The Conversation -- September 12, 2024
[BLAH, BLAH BLAH.] THERE WILL BE NO THIRD DEBATE! -- Donald Trump, in a post ~~~
~~~ ⭐ Trump Turns Tail. Brett Samuels of the Hill: "Former President Trump said Thursday he would not participate in another debate with Vice President Harris.... Shortly after Trump's social media post, Harris took to the stage for a rally in North Carolina where she addressed her desire to face the former president again. 'I believe we owe it to the voters to have another debate, because this election and what are at stake could not be more important,' Harris told supporters.... A CNN rapid poll found 63 percent of debate watchers said Harris won Tuesday's debate, compared to 37 percent who said Trump won. Multiple polls released Thursday showed Harris widening her lead over Trump nationally." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Who can blame him? His opponent would be a girl from India, who suddenly turned Black, then stole the votes of 14 million people & forced Joe Biden to pick her for president, then acted real nice to everybody except Trump, then whupped his ass in a debate after ABC gave her the questions in advance and ordered both moderators to help her out. And he still won anyway 93% to 7%, according to a very reliable poll.
Marshall Cohen, et al., of CNN: "A judge on Thursday threw out three charges in the sweeping Georgia election subversion case, including two charges that ... Donald Trump faces. The decision hasn't yet been formally applied to Trump because his case has been paused pending appeals. In a separate ruling, Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee also upheld the marquee racketeering charge in the case, which Trump is also facing."
North Dakota. Kate Zernike of the New York Times: "A North Dakota judge overturned the state's near-total abortion ban on Thursday, saying that the State Constitution protected a woman's right to abortion until the fetus was viable. 'The North Dakota Constitution guarantees each individual, including women, the fundamental right to make medical judgments affecting his or her bodily integrity, health and autonomy, in consultation with a chosen health care provider free from government interference,' wrote Judge Bruce Romanick of the district court in Burleigh County. The judge, who was elected to his position, also ruled that the law violated the State Constitution's due process protections because it was too vague in how it defined exceptions to the ban. The North Dakota attorney general has vowed to appeal the decision. And while the judge's order means that abortion will become legal soon, the procedure will remain largely unavailable because the only clinic in the state has moved to Minnesota, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights, which brought the suit in 2022 on behalf of that clinic."
Michael Shear, et al., of the New York Times: "For years..., Donald J. Trump has tried to stir up fears about immigrants with claims of caravans full of criminals and rapists heading toward America's southern border. In Tuesday night's debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, he doubled down on the vitriol, promoting a debunked conspiracy theory that Haitian immigrants were killing Americans' house pets and eating them for dinner. Mr. Trump's political goals appear to be the same as they always have been: to stoke anger and give people someone to blame for their misfortunes. But the debate highlighted how Mr. Trump has escalated his assaults on immigrants in the 2024 presidential campaign, and how he uses the issue to overshadow other topic...." ~~~
~~~ Marie: I suspect that Trump, the quintessential bully, was bullied when he was a kid because his mother and his paternal grandfather were immigrants. Probably some of the rich kids he wanted to hang with traced their roots to the Mayflower or the Dutch colonists of New Amsterdam. And these mean boys let little Donnie know he could never be one of them. A sense of inferiority is what drives Donnie to try to give others a lower status than the one he feels he occupies. Sad!
It saddens me to see the former president bring his hate show to Tucson, a town with deep Mexican American roots and a joyful, tolerant spirit. -- Linda Ronstadt, in a statement
Maggie Astor of the New York Times: "The singer Linda Ronstadt denounced Donald J. Trump on Wednesday night in a statement released before his scheduled visit to Tucson for a campaign rally on Thursday, saying she had felt compelled to speak out because his event would be held at a venue named after her. Her statement, which also endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, took aim at the former president on a range of issues, including the rape allegations against him -- he was found liable for sexual abuse in a civil case last year -- and his felony convictions in New York. She particularly objected to the policy during his presidency that separated thousands of migrant families...."
More Voter Suppression. Colby Itkowitz of the Washington Post: A GOP lawsuit to reject mail-in ballots with minor errors "is part of a nationwide legal campaign that the GOP has waged since 2020 to reject mail-in ballots. Republicans say the litigation is aimed at enforcement of election law, down to the letter. But critics see a strategy that has nothing to do with election integrity and everything to do with disqualifying voters who cast ballots by mail, an overwhelming majority of whom support Democrats.... Republicans have engaged in similar legal battles to throw out mail-in ballots over technical reasons in other states, including those, like Pennsylvania, considered crucial to the outcome of the presidential vote." The article cites efforts in Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan and Nevada.
