The Ledes

Sunday, December 22, 2024

New York Times: “Rickey Henderson, the thrilling and charismatic Hall of Fame outfielder who, with his signature crouched stance, blazing speed and unlikely home run power, was widely regarded as the greatest leadoff hitter in Major League Baseball history, died on Friday. He was 65.”

New York Times: “Five people were injured on Saturday after a man drove his pickup truck through the glass doors of a J.C. Penney in a mall in Killeen, Texas, and continued to drive through the building before he was shot and killed by the police, the authorities said. At about 5 p.m., the driver, whose identity was not released, was in a black pickup truck on a highway when officers tried to stop him for possible drunken driving, said Sgt. Bryan Washko with the Texas Department of Public Safety. Instead of stopping, the driver drove to the Killeen Mall and smashed his car through the doors of the J.C. Penney, Sergeant Washko said. The man drove through the mall and hit multiple people, five of whom had injuries that were minor to severe. Those injured ranged from 6 to 75 years old, Sergeant Washko said.”

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Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

Help!

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

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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.

New York Times: "Neil Cavuto, a business journalist who hosted a weekday afternoon program on the Fox News Channel since the network began in 1996, signed off for the final time on Thursday[, December 19]. Mr. Cavuto could be an outlier on Fox News, often criticizing President Trump and his policies, and crediting the Covid-19 vaccination with saving his life."

Have Cello, May Not Travel. New York Times: “Sheku Kanneh-Mason, a rising star in classical music who performed at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in 2018 and has since become a regular on many of the world’s most prestigious concert stages, was forced to cancel a concert in Toronto last week because Air Canada refused to allow him to board a plane with his cello, even though he had purchased a separate ticket for it.... 'Air Canada has a comprehensive policy of accepting cellos in the cabin when a separate seat is booked for it,' it said in a statement. 'In this case, the customers made a last-minute booking due to their original flight on another airline being canceled.' The airline’s policy for carry-on instruments, outlined on its website, specifies that travelers must purchase a seat for their instruments at least 48 hours before departure.”

Here are photos of the White House Christmas decorations, via the White House. Also a link to last year's decorations. Sorry, no halls of blood-red fake trees.

Yes, You May Be a Neanderthal. Me Too! Washington Post: “A pair of new studies sheds light on a pivotal but mysterious chapter of the human origin story, revealing that modern humans and Neanderthals had babies together for an extended period, peaking 47,000 years ago — leaving genetic fingerprints in modern-day people.... [According to the report in Science,] Neanderthals and humans interbred for 7,000 years starting about 50,500 years ago.... Modern humans, Homo sapiens, originated in Africa about 300,000 years ago. Somewhere around 50,000 to 60,000 years ago, a key group left the continent and encountered Neanderthals, a hominin relative that was established across western Eurasia but went extinct about 39,000 years ago.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Maybe you parents were upset when you told them you planned to marry someone of a different race or religion. But, hey, think how distressed they would have been if you'd told them you were hooking up with a person of a different species!

There's No Money in Bananas. New York Times: “A week after a Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur bought an artwork composed of a fresh banana stuck to a wall with duct tape for $6.2 million at auction, the man, Justin Sun, announced a grand gesture on X. He said he planned on purchasing 100,000 bananas — or $25,000 worth of the produce — from the Manhattan stand where the original fruit was sold for 25 cents. But at the fruit stand at East 72nd Street and York Avenue, outside the doors of the Sotheby’s auction house where the conceptual artwork was sold, the offer landed with a thud against the realities of the life of a New York City street vendor. [Even if it were practicable to buy that many bananas at once,] the net profit ... would be about $6,000. 'There’s not any profit in selling bananas,' [the vendor Shah] Alam said.”

Jeremy Barr of the Washington Post on what's to become of MSNBC: “In the days that followed [the November election], MSNBC began seeing a significant decline in viewership (as has CNN), as left-leaning viewers opted to turn off the channel rather than watch the aftermath of Donald Trump’s victory. One of the network’s most valuable franchises, 'Morning Joe,' faced backlash after hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski revealed Nov. 18 that they had traveled to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in an effort to 'restart communications.'... Questions about the future of the network picked up considerably Nov. 20, when parent company Comcast announced that it would spin off MSNBC and some of its other cable channels into a separate company.... The fear inside the building is about whether the move could portend a less ambitious future for MSNBC — with a smaller, lower-compensated staff and a lot less journalism, considering the network will be separated from the NBC News operation that contributes much of the reporting.”

The Washington Post introduces us to Lucy, the small, hominid ancestor of humans who lived 3.2 million years ago. American paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson discovered her skeleton in Ethiopia exactly 50 years ago, beginning on November 24, 1974. Eventually, about 40 percent of Lucy's skeleton was recovered.

New York Times: “Chris Wallace, a veteran TV anchor who left Fox News for CNN three years ago, announced on Monday that he was leaving his post to venture into the streaming or podcasting worlds.... He said his decision to leave CNN at the end of his three-year contract did not come from discontent. 'I have nothing but positive things to say. CNN was very good to me,' he said.”

New York Times: In a collection of memorabilia filed at New York City's Morgan Library, curator Robinson McClellan discovered the manuscript of a previously unknown waltz by Frédéric Chopin. Jeffrey Kallberg, a Chopin scholar at the University of Pennsylvania as well as other experts authenticated the manuscript. Includes video of Lang Lang performing the short waltz. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The Times article goes into some of Chopin's life in Paris at the time he wrote the waltz, but it doesn't mention that he helped make ends meet by giving piano lessons. I know this because my great grandmother was one of his students. If her musical talent were anything like mine, those particular lessons would have been painful hours for Chopin.

New York Times: “Improbably, [the political/celebrity magazine] George[, originally a project by John F. Kennedy, Jr.] is back, with the same logo and the same catchy slogan: 'Not just politics as usual.' This time, though, a QAnon conspiracy theorist and passionate Trump fan is its editor in chief.... It is a reanimation story bizarre enough for a zombie movie, made possible by the fact that the original George trademark lapsed, only to be secured by a little-known conservative lawyer named Thomas D. Foster.”

Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion — reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks. ~~~

     ~~~ Update: With the help of contributor Forrest M., I found that probably the easiest to get the Onion's latest videos is by entering into your search box: https://www.youtube.com/@TheOnion

 

Contact Marie

Email Marie at constantweader@gmail.com

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Friday
Oct182024

The Conversation -- October 18, 2024

Kamala Harris has four U.S. Presidents pulling for her, including three who are campaigning for her. Donald Trump, he's got zero.

Ivana Saric of Axios: "Former President Trump's planned appearance at a National Rifle Association event next week was cancelled Thursday, the latest in a slew of scuttled public appearances and interviews by the former president in recent weeks.... The NRA said Thursday it had cancelled its 'Defend the 2nd' event with Trump in Savannah, Georgia, next week due to ;campaign scheduling changes.'... Vice President Kamala Harris, on the other hand, has been on a media blitz after enduring criticism from Republicans about a perceived lack of interviews. And while Harris has ventured into the unfriendly territory of a Fox News interview, Trump has stuck to the safe spaces of conservative outlets. In the appearances he has made, Trump's rhetoric has grown more violent and nativist. In recent weeks, he has decried his critics as the 'enemy from within' and fanned the flames of false conspiracy theories about migrants." ~~~

     ~~~ Things Fall Apart. Scott Lemieux in LG&$: "Trance dance Don's cognitive difficulties are beginning to break containment.... Even the famously wired-for-Trump Politico Playbook can't avoid the obvious: 'Recently, it's become something of a pattern: Trump is scheduled for an interview with a neutral media outlet, the date nears and then ... things fall apart.... Playbook has learned that yet another outlet was given an explanation by Trump's team for why their own interview wasn't coming to fruition: exhaustion.... When describing why an interview hadn't come together just yet, a Trump adviser told The Shade Room producers that Trump was 'exhausted and refusing [some] interviews but that could change' at any time, according to two people....'"

Yo, MAGA voters, say goodbye to that "freedom of the press" Constitutiony thing: ~~~

Ted Johnson of Deadline: "Near the end of an appearance Friday on Fox & Friends, Donald Trump told the hosts that he was following up his guest spot with a 'big event': a meeting with Rupert Murdoch. Trump also said that he would be telling Murdoch 'something very simple because I can't talk to anybody else about it. Don't put on negative commercials for 21 days, and don't put on there the horrible people that come in love. I am going to say, "Rupert, please do it this way." And then we are going to have a victory. Because I think everyone wants to have a victory.' On his social media platform Truth Social, Trump has been bashing Fox News for featuring Democrats, including Ian Sams, a spokesperson for Kamala Harris' campaign. Trump wrote on Truth Social earlier this week, 'Sams is just a below average guy, with memorized FAKE NEWS soundbites, almost all of which are WRONG, but coupled with all of the other Harris Radical Left Democrat mouthpieces that Fox puts on (Richard Fowler, Patrick Murphy, "something" Wolf, Jessica Tarloff?), it has a very negative effect on the Election.... Trump also has recently suggested that CBS and ABC should lose their broadcasting licenses -- CBS for the way that a 60 Minutes interview with Harris was edited, and ABC for David Muir and Linsey Davis' fact checking during the presidential debate last month." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: If you're having a little trouble interpreting Trump's planned "big event" with Rupert, allow me to sane-splain/translate it: "I'm going to tell Rupert not to run any ads against me and not to invite any Harris surrogates or supporters on your shows. P.S. Fire contributors who might say something 'negative' about me.

Irie Sentner of Politico: "Donald Trump says Fox News employees helped him write his jokes for the Al Smith dinner. Fox says that's fake news. The former president ... said Friday morning on 'Fox & Friends': 'A couple of people from Fox actually -- I shouldn't say that -- but they wrote some jokes, and for the most part, I didn't like any of them.' The network disputed that claim. In a statement, a Fox News spokesperson said: 'Fox News confirmed that no employee or freelancers wrote the jokes.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Let's just assume, for argument's sake, the Fox denial is accurate. That means that Trump either lied, was misinformed or is delusional about who wrote those jokes, then said he didn't like the jokes that maybe didn't exist at all. In any event, the "jokes" Trump did like were cruel and profane.

