The Conversation -- October 2, 2024
⭐ Alan Feuer & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: :In a sprawling legal brief partly unsealed on Wednesday, the special counsel, Jack Smith, laid out his case for why ... Donald J. Trump is not immune from prosecution on federal charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election. The redacted brief, made public by Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the Federal District Court in Washington, adds new details to the already extensive public record of how Mr. Trump lost the race but attempted nonetheless to cling to power." ~~~
~~~ Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "The filing described what the then-president told key figures in his orbit, including vice president Mike Pence, attorney Rudy Giuliani and senior White House and Republican Party officials, though it shielded some of their names, and how some in his orbit told him his claims of having won the election were false. It also detailed what Trump was doing on Jan. 6, as his supporters stormed the Capitol.... This is a developing story...." ~~~
~~~ Katelyn Polantz, et al., of CNN: "The 165-page document comes from Smith's office and is the fullest accounting yet of evidence in the election subversion case against Trump. Throughout the document, Smith argues that the actions Trump took to overturn the election were in his private capacity - as a candidate -- rather than in his official capacity, as a president.... The filing weaves together what prominent witnesses told a federal grand jury and the FBI about Trump, along with other never-before-disclosed evidence investigators gathered about the former president's actions leading up to and on January 6, 2021."
When the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election, he resorted to crimes to try to stay in office. -- Motion for Immunity Determinations, p. 3 ~~~
⭐~~~ The motion is here. (Via CNN.)
Zach Montague & Jacey Fortin of the New York Times: "President Biden on Wednesday took an aerial tour of the devastation from Hurricane Helene and ordered the Pentagon to deploy up to 1,000 active-duty troops to assist with aid efforts as rescue workers continued dangerous rescue missions in remote mountain communities. Mr. Biden's visit to the Carolinas came as the death toll from the storm rose to more than 175 people on Wednesday, making Helene the deadliest hurricane to strike the mainland United States since Katrina, which caused nearly 1,400 deaths in 2005, according to statistics from the National Hurricane Center."
Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "Half an hour into Tuesday night's vice-presidential debate, JD Vance lodged a whiny protest. 'Margaret,' he said to moderator Margaret Brennan of CBS News, 'the rules were that you guys weren't going to fact-check!' It was a lie on top of another lie, supplemented by a pair of other lies, in support of an even bigger lie. There was no 'rule' against fact-checking. And Vance had just told a whopper. He had alleged that, in Springfield, Ohio, 'you've got schools that are overwhelmed, you've got hospitals that are overwhelmed, you have got housing that is totally unaffordable because we brought in millions of illegal immigrants.'... The senator said Harris 'became the appointed border czar.' She received no such appointment.... There is no 'open border.'..., and the thousands of Haitian migrants ... have legal status.... He said 'over $100 billion' of Iranian assets were unfrozen 'thanks to the Kamala Harris administration.'... Kamala Harris isn't the president.... On health care, he served up the howler of the night when he said that Trump 'saved' the 'collapsing' Affordable Care Act.... In reality, of course, Trump tried his best to kill Obamacare.... Vance capped the night by saying that Trump 'peacefully' surrendered power four years ago."
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Presidential Race
Monica Alba of NBC News: "Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign is launching a new digital ad Tuesday slamming the Republican vice presidential nominee, Sen. JD Vance, as 'extremist' and a 'danger to our democracy.' The spot argues Vance, R-Ohio, 'could be a heartbeat away' from the presidency if Donald Trump wins in November, the first time the Democratic ticket has gone after the former president's age in paid media since she became the Democratic nominee, according to a Harris official." ~~~
New York Times reporters liveblogged the vice-presidential debate, which aired on CBS & elsewhere, beginning at 9:00 pm ET Tuesday. The pinned entry: ~~~
Senator JD Vance of Ohio and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota spent most of their only debate aiming not at each other but at their running mates, relitigating the last two administrations and eight years as each promised his ticket would deliver a new direction for the nation. It was a substantive and mostly civil debate between two Midwestern men that laid bare the policy chasm between the two parties on immigration, abortion and foreign policy. But no issue made clearer the size and stakes of the country's current political divide than the final topic of the night, when Mr. Vance refused to concede that ... Donald J. Trump had lost the 2020 election.... Mr. Vance looked polished throughout. Mr. Walz spoke haltingly, especially at the start, taking a series of verbal stutter-steps before getting to his point.... Here are seven takeaways from the debate[.]"
