The Conversation -- September 17, 2024
Erica Green & Nicholas Nehamas of the New York Times: "Vice President Kamala Harris said on Tuesday that ... Donald J. Trump's unfounded claims about Black migrants in an Ohio city were 'hateful rhetoric' and 'tropes' that had been 'designed to divide us as a country.' 'This is exhausting, and it's harmful,' she said during an interview with Black journalists in Philadelphia. 'And it's hateful, and grounded in some age-old stuff that we should not have the tolerance for.... It's got to stop.' Ms. Harris's remarks on Tuesday at a gathering of the National Association of Black Journalists were her most forceful yet about the Trump campaign's escalating attacks on migrants and communities of color, and her first time directly addressing the situation in Springfield, Ohio.... In her interview, Ms. Harris laid out the city's distress, pointing to children who could not attend school and law enforcement officers who had been stretched thin.... She said she had spoken with Mr. Trump earlier on Tuesday, checking in to make sure that he was OK and reiterating her sentiment that 'there's no place for political violence in our country.'"
Joseph Menn of the Washington Post: "Russian propagandists are escalating attacks on the presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris with false but widely circulated videos on social media, including one that featured an actor accusing Harris of a nonexistent hit-and-run that paralyzed a girl, Microsoft researchers said Tuesday. That video was a viral hit, spread by X accounts with as a many as a half-million followers, despite first appearing on a newly minted San Francisco news outlet that soon vanished. Posts featuring the video racked up 7 million views on X alone, and were also on Facebook, TikTok and YouTube. Another video manufactured an assault on an attendee of a rally for ... Donald Trump, garnering millions of views, Microsoft said. One depicted a fake New York billboard with vulgar messages saying Harris wanted to change children's gender. It drew hundreds of thousands of views on X. In all, Microsoft called out three Russian government-backed groups in addition to those described in federal charges last week against employees at propaganda network RT."
Jonathan Swan, et al., of the New York Times: "The acting director of the Secret Service told ... Donald J. Trump that significant additional security arrangements and planning would be needed if he wanted to continue safely playing golf, according to three people with knowledge of their conversation. The agency's acting director, Ronald L. Rowe Jr., made the recommendation on Monday afternoon at a meeting with Mr. Trump in his office at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and home in Palm Beach, Fla."
Andrew Kaczynski of CNN: "A week after President Barack Obama won reelection in November 2012, JD Vance, then a law student at Yale, wrote a scathing rebuke of the Republican Party's stance [link fixed] on migrants and minorities, criticizing it for being 'openly hostile to non-whites' and for alienating 'Blacks, Latinos, [and] the youth.' Four years later, as Vance considered a career in GOP politics, he asked a former college professor to delete the article. That professor, Brad Nelson, taught Vance at Ohio State University while Vance was an undergraduate student.... Nelson told CNN that during the 2016 Republican primary he agreed to delete the article at Vance's request, so that Vance might have an easier time getting a job in Republican politics. However, the article ... remains viewable on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine."
Perry Stein of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump's legal team has requested a 30-day extension to respond to the government's appeal of U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon's dismissal of his classified-documents case, making it less likely that a ruling on whether the indictment should be restored will come before Inauguration Day. The former president is very likely to be granted the extension. Special counsel Jack Smith did not oppose the request, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta -- where the government's appeal was filed -- says first-time requests for 30-day extensions should be approved. Trump's lawyers said they can't meet the court's Sept. 25 deadline because they are juggling other due dates related to Trump's separate federal election interference case in D.C."
