Monday, October 07, 2024

Iraq snapshot

Monday, October 7, 2024.  It's amazing the number of lies Donald Trump can pack into one weekend.


As questions continue to swirl about Convicted Felon Donald Trump's sanity, let's start with Lee Moran (HUFFINGTON POST):


Former president and current GOP nominee Donald Trump on Sunday melted down once again over late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel.

Trump shared on his Truth Social platform footage of Kimmel in March, while hosting the 96th Academy Awards, reading on stage a hostile “review” that Trump wrote about his performance.

Kimmel actually ended his bit with the zinger, “Thank you, President Trump. Thank you for watching I’m surprised you’re still— isn’t it past your jail time?”

But Trump cut the line mocking him and his legal woes from the clip that he shared.


First off, I saw this and thought, "How did that old article end up on the front page of HUFFINGTON POST?"  It's not an old article.  This happened yesterday.


Yesterday, Donald was ranting and raving about a joke that Jimmy Kimmel made nearly seven months ago.  What?  He didn't catch what SNL's WEEKEND UPDATE said about him?




"It was reported that Donald Trump has refused to release his medical records and I bet I know what he's hiding but I'm not allowed dementia it."


Yes, he is losing his mind and that's why he's on social media on Sunday exploding over a joke told last March.  He's unhinged and not fit for office.  Sean Craig (DAILY BEAST) notes:


An increasingly incoherent and profane former president Donald Trump, 78, is blathering on at his rallies at previously unheard-of lengths and showing signs of confusion that could indicate mental decline, according to a New York Times analysis.

An average rally speech by the elderly Republican nominee for president—who has promised to release his medical records and cognitive tests and then refused to do so—lasts 82 minutes this election cycle, nearly double the 45 minutes he averaged in 2016, a computer analysis by the newspaper found.

In addition to Trump’s well documented rambling, repetitive and winding addresses—punctuated with strange asides about things like his “beautiful” body—among the potential signs of cognitive change are that he curses 69 percent more in speeches than he did in 2016. That could be a sign of disinhibition, a kind of impulsivity that is sometimes attributed to mental decline in old age, the Times said.

The newspaper also said its analysis found Trump used negative words 32 percent more negative words than positive ones, up considerably from 21 percent in 2016, another potential indicator of cognitive change.

He also uses he uses 13 percent more “all-or-nothing” terms such as “always” or “never” compared to 2016, another potential sign of advanced age.

Meanwhile, Trump’s seeming obsession with the past—his ramblings have been dotted with stale cultural references to Silence of the Lambs, Johnny Carson, Michael Jackson, Cary Grant, and Charles Lindburgh—have not only dated him, but earned a raised eyebrow from one expert in August.



When he's not raving like a lunatic, he offers lies.  A little earlier today, Mika and Joe offered a look at that on MSNBC's MORNING JOE.




"They can't run on the truth because they're losing on the truth," Joe observes.  The lies never end with Donald Trump.  Robin Abcarian (LOS ANGELES TIMES) notes:



Question: When did fact-checking become an outrageous abuse of debate moderators' power?

Answer: When MAGA Republicans decided they didn’t like anyone pointing out that they're lying.

In a perfect world, it might be enough for political opponents to correct each other’s prevarications and exaggerations. But Donald Trump’s entry into presidential politics, with his incessant flights of fancy and nonstop lying, have completely changed the dynamics. While other presidential candidates have stretched the truth, only one has kidnapped it, bound and gagged it, put it in a barrel and tossed it into the East River.

In the age of Trump, fact-checking has become a necessary service for moderators and other journalists to provide to voters.

Take the first and probably only presidential debate between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, on Sept. 10.

Some Trumpers went bonkers after ABC News' David Muir corrected one of the former president’s most egregious and dangerous falsehoods — that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were abducting pets and eating them. Muir noted that Springfield’s city manager said there were no credible claims of pets being “harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.”

“But the people on television say their dog was eaten by the people that went there,” Trump insisted in the course of a rant that launched a kajillion memes.

There is not a single television interview of any Springfield pet owner claiming their cat or dog was stolen and eaten by immigrants. There was a news story about a woman killing and appearing to eat a cat, but she was born in and lived in Canton, about 175 miles away from Springfield. (She was reportedly charged with "disorderly conduct by reason of intoxication," among other offenses.)


Facts are the enemy of MAGA.  Home schooled in questionable courses, they never really learned anything and they're proud of it -- watch them proudly and loudly proclaim at any pediatrician's office, "School note?  We don't need no school note!  I educates my kids all by mys self."  Yes, you do.  Thereby explaining how our country's population grows more uneducated with each year. 