Slick JayDee. Ashley Parker & Caroline Kitchener of the Washington Post: "... [JD] Vance ... used Tuesday night's vice-presidential debate ... to try to reintroduce a smoother, more affable version of himself to the nation.... He also used the prime-time slot to repackage MAGA for the political middle -- offering a softer, more moderate, and often misleading version of Trump's polarizing vision and policy prescriptions. In fact, Vance spewed falsehoods and exaggerations on a host of Trump's core policy positions, ranging from immigration to health care to the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.... Trump has repeatedly taken credit for the fall of Roe v. Wade. And Vance ran for Senate in 2022 on a platform that promised to 'end abortion,' saying he would like the procedure to be 'illegal nationally.'... But on Tuesday night, Vance referenced an anonymous friend in an abusive relationship who told him how grateful she was that she had been able to have an abortion, seeming to imply -- but not quite saying -- that he supported her decision to terminate her pregnancy. 'I know she's watching tonight and I love you,' he said, staring directly into the camera, before acknowledging that most Americans feel differently than he does about the issue -- and pledging to earn their trust.... During the debate, [Trump] pledged on Truth Social to veto a national abortion ban 00 after refusing to make that same promise in his own debate with Vice President Kamala Harris last month. Abortion was hardly the only issue on which Vance offered a gauzy -- and at times distorted -- portrait of the Trump-Vance platform."
Video of the debate, via NBC News, is here. The full transcript of the debate, via CBS News, is here.
Matt Flegenheimer of the New York Times: "For some 90 minutes, [JD] Vance ... had largely tailored his debate-night message to a mass audience, avoiding most detours into conservative fever swamps, as if determined to deliver a rolling rebuttal to Democrats' longstanding suggestion that he was 'weird' and out of step. But when the debate turned, near its final frames, to the subject of the 2020 election, Mr. Vance ... said of Mr. Trump, 'he said that on January the 6th, the protesters ought to protest peacefully. And on January the 20th, what happened? Joe Biden became the president. Donald Trump left the White House.'... Mr. Vance pivoted jarringly to the subject of censorship. Mr. Walz glanced up at the camera, silent, like a television character breaking the fourth wall. 'Well, I've enjoyed tonight's debate,' Mr. Walz began when it was his turn again, assessing an evening that was sometimes wobbly for him. He was about to enjoy it more." Here's the exchange:
~~~ The Last Should Be First. Zack Beauchamp of Vox: "Ultimately, every issue discussed earlier [Tuesday] night comes in second to the fundamental question of whether America's democratic institutions deserve to endure. On that question, Vance truly is radical, and his exposure as such was the only truly important moment of the night.... Vance has been enthusiastic [in support of Trump's lies about the 2020 election]. He has, among other things, fundraised for January 6 rioters and said he would have illegally thrown the 2020 election result to Congress had he been in Mike Pence's position at the time. But what's most distinctive about Vance is the degree to which he has paired 2020 conspiracy theories with a coterie of other anti-democratic positions and ideologies.... Anti-democratic radicalism has been central to Vance's political identity since he began running for Senate in Ohio.... Despite democracy being at the core of the difference between the two candidates onstage..., it was treated as an afterthought. In doing so, the moderators created an illusion of normalcy: allowing the two candidates to civilly discuss issues like housing and the deficit in a basically standard-politician manner, when in fact they disagree on an existential question about the nature of American government itself." ~~~
~~~ Will Saletan of the Bulwark: "... there was only one question on which the vice presidency -- the job for which these two men are competing -- really matters. That question was whether they would certify the results of the next presidential election. And on that subject, Vance gave a non-answer that instantly disqualifies him: He refused to acknowledge that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. Certification of elections was a central factor in Vance's audition to become Trump's running mate.... As Thomas Joscelyn has pointed out in The Bulwark, Vance stood out [among the contenders] in one respect: He was the one who signaled most clearly that he was willing to push constitutional boundaries to do Trump's bidding.... Vance was given an opportunity to dispel concerns that he would use the vice presidency to overturn another election. He declined that opportunity.... When democracy is in peril, he will bow to Trump, not to the people or the Constitution."
Jimmy Kimmel analyzes the debate & adds some color: ~~~
Melanie Mason of Politico: "... There was no decisive winner in the first-and-only vice presidential debate of the 2024 election. Asked who won Tuesday's debate, voters were split 50-50 over whether it was JD Vance or Tim Walz, according to a Politico/Focaldata snap poll of likely voters conducted just after the two faced off in a studio in New York City."