Nicholas Liu of Salon: "Trump might have encapsulated his performance [at the Al Smith dinner] in one sentence during his speech. 'I don't give a s**t if this is comedy or not,' he declared, before calling former New York City mayor Bill de Blasio a 'terrible mayor' who did a 'horrible job -- that's not comedy, by the way, that's a fact.'... Though Trump was greeted with some laughter and applause (but also gasps and boos) at the event itself, other people ... were outspoken with their displeasure.... Former Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., told CNN's Kasie Hunt that her husband, who teaches at a Catholic girls school, called her at the middle of the dinner about 'what a buffoon and what an ungodly, profanity-laced hot mess that dinner was, because he knows what that Catholic dinner is supposed to be. This was somebody who was just being horrendous at that dinner, swearing in front of priests -- who does that?'" MB: Comstock has endorsed Kamala Harris for president. ~~~

~~~ Normalizing a Madman. Lee Moran of the Huffington Post: "Critics condemned the appearance of Donald Trump at the Al Smith charity dinner in New York on Thursday, saying it 'normalized' the GOP presidential nominee's divisive and hateful rhetoric.... Commentators thought the shindig, during which guests laughed at Trump's jokes, validated and reinforced his toxic ideologies." Ron Filipkowski of Meidas Touch wrote on X: "Kamala Harris absolutely made the right call not to attend the Al Smith dinner with Trump. You don't normalize a deranged madman who wants to annihilate the Constitution by joking around with him at a roast."

Alan Feuer & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "A federal judge [Tanya Chutkan] on Friday ordered the release of a heavily redacted trove of evidence supporting the contention by federal prosecutors that ... Donald J. Trump illegally sought to overturn the 2020 election. In ordering the release, the judge was rejecting objections by Mr. Trump's legal team that making even a largely blanked-out version of the material public now would constitute interference in the presidential election. The materials -- a four-part appendix to a lengthy brief recently filed by the special counsel, Jack Smith -- consisted of 1,889 pages. But most of it was redacted and can only be seen by the parties involved in the case. The remainder appeared to consist almost entirely of previously released memos, social media postings, transcripts and other known materials."

Ben Protess & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times flesh out the story Rachel Maddow reported earlier this week about one of Donald Trump's lawyers offering Stormy Daniels another hush-money payoff. "The nondisclosure agreement would have once again silenced Ms. Daniels in the heart of a presidential campaign. And although the circumstances did not resemble the cover-up that Mr. Trump was prosecuted for -- it is not illegal to propose a nondisclosure agreement -- the effort underscored his familiar tactic of using a financial exchange to control what gets said about him.... It is unclear whether Mr. Trump directed Mr. Ross to suggest the nondisclosure agreement.... [Mr. Trump's lawyer, Harry] Ross, reached on his cellphone, hung up on a reporter, and did not respond to an email seeking comment on his letter. Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump's campaign, issued a vague legal threat to The Times in a statement...."

Gary Robertson of the AP: "More North Carolina residents turned out to cast ballots on the first day of early voting this year than in 2020, even as residents from the mountainous western portion of the state continued to recover from the devastating effects of Hurricane Helene. Preliminary data shows a record 353,166 people cast ballots at more than 400 early voting sites statewide on Thursday, compared to 348,599 on the first day in October 2020, the State Board of Elections said Friday."

The New York Times' live updates of developments Friday in Israel's wars are here: "The leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, was killed by a gunshot wound to the head, according to the director of Israel's national forensic institute, Dr. Chen Kugel, who oversaw the autopsy and described its findings in an interview with The New York Times on Friday. He said that shrapnel, possibly from either a small missile or tank shell, had earlier hit Mr. Sinwar's arm, causing bleeding that he was trying to stanch by using an electrical cord as an impromptu tourniquet. 'But it wouldn't have worked in any case,' Mr. Kugel said. 'It wasn't strong enough, and his forearm was smashed.'"

Michael Shear, et al., of the New York Times: "President Biden on Friday urged Germany and other Western allies not to waver in their support for Ukraine, using what may be his final trip to Europe as president to bolster the grueling fight against Russia's invasion. 'German leaders had the wisdom to recognize a turning point in history, an assault on a fellow democracy, and also on principles that upheld 75 years of peace and security in Europe,' Mr. Biden said after receiving Germany's highest honor during a ceremony at the Bellevue Palace in Berlin. Mr. Biden added that the allies must continue to work tirelessly to 'ensure that Ukraine prevails and Putin fails and NATO remains strong and more united than ever.... We're headed into a very difficult winter... We cannot let up. We cannot.'"

Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "House Democrats on Friday accused ... Donald J. Trump of accepting 'hundreds of unconstitutional and ethically suspect payments' through the Trump International Hotel in 2017 and 2018, moving weeks before the election to remind voters of the ethical issues raised by his refusal to divest from his businesses while in office. The 58-page report from Democrats on the Oversight Committee includes their final findings in a yearslong investigation.... It accuses Mr. Trump of ripping off the Secret Service by charging the agency exorbitant rates and of inappropriately accepting payments from clients who worked for state governments or were seeking appointments and pardons from him. 'Mr. Trump has made clear that he will not only refuse to divest from his businesses in a possible future presidency, but he will seek to multiply opportunities to commodify the Oval Office for his personal enrichment by turning thousands of civil service jobs into patronage positions -- all with the attendant payoff possibilities from supplicant job-seekers and the prospective blessing of his handpicked Supreme Court justices,' said Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee."

"A Very Stable Genius." Brett Samuels of the Hill: "Former President Trump on Friday responded to a barrage of attacks from Vice President Harris that he's 'unstable' and 'unhinged.'... 'First of all, the question is a pretty rough question because you know you're giving this whole argument of this woman who, I don't think she knows where she is. She's a low IQ person. She's not smart,' Trump said of Harris [during an in-studio visit to 'Fox & Friends']. 'I am the most stable human being. Remember they said "a stable genius,"' Trump added, referring to his own tweet in which he described himself as a 'very stable genius.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Notice that Trump is so disoriented, disconnected with reality, and might I add, unstable and unhinged, that he thinks that "they," i.e., other people, described him as "a stable genius" when in fact it was he who asserted, in what I consider an odd choice of descriptors, as a "stable genius." We have often accused Trump of projecting his own traits onto others, but in this instance he's projecting a projection of a trait onto himself.

Filip Timotija of the Hill: "Veteran journalist Bob Woodward outlined a recent email he received from former Defense Secretary James Mattis, where he seemingly agreed with Woodward's dire warning about a second Trump administration. During an appearance Thursday on 'The Bulwark Podcast,' Woodward told the host that Mattis -- who served under former President Trump -- acknowledged Gen. Mark Milley's assessment that the former president is 'the most dangerous person ever' and seemed to concur. 'He thinks the book is important,' the muckraker said of Mattis. 'He believes it's true. And it was a kind of, you know, "Hey, I understand this." It was the strongest endorsement.'... Mattis was Trump's first defense secretary. He resigned in December 2018 after a fallout with the former president over the withdrawal of American troops from Syria."

~~~~~~~~~~

Presidential Race

Maeve Reston of the Washington Post: "Vice President Kamala Harris chided Donald Trump on Thursday for his revisionist history on the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol -- accusing him of 'gaslighting' the American people with his recent assertion that it was a 'day of love.'... At all her rallies this week -- including here in Wisconsin -- Harris has said Trump is 'unstable' and 'seeking unchecked power.' Campaigning in two Wisconsin cities, Harris touted her own combative performance on Fox News on Wednesday night as a show of her willingness to speak to people 'no matter their political party' or 'where they get their news.' She noted that on the same night, Trump had appeared at a Univision town hall where a 56-year-old self-described Republican said he was alarmed by what took place on Jan. 6, 2021, and wanted to give the former president the 'opportunity to try to win back my vote.' Trump responded by calling it 'a day of love' and seemed to include himself when referring to those who entered the Capitol that day as 'we.'... Harris's criticism of Trump followed a week in which her campaign has tried to paint him as confused, incoherent and unstable." More on Trump's recent remarks re: January 6 below.