Fact checks are never the friend to MAGA nor to MAGA candidates.  Tom Boggioni (RAW STORY) notes:


A rant by GOP vice presidential candidateJ.D. Vance at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania was dismissed by CNN's Alayna Treene Sunday morning after he accused Democrats of being behind assassination attempts aimed at Donald Trump.

Vance made a speaking appearance with the former president at the site of the first attempt on Trump's life weeks ago.

[. . .]

"Now, Victor [Blackwell] and Amara [Walker], we know that both Trump and J.D. Vance have tried to argue in the past that perhaps Democrats, Democrats' rhetoric about Donald Trump, particularly arguing that he may be a threat to democracy may have been what had led to that first assassination attempt, or even the second assassination attempt on Donald Trump's life."

"Of course, there's no evidence to support that, but that was the case that they were making," she added.


Evidence, proof, facts, certified vote counts?  MAGA trusts none of these.  It's not taught in their home schools.   Mauricio Alencar (DAILY BEAST) observes:


CNN’s Dana Bash and Lara Trump sparred over misinformation Donald Trump has spread about funding for disaster relief in North Carolina, with the anchor refusing to let the former president’s daughter-in-law get away with ducking her questions.

Bash laid into the Republican National Committee co-chair as she tried to change the direction from her father-in-law's dubious claims that FEMA is only offering a few hundred dollars to Americans who have had their homes destroyed in Hurricane Helene. 

“I wanna not let this get out there,” the host replied on Sunday's edition of State of the Union.

“You are right that FEMA is giving $750 [to each family],” Bash said. “But that is a first step for immediate needs. It’s called serious needs assistance.”

Bash’s correction got under Lara Trump’s skin.


Truth upsets MAGA -- causes their skin to blister -- like when sunlight hits a vampire's skin.  Joe DePaolo (MEDIATE) also notes Lara's attempts to get away with lying:


The CNN anchor then played comments from Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) — who lauded the federal response to the hurricane during a press conference on Friday in Asheville.

“I’m actually impressed with how much attention was paid to a region that wasn’t likely to have experienced the impact that they did,” Tillis said. He added, “For anybody who thinks that any level of government, anybody here could have been prepared precisely for what we’re dealing with here clearly are clueless… But right now, I’m out here to say that we’re doing a good job.”

“He and others are saying ‘please’ to the former president and to others stop spreading misinformation because it’s hurting people in North Carolina,” Bash said.

Lara Trump went on to downplay the comments from a senator from her own party who is on the ground in the affected area. 


Jack Smith's filing this week laid out how Donald Trump planned and plotted the January 6th violence in order to stop the election results from being made official so that he could hang onto power even though he lost the election.  Perry Stein (WASHINGTON POST) recaps:


In response to the Supreme Court immunity decision, prosecutors filed a superseding indictment in August against Trump — which charged him with the same four crimes, but with whittled-down evidence. On Wednesday, the judge unsealed Smith’s much anticipated filing that explained why the evidence in the superseding indictment should be considered private acts that can be prosecuted, rather than official acts that are immune from prosecution.

  • The filing lays out more extensively than before how many people told Trump there was no proof the election was stolen as he waged a campaign to overturn Joe Biden’s victory. In one striking detail, Smith said Trump allegedly said “So what?” when an aide told him Vice President Mike Pence had been taken to a secure location as violence unfolded at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
  • In another instance, Smith alleges that a White House staffer overheard Trump telling family members: “It doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell.”
  • And the new filing also highlights how some within Trump’s orbit tried to stifle those who said he lost the election. When Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani found out the chief counsel of the Republican National Committee sent an email urging colleagues not to back claims of a stolen election, Giuliani allegedly sent him a threatening voicemail.  


  USA TODAY quotes from the filing:


When the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election, he resorted to crimes to try to stay in office. With private co-conspirators, the defendant launched a series of increasingly desperate plans to overturn the legitimate election results in seven states that he had lost—Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin (the ‘targeted states’). His efforts included lying to state officials in order to induce them to ignore true vote counts; manufacturing fraudulent electoral votes in the targeted states; attempting to enlist Vice President Michael R. Pence, in his role as President of the Senate, to obstruct Congress’s certification of the election by using the defendant’s fraudulent electoral votes; and when all else had failed, on January 6, 2021, directing an angry crowd of supporters to the United States Capitol to obstruct the congressional certification.

