The Ledes

Sunday, July 20, 2025

New York Times: “The Cram fire in central Oregon, which is threatening 653 structures, most of them homes, has grown to more than 95,000 acres, making it the largest wildfire of the year so far in the United States.... Moister air and calmer winds are expected to blunt some of the fire’s growth over the weekend. It was 49 percent contained as of late Saturday night local time, according to InciWeb, a government site that tracks wildfires.” 

New York Times: “Torrential rain in parts of the Washington, D.C., area on Saturday led to flash flooding and prompted water rescues in Maryland and Virginia, the authorities said. More than five inches of rain fell in some densely populated Washington suburbs like Silver Spring on Saturday. Several major roads in Montgomery, Prince George’s and Anne Arundel counties in Maryland, as well as in Fairfax County in Virginia, were impassable on Saturday evening. In northwest Washington, D.C., parked cars were inundated with floodwaters.”

AP: “A vehicle rammed into a crowd of people waiting to enter a performance venue along a busy boulevard in Los Angeles early Saturday, injuring 30 people and leading bystanders to attack the driver, authorities said. The driver was later found to have been shot, according to police, who were searching for a suspected gunman who fled the scene along Santa Monica Boulevard in East Hollywood.... Twenty-three victims were taken to hospitals and trauma centers, according to police. Seven were in critical condition, the Los Angeles Fire Department said in a statement.... The driver, whose gunshot wound was found by paramedics, was also taken to a hospital.”

The Wires
powered by Surfing Waves
Help!

To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.

Link Code:   <a href="URL">text</a>

OR here's a link generator. The one I had posted died, then Akhilleus found one, but it too bit the dust. He found yet another, which I've linked here, and as of September 23, 2024, it's working.

OR you can always just block, copy and paste to your comment the URL (Web address) of the page you want to link.

Note for Readers. It is not possible for commenters to "throw" their highlighted links to another window. But you can do that yourself. Right-click on the link and a drop-down box will give you choices as to where you want to open the link: in a new tab, new window or new private window.

Thank you to everyone who has been contributing links to articles & other content in the Comments section of each day's "Conversation." If you're missing the comments, you're missing some vital links.

INAUGURATION 2029

Hubris. One would think that a married man smart enough to start up and operate his own tech company was also smart enough to know that you don't take your girlfriend to a public concert where the equipment includes a jumbotron -- unless you want to get caught on the big camera with your arms around said girlfriend. Ah, but for Andy Bryon, CEO of A company called Astronomer, and also maybe his wife, Wednesday was a night that will live in infamy. New York Times link. ~~~

Commencement ceremonies are joyous occasions, and Steve Carell made sure that was true this past weekend (mid-June) at Northwestern's commencement:

~~~ Carell's entire commencement speech was hilarious. The audio and video here isn't great, but I laughed till I cried.

CNN did a live telecast Saturday night (June 7) of the Broadway play "Good Night, and Good Luck," written by George Clooney and Grant Heslov, about legendary newsman Edward R. Murrow's effort to hold to account Sen. Joe McCarthy, "the junior senator from Wisconsin." Clooney plays Murrow. Here's Murrow himself with his famous take on McCarthy & McCarthyism, brief remarks that especially resonate today: ~~~

     ~~~ This article lists ways you still can watch the play. 

New York Times: “The New York Times Company has agreed to license its editorial content to Amazon for use in the tech giant’s artificial intelligence platforms, the company said on Thursday. The multiyear agreement 'will bring Times editorial content to a variety of Amazon customer experiences,' the news organization said in a statement. Besides news articles, the agreement encompasses material from NYT Cooking, The Times’s food and recipe site, and The Athletic, which focuses on sports. This is The Times’s first licensing arrangement with a focus on generative A.I. technology. In 2023, The Times sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, for copyright infringement, accusing the tech companies of using millions of articles published by The Times to train automated chatbots without any kind of compensation. OpenAI and Microsoft have rejected those accusations.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I have no idea what this means for "the Amazon customer experience." Does it mean that if I don't have a NYT subscription but do have Amazon Prime I can read NYT content? And where, exactly, would I find that content? I don't know. I don't know.

Washington Post reporters asked three AI image generators what a beautiful woman looks like. "The Post found that they steer users toward a startlingly narrow vision of attractiveness. Prompted to show a 'beautiful woman,' all three tools generated thin women, without exception.... Her body looks like Barbie — slim hips, impossible waist, round breasts.... Just 2 percent of the images showed visible signs of aging. More than a third of the images had medium skin tones. But only nine percent had dark skin tones. Asked to show 'normal women,' the tools produced images that remained overwhelmingly thin.... However bias originates, The Post’s analysis found that popular image tools struggle to render realistic images of women outside the Western ideal." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The reporters seem to think they are calling out the AI programs for being unrealistic. But there's a lot about the "beautiful women" images they miss. I find these omissions remarkably sexist. For one thing, the reporters seem to think AI is a magical "thing" that self-generates. It isn't. It's programmed. It's programmed by boys, many of them incels who have little or no experience or insights beyond comic books and Internet porn of how to gauge female "beauty." As a result, the AI-generated women look like cartoons; that is, a lot like an air-brushed photo of Kristi Noem: globs of every kind of dark eye makeup, Scandinavian nose, Botox lips, slathered-on skin concealer/toner/etc. makeup, long dark hair and the aforementioned impossible Barbie body shape, including huge, round plastic breasts. 

New York Times: “George Clooney’s Broadway debut, 'Good Night, and Good Luck,' has been one of the sensations of the 2024-25 theater season, breaking box office records and drawing packed houses of audiences eager to see the popular movie star in a timely drama about the importance of an independent press. Now the play will become much more widely available: CNN is planning a live broadcast of the penultimate performance, on June 7 at 7 p.m. Eastern. The performance will be preceded and followed by coverage of, and discussion about, the show and the state of journalism.”

No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land. -- Magna Carta ~~~

~~~ New York Times: “Bought for $27.50 after World War II, the faint, water stained manuscript in the library of Harvard Law School had attracted relatively little attention since it arrived there in 1946. That is about to change. Two British academics, one of whom happened on the manuscript by chance, have discovered that it is an original 1300 version — not a copy, as long thought — of Magna Carta, the medieval document that helped establish some of the world’s most cherished liberties. It is one of just seven such documents from that date still in existence.... A 710-year-old version of Magna Carta was sold in 2007 for $21.3 million.... First issued in 1215, it put into writing a set of concessions won by rebellious barons from a recalcitrant King John of England — or Bad King John, as he became known in folklore. He later revoked the charter, but his son, Henry III, issued amended versions, the last one in 1225, and Henry’s son, Edward I, in turn confirmed the 1225 version in 1297 and again in 1300.”

 

Contact Marie

Email Marie at constantweader@gmail.com

Page Links

Constant Comments

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts. — Anonymous

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. — Edward R. Murrow

Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns

I have a Bluesky account now. The URL is https://bsky.app/profile/marie-burns.bsky.social . When Reality Chex goes down, check my Bluesky page for whatever info I am able to report on the status of Reality Chex. If you can't access the URL, I found that I could Google Bluesky and ask for Marie Burns. Google will include links to accounts for people whose names are, at least in part, Maria Burns, so you'll have to tell Google you looking only for Marie.

Tuesday
Sep172024

The Conversation -- September 18, 2024

They Knew They Were Lying from the Get-go. Matt Gertz of Media Matters: "Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance told reporters on Tuesday that it was their job -- not his -- to fact-check his claim that Haitians were stealing and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. The Wall Street Journal did just that, revealing on Wednesday morning that Springfield's city manager told Vance's office that the story was baseless, soon after the Republican vice presidential nominee started publicly making the racist claim. A Vance staffer contacted Springfield City Manager Bryan Heck on the morning of September 9 and 'asked point-blank, "Are the rumors true of pets being taken and eaten?"' Heck told the Journal. 'I told him no. There was no verifiable evidence or reports to show this was true. I told them these claims were baseless.' The Haitian immigrant saga is a testament to the right's refusal to abide by anything resembling evidentiary standards, their demagogic response when anyone dares to point out that their claims are unsubstantiated -- and how their lies can spiral wildly out of control."

Brooke Migdon of the Hill: "The House voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to award a Congressional Gold Medal to tennis legend and equal rights advocate Billie Jean King, bestowing the nation's highest civilian honor on a female individual athlete for the first time. Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) introduced the bill to recognize King last September on the 50th anniversary of the tennis Hall of Famer's 1973 victory over Bobby Riggs in the 'Battle of the Sexes,' still the most-watched tennis match of all time. The same year, King successfully lobbied for equal prize money for men and women at the U.S. Open and founded the Women's Tennis Association.... A House companion bill to award King the medal drew broad bipartisan support, amassing nearly 300 co-sponsors from either side of the aisle."

Josh Boak & Tom Krisher of the AP: "The International Brotherhood of Teamsters declined Wednesday to endorse <Kamala Harris or Donald Trump for president, saying neither candidate had sufficient support from the 1.3 million-member union.... The Teamsters' rebuff reflected a labor union torn over issues of political identity and policy, one that mirrors a broader national divide. Vice President Harris has unmistakably backed organized labor, while former President Trump has appealed to many white blue-collar workers even as he has openly scorned unions at times." ~~~

     ~~~ BUT. Alex Nieves of Politico: "West Coast Teamsters announced their endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday, just minutes after national Teamsters leadership declined to issue a presidential endorsement. The move represents a sharp break within the powerful union's membership in liberal states like California, where ... Donald Trump remains a widely unpopular political figure. The union's national headquarters released internal survey results earlier in the day that showed close to 60 percent of its members backed Trump." Thanks to RAS for the link.

