13
   

Monitoring Biden and other Contemporary Events

 
 
blatham
 
  3  
Reply Tue 29 Oct, 2024 05:37 pm
Courts Shut Down Non-Citizen Voter Fear Mongering Efforts Across the Country

For the last several months, Republicans have been perpetuating the false narrative that non-citizens are illegally voting en-masse on behalf of Democrats this cycle, as Donald Trump and his supporters manufacture voter fraud hysteria that they can point to if they lose next week.

Republican state officials across the country have bolstered this effort by announcing various voter roll purge programs and legal challenges to remove supposed non-citizens from the rolls in recent weeks and months — ominously close to the election.

One by one, however, the courts have swiftly shut down these programs and dismissed the lawsuits alleging issues with voter rolls. The across-the-board dismissals have only reinforced the idea that the GOP non-citizen voting myths have only ever been a messaging campaign meant for an audience of one.

“Whenever somebody is promoting the claim that there are non-citizens voting in our elections, it’s not based on facts,” Andrew Garber, counsel within the Brennan Center’s Voting Rights and Elections Program, told TPM. “And it seems to be driving towards a different narrative, which is election denial, which is trying to give the impression that there are problems so that it can be used to challenge election results they don’t like.”

Last week, a federal judge temporarily blocked GOP Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s recent efforts to purge supposed non-citizens from the voter rolls just before the election. In August, Youngkin signed Executive Order 35, removing more than 6,000 alleged non-citizens from the voter rolls, and also announcing the state’s new program designed to purge supposed non-citizens from the voter rolls. Voting rights activists filed a lawsuit in federal court earlier this month arguing that the program directly violates the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and has the potential to disenfranchise eligible voters.

U.S. District Court Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles agreed with the plaintiffs last week, saying in her order that the program does indeed violate the NVRA’s 90-day quiet period, which prohibits voter registration cancellation or any systematic list maintenance program being implemented within 90 days of an election.

A federal appeals court on Sunday upheld the judge’s ruling, refusing to reinstate the program and restoring the voter registrations of those who were purged. Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares wrote on X on Sunday that “Virginia will be filing an appeal in the U.S. Supreme Court immediately.” State officials on Monday asked the high court to intervene.

Garber described the appeal too as simply a “messaging effort.”

“I think a lot of it is the messaging effort, and a lot of it is trying to have something to point back to if they don’t like election results,” he said.

Earlier this month, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit from the Republican National Committee seeking access to Michigan’s voter rolls in order to remove supposedly ineligible voters. The lawsuit claimed that the state, in violation of the NVRA, was not maintaining accurate voter rolls. U.S. District Court Judge Jane M. Beckering, however, ruled that the case lacked standing.

And last month, a federal judge temporarily blocked Alabama’s Secretary of State Wes Allen’s (R) voter purge program, which was designed to remove supposed non-citizens from the voter rolls. The Justice Department filed a lawsuit against the state of Alabama and Allen, arguing that the program violated the NVRA. U.S. District Court Judge Anna Manasco ruled in September that the program, like the one in Virginia, also violated the NVRA 90-day quiet period.

The most glaring issue with these non-citizen voting efforts is the timing. If non-citizen voting and voter list maintenance is as big of an issue as Republicans claim — which experts have explained time and time again that it is not — why did Republicans wait so long to address it? The answer, of course, is that there is no real issue with widespread non-citizens voting or voter list maintenance, David Becker, the executive director and founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research told TPM. These various efforts are merely attempts to sow seeds of distrust in the election system in case Trump loses next month, he said.

“There’s good reason for suspicion as to why these cases were filed when they were filed,” Becker said, “and that’s knowing that they would almost certainly lose. And that’s because it’s being done more to fuel false claims about an election being stolen that presumably they expect their candidate to lose.”

Justin Levitt, an election law scholar and professor at LMU Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, also pointed out that the fact that the courts have so quickly shut down these programs and dismissed lawsuits challenging voter rolls is simply evidence that the justice system is working as it should.