 

The filing has very disturbing information and it also highlights some grand stupidity.  Charles P. Pierce (ESQUIRE) notes:



Let’s hear another big cheer for Rudy Giuliani, who managed to go from America’s toughest prosecutor to America’s Dumbest Conspirator. In December 2020, Giuliani was in Michigan, trying to get a fake-electors scheme under way there. According to Smith’s report, Giuliani texted to an unidentified someone:

So I need you to pass a joint resolution from the legislature that states the election is in dispute, there’s an ongoing investigation by the legislature, and the Electors sent by Governor Whitmer are not the official electors of the state of Michigan and do not fall within the Safe Harbor deadline under Michigan law.

Alas for crime, Giuliani entered the wrong number into his phone and so the text went into the ether, only to be plucked by Smith and his team.


Shawn Musgrave (THE INTERCEPT) attempts to identify some of the redacted names while Shirin Ali (SLATE) zooms in on some details:


In the months leading up to the 2020 election, Trump privately told his advisers, campaign staff, and former Vice President Mike Pence’s staff that he did not plan to accept the results; instead, “he would simply declare victory before all the ballots were counted and any winner was projected,” Smith wrote.

This was evident in Trump’s public comments at the time, as he began to plant seeds of doubt in the country’s voting process and refused to give a straight answer when asked if he would accept the election results. For instance, Trump publicly claimed universal mail-in voting was “inaccurate” and “fraudulent”—despite voting by mail in the primaries himself. During his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, Trump proclaimed that “the only way they can take this election away from us is if this is a rigged election.”

Three days before the election, according to the special counsel’s motion, a “private political advisor” (the name is redacted) who had been working on Trump’s campaign told a gathering of Trump supporters that the former president was going to declare victory no matter what. “That doesn’t mean he’s the winner, he’s just going to say he’s the winner,” the adviser said. The adviser also explained that mail-in ballots would mostly favor Biden, and because they take longer to count, it would create an opening for Trump to dispute the election. “And so they’re going to have a natural disadvantage and Trump’s going to take advantage of it—that’s our strategy. He’s going to declare himself a winner.”

 

It was planned all along.  This was not happenstance, this was not someone who was actually a bystander to some horrible events.  Donald Trump actively plotted for violence to take place.  He intended it to take place. Democracy did not matter to Donald Trump.  The voters will did not matter to Donald Trump.  The republic did not matter to Donald Trump.  The safety of people did not matter to Donald Trump.  All that mattered to Donald was retaining the title of president -- a title the American people voted to strip him of.


At THE NATION, Chris Lehmann observes:

 

The chronology in the filing’s finding of fact makes it clear just how manic and deranged Trump was in seeking to cling to the presidency—to the point of deliberately dismissing the actual outcome of the election. During Trump’s months-long crusade to discredit the balloting, without a shred of evidence, one White House staffer overheard him telling his nepo-adjutants Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, “It doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell.”

That was the de facto motto of the whole unfounded assault on a free and fair election. As election officials in downtown Detroit continued to count ballots the day after the election, a group of GOP protesters, high on bogus “stop the steal” rhetoric, tried to break into the building and disrupt the count. An operative at the scene texted a Trump campaign official—whose identity is redacted in the filing, but who appears to be the campaign’s elections operations director, Mike Roman. That campaign official had initially parried an earlier text indicating that the counting was legitimate with the directive, “Find a reason it isn’t.” Now told that the confrontation could explode into another “Brooks Brothers riot”—the Roger Stone–orchestrated campaign op that stymied a critical recount effort in Florida after the 2000 election—the official replied, “Make them riot. Do it!!!”

That was the Trump team’s ethos on January 6 as well, as Smith’s filing makes painfully clear. As frantic White House officials sought to get Trump to issue a statement telling the January 6 rioters to stand down, Trump instead churlishly repaired to the White House dining room to watch TV and tweet. This was when he issued the fateful tweet excoriating his vice president, Mike Pence, for lacking the “courage” to throw out the election results and anoint Congress with nonexistent powers to overturn the ballots of 81 million Americans. In no time flat, Pence’s Secret Service detail was forced to evacuate him from the Capitol, since, per Smith’s filing, “the defendant personally posted the tweet…at a point when he already understood the Capitol had been breached.” When another White House aide informed Trump of Pence’s evacuation as rioters came within 40 feet of his location, Trump’s reply was “So what?”