Molly Hennessy-Fiske, et al., of the Washington Post: "An unprecedented number of abortion initiatives are on state ballots this November, nearly all seeking to protect reproductive rights, but opponents are trying to defeat them even before the start of voting through legal challenges, administrative maneuvers and, critics say, outright intimidation. In Missouri, the Republican secretary of state pulled an abortion rights measure from the November ballot until the state's highest court ordered him to include it. In Florida, the governor's election police arrived at voters' front doors to question them about signing a petition for an abortion referendum -- encounters that one man said 'left me shaken.' And in Arizona, the state's Supreme Court allowed government pamphlets on the proposed constitutional amendment there to describe a fetus as an 'unborn human being.'"
Isaac Arnsdorf of the Washington Post: "After an initial period of relative restraint, [Donald Trump] has begun blaming [the assassination attempt in Butler, Pa.,] on his opponents and amplifying conspiracy theories.... 'I probably took a bullet to the head because of the things that they say about me,' Trump said at Tuesday's ABC News debate.... 'It is creating a permission structure for at least some people to want to take matters into their own hands,' said Matt Dallek, a George Washington University professor...."
New York. Maria Cramer, et al., of the New York Times: "Edward A. Caban, the New York City police commissioner, announced his resignation in an email to the Police Department on Thursday, eight days after federal agents seized his phone as part of a criminal investigation. Commissioner Caban, 57, had been under pressure to resign from Mayor Eric Adams's administration, which had asked him to step aside on Monday, according to two people with knowledge of the matter."
The New York Times' live updates of developments Thursday in the Israel/Hamas war are here: "Condemnation of a deadly Israeli strike on a school turned shelter in central Gaza mounted on Thursday, as Israel said that the complex crowded with people driven from their homes had become a headquarters for militants. The site, once known as Al-Jaouni School, had been home to around 12,000 displaced people from the Gaza Strip, mainly women and children, according to the United Nations, which operated the school. Israel has struck the compound five separate times since the war began last October, it said. The Palestinian authorities said the Israeli strike on Wednesday killed 18 Gazans. Among them were six U.N. employees, including the shelter's manager, the most U.N. employees to die in a single strike in Gaza since the war began, the organization said."
Hurubie Meko of the New York Times: "Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced Hollywood mogul whose conviction for sex crimes in New York was overturned in April, is facing a new indictment, Manhattan prosecutors said in a hearing on Thursday. Mr. Weinstein, 72, was not in court on Thursday morning. He was still in Bellevue Hospital after being rushed from the Rikers Island jail complex for emergency heart surgery on Monday morning, according to jail records. The new indictment is still sealed and awaiting Mr. Weinstein's recovery so he can be arraigned, prosecutors said."
Hannah Rabinowitz of CNN: "Attorney General Merrick Garland slammed efforts to turn the Justice Department into a 'political weapon' during a fiery speech Thursday to department staff and US attorneys from across the country amid attacks from ... Donald Trump and his allies. Garland decried the 'escalation of attacks' against its career staff in years through 'conspiracy theories, dangerous falsehoods, efforts to bully and intimidate career public servants by repeatedly and publicly singling them out, and threats of actual violence.' The attorney general's comments come as Trump has claimed that the Justice Department has been weaponized against him amid his criminal prosecutions and suggested that he would politicize the department should he return to the Oval Office.... 'Our norms are a promise that we will not allow this nation to become a country where law enforcement is treated as an apparatus of politics,' Garland added to applause. Trump and his associates have publicly discussed plans to dismantle the department and its law enforcement components like the FBI, or to prosecute his political enemies.... Neither Trump nor his allies were mentioned by name." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Sorry, it's not a gutsy speech if you don't explicitly finger the perp, something Garland should have done years ago. Merrick the Unready remains unready. See Akhilleus's and Jeanne's commentary below on Merrick's "fiery" speech.
Joe DePaolo of Mediaite: "A viral clip has been making the rounds on the Right -- purporting to show music superstar Usher, during an appearance on The View, declining to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris.... Turning Points USA founder Charlie Kirk posted the clip on X... Prominent Right-wing accounts shared Kirk's clip -- and applauded Usher for his comments.... But the full video tells a very different story.... 'So you're supporting Kamala Harris in this election, I understand?' Behar asked Usher. 'Yes!' Usher replied, enthusiastically." MB: It's no wonder that no one on the right know what's going on.
The Company He Keeps, Ctd. Natalie Allison & Meredith McGraw of Politico: “Two loyal allies of Donald Trump are feuding over a bigoted post about Kamala Harris' Indian heritage, the latest sign of discord among MAGA surrogates as the former president seeks to regain his lead in the presidential race. Laura Loomer, a right-wing activist and close Trump ally, was rebuked by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on social media Wednesday evening after referencing racist and offensive cultural stereotypes about Harris, whose mother was Indian."