Yes, Trump Is a Fascist. Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "The word 'fascist' has hovered around ... Donald J. Trump from the moment he rode down his golden escalator in 2015 to warn of Mexican rapists and drug dealers.... But for most top Democrats, it was a provocative term loaded with dread, historical import and potential incitement -- best left unsaid. Until Vice President Kamala Harris this week made clear -- again and again -- that it would be just fine with her to use the word. On Tuesday, as the radio host Charlamagne Tha God interviewed Ms. Harris, he interjected as the vice president contrasted her vision with her rival's. 'The other is about fascism,' he said of Mr. Trump's vision. 'Why can't we just say it?' Ms. Harris's response: 'Yes, we can say that.' On Wednesday, speaking in Washington Crossing, Pa., Ms. Harris quoted Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Mr. Trump, describing his former boss as 'fascist to the core,' as detailed in a new book from the journalist Bob Woodward.

"The quotation of Mr. Milley may have opened the floodgates for Democrats, granting new permission with the authority of his uniform and his unique closeness to the inner workings of Mr. Trump's administration. But an element of political risk remains, even as Mr. Trump freely uses the word himself against Ms. Harris.... Mr. Trump's running mate, Senator JD Vance, singled out the term 'fascist' as an incitement to violence that was beyond the pale."

     ~~~ Marie: Got that? According to both Weisman and JayDee, it's dangerous for Democrats to accuse Trump of being a fascist even though he is one. And according to JayDee, it's unacceptable. But it's okay for Trump to call Harris a fascist, though she has shown no fascistic bent; according to the linked story, he had called her a fascist at least five times by mid-September. Democrats must politely pull their punches because they're expected to be nice and reasonable. Trump can say whatever he wants because people expect him to be rude and crude. Both-siderism is so over. We're going full double standard here. ~~~

~~~ ⭐Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: "Let's stop for a second. It is simply extraordinary that the nation's top general would tell anyone, much less one of the most famous reporters in the world, that the former president of the United States was a 'fascist' -- a 'fascist to the core,' even -- and a threat to the constitutional order. There is no precedent for such a thing in American history -- no example of another time when a high-ranking leader of the nation's armed forces felt compelled to warn the public of the danger posed by its once and perhaps future chief executive. More important than the novelty of Milley's statement is the reality that he's right....

As if to prove the point, Trump ... [said on X], 'I make you this vow: November 5th, 2024 will be LIBERATION DAY in America.'... And 'to expedite removals of this savage gang..., I will invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to target and dismantle every migrant criminal network operating on American Soil.' To be clear, the Alien Enemies Act ... does not distinguish between 'legal' and 'illegal' immigrants and foreign nationals, a distinction that did not exist at the time of passage. This means that any immigrant deemed an 'enemy alien' by the Trump administration could be subject to arrest and removal by the federal government. And as he explained later in an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News, this crusade wouldn't stop with immigrants[, but would extend to 'the enemies within.']"

Heck, I'm only two months younger than Donald Trump. But good news for you is I will not spend 30 minutes swaying back and forth for you. I will not clap off beat, nor will I pretend to be a conductor, because we got a race to win. And we have to win it. I've been doing this a long, long time, and I can honestly say that this time I am not here running for anything anymore except for my grandchildren's future. -- President Bill Clinton, at a rally in North Carolina ~~~

~~~ Dylan Wells & Patrick Svitek of the Washington Post: z'Former president Bill Clinton campaigned for the first time alongside the Democratic ticket Thursday, appearing with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and reprising his role as 'explainer in chief' to make the case to North Carolinians to elect Kamala Harris on the first day of early voting here.... Clinton appeared with Walz as part of a multistate tour by the former president targeted at mobilizing rural and Black voters.... Clinton dedicated much of his remarks to acknowledging concerns voters have about the economy and explaining the conditions that led to the current rate of inflation."

Erin Doherty & Andrew Solender of Axios: "Former Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) revealed he voted for Vice President Kamala Harris and blasted former President Trump in a statement first shared with Axios.... '[Harris] and I will not agree on every issue, but in her, we have a capable leader who will always put the interests of our country before her own, unlike her opponent who will always put his personal interests ahead of those of the United States,' Dent said.... Dent, who endorsed President Biden over Trump in 2020, said Thursday that he cast his absentee ballot for Harris in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Dent offered a searing rebuke of Trump, saying that his 'affection for autocrats like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jung Un, his hostility toward the free press, our allies, and anyone who dares to disagree with him are reprehensible.'... A Trump critic while in the House, Dent resigned from Congress in 2018."

Kevin Manahan of NJ.com: "Fox News anchor Bret Baier is taking criticism from all sides: -- Donald Trump supporters are screaming that that the anchor from the Trump-friendly cable giant wasn't tough enough in his hourlong interview with Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday night; -- Democratic supporters have called him rude for interrupting Harris many times during her answers -- Media critics are pointing out that Fox deceptively edited a clip of Trump -- and were fact-checked by Harris in real time -- And many, in all circles, are claiming that Baier, in an attempted takedown of Harris, was no match for her. Even Baier seemed to acknowledge that Harris won the day. 'I think she had a mission that she wanted to do,' Baier said after the interview. 'Maybe she wanted to have a viral moment or pushback. She came to Fox News and she wanted to have a go-after-Donald-Trump viral moment that plays on a lot of other channels and on social media. She may have gotten that.'" ~~~

~~~ Margaret Sullivan of the Guardian: "... Baier came out guns blazing, barely allowing the vice-president to finish a sentence before jumping in with objections and arguments.... Immigrant hatred. Transphobia. And later, Joe Biden's age. Baier was running through the Fox News greatest hits playlist. This was grievance theater, not political journalism." ~~~

~~~ Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post: "One of the people Vice President Kamala Harris might want to thank in her victory speech, if she wins the election, is Fox News anchor Bret Baier. His combative interview Wednesday gave Harris the chance to display qualities -- and present facts -- that Donald Trump desperately wants to keep hidden from the network's millions of viewers.... Baier presented a too-brief clip from a town hall event, aired on Fox earlier Wednesday, in which Trump denied [calling his critics 'enemies of the people']. This was gaslighting: A slightly longer clip would have shown Trump railing against 'the enemy from within' and naming two leading Democrats, Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff, as being part of that 'sick' group. Baier obviously knew that -- and Harris called him on it....