Aaron Pellish, et al., of CNN: "Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said on Tuesday he 'misspoke' when he previously said he'd visited Hong Kong in the spring of 1989 during protests in China's Tiananmen Square but insisted he 'was in Hong Kong and China' during the pro-democracy protests. His comments during Tuesday night's vice presidential debate followed the unearthing of reports that contradict previous claims he made about his travel to China, including a claim that the Democratic vice presidential nominee was in Hong Kong preparing for a teaching position in 1989 during the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests that ended in hundreds of protesters killed by the Chinese government.... Walz regularly organized and chaperoned trips to China during his time as a teacher prior to entering politics." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Walz's nonresponse-response to the moderator's question was just awful, IMO. He had to know this question was coming, so why he wouldn't directly answer, until pressed, is beyond me. ~~~
~~~ Here is a transcript of the Minnesota Public Radio Broadcast that raised the issue if Walz's misstatements about his experiences in China.
Aaron Rupar & Noah Berlatsky of Public Notice: "Across two campaign events in Wisconsin on Tuesday..., [Donald Trump] reiterated a truth that is much more important than who won the debate: namely, that he's morally and intellectually unfit for office. Both Trump events were packed with outrageous defamations and lies.... Vance's slick lying and election denialism is even more ominous given the possibility that he may end up as the country's leader in a second, nightmarish, Trump term." The writers run down a litany of weird. shocking Trump rants. In one, he accused Kamala Harris of murder.
Michael Gold of the New York Times: "In unfocused remarks that frequently veered into tangents..., Donald J. Trump responded on Tuesday to Iran's launching a missile attack against Israel by insisting that the world was nearing global devastation, criticizing President Biden's leadership and falling back on his frequent hypothetical that he would have prevented the crisis in the Middle East had he won in 2020.... Mr. Trump..., during a speech in Waunakee, Wis..., did not provide any details of how he might quell the war in Gaza or otherwise address the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran that has heightened tensions throughout the region. He falsely claimed Iran went broke under sanctions that were imposed while he was president....
"But Mr. Trump's remarks about Iran's attack against Israel were characterized more by his digressions than by his response to world events. As he insisted that he would restore global stability and criticized 'a nonexistent president and a nonexistent vice president,' Mr. Trump departed from his prepared remarks in order to criticize San Francisco, attack Vice President Kamala Harris's response to Hurricane Helene, stoke fears around immigration, blast the prisoner swap deal with Russia that freed Brittney Griner, repeat his false claims of widespread election fraud and relitigate whether the 1987 film 'Full Metal Jacket' should have won Academy Awards." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Hmm. Unless Kamala Harris weighs in with a specific, detailed analysis of the artistic merits & cultural impact of "Full Metal Jacket," I don't think she has my vote.
So earlier Tuesday we learned this: ~~~
Libby Cathey of CBS News: "In a move intended to troll ... Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, ahead of the first and only vice presidential debate of 2024, the Democratic National Committee on Monday night is digitally projecting various phrases... onto Trump Tower in New York City. [Some of] the DNC's projections are ... aimed at the former president for saying he won't again debate Vice President Kamala Harris.... 'Trump is a chicken!' says [a] message...." ~~~
~~~ Now we hear this: ~~~
~~~ Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times: "CBS News said on Tuesday that ... Donald J. Trump had declined to participate in an interview with '60 Minutes' that would have been broadcast during a prime-time election special next week. The election special, a quadrennial tradition for the program, will move ahead on Monday at 8 p.m. Eastern, and feature interviews with Vice President Kamala Harris and ... Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota. In a statement, the network said Mr. Trump had initially accepted an invitation to be interviewed by one of the show's correspondents, Scott Pelley. But on Tuesday, CBS was told that Mr. Trump's campaign 'has decided not to participate.'" Emphasis added. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Apparently the campaign has been paying attention to the sort of nonresponsive responses Trump gave in the interviews Jon Stewart highlighted in the clips embedded here yesterday afternoon. Trump's staff knows he's out of it, and they're trying to hide him away.
Michael Gold of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump swings wildly from topic to topic at his rallies, veering from tariffs to immigration policy to the problems with electric vehicles. But he tends to return to the same apocalyptic message. 'You won't have a country anymore,' Mr. Trump said at a rally in Las Vegas last month.... It is a forecast Mr. Trump has made repeatedly over the last year in speeches and interviews and on social media.... Although he has long used fear as a tool to stir up his conservative base and sway undecided voters, Mr. Trump has taken his doomsday prophesying to a new extreme, increasing both its frequency and scope. He regularly predicts that if he loses to Vice President Kamala Harris in November, America will be ruined. World War III will break out, most likely prompting a global nuclear catastrophe. There will no longer be an America. Israel will cease to exist. Murderous immigrant gangs will overrun cities, small towns, the state of Colorado and the entire country. Factories will shutter. Farmers will lose their farms. The United States will face an economic 'blood bath.'"