Hmmm. Kaia Hubbard of CBS News: "Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Thursday endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president, writing in an op-ed of the 'serious threat' Donald Trump poses to the rule of law.... The former attorney general, who resigned as attorney general in 2007 amid accusations that he had lied in front of Congress and a scandal over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, argued that the 'character of the person we elect in November' is of particular importance because members of Congress 'have proven spectacularly incapable or unwilling to check abuses of executive power.' He noted that while the Supreme Court has the ability to check presidential power, the high court's recent ruling in the presidential immunity case 'might allow a president to take official actions for personal, self-serving reasons.'"
~~~~~~~~~~
Lola Fadulu & Alyce McFadden of the New York Times: "Mourners gathered in Lower Manhattan and across New York City on Wednesday to commemorate the nearly 3,000 people who died in the Sept. 11 attacks 23 years ago and the many who have died from related illnesses since.... Earlier this week, New York Fire Department officials announced a sad milestone: The department has now lost more than 360 members to illnesses related to Sept. 11, exceeding the 343 members who died in the attacks. At least 11,000 members have illnesses linked to time spent at ground zero, officials estimated, and at least 3,500 have cancer. Some families are still fighting to receive federal benefits from the World Trade Center Health Program and the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund."
Jennifer Peltz & Karen Matthews of the AP: "With presidential candidates looking on, some 9/11 victims' relatives appealed to them Wednesday for accountability as the U.S. marked an anniversary laced with election-season politics. In a remarkable tableau, President Joe Biden..., Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris stood together at ground zero just hours after Trump and Harris faced off in their first-ever debate. Trump and Biden -- the successor whose inauguration Trump skipped -- shook hands, and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg appeared to facilitate a handshake between Harris and Trump. Then the campaign rivals stood only a few feet (meters) apart, Biden and Bloomberg between them, as the hourslong reading of victims' names began. At Trump's side was his running mate, Sen. JD Vance." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: Trump also falsely claimed that on September 13, he went down to Ground Zero "with hundreds of workers that he paid out of his own pocket to help find and identify the victims" and that he "helped a little bit." See also this NPR story by Scott Simon. Rather than paying workers to help dig out the Ground Zero, Trump collected $150,000 in federal relief funds to help small businesses recover from the 9/11 attack.
Shawn McCreesh of the New York Times: "On 9/11, firefighters greeted [Donald Trump] with high fives and hugs. But across the street, other New Yorkers were icy.... [Inside the firehouse that covers Wall Street,] Mr. Trump received [a] warm reception, despite his own complicated history on Sept. 11. On the day of the attack in 2001, after the twin towers fell, he boasted about his own tower downtown. 'Now it's the tallest,' he said then. (It was not the tallest.) Also, during his first run for president, he spread a false story about thousands of Muslims cheering the fall of the towers from New Jersey."
The Company He Keeps. AP: "Laura Loomer, a right-wing activist who posted last year that 9/11 was an 'inside job,' joined ... Donald Trump in New York and Pennsylvania on Wednesday as he commemorated the anniversary of the attacks.... Loomer said in a text message to The Associated Press that she doesn't work for the Trump campaign and that she was 'invited as a guest.'... Loomer was also spotted departing Trump's plane when he landed in Philadelphia for Tuesday's debate. Trump has a long history of elevating and associating with people who trade in falsehoods and conspiracy theories.... [Loomer] frequently makes anti-Islam and anti-immigrant posts on social media and has been targeting ... Vice President Kamala Harris, with vile racist and sexist attacks."
Presidential Race
The debate in song, courtesy of Joseph Gordon-Levitt & the Gregory Brothers for the New York Times: ~~~
Alex Weprin of the Hollywood Reporter: "Taylor Swift's endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris led to a surge of visitors to Vote.gov, the U.S. government website that helps citizens understand how they can register to vote. According to a spokesperson for the U.S. Government Services Administration, Swift's endorsement post on Instagram led directly to 337,826 people visiting vote.gov. [as of 2 pm on Wednesday]."
Josh Marshall of TPM: "... this debate was an absolute rout. Harris had a minute or two of nerves in her opening statement. But from the very first exchange she maintained the initiative, kept Trump on the defensive the entire time and simply dominated him.... Harris also managed what neither Joe Biden nor Hillary Clinton nor any of the 2016 Republicans managed to do which is successfully bait Donald Trump and get under his skin. Within a few minutes Trump was visibly angry and not in a way that empowered him but in a way that made him lose focus, go down rabbit holes and generally go off onto damaging tangents.... She came, she saw, she conquered. But tomorrow is another day. And there's still two hard fought months to go."