Christopher Rugaber of the AP: "The Federal Reserve on Wednesday cut its benchmark interest rate by an unusually large half-point, a dramatic shift after more than two years of high rates that helped tame inflation but also made borrowing painfully expensive for American consumers. The rate cut, the Fed's first in more than four years, reflects its new focus on bolstering the job market, which has shown clear signs of slowing. Coming just weeks before the presidential election, the Fed's move also has the potential to scramble the economic landscape just as Americans prepare to vote. The central bank's action lowered its key rate to roughly 4.8%, down from a two-decade high of 5.3%, where it had stood for 14 months as it struggled to curb the worst inflation streak in four decades. Inflation has tumbled from a peak of 9.1% in mid-2022 to a three-year low of 2.5% in August, not far above the Fed's 2% target."

Court: Sometimes "Anti-gerrymandering" Equals "Gerrymandering"! Courtney Cohn of Democracy Docket: "On a 4-3 decision on Monday, the Ohio Supreme Court largely upheld ballot language for a redistricting amendment that the initiative's organizers argue is misleading and deceptive. Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) said the Ballot Board will reconvene Wednesday morning to make 'minor adjustments' to the initiative's language as ordered by the state Supreme Court.... Citizens Not Politicians, a campaign to end gerrymandering, collected thousands of signatures for an initiative that would take the power of drawing congressional and legislative maps away from politicians and vest it in a citizen redistricting commission. Then, last month, the GOP-controlled Ballot Board voted to approve Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R)'s title and language for the amendment, instead of what the initiative's organizers wrote. Citizens Not Politicians then sued the board, arguing the language they adopted was so biased and inaccurate it violated the Ohio Constitution.... The group said the purpose of the amendment is to end partisan gerrymandering, but the adopted ballot language said it would '[e]stablish a new taxpayer funded commission of appointees required to gerrymander the boundaries of state legislative and congressional districts to favor the two largest political parties in the state of Ohio.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Here is a Substack essay decrying the court's decision by David Pepper, former chair of the Ohio Democratic party. Thanks to RAS for the link.

The New York Times' live updates of developments Wednesday in Israel's wars is here: "Another wave of wireless devices, including walkie-talkies, exploded in Lebanon on Wednesday afternoon, local authorities said, a day after at least 12 people were killed and thousands more injured in Lebanon in an apparently coordinated attack that targeted members of Hezbollah by blowing up their pagers. Lebanon's health ministry said the second wave of blasts involving wireless devices killed at least one person and wounded more than 100. A senior Lebanese security official and a Hezbollah official, who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the issue, said among the devices that exploded were hand-held radios -- commonly known as walkie talkies -- belonging to Hezbollah members."

Marie: Earlier today, RAS posted a tweet in which we learned that Trump's plan to lower the cost of groceries was to raise the prices of imported foods. Sure, that's obviously crazy, but it turns out that Trump said something different from that, and the "raise the price of imported food" was a summary/guess/sanewash of what Trump actually said. Here it is. Spelled out. (Scroll down a bit.) ~~~

~~~ In fairness to Trump, his ramblings about energy and interest rates and farmers and the nice room where he met some farmers and windmills is just as coherent as his answer to a question about why cryptocurrency (Trump's newest venture/Scam-o'-the-Week) is so important to the U.S.: ~~~

It's A.I., it's so many other things. You know, A.I., speaking of an interest in future, it needs tremendous electricity capability beyond anything I've ever heard. If you take all the electricity coming out of the U.S., in order to have it to be dominant in A.I. you need twice that amount. Just for this one thing. Who would make that? You need twice the electricity we already have. China is already building electric plants. They want to build them for the A.I., and it's very important, but you need tremendous electric -- and in this country, because of our strong environmental impact statement problems that we have, you know, China doesn't have those problems. -- Donald Trump, "explaining" the impact of cryptocurrency

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "More than 100 former national security officials from Republican administrations and former Republican members of Congress endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday after concluding that their party's nominee, Donald J. Trump, is 'unfit to serve again as president.' In a letter to the public, the Republicans, including both vocal longtime Trump opponents and others who had not endorsed Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2020, argued that while they might 'disagree with Kamala Harris' on many issues, Mr. Trump had demonstrated 'dangerous qualities.' Those include, they said, 'unusual affinity' for dictators like President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and 'contempt for the norms of decent, ethical and lawful behavior.' 'As president,' the letter said, 'he promoted daily chaos in government, praised our enemies and undermined our allies, politicized the military and disparaged our veterans, prioritized his personal interest above American interests and betrayed our values, democracy and this country's founding documents.'"

Trump Tries to Turn the Tables. Lisa Lerer of the New York Times: "For months, Donald J. Trump and his allies have described a nation facing almost unthinkable darkness. The United States is under 'under invasion' from 'thousands and thousands and thousands of terrorists,' Mr. Trump told thousands at a rally on Friday in Las Vegas. Babies are being 'executed after birth.' America faces the prospect of a 'nuclear holocaust.' Three days later, after facing his second assassination attempt in two months, Mr. Trump raised what has become an all-too-common American problem: incendiary political speech. But not his -- that of his rivals.... 'Because of this Communist Left Rhetoric, the bullets are flying, and it will only get worse!' Mr. Trump wrote in a social media post on Monday.... Such methods are part of a signature playbook Mr. Trump returns to when he is accused of wrongdoing: He accuses his opponent of the exact same thing.... His remarks amount to a flip of a well-worn political script....

"On Monday, Mr. Vance used the assassination attempt to deflect from Democratic denunciations over his own role in stoking fear in Springfield, calling on Democrats to tone down their rhetoric toward Mr. Trump and Republicans, while also ratcheting up his accusations that they bore responsibility for the two assassination attempts. In a 1,200-word social media post Monday night, [JD] Vance accused Democrats of 'censorship' and 'moral blackmail.'..." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: So, after telling Democrats and the media to self-censor because they have been calling out Trump for doing and saying anti-democratic, dangerous things, Vance now accuses of censoring Trump and him. Maybe Vance means this to be political sleight-of-hand, but I'm not 100% sure JayDee realizes how abhorrent his double standard is. He's essentially arguing that his side should be free to say what it wants, but their side must STFU.

~~~~~~~~~~

Presidential Race

Erica Green & Nicholas Nehamas of the New York Times: "Vice President Kamala Harris said on Tuesday that ... Donald J. Trump's unfounded claims about Black migrants in an Ohio city were 'hateful rhetoric' and 'tropes' that had been 'designed to divide us as a country.' 'This is exhausting, and it's harmful,' she said during an interview with Black journalists in Philadelphia. 'And it's hateful, and grounded in some age-old stuff that we should not have the tolerance for.... It's got to stop.' Ms. Harris's remarks on Tuesday at a gathering of the National Association of Black Journalists were her most forceful yet about the Trump campaign's escalating attacks on migrants and communities of color, and her first time directly addressing the situation in Springfield, Ohio.... In her interview, Ms. Harris laid out the city's distress, pointing to children who could not attend school and law enforcement officers who had been stretched thin.... She said she had spoken with Mr. Trump earlier on Tuesday, checking in to make sure that he was OK and reiterating her sentiment that 'there's no place for political violence in our country.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Matt Brown & Darlene Superville of the AP: "Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday decried ... Donald Trump for inflammatory rhetoric about migrants in Springfield, Ohio, and on other topics, saying voters should make sure he 'can't have that microphone again.'" ~~~

Joseph Menn of the Washington Post: "Russian propagandists are escalating attacks on the presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris with false but widely circulated videos on social media, including one that featured an actor accusing Harris of a nonexistent hit-and-run that paralyzed a girl, Microsoft researchers said Tuesday. That video was a viral hit, spread by X accounts with as a many as a half-million followers, despite first appearing on a newly minted San Francisco news outlet that soon vanished. Posts featuring the video racked up 7 million views on X alone, and were also on Facebook, TikTok and YouTube. Another video manufactured an assault on an attendee of a rally for ... Donald Trump, garnering millions of views, Microsoft said. One depicted a fake New York billboard with vulgar messages saying Harris wanted to change children's gender. It drew hundreds of thousands of views on X. In all, Microsoft called out three Russian government-backed groups in addition to those described in federal charges last week against employees at propaganda network RT." (Also linked yesterday.) The AP story is here.

Elizabeth Spiers of the New York Times: "Figures on the political right, including JD Vance, Donald Trump and various conservative internet celebrities, have accused [Vice President] Harris of affecting a Southern accent on the campaign trail, and implied that it was a kind of deception. Ms. Harris, who is not from the South, wasn't using a Southern accent, though.... What Ms. Harris was slipping into was Black English. There's nothing unusual about her using Black English because to state the obvious (to everyone except Donald Trump, apparently) Ms.Harris is Black.... Conservatives find her accent infuriating for one very specific reason: because they buy the negative stereotypes. They associate Southern accents with less educated, working-class people who, if they're white, might be racist -- and that's a demographic that conservatives cynically regard as their property. So Republicans who think that ... a Black Democrat using a Southern accent is stealing their shtick, or their votes." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Never mind, I guess, that Trump and Vance each have affected not an accent but an entire personal identity that does not comport with reality, and they have done so for political purposes. Trump, the bankruptcy king, pretends he was a successful businessman. And JayDee, well, JayDee is still trying on identities. For a while he pretended to be a hillbilly, and for another (possibly overlapping) while, he played the part of a slick investment advisor. And now, after condemning GOP racism (see, for instance, Andrew Kaczynski's post, linked below), he's doing the xenophobic racist thing.