“This is exactly what you’d expect, that programs that are clearly unlawful that we’re known to be clearly unlawful are getting shut down and shut down quickly,” he said. “Despite the efforts of a few to sow confusion and disorder, the most important thing for the public to know, the most important thing for the voters to know is that the attempts to create chaos aren’t working.”
0 Replies
 
hightor
 
  3  
Reply Wed 30 Oct, 2024 03:18 am
Quote:
Republican presidential nominee former president Donald Trump offered Americans his closing argument in the 2024 presidential race on Sunday, October 27, at Madison Square Garden. At a rally that evoked a Nazi rally at the old Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939, Trump’s warm-up acts set the terms of Trump’s final pitch to voters by calling Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean” and railing against “f*cking illegals.” They called Vice President Kamala Harris “the Antichrist” and “the devil,” and called former secretary of state Hillary Clinton “a sick son of a b*tch.” When Trump took the stage about two hours late, he echoed the warm-up acts, and then reiterated that he believes fellow Americans are “the enemy within.”

The racism and fascism Trump’s MAGA Republicans displayed at Madison Square Garden is usually expressed within their media bubble, where it passes for normal conversation. The backlash against it among people in the real world appears to have shocked the Trump campaign so much that the candidate is running away from his own closing argument.

On Monday, Trump felt obliged to tell an audience in Georgia, “I’m not a Nazi.” The Trump campaign has made it a point never to apologize and never to explain, but on Monday it broke that rule, trying to distance itself from performer Tony Hinchcliffe’s comments about Puerto Rico.

This morning, Trump announced he would hold a press conference at Mar-a-Lago. He showed up more than an hour late for the assembled press, then began the event by undermining faith in the election, claiming the campaign is going “very well; there are some bad spots in Pennsylvania where some serious things have been caught or are in the process of being caught,” although it was unclear what he meant.

He went on to deliver such a litany of lies that CNN cited them as a reason to cut away from the speech. Trump chose not to acknowledge the offensiveness of the Madison Square Garden event, saying ““The love in that room, it was breathtaking—and you could have filled it many many times with the people that were unable to get in.”

Tonight, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris offered her own closing argument to the American voters. Once again taking her campaign directly to Trump, she held a rally at the Ellipse near the White House, where Trump spoke to his supporters on January 6, 2021, before sending them off to the U.S. Capitol to stop the counting of the electoral votes that would make Joe Biden president.

More than 75,000 attendees in the Ellipse and standing on the Mall near the Washington Monument waved flags and held up signs with “USA” printed on them as Harris spoke in front of a backdrop of the White House, on a stage with a line of American flags.

“One week from today, you will have the chance to make a decision that directly impacts your life, the life of your family, and the future of this country we love,” she said. “It will probably be the most important vote you ever cast. And this election is more just than a choice between two parties and two different candidates. It is a choice about whether we have a country rooted in freedom for every American or ruled by chaos and division.”

Harris outlined Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and noted that he is “unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance, and out for unchecked power.” She continued: “Donald Trump has spent a decade trying to keep the American people divided and afraid of each other. That is who he is. But America, I am here tonight to say: that is not who we are.” She called for Americans “to turn the page on the drama and the conflict, the fear and division.”

The vice president described herself as “someone who has spent most of my career outside of Washington, D.C.,” a former prosecutor who cares that all people are treated fairly and that those who “use their wealth or power to take advantage of other people” are held to account.

She promised to “work every day to build consensus and reach compromise to get things done…. [to] work with everyone—Democrats, Republicans, and Independents—to help Americans who are working hard and still struggling to get ahead.” She vowed to lower costs by delivering tax cuts to working people and the middle class, ban price gouging on groceries, lower the cost of prescription drugs, provide down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers, and build millions of new homes.

She promised to fight for a child tax credit and to lower the cost of child care, as well as allowing Medicare to cover the cost of home aides for seniors.

She promised to “fight to restore what Donald Trump and his hand-selected Supreme Court Justices took away from the women of America.” “[W]hen Congress passes a bill to restore reproductive freedom nationwide,” she said, “as President of the United States, I will proudly sign it into law.”