"What More Do You People Want from Kamala Harris?" Jonathan Last of the Bulwark: "Harris delivered the goods.... Harris has positioned herself as a centrist, Biden Democrat. Joe Biden made [Tuesday] night possible.... The ABC moderators did a good job.... As for the conservatives who are upset that ABC would point out Trump's lies, there is a simple remedy: Don't nominate as your presidential candidate an ignoramus who lies pathologically.... Also: If Donald Trump can't stand up to four fact checks from David Muir and Linsey Davis, then surely he's not capable of handling the demands of the presidency and facing down the Vladimir Putins of the world."
Jonathan Swan, et al., of the New York Times:"... Donald J. Trump went into sales-pitch mode immediately after Tuesday night's debate, walking into the spin room to extol his own performance, crowing on Fox News and going on a late-night posting spree to hype unscientific online polls that he said showed he had crushed Vice President Kamala Harris.... Mr. Trump was insisting the same things privately to advisers and allies in the hours after the debate, according to three people.... Mr. Trump appeared jubilant, as if he truly believed what he was telling them, the three people said. But Mr. Trump's actions after the debate told another story.... His aggressive spinning ... appeared to be an unspoken acknowledgment that his performance was suboptimal.... His aides and his allies were largely echoing his praise of his performance in public, but privately several conceded that the former president had a rough outing, in stark contrast to his more controlled appearance against [President] Biden. An exception was the recent Trump endorser Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 'Vice President Harris clearly won the debate in terms of her delivery, her polish, her organization and her preparation,' Mr. Kennedy said on Fox News on Wednesday...."
Marie: Here's what I thought was weird about the debate. Donald Trump is an experienced teevee actor. He used to play a business mogul on a popular teevee show. Yet here he was on the teevee, playing a president* -- another role he played for several years -- and when Kamala Harris spoke, all he did was glower at the camera. Harris, on the other hand, sometimes acting, sometimes not, reacted with any number of appropriate and animated expressions in response to Trump's attacks.
David Bauder of the AP: "An estimated 67.1 million people watched the presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, a sharp increase from the June debate that eventually led to President Joe Biden dropping out of the race. The debate was run by ABC News but shown on 17 different networks, the Nielsen company said. The Trump-Biden debate in June was seen by 51.3 million people. Tuesday's count was short of the record viewership for a presidential debate, when 84 million people saw Trump's and Hillary Clinton's first faceoff in 2016. The first debate between Biden and Trump in 2020 reached 73.1 million people."
Nahal Toosi of Politico in Politico Magazine: "By the time the debate was over, several foreign officials from both U.S. allies and more neutral countries told me they felt more confident that [Kamala] Harris could handle the tricky personalities she'd encounter while in the world's most powerful job. 'Composed, authoritative, and presidential,' one European diplomat raved.... Her ability to manage Trump offered assurance that she could navigate tough personal relationships. Given that international relations often come down to the nature of personal relations, this matters." (Also linked yesterday.)
Miriam Jordan of the New York Times: "Barely an hour before the presidential debate the father of an 11-year-old Ohio boy killed when an immigrant's minivan crashed into a school bus lashed out at Donald J. Trump and ... JD Vance. Speaking during public comment at a regular meeting of the Springfield City Commission, the father, Nathan Clark, called them 'morally bankrupt' politicians spreading hate at the expense of his son, Aiden.... The death of Aiden Clark ... just over a year ago shook residents of Springfield, a blue-collar town between Dayton and Columbus. And it touched off a wave of angry rhetoric over the thousands of immigrants from Haiti who have settled in the area since the pandemic.... Since [July], Mr. Vance has been highlighting the influx of Haitians to Springfield as a detrimental consequence of the Biden administration's border policies.... On Monday, the Trump campaign posted on social media about Aiden, including his photo and that of Hermanio Joseph, the Haitian immigrant who struck the bus. Then, on Tuesday, Vance referred to Aiden in a post on X, saying that 'a child was murdered by a Haitian migrant.'"
Ted Hesson, et al., of Reuters: "Haitian Americans said they fear for their safety after Donald Trump repeated a false and derogatory claim during this week's presidential debate about immigrants in Ohio. Haitian community leaders across the U.S. said the Republican candidate's remarks about immigrants eating household pets during his debate with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris could put lives at risk and further inflame tensions in the small city of Springfield, Ohio, where thousands of recent Haitian arrivals have boosted the local economy but also strained the safety net."