The New York Times' live updates of developments Tuesday in the Israel/Hamas war are here: "Hundreds of pagers blew up at the same time across Lebanon on Tuesday in an apparently coordinated attack that targeted members of Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militant group in the region, Lebanese and Hezbollah officials said.... American and other officials briefed on the operation said Israel was responsible for the attack and had executed it by hiding small amounts of explosive material in each pager within a new batch of pagers made in Taiwan and imported into Lebanon. The attack came a day after Israeli leaders had warned that they were considering stepping up their military campaign against Hezbollah.... Hezbollah accused Israel of orchestrating the attack on Tuesday and vowed to retaliate for what it called 'blatant aggression.'... The U.N.'s special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, said the death toll had risen to nine people killed. Hezbollah told The New York Times that six of the nine people were Hezbollah fighters. Lebanon's Ministry of Health said that a young girl was also among those killed and that more than 2,700 others were injured." ~~~
~~~ A Reuters report on the exploded pagers is here.
Annie Karni of the New York Times: "Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked an election-season bid by Democrats to advance legislation that would guarantee federal protections and insurance coverage for in vitro fertilization treatments, the second time in three months that the G.O.P. has thwarted the broadly popular measure. Democrats orchestrated the failed vote, just weeks before the November elections, in part to highlight Republican opposition to abortion rights and its implications for access to other reproductive health care services. They sought to remind voters that the G.O.P. was holding firm against federal protections for I.V.F. even after ... Donald J. Trump called himself a 'leader' on the issue and said he supported requiring insurance companies or the federal government to cover the treatments." CNN's story is here.
Ben Sisario & Julia Jacobs of the New York Times: "Sean Combs, the embattled music mogul, has been indicted on three counts of sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution. In the indictment, which was unsealed on Tuesday, prosecutors in the Southern District of New York accused Mr. Combs of running a 'criminal enterprise' that for years threatened, abused and coerced women, and included accusations of forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice. To commit these acts, the prosecutors said, Mr. Combs relied on the help of the employees of his business." ~~~
~~~ CNN is live-updating developments. The liveblog includes a copy of the indictment.
Amanda Marcotte of Salon: "... Sen. JD Vance went to Yale Law School. The Ohio Republican was selected as Donald Trump's running mate in no small part because of his overrated intellectual chops. In the 207-word announcement adding Vance to the ticket, Trump used the word 'Yale' four times and even made sure to note that Vance graduated 'Summa Cum Laude' from Ohio State University. Vance fashions himself a public intellectual, spending endless hours giving chin-scratching interviews on right-wing podcasts and to Ross Douthat of the New York Times. He name-drops far-right and even Nazi academics like Carl Schmitt and flings around plenty of five-dollar words.... Watching interviews with Vance suggests his main job is to 'translate' Trump's babble into coherent-sounding talking points.... The term 'sanewashing' was coined to describe the bad habit of journalists who rewrite Trump's rambling nonsense into sentences that make sense, but for Vance, it's a full-time job." Do read on.
Andrew Egger of the Bulwark: JD "Vance's pivot to hand-wringing about extreme rhetoric is truly shameless coming from the current GOP ticket. Under Vance's furrowed-brow rules of engagement, calling a political opponent a fascist threat to democracy is way over the line. But calling an opponent a communist threat to democracy, as Trump says daily of Kamala Harris? Less of an issue, apparently. Vance's attempt at rhetoric-policing is particularly ridiculous this time around -- and not just because Trump accused Harris of being a fascist less than two weeks ago.... [Trump and Vance are] crying foul on their opponents' rhetoric while continuing shamelessly to hit below the belt. 'Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at,' Trump said during a Fox News interview [Monday]. 'They are the ones that are destroying the country.... They are the real threat.' At about that same time, his campaign sent out a fundraising email saying Joe Biden 'truly hates our country' and was allowing 'an invasion' that is 'terrorizing U.S. citizens.'... But lowering the temperature doesn't mean ignoring the truth. We needn't lose sleep over calling Trump a 'threat to democracy,' for instance: In 2020, he ... [tried] by both fraud and force to reinstall himself as president contrary to the laws ... and the voted will of the people. He continues to deny the outcome of that election and is open about not accepting the outcome of the coming one."