She promised to “work with Democrats and Republicans to sign into law the border security bill that Donald Trump killed.” She promised to “remove those who arrive here unlawfully, prosecute the cartels, and give border patrol the support they so desperately need. At the same time,” she said, “we must acknowledge we are a nation of immigrants.” She vowed to “work with Congress to pass immigration reform, including an earned path to citizenship for hardworking immigrants like farmworkers and our Dreamers.”

“As Commander in Chief,” she said, “I will make sure America has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.… I will strengthen—not surrender—America’s global leadership,” and stand with America’s allies because “our alliances keep American people safe and make America stronger and more secure.”

While Trump offers “more chaos, more division, and policies that help those at the very top and hurt everyone else,” Harris said, “I offer a different path. And I ask for your vote. And here is my pledge to you: I pledge to seek common ground and commonsense solutions to make your life better…. I pledge to listen: To experts, to those who will be impacted by the decisions I make, and to people who disagree with me…. I pledge…to approach my work with the joy and optimism that comes from making a difference in people’s lives. And I pledge to be a president for all Americans. And to always put country above party and self.”

“I love our country with all my heart,” she said, “And I believe in its promise. Because I’ve lived it…. And I see the promise of America in all of you…. I see it in the young people who are voting for the first time who are determined to live free from gun violence and to protect our planet, and to shape the world they inherit.

“I see it in the women who refuse to accept a future without reproductive freedom, and the men who support them. I see it in Republicans who have never voted for a Democrat before but have put the Constitution of the United States over party. I’ve seen it in Americans, different in many respects, but united in our pursuit of freedom, our belief in fairness and decency, and our faith in a better future.”

“Nearly 250 years ago, America was born when we wrested freedom from a petty tyrant. Across the generations, Americans have preserved that freedom, expanded it, and in so doing, proved to the world that a government of, by, and for the people is strong and can endure. And those who came before us—the patriots at Normandy and Selma, Seneca Falls and Stonewall, on farmlands and factory floors—they did not struggle, sacrifice, and lay down their lives only to see us cede our fundamental freedoms…only to see us submit to the will of another petty tyrant.

“These United States of America: we are not a vessel for the schemes of wannabe dictators. The United States of America is the greatest idea humanity ever devised: a nation big enough to encompass all our dreams, strong enough to withstand any fracture or fissure between us, and fearless enough to imagine a future of possibilities.

“So, America, let us reach for that future. Let us fight for this beautiful country we love. And in seven days, we have the power—each of you has the power—to turn the page and start writing the next chapter in the most extraordinary story ever told.

“I thank you all,” she said. “God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.”

In Las Vegas, Nevada, today, the Harris campaign placed a giant political advertisement on the Sphere, the music and entertainment venue owned by the same family that owns Madison Square Garden. The globe showed stars and stripes, pictures of Vice President Harris, the words “Harris-Walz,” “November 5,” “Vote for Freedom,” “Vote for Opportunity, “Vote for our Future,” “Vote for Kamala,” “Vote for a New Way Forward.” “Vote for Reproductive Freedom,” “When We Fight, We Win,” and “When We Vote, We Win.”

hcr
0 Replies
 
bobsal u1553115
 
  2  
Reply Wed 30 Oct, 2024 06:10 am
https://cdn.prod.dailykos.com/images/1361685/story_image/racismimmigrationpopulationbirthrateletinmoreimmigrants.png
0 Replies
 
bobsal u1553115
 
  1  
Reply Wed 30 Oct, 2024 06:14 am
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GaxQj40WUAAjjiU.jpg
0 Replies
 
Region Philbis
 
  1  
Reply Wed 30 Oct, 2024 07:00 am

America’s economy is at a historic point ahead of election
(cnn)
0 Replies
 
hightor
 
  3  
Reply Wed 30 Oct, 2024 07:36 am
Worst case scenario – GOP takes White House and Congress.

Second worst case scenario – Harris wins but GOP takes Congress – I say this because I can't imagine how she'd get anything done. I doubt they'd confirm any of her cabinet or any of her judicial nominees. I'd prefer it to a Trump win but I wouldn't envy her position, at all.
0 Replies
 