Peter Hermann & Jacqueline Alemany of the Washington Post: "The federal government will dramatically increase security protections for the joint session of Congress where lawmakers count states' electoral votes, an escalation of government-wide efforts to prevent a repeat of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, the Secret Service said Wednesday in a statement provided to The Washington Post. The Department of Homeland Security has designated the next electoral count -- scheduled for Jan. 6, 2025 -- a National Special Security Event, giving the once-routine post-election gathering the same level of security accorded to presidential inaugurations and political conventions, the Secret Service, which will take over security for the count, confirmed." The Hill's story is here. MB: So yet another cost of once having Donald Trump as president*.
Sarah Ellison, et al., of the Washington Post: Elon Musk's "false and misleading election posts add to the deluge of inaccurate information plaguing voting officials across the country. Election officials say his posts about supposed voter fraud often coincide with an increase in baseless requests to purge voter rolls and heighten their worry over violent threats. Experts say Musk is uniquely dangerous as a purveyor of misinformation because his digital following stretches well beyond the political realm.... After Musk bought Twitter, he made deep cuts in staff responsible for maintaining standards on the site, courted major conservative figures, and reoriented the platform to boost the reach of his account, which frequently spreads false statements without being subject to the kinds of fact checks that previously existed on the site. He reinstated accounts previously banned for violating the platform's rules, including Donald Trump's, and promised to usher in a less restrictive era."
Brianna Sacks of the Washington Post: "During a scorching, relentless wildfire season, Facebook has been flagging and removing dozens of posts containing links and screenshots from Watch Duty, a widely relied-upon wildfire alert app, as well as from federal and state agencies.... And it's ... happening ... to volunteer responders, fire and sheriff departments, news stations and disaster nonprofit workers across California and in other states, according to screenshots. The Washington Post has collected more than 40 examples of Facebook removing emergency-related posts.... In nearly every instance, the platform tells users that they violated the company's 'Community Standards on Spam' due to trying to get likes, follows, shares or views in a 'misleading way.'... Erin McPike, a Facebook spokesperson, said that the company is 'investigating this issue and working quickly to address it.' Facebook was not aware of the problem until The Post contacted the company."
Caitlin Emma & Olivia Beavers of Politico: "House GOP leaders pulled their six-month stopgap funding plan on Wednesday, hours before a scheduled floor vote. Facing a number of Republican holdouts, Speaker Mike Johnson said they'll delay the vote until next week as they work to quell Republican opposition and 'build consensus.'" (Also linked yesterday.)
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Arizona Republicans Are the Stupidest People in the World. Kyle Melnick of the Washington Post: "'EAT LESS KITTENS,' the billboards say. 'Vote Republican!' Arizona's Republican Party announced Tuesday that it had designed about a dozen of the billboards in the Phoenix area in response to false claims shared by some top Republicans [-- like Donald Trump & JD Vance --] that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating Americans' pets.... In a news release, the Arizona GOP said the billboards are 'a humorous, but sobering reminder of the stakes involved in the fight for secure borders and safe communities.'" ~~~
~~~ Marie: No, in reality, it's a sobering reminder that you pathetic nitwits have no familiarity with facts OR with the English language. If you insist upon slathering your racist, xenophobic lies over giant billboards, you might want to make that, "EAT FEWER KITTENS," you ignorant scum.
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Israel/Palestine, et al. Miriam Berger, et al., of the Washington Post: "The [Israeli Defense Forces] said [American] Aysenur Eygiwas shot 'unintentionally' during a 'violent riot.' A Post analysis shows clashes had subsided and protesters had retreated."
Ukraine, et al. Deborah Haynes & Adam Parker of Sky News: "... a day after the US said it believes the Russian military [had] received shipments of Iranian Fatah-360 ballistic missiles, satellite imagery ... captured a Russian-flagged cargo ship suspected of transporting ballistic missiles from Iran docked at a port in Russia a week ago. A Ukrainian source told Sky News the Port Olya 3 vessel had shipped around 220 short-range ballistic missiles via the Caspian Sea to Russia to be used for its war in Ukraine." The Sky News Data & Forensics team examined the satellite images.
News Ledes
New York Times: "Firefighters continued to battle three major wildfires burning through the steep mountains and brushy canyons of Southern California on Thursday. Cooler and wetter weather aided their efforts, but the destructive blazes remained worrisome enough to keep tens of thousands of people from returning to their homes. The three fires around Los Angeles, which together have charred 100,000 acres and destroyed dozens of homes, were among more than 65 large blazes burning across the United States on Thursday, mostly in the West." This is a liveblog.