Whatever else this is, it’s clearly not the conduct of a US president honoring his constitutional oath or carrying out the duties of his office. As Smith’s filing points out, the president has no designated role in overseeing or certifying election results—for the obvious reason that doing so represents a howling conflict of interest.


Dropping back to the March 6th snapshot:


When the legal cases against him began to get play, that clarified his role behind the scenes and, no, it's not stretch to see him as the ringleader.  


But there were other issues there as well and the press, and the lawyers and the Congress elected to ignore them.

Let's drop back to January 20, 2017.
 
 


 


What a sad and poorly dressed family.  But the key take away is that Donald took the oath of office.  He was sworn in as president.

This is the oath they all have to take:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
You saw the video, Donald took the oath.

Donald then broke the oath.

He took an oath to uphold the Constitution.  He broke that oath.  Article II is part of the Constitution:


  • Clause 2 Electors

  • Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

  • Clause 3 Electoral College Count

  • The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner chuse the President. But in chusing the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representation from each State having one Vote; A quorum for this Purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall chuse from them by Ballot the Vice President.

  • Clause 4 Electoral Votes

  • The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.


Click on anything you need to in order to expand the above.  He broke it.  He came up with fake electors, he plotted and schemed.  Every thing he did to try to avoid leaving office was illegal and unconstitutional.  The Constitution outlines the process.  It did not permit him to do what he did.  What he did was actually treason.  

That's a strong word and it's one I don't toss around lightly because it carries the penalty of death.  But his actions qualify as treason.  He put himself above the country and that's not allowed.  And that's what should have been hammered home.

Is he fit to serve?  Four years earlier when he was presumably more aware of his surroundings, he was ready to destroy democracy to hold onto a second term.  He broke his oath to the Constitution.  Clearly, he is not fit for office.

They didn't hit on it.  They didn't cover it that way.  Maybe they just don't care about what's termed the supreme law of the land?  

Must be because the media ignored that aspect, the attorneys did, the Congress did.  

It is your first duty in office, to take the oath of office.  And you fail at keeping that oath then you have no business running for office again.


Holly Brewer (THE NEW REPUBLIC) observes:


Some of the strongest evidence in the brief focuses on the connections between Trump’s efforts to dispute the election, despite the overwhelming evidence that he had lost, and his threats against Mike Pence, as Trump repeatedly tried to force his vice president not to play his official role and in effect block the transition of power to a new president. But Smith is careful in his characterizations, distinguishing between Trump’s role as president and his role as a candidate: The brief argues that none of Trump’s attempts to pressure Pence should be regarded as “official” acts within the role accorded the president in terms of elections; instead, these were Trump’s campaign decisions, as a private citizen.

The most shocking evidence, as many news outlets highlighted on Wednesday, came in the connections between a series of Trump’s tweets, which Smith carefully shows are “private” acts, and Trump’s orchestration of a pressure campaign against Pence to not count the votes. Trump threatened Pence that he would be hated by hundreds of thousands of people, and then issued a tweet calling them to the U.S Capitol to protest. Finally, on January 6, when Pence had not yielded to such pressure, Trump tweeted a message at 2:24 p.m. that essentially sicced the crowd on him—and then, when warned by an aide of the danger Pence was in, responded, 


Finally, in very important news, Alex Seitz-Wald (NBC NEWS) reports:


 A group of imams endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in an open letter shared first with NBC News on Sunday, a critical boost as she steps up her efforts to win back disaffected Muslim voters amid the Israel-Hamas war.

[. . .]


The 25 Islamic religious leaders who signed the letter, which comes a year after the Oct. 7 terrorist attack that sparked the war, argue that Muslim voters have a duty to think logically about their voting decisions and that backing Harris “far outweighs the harms of the other options."

“She is a committed ceasefire candidate too and is the best option for ending the bloodshed in Gaza and now Lebanon,” they wrote.

The imams argued that former President Donald Trump is a threat to their community.

“Knowingly enabling someone like Donald Trump to return to office, whether by voting directly for him or for a third-party candidate, is both a moral and a strategic failure. Particularly in swing states, a vote for a third party could enable Trump to win that state and therefore the elections,” they wrote. 

“Given [Trump’s] well-documented history of harming our communities and country, as well as what he has promised he will do to Muslims and Palestinians should he return, it is incumbent upon us not to allow our high emotions to dictate our actions to our detriment,” the letter reads. 


I'd hoped and planned for us to cover the White racist that is Elon Musk's mother but we'll do that later this week, hopefully, tomorrow.  There were other things as well that we'll have to wait on because there was so much recap from this weekend.   


The following sites updated:



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