Steve Benen of MSNBC: "When it comes to hurricanes, Donald Trump's record is an embarrassment. Indeed, some of the low points of the Republican's failed presidency were directly related to his bizarre reactions to brutal storms: From 'Sharpiegate' to 'big water,' from his odd unfamiliarity with Category 5 hurricanes to lobbing paper towels as if he were having fun shooting free throws, the GOP candidate's background is tough to defend.... But that doesn't mean his record can't get worse... [After make numerous false accusations against President Biden's & Vice President Harris's responses to Hurricane Helene,] when NBC News asked the Republican to substantiate his aid-related conspiracy theories, he walked away.... What kind of would-be leader lies about a deadly natural disaster?"
Katie Robertson of the New York Times: "Olivia Nuzzi, the star political writer for New York magazine who was placed on leave after she disclosed her personal relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has accused her former fiancé of a campaign of harassment and blackmail, according to court filings. In a complaint filed in Superior Court of the District of Columbia, Ms. Nuzzi accused the former fiancé, Ryan Lizza, a top political reporter at Politico, of hacking her devices and stealing a device to surveil her and collect materials to pressure her back into a relationship with him. She accused Mr. Lizza of bringing 'damaging information' to the attention of her employer and of distributing materials to the media that she said she believed to be doctored. She also claimed in the complaint that Mr. Lizza had threatened her with violence to coerce her into assuming his financial responsibility in a joint book contract, and 'explicitly threatened to make public personal information about me to destroy my life, career and reputation -- a threat he has since carried out.'... Mr. Lizza said the allegations ... were not true."~~~
~~~ Katelyn Polantz of CNN: "On Tuesday night, Politico said Lizza was taking a leave of absence from the publication while it conducts an investigation into the matter." ~~~
~~~ Marie: This is not the first time Ryan Lizza has found himself in trouble because of a relationship with a woman gone awry. In 2017, the New Yorker fired him because of allegations he had sexually harassed a woman. According to Lizza's Wikipedia entry, the New Yorker said "he engaged in 'improper sexual conduct.' Lizza called The New Yorker's characterization a 'terrible mistake' that had been 'made hastily and without a full investigation of the relevant facts.' His alleged victim['s] ... attorney ... said, '[I]n no way did Mr. Lizza's misconduct constitute a "respectful relationship" as he has now tried to characterize it.'"
Anne Branigin & Herb Scribner of the Washington Post: "A team of lawyers announced Tuesday that it would be filing more than 100 sexual assault lawsuits against Sean Combs, a massive legal action that appears to have few if any precedents in the #MeToo era. The lawsuits would exponentially increase the number of sexual abuse accusations against the embattled music producer, commonly known by his stage name Diddy."
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Florida. Jiselle Lee of the Washington Post: "A former congressional candidate in Florida has been charged after allegedly threatening to send 'the Russian mafia' after his opponent. William Robert Braddock III, 41, was charged Thursday in federal court with threatening now-Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R). Braddock and Luna were rivals during the 2021 Republican primary election for Florida's 13th Congressional District, which includes the Tampa area." During a phone call with a friend of Luna's, Erin Olszewski, Braddock also threatened to have Olszewski killed if she support Luna's candidacy.
Georgia. Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post: "... the opinion [striking down Georgia's six-week abortion ban] by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, is worth paying attention to even if it is destined to be overturned. It offers one of the most compelling and straightforward defenses of the right to abortion that I have encountered in decades of writing about this issue.... As a legal matter, 'Women are not some piece of collectively owned community property the disposition of which is decided by majority vote,' McBurney wrote. 'Forcing a woman to carry an unwanted, not-yet-viable fetus to term violates her constitutional rights to liberty and privacy, even taking into consideration whatever bundle of rights the not-yet-viable fetus may have.' As a practical matter, McBurney was even clearer about the implications of requiring women to 'serve as human incubators for the five months leading up to viability.'" McBurney wrote,
It is not for a legislator, a judge, or a Commander from The Handmaid's Tale to tell these women what to do with their bodies during this period when the fetus cannot survive outside the womb any more so than society could -- or should.... When someone other than the pregnant woman is able to sustain the fetus, then -- and only then -- should those other voices have a say in the discussion about the decisions the pregnant woman makes concerning her body and what is growing within it. (Also linked yesterday.)