Walter Hinteler
 
  3  
Reply Wed 30 Oct, 2024 12:11 pm
I've read that Trump said "They’re coming after you".

And from that time I've got a involuntary musical imagery:
izzythepush
 
  4  
Reply Wed 30 Oct, 2024 12:17 pm
Quote:
How can I vote for Kamala Harris if she supports Israel’s war? Here is my answer
Bernie Sanders

Trump says Netanyahu is doing a good job and Biden is holding him back. Even on this issue, Trump is worse


How can I vote for Kamala Harris if she supports Israel’s war? Here is my answer
Bernie Sanders
Trump says Netanyahu is doing a good job and Biden is holding him back. Even on this issue, Trump is worse

Wed 30 Oct 2024 15.30 GMT
Share
I understand that there are millions of Americans who disagree with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on the terrible war in Gaza. I am one of them.

While Israel had a right to defend itself against the horrific Hamas terrorist attack of 7 October 2023, which killed 1,200 innocent people and took 250 hostages, it did not have the right to wage an all-out war against the entire Palestinian people.

It did not have the right to kill 42,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of whom were children, women and the elderly, or injure over 100,000 people in Gaza. It did not have the right to destroy Gaza’s infrastructure and housing and healthcare systems. It did not have the right to bomb every one of Gaza’s 12 universities. It did not have the right to block humanitarian aid, causing massive malnutrition in children and, in fact, starvation.

And that is why I am doing everything I can to block US military aid and offensive weapons sales to the rightwing extremist Netanyahu government in Israel. And I know that many of you share those feelings. And some of you are saying, “How can I vote for Kamala Harris if she is supporting this terrible war?” And that is a very fair question.

And let me give you my best answer. And that is that even on this issue, Donald Trump and his rightwing friends are worse. In the Senate and in Congress Republicans have worked overtime to block humanitarian aid to the starving children in Gaza. The president and vice-president both support getting as much humanitarian aid into Gaza as soon as possible.

Trump has said that Netanyahu is doing a good job and that Biden is holding him back. He has suggested that the Gaza Strip would make excellent beachfront property for development. It is no wonder Netanyahu prefers to have Donald Trump in office.

But even more importantly, and this I promise you, after Harris wins we will, together, do everything we can to change US policy toward Netanyahu – including an immediate ceasefire, the return of all hostages, a surge of massive humanitarian aid, the stopping of settler attacks on the West Bank, and the rebuilding of Gaza for the Palestinian people.

And let me be clear. We will have, in my view, a much better chance of changing US policy with Harris than with Trump, who is extremely close to Netanyahu and sees him as a like-minded, rightwing extremist ally.

But let me also say this, and I deal with this every single day as a US senator. As important as Gaza is, and as strongly as many of us feel about this issue, it is not the only issue at stake in this election.

If Trump wins, women in this country will suffer an enormous setback and lose the ability to control their own bodies. That is not acceptable.

If Trump wins, to be honest with you, the struggle against the climate crisis is over. While virtually every scientist who has studied the issue understands that the climate crisis is real and an existential threat to our country and the world, Trump believes it is a “hoax”. And if the United States, the largest economy in the world, stops transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel, every other country – China, Europe, all over the world, they will do exactly the same thing. And God only knows the kind of planet we will leave to our kids and future generations.

If Trump wins, at a time of enormous income and wealth inequality, he will demand even more tax breaks for the very richest people in our country, while cutting back on programs that working families desperately need. The rich will only get richer, while the minimum wage will remain at $7.25 an hour, and millions of our fellow workers will continue to earn starvation wages.

Did you all see the recent Trump rally at Madison Square Garden? Well, I did, and what I can tell you is that as a nation, as all of you know, we have struggled for years against impossible odds to try to overcome all forms of bigotry – whether it is racism, whether it’s sexism, whether it’s homophobia, whether it’s xenophobia, you name it.