Brett Samuels of the Hill: "Former President Trump said Tuesday that both President Biden and Vice President Harris were 'so nice' in their calls following an apparent assassination attempt on Trump, hinting that it made it more difficult to attack them. 'He was so nice to me yesterday. In one way I sort of wish the call wasn't made because I do feel a little -- He's so nice. "I'm so sorry about what happened and all that,"' Trump said at a campaign town hall in Michigan, recounting his call with Biden on Monday. 'Same with Kamala today. She could not have been nicer,' Trump added. 'But the fact is we have to have people that are respected by the opponent.' Earlier in the event, Trump referred to the 'very nice call' he had with Harris, eliciting boos from the crowd. 'No, it was very nice,' Trump said as the crowd jeered." Of course, Trump mispronounced Harris's name, calling her KaMAHlah instead of KAmala. ~~~

~~~ Marie: In the same fake town hall, Trump boasted about allowing oil drilling in "Bagram in Alaska," although Bagram was a US Air Force base in Afghanistan. Moments later, he tried to clean up his mistake, only to descend into meaningless babble. Meanwhile, the so-called moderator Sarah Huckleberry Sanders looked on lovingly through it all. Link is to a Mediaite post. ~~~

~~~ Earlier in the event, Gov. Sanders went down the well-trod childless cat lady path: ~~~

     ~~~ Michael Luciano of Mediaite: "Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders took a potshot at Vice President Kamala Harris because the Democratic nominee does not have biological children.... 'So, my kids keep me humble,' she told the crowd. 'Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn’t have anything keeping her humble.'... Last year, Sanders signed a bill into law making it easier for employers in Arkansas to hire children."

It's OK If You're Trump. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump and his campaign have quickly responded to Sunday's threat to the former president's life by blaming Democrats. High on their list of alleged offenses? Democrats' having called Trump a 'threat to democracy' and a 'fascist.'... There remains no evidence that the gunmen in the two incidents were actually incited by Democrats' rhetoric. But even if we set all that aside, Trump's argument is flawed by a significant deficit: He uses these talking points a lot more than his opponents right now -- and has been for months.... According to a Washington Post review of campaign appearances and social media posts, Trump has called Harris, the Democrats or other perceived foes a 'threat to democracy' a dozen times in the past month and more than 20 times since Harris got into the race.... Trump has also used the 'fascist' label at least seven times in the past month, and he used it dozens more times before that. He invoked fascism twice Friday alone, including by calling Harris a 'radical-left Marxist communist fascist.' Harris and her campaign haven't used such rhetoric nearly as much in recent months.... [Over the years, Trump] has repeatedly and suggestively promoted the prospect of political violence." ~~~

     ~~~ CNN ran an (incomplete) montage Tuesday of Trump's calling Harris a fascist and scum and so on. Via Mediaite.

Huh. Kate Kelly, et al., of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump gave his Secret Service detail short notice that he would be golfing at his course in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Sunday, causing agents to forgo a scan of the perimeter, according to two people familiar with the events. The decision not to survey the course at Trump International Golf Club, because of a lack of time, before Mr. Trump's outing allowed a man with a gun to sit concealed in bushes for almost 12 hours." ~~~

~~~ Jonathan Swan, et al., of the New York Times: "The acting director of the Secret Service told ... Donald J. Trump that significant additional security arrangements and planning would be needed if he wanted to continue safely playing golf, according to three people with knowledge of their conversation. The agency's acting director, Ronald L. Rowe Jr., made the recommendation on Monday afternoon at a meeting with Mr. Trump in his office at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and home in Palm Beach, Fla." (Also linked yesterday.)

Amanda Marcotte of Salon: "... Sen. JD Vance went to Yale Law School. The Ohio Republican was selected as Donald Trump's running mate in no small part because of his overrated intellectual chops. In the 207-word announcement adding Vance to the ticket, Trump used the word 'Yale' four times and even made sure to note that Vance graduated 'Summa Cum Laude' from Ohio State University. Vance fashions himself a public intellectual, spending endless hours giving chin-scratching interviews on right-wing podcasts and to Ross Douthat of the New York Times. He name-drops far-right and even Nazi academics like Carl Schmitt and flings around plenty of five-dollar words.... Watching interviews with Vance suggests his main job is to 'translate' Trump's babble into coherent-sounding talking points.... The term 'sanewashing' was coined to describe the bad habit of journalists who rewrite Trump's rambling nonsense into sentences that make sense, but for Vance, it's a full-time job." Do read on.(Also linked yesterday.)

Andrew Egger of the Bulwark: JD "Vance's pivot to hand-wringing about extreme rhetoric is truly shameless coming from the current GOP ticket. Under Vance's furrowed-brow rules of engagement, calling a political opponent a fascist threat to democracy is way over the line. But calling an opponent a communist threat to democracy, as Trump says daily of Kamala Harris? Less of an issue, apparently. Vance's attempt at rhetoric-policing is particularly ridiculous this time around -- and not just because Trump accused Harris of being a fascist less than two weeks ago.... [Trump and Vance are] crying foul on their opponents' rhetoric while continuing shamelessly to hit below the belt. 'Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at,' Trump said during a Fox News interview [Monday]. 'They are the ones that are destroying the country.... They are the real threat.' At about that same time, his campaign sent out a fundraising email saying Joe Biden 'truly hates our country' and was allowing 'an invasion' that is 'terrorizing U.S. citizens.'... But lowering the temperature doesn't mean ignoring the truth. We needn't lose sleep over calling Trump a 'threat to democracy,' for instance: In 2020, he ... [tried] by both fraud and force to reinstall himself as president contrary to the laws ... and the voted will of the people. He continues to deny the outcome of that election and is open about not accepting the outcome of the coming one." (Also linked yesterday.)

Andrew Kaczynski of CNN: "A week after President Barack Obama won reelection in November 2012, JD Vance, then a law student at Yale, wrote a scathing rebuke of the Republican Party's stance [link fixed] on migrants and minorities, criticizing it for being 'openly hostile to non-whites' and for alienating 'Blacks, Latinos, [and] the youth.' Four years later, as Vance considered a career in GOP politics, he asked a former college professor to delete the article. That professor, Brad Nelson, taught Vance at Ohio State University while Vance was an undergraduate student.... Nelson told CNN that during the 2016 Republican primary he agreed to delete the article at Vance's request, so that Vance might have an easier time getting a job in Republican politics. However, the article ... remains viewable on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine." (Also linked yesterday.)

Shakezula of LG&$: "If someone says they're going to blow up a school, but no schools have exploded, does it count as a threat? According to Senator JD Vance, it does not. In fact, people who say the bomb threats are bomb threats are trying to silence him, because of course he;s the real victim.... To Vance the fact that investigators eventually determined a batch of threats are hoaxes means people who reported on the bomb threats that he inspired, and apparently wants, owe him an apology. 'I'm still waiting on a correction and apology from the left wing journalists. They lied about these bomb threats to silence us. Why? Because they don't want to talk about Kamala Harris's border policies making housing unaffordable for American citizen[s.]"

No Key to the City for Donald. Zoe Richards of NBC News: "The Republican mayor of Springfield, Ohio, the city that has been the target of unfounded claims from ... Donald Trump and his running mate about Haitian immigrants' eating residents' pets said Tuesday that a visit from Trump would tax the city's resources. 'It would be an extreme strain on our resources. So it'd be fine with me if they decided not to make that visit,' Mayor Rob Rue said at a news conference at City Hall."

Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. Michael Luciano of Mediaite: "Fox News host Sean Hannity blamed liberal politicians for the actions of two would-be assassins of ... Donald Trump and falsely claimed they were Democrats.... [Ryan] Routh is registered as an 'unaffiliated' voter in North Carolina and donated more than $100 on ActBlue, a Democratic fundraising platform. According to CNN, Routh indicated on Facebook he may have voted for Trump in 2016, but had soured on the former president. [Thomas] Crooks, meanwhile, was a registered Republican and made a small donation on ActBlue. He had also searched for locations where Trump and President Joe Biden were scheduled to appear."

Perry Stein of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump's legal team has requested a 30-day extension to respond to the government's appeal of U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon's dismissal of his classified-documents case, making it less likely that a ruling on whether the indictment should be restored will come before Inauguration Day. The former president is very likely to be granted the extension. Special counsel Jack Smith did not oppose the request, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta -- where the government's appeal was filed -- says first-time requests for 30-day extensions should be approved. Trump's lawyers said they can't meet the court's Sept. 25 deadline because they are juggling other due dates related to Trump's separate federal election interference case in D.C." (Also linked yesterday.)

Kylie Cheung of Jezebel: "John McEntee, who served in the Trump administration and helped write Project 2025, said in a viral TikTok that women aren't 'bleeding out' from abortion bans [as Vice President Harris asserted during her debate with Donald Trump].... 'Can someone track down the women Kamala Harris says are bleeding out in parking lots because Roe v. Wade was overturned? Don't hold your breath,' McEntee says in the clip, posted to ... his right-wing dating app.... Carmen Broesder, an Idaho woman who documented her 19-day miscarriage on TikTok in December 2022, expressing fear that she would die before any hospital helped her.... As of Tuesday, Broesder's TikTok has six million views and over 34,000 comments, including many from women sharing similar horror stories. She said the response has been 'overwhelming and reinforcing,' but expressed concern 'that many feel dismissed and erased in their own experiences.'" MB: This site may have a subscriber firewall.

Summer Ballentine & Steve Leblanc of the AP: "The FBI and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service on Tuesday were investigating the origin of suspicious packages that have been sent to or received by elections officials in more than 15 states, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or that any of the packages contained hazardous material.... The FBI is collecting the packages, some of which contained 'an unknown substance,' agency spokesperson Kristen Setera in Boston said in a statement.... The latest scare comes as early voting has begun in several states...." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: What kind of a nitwit thinks a fun thing to do is to sit home addressing envelopes to elections officials, shaking baby talc into the envelopes, sealing (licking?) the envelopes, stamping them (not cheap these days), then running them down to the post office? I mean, really, why would anyone do that?


MSNBC: "The Senate once again took a vote on protecting IVF, but Trump -- the self-proclaimed 'leader on fertilization' who is never shy about forcing his Republicans to support or kill a bill -- was nowhere to be found. All but two Republicans voted against the bill -- and JD Vance skipped the vote." ~~~

~~~ Annie Karni of the New York Times: "Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked an election-season bid by Democrats to advance legislation that would guarantee federal protections and insurance coverage for in vitro fertilization treatments, the second time in three months that the G.O.P. has thwarted the broadly popular measure. Democrats orchestrated the failed vote, just weeks before the November elections, in part to highlight Republican opposition to abortion rights and its implications for access to other reproductive health care services. They sought to remind voters that the G.O.P. was holding firm against federal protections for I.V.F. even after ... Donald J. Trump called himself a 'leader' on the issue and said he supported requiring insurance companies or the federal government to cover the treatments." CNN's story is here. (Also linked yesterday.)

Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) is warning colleagues that it would be 'politically beyond stupid' for Congress to stumble into a government shutdown a few weeks before Election Day, saying Republicans would 'certainly' get the blame. McConnell made his comments a few hours after Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) unveiled his plan to vote this week on a bill that pairs a six-month continuing resolution with legislation backed by former President Trump that would require proof of citizenship to vote. Johnson was forced to yank the same bill from the floor last week in the face of widespread opposition within his own party." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: So, Mitch, was it "politically beyond brilliant" to vote with nearly your entire caucus against federal IVF protections? Just asking.

Let's hear from Sen. Foghorn Leghorn (R-La.), who stands up for his right to bigotry: ~~~

Ben Sisario & Julia Jacobs of the New York Times: "Sean Combs, the embattled music mogul, has been indicted on three counts of sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution. In the indictment, which was unsealed on Tuesday, prosecutors in the Southern District of New York accused Mr. Combs of running a 'criminal enterprise' that for years threatened, abused and coerced women, and included accusations of forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice. To commit these acts, the prosecutors said, Mr. Combs relied on the help of the employees of his business." (Also linked yesterday.) An AP report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ CNN live-updated developments yesterday. The liveblog includes a copy of the indictment: "Sean 'Diddy' Combs was denied bail and taken into custody Tuesday after pleading not guilty in federal court to charges of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking. Prosecutors argued the music mogul should not be released because he had previously reached out to witnesses and victims." (Also linked yesterday.)

~~~~~~~~~~

Arizona. Wayne Schutsky of NPR: "Election officials in Arizona have discovered a flaw in the state's voter registration system that could disqualify nearly 100,000 people from voting in state and local races just weeks before early ballots will hit mailboxes. A state law that went into effect in 2004 requires Arizona voters to provide proof of citizenship to register to vote in state and local elections, though individuals that do not provide proof can still register to vote for federal offices like president and U.S. Senate using a federal only form. Arizona's voter registration system pulls information from the state's driver's license database as a method of proving citizenship, but the Maricopa County Recorder's office found a flaw with the database, which incorrectly showed that some people provided proof of citizenship when they applied for a driver's license.... The discovery sent election officials in Arizona down a rabbit hole that revealed tens of thousands of voters in every county in the state have not provided the documentation required to vote a full ballot under Arizona law. Now [elections officials] are asking the Arizona Supreme Court to decide how to deal with the voters affected by the revelation."

~~~~~~~~~~

Israel/Palestine, et al.

Sheera Frenkel & Ronen Bergman of the New York Times: "Israel carried out its operation against Hezbollah on Tuesday by hiding explosive material within a new batch of Taiwanese-made pagers imported into Lebanon, according to American and other officials briefed on the operation. The pagers, which Hezbollah had ordered from Gold Apollo in Taiwan, had been tampered with before they reached Lebanon, according to some of the officials. Most were the company's AP924 model, though three other Gold Apollo models were also included in the shipment. The explosive material, as little as one to two ounces, was implanted next to the battery in each pager, two of the officials said. A switch was also embedded that could be triggered remotely to detonate the explosives. At 3:30 p.m. in Lebanon, the pagers received a message that appeared as though it was coming from Hezbollah's leadership, two of the officials said. Instead, the message activated the explosives. Lebanon's health minister told state media at least 11 people were killed and more than 2,700 injured." A Reuters report is here. (Reuters story linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ David Ignatius of the Washington Post: "The scene in Lebanon on Tuesday was like something out of a bizarre James Bond movie -- with pagers exploding simultaneously in the pockets of hundreds of Hezbollah fighters around the country in what appeared to be an ingenious Israeli operation that combined cyberwar with sabotage. But Hezbollah ... could trigger the all-out regional war U.S. officials have been trying to head off for nearly a year.... Biden administration officials were quick to distance themselves from the attack in Lebanon, saying they had not been given any prior notice. For President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the timing couldn't be worse: This sharp escalation and risk of a wider war comes less than two months before the presidential election -- and it might detonate any chance of a Gaza cease-fire deal and the release of Israeli hostages."

Comments Off
Tuesday
Sep172024

The Conversation -- September 17, 2024

Erica Green & Nicholas Nehamas of the New York Times: "Vice President Kamala Harris said on Tuesday that ... Donald J. Trump's unfounded claims about Black migrants in an Ohio city were 'hateful rhetoric' and 'tropes' that had been 'designed to divide us as a country.' 'This is exhausting, and it's harmful,' she said during an interview with Black journalists in Philadelphia. 'And it's hateful, and grounded in some age-old stuff that we should not have the tolerance for.... It's got to stop.' Ms. Harris's remarks on Tuesday at a gathering of the National Association of Black Journalists were her most forceful yet about the Trump campaign's escalating attacks on migrants and communities of color, and her first time directly addressing the situation in Springfield, Ohio.... In her interview, Ms. Harris laid out the city's distress, pointing to children who could not attend school and law enforcement officers who had been stretched thin.... She said she had spoken with Mr. Trump earlier on Tuesday, checking in to make sure that he was OK and reiterating her sentiment that 'there's no place for political violence in our country.'"

Joseph Menn of the Washington Post: "Russian propagandists are escalating attacks on the presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris with false but widely circulated videos on social media, including one that featured an actor accusing Harris of a nonexistent hit-and-run that paralyzed a girl, Microsoft researchers said Tuesday. That video was a viral hit, spread by X accounts with as a many as a half-million followers, despite first appearing on a newly minted San Francisco news outlet that soon vanished. Posts featuring the video racked up 7 million views on X alone, and were also on Facebook, TikTok and YouTube. Another video manufactured an assault on an attendee of a rally for ... Donald Trump, garnering millions of views, Microsoft said. One depicted a fake New York billboard with vulgar messages saying Harris wanted to change children's gender. It drew hundreds of thousands of views on X. In all, Microsoft called out three Russian government-backed groups in addition to those described in federal charges last week against employees at propaganda network RT."

Jonathan Swan, et al., of the New York Times: "The acting director of the Secret Service told ... Donald J. Trump that significant additional security arrangements and planning would be needed if he wanted to continue safely playing golf, according to three people with knowledge of their conversation. The agency's acting director, Ronald L. Rowe Jr., made the recommendation on Monday afternoon at a meeting with Mr. Trump in his office at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and home in Palm Beach, Fla."

Andrew Kaczynski of CNN: "A week after President Barack Obama won reelection in November 2012, JD Vance, then a law student at Yale, wrote a scathing rebuke of the Republican Party's stance [link fixed] on migrants and minorities, criticizing it for being 'openly hostile to non-whites' and for alienating 'Blacks, Latinos, [and] the youth.' Four years later, as Vance considered a career in GOP politics, he asked a former college professor to delete the article. That professor, Brad Nelson, taught Vance at Ohio State University while Vance was an undergraduate student.... Nelson told CNN that during the 2016 Republican primary he agreed to delete the article at Vance's request, so that Vance might have an easier time getting a job in Republican politics. However, the article ... remains viewable on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine."

Perry Stein of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump's legal team has requested a 30-day extension to respond to the government's appeal of U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon's dismissal of his classified-documents case, making it less likely that a ruling on whether the indictment should be restored will come before Inauguration Day. The former president is very likely to be granted the extension. Special counsel Jack Smith did not oppose the request, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta -- where the government's appeal was filed -- says first-time requests for 30-day extensions should be approved. Trump's lawyers said they can't meet the court's Sept. 25 deadline because they are juggling other due dates related to Trump's separate federal election interference case in D.C."

The New York Times' live updates of developments Tuesday in the Israel/Hamas war are here: "Hundreds of pagers blew up at the same time across Lebanon on Tuesday in an apparently coordinated attack that targeted members of Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militant group in the region, Lebanese and Hezbollah officials said.... American and other officials briefed on the operation said Israel was responsible for the attack and had executed it by hiding small amounts of explosive material in each pager within a new batch of pagers made in Taiwan and imported into Lebanon. The attack came a day after Israeli leaders had warned that they were considering stepping up their military campaign against Hezbollah.... Hezbollah accused Israel of orchestrating the attack on Tuesday and vowed to retaliate for what it called 'blatant aggression.'... The U.N.'s special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, said the death toll had risen to nine people killed. Hezbollah told The New York Times that six of the nine people were Hezbollah fighters. Lebanon's Ministry of Health said that a young girl was also among those killed and that more than 2,700 others were injured." ~~~

     ~~~ A Reuters report on the exploded pagers is here.

Annie Karni of the New York Times: "Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked an election-season bid by Democrats to advance legislation that would guarantee federal protections and insurance coverage for in vitro fertilization treatments, the second time in three months that the G.O.P. has thwarted the broadly popular measure. Democrats orchestrated the failed vote, just weeks before the November elections, in part to highlight Republican opposition to abortion rights and its implications for access to other reproductive health care services. They sought to remind voters that the G.O.P. was holding firm against federal protections for I.V.F. even after ... Donald J. Trump called himself a 'leader' on the issue and said he supported requiring insurance companies or the federal government to cover the treatments." CNN's story is here.