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Presidential Race
Scientific American Editors: "In the November election, the U.S. faces two futures. In one, the new president offers the country better prospects, relying on science, solid evidence and the willingness to learn from experience. She pushes policies that boost good jobs nationwide by embracing technology and clean energy. She supports education, public health and reproductive rights. She treats the climate crisis as the emergency it is and seeks to mitigate its catastrophic storms, fires and droughts. In the other future, the new president endangers public health and safety and rejects evidence, preferring instead nonsensical conspiracy fantasies. He ignores the climate crisis in favor of more pollution. He requires that federal officials show personal loyalty to him rather than upholding U.S. laws. He fills positions in federal science and other agencies with unqualified ideologues. He goads people into hate and division, and he inspires extremists at state and local levels to pass laws that disrupt education and make it harder to earn a living.... That is why, for only the second time in our magazine's 179-year history, the editors of Scientific American are endorsing a candidate for president. That person is Kamala Harris."
Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "Vice President Kamala Harris held a sometimes tense meeting with Teamsters leaders on Monday, defending the Biden administration's labor policies against pointed questions and concluding with a promise that she would win the presidency and treat the union fairly with or without its backing. While Ms. Harris has the endorsement of most of the nation;s unions, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, whose truck drivers, freight workers and other members are divided in their political allegiances, has held out. Sean O'Brien, the union's combative president, said after the meeting that he could announce an endorsement -- if there was an endorsement -- as soon as Wednesday.... Ms. Harris repeatedly castigated ... Donald J. Trump for appointing anti-union members to the National Labor Relations Board when he was president and reminded the Teamsters that Mr. Biden had shored up pensions for thousands of union members.... She also recalled how Mr. Trump had told Elon Musk that striking workers should be fired...." A Politico story is here.
Yes, it is possible for Trump to get even more irresponsible: ~~~
⭐ Alex Griffing of Mediaite: "... Donald Trump directly blamed President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for a gunman targeting him at his West Palm Beach golf club on Sunday.... Trump spoke to Fox News Digital's Brooke Singman on Monday morning and claimed the gunman was motivated by the top Democrats' 'highly inflammatory language.... 'He [presumably the would-be gunman] believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and he acted on it,' Trump said, claiming, 'Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country, and they are the ones that are destroying the country -- both from the inside and out.'... 'It is called the enemy from within. They are the real threat,' Trump added, appearing to use the exact same kind of language he claims the Democrats are using that inspired the shootings." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: When I heard that yet another person had attempted to kill Trump, I felt sorry. Maybe not so much for him, but at least for a country and for a species where so many feel that murder is a good way to solve a problem. Now I don't feel sorry at all. I have let Trump make me a little less human. I have let him crush a little piece of natural empathy. ~~~
~~~ And look at what Trump's hatefulness does to the pathetic empty vessels who follow him. They follow him into the darkness. They don't know any better: ~~~
~~~ Kit Maher of CNN, republished by Yahoo! News: "JD Vance on Monday blamed liberal rhetoric for the apparent assassination attempt against ... Donald Trump over the weekend. '... the big difference between conservatives and liberals is that we have -- no one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple of months, and two people now have tried to kill Donald Trump in the last couple of months,' the Republican vice presidential candidate said at the Georgia Faith & Freedom Coalition dinner in Atlanta. 'I'd say that's pretty strong evidence that the left needs to tone down the rhetoric, and needs to cut this crap out,' he continued. Vance vowed to 'do my part' to tone down the rhetoric...." MB: Clearly, Vance thinks that it's only fair that would-be assassins take shots at Kamala Harris, too. That such a suggestion is not "crap," "ratcheting up the rhetoric." That people who decide that murdering a famous people is good way to establish their own relevance is a "liberal" thing. That it's quite acceptable to discuss murdering one's political opponents. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
David Gardner of the Daily Beast, republished by Yahoo! News: "The Trump campaign is blaming Kamala Harris and her Democratic supporters for the second assassination attempt on the former president. They claim that concerted attempts to demonize Donald Trump as a threat to democracy are putting his life at risk. Hours after Sunday's failed shooting plot at Trump's West Palm Beach golf club, his senior campaign manager Chris LaCivita posted a video of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) calling Trump 'extraordinarily dangerous' and a 'threat to democracy.'... LaCivita wrote on his X account ... that Harris was running the Sanders video on her Facebook platforms." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: If Trump doesn't want to be accused of being extraordinarily dangerous & a threat to democracy, he should renounced 93.2% of everything he's done and said since 2015 (or before!). Also note that LaCivita made these remarks before Trump himself blamed Harris for the assassination attempt. Yeah, they test-run their most incendiary claims.