We have tried to fight against bigotry, but that is exactly what we saw on display at that unbelievable Trump rally. It was not a question of speakers getting up there and disagreeing with Kamala Harris on the issues. That wasn’t the issue at all. They were attacking her simply because she was a woman and a woman of color. Extreme vulgar sexism and racism. Is that really the kind of America that we can allow?

So let me conclude by saying this. This is the most consequential election in our lifetimes. Many of you have differences of opinion with Harris on Gaza. So do I. But we cannot sit this election out. Trump has to be defeated. Let’s do everything we can in the next week to make sure that Kamala Harris is our next president.


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/30/bernie-sanders-israel-gaza-harris-trump<br />
0 Replies
 
Bogulum
 
  1  
Reply Wed 30 Oct, 2024 01:44 pm
@hightor,
I don’t need your permission to ignore them. I know I can ignore them. I can also call your insistence on calling attention to them inane. We’re all grown folks here.
hightor
 
  3  
Reply Wed 30 Oct, 2024 02:45 pm
@Bogulum,
Quote:
I don’t need your permission to ignore them.

I wasn't extending you "permission".

Quote:
I know I can ignore them.

That's rather dubious. Then why not ignore them when I post articles about them?

Quote:
I can also call your insistence on calling attention to them inane.

And I can call your overreaction to them, and to my posting stories about them, thin-skinned. They apparently give you political hives. They don't bother me at all and I consider them to be legitimate news stories even if the polls may lack legitimacy themselves. People pay attention to them. And after the election there will be plenty of articles on what the polls got wrong and what they got right. Trying to gauge public opinion prior to elections is nothing to get petulant about. It's just a type of market research.

And I hope you now understand that the polls that got particular coverage were discussing a sub-set of non-white voters, not the black community as a whole.


0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  3  
Reply Wed 30 Oct, 2024 05:42 pm
@Walter Hinteler,
I don't like you anymore, Walter.
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  2  
Reply Wed 30 Oct, 2024 06:25 pm
A day or two following Trump's Madison Square Gardens campaign event, Trump described the evening as follows:
Quote:
The love in that room, it was breathtaking. There’s never been an event that beautiful. It was a love fest. It was love for our country.


Inside scuttlebutt is that a new Trump administration will include this fellow heading up the Ministry of Love.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BOGVhMDUwZjgtYmYwZS00ZjJkLWIxMzgtMjk3M2ViOTU4YmY0XkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_QL75_UY207_CR17,0,140,207_.jpg
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  2  
Reply Wed 30 Oct, 2024 09:05 pm
I have to admit, this sudden burst into song today at his photo-op was unexpected.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GbLuvGxWAAAJZv5?format=jpg&name=small
"Hello, my honey
Hello, my baby
Hello my rag time gal"
0 Replies
 
hightor
 
  2  
Reply Thu 31 Oct, 2024 02:44 am
Quote:
On Friday, October 25, at a town hall held on his social media platform X, Elon Musk told the audience that if Trump wins, he expects to work in a Cabinet-level position to cut the federal government.

He told people to expect “temporary hardship” but that cuts would “ensure long-term prosperity.” At the Trump rally at New York City’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday, Musk said he plans to cut $2 trillion from the government. Economists point out that current discretionary spending in the budget is $1.7 trillion, meaning his promise would eliminate virtually all discretionary spending, which includes transportation, education, housing, and environmental programs.

Economists agree that Trump’s plans to place a high tariff wall around the U.S., replacing income taxes on high earners with tariffs paid for by middle-class Americans, and to deport as many as 20 million immigrants would crash the booming economy. Now Trump’s financial backer Musk is factoring in the loss of entire sectors of the government to the economy under Trump.