See also the New York Times report on McBurney's ruling linked under "Georgia" yesterday as well as Akhilleus's commentary in yesterday's thread. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Now compare McBurney's reasoned opinion with that of Donald Trump, who after repeatedly bragging about overturning Roe, realized the Alito-led decision was extremely unpopular. Trump then considered a 16-week national abortion ban because, "It's even. It's four months." (It isn't. On average, 16 weeks is 3.68 months. Sixteen weeks is four months only if you count only Februarys that are not in leap years.)
Georgia. Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: "Tens of thousands of Georgia voters updated their registration after Kamala Harris took over the Democratic campaign from president Joe Biden. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger had removed thousands of voter registrations for a variety of reasons, but 40,000 voters have already updated their registration ahead of the Oct. 7 deadline -- and about a fourth of those did so on the day Harris rallied in Atlanta, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of the voter roll." (Also linked yesterday.)
Kentucky. David Chen & Kendra Sanchez of the New York Times: "Video of the fatal shooting of a judge in Kentucky was played in court on Tuesday, as prosecutors presented evidence of their case against the ex-sheriff charged with carrying out the killing on Sept. 19. In the footage, a man is seen opening fire on the judge, Kevin Mullins, who is pictured in his robes, sitting in his chambers in the Letcher County Courthouse in Whitesburg. When the judge tumbles out of his chair, the gunman walks around the desk and fires additional shots.... Prosecutors say that Shawn Stines, who had been the Letcher County sheriff for several years, was the shooter.... He pleaded not guilty last week during a virtual arraignment.... After his arrest, Mr. Stines, who is known as Mickey, announced through his lawyers that he was retiring, at age 43, 'to allow for a successor to continue to protect his beloved constituents while he addresses the legal process ahead of him.'"
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Israel/Palestine, et al. The New York Times' live updates of developments Wednesday in Israel's wars are here: "Israel has vowed to retaliate after Iran fired waves of ballistic missiles at it on Tuesday evening, putting the region on edge for fear of an all-out war between the longtime adversaries. Israeli officials said the missiles had mostly been intercepted by air defenses and with the help of Western allies. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Iran had 'made a big mistake tonight -- and it will pay for it,' leaving neighboring countries and international observers on alert for Israel's potential response." ~~~
~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Wednesday are here.
Vatican. They Don't Need to Discuss Much. Elisabetta Povoledo of the New York Times: "... when bishops and lay people convene Wednesday at the Vatican to talk about its future, one of the most contentious -- whether women can be ordained as deacons -- has already been taken off the agenda.... For many Catholics who are demanding a more egalitarian church, the synod -- as meetings of bishops are known -- was seen as an opening to address major issues considered taboo until recently, including the question of female deacons, the requirement that priests be celibate and the place of L.G.B.T.Q. people in the church."
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Reader Comments (22)
The word that came to mind tonight watching the debate regarding Vance - oleaginous. Is that an appropriate adjective?
@unwashed: Absolutely.
Perhaps "slimey" is more accurate?
Former presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama, and the sitting President, Biden, all delivered video greetings to Jimmy Carter on his 100th birthday. But not Trump. That horrible excuse for a human being took the opportunity to insult him.
Because of course he did. Carter, who set the standard for how an ex-president should conduct him or herself, insulted by the absolute dregs of former presidents, an asshole who spends his time grifting, lying, spreading chaos, and huddling with lawyers to try to avoid jail time in his many felony trials.
It’s doubtful the debate will move the needle either way, but it does show what a slick, smarmy con man Vance is. “Peaceful transfer of power”, “Trump gave the country great healthcare”…??
The Traitors are always quick to claim that Democrats change their points and way of speaking depending on their audience. Shady gave a master class in that skill last night. He made the Trump-Vance extremist ideology and promises of authoritarian dismantling of civil rights sound like reasonable exercises in democratic governance. He was slick and slippery about never answering any questions, employing a classic misdirection escape tactic each time he was called to account for at things like complete abortion bans and anti-democratic shenanigans.
Walz fumbled around a bit too much for my taste but at least he wasn’t lying through his teeth, and he did get in a couple of moderately good shots, nothing like how Harris pummeled Fatty, but he didn’t do any serious damage.
The most important takeaway was the sight of what a devious, shifty chameleon Vance can be. Here he was the crafty purveyor of good ol’ ‘merican values. Had he been talking to the MAGAts, he would have been yelling about Harris taking away their rights and making their kids undergo forced sex change operations. When you’re an empty vessel with no real convictions, you can easily adopt the look you think will help you the most in a particular situation. Walz may have stumbled but at least what you see is what you get. At heart, he’s a decent guy. With Vance, you get another opportunistic con man who’ll say anything to get what he wants.