Rhian Lubin of the Independent: "Elon Musk has deleted what he now claims was a 'joke' about how 'no one is trying to assassinate' President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris following the second attempt on Donald Trump's life on Sunday." MB: I'm sure Elon has a lot of lawyers. Maybe one sent him an SOS (or SYS -- save yourself). According to Lubin's report, at least one former federal prosecutor said that Elon's now-deleted "joke" "require[d] an immediate visit by the U.S. Secret Service." Sorry, Elon, this is one of those bells you can't unring. Besides, it worked so well for you that Trump and his entire campaign took up the joke and presented it to their lemmings as a true thing, not a "joke." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: See also Akhilleus's commentary at the top of today's thread. In the post, Akhilleus also links to a Wired piece by Andrew Couts that I couldn't access on accounta using up my Wired freebies.
~~~ Peter Baker of the New York Times, also linked below: "... the White House pushed back. 'Violence should only be condemned, never encouraged or joked about,' said Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman. 'This rhetoric is irresponsible.'" ~~~
~~~ Secret Service Keeps an Eye on Elon. Jeff Mason of Reuters: "The U.S. Secret Service said on Monday it was aware of a post by billionaire Elon Musk on the X social media platform musing about an absence of assassination attempts on President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.... 'The Secret Service is aware of the social media post made by Elon Musk and as a matter of practice, we do not comment on matters involving protective intelligence,' a spokesperson told Reuters in an email. 'We can say, however, that the Secret Service investigates all threats related to our protectees.'"
AND, in the midst of all this: ~~~
~~~ Joe Biden Is a Saint. Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Biden and former President Trump spoke over the phone Monday after an apparent assassination attempt against the Republican nominee at his Florida golf course. 'We had a very nice call. It was about Secret Service protection,' Trump said in a statement. The White House described the call as 'cordial' and said Biden 'conveyed his relief that [Trump] is safe.' Biden earlier Monday expressed his relief that Trump was safe and said the Secret Service 'needs more help.'"
Kate Kelly of the New York Times: "The Secret Service did not search the perimeter of the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Sunday before ... Donald J. Trump began his round, an acknowledgment that has put the besieged agency under renewed scrutiny two months after a similar episode in Pennsylvania. The decision raises further questions about whether the Secret Service has the resources and ability to adequately perform its duties during a time of increasing violence and a unique campaign between a sitting vice president and a former president. While the agency's acting director [Ronald L. Rowe Jr.] hailed a Secret Service agent for acting swiftly and preventing any harm to Mr. Trump on Sunday, the F.B.I. said that data from a gunman's cellphone indicated he spent almost 12 hours near the course before he aimed a rifle in the direction of Mr. Trump while he was golfing." ~~~
~~~ Carol Leonnig, et al., of the Washington Post: "Soon after Donald Trump became president, authorities tried to warn him about the risks posed by golfing at his own courses because of their proximity to public roads. Secret Service agents came armed with unusual evidence: not suspect profiles or spent bullet casings, but simple photographs taken by news crews of him golfing at his private club in Sterling, Va. But Trump insisted that his clubs were safe and that he wanted to keep golfing, the former officials said. These preferences posed problems for his protection that former Trump aides, Secret Service officials and security experts said have only intensified in the years since he left the White House, as his security detail shrank.... The result is a security nightmare for the Secret Service and their partners in local law enforcement....