Ben Sisario & Julia Jacobs of the New York Times: "Sean Combs, the embattled music mogul, has been indicted on three counts of sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution. In the indictment, which was unsealed on Tuesday, prosecutors in the Southern District of New York accused Mr. Combs of running a 'criminal enterprise' that for years threatened, abused and coerced women, and included accusations of forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice. To commit these acts, the prosecutors said, Mr. Combs relied on the help of the employees of his business." ~~~

     ~~~ CNN is live-updating developments. The liveblog includes a copy of the indictment.

Amanda Marcotte of Salon: "... Sen. JD Vance went to Yale Law School. The Ohio Republican was selected as Donald Trump's running mate in no small part because of his overrated intellectual chops. In the 207-word announcement adding Vance to the ticket, Trump used the word 'Yale' four times and even made sure to note that Vance graduated 'Summa Cum Laude' from Ohio State University. Vance fashions himself a public intellectual, spending endless hours giving chin-scratching interviews on right-wing podcasts and to Ross Douthat of the New York Times. He name-drops far-right and even Nazi academics like Carl Schmitt and flings around plenty of five-dollar words.... Watching interviews with Vance suggests his main job is to 'translate' Trump's babble into coherent-sounding talking points.... The term 'sanewashing' was coined to describe the bad habit of journalists who rewrite Trump's rambling nonsense into sentences that make sense, but for Vance, it's a full-time job." Do read on.

Andrew Egger of the Bulwark: JD "Vance's pivot to hand-wringing about extreme rhetoric is truly shameless coming from the current GOP ticket. Under Vance's furrowed-brow rules of engagement, calling a political opponent a fascist threat to democracy is way over the line. But calling an opponent a communist threat to democracy, as Trump says daily of Kamala Harris? Less of an issue, apparently. Vance's attempt at rhetoric-policing is particularly ridiculous this time around -- and not just because Trump accused Harris of being a fascist less than two weeks ago.... [Trump and Vance are] crying foul on their opponents' rhetoric while continuing shamelessly to hit below the belt. 'Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at,' Trump said during a Fox News interview [Monday]. 'They are the ones that are destroying the country.... They are the real threat.' At about that same time, his campaign sent out a fundraising email saying Joe Biden 'truly hates our country' and was allowing 'an invasion' that is 'terrorizing U.S. citizens.'... But lowering the temperature doesn't mean ignoring the truth. We needn't lose sleep over calling Trump a 'threat to democracy,' for instance: In 2020, he ... [tried] by both fraud and force to reinstall himself as president contrary to the laws ... and the voted will of the people. He continues to deny the outcome of that election and is open about not accepting the outcome of the coming one."

~~~~~~~~~~

Presidential Race

Scientific American Editors: "In the November election, the U.S. faces two futures. In one, the new president offers the country better prospects, relying on science, solid evidence and the willingness to learn from experience. She pushes policies that boost good jobs nationwide by embracing technology and clean energy. She supports education, public health and reproductive rights. She treats the climate crisis as the emergency it is and seeks to mitigate its catastrophic storms, fires and droughts. In the other future, the new president endangers public health and safety and rejects evidence, preferring instead nonsensical conspiracy fantasies. He ignores the climate crisis in favor of more pollution. He requires that federal officials show personal loyalty to him rather than upholding U.S. laws. He fills positions in federal science and other agencies with unqualified ideologues. He goads people into hate and division, and he inspires extremists at state and local levels to pass laws that disrupt education and make it harder to earn a living.... That is why, for only the second time in our magazine's 179-year history, the editors of Scientific American are endorsing a candidate for president. That person is Kamala Harris."

Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "Vice President Kamala Harris held a sometimes tense meeting with Teamsters leaders on Monday, defending the Biden administration's labor policies against pointed questions and concluding with a promise that she would win the presidency and treat the union fairly with or without its backing. While Ms. Harris has the endorsement of most of the nation;s unions, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, whose truck drivers, freight workers and other members are divided in their political allegiances, has held out. Sean O'Brien, the union's combative president, said after the meeting that he could announce an endorsement -- if there was an endorsement -- as soon as Wednesday.... Ms. Harris repeatedly castigated ... Donald J. Trump for appointing anti-union members to the National Labor Relations Board when he was president and reminded the Teamsters that Mr. Biden had shored up pensions for thousands of union members.... She also recalled how Mr. Trump had told Elon Musk that striking workers should be fired...." A Politico story is here.

Yes, it is possible for Trump to get even more irresponsible: ~~~

⭐ Alex Griffing of Mediaite: "... Donald Trump directly blamed President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for a gunman targeting him at his West Palm Beach golf club on Sunday.... Trump spoke to Fox News Digital's Brooke Singman on Monday morning and claimed the gunman was motivated by the top Democrats' 'highly inflammatory language.... 'He [presumably the would-be gunman] believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and he acted on it,' Trump said, claiming, 'Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country, and they are the ones that are destroying the country -- both from the inside and out.'... 'It is called the enemy from within. They are the real threat,' Trump added, appearing to use the exact same kind of language he claims the Democrats are using that inspired the shootings." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: When I heard that yet another person had attempted to kill Trump, I felt sorry. Maybe not so much for him, but at least for a country and for a species where so many feel that murder is a good way to solve a problem. Now I don't feel sorry at all. I have let Trump make me a little less human. I have let him crush a little piece of natural empathy. ~~~

     ~~~ And look at what Trump's hatefulness does to the pathetic empty vessels who follow him. They follow him into the darkness. They don't know any better: ~~~

     ~~~ Kit Maher of CNN, republished by Yahoo! News: "JD Vance on Monday blamed liberal rhetoric for the apparent assassination attempt against ... Donald Trump over the weekend. '... the big difference between conservatives and liberals is that we have -- no one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple of months, and two people now have tried to kill Donald Trump in the last couple of months,' the Republican vice presidential candidate said at the Georgia Faith & Freedom Coalition dinner in Atlanta. 'I'd say that's pretty strong evidence that the left needs to tone down the rhetoric, and needs to cut this crap out,' he continued. Vance vowed to 'do my part' to tone down the rhetoric...." MB: Clearly, Vance thinks that it's only fair that would-be assassins take shots at Kamala Harris, too. That such a suggestion is not "crap," "ratcheting up the rhetoric." That people who decide that murdering a famous people is good way to establish their own relevance is a "liberal" thing. That it's quite acceptable to discuss murdering one's political opponents. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

David Gardner of the Daily Beast, republished by Yahoo! News: "The Trump campaign is blaming Kamala Harris and her Democratic supporters for the second assassination attempt on the former president. They claim that concerted attempts to demonize Donald Trump as a threat to democracy are putting his life at risk. Hours after Sunday's failed shooting plot at Trump's West Palm Beach golf club, his senior campaign manager Chris LaCivita posted a video of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) calling Trump 'extraordinarily dangerous' and a 'threat to democracy.'... LaCivita wrote on his X account ... that Harris was running the Sanders video on her Facebook platforms." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: If Trump doesn't want to be accused of being extraordinarily dangerous & a threat to democracy, he should renounced 93.2% of everything he's done and said since 2015 (or before!). Also note that LaCivita made these remarks before Trump himself blamed Harris for the assassination attempt. Yeah, they test-run their most incendiary claims.

Rhian Lubin of the Independent: "Elon Musk has deleted what he now claims was a 'joke' about how 'no one is trying to assassinate' President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris following the second attempt on Donald Trump's life on Sunday." MB: I'm sure Elon has a lot of lawyers. Maybe one sent him an SOS (or SYS -- save yourself). According to Lubin's report, at least one former federal prosecutor said that Elon's now-deleted "joke" "require[d] an immediate visit by the U.S. Secret Service." Sorry, Elon, this is one of those bells you can't unring. Besides, it worked so well for you that Trump and his entire campaign took up the joke and presented it to their lemmings as a true thing, not a "joke." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: See also Akhilleus's commentary at the top of today's thread. In the post, Akhilleus also links to a Wired piece by Andrew Couts that I couldn't access on accounta using up my Wired freebies.

     ~~~ Peter Baker of the New York Times, also linked below: "... the White House pushed back. 'Violence should only be condemned, never encouraged or joked about,' said Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman. 'This rhetoric is irresponsible.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Secret Service Keeps an Eye on Elon. Jeff Mason of Reuters: "The U.S. Secret Service said on Monday it was aware of a post by billionaire Elon Musk on the X social media platform musing about an absence of assassination attempts on President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.... 'The Secret Service is aware of the social media post made by Elon Musk and as a matter of practice, we do not comment on matters involving protective intelligence,' a spokesperson told Reuters in an email. 'We can say, however, that the Secret Service investigates all threats related to our protectees.'"

AND, in the midst of all this: ~~~

~~~ Joe Biden Is a Saint. Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Biden and former President Trump spoke over the phone Monday after an apparent assassination attempt against the Republican nominee at his Florida golf course. 'We had a very nice call. It was about Secret Service protection,' Trump said in a statement. The White House described the call as 'cordial' and said Biden 'conveyed his relief that [Trump] is safe.' Biden earlier Monday expressed his relief that Trump was safe and said the Secret Service 'needs more help.'"