Trump has promised to appoint Musk to be the government’s “chief efficiency officer.” “Everyone’s going to have to take a haircut.… We can’t be a wastrel.… We need to live honestly,” Musk said on Friday. Rob Wile and Lora Kolodny of CNBC point out that Musk’s SpaceX aerospace venture has received $19 billion from the U.S. government since 2008.

An X user wrote: “I]f Trump succeeds in forcing through mass deportations, combined with Elon hacking away at the government, firing people and reducing the deficit—there will be an initial severe overreaction in the economy…. Markets will tumble. But when the storm passes and everyone realizes we are on sounder footing, there will be a rapid recovery to a healthier, sustainable economy. History could be made in the coming two years.”

Musk commented: “Sounds about right[.]”

This exchange echoes the prescription of Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, whose theories had done much to create the Great Crash of 1929, for restoring a healthy economy. “Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate,” he told President Herbert Hoover. “It will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living

will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people.”

Mellon, at least, was reacting to an economic crisis thrust upon an administration. Musk is seeking to create one.

Today the Commerce Department reported that from July through September, the nation’s economy grew at a solid 2.8%. Consumer spending is up, as is investment in business. The country added 254,000 jobs in September, and inflation has fallen back almost to the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%.

It is extraordinarily rare for a country to be able to reduce inflation without creating a recession, but the Biden administration has managed to do so, producing what economists call a “soft landing,” rather like catching an egg on a plate. As Bryan Mena of CNN wrote today: “The US economy seems to have pulled off a remarkable and historic achievement.”

Both President Joe Biden and Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris have called for reducing the deficit not by slashing the government, as Musk proposes, but by restoring taxes on the wealthy and corporations.

As part of the Republicans’ plan to take the country back to the era before the 1930s ushered in a government that regulated business and provided a basic social safety net, House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) expects to get rid of the Affordable Care Act.

At a closed-door campaign event on Monday in Pennsylvania for a Republican House candidate, Johnson told supporters that Republicans will propose “massive reform” to the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare,” if they take control of both the House and the Senate in November. “Health-care reform’s going to be a big part of the agenda,” Johnson said. Their plan is to take a “blowtorch to the regulatory state,” which he says is “crushing the free market.” “Trump’s going to go big,” he said.” When an attendee asked, “No Obamacare?” he laughed and agreed: “No Obamacare…. The ACA is so deeply ingrained, we need massive reform to make this work, and we got a lot of ideas on how to do that.”

Ending a campaign with a promise to crash a booming economy and end the Affordable Care Act, which ended insurance companies’ ability to reject people with preexisting conditions, is an unusual strategy.

A post from Trump last night and another this morning suggest his internal polls are worrying him. Last night he claimed there was cheating in Pennsylvania’s York and Lancaster counties. Today he posted: “Pennsylvania is cheating, and getting caught, at large scale levels rarely seen before. REPORT CHEATING TO AUTHORITIES. Law Enforcement must act, NOW!”

Trump appears to be setting up the argument he used in 2020, that he can lose only if he has been cheated. But it is increasingly apparent that the get-out-the-vote, or GOTV, efforts of the Trump campaign have been weak. When Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump and loyalist Michael Whatley became the co-chairs of the Republican National Committee in March 2024, they stopped the GOTV efforts underway and used the money instead for litigation. They outsourced GOTV efforts to super PACs, including Musk’s America PAC.

In Wired today, Jake Lahut reported that door-knockers for Musk’s PAC were driven around in the back of a U-Haul without seats and threatened with having to pay their own hotel bills if they didn’t meet high canvassing quotas. One of the canvassers told Lahut that they thought they were being hired to ask people who they would be voting for when they flew into Michigan, and was surprised to learn their actual role. The workers spoke to Lahut anonymously because they had signed a nondisclosure agreement (a practice the Biden administration has tried to stop).

Trump’s boast that he is responsible for the Supreme Court’s overturning of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision recognizing the constitutional right to abortion is one of the reasons his support is soft. In addition to popular dislike of the idea that the state, rather than a woman and her doctor, should make decisions about her healthcare, the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision is now over two years old, and state examinations of maternal deaths are showing that women are dying from lack of reproductive healthcare.