"Trump's practices differed from those of Barack Obama, who golfed frequently as president but usually at a course on the grounds of the military's Joint Base Andrews in Prince George's County or, while vacationing in Hawaii, on bases there. Such courses are insulated from public roadways, and anyone on the links would have undergone rigorous screening." And after an armed intruder took hostages at a course where President Ronald Reagan was golfing, Reagan purposely gave up golf (except at one private course) out of concern for putting other people at risk.
~~~ Marie: One might think Trump's carelessness is indicative of a pathological death wish, but I beg to differ. I think it's more his obsession with money & his complete self-absorption: Trump plays at his own courses because (a) he wants to advertise his clubs to increase memberships (and membership fees); and (b) He doesn't give a rat's ass how difficult and dangerous his playing at expected times at his crappy courses makes the jobs of the Secret Service agents who would give their lives to protect him. In fact, when I heard that the Secret Service opened fire on a "rifle" they saw in the bushes, I wondered how many other people they might have put in danger. Surely there were people, including the witness who photographed the perp's vehicle, who might be walking by on the nearby public street and could have been hit by stray bullets.
CNN live-updated developments Monday in the Trump assassination attempt & election news. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ The New York Times' liveblog for Monday is here: "The man who investigators say concealed himself on the edge of a golf course with a semiautomatic rifle in an apparent bid to assassinate ... Donald J. Trump made a first court appearance in Florida on Monday. He faces charges of possessing a firearm as a convicted felon, and of possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number, according to two people briefed on the case." (Also linked yesterday.)
Peter Baker of the New York Times: "In the space of less than a week, the once and possibly future commander in chief was both a seeming inspiration and an apparent target of the political violence that has increasingly come to shape American politics in the modern era. Bomb threats and attempted assassinations now have become part of the landscape, shocking and horrific, yet not so much that they have forced any real national reckoning.... Mr. Trump, who as recently as last week's debate with [Vice President] Harris blamed Democrats for the shooting at a rally in Butler, Pa., that struck his ear in July, attributed Sunday's attempt to the president and vice president as well.... Within hours [of Sunday's incident], his campaign emailed a list of quotes from [President] Biden, Ms. Harris and other Democrats attacking Mr. Trump with phrases like 'a threat to our democracy' ... without noting that just last week during the debate the former president said 'they're the threat to democracy.'...
"At the heart of today's eruption of political violence is Mr. Trump, a figure who seems to inspire people to make threats or take actions both for him and against him. He has long favored the language of violence in his political discourse, encouraging supporters to beat up hecklers, threatening to shoot looters and undocumented migrants, mocking a near-fatal attack on the husband of the Democratic House speaker and suggesting that a general he deemed disloyal be executed.... Mr. Trump does not pause to reflect on the impact of his own words.... Asked by a reporter if he denounced the bomb threats, he demurred. 'I don't know what happened with the bomb threats,' he said. 'I know that it's been taken over by illegal migrants, and that's a terrible thing that happened.'" ~~~
~~~ Marie: Of course that's one big lie. Trump certainly was aware of (perhaps pleased by) the bomb threats he inspired, and most of the "migrants" to Springfield are refugees, in the U.S. legally. And poor Peter Baker; no matter the facts, even as presented in his own story, his fingers just won't punch out on that keyboard, "It's Trump's fault. It's all Trump's fault." ~~~
~~~ Ah, well, Politico's take is even more oblique: ~~~
~~~ Betsy Swan, et al., of Politico: "The toxic political climate and a complex web of threats -- punctuated by Sunday;s apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump -- is putting an extraordinary strain on the national security officials tasked with safeguarding American democracy. Security experts say sharp polarization and increasingly hateful political rhetoric -- fanned by foreign adversaries and supercharged by social media -- have combined to test the nation's ability to protect its candidates and institutions."
