The Common Ills: 2024-10-06

Saturday, October 12, 2024

What's worse -- the Convicted Felon or his supporters?

There are a few e-mails about the MAGA Trump rally in Coachella. Well, of course, I wouldn't be caught dead there. But in terms of the speakers and what was said? I'm sorry, the man you're asking about in your e-mails? I can't hear him. He's too far back in the closet. And it sounds like he's got a cock in his mouth which, as all of us in the industry have known since the 90s, is not an unusual occurrence for him. Maybe he thinks going MAGA will help his failed and fading career? I don't know. But he'd probably sleep better at night if he's stop pretending to be straight.

Still if it weren't for fakes and fake asses, MAGA wouldn't have any members, now would they? Convicted Felon Donald Trump is a non-stop liar. At SLATE, Ben Mathis-Lilley details how the MAGA fools lie to others and to themselves to try to mitigate Donald's obvious lies. Kathleen Culliton (RAW STORY) notes Donald's been lying about the Governor of North Carolina, Roy Cooper, lying that Cooper has blocked hurricane aid and that Cooper has responded, "This is a flat out lie. We’re working with all partners around the clock to get help to people."

Friday, Donald menaced Aurora, Colorado. Before he took the stage, professional hate merchants and liars White Nationalist Stephen Miller and groping whore Lauren Boebert fed the crowd lies about Venezuelan gang members taking over the city. Then Donald took the stage and hit the lie even harder. Matthew Chapman (RAW STORY) reports that Aurora's mayor -- Republican Mike Coffman -- declared, "There were thousands of people who attended the rally today, some of whom might have visited Aurora for the first time, who were able to see firsthand the mischaracterizations of our great community."

Personally I think it's pretty worrying that the GOP candidate, who attempted to overthrow the republic and whose top general calls him "a fascist to his core" is running on an flatly authoritarian campaign of lies and a promise to round people up. https://t.co/YP6exzYw0A
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) October 11, 2024

Sebastian Murdoch (HUFFINGTON POST) reminds, "On Thursday, Trump gave a long, rambling speech in Detroit, where he trashed the city he was speaking in, attempted to define the word “grocery” and got defensive about the crowds at his events" while OK! notes, "The Republican recently raised concerns after he dubbed Election Day on November 5 will be 'Liberation Day' for the United States and that he would hunt down" and deport undocumented immigrants if he wins the 2024 election." Ashleigh Fields (THE HILL) notes:

Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D) told viewers that former President Trump “does not have the ability to tell the truth” during a Saturday appearance on MSNBC.

“Even those people that are in need in North Carolina, or Georgia, or Tennessee, or whatever state, Florida, that they’re in need, they literally are harming themselves because he does not have the ability to tell the truth about what it takes to get help, and he thinks it’s going to help him in the campaign,” the Harris-Walz campaign co-chair said on air.

“At the end of the day, you cannot say that you’re a leader when you’re absolutely seeking to harm people, and that’s who he is,” she added.

And Igor Bobic and Arthur Delaney (HUFFINGTON POST) note:

Even by the usual Donald Trump standards, this week was bonkers.

The Republican presidential nominee went on unhinged, racist rants against women and immigrants, denigrated one of the largest majority-Black cities in the U.S., threatened news networks with retaliation and spread falsehoods about critical assistance to people devastated by back-to-back hurricanes that ravaged several states.

The former president flooded the zone with so many ridiculous and offensive things that individual comments struggled to break through the noise. Some Republicans pushed back against a few of the most outrageous lies, without calling Trump out, while the overwhelming volume of garbage forced the media to move on.

What's going on? Juliann Ventura (THE HILL) quotes Jared Polis, Governor of Colorado, stating, "I don't know if it's, you know, some say it's cognitive decline, whatever — whatever it is." Rachel Sharp (INDEPENDENT) notes Chris Christie declared, "I saw decline in his skills in '20 from '16, and you see significant declines still." Travis Gettys (RAW STORY) reports:

Panelists on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" debated whether Donald Trump's mental fitness should be more of a campaign issue.

Co-host Mika Brzezinski started off Friday morning's episode with a profane takedown of the former president's rambling haranguing in Detroit, and she convened a panel later on to discuss whether Trump is showing signs of age-related mental illness.

"I want to point out, it never was a huge story that Donald Trump promised a day of violence to solve crime," Brzezinski said. "What is that? What are you talking about? A day of violence, are people going to run around shooting people in the country? I'm actually serious. Take a look at what has already happened in a Trump administration, even if it was on the end of it, where he had people being beaten in [Lafayette] Park. There was Jan. 6. This was when there were a modicum of restraints. He is going to hire who he wants to hire. You can bring up Project 25 and have people knock it down, saying Trump has nothing to do with it. He does. You can also listen to what he says. A day of violence? I'm scared."