We’ve had that already. The danger here is that he’s much slicker than Trump.
And while we know what a devious con artist Vance is, reading the primer they produced on the debate, it’s clear The NY Times can’t be trusted either.
AG’s Both Sides rag did a little dance prior to the debate in which it supposedly offered the opinions of disinterested observers.
Not.
Instead they picked two of Vance’s media pals to slather on the soft soap: Blow up Doll Douthat and Our Miss Brooks.
“Douthat is part of this roundtable even though, as [Times opinion page editor, Patrick] Healy says, he has a prior relationship with Vance, which means he can't possibly be objective. And we learn that this is also true of David Brooks:
Brooks: Like Ross, I’ve known Vance for a long time. In 2018, I gathered some friends at my house to help JD think through his life options. This route wasn’t the one we recommended! (And he didn’t think he’d have a career in politics, at least any time soon.)
So Healy is asking someone who served as J.D. Vance's life coach to offer opinions on his character and how he'll do tonight.
Brooks concedes that his mentee can be a tad unpleasant, but it's all liberals' fault:
I think the emergence of the angrier kind of Vance that Ross alludes to occurred when the ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ movie came out. Many critics not only savaged the movie (I thought it was melodramatic, but pretty decent). They also savaged Vance as a man, in snobby and immature ways. I spoke with Vance at the time and understood that anybody would be affected by this coastal condescending scorn. It was a classic red-pill moment. So if Vance returns the nastiness, he is not faking it.
Which tells you everything you need to know about whether this panel can pass judgment on Vance without pro-Vance bias. Brooks even dismisses the questions surrounding Vance's 180 on Trump:
... I don’t think Vance is being totally opportunistic. Yes, he has totally flip-flopped on Trump’s character. But his life mission is pretty much the same: to upend the policies that have favored knowledge workers and, in his view, betrayed other kinds of workers.
So it's cool that he's running with the guy he once referred to as ‘cultural heroin.’”
Did you catch how snobby, immature David Brooks rips anyone who didn’t like Vance’s “Hillbilly Effigy” as “snobby and immature”? And “coastal condescending scorn”? Brooks patented that shit years ago. Hey, at least for once he wasn’t blaming hippies for his never getting laid in college.
Anyway, it’s not like we expect the AG Times to be either fair or objective, but here’s more proof of that observation.
I wonder how Trump will handle all the "Vance is a better liar than Trump" stories that come out today. Showing up that boss is not something Donald has handled well in the past.
@Akhilleus: I doubt most of Trump/Vance's supporters will be upset by Vance's shape-shifting. Rather, they are understanding that the poor dear must say some things to appeal to the libs in order to win the election.
I am not so sure, however, that Vance is really an "empty vessel." I suspect he really believes some of the crap that falls into what Zack Beauchamp calls his "anti-democratic ideologies." If you don't believe that ordinary citizens should have a say in their governance, it's perfectly all right to do what-all is necessary to obtain their votes by subterfuge, if you cannot prevent them from voting at all.
Similarly, his view of women does fall into the "vessel" category: that is, their primary utility is as "vessels" to birth the heirs of JayDee & his ilk and thereafter to be the childrens' caretakers, under the direction of the fathers. Why, this caretaker function even gives some purpose to infertile old women. That's what his mother-in-law does.
I don't think, BTW, that JayDee is the sort of knee-jerk racist Trump is. Sure, JayDee says racist stuff, but he does so less out of enmity for minorities than for political purposes. If he has to "create" stories about "illegals" from "Haitia," he is doing so for some greater cause -- like instilling & reinforcing fear in White people -- not because he hates Black people.
Vance's views, BTW (or what I am guessing are his views), are entirely consistent with our heritage. They would not be out of place at the U.S. Constitutional Convention. The vaunted Founding Fathers were fine with limiting the vote to propertied White men and with treating women and Blacks as chattel. Earlier, in 1776, Abigail Adams begged her husband John in a letter to "remember the ladies" in any code of laws the new revolutionary government adopted. John wrote back, "I cannot but laugh.... We know better than to repeal our Masculine systems ... to the Despotism of the Peticoat."