"[During his inquisition,] Baier repeatedly interrupted the vice president, trying to talk over her and posing questions seemingly cut and pasted from the list of Republican talking points. Intentionally or not, all of this was a gift to Harris. She stood her ground, refuting the Trump campaign's claim that she is weak and easily pushed around. She spoke fluently and cogently, putting to rest GOP claims that all she offers is word salad. She brushed off the most tendentious questions, engaged with the substantive ones, and insisted on finishing her answers whether or not Baier liked it." ~~~

~~~ An interesting update to all that: ~~~

     ~~~ Michael Luciano of Mediaite: "Fox News host Bret Baier said the wrong clip aired during his interview with Vice President Kamala Harris.... During a contentious 30-minute sit-down, Harris referenced remarks by former President Donald Trump on Sunday Morning Futures on Fox News. Trump suggested using the military against 'the enemy from within,' which he explained are 'radical left lunatics.' Baier responded by teeing up a clip of a Fox News town hall.... 'We asked that question to the former president today,' Baier told Harris. 'Harris Faulkner had a town hall, and this is how he responded.' 'They were saying I was like, threatening,' Trump said in the snippet. 'I'm not threatening anybody. They're the ones doing the threatening....'... Harris took exception. 'Bret, I'm sorry, and with all due respect, that clip was not what he has been saying about the enemy within that he has repeated when he's speaking about the American people,' the vice president said. 'That's not what you just showed!' Baier addressed the dustup at the end of Thursday's Special Report. '... I did make a mistake,' he told panelists Faulkner and Harold Ford Jr. 'And I did want to say that I did make a mistake. When I called for a soundbite, I was expecting a piece of the "enemy from within" from Maria Bartiromo's interview to be tied to the piece from your town hall, Harris, where you asked the former president about "the enemy from within." It just had the piece about the town hall.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Baier went on to say, "My point was that we asked him about the question about that sentence and what he was trying to mean." So, even though Baier says he made a mistake, he also admits that the whole purpose of airing the clip from the town hall was to give the audience a chance to see Trump try to clean up his act. That is, even before he interviewed Harris, Baier had planned to give Trump the chance to falsely deny he was threatening detractors. Airing the clip of Trump's false denial was not a mistake at all; the mistake was failing to air an "enemy from within" clip, too. AND there's this: ~~~

     ~~~ Daniel Hampton of the Raw Story: "On Thursday night, Gretchen Carlson, who joined Fox News in 2005 and was a co-host on Fox & Friends until 2013, blasted Baier on X. 'Now Bret Baier says "his mistake" he ran wrong Trump "enemy from within' clip during interview w/ Harris. Newsflash: When wrong clips run (which happens) hosts can easily say "Sorry that was the wrong clip". He or his producers would have known it was the wrong one right then,' she said."

Michael Gold of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris both delivered remarks to the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Ms. Harris in a recorded video and Mr. Trump in person in a ballroom in Manhattan packed with New York's political elite, business leaders and religious luminaries. Mr. Trump rushed through prepared remarks, stumbling at times as he read through pointed political jokes, bitter grievances and crude and at times profane personal attacks. He seemed most energized when he ditched his script, caught between being an insult comic or just being insulting. Ms. Harris was campaigning in Wisconsin.... She ... appear[ed in a video] with the actress Molly Shannon as her Catholic schoolgirl character Mary Katherine Gallagher." Gold relates some of the "jokes" and jokes. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I won't embed a video of Trump's remarks, and so far YouTube doesn't have a good copy of Harris's video, but the brief local report below gives you a flavor of Trump's flat, halting delivery and of Harris's video presentation: ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Here we go: ~~~

     ~~~ Admittedly, since Harris' remarks were recorded, she had the advantage of being able to do retakes (which is not to say she did so). But anyone who listens to her and to Trump for about 15 seconds each has to be daft (or Mitch McConnell -- see link below) to say, "I'm liking old Orange Man there." Harris's competence and dynamism shine, while Trump clearly is not capable of reading a script. (He never was, according to [NYT link] John Lithgow and other reports I've read.) Even if you knew nothing else about Harris or Trump, it wouldn't be a close call: you'd pick Harris to be Leader of the Free World.

Michael Gold of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump blamed President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine for Russia's invasion of his country in a podcast interview released on Thursday, inverting the facts of the largest military action in Europe since the Second World War.... Mr. Trump, in a rambling, muddled answer on a conservative podcast, was criticizing President Biden's leadership when he abruptly brought up his skepticism over the administration's continued military aid to Ukraine."

Trump Advisors Concerned He's a Babbling Idiot. Michael Bender of the New York Times: "... some Trump advisers and allies say privately they are concerned that ... Mr. Trump's impetuousness and scattershot style on the campaign trail needlessly risk victory.... At a time when ... Vice President Kamala Harris has stepped up her attacks on him as 'unstable,' Mr. Trump has struggled to publicly hone his message by veering off script and ramping up personal attacks on Ms. Harris that allies have urged him to rein in." Bender offers numerous examples of Trump's wacko behavior & unfocused remarks from just this past week. Here's one: "At the Economic Club of Chicago on Tuesday, he answered a question about whether he would break up Google by complaining about a Justice Department lawsuit against Virginia election officials. When he was reminded the question was about Google, he said he 'called the head of Google the other day' to grouse about the difficulty of finding positive news stories about his campaign on the company's search page." Bender notes that the Harris campaign is taking advantage of Trump's instability with remarks and in ads.

Marie: (I wrote this earlier, but I'm leaving it in, because it backs up an assertions Maeve Reston made in the WashPo story linked above.) Nicolle Wallace of MSNBC said yesterday that Trump had made a "confession" during his Univision town hall when he responded to a question about January 6 and identified himself with the Capitol marauders. Here's a part of the transcript of Trump's response:

Some of those people went down to the Capitol, I said, peacefully and patriotically, nothing done wrong at all. Nothing done wrong. And action was taken, strong action. Ashli Babbitt was killed. Nobody was killed. There were no guns down there. We didn't have guns. The others had guns, but we didn't have guns. And when I say 'we' these are people that walk down, this was a tiny percentage of the overall, which nobody sees and nobody shows. But that was a day of love from the standpoint of the millions, it's like hundreds of thousands. ~~~

     ~~~ If this is a "confession," everything else Trump says here is a lie. As Maeve Reston of the Washington Post writes (linked above), "Trump supporters, trying to stop the affirmation of Joe Biden's 2020 win, assaulted 140 police officers, damaged the building and destroyed government property.... Babbitt was one of five people who authorities said died as a consequence of the siege.... It is still unclear how many in the crowd were armed before the riot occurred. But six men were arrested that day for having guns in the vicinity of the U.S. Capitol...." As for the crowd size at the Ellipse, PolitiFact went with the House Select Committee's estimate of 53,000, not "like hundreds of thousands."

The Miracle of Evolution: A Turtle Morphs into a Chicken. Mary Jalonick of the AP: "Mitch McConnell said after the 2020 election that ... Donald Trump was 'stupid as well as being ill-tempered,' a 'despicable human being' and a 'narcissist,' according to excerpts from a new biography of the Senate Republican leader that will be released this month. McConnell made the remarks in private as part of a series of personal oral histories that he made available to Michael Tackett, deputy Washington bureau chief of The Associated Press. Tackett's book, 'The Price of Power,' draws from almost three decades of McConnell's recorded diaries and from years of interviews with the normally reticent Kentucky Republican.... Despite those strong words, McConnell has endorsed Trump's 2024 run...." (Also linked yesterday.)

⭐ Confessions of a Suit. John D. Miller in a U.S. News opinion piece: "I want to apologize to America. I helped create a monster.... I led the team that marketed 'The Apprentice,' the reality show that made Donald Trump a household name outside of New York City, where he was better known for overextending his empire and appearing in celebrity gossip columns. To sell the show, we created the narrative that Trump was a super-successful businessman who lived like royalty.... At the very least, it was a substantial exaggeration; at worst, it created a false narrative by making him seem more successful than he was.... To sell the show, we created the narrative that Trump was a super-successful businessman who lived like royalty. That was the conceit of the show." Read on. (Also linked yesterday.)

Marie: Decades ago, when Steve Martin was a stand-up comic, he did a joke where he gave advice on how to make a million dollars and not pay any taxes: “First, make a million dollars. Then, when the IRS asks you why you didn't pay any taxes, say 'I forgot.'" Well, I've got a joke that's not so funny. Because it works: "Here's how to make a billion dollars (or 247 billion) and take control of a major foreign country. First get 247 billion dollars; then, become a U.S. citizen & bribe Donald Trump." This is intended to highlight Elon Musk's influence, but without much massaging, it applies to Rupert Murdoch, too.

Marie: In her stump speech, Kamala Harris zeroes in on the "freedoms" Americans have a right to expect. One of them is the "freedom to breathe clean air, and drink clean water and live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis." She knows whereof she speaks: ~~~