New York Times: "Jon Bon Jovi helped talk a woman off the ledge of a bridge in Nashville earlier this week, the police said. Mr. Bon Jovi was filming a music video on the bridge just after 6 p.m. on Tuesday.... In a video released by the police, Mr. Bon Jovi and another person, whom other news outlets have identified as a production assistant, slowly approach the woman, who is on the edge of the bridge, facing outward, on the far side of a railing. They are seen speaking to her for a minute or so, before she turns around to face them, and they lift her over the railing to safety. Mr. Bon Jovi then hugs the woman and the three walk together along the bridge, attended by law enforcement officials." CNN's story is here.
Space.com: &"SpaceX's private crew of four astronauts performed the world's first commercial spacewalk while soaring high above Earth on Thursday (Sept. 12) during the third day of a five-day trip to Earth orbit. 'SpaceX, back at home we have a lot of work to do, but from here it looks like a perfect world,' Polaris Dawn commander Jared Isaacman, the American billionaire who financed the mission, said as he looked down on Earth while standing mostly outside the Dragon hatch."
The New York Times: is live-updating developments in tropical depression Francine which flooded New Orleans when it hit as a hurricane and is now moving inland.
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Reader Comments (36)
There's actually no reason to fact check Donald's utterances.
Just state before any of his speeches or debates that everything
that exits his pie hole will be a bald faced lie.
Forrest,
But even it’s technically true, the number of jaw dropping WTF utterances from this horror of a human being is astounding. On September 11, 2001, as lower Manhattan was in flames and thousands of people were dead and dying, this monster calls up a TV station to brag that now he owns the tallest building in the neighborhood.
We should have known then.
The problem, for normal people, with a moral core, was that millions of others heard him say that and thought “Oh! Donald! He’s my hero.”
This is why even when this abomination is in the ground we’ll still be screwed.
Bulwark
"Harris Managed To Do TV Better Than Trump
The vice president was, simply put, better at the medium the ex-president mastered."
Prepared
So Mr. Gonzales, who never struck me as a particularly staunch supporter of the law, has come out against the former president who broke more laws, more obviously, than the law-breaking guy he worked for.
It's hard to applaud anyone from the Bush II administration that killed hundreds of thousands and broke the Middle East, so I'll refrain and just say I take his editorial as the one that his boss didn't have the moxie to write for himself.
I think we all know The Decider was never a decider. Darth and Karl Rove made his decisions for him.
Those clever Arizona Republicans! According to Schrodinger's Law, actual kittens are countable, and so "fewer" is preferable to "less" when using a comparative. However, imaginary kittens are undifferentiated in any way understood by physics, and so there could in theory be less of them if the GOP ever decided to tone its hard rock hyperbole down to the equivalent of smooth alternative facts.
@Jack Mahoney: Okay, Jack, that was the most remarkable excuse for grammatical heresy I've ever read! Now I'm guessing you are the brains behind JayDee Vance's "explanations" for his various insults to people, places and things. His excuses have proved to be quite convoluted and inventive. He must have help. I hope you're charging him a lot.
I read somewhere that Elon Musk proposed helping all those cat
ladies out by getting them with child.
His bio in Wikipedia is an interesting read. Under Relationships and
children, the first line is: 'Musk has at least 12 children.'
Most normal people would kinda know the actual number of children
they have. But then, reading about past wives and relationships you can see why he wouldn't know. At times, two of his wives or girlfriends were pregnant at the same time,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Works_cited
@Forrest Morris: As far as I know, the only cat lady Elon has offered to impregnate was Taylor Swift. I assume Taylor gets a lot of disgusting propositions, but that one should make her gag.
We all know the right wing isn't going to vanish with the end of Trump. Here's one of his "wannabe's" efforts against a citizens inititiave on abortion to the Florida constitution.
https://floridapolitics.com/archives/695593-democrats-call-for-federal-probe-into-gov-desantis-using-state-power-against-abortion-
amendment.
It's really getting intense.
Oh, Marie-- as I was reading about the culinary cats billboards, I was hissing to myself "FEWER! Fewer! Fewer!" I used to be a proofreader for a widely published, popular coupon magazine, and I did a bit of editing and headline inventing, and the LESS/FEWER mistake was one I saw and corrected on a daily basis.
Maybe grammar as we know it is no longer taught, and the artists and copy editors and salespeople didn't have a clue at all about most of it. The sad thing that followed is that the owners of said company began the business from their college dorm rooms (two brothers and a friend), have since sold it, and it was acquired three times before Covid sent me to "retirement haven." The current owners (who also own ValPac) have fired all the proofreaders or have redirected them to other jobs, and they just don't give a flip about the niceties of the language. Ditto most magazines and newspapers. On the one hand, one can believe that we all know grammar sort of instinctively, and need no policing, OR that we don't care about learning or edumacating, so who cares about the frills and folderol, anyhoo...
