) and a skybox ticket given to Justice Kagan by the University of Wisconsin. Vague gifts from FTC’s open records requests — a photograph UF Law sent to Thomas, an “engraved gift” URI sent to Sotomayor and a something UW sent to Kagan — are also included.
FTC notes that several entities Thomas listed on his 2000 and 2002 disclosures as “reimbursing” him for “private plane” travel did not, in all likelihood, own private planes at the time (e.g., high schools, small colleges, civic organization, etc.). Those flight-legs were then gifts, 20 in total.
A fairly significant portion of several justices’ gift haul came in the form of honorary memberships at various golf, tennis and social clubs. These types of free memberships were largely outlawed by a law Congress passed in 2008, which is why they mostly drop off the tally after that year.
The reason FTC is focusing on the last 20 years is two-fold: first, it was 20 years ago that the L.A. Times filed its oft-referred to report on the justices’ gifts, and second, the record of the justices’ disclosures gets a bit fuzzy before 2004, since throughout the 1980s and 1990s and into the early 2000s, the justices’ disclosures were typically only available for inspection at the Supreme Court and were only later distributed by the judiciary on paper, in a thumb drive or on a database.
In terms of crunching the numbers, the tally counts “meals” and “lodging” as two separate gifts, and FTC counted each leg of a round-trip flight as one gift, so it’s two gifts per round-trip. Unless otherwise stated, FTC assigned the cost per hour of a flight on a private plane to be $10,000 (can range from $5,000 to $25,000-plus, depending on plane size and other circumstances). Awards accepted by retired justices were not included.
Newsweek has three charts that give you an idea of who was a crook and who took their job more conventionally.
According to Fix the Court’s analysis, Justice Clarence Thomas received the largest portion of gifts, identifying 193 for the George H.W. Bush appointee who has served since 1991.
Second was the late Sandra Day O’Connor with 73, who died last year. O’Connor was the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court, by then President Ronald Reagan, and served from 1981 to 2006.
The late Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg were third and fourth with 67 and 61 identified gifts respectively. Scalia served 29 years on the court, and Ginsburg 27.
David Souter, who spent 18 years on the court before he retired in 2009, and Brett Kavanaugh received just one gift, according to the findings.
Thomas led here as well, with likely gifts totaling $4,042,286.
Justice Samuel Alito is alleged in the findings to have received just over $170,000 worth of gifts.
The Supreme Court justices with the lowest total value of gifts were Kavanaugh, Souter and Amy Coney Barrett, with $100, $349, and $500 respectively.
More importantly, the Newsweek report shows the split between disclosed and undisclosed gifts.
According to Fix the Court, Thomas was the worst offender on this front. The watchdog believed he openly disclosed just 8.5 percent of all gifts he received.
Kavanaugh and Barret disclosed none of their gifts, however, the report estimates the pair only received $600 worth of gifts between them.
Souter and the late John Paul Stevens were the only two SCOTUS justices to disclose 100 percent of their gifts.
Thomas filed his disclosure report last week. Here’s the coverage from the Washington Post. “Justice Thomas discloses two 2019 trips paid for by Harlan Crow. 2023 financial disclosure reports for Supreme Court justices also show six-figure book payments for Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Jackson.”
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has disclosed for the first time trips to Bali and to a private club in California in 2019 paid for by his friend and benefactor, Texas billionaire Harlan Crow, according to financial disclosures released Friday for eight of the nine justices.
The required annual reports, covering activity in 2023, also show three justices — Brett M. Kavanaugh, Neil M. Gorsuch and Ketanji Brown Jackson — received six-figure book payments.
Jackson also accepted four tickets worth nearly $4,000 from Beyoncé to one of her concerts, and two pieces of art worth $12,500 to display in her chambers.
“Justice Jackson is Crazy in Love with Beyoncé’s music. Who isn’t?” said court spokeswoman Patricia McCabe.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor reported a star turn as a cartoon character on the PBS children’s show “Alma’s Way,” an animated series about a Puerto Rican girl and her family from the Bronx. The justice was paid about $1,900 for voice work on one episode in which she played herself.
The reports show several justices earning additional income from teaching at law schools and accepting free travel to speak at events at universities and legal organizations.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. was granted an extension to file his report, as he has received in past years.
Many Judges and Justices take their jobs seriously and do not go in with a political agenda. As BostonBoomer has reported, Judge Loose Cannon is one of those Judges who seems devious and incompetent simultaneously. This is from CNN. “Isolated and inexperienced: A portrait of the judge overseeing Trump’s documents case from veterans of her courtroom.”
Since Trump was first indicted a year ago, Cannon has dragged out the proceedings in ways that have flummoxed legal scholars and put a trial initially scheduled to begin last month on hold indefinitely.