~~~ Project 2025 Oil & Gas Industry Addendum -- Stinks. Evan Halper & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "An influential oil and gas industry group whose members were aggressively pursued for campaign cash by Donald Trump has drafted detailed plans for dismantling landmark Biden administration climate rules after the presidential election, according to internal documents obtained by The Washington Post. The plans were drawn up by the American Exploration and Production Council, or AXPC, a group of 30 mostly independent oil and gas producers, including several major oil companies. They reveal a comprehensive industry effort to reverse climate initiatives advanced during nearly four years of Democratic leadership. At the same time, the documents contain confidential data showing that industry's voluntary initiatives to cut emissions have fallen short. The lobbying blueprint takes particular aim at a new tax on emissions of methane, a gas that the International Energy Agency (IEA) says is responsible for nearly a third of human-caused global warming. The documents show the methane emissions of nine of 19 AXPC member companies that responded to an internal survey are increasing -- in many cases sharply."

Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "An independent panel reviewing the failures that led to the attempted assassination of ... Donald J. Trump in July called on the Secret Service to replace its leadership with people from the private sector and focus almost exclusively on its protective mission. The recommendations, part of a report released Thursday commissioned by the Department of Homeland Security, outlined deficiencies that have already been identified in the months after the rally in Butler, Pa., on July 13. Those include the failure of the Secret Service to secure a nearby building where a rooftop would-be assassin fired eight shots toward Mr. Trump. That and other security lapses, members of the panel said, result from an absence of 'critical thinking' among agents and supervisors. The panel was particularly struck by a 'lack of ownership' conveyed by the agents it interviewed. Those involved in the security planning did not take responsibility in the lead-up to the event, nor did they own failures in the aftermath. And, the report added, they 'have done little in the way of self-reflection in terms of identifying areas of missteps, omissions or opportunities for improvement.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: There's a biting irony here: every intellectual lapse the panel identifies in Secret Service leadership is one that the target of the assassination shares: an absence of critical think, lack of ownership of mistakes, failure to take responsibility from the git-go right on through the follow-up and "little in the way of self-reflection in terms of identifying areas of missteps, omissions or [making] opportunities for improvement."

