The Conversation -- September 9, 2024
⭐ Jess Bidgood of the New York Times: "... the only man to have run against two female nominees in two presidential elections is one with a long and explicit record of denigrating women. From the earliest days of his presidential candidacy in 2015 to a Trump Tower news conference on Friday, Donald J. Trump has repeatedly attempted to attack, embarrass and threaten the women standing in his way -- especially on the debate stage.... A review of his onstage clashes with women shows how, over nine years in politics, he has honed a playbook of explicitly gendered attacks against both female candidates and journalists that he is likely to draw from on Tuesday when he debates Vice President Kamala Harris. Mr. Trump has used his physical presence and body language to intimidate women, made veiled threats, complained that they were uniquely mean and belittled their qualifications...."
Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Monday announced that his panel will hold a hearing on the Supreme Court's controversial 6-3 ruling giving former President Trump broad immunity from prosecution for crimes related to his official acts as president.... 'Congress can't turn a blind eye to the dangers of the Donald Trump immunity decision by the Supreme Court. We're going to highlight the blaring dangers of this far-right ruling for the American people,' he said in statement posted on the social media site X. Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has warned the court's conservatives placed the president of the United States above other Americans in applying criminal laws and created in essence a two-tier justice system."
Sophia Cai of Axios: "Ten generals and admirals are mobilizing to defend Vice President Kamala Harris from Republican attempts to tie her to the chaotic 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.... 'Without involving the Afghan government, [Trump] and his Administration negotiated a deal with the Taliban that freed 5,000 Taliban fighters,' the retired military officials wrote in a National Security Leaders for America letter.... The group accused Trump of leaving Biden and Harris with no plans to execute a withdrawal and little time to do so." ~~~
~~~ Marie: The report is 354 pages. According to one of the generals who signed the letter and later appeared on MSNBC to discuss it, the report mentions Harris only three times. So it sounds to me as if what Rep. McCaul did when Harris replaced Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket was call up the draft report in his word-processing program, hit find-and-replace and change "Biden administration" to "Biden-Harris administration." Excellent work!
~~~~~~~~~~
Jennifer Hansler & Kylie Atwood of CNN: "Republicans and Democrats released dueling documents on the deadly August 2021 US withdrawal from Afghanistan on Monday, as ... Donald Trump's campaign seeks to make the decisions surrounding the exit a key issue in the final weeks before the presidential election. The release -- after years of investigation by the Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee -- of the report by GOP Chairman Rep Michael McCaul and a minority memorandum by Democratic Ranking Member Rep. Gregory Meeks underscore how partisan the debate over the frenzied US exit from Afghanistan has become.... The Republican report is highly critical of the Biden administration and pins the blame for the chaotic exit exclusively on its decisions. It also aims to implicate Harris, now the Democratic nominee for president, in its accusations by referring to the current government as 'the Biden-Harris administration.'... 'Everything we have seen and heard of Chairman McCaul's latest partisan report shows that it is based on cherry-picked facts, inaccurate characterizations, and pre-existing biases that have plagued this investigation from the start,' said Sharon Yang, a White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations."
Presidential Race
Tal Axelrod of ABC News: "Former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo..., slammed [Donald Trump] ... in her call for other Republicans to vote against him this year. 'We see it on a daily basis, somebody who was willing to use violence in order to attempt to seize power, to stay in power, someone who represents unrecoverable catastrophe, frankly, in my view, and we have to do everything possible to ensure that he's not reelected,' Cheney told 'This Week' co-anchor Jonathan Karl. 'You have many Republicans out there who are saying, "Well, you know, we're not going to vote for him, but we will write someone else in." And I think that this time around, that's not enough, that it's important to actually cast a vote for Vice President Harris,' Cheney added."