Way down in Grafs 13 & 14, the Politico reporters do write, "Law enforcement agencies are also operating in an environment of deep distrust, stoked by Trump's longtime attacks on the FBI and Justice Department amid the deluge of investigations and indictments he's faced in recent years. Some Republicans, like Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), called for the feds to stay out of the investigation into Sunday's incident, saying instead that Florida authorities -- under the leadership of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis -- should be the ones digging into the latest apparent attempt on Trump's life. DeSantis obliged, announcing that Florida would do its own probe. But the criminal case against the suspect ... is a federal case being handled by the Justice Department.
~~~ Marie: BTW, in one of those perfect oppositions that occasionally occur outside of literature, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, who is managing the case against Trump's accused would-be attacker, is a Haitian immigrant. As his online DOJ biography says, Markenzy Lapointe is "the first Haitian-born American lawyer to serve as U.S. Attorney. He emigrated from Haiti to the U.S. as a teenager, lived in Miami's Liberty City neighborhood, and graduated from Edison High School." President Biden, of course, appointed Lapointe. ~~~
~~~ Jay Waagmeester of the Florida Phoenix: Florida "Gov. Ron DeSantis plans a state investigation into the attempted assassination of ... Donald Trump over the weekend to make sure the probe is 'credible.'... 'I understand that the feds are involved, but we do believe that there were multiple violations of state law,' DeSantis said Monday. 'We also believe that there's a need to make sure that the truth about all this comes out in a way, you know, that's credible. I mean, I look at the federal government, with all due respect to them, you know, those same agencies that are prosecuting Trump in that jurisdiction are now going to be investigating this,' DeSantis said. 'I just think that that may not be the best thing for this country. Nevertheless, they have their prerogative, but we have our prerogative, and so we'll be making an announcement further along those lines in the in the ensuing days.'"
Miriam Jordan of the New York Times: "Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio announced on Monday that he was deploying state troopers to the beleaguered city of Springfield to reassure the community that schools are safe despite a wave of bomb threats. The threats began last week after Donald J. Trump mentioned Springfield during the presidential debate, repeating a baseless rumor that Haitian immigrants in the city were abducting and eating household pets. Since then, 33 bomb threats have targeted city schools, most recently on Monday when two elementary schools were evacuated as a result of threats, Governor DeWine said. City Hall and two hospitals have also been targeted.... The threats have shaken the city and disrupted school for thousands of students. The deployment of a contingent of 36 troopers, beginning on Tuesday, is intended to allay anxieties and ensure that students can focus on school." ~~~
~~~ Marie: I hope Ohio taxpayers (and voters) realize that their tax dollars are going to pay for a crisis created and perpetuated by Donald Trump and their own punk senator, JayDee Vance. (In fact, Vance even boasted on national teevee about "creating" the crisis, so the media would tell his fake anti-immigrant story.
Very Trumpy Voter Suppression. Praveena Somasundaram of the Washington Post: "An Ohio sheriff this weekend urged residents in his county to collect the addresses of homes displaying signs for Vice President Kamala Harris, suggesting that there would be an influx of undocumented immigrants if she wins the presidential race. Bruce Zuchowski, the sheriff of Portage County who is seeking reelection, made the remarks Friday in two identical posts on his personal and professional Facebook accounts. 'I say ... write down all the addresses of the people who had her signs in their yards!' Zuchowski (R) said. That way, he said, when undocumented immigrants -- which he referred to as a 'locust' -- flooded in, 'We'll already have the addresses of their New families ... who supported their arrival!'... One Republican official described the post as 'bullying' and stepped down from a role with a county GOP committee, the Portager reported.... In Monday posts on X, the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio condemned Zuchowski's comments, adding that putting up political signs was 'most decidedly, protected core First Amendment speech.'"