Kyle Cheney of Politico: "U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan has agreed to release a dossier of evidence amassed by special counsel Jack Smith, ruling Thursday that the high public interest in the document outweighs Trump's demand that she keep it hidden until after the election. In a five-page ruling, Chutkan rejected Trump's argument that releasing the potentially explosive material constitutes election interference. In fact, she said, suppressing the evidence -- which would typically be released as part of public court proceedings -- would be the actual political meddling. She said she plans to release the filing at an unspecified time on Friday."


Devlin Barrett of the New York Times: "Federal prosecutors have charged a man they identified as an Indian intelligence officer with trying to orchestrate from abroad an assassination on U.S. soil -- part of an escalating response from the United States and Canada to what those governments see as brazenly illegal conduct by a longtime partner. An indictment unsealed in Manhattan on Thursday said that the man, Vikash Yadav, 'directed the assassination plot from India' that targeted a New York-based critic of the Indian government, a Sikh lawyer and political activist who has urged the Punjab region of India to secede. The target of the New York plot has been identified by American officials as Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the general counsel of Sikhs for Justice.... Authorities say Mr. Yadav recruited an associate to find a U.S.-based criminal to arrange the murder of the Sikh activist. Last year, U.S. prosecutors charged the man accused of being Mr. Yadav's henchman, Nikhil Gupta, and said Mr. Gupta had acted under instructions from an unidentified employee of the Indian government.... The indictment came just days after the Canadian government expelled India's top diplomat and five others, saying they were part of a criminal network."

Zach Montague of the New York Times: "The Biden administration has reached a major milestone in its pursuit of expansive student debt relief, announcing on Thursday that over one million people have had their federal student debt canceled through a program that offers forgiveness to public service workers. For President Biden, whose student debt agenda has been repeatedly handicapped by Republican legal challenges, the announcement marked a modest but undeniable achievement. With just weeks until the election, the administration has reported approving around $175 billion in total student debt relief for nearly five million borrowers through all the actions taken during Mr. Biden's presidency." (Also linked yesterday.)

~~~~~~~~~~

Arizona Senate Race. Shocking Divorce File Unsealed. Meh. Maria Paul of the Washington Post: "For months, Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake has speculated that her opponent, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), had used the courts to hide 'something really, really bad' in his divorce from Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego.... Lake and her allies have repeatedly sought to paint Gallego's personal life in a negative context -- running ads describing him as a 'deadbeat dad' and alleging his divorce records contain a 'massive story.'... But on Thursday, an Arizona court unsealed most of the case file -- revealing what one judge called 'one of the most garden-variety divorce files I have ever seen.' The records were made public following a 10-month-long legal battle between the Gallegos and the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative publication that filed a lawsuit earlier this year to unseal them.... The 465 pages that were unsealed Thursday by the Yavapai County Superior Court detail standard divorce proceedings.... They also include no details of any illegal activity or infidelity and expressly state that no physical abuse had occurred. Following the documents' release, the Gallegos blasted Lake and demanded an apology 'for lying about our family and the circumstances of our divorce,' the former couple wrote in a joint statement."

Arizona. Frances Vinall of the Washington Post: "A deaf Black man with cerebral palsy will no longer face charges over an incident in which he was repeatedly Tasered and punched by Phoenix police. Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said Thursday that she had reviewed the case and 'made the decision to dismiss all remaining charges.' Tyron McAlpin, 34, had been charged with resisting arrest and two counts of aggravated assault on an officer. Mitchell said she had consulted with the local chapter of the NAACP and 'convened a large gathering of senior attorneys and members of the community to hear their opinions' before concluding her review.... The arrest happened less than three months after an almost three-year federal civil rights investigation by the Justice Department into the Phoenix Police Department found it had routinely used excessive force and discriminated against Black, Hispanic and Native American people."

Florida. Ha! Lori Rozsa of the Washington Post: "A federal judge in Florida on Thursday ordered the state to stop threatening TV stations with criminal charges if they run a political ad in support of a referendum that would repeal the state's six-week abortion ban. Proponents of Amendment 4 sued the state on Wednesday over letters from the Florida Department of Health to broadcast stations around the state, threatening 'criminal proceedings' if they ran the ads. U.S. District Chief Judge Mark Walker said the state's actions amount to 'unconstitutional coercion' and violate the First Amendment.... Julia Friedland, Gov. Ron DeSantis's deputy press secretary, denounced the decision as 'another order that excites the press.'... DeSantis and his administration have been using state agencies to attack the proposed amendment ahead of the Nov. 5 general election." MB: The injunction expires October 29, so I guess it anticipates an appeal by the state. I dunno. ~~~

     ~~~ Update: The New York Times story, by Patricia Mazzei, explains why the injunction lasts only till October 29: "The [abortion-rights] campaign is seeking a preliminary injunction against the state. Judge Walker scheduled a hearing for Oct. 29."

Texas. David Goodman of the New York Times: "The Texas Supreme Court on Thursday halted the execution of Robert Roberson, a Texas man convicted of killing his 2-year-old daughter, after a roller-coaster series of legal maneuvers initiated by an unusual intervention from a bipartisan group of Texas House members. The decision by the state's highest civil court related to a procedural question raised by the legislators' issuing a subpoena for Mr. Roberson to testify before the Legislature on Monday and not the details of his case. But the effect was to run out the clock for the time being. Because the execution could not be carried out before midnight, a new date would now have to be set."

~~~~~~~~~~

Israel/Palestine, et al.

The Washington Post's live updates of developments Friday in Israel's wars are here: "Top U.S. officials renewed calls to pursue an end to the war in Gaza in the wake of Israel's announcement that its troops had killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.... U.S. officials described Sinwar as having been the 'chief obstacle' to a truce, but two diplomats familiar with the negotiations -- which the United States mediated along with Egypt and Qatar -- said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had repeatedly obstructed a deal since June by placing new demands on a framework proposed by [President] Biden."