Kate Kelly of the New York Times: "The Secret Service did not search the perimeter of the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Sunday before ... Donald J. Trump began his round, an acknowledgment that has put the besieged agency under renewed scrutiny two months after a similar episode in Pennsylvania. The decision raises further questions about whether the Secret Service has the resources and ability to adequately perform its duties during a time of increasing violence and a unique campaign between a sitting vice president and a former president. While the agency's acting director [Ronald L. Rowe Jr.] hailed a Secret Service agent for acting swiftly and preventing any harm to Mr. Trump on Sunday, the F.B.I. said that data from a gunman's cellphone indicated he spent almost 12 hours near the course before he aimed a rifle in the direction of Mr. Trump while he was golfing." ~~~

~~~ Carol Leonnig, et al., of the Washington Post: "Soon after Donald Trump became president, authorities tried to warn him about the risks posed by golfing at his own courses because of their proximity to public roads. Secret Service agents came armed with unusual evidence: not suspect profiles or spent bullet casings, but simple photographs taken by news crews of him golfing at his private club in Sterling, Va. But Trump insisted that his clubs were safe and that he wanted to keep golfing, the former officials said. These preferences posed problems for his protection that former Trump aides, Secret Service officials and security experts said have only intensified in the years since he left the White House, as his security detail shrank.... The result is a security nightmare for the Secret Service and their partners in local law enforcement....

"Trump's practices differed from those of Barack Obama, who golfed frequently as president but usually at a course on the grounds of the military's Joint Base Andrews in Prince George's County or, while vacationing in Hawaii, on bases there. Such courses are insulated from public roadways, and anyone on the links would have undergone rigorous screening." And after an armed intruder took hostages at a course where President Ronald Reagan was golfing, Reagan purposely gave up golf (except at one private course) out of concern for putting other people at risk.

     ~~~ Marie: One might think Trump's carelessness is indicative of a pathological death wish, but I beg to differ. I think it's more his obsession with money & his complete self-absorption: Trump plays at his own courses because (a) he wants to advertise his clubs to increase memberships (and membership fees); and (b) He doesn't give a rat's ass how difficult and dangerous his playing at expected times at his crappy courses makes the jobs of the Secret Service agents who would give their lives to protect him. In fact, when I heard that the Secret Service opened fire on a "rifle" they saw in the bushes, I wondered how many other people they might have put in danger. Surely there were people, including the witness who photographed the perp's vehicle, who might be walking by on the nearby public street and could have been hit by stray bullets.

CNN live-updated developments Monday in the Trump assassination attempt & election news. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ The New York Times' liveblog for Monday is here: "The man who investigators say concealed himself on the edge of a golf course with a semiautomatic rifle in an apparent bid to assassinate ... Donald J. Trump made a first court appearance in Florida on Monday. He faces charges of possessing a firearm as a convicted felon, and of possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number, according to two people briefed on the case." (Also linked yesterday.)

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "In the space of less than a week, the once and possibly future commander in chief was both a seeming inspiration and an apparent target of the political violence that has increasingly come to shape American politics in the modern era. Bomb threats and attempted assassinations now have become part of the landscape, shocking and horrific, yet not so much that they have forced any real national reckoning.... Mr. Trump, who as recently as last week's debate with [Vice President] Harris blamed Democrats for the shooting at a rally in Butler, Pa., that struck his ear in July, attributed Sunday's attempt to the president and vice president as well.... Within hours [of Sunday's incident], his campaign emailed a list of quotes from [President] Biden, Ms. Harris and other Democrats attacking Mr. Trump with phrases like 'a threat to our democracy' ... without noting that just last week during the debate the former president said 'they're the threat to democracy.'...

"At the heart of today's eruption of political violence is Mr. Trump, a figure who seems to inspire people to make threats or take actions both for him and against him. He has long favored the language of violence in his political discourse, encouraging supporters to beat up hecklers, threatening to shoot looters and undocumented migrants, mocking a near-fatal attack on the husband of the Democratic House speaker and suggesting that a general he deemed disloyal be executed.... Mr. Trump does not pause to reflect on the impact of his own words.... Asked by a reporter if he denounced the bomb threats, he demurred. 'I don't know what happened with the bomb threats,' he said. 'I know that it's been taken over by illegal migrants, and that's a terrible thing that happened.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Of course that's one big lie. Trump certainly was aware of (perhaps pleased by) the bomb threats he inspired, and most of the "migrants" to Springfield are refugees, in the U.S. legally. And poor Peter Baker; no matter the facts, even as presented in his own story, his fingers just won't punch out on that keyboard, "It's Trump's fault. It's all Trump's fault." ~~~

~~~ Ah, well, Politico's take is even more oblique: ~~~

     ~~~ Betsy Swan, et al., of Politico: "The toxic political climate and a complex web of threats -- punctuated by Sunday;s apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump -- is putting an extraordinary strain on the national security officials tasked with safeguarding American democracy. Security experts say sharp polarization and increasingly hateful political rhetoric -- fanned by foreign adversaries and supercharged by social media -- have combined to test the nation's ability to protect its candidates and institutions."

Way down in Grafs 13 & 14, the Politico reporters do write, "Law enforcement agencies are also operating in an environment of deep distrust, stoked by Trump's longtime attacks on the FBI and Justice Department amid the deluge of investigations and indictments he's faced in recent years. Some Republicans, like Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), called for the feds to stay out of the investigation into Sunday's incident, saying instead that Florida authorities -- under the leadership of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis -- should be the ones digging into the latest apparent attempt on Trump's life. DeSantis obliged, announcing that Florida would do its own probe. But the criminal case against the suspect ... is a federal case being handled by the Justice Department.

     ~~~ Marie: BTW, in one of those perfect oppositions that occasionally occur outside of literature, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, who is managing the case against Trump's accused would-be attacker, is a Haitian immigrant. As his online DOJ biography says, Markenzy Lapointe is "the first Haitian-born American lawyer to serve as U.S. Attorney. He emigrated from Haiti to the U.S. as a teenager, lived in Miami's Liberty City neighborhood, and graduated from Edison High School." President Biden, of course, appointed Lapointe. ~~~

~~~ Jay Waagmeester of the Florida Phoenix: Florida "Gov. Ron DeSantis plans a state investigation into the attempted assassination of ... Donald Trump over the weekend to make sure the probe is 'credible.'... 'I understand that the feds are involved, but we do believe that there were multiple violations of state law,' DeSantis said Monday. 'We also believe that there's a need to make sure that the truth about all this comes out in a way, you know, that's credible. I mean, I look at the federal government, with all due respect to them, you know, those same agencies that are prosecuting Trump in that jurisdiction are now going to be investigating this,' DeSantis said. 'I just think that that may not be the best thing for this country. Nevertheless, they have their prerogative, but we have our prerogative, and so we'll be making an announcement further along those lines in the in the ensuing days.'"

Miriam Jordan of the New York Times: "Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio announced on Monday that he was deploying state troopers to the beleaguered city of Springfield to reassure the community that schools are safe despite a wave of bomb threats. The threats began last week after Donald J. Trump mentioned Springfield during the presidential debate, repeating a baseless rumor that Haitian immigrants in the city were abducting and eating household pets. Since then, 33 bomb threats have targeted city schools, most recently on Monday when two elementary schools were evacuated as a result of threats, Governor DeWine said. City Hall and two hospitals have also been targeted.... The threats have shaken the city and disrupted school for thousands of students. The deployment of a contingent of 36 troopers, beginning on Tuesday, is intended to allay anxieties and ensure that students can focus on school." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I hope Ohio taxpayers (and voters) realize that their tax dollars are going to pay for a crisis created and perpetuated by Donald Trump and their own punk senator, JayDee Vance. (In fact, Vance even boasted on national teevee about "creating" the crisis, so the media would tell his fake anti-immigrant story.

Very Trumpy Voter Suppression. Praveena Somasundaram of the Washington Post: "An Ohio sheriff this weekend urged residents in his county to collect the addresses of homes displaying signs for Vice President Kamala Harris, suggesting that there would be an influx of undocumented immigrants if she wins the presidential race. Bruce Zuchowski, the sheriff of Portage County who is seeking reelection, made the remarks Friday in two identical posts on his personal and professional Facebook accounts. 'I say ... write down all the addresses of the people who had her signs in their yards!' Zuchowski (R) said. That way, he said, when undocumented immigrants -- which he referred to as a 'locust' -- flooded in, 'We'll already have the addresses of their New families ... who supported their arrival!'... One Republican official described the post as 'bullying' and stepped down from a role with a county GOP committee, the Portager reported.... In Monday posts on X, the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio condemned Zuchowski's comments, adding that putting up political signs was 'most decidedly, protected core First Amendment speech.'"

Rachel Maddow reprised some of Trump's crazy stuff and slip-ups of the last month. Her thesis is that to make Americans -- and the media -- to forget Trump's terrible performance, he decided to amplify JayDee's attacks on innocent Haitian refuges: ~~~

     ~~~ Maddow didn't say so, but Digby wrote in her Salon column yesterday that Trump's technique has a name, coincidentally called "deadcatting.": "It was coined by none other than former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson when he was mayor of London: 'There is one thing that is absolutely certain about throwing a dead cat on the dining room table -- and I don't mean that people will be outraged, alarmed, disgusted. That is true, but irrelevant. The key point, says my Australian friend, is that everyone will shout, "Jeez, mate, there's a dead cat on the table!" In other words, they will be talking about the dead cat -- the thing you want them to talk about -- and they will not be talking about the issue that has been causing you so much grief.'" And JayDee is in on the plot: "Even after the bomb threats [in Springfield, Ohio,] started and the story had been thoroughly debunked, he tweeted: '... don't let the crybabies in the media dissuade you, fellow patriots. Keep the cat memes flowing.'" The whole column is worth a read. ~~~

     ~~~ Maddow included in her list of horribles one bizarro Trump tall tale that I had not heard. Somehow the story didn't make much of a, uh, splash, and many of us missed it. So, a bit belatedly, here ya go: ~~~

In case you can't watch the video, here's what El Dumbo de Mar-a-Lardo said. Really: ~~~

You have millions of gallons of water pouring down from the north with the snow caps and Canada, and all pouring down and they essentially have a very large faucet. You turn the faucet and it takes one day to turn it, and it's massive, it's as big as the wall of that building right there behind you. You turn that, and all of that water goes aimlessly into the Pacific (Ocean), and if you turned that back, all of that water would come right down here and into Los Angeles. -- Donald Trump, last Friday

~~~ AND it turns out that one of Trump's goofier goof-ups that Maddow named has consequences: ~~~

     ~~~ Matthew Chapman of the Raw Story: "A Reggaeton star reportedly scrubbed his presidential endorsement off social media after ... Donald Trump mistakenly introduced the singer as a 'hot' woman at his weekend campaign rally in Las Vegas. Before realizing singer Nicky Jam was a man, Trump quipped: 'Do you know Nicky? She's hot.... Where's Nicky? Oh, look, I'm glad he came up,' Trump corrected himself as the singer approached the stage."