Thomas B. Edsall, in the New York Times, writes about trump's shift in views on crypto and Silicon Valley’s shift in support for Trump. Edsall recalls the r party platform :
"The 2024 Republican Platform, carefully worded by Trump operatives, declares:
Republicans will end Democrats’ unlawful and un-American Crypto crackdown and oppose the creation of a Central Bank Digital Currency. We will defend the right to mine Bitcoin, and ensure every American has the right to self-custody of their Digital Assets, and transact free from Government Surveillance and Control."
gift link:
Why Trump Wants to Make America the ‘Crypto Capital of the Planet’
Crypto:
A paranoid's paradise....not to mention a grifter's.
Marie,
All good points. In fact I started rethinking the empty vessel analogy right away. You’re right about Vance. Despite his flip-flops, many name changes, and persona permutations, he does have an insidious heart of darkness. I suppose a more accurate analogy would be that Shady Vance is like a test tube that has been filled, emptied, and refilled with some other fetid fluids, but the bottom of that tube has a toxic sludge that never empties out. So while the ooze in the top three quarters of the tube can change colors and viscosity, there’s always that noxious black muck at the bottom.
Remember, guys, when Fatty mouths the word “crypto” he means “klepto”. A couple of years ago, he gave an interview in which he declared crypto currency to be a total scam. He clearly knew nothing about it (in all honesty, I’m no expert either but from what I do know, it seems like a dicey thing to get involved in. See Bankman-Fried, Sam).
Trump still doesn’t know shit about it, but as soon as he said “scam”, he must have thought “Hey, I’m a genius billionaire and I don’t understand this crypto stuff. There’s probably a million people out there who know less than I do [editor’s note: it’s extremely unlikely there are a million people out there stupider than Trump, but whatever…], I need to get in on this scam and fleece those suckers for all they’re worth.
And so now we have Trump Crypto! or whatever Junior and Stupid Eric are calling it. Presto! Trump Klepto!
Project 2025 thugs are coming for you.
According to ProPublica, over the last two years (since Project 2025 slithered out the door), three “investigators” working for the Heritage Foundation have inundated dozens of federal agencies and offices with over 50,000 FOIA requests.
The reason is twofold: first, fuck up the federal government with stupid requests, but more importantly, find out who needs be fired first in the coming Trump-Vance-Heritage purge of civil employees.
“Three investigators for the Heritage Foundation have deluged federal agencies with thousands of Freedom of Information Act requests over the past year, requesting a wide range of information on government employees, including communications that could be seen as a political liability by conservatives. Among the documents they’ve sought are lists of agency personnel and messages sent by individual government workers that mention, among other things, ‘climate equity,’ ‘voting’ or ‘SOGIE,’ an acronym for sexual orientation, gender identity and expression.
The Heritage team filed these requests even as the think tank’s Project 2025 was promoting a controversial plan to remove job protections for tens of thousands of career civil servants so they could be identified and fired if Donald Trump wins the presidential election.”
Anyone interested in fair elections has to go too:
“Heritage also used material gathered from a FOIA search to claim that a listening session the Justice Department held with voting rights activists constituted an attempt to ‘rig’ the presidential election because no Republicans were present.”
Let’s stipulate right now that no Republicans were involved in that sessions because Republicans have zero interest in voting rights, only vote suppression.
These guys are also looking for anyone talking about them. Anyone including the names of these Heritage goons has to get got. If an email or text message shows up with words like “equity” or “civil rights”, the senders are targeted. The Heritage goons also look for names and addresses of soon to be fired employees.
As for the nonsense requests…
“Indeed, a government worker who processes FOIAs for a federal agency told ProPublica that the volume of requests from Heritage interfered with their ability to do their job. ‘Sometimes they come in at a rate of one a second,’ said the worker, who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak to the press. The worker said they now spend a third of their work time processing requests from Heritage, including some that seek communications that mention the terms ‘Biden’ and ‘mental’ or ‘Alzheimer’s’ or ‘dementia’ or ‘defecate’ or ‘poop.’
‘They’re taking time away from FOIA requesters that have legitimate requests,’ said the worker. ‘We have to search people’s accounts for poop. This isn’t a thing. I can’t imagine a real reporter putting in a request like that.’”
Just imagine how many federal documents include the word “Biden”.
Oh yeah, these assholes are also involved in training incoming Heritage goose steppers and one of the things they’re teaching them is how to hide sensitive or secret communications from anyone making future FOIA requests, exactly what they’re doing.
This is some scary shit. And they’re not even trying to hide it.
On Tuesday, Cadet Bone Spurs belittled American service members who received traumatic brain injuries during a rocket attack as no big deal…a little headache.
“‘First of all, injured, what does injured mean?’ Trump replied. ‘You mean because they had a headache? Because the bombs never hit the fort.’