Ronen Bergman, et al., of the New York Times: Israeli soldiers were on a routine patrol Wednesday in the southern Gaza Strip when "a firefight erupted and the Israelis, backed by drones, destroyed part of a building where several militants had taken cover, Israeli officials said." One of the Palestinians killed was Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader. "Mr. Sinwar's death was the most severe blow to Hamas's leadership after more than a year of escalating violence in the Middle East, and it immediately plunged the war in Gaza into a new and uncertain phase."

Zolan Kanno-Youngs & Ephrat Livni of the New York Times: "President Biden said on Thursday that the death of Yahya Sinwar ... could create the opportunity to 'move on' to a cease-fire in Gaza, adding that he had spoken to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to congratulate him on Mr. Sinwar's death. 'It's time for this war to end and bring these hostages home. So that's what we&'re ready to do,' Mr. Biden told reporters upon his arrival in Berlin on Thursday evening. He added that he was 'hopeful' about the prospects of a cease-fire and would be sending Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken to Israel in the coming four to five days to discuss securing Gaza and what the 'day after' the war will look like." ~~~

     ~~~ Here's President Biden's statement via the White House.

Katie Rogers & Reid Epstein of the New York Times: "Declaring that 'justice has been served,' Vice President Kamala Harris said on Thursday that the killing of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader whom she called the 'mastermind' of the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel, created an opportunity to end the war in Gaza. Ms. Harris spoke shortly after Israeli officials confirmed the death of Mr. Sinwar, who was viewed as the architect of the Hamas-led attack, in which militants killed roughly 1,200 people and took about 250 others hostage."

⭐ Josef Federman, et al., of the AP: "Israeli forces in Gaza killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, a chief architect of last year's attack on Israel that sparked the war, the military said Thursday. Troops appeared to have run across him unknowingly in a battle, only to discover afterwards that a body in the rubble was Israel's most wanted man. Israeli leaders celebrated his killing as a settling of scores just over a year after Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped 250 others in an attack that stunned the country. They also presented it as a turning point in the campaign to destroy Hamas, urging the group to surrender and release some 100 hostages still in Gaza. 'Hamas will no longer rule Gaza. This is the start of the day after Hamas,' Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. U.S. officials expressed hopes for a cease-fire with Sinwar out of the picture." (Also linked yesterday.)

The New York Times' live updates of developments Thursday in Israel's wars are here: "The Israeli military said on Thursday that it was assessing whether Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar had been killed in the Gaza Strip. The military released no further details about the assessment, but four Israeli officials said the military was taking the body of a slain militant to a laboratory in Israel in order to assess whether its DNA matches that of Mr. Sinwar." ~~~

Update: "The Israeli military confirmed on Thursday that Yahya Sinwar, the powerful and elusive militant leader who has been the No. 1 target for Israel since the beginning of the war, had been killed in battle. Mr. Sinwar was viewed as the architect of the brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israel that set off the 13-month war that has plunged the Gaza Strip into a humanitarian crisis and began a wider conflict that now includes the fighting in Lebanon." (Also linked yesterday.)

The New York Times has an obituary of Sinwar here. (Also linked yesterday.)

Comments Off

Reader Comments (7)

The brain's prefrontal cortex is affected by a person's life style.
Things like sleep (we know of someone who is up texting at 1:00 A.M.)
Exercise (who is that fat man always riding in a golf cart?).
Healthy diet (no one can live on hamberders and stay healthy).
Could be the reason Donald has been losing it for years.
P.S. I'm not a psychologist but I dated one once (just once!).

October 18, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterForrestMorris

The fact that Fox would roll an edited clip to someone who would know, absolutely, that it had been edited to make her look like a liar, and not just any someone, the Vice President of the United States, now her party’s nominee for President, clearly demonstrates the depths of their mendacious approach to “news”.

It’s propaganda. Propaganda designed to gaslight viewers and shove a dangerous, unstable authoritarian into power. They didn’t care that Harris would know the truth. The goal was to buttress Trump’s lies about threatening Americans who refuse to bow down before him and to make Harris look like the liar to viewers who have been peppered for months with Fox attacks on her.

Mission accomplished.

And Bret Baier’s attempt to deny the intentionality of that goal by claiming they ran the wrong clip is another lie. I’ve worked as a television producer and director. For big programs like this, really a once in a generation interview for that network, everything would be reviewed and vetted a dozen times. Why have the edited clip even in the cue list? It’s a fucking lie. Harris didn’t roll over and play dead. She called him on his lie and he had to save face to protect his image of himself as a “journalist”, as opposed to all the little Joseph Goebbels on air at Fox 24/7.

The really sad part? Plenty of corporate MSM outlets are not much different. Talkin’ to you, AG.

October 18, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Oh-oh. With that head of Hamas now dead, a guy everyone is now saying was the primary roadblock to a cease fire and some sort of end to this horrible conflict (but not the only roadblock), what’s Bibi going to do? What story will he concoct to keep the killing up to speed? The end of the war means the beginning of accountability for Bibi. And accountability in the courts. Not good! At least not for an incompetent crook.

October 18, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

It was Lawrence O'Donnell that I saw emphasizing that it was "journalist" Brett Baier who on election night was texting Fox News asking them to withdrawal the call of Arizona for Biden because it would hurt their viewership.

October 18, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

Disinformation

"The Pipeline
How Russian propaganda reaches and influences the U.S."

By Brandy Zadrozny

October 18, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

Anne Applebaum, in The Atlantic, adds to the trump as fascist arguments with:
The trump campaign believes that by using the tactics of the 1930s, they can win

"Just this week, when Trump was swaying to music at a surreal rally, he did so in front of a huge slogan: Trump Was Right About Everything. This is language borrowed directly from Benito Mussolini, the Italian fascist. Soon after the rally, the scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat posted a photograph of a building in Mussolini’s Italy displaying his slogan: Mussolini Is Always Right."

October 18, 2024 | Unregistered Commenterlaura hunter
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