The only thing worse than the Convicted Felon are the racists who support him and the disgusting people he wants to build an administration with.

Let's start with his racist followers first. Kathleen Culliton (RAW STORY) reports:

Former President Donald Trump has ramped up his campaign rhetoric by taking it back to a terrifying time in global history — 1930s Germany, experts told Politico Saturday.

Trump's claims that migrants have "bad genes" and will "cut your throat" mimic the lies and feed on the prejudices that scholars say Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler exploited ahead of the Holocaust.

“What is so jarring to me is these are not just Nazi-like statements," said Robert Jones, founder of the Public Religion Research Institute. "These are actual Nazi sentiments."

Jones comment came in response to Politico's analysis of 20 recent Trump rallies that found not only that his rhetoric is dark — but it's much darker than it used to be, and more specific.

"He is no longer just talking about keeping immigrants out of the country, building a wall and banning Muslims from entering the United States," Politico wrote. "Trump now warns that migrants have already invaded, destroying the country from inside its borders, which he uses as a means to justify a second-term policy agenda that includes building massive detention camps and conducting mass deportations."

[. . .]

Jones told the outlet Trump's increasingly threatening language has close similarities to Hitler's and, should Trump win the presidential election, he could take the nation to a similar place.

“Hitler used the word vermin and rats multiple times in Mein Kampf to talk about Jews," Jones said. "These are not accidental or coincidental references. We have clear, 20th century historical precedent with this kind of political language, and we see where it leads.”

And Will Carless (USA TODAY) reports:

At a campaign event last week for GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance, attendees waved placards emblazoned with a slogan that is also used by a notorious white supremacist group. Meanwhile, anti-drag and anti-LGBTQ hate sees a resurgence this week, and a new report shows extremists and conspiracy theorists spinning up lies in the wake of Hurricane Helene.

It’s the week in extremism, from USA TODAY.

At a Trump/Vance campaign rally in Saginaw, Michigan, late last week, attendees held up placards bearing the slogan “Reclaim America.” That’s the main slogan of the Texas-headquartered white supremacist hate group Patriot Front, which took to social media to question whether the signs were a tacit endorsement.

Video from the event shows Trump supporters waving placards with the “Reclaim America” slogan behind the speakers.
Patriot Front, which specializes in spreading white supremacist propaganda and holding events where chino-clad masked men march around chanting and waving flags, portrays itself as a protector of “European heritage.” Leaks and infiltration of the group have revealed it is a hardcore racist neo–Nazi organization.
Members of Patriot Front have been charged with conspiracy to riot and the organization is being sued in at least two high-profile cases.
This week, the official Patriot Front Telegram channel proudly announced the Trump campaign had “adopted” the reclaim America slogan, posting: “The phrase "Reclaim America" is a well-known slogan of Patriot Front. It remains unclear whether the Trump campaign is aware of this connection and PF's use of the phrase, especially since a simple Google search of the slogan will return a plethora of results featuring the organization.”
The Trump/Vance campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Now let's look at his would-be team. Sara Boboltz (HUFFINGTON POST) reports on Donald's MAGA wet dream Mike Davis:

Davis spoke to far-right pundit Benny Johnson one year ago about what he would do as acting attorney general — or as he referred to it, his “three-week reign of terror.”

“Before I get chased out of town with my Trump pardon, I will rain hell on Washington, D.C.,” he told Johnson, reminding him how they’d discussed the subject in the past.

Davis listed his main objectives: fire “a lot of people” in the executive branch; indict Joe Biden, who defeated Trump in the 2020 presidential election; deport “10 million people and growing,” or about 3% of the country’s population; detain “a lot of people” in Guantanamo Bay and “the D.C. gulag”; and pardon those charged over the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“We’re going to put kids in cages. It’s going to be glorious,” Davis said of migrant children.

The former president’s son Donald Trump Jr. and far-right pundit Steve Bannon both sang Davis’ praises in a profile of the “Make America Great Again” loyalist published last month in Politico. In front of reporter Adam Wren, Trump Jr. told Davis he wanted him to be attorney general “all four years” of a second Trump term.

As outrageous as Mike Davis is, he does fit in with the psychos around Trump. Evan Williams (TAG24 NEWS) reports:

Roger Stone, a long-time ally of former-President Donald Trump, was caught on tape calling for "armed guards" to be deployed at polling stations in the upcoming election.

In audio published by Rolling Stone, Roger Stone tells an undercover reporter: "We have to fight it out on a state-by-state basis, but you have to be ready,"

"When they throw us out of Detroit, you go get a court order, you come in with your own armed guards, and you... and you dispute it. Instead, our guys just left," he says.

[. . .]

In 2019, Stone was indicted on charges of witness tampering, obstruction of justice, and making false statements to Congress.