Grifter-in-Chief. Josh Dawsey & Ashley Parker of the Washington Post: "No presidential candidate has ever so closely linked his election with personal for-profit enterprises, selling a staggering array of merchandise that includes signed Bibles where he receives a royalty for hawking them, pricey sneakers, gold necklaces, cryptocurrency cards, pens, books, licensing fees on overseas properties and more. His company's website also sells a variety of political merchandise at higher prices than his campaign charges for the same items." (Also linked yesterday).
digby: "Trump excited the crowd [Saturday] with promises of bloodshed with his mass deportation policy.... And his followers are thrilled at the prospect."
The Company He Keeps. Abbie VanSickle of the New York Times: "On his most recent financial disclosure form, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. reported a single gift: $900 concert tickets from a German princess known for her links to conservative activists. The disclosure does not list the event's details, including the concert's name, location or how many tickets the princess provided. But in an interview with a German news organization, the gift provider, Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis, described Justice Alito and his wife as 'private friends' and said the tickets were for the Regensburg Castle Festival, an annual summer celebration she hosts at her 500-room Bavarian castle. The princess, known in earlier decades as a party-loving, art-collecting aristocrat and who was once christened Princess TNT for her explosive personality, has become known in recent years for her close relationships with several high-profile people who oppose the current pope, as well as with Stephen K. Bannon...." ~~~
~~~ Marie: If you read through the article, I think you'll conclude that VanSickle has given new depth to the meaning of "conservative." I expect there's a lot of Wagner on the Regensburg Castle Festival program, and perhaps some serious group goose-stepping about the castle's courtyard preceding private dinners. If you'd like to know what the old pile looks like, here are a couple of pages of snapshots. Not only does it appear that Princess von Thurn has not given up her party days after all, someone in a crowd outside the castle displays a homemade sign which reads, in German, "Nazis dine secretly in the [Thurn und Taxis] castle."
~~~~~~~~~~
Florida. DeSantis Thugs at the Door. Charles Davis of Salon: "Florida voters who signed a petition to place a pro-choice abortion referendum on the ballot this November say they have been visited by police who are investigating claims of fraud at the behest of Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration, the Tampa Bay Times reported Saturday. Last year, DeSantis, a Republican, signed into a law a ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. In response, pro-choice campaigners gathered and submitted nearly one million signatures to place on the ballot Amendment 4, a referendum that would overturn the ban and restore reproductive rights in the state. Now Florida's Department of State is claiming it suspects fraud in the signature-gathering process. In an email to county election officials, the department's Brad McVay requested that they hand over their already-verified petitions so that the signatures can be reexamined, claiming without evidence that those who circulated the petitions 'represent known or suspected fraudsters,' Tampa Bay television station WTVT reported." MB: This really is quite scary.
Tennessee. Emily Holzknecht & Taige Jensen of the New York Times post a video describing how the state keeps half a million people from voting. "While nearly all states suspend or withdraw people's right to vote when they are convicted of felonies, most allow restoring that right after they have served their sentences. Many states have made that process easier in recent years -- one of them being New York, to the advantage of felon-of-the-moment Donald Trump, who retains his right to vote as long as he's not incarcerated. But Tennessee has moved in the opposite direction, making the process significantly more difficult. (Think: bureaucratic maze from hell.)"
Texas. David Goodman of the New York Times: "Days before the 2020 election, supporters of ... Donald J. Trump driving in vehicles festooned with flags as part of a so-called 'Trump Train' surrounded a Biden-Harris campaign bus as it sped along a Texas interstate highway. Images of the impromptu convoy of antagonists were memorable.... Now those same images from Interstate 35 will be used as evidence in a federal civil trial that seeks to hold the Trump supporters responsible for assault and political intimidation tactics. Opening arguments begin on Monday.... Lawyers for the plaintiffs have argued that in organizing to harass and intimidate the campaign bus, the defendants violated state law and the federal Enforcement Act of 1871, also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act."
News Lede
New York Times: "James Earl Jones, a stuttering farm child who became a voice of rolling thunder as one of America's most versatile actors in a stage, film and television career that plumbed race relations, Shakespeare's rhapsodic tragedies and the faceless menace of Darth Vader, died on Monday at his home in Dutchess County, N.Y. He was 93." ~~~
~~~ Marie: I was walking down Fifth Avenue one spring day in the 1990s when I thought I was hearing the voice of god. (Okay, slight exaggeration.) But no. NYU was holding its commencement exercises in Washington Square Park (which sits at the bottom of Fifth Avenue), and James Earl Jones was accepting (with a boost from amplifiers) an honorary degree.
Share Article
Reader Comments (21)
Hit Man Sam gets $900 concert tickets from a neo-Nazi known as Princess TNT? What was the concert? Oh, wait. Lemme guess. A fascist musical based on “Hamilton” but called “Hitler”? Maybe a concert length fantasia-like reworking of “Deutschland über alles”? Or perhaps a dramatic reading of “best parts” of “Mein Kampf”? Something like that.
Princess TNT, a far-right Catholic, is also known for her animosity toward Pope Francis. She considers him too liberal. I guess she’s pissed because he hasn’t been keen on reviving Inquisition party times including the ever popular auto-da-fé, the burning at the stake of people she doesn’t like. Maybe she’d invite Sammy and his cuckoo wife to Zippo the first bonfire if this practice made a comeback. I’m sure he’d love it. “When I get back to Amerika, I’m gonna make sure we have this sort of thing too. My critics need a little lesson in obedience.”
So, the Decider decides not to decide. He’s not making any endorsement in the upcoming election. Too busy painting your piggie toes, Dubya? So the second worst PoT prez, who was illegally installed by fiat as the choice of five people on the Supreme Court, NOT by American voters, says he ain’t picking sides to help the worst PoT prez*.
Not deciding IS a decision, you prick. Saying he’s not gonna give the nod for Harris is the same as saying he’s fine with fascism. Which makes perfect sense, given how his presidency went.
Another coward. Oh, but a fascist coward. So much better.
Immigration
"Nebraska Evolving: The perception is that smaller communities are dying. The reality: Many are growing, for one reason. Immigration."
Trump's horrors
"Errol Morris tackles horror of Trump’s border policy in ‘Separated’
A new documentary systematically pulls apart the lies that obscured how harmful family separation was, how many kids it hurt, and just how likely it is to happen again."
Hope
"As Jimmy Carter nears 100, he is buoyed by Harris’s run for president
As Jimmy Carter’s 100th birthday approaches on Oct. 1, he is talking more and delighting in the momentum behind Vice President Kamala Harris, his family said."
Does anyone know if this is for real or is it just another scam?
https://www.cnet.com/personal-finance/check-if-your-social-security-
number-is-in-the-national-public-data-hack/
Seems like something that happened months ago but we're just now
hearing about it, if it actually happened, that is.
According to google, it's not a scam:
https://www.google.com/search?q=is+the+national+public+data+bank+breach+a+scam&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS1055US1055&oq=is+the+national+public+data+bank+breach+a+scam&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCjExMDQ0ajBqMTWoAgiwAgE&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
@Forrest Morris: Your link didn't work. But I think gonzo is right: according to this Wired story (and numerous others0, there was a big data breach of a company called National Public Data. This, of course, is hardly the only data breach that led to the release of many people's personal information. NPD admitted last month that “The incident is believed to have involved a third-party bad actor that was trying to hack into data in late December 2023, with potential leaks of certain data in April 2024 and summer 2024 … The information that was suspected of being breached contained name, email address, phone number, Social Security number, and mailing address(es).”
Waaah! We’re victims!! Correction: very RICH victims.
So the recent revelation that pro-Trump “influencers” are being paid by the Kremlin to spread chaos and lies has led to the primary Putin apparatchiks whining that they’re the victims, not truth, democracy, or fair elections.
Funny how whenever they’re caught doing nasty or illegal stuff, they’re the victims.
“We didn’t know!” they whine, as they cash checks signed by Vladimir Putin (okay, that’s not exactly the case).
But here’s the thing. Two of these assholes, Tim Pool and Dave Rubin, were being paid ungodly amounts of money for next to no work. One was paid $400,000 a month for about 20 hours of work, 20 hours in the whole month. Plus a performance bonus and a $100,000 signing bonus up front. The other made about the same.
Now who pays out $100,000 a week to have you make a couple of hours of skanky videos?
Who?
These assholes say they wondered about that. Yeah. But not enough to actually check it out. The guy who supposedly hired them was a made up name. A quick Google check would show that. They couldn’t have cared that much about it. Much more fun to spread rumors of civil war, and scream about immigrants and black people getting free stuff and yelling about how Ukraine is an evil place that deserves to be destroyed.
“On X, never-Trump conservative writer Christian Vanderbrouk, quipped that Tenet’s stars managed to see conspiracy theories everywhere — yet never questioned why a mysterious Belgian was paying them to prop up a little-watched YouTube channel.”
But oh yeah, they’re the victims.
The universe surrounding Trump, the Party of Traitors, and right-wing chaos agents is filled with scurvy jamokes like these creeps. But like cockroaches, when you see three, you know there must be thousands more under the floorboards.
The closer we get to this debate thing, the worse I feel. My sense is that as long as the Orange Monster doesn’t keel over or start chasing Harris around the stage with a blunt instrument, the corporate MSM will declare him the clear winner.
Their reporters and opinion people will go into Trump Translation mode and edit his most grotesque ramblings and meandering mumbles to make him sound like Winston Churchill addressing parliament. They’ll take a granular look at every Harris response in order to point out “evasions”, “inaccuracies”, “unnecessary polemics”, and “questionable assertions”, while at the same time completely ignoring Trump’s firehose of lies and chaotic sputters.
Afterwards, Trump will declare his performance the greatest since Pericles’ Funeral Oration, despite the outrageous unfairness of the moderators.
The MSM will duly quote him on that.
Another unearned win for this dangerous maniac.
Victims, lol
"Prosecutors said Tenet's founders "admitted to each other in their private communications that their 'investors' were, in truth and in fact, the 'Russians.'" At one point, Founder-1 searched for "time in Moscow" on Google while awaiting a response to a message."
Tenet Media. A perfect name for this sleazy lie machine. In the same way PoT and far-right outfits refer to their baldly unpatriotic and anti-democratic actions as the essence of patriotism and democracy, Tenet is the exact opposite of its definition: “ a principle, belief, or doctrine generally held to be true”.
@Akhilleus: There's at least a 95% chance you're right in your assessment of the MSM "analyses" of the debate.
On the other hand, there remains a 5% possibility that Harris will outsmart the most sober & sincere professional observers of our political condition. I think she has to do three things to win over not only the folks who tell us what we heard and saw, but also us, we who heard it & saw it:
(1) Be more pleasant and human than Trump. That's easy, because Harris is more pleasant and human than Trump.
(2) Not seem stupid and incapable of completing a sentence, as Trump has characterized her. That should be easy because Harris smart and articulate.
(3) Have some command of the facts and be able to articulate them succinctly. This would be the hardest part for me.
And maybe not follow my advice of kneeing him in the groin when he stalks her. Besides, I'm not sure how hard a knee in the privates would land on genitals protected by a thick paper diaper. (And I swear he wears a thick paper diaper.)
Marie,
Yeah, there is that possibility. But she will have to be undeniably perfect in every aspect of her presentation in order for the MSM to give her a C+ grade. Trump, on the other hand, just has to show up with his pants on and not obviously wet his diaper in order to get an A, a participation trophy, if you will.