Rachel Maddow reprised some of Trump's crazy stuff and slip-ups of the last month. Her thesis is that to make Americans -- and the media -- to forget Trump's terrible performance, he decided to amplify JayDee's attacks on innocent Haitian refuges: ~~~
~~~ Maddow didn't say so, but Digby wrote in her Salon column yesterday that Trump's technique has a name, coincidentally called "deadcatting.": "It was coined by none other than former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson when he was mayor of London: 'There is one thing that is absolutely certain about throwing a dead cat on the dining room table -- and I don't mean that people will be outraged, alarmed, disgusted. That is true, but irrelevant. The key point, says my Australian friend, is that everyone will shout, "Jeez, mate, there's a dead cat on the table!" In other words, they will be talking about the dead cat -- the thing you want them to talk about -- and they will not be talking about the issue that has been causing you so much grief.'" And JayDee is in on the plot: "Even after the bomb threats [in Springfield, Ohio,] started and the story had been thoroughly debunked, he tweeted: '... don't let the crybabies in the media dissuade you, fellow patriots. Keep the cat memes flowing.'" The whole column is worth a read. ~~~
~~~ Maddow included in her list of horribles one bizarro Trump tall tale that I had not heard. Somehow the story didn't make much of a, uh, splash, and many of us missed it. So, a bit belatedly, here ya go: ~~~
Trump thinks Niagara Falls could be turned into a water source for California. I’m surprised he didn’t make that his solution for COVID. . . https://t.co/nXiQ1TBYEg
— Laurence Tribe 🇺🇦 ⚖️ (@tribelaw) September 16, 2024
In case you can't watch the video, here's what El Dumbo de Mar-a-Lardo said. Really: ~~~
You have millions of gallons of water pouring down from the north with the snow caps and Canada, and all pouring down and they essentially have a very large faucet. You turn the faucet and it takes one day to turn it, and it's massive, it's as big as the wall of that building right there behind you. You turn that, and all of that water goes aimlessly into the Pacific (Ocean), and if you turned that back, all of that water would come right down here and into Los Angeles. -- Donald Trump, last Friday
~~~ AND it turns out that one of Trump's goofier goof-ups that Maddow named has consequences: ~~~
~~~ Matthew Chapman of the Raw Story: "A Reggaeton star reportedly scrubbed his presidential endorsement off social media after ... Donald Trump mistakenly introduced the singer as a 'hot' woman at his weekend campaign rally in Las Vegas. Before realizing singer Nicky Jam was a man, Trump quipped: 'Do you know Nicky? She's hot.... Where's Nicky? Oh, look, I'm glad he came up,' Trump corrected himself as the singer approached the stage."
We now take time out from our irregularly-scheduled campaign to bring you our newest Big Grift: ~~~
~~~ David Yaffe-Bellany, et al., of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump ... appeared on a livestream on Monday to champion his latest business venture: cryptocurrencies. 'Crypto is one of those things we have to do,' Mr. Trump said on X. 'Whether we like it or not, I have to do it.' Beside him were his collaborators, including a family friend; Mr. Trump's two oldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump; and two little-known crypto entrepreneurs with no experience running a high-profile business. Together, they were rolling out Mr. Trump's crypto venture, World Liberty Financial, a project that has already raised concerns about the former president's conflicts of interest and even alarmed some of his most vocal supporters in the industry.... On the livestream, he did not address the project directly, leaving the details to the two entrepreneurs, Chase Herro and Zachary Folkman. Mr. Herro has described himself as 'the dirtbag of the internet,' while Mr. Folkman used to teach classes on how to seduce women.
"strong>Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight..., said that if Mr. Trump was elected in November, his involvement in the crypto venture would create serious conflicts of interest. The Securities and Exchange Commission has cracked down on the industry.... Mr. Trump 'would be able to push regulatory agencies to favor businesses he is involved in,' Ms. Brian said. Ethics experts have said that his ownership of the social media company raises similar issues." MB: Oh, read on. The mention of ethics concerns is downright quaint in this -- or any Trump -- context. The Verge has a story here.