We now take time out from our irregularly-scheduled campaign to bring you our newest Big Grift: ~~~

~~~ David Yaffe-Bellany, et al., of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump ... appeared on a livestream on Monday to champion his latest business venture: cryptocurrencies. 'Crypto is one of those things we have to do,' Mr. Trump said on X. 'Whether we like it or not, I have to do it.' Beside him were his collaborators, including a family friend; Mr. Trump's two oldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump; and two little-known crypto entrepreneurs with no experience running a high-profile business. Together, they were rolling out Mr. Trump's crypto venture, World Liberty Financial, a project that has already raised concerns about the former president's conflicts of interest and even alarmed some of his most vocal supporters in the industry.... On the livestream, he did not address the project directly, leaving the details to the two entrepreneurs, Chase Herro and Zachary Folkman. Mr. Herro has described himself as 'the dirtbag of the internet,' while Mr. Folkman used to teach classes on how to seduce women.

"strong>Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight..., said that if Mr. Trump was elected in November, his involvement in the crypto venture would create serious conflicts of interest. The Securities and Exchange Commission has cracked down on the industry.... Mr. Trump 'would be able to push regulatory agencies to favor businesses he is involved in,' Ms. Brian said. Ethics experts have said that his ownership of the social media company raises similar issues." MB: Oh, read on. The mention of ethics concerns is downright quaint in this -- or any Trump -- context. The Verge has a story here.

Paul Waldman, on Substack: "... almost the entire GOP has been complicit with Trump from the beginning, there is still a place for everyone, even those who have committed crimes.... Nevertheless, we should not accept that Trump's aides and allies deserve even a modicum of respect. Many of these people will be around for years or decades, and they should be shamed and stigmatized and mocked at every opportunity. When this is all over we ought to undertake an effort to detrumpify our political system, difficult though it may be. Anyone who stood with Trump should be made to answer as long as they live for the poison he injected into our national life. When they try to claim, as many will, that they never really agreed with all the racism and incitement, we should say: No. You had your chance to disavow him and what he stood for when it mattered. We will not forget." Thanks to Ken W. for the link.

Niha Masih of the Washington Post: "Meta -- the owner of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram -- said Monday that it was banning Russian state media outlets such as RT from its platforms, days after the United States imposed sanctions on RT's parent companies and accused them of acting as an arm of Moscow's intelligence operations.... Earlier this month, U.S. intelligence officials said Russia's covert efforts to influence the 2024 presidential election are the most active foreign threat this political season." An NBC News story is here.

Rachel Pannett & Yvonne Sanchez of the Washington Post: "A judge has denied a request from Mark Meadows, who was Donald Trump's White House chief of staff, to move the Arizona election-subversion-related prosecution against him from state court to federal court. The ruling Monday by U.S. District Court judge John J. Tuchi in the district of Arizona is a further setback for Meadows, who unsuccessfully tried the same legal maneuver a year ago in a separate election interference case in Georgia."

Matt Naham of Law & Crime: "Because Rudy Giuliani 'utterly failed' to establish personal jurisdiction in his New Hampshire defamation lawsuit against President Joe Biden, a federal judge last Friday threw out the case. In October 2023, before he was himself found liable for defaming 2020 Georgia election workers and slapped with a $148 million judgment, Giuliani held a press conference and announced his plans to sue Biden for referring to him as a 'Russian pawn' during a 2020 debate with Donald Trump in Nashville, Tenn. Giuliani claimed that he was falsely branded as 'a Russian pawn' and a 'facilitator of Russian disinformation,' damaging his law practice and consulting business (he has since been disbarred in New York and, after the $148 million judgment, he filed for bankruptcy).... In February, Biden and the Biden campaign filed a 'Notice of Non-Opposition,' stating that Giuliani had failed to file a response to a motion to have the lawsuit dismissed and that his complaint was 'utterly devoid of well-pled factual allegations[.]'" Biden filed a similar motion in June, and the judge finally dismissed the case Friday.


Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "It was inevitable, once Roe v. Wade was overturned and states started banning abortion, that women were going to die. And now ProPublica has identified at least two women who died 'after they couldn't access legal abortions and timely medical care.' According to ProPublica's Kavitha Surana, 'There are almost certainly others.'... It shouldn't take even more stories of senseless suffering for these cruel laws to become politically untenable."

Ben Sisario & Julia Jacobs of the New York Times: "Sean Combs, the music mogul whose career has been upended by sexual assault lawsuits and a federal investigation, was arrested at a Manhattan hotel on Monday evening after a grand jury indicted him. The indictment is sealed and the charges were not announced but Marc Agnifilo, a lawyer for Mr. Combs, said he believed he was being charged with racketeering and sex trafficking."

~~~~~~~~~~

New York. William Rashbaum & Michael Rothfeld of the New York Times: "Two high-ranking New York Fire Department chiefs were arrested early Monday on federal bribery and corruption charges that accuse them of taking nearly $100,000 apiece in a scheme to expedite safety inspections, people with knowledge of the matter said. The two chiefs, whose homes and offices at Fire Department headquarters were searched by federal agents and city investigators in February, are expected to appear in United States District Court in Manhattan later on Monday, the people said. The chiefs -- Brian E. Cordasco, 49, and Anthony M. Saccavino, 59 -- were responsible for overseeing safety inspections on building projects." (Also linked yesterday.)

Comments Off
Monday
Sep162024

The Conversation -- September 16, 2024

Yes, it is possible for Trump to get even more irresponsible: ~~~

⭐ Alex Griffing of Mediaite: "... Donald Trump directly blamed President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for a gunman targeting him at his West Palm Beach golf club on Sunday.... Trump spoke to Fox News Digital's Brooke Singman on Monday morning and claimed the gunman was motivated by the top Democrats' 'highly inflammatory language.... 'He [presumably the would-be gunman] believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and he acted on it,' Trump said, claiming, 'Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country, and they are the ones that are destroying the country -- both from the inside and out.'... 'It is called the enemy from within. They are the real threat,' Trump added, appearing to use the exact same kind of language he claims the Democrats are using that inspired the shootings."

CNN is live-updating developments in the Trump assassination attempt & election news. ~~~

~~~ The New York Times' liveblog is here: "The man who investigators say concealed himself on the edge of a golf course with a semiautomatic rifle in an apparent bid to assassinate ... Donald J. Trump made a first court appearance in Florida on Monday. He faces charges of possessing a firearm as a convicted felon, and of possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number, according to two people briefed on the case."

David Gardner of the Daily Beast, republished by Yahoo! News: "The Trump campaign is blaming Kamala Harris and her Democratic supporters for the second assassination attempt on the former president. They claim that concerted attempts to demonize Donald Trump as a threat to democracy are putting his life at risk. Hours after Sunday's failed shooting plot at Trump's West Palm Beach golf club, his senior campaign manager Chris LaCivita posted a video of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) calling Trump 'extraordinarily dangerous' and a 'threat to democracy.'... LaCivita wrote on his X account ... that Harris was running the Sanders video on her Facebook platforms." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: If Trump doesn't want to be accused of being extraordinarily dangerous & a threat to democracy, he should renounced 93.2% of everything he's done and said since 2015 (or before!).

Rhian Lubin of the Independent: "Elon Musk has deleted what he now claims was a 'joke' about how 'no one is trying to assassinate' President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris following the second attempt on Donald Trump's life on Sunday." MB: I'm sure Elon has a lot of lawyers. Maybe one sent him an SOS (or SYS -- save yourself). According to Lubin's report, at least one former federal prosecutor said that Elon's now-deleted "joke" "require[d] an immediate visit by the U.S. Secret Service." Sorry, Elon, this is one of those bells you can't unring.

New York. William Rashbaum & Michael Rothfeld of the New York Times: "Two high-ranking New York Fire Department chiefs were arrested early Monday on federal bribery and corruption charges that accuse them of taking nearly $100,000 apiece in a scheme to expedite safety inspections.... The two chiefs, whose homes and offices at Fire Department headquarters were searched by federal agents and city investigators in February, are expected to appear in United States District Court in Manhattan later on Monday, the people said. The chiefs -- Brian E. Cordasco, 49, and Anthony M. Saccavino, 59 -- were responsible for overseeing safety inspections on building projects."

~~~~~~~~~~

Presidential Race

Patricia Mazzei, et al., of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump was playing golf on Sunday afternoon in Florida when a Secret Service agent spotted a man with a rifle standing by a chain-link fence on the perimeter of the course, law enforcement officials said. The agents opened fire, and the man fled in a black Nissan but was eventually taken into custody, the officials said. While Mr. Trump was safe and unharmed, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said it was investigating the episode as an apparent attempted assassination, the second one against the former president in just over two months.... The suspected gunman was identified as Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, of Hawaii...." (Also linked yesterday.) The AP's report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ See commentary in today's thread. ~~~

~~~ Adam Goldman, et al., of the New York Times: "Ryan Wesley Routh, the 58-year-old man who was arrested on Sunday in connection with what the F.B.I. described as an attempted assassination on ... Donald J. Trump, had expressed the desire to fight and die in Ukraine. Mr. Routh's posts on the social media site X revealed a penchant for violent rhetoric in the weeks after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.... A man with the same name and similar age as Mr. Routh was arrested in 2002 in Greensboro, N.C., after barricading himself inside a building with a fully automatic weapon, according to the Greensboro News & Record newspaper. The newspaper said the man was charged with carrying a concealed weapon and possession of a fully automatic machine gun. It is not clear how the charges were resolved." MB: IOW, another crazy guy with access to military-style weapons. Donald Trump favors that access, despite the fact that two crazy guys with guns have come close to assassinating him. ~~~

     ~~~ Washington Post reporters have gathered more information on Routh. ~~~

     ~~~ Thomas Gibbons-Neff of the New York Times interviewed Ryan Routh in 2023 when Routh was trying to recruit Afghan veterans to fight on behalf of Ukraine, "an endeavor he seemed ill prepared to orchestrate.... It was clear he was in way over his head. He talked of buying off corrupt officials, forging passports and doing whatever it takes to get his Afghan cadre to Ukraine, but he had no real way to accomplish his goals. At one point he mentioned arranging a U.S. military transport plane from Iraq to Poland with Afghan refugees willing to fight."

Hannah Knowles of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump on Sunday sought to rally his supporters with news of a possible second attempt on his life, blasting out a campaign fundraising appeal that said 'there are people in this world who will do whatever it takes to stop us' as his advisers urged campaign staff to be 'vigilant' about security."

Marie: Following the probable assassination attempt against Donald Trump yesterday, Elon Musk seemed dismayed that there had been no attempts on the lives of President Biden and Vice President Harris. He tweeted: "And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala." As a number of X users suggested, Elon has earned a visit from the feds. And gosh, maybe he should lose his defense contracts. Musk seems to be suggesting to his millions of minions that someone should at least try to murder the POTUS & VPOTUS; that, I think, is a federal crime.

Lisa Rein of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump< took his bitterness over mega-pop star Taylor Swift's endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris to his social network, declaring in an all-caps tweet on Truth Social on Sunday, 'I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!'" MB: Of the many reasons there is so much political violence in this country, Trump's childish id outbursts -- along with his lies about immigrant violence, plus of course his endorsement of political violence on his behalf in January 2021 -- are among them. ~~~

~~~ Joe DePaolo of Mediaite: Trump's "post drew mockery and condemnation -- with a common reaction being a reference to a popular Swift song title:"

~~~ Then along came Tim Walz: ~~~

Summer Concepcion of NBC News: "Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine [R] on Sunday decried ... Donald Trump's baseless claims that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were eating dogs and other pets as 'garbage,' but stopped short of directly condemning the former president and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, for spreading the false claims. 'There's a lot of garbage on the internet. You know, this is a piece of garbage that was simply not true. There's no evidence of this at all,' DeWine said during an interview on ABC's 'This Week.'..." (Also linked yesterday.)

Luke Garrett of NPR: "Sen. JD Vance stood by his false claim that Haitian migrants were eating pets in Springfield, Ohio -- an unsupported story that ... Donald Trump has also echoed on the debate stage and on social media. During a Sunday interview on CNN, the Ohio senator and Republican vice presidential nominee said his evidence for this claim was 'the first-hand accounts of my constituents.' He then went on to defend the dissemination of this false story. 'The American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes,' Sen. Vance said. 'If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's what I'm going to do.'" (Also linked yesterday.) The Washington Post's story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The headline of the NPR story is, "Vance defends spreading claims that Haitian migrants are eating pets." The WashPo headline is a little better: "Vance amplifies false claims about Haitian migrants in Ohio." But why not something more along the lines of "Vance defiantly amplifies his incendiary, racist lies about vulnerable Haitian migrants"?

Caleb Howe of Mediaite: "Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Sunday made an explosive, unfounded claim about an explosive, unfounded rumor about an explosive, unidentified person before -- like most X users who spread the claim -- quickly having to walk back or retract it.... 'The ABC whistleblower who claimed Kamala Harris was given debate questions ahead of the debate has died in a car crash according to news reports,' she said [on X].... About three hours, 9,000 retweets, and many conspiracy theories about Democrats killing people after sharing the erroneous rumor, Greene posted a follow-up that the story 'appears to be false.'... The fake news Greene spread came from an AI-generated website...."

Steve M. explains why so many non-MAGA voters will choose Trump: "Trump supporters who aren't superfans already seem to recognize that he's an obnoxious, angry blowhard.... Their view is that if he's elected president, he'll say a lot of awful things, and he'll post terrible things on social media, but he'll also make inflation go away magically. So it doesn't matter to them that he looked like an idiot on Tuesday night. They already thought he was an idiot -- but they think he's an idiot who can make prices lower using that business magic they saw him display on The Apprentice.... The gettable voters [Harris] needs are willing to vote for a guy who says immigrants eat pets if they think he can lower the price of eggs." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I think Steve has it just right. These voters are stupid, but they're not stupid AND delusional. A lot of them probably agree with some of Trump's awful statements; they're probably afraid of Haitians; they probably think Mexicans are taking "white jobs"; they just won't say so with such crude force. But mostly, they are of the opinion that Trump's "business experience" means he understands macroeconomics. He does not. And Harris has not yet effectively explained that. She hints at it; she seems to know it; but she has to hammer it down in ways that are easy to understand. I don't think she's good at macroeconomics, either. She needs to get better. And fast. Some of it is way over my head. But the basics are kinda easy to understand. And they make sense, even in a way that people who think Trump is a business genius can understand. See also Patrick's comment in yesterday's thread.

Maybe this will help the dummies. Thanks to RAS for the lead: ~~~

MEANWHILE, in other news re: violence connected to a weird presidential candidate ~~~

~~~ Simon Levien of the New York Times: "At his first major campaign event for ... Donald J. Trump, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., told a crowd on Saturday night that he was being investigated for his handling of a whale carcass decades ago. Mr. Kennedy ... said at the event in Glendale, Ariz., that he had received a letter from a national fisheries institute 'saying they were investigating me for collecting a whale specimen 20 years ago.' He suggested that the inquiry was politically motivated, and said that he believed he was protected by the statute of limitations." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ But wait. Here's the best part: "Mr. Kennedy said at the rally he had written back to his would-be whale investigators, accusing the government of permitting offshore wind farms which kill whales en masse, a claim that Mr. Trump has also made for which there is no evidence." MB: It isn't crazy to wonder if wind farms harm sea animals. But it is crazy to claim wind farms kill sea animals when there's no evidence to support the claim. So Chainsaw Bobby, the Great Whale Decapitator, is not the only crazy person in this frame.


⭐ Jodi Kantor & Adam Liptak of the New York Times have written a stunning indictment of Chief Justice John Roberts, exposing him as the manipulative architect of the immunity case (and two related cases), which gave Donald Trump most of what he wanted (and we still don't know how much, since the opinion, crafted by Roberts, is quite vague); i.e., let the treacherous bastid off the hook for past and future crimes committed in office. Thanks to RAS for the link. MB: I remember back when Elena Kagan joined the Court, I held out the hope that she was clever enough to "turn" Roberts on important decisions. Well, the joke's on me. To those of us who began suggesting this was the Thomas Court, Roberts has given a big middle finger. He has taken back the Court as his own, if only by emerging as a bigger dickhead than he previously appeared to be. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Paul Campos in LG&$: A "good in-depth piece of reporting from the NYT about how John Roberts 'steered' the SCOTUS to one of the very worst opinions in the often sordid history of that institution, Trump v. United States. The bottom line appears to be that Roberts somehow managed to convince himself that intervening in the case had nothing to do with Donald Trump per se, but was all about crafting some Principles of Constitutional Integritude, that Would Stand the Test of Time in their Principled Balls and Strikes Principledness.... It's hard to overstate what a fundamentally empty piece of nonsense Roberts's opinion is. It's about 2000 pages long..., but can be reduced to the following proposition: It would be good if Donald Trump isn't tried for his attempted autogolpe before the November election, so we will invent out of almost literally nothing a rule of Constitutional Law immunizing ex-presidents named Donald Trump from criminal prosecution from pretty much anything ex-presidents (named Donald Trump) did while in office.... Per the Times's reporting, Roberts has somehow managed to convince himself that he's doing the exact opposite of what he's actually doing, which -- breaking news -- illustrates that the human capacity for rationalization is essentially infinite." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ digby also has a good post on the Times report, and she includes a gift link. ~~~

~~~ Marie: Ever since President Biden pretended to appoint a commission that pretended to explore reformations of the court system, I have thought Biden should just appoint a new Chief Justice. The Constitution is silent on how the Chief Justice is appointed as leader of the Court, so I think the President, with consent of the Senate, can just appoint her. There's nothing in the Constitution that says or implies the old Chief has to retire or die. IMO, the President can replace the current Chief and demote him (or her!) to Associate Justice. If Vice President Harris wins the presidency, and the Senate retains its Democratic majority, she should appoint a new Chief. If she wins and Republicans regain a Senate majority, Biden should appoint a new Chief after the election but before the new year when the new Senate is seated. See also RAS's commentary on this in yesterday's thread.

A Belated Flag Day at Reality Chex. Here's a story I came across this morning -- a feel-good story I had not heard that I thought maybe you hadn't heard, either. I was thinking if this had happened in 2020 instead of 1960, we would never have known about it because Donald Trump would have showed off the new flag he designed.

~~~~~~~~~~

Comments Off
Page 1 ... 102 103 104 105 106 ... 1840 Next 3 Entries »