Harris has a skill set that no one else trying to debate this guy has had. She’s a prosecutor. Prosecutors are used to wily (or sneaky) defense attorneys throwing all manner of wet turds their way. She doesn’t rattle and she won’t be bullied into saying something stupid. Both Sides Dana Bash was clearly taken aback when Harris calmly blew off what Bash thought would be a cagey question about demanding that she respond to Trump’s charge that she only recently “turned black”. Harris never took the bait. “Same old tired playbook. Next question.” Bash almost swallowed her tongue. “That’s IT!? “Yup. That’s it.”
But the MSM ripped her for evading the question, they never bothered to consider what a racist, piece of shit question it was in the first place.
So, we’ll see. I’m basing my thinking on years and years of craven, pusillanimous, feckless behavior by the media to twist into pretzels in order to kowtow to the traitors.
Will the moderators attempt to make Trump behave?
Never.
Will the media hold Harris to standards never applied to any Republican?
Absolutely.
My fervent hope is that Harris’s calm demeanor and ability to turn things back on the convicted felon will cause him to have a meltdown and start screaming.
If that happens, the corporate media will portray him as the victim of a mean, nasty woman.
Same as it ever was.
@Marie: If Kamala did knee Trump, 1. It would hilarious and 2. We too will be able to scream election inteference when Garland and the House start investigations and when Trump sues her for $10 billion dollars. She could easily claim self defense since Trump has sent so many violent threats her way. It may be hard for her to claim Trump is a big tough scary guy with a straight face, but she should give it a try and remember not to wink at the end. All the so called alpha bros would be shitting themselves if Donnie got beat up by a girl, another added bonus.
RAS,
It’s the recurring nightmare of all those incel weenies like TuKKKer and Jesse Watters that some tough chick who has had enough of their whiny bullshit and misogynistic insults kicks their flabby asses in front of their He-man Woman Hater bros.
You mean testicle tanning DOESN’T work? Ooooohhh!!!
Marie,
Kneeing Fatty in the groin (to have the desired effect), would require surgical strike capability. That tiny mushroom head and microscopic balls would not be easy targets. It’d be like hitting a penny with a rock from a mile away. Maybe there’s a strain of pigs who can root out teensy mushroom dick truffles. Hey, it’s worth a try. Oink, oink, Donnie.
I saw Steve M. At nomoremisterniceblog say that Harris should do away with the time limits on answers. The more people who see the loser ramble the more people who may realize how truly weird and crazy and dangerous he is. She could open up the debate and challenge Trump to drop the answer time limit in front of the whole audience. Call him a chicken and that his own advisors are controlling and protecting the weak little cry baby. It would be nice if she or her team to call into question his manhood or release a statement shortly before the start to get under his skin. Get him mad and let him sink himself in front of the audience. Then it won't matter as much what the press says the next day. But an earlier angry whiny Trump is better than later because he, and the moderators, will probably make most people want to change the channel well before the debate finishes.
On the debate(s):
Biden's performance certainly hurt him, but if he had managed to look less old and confused, I'd posit that what he actually said would not have mattered as much as we here might wish.
Same tomorrow. For most, it will be the image Harris and the Pretender project that will count. I think Daniel Boorstin wrote a book about that image thing a long time ago.
It's mostly the image, not the specific words--zingers excepted-- that people notice and remember....and that's a fact.
I want to see KaMAla (as the Prince of Pieces pronounces it on purpose--) absolutely frost the melting pumpkin that is the Toxic Orange. I agree with pundits that say do NOT try to refute the gish gallop that he will launch her way. The media will expect her to do that, and no one can ride the avalanche down the hillside to the ghastly hole he lives in. Since he has made up every single sentence that can be possibly eaked out/mistakenly called as a "policy," she should not even honor his crap with an eye roll...until she does, eye roll, I mean. I don't want to listen to the so-called debate, but I want to support Kamala, so I will, I guess. Me too, Ak. Stomach already in knots.
Ken,
You’re right about Daniel Boorstin. His book on the Image is a classic. Historian and former Librarian of Congress. He wrote several of my favorite books.