I was pretty nervous about the "debate" but thought Kamala did a great job in spite of the tsunami of nonsense and lies threatening to deluge us all. I am bitter that, in spite of the jackass spitting who-knows-what all over us all, there are naysayers STILL faulting her for not using GQP-style bullet points of ALL her planned policies, never mind the clown who has "concepts" of plans (?!) and can't enumerate anything that makes any sense. Cannot listen to them, even if they claim to be "concerned" Democrats. They can take their "concerns" and their "I-didn't-get-enough-to-decides" and shove 'em where the sun don't shine.
Elon told Swift "I will give you a child". Maybe he meant that he would give her one of the 12+ of his kids. Maybe he doesn't know how many he has because he is always offering to give them away to others.
A dish eaten cold…
A delicious bit of arch irony connected to the absolute ass kicking delivered to the Orange Monster the other night by Kamala Harris has to do with the location of said posterior punishment:
The National Constitution Center, in Philadelphia, where that founding document, the one the Fat Fascist has promised to tear up, was signed 237 years ago, almost to the day (September 17, 1787).
It was as if the building itself, empowered by the history it protects, history that Trump and the Traitors seek, at every turn, to deny, to demean, to despoil, said “Not in our house you don’t”.
Arch irony indeed. Even better when you consider the address of that establishment: Arch Street.
Now if we could only entice the treasonous supremes into that building…hey! Maybe they could read the actual document (as opposed to the MAGA version, which says simply “I have an article two”). Think it would help?
Nah. Me neither. But at least the Constitution had its revenge the other night on the flabby felon who would disembowel it.
Test
Creampuff Casper Milquetoast Garland delivered a “fiery speech”?
Yeah…I dunno. I doubt it. “Fiery” and “creampuff” aren’t exactly synonyms. Maybe it was someone pretending to be Garland? Maybe he and Jack Smith did a Vulcan mind meld?
Maybe the reporter meant to write “furry” and Otto decided to have some fun? Maybe he had a gas attack in the middle of the speech, the physical symptoms of which were misinterpreted.
Maybe he’s had testicle tanning treatments?
Maybe the reporter said to his editor “Oh, c’mon. It’d be fun to say “fiery”! Who’ll know the difference?”
Me. Over here. Yeah. Me. I noticed.
Test
Marie,
Sorry for all the “tests”. I’m guessing you’re sending comments through manually, not Squarespace.
Thanks.
@Akhilleus: Your guess would be correct. As I was working on a couple of entries, I could see that a bunch of comments were coming in, and I just figured you -- or somebody -- was getting the Squarespace brushoff. I didn't even check the comments before I went to my spam file, which is mostly full of fake spam; i.e., real comments.
Paying his respects
@RAS
ya notice the 2 drumpf boys watching the back of his orange coif...
...all in the family.
On gas prices:
I see that following the debate Lindsay Graham touted the gas prices at the close of the Pretend administration. Under two bucks a gallon, he said, forgetting to mention the nation was at a pandemic standstill.
But it made me look up gas prices over the years. WA ST has high gas prices. I pay about $3.50 a gallon with the cash discount. The national average yesterday was $3.25.
In 1930, in inflation adjusted dollars, gas was around $3.00 a gallon. Not all that bad for a diminishing resource, is it?
Big Oops!
Make that in 1960....
@Ken Winkes: According to this site, gas costs about the same now as it did in the 1920s (i.e., before the stock market crash & Great Depression). For instance, it was $3.63/gallon in 1925. (I saw it was $3.11 at my local station this week.) The pandemic prices were remarkably low for obvious reasons. I don't think Lindsey Graham is as dumb as he pretends to be.
Marie,
Thanks.
Nor do I think Lindsey is dumb.
Says a lot about a country, tho, that playing dumb is one sure path to political success.
AK: yeah, I caught a few minutes of Merrick's very soft-spoken coma-inducing yackety fest. To call that "fiery" a la CNN is lots of bridges too far. I have about given up on anyone in the news biz being able to correctly label anything. They think they must EDIT every nasty word issuing from the pie hole of Monstrous Mango to be something else, like they have been doing for nine years, and this was editing Slo-Poke Garland to the extreme. Maybe his staff insisted on that description.
So…the Orange Weasel turns tail and skeedadles.
Big surprise.
Typically, cowardly bullies, when they have their favorite target in their sight and their pack of equally cowardly sycophants at hand, never blow off an opportunity to pound a helpless, friendless target in order to show off their manliness and bolster their street cred with the ball lickers.