Paul Waldman, on Substack: "... almost the entire GOP has been complicit with Trump from the beginning, there is still a place for everyone, even those who have committed crimes.... Nevertheless, we should not accept that Trump's aides and allies deserve even a modicum of respect. Many of these people will be around for years or decades, and they should be shamed and stigmatized and mocked at every opportunity. When this is all over we ought to undertake an effort to detrumpify our political system, difficult though it may be. Anyone who stood with Trump should be made to answer as long as they live for the poison he injected into our national life. When they try to claim, as many will, that they never really agreed with all the racism and incitement, we should say: No. You had your chance to disavow him and what he stood for when it mattered. We will not forget." Thanks to Ken W. for the link.
Niha Masih of the Washington Post: "Meta -- the owner of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram -- said Monday that it was banning Russian state media outlets such as RT from its platforms, days after the United States imposed sanctions on RT's parent companies and accused them of acting as an arm of Moscow's intelligence operations.... Earlier this month, U.S. intelligence officials said Russia's covert efforts to influence the 2024 presidential election are the most active foreign threat this political season." An NBC News story is here.
Rachel Pannett & Yvonne Sanchez of the Washington Post: "A judge has denied a request from Mark Meadows, who was Donald Trump's White House chief of staff, to move the Arizona election-subversion-related prosecution against him from state court to federal court. The ruling Monday by U.S. District Court judge John J. Tuchi in the district of Arizona is a further setback for Meadows, who unsuccessfully tried the same legal maneuver a year ago in a separate election interference case in Georgia."
Matt Naham of Law & Crime: "Because Rudy Giuliani 'utterly failed' to establish personal jurisdiction in his New Hampshire defamation lawsuit against President Joe Biden, a federal judge last Friday threw out the case. In October 2023, before he was himself found liable for defaming 2020 Georgia election workers and slapped with a $148 million judgment, Giuliani held a press conference and announced his plans to sue Biden for referring to him as a 'Russian pawn' during a 2020 debate with Donald Trump in Nashville, Tenn. Giuliani claimed that he was falsely branded as 'a Russian pawn' and a 'facilitator of Russian disinformation,' damaging his law practice and consulting business (he has since been disbarred in New York and, after the $148 million judgment, he filed for bankruptcy).... In February, Biden and the Biden campaign filed a 'Notice of Non-Opposition,' stating that Giuliani had failed to file a response to a motion to have the lawsuit dismissed and that his complaint was 'utterly devoid of well-pled factual allegations[.]'" Biden filed a similar motion in June, and the judge finally dismissed the case Friday.
Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "It was inevitable, once Roe v. Wade was overturned and states started banning abortion, that women were going to die. And now ProPublica has identified at least two women who died 'after they couldn't access legal abortions and timely medical care.' According to ProPublica's Kavitha Surana, 'There are almost certainly others.'... It shouldn't take even more stories of senseless suffering for these cruel laws to become politically untenable."
Ben Sisario & Julia Jacobs of the New York Times: "Sean Combs, the music mogul whose career has been upended by sexual assault lawsuits and a federal investigation, was arrested at a Manhattan hotel on Monday evening after a grand jury indicted him. The indictment is sealed and the charges were not announced but Marc Agnifilo, a lawyer for Mr. Combs, said he believed he was being charged with racketeering and sex trafficking."
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New York. William Rashbaum & Michael Rothfeld of the New York Times: "Two high-ranking New York Fire Department chiefs were arrested early Monday on federal bribery and corruption charges that accuse them of taking nearly $100,000 apiece in a scheme to expedite safety inspections, people with knowledge of the matter said. The two chiefs, whose homes and offices at Fire Department headquarters were searched by federal agents and city investigators in February, are expected to appear in United States District Court in Manhattan later on Monday, the people said. The chiefs -- Brian E. Cordasco, 49, and Anthony M. Saccavino, 59 -- were responsible for overseeing safety inspections on building projects." (Also linked yesterday.)
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