Several attorneys who have practiced in front of Cannon – and who spoke to CNN for this story – pointed to her isolation as one explanation for her conduct. Cannon’s solitary post in the Fort Pierce courthouse, one that rarely sees high-profile action, deprives her of the informal, day-to-day interactions with more seasoned judges who sit at the other courthouses and could offer her advice, the lawyers told CNN.
They also said Cannon’s lack of trial experience, both as a lawyer and a judge, is apparent. In her seven years as a Justice Department attorney, Cannon participated on the trial teams of just four criminal cases. And on the bench, she’s only presided over a handful of criminal trials – and Huck took over one of them.
For this account of Cannon’s judicial demeanor, CNN spoke to ten attorneys who have had cases – both criminal and civil – before her. The lawyers spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity because of the professional and ethical risks of speaking to press about a sitting federal judge in front of whom they practice.
To corroborate their characterizations of Cannon’s approach, CNN reviewed the public dockets of scores of cases that have traveled through her courtroom.
The attorneys described Cannon as extremely diligent and well prepared, a tough questioner who accepts nothing at face value, and thoughtful in her rulings. But they also said that some of her habits that have raised eyebrows in Trump’s case have plagued her approach from the bench more generally.
Those tendencies include a penchant for letting irrelevant legal questions distract from core issues, a zero-tolerance approach to any technical defects in filings, and a struggle with docket management that allows the type of pretrial disputes that other judges would decide in weeks go unresolved for months.
“She is not efficient,” said one attorney who practices in south Florida. “She is very form over substance.”
Another attorney described her as “indecisive.”
A third attorney who’s had cases before Cannon said, “She just seems overwhelmed by the process.”
The Senate needs to take its review of judges much more seriously. This has been going on since Thomas sat on the court, and it’s the one thing I can never forgive Biden for, along with his coziness with Southern Senators on the busing issue, which also bothered me. We’ll lose more personal liberties if we don’t do something now. One more interesting article which outlines the results of a study. This is from PsyPost. “Why do Republicans stick with Trump? New study explores the role of white nationalism.”
A new study explores why many Americans, particularly Republican voters, continue to support former President Donald Trump despite serious charges against him. Researchers found that white nationalism and political views play crucial roles in shaping public attitudes towards these charges. The study, published in The British Journal of Criminology, sheds light on the interplay between racial attitudes and political allegiances in contemporary America.
The attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, by Trump supporters resulted in significant consequences, including fatalities, injuries, extensive property damage, numerous arrests, and psychological trauma. The subsequent investigation by the United States House Select Committee aimed to determine the role of Trump in inciting this attack and whether criminal charges were warranted.
Despite the evidence against Trump, polls indicated that a significant portion of Republican voters continued to support him. The study aimed to understand why this segment of the population remained loyal to Trump despite the serious allegations.
This introduction is followed by a thorough list of their control variables. Here are some of the specific findings.
The results demonstrated a clear interaction between participants’ racial and political views and their support for the Select Committee’s recommendations. White nationalists and individuals with conservative political views showed strong support for the Committee when it found no evidence against Trump and recommended no charges. However, their support drastically declined when the Committee recommended criminal charges based on incriminating evidence.
On the other hand, individuals who did not hold white nationalist views and those with liberal political views were overwhelmingly supportive of the Committee’s recommendations when charges were proposed but showed little support when no charges were recommended.
For example, 82% of white nationalists supported the Committee if it found no evidence against Trump, but only 35% to 39% supported the Committee when charges were recommended. In contrast, 76% to 80% of participants without white nationalist views supported the Committee when it recommended charges, but only 34% supported it when no charges were recommended.
The researchers found that right-wing political views mediated the relationship between white nationalism and support for the Committee. White nationalist attitudes were strongly associated with right-wing political views, which in turn influenced reactions to the Committee’s findings. This suggests that individuals with white nationalist beliefs are more likely to align themselves with conservative politics, and this political alignment significantly shapes their responses to the Committee’s recommendations.
“Our experiment suggests that for a non-trivial number of Americans, the desire to keep the United States a ‘white nation’ appears to be stronger than their desire to ensure that the country is led by a law-abiding president,” the researchers concluded.
John Buss has been a roll, and I’m using it! Lucky John graduated with Ginnie Thomas from our high school. I only had to put up with it for about a year. But wow, she was a hot mess then. She didn’t rebel against her Bircher parents, that’s for sure. What should be done with her and Alito’s wife? Ginnie’s help with the insurrection should be investigated. I have a feeling that a few of those leaks from the SCOTUS came from Martha Bombthrower.
Anyhow, have a great weekend, and see you on Monday!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
https://skydancingblog.com/2024/06/07/finally-friday-reads-judicial-just-ice/
#Repeat1968 #FedSoc #IsJusticeJUSTICE_ #JohnBuss #JusticeDelayedIsJusticeDenied #JusticeLooseCannon #SlowWalkingCases #SupremeCourtGrifting #TheFederalistSociety