The only time this vicious, disgusting playbook is not followed is when the bully has been kicked in the balls so hard he’s trying out for the castrati part in the school musical.
Fat, fat fatty has no appetite for a second beat down at the hands of a black-Asian woman he’s been calling stupid, a woman who emasculated him in front of the entire world, and did it without breaking a sweat. She even told him what he was going to do. She was like Larry Bird going up to a defender and telling him exactly how he was going to make him drop his jock, then doing it. Harris said “Hey, Fatso, I’m gonna go right, dribble behind my back, back your ass off, then sink a twenty foot jumper, left-handed! And there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Of course, with such weird tiny genitalia, Fatty doesn’t need a jock, but that Kleenex that takes its place was duly soiled as Harris drove past his flabby, waddling ass, and took it to the hole.
Naturally, he claims he won, but the scoreboard tells the tale:
Harris 123
Fatty 0
Oops.
No wonder he doesn’t want a rematch. Loser.
According to the media's earlier declarations Harris should be able to just unilaterally declare a debate, time and place. The media believed that Trump had that power.
RAS,
C’mon, dude. Of COURSE Trump has that power.
He’s a white man. Well, okay, maybe not a real man, but he’s white and rich.
Harris ain’t. Nuff said.
But Akhilleus I have been assured by preeminent journalists that the news media is neutral and treats all comers the same, lol. Yes, I know Harris would get attacked by the media for declaring a debate on her own. Five pinocchios and front page news and endless " how dare she". I heard a clip of Trump being asked about a possible Fox News debate with Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum and Trump was too shook to have that level of "journalist" so he suggested Hannity or Ingraham for moderator of an actual presidential debate. I think his family only game him 70% win percentage.
Harris's Trump stand in Philippe Reines said this about Trump, "Trump's style is easy to understand and provoke: "He's not a Rubik's Cube. He's not hard to figure out. He's Jenga. You know, you just push one thing, and he falls apart.""
Self-own
JD Vance “Of course, well look, we admire Taylor Swift’s music, but I don’t think most Americans, whether they like her music, are fans of hers or not, are gonna be influenced by a billionaire celebrity who I think is fundamentally disconnected from the interests and problems of most Americans.”
Now that DiJiT has announced he won't debate again, here's his new walk-on music for his rallies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt81gzIAt18
Marie,
Yeah, Fatty was a third rate “actor” in a boring, highly produced doo-doo dance.
He had makeup people (they earned their money), lighting experts, a phalanx of executive producers, line producers, associate producers, set designers, decorators, casting coordinators, gophers to fetch him Diet Cokes and Big Macs, while waddling around the set waiting for someone to tell him what to say, when to say it, and to whom.
At the debate, he had no huge support staff to tell him how things are going to go and make sure he looks far better than he does in real life.
The thing that made Harris jump off the screen was her competence, confidence, smarts, preparation, quick wit, and essential humanity. Fatty, on his shitty TV show, played a one dimensional, dim witted manqué, whose only role was to follow orders and say “You’re fired!”
He’s like a Milli Vanilli phony musician who needs a battery of professionals and fancy music production software to make him sound good. I once got off a plane at JFK and, walking though the airport, saw a crowd surrounding two musicians. It was Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart of Eurythmics fame. They were busking, between flights I guessed. No amps, no back ups, no pitch fixing software, just an acoustic guitar and their voices. They killed. Why? They were the real thing.
Trump couldn’t do that with a roomful of backups and pros laying down the tracks.
The only thing real about Trump is his assholism.
Patrick,
The Harris-Walz campaign had similar thoughts
I never saw "The Apprentice" TV but understand that DiJiT's biggest talent was having fantastic film editors who could manipulate the videos to make him look competent. A lot different than "LIVE! FROM PHILADELPHIA ..." ....
Patrick,
Indeed.
The Pretender has only one talent: his ability to convey immense self-confidence to the uncritical.
Once Harris very publicly took that away from him, there was nothing left but the deflated body and the same old tired lies.
I don't think she should even schedule a debate, although she could. Thereafter, she can use that to drive home his hypocrisy, his fright, his inability to even visualize what his "presidency" was or will be. She can pound on it from here on in. Yeah, yeah, I know-- she is playing with a deck I have never seen. Go, Kamala! Buying my tee shirt tonight, have my NOPE with a slash of "blond" hair flag flying outside my porch and two Harris/Walz signs out front. In the morning, a garden flag for the alley as people zoom off to work. There are actually a bare minimum of Dump flags and signs in my 'hood, so I hope to see my signs stay for a while.