More than a dozen missiles struck the al-Asad Air Base in Iraq on January 8, 2020. No U.S. service members were killed but approximately 109 were diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries. Twenty-nine of the injured soldiers received Purple Hearts in the wake of the attack.”
But the MAGAts cheer this horrific asshole.
When he got his ear dinged he wanted to be treated like Jesus Christ on the cross. But anyone else?
Meh.
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-iran-soldier-injuries-headaches-b2622742.html
Donald Trump destroys lives.
"This is one of those horror stories about the loathsome piece of shit that New Yorkers know all too well. Everyone knows someone who was either scammed, ripped off, or had their life devastated by Trump."
Hurricane Relief
"Trump Admits "Truckloads" of Hurricane Relief Didn't Come from Campaign
Trump's campaign took credit for supplies delivered by Samaritan's Purse
Samaritan's Purse regularly arrives after a disaster to bring relief. Their semi-trucks are numbered and even have hurricane imagery on the side. Trump offered no explanation how his involvement added anything to the normal operation of Samaritan's Purse."
I was barely listening/viewing the debate last night, and that is my own stupidity. I did not hear Vance refuse to say Biden won the election, although I saw it later as a clip. Vance was being particularly phony the whole time-- you could tell he had memorized some of his most "brilliant" remarks, and the rest of the time he gazed at Walz so he couldn't be accused of never looking at him. Really, he is every bit as objectionably oily and putrid, toxic and lie-specific as his running mate, only possibly a bit more educated. I think Walz was terrified, and he did okay, if not "brilliantly" as of course Vance and Dumpface are brilliant performers. The MSNBC crowd was good to listen to afterwards. Apart from that, I don't think the needle moved and we can check that off the process.
The things that Toxic Sludge said in Wisconsin are historically demented. As in, a dementia patient is being treated as normal by the press, as usual. (And we needn't feel sorry for poor crazy Bozo-- he is choosing to behave as he always has, with the dementia added in as a spice...he is always despicable, crazy or not.) I no longer care if the big papers go down for the count. There are enough little ones whose reporting isn't phony and fraud-infested. Ugh.
If you haven’t watched the video RAS posted about how the Trump Monster ruins lives, do so. It’s truly sad. But here’s the thing. These are just a tiny fraction of the examples of Trump’s perfidious, greedy, criminally asshole nature. This is who he is. He will ruin your life to save a few bucks. Then smirk, and brag about it later, about what a great, savvy, genius businessman he is. Al Capone was a genius of sorts as well. He also destroyed lives. The difference? Capone went to prison. Trump calls for the destruction of anyone who dares to try to make him pay for the lives he’s ruined, the money he’s stolen, the country he tries to destroy. He is truly evil.
Re: Jack Smith’s damning case against the deadly violence suborning traitor, Donald J. Trump.
“The filing weaves together what prominent witnesses told a federal grand jury and the FBI about Trump, along with other never-before-disclosed evidence investigators gathered about the former president’s actions leading up to and on January 6, 2021.”
I’m pretty sure this isn’t what Fatty is referring to when he claims to “weave” non-sensical strands of lies, “sir” fairy tales, and outlandish non-sequiturs into histrionic fever dreams understandable to no one.
This one makes sense. And could (unless his Sou-preening Court buddies interfere) send his fat felonious ass to prison.
Shady’s panicky fear of being fact checked during the debate is essential to the whole Trump-Vance mendacity machinery.
Why is Fatty running from the 60 Minutes piece?
His wrestling flak thug, Steven Cheung, makes it absolutely clear.
He’ll be fact checked.
Run away!!!!
https://digbysblog.net/2024/10/01/trump-is-really-running-scared/
Photoshopped image of chubby jowl Shady being spread by a PoT pol. Gotta give that chubby liar the full AI treatment.
https://digbysblog.net/2024/10/02/yes-they-are-weird/
Permit me to grouse: (well, you always do, and I always do...:)Came in from running a couple of errands and Ari has on Gordon Sondland, the guy all in with Dump on Russian interference in 2016/Ukraine/Hunter Biden/Burisma (it all runs together in my head) and Sarah someone who resigned from the White House, and Peter Navarro, late of prison, who shut up Sarah by telling her she was totally wrong...she was womansplaining why the polls had Dump ahead on Election Night 2020, and then he lost due to mostly mail-in ballots not being able to be counted until election day...Peter Navarro is always wrong about everything and I wish Ari didn't bring these people on (again-- he's been there multiple times--)because we get to hear enough schlock/lies for anyone-- no one ever needs Peter Navarro.