Cassandra Jaramillo and Kavitha Surana of ProPublica reported today that at least two pregnant women have died in Texas when doctors delayed emergency care after a miscarriage until the fetal heartbeat stopped. The woman they highlighted today, Josseli Barnica, left behind a husband and a toddler.

At a rally this evening near Green Bay, Wisconsin, Trump said his team had advised him to stop talking about how he was going to protect women by ending crime and making sure they don’t have to be “thinking about abortion.” But Trump, who has boasted of sexual assault and been found liable for it, did not stop there. He went on to say that he had told his advisors, “I’m going to do it whether the women like it or not. I am going to protect them.”

The Trump campaign remains concerned about the damage caused by the extraordinarily racist, sexist, and violent Sunday night rally at Madison Square Garden. Today the campaign seized on a misstatement President Biden made when condemning the statement from the Madison Square Garden event that referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.” They tried to turn the tables to suggest that Biden was calling Trump supporters garbage, although the president has always been very careful to focus his condemnation on Trump alone.

In Wisconsin today, when he disembarked from his plane, Trump put on an orange reflective vest and had someone drive him around the tarmac in a garbage truck with TRUMP painted on the side. He complained about Biden to reporters from the cab of the truck but still refused to apologize for Sunday’s slur of Puerto Rico, saying he knew nothing about the comedian who appeared at his rally.

This, too, was an unusual strategy. Like his visit to McDonalds, where he wore an apron, the image of Trump in a sanitation truck was likely intended to show him as a man of the people. But his power has always rested not in his promise to be one of the people, but rather to lead them. The pictures of him in a bright orange vest and unusually dark makeup are quite different from his usual portrayal of himself.

Indeed, media captured a video of Trump’s stunt, and it did not convey strength. MSNBC’s Katie Phang watched him try to get into the truck and noted: “Trump stumbles, drags his right leg, almost falls over, and tries at least three times to open the door…. Some transparency with Trump’s medical records would be nice.”

The Las Vegas Sun today ran an editorial that detailed Trump’s increasingly obvious mental lapses and concluded that Trump is “crippled cognitively and showing clear signs of mental illness.” It noted that Trump now depends “on enablers who show a disturbing willingness to indulge his delusions, amplify his paranoia or steer his feeble mind toward their own goals.” It noted that if Trump cannot fulfill the duties of the presidency, they would fall to his running mate, J.D. Vance, who has suggested “he would subordinate constitutional principles for personal profit and power.”

hcr
0 Replies
 
bobsal u1553115
 
  3  
Reply Thu 31 Oct, 2024 05:43 am
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b7df69988ac3ba30fde94a216b432c78fbc60e6061cddfffa53846180bdd07cb.jpg
0 Replies
 
Walter Hinteler
 
  2  
Reply Thu 31 Oct, 2024 08:08 am
@Walter Hinteler,
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Thursday morning he has spoken by phone with Donald Trump to wish him luck in the election. Orban, who has played up his support of Trump, wrote on X: “Only five days to go. Fingers crossed.” (reuters)
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Reply Thu 31 Oct, 2024 10:33 am
Floods in Spain
Quote:
The majority of those killed were in the coastal region of Valencia, where the state-run agency said that nearly a year’s worth of rain had fallen in just eight hours.

Jesus christ.
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  3  
Reply Thu 31 Oct, 2024 04:07 pm
Is anyone else finding that their state of mind and emotional equilibrium are suffering some unusual stresses as this election approaches? That's certainly the case for me and those in this household. I'm not at the point where I'm hoarding guns, gold and edibles but I'm not all that far off.
Region Philbis
 
  3  
Reply Thu 31 Oct, 2024 04:17 pm
@blatham,

an uneasy feeling in the stomach started a few days ago...
blatham
 
  3  
Reply Thu 31 Oct, 2024 05:11 pm
@Region Philbis,
I thought it certain I wouldn't be alone in this. I'd be pleased if the symptoms were limited to my stomach.
 

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