Since 2020, he has been a leading voice in a campaign to delegitimize the results of that year's election, and has regularly lent his voice to false conspiracy theories of Trump being "robbed" of a second term.

We could do Miss Sassy JD Vance as well but I'm tired and there are a few e-mails to the public account to respond to which is what's about to follow.

I am so mean attacking left outlets like THE NATION, THE PROGRESSIVE, DEMOCRACY NOW!, etc. That's what some are saying. First off, I've said I was a bitch many, many times. Don't hide it. Second, don't be alarmed by what's up here. It's what taking place offline that makes me a bitch. Because offline, whether Kamala wins or not, those outlets suffer. We do this all the time. Those of us who contribute the money that keeps those outlets afloat. I haven't done it since 2004. Because I've pretty much stayed out of it. But 2024? This election? A lot of people are going to be begging in 2025 for money to keep their outlets afloat and I'm part of the blackball committee this year. I'm part of determining, with other big donors, where our money's going to go. And I'll be advocating for killing off all funding to the outlets that refused to try to save democracy. You don't know what it's like to be on my s**t list.

Ask the big editor of the big American newspaper -- the big one -- who thought her family was going to be doing so wonderful and that she was untouchable. But she buried Iraq coverage and she buried the fact that the US government was secretly sending US troops back into Iraq. And she lost her job because I courted the owner of the newspaper., made my case to him -- we've known each other for decades. And her image took a big hit after that -- one that I helped amplify if not orchestrate. But most of all, her beloved son was so very close to achieving his dreams. And I smashed those dreams. I crushed them.

I'm a bitch, I don't pretend otherwise.

Batting around someone with cat paws, someone online? Honey, that's the nicest I ever get.

And for those of you who are insisting in e-mails to the public account that this doesn't help Kamala, what I'm doing up here? You don't know what the f**k you're talking about. I'm not just doing it here. Most of what you read here that I'm writing? I've delivered it the day before -- my commentary -- several times to several different groups. What goes up here -- my commentary -- has already been poll tested.

Stevie Nicks was on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE tonight. Stevie's a friend. Stevie used to get beat up by the music press. It was upsetting to her. And that's a natural reaction. But as I told her then -- and I've made this point here many, many times -- the attacks only bond her audience to her all the more. When ROLLING STONE was trashing her every issue they could, calling her a "space cadet" and worse? Stevie was the best damn rocker the country had. And her fans could see it. And it became them and Stevie against the world.

I do know what I'm doing here. You may not like what I do -- and if I wasn't such a bitch, I might care about your opinion. But I honestly don't. I'm answerable to the community that built this site, not the stragglers showing up 20 years later with advice on what needs to be done and how I need to do it.

Again, I speak to multiple groups each day. The next day, what I'm writing in the snapshots was already focus grouped.

Now maybe take your 'helpful' advice to COMMON DREAMS and other outlets that think they can force Kamala to do this or that or that think their 'advice' is helpful or wanted? Voting's already started, idiots. Get on the bus or get out of the way. But grasp that what you've done, the way you've trashed her and put us all at risk of a second Trump term has not gone unnoticed.

The call for Joe Biden to step aside did not need me. It started without me. But when I joined the call, I was part of the group making the strongest argument for him to step down -- you saw some of it online, you didn't see it all. And I will be using those skills and those resources to ensure, regardless of the outcome of this election, that those on the left who worked to get Donald Trump back into the White House suffer. And I won't stop with attempts to gut funding. Most of the work I do, I do offline. Ask the Republican in the House of Representatives who lives in fear that I'm going to out him. Haven't yet. But his wife did receive a curios package in the mail this week. More will be coming. Or ask the performer who indulged in kiddie porn and thought that was long buried until I refloated it in the last few months. In fact, let me check the celebrity's Twitter feed to see if tonight's the night I out them? Nope. They're keeping their mouth shut and staying out of the election. You would too if you were them. And for those who think I can't out them? All I really have to do is quote from the book my friend wrote -- it's our mutual friend -- and when I do it will take three seconds for most people to guess who he was writing about. Again, when I read it, I immediately called him and asked him, "Are you talking about ________________?" And he was. And as he pointed out, I was the only one of our friends that reads because not only did neither ________ nor their partner call the author about what he wrote, but no one else seemed to have caught it. Again, I actually read. But the point is, the person is unnamed in the author's book. The author's name alone will reveal who he's written about because he was close to _______. So I don't even have to type, "______ took kiddie porn photos of their own children." All I have to do is quote the paragraph here and identify the author. After that, the person's outed because everyone will know who the author was writing about without me even having to attach the name to it.

And if ______ stays out of the election, I probably won't out them.

What goes up here is just me batting the mice around with cat paws. I save the real attacks for offline.

The following sites updated: