Mostly Monday Reads: The Weirdo Trifecta

Posted: August 26, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

“I know they wanted JFK Jr, but RFK Jr is a nice addition to the trump campaign.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

The Trumplican Party continues to devolve. I doubt my father would even recognize it if he were alive.  The latest example is the addition of RFK Jr., a conspiracy nut with habits that the word eccentric can’t even begin to describe.  This headline from The Wrap, written by Stephanie Kaloi, is something regular folks can’t wrap their head around. “RFK Jr.’s Daughter Says Dad Cut Off a Whale’s Head, Drove It 5 Hours Home. When they would accelerate, “whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet,” Kick Kennedy explained to Town & Country Magazine.”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s daughter Kick Kennedy may or may not be spending time with Jennifer Lopez’s estranged husband Ben Affleck (as reported by Page Six), but she certainly spent time with Town & Country Magazine for a profile that has been resurfaced and made waves on social media, in which she shared an anecdote about her father and a dead whale that still checks out with what we know about the odd politician — especially when it comes to his love for dead animals.

When she was 6, her dad chopped off the head of a whale that washed up on Squaw Island in Hyannis Port. Due to RFK Jr.’s love of studying animal skulls and skeletons, they then strapped the dead whale’s head to the car and spent five hours driving it to their home.

“Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet,” Kennedy said. “We all had plastic bags over our heads with mouth holes cut out, and people on the highway were giving us the finger, but that was just normal day-to-day stuff for us.”

RFK Jr. made headlines earlier this month when he shared the story of taking a dead bear that he found as roadkill, intent on saving it to eat, before ultimately dumping it in a bizarre prank in New York City’s Central Park. On Friday, the independent candidate dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Donald Trump.

RFK Jr. approached the Harris/Walz campaign, but they didn’t answer his calls. That’s just some American common sense with nothing to do with political savvy. What possible benefit could his addition add to a campaign?  But he’s just another (yawn) Maga Sideshow full of weirdos who generally wind up in trouble with the law, one way or another.  His J6 “gala” next month will undoubtedly highlight the number of criminals that actually might actually violate his terms of release.  Also, Rudy Guilliani will be there.  He is definitely on the Trumplican weirdo and felon list. This information popped up on Alternet, and I just had to share it.  “Trump’s ‘gala’ honoring ‘courage and sacrifice’ of J6 rioters may violate his terms of release” is written by Carl Gibson and answers my call out to all the parole officers in charge of these folks.

Convicted felon and 45th President of the United States Donald Trump is planning on hosting a gathering of other convicted felons next month. One legal expert is pointing out that the event may frustrate his efforts to remain a free man.

According to NJ.com, the ex-president is hosting a “J6 awards gala” at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club next month. Progressive group MeidasTouch reported that on September 5, Trump will be joined by former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and MAGA influencer Anthony Raimondi at the event, where he is expected to personally address participants in the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

…

However, if Trump follows through with the gala, it may complicate his own legal situation. According to attorney Tristan Snell – who prosecuted the former president over his sham Trump University while at the New York Attorney General’s office — New York state law would prohibit such an event given the expected guest list.

“Someone should alert Trump’s probation officer — because convicted felons are legally prohibited from associating with other felons,” he tweeted.

While Trump has been convicted by a jury on 34 class E felony counts, he won’t be sentenced until September 18. At that point, assuming the former president isn’t ordered to serve time behind bars (Judge Juan Merchan has the ability to sentence him to as much as 20 years in prison), he will then be issued a probation officer, who he will be required to check in with on a regular basis. This means the September 5 event will be legal, though it likely won’t help his case when he appears before Merchan less than two weeks later.

The former president narrowly dodged the ire of prosecutors at last month’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade pointed out that some of the convention’s attendees included indicted “fake electors,” and that Trump seen associating with them may have resulted in Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith and/or Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis petitioning the court to incarcerate Trump prior to his trial for consorting with criminal defendants.

DonOld is facing new lawsuits from musicians who don’t want their music to be associated with MAGA craziness.  The first to take action was the son of Issa Hayes.  This is reported in the Daily Beast by Clay Walker. “Isaac Hayes Estate Marks Victory in Suit Against Trump.” The candidate and the campaign continue to act like laws don’t matter.

The estate of the late soul singer Isaac Hayes is moving forward in their lawsuit against Donald Trump for using a song co-written by the artist. “The Federal Court has granted our request for an Emergency Hearing to secure injunctive relief,” the late singer’s son, Isaac Hayes III, wrote on X Friday. According to Hayes III, Trump himself will have to appear in court in September. The lawsuit was originally filed earlier this month and sought $3 million for the former president’s campaign’s unauthorized use of “Hold On, I’m Coming,” a 1960s song originally performed by duo Sam & Dave, more than 100 times. Prior to the filing, the Trump campaign was asked to discontinue the use of the song, but things came to a head on August 10, the anniversary of the singer’s 2008 death, when Trump used it again at a Montana rally. “Donald Trump represents the worst in integrity and class with his disrespect and sexual abuse of Women and racist rhetoric. We will now deal with this very swiftly,” Hayes III wrote on X.

Next up in court is the band Foo Fighters. This is from The Hill. “Trump campaign disputes Foo Fighters claim song use was unauthorized.” Laura Sforza writes on the Foo Fight.

 A spokesperson for the Foo Fighters said in a statement to The Hill late Sunday the band did not give permission to the Trump campaign to use the song at a Friday campaign rally in Arizona. The spokesperson said any royalties the band earns off the song would be donated to Vice President Harris’s campaign.“Foo Fighters were not asked permission, and if they were they would not have granted it,” the spokesperson said.

However, the Trump campaign said it had permission to play the song.

“We have a license to play the song,” Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said in an email to The Hill.

He also took to the social platform X to dispute the claim.

“It’s Times Like These facts matter, don’t be a Pretender. @foofighters,” he wrote, referring to two other songs by the band.

“My Hero” could be heard playing at Trump’s rally in Glendale on Friday as the former president introduced former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who suspended his campaign earlier in the day and threw his support behind Trump.

And there’s more in the Weirdos and Felons news. We have this from the LGBTQ Nation.  Seriously, we’ve gone way past the deplorable basket at this point.  “MAGA ex-GOP party chair calls gay lawmaker a “f*g” on social media. She called Pete Buttigieg a “weak little girl” in 2022, before she got indicted.” This is written by Alex Bollinger.

A former high-ranking state Republican official who has been indicted in an alleged conspiracy to steal the 2020 election used an anti-gay slur to describe a gay Democratic lawmaker.

Meshawn Maddock used to be the head of the Michigan Republican Party until shortly after she was charged in connection to a scheme to make Michigan’s votes go to Donald Trump in 2020 instead of President Joe Biden, who won the state. Now she is now using slurs on social media.

She was responding to a post on X from Michigan state Rep. Jason Morgan (D), who is an out gay lawmaker and the vice chair of the state’s Democratic Party. Morgan posted a picture of the Michigan congressional delegation at the DNC last Friday, where they were smiling and holding American flags.

“F*gs and hags,” Maddock responded. X responded by reducing the visibility of her post due to a potential violation of the platform’s Hateful Conduct policy. However, the post has not been deleted by the platform.

Stay Classy you god-fearing Christians you! I have to agree with this Op-Ed headline at The Hill.  “The right’s killjoy politics only fuel Harris’s momentum.”  It’s written by Svante Myrick.

It’s been a couple of days since I flew home after attending the Democratic National Convention. And at the risk of sounding corny, I think I could have done it without the plane. To attend that convention was to experience a sense of joy so powerful that it made you feel like you had wings.

My organization, People for the American Way, was very excited to bring to the convention posters designed especially for us by the artist Victoria Cassinova, which we felt represented the pride and hopefulness of this campaign.

The posters featured a portrait of Harris with the single word: “Freedom.”

We had fun posting them all over the city. We were thrilled to see lots of residents and convention-goers admiring them and taking pictures and selfies. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) shared hers on Instagram.

Then, on the third night of the convention, something sad happened. A group calling itself Artists for Kennedy and Trump defaced a wall of these Harris portraits.

Capturing themselves on video, the vandals spray-painted crimson streaks across the images, focusing on the portrait’s face and eyes. They used words like “war” to describe what they were doing.

It was an ugly but galvanizing reminder of what we’re up against in this race.

I — we — have had enough of creepy authoritarians trying to censor art, ban books and steal our joy.

Because while art does give joy, it also gives strength. It has always been a tool to challenge injustice and enforced conformity, to resist oppression and authoritarianism. That’s why dictators down through history have suppressed and banned art and even murdered artists.

It’s why artists and creators face an enormous threat today, not just from vandals roaming the streets of Chicago but from the deadly serious, powerful operatives behind Project 2025, who are intent on stigmatizing and suppressing vast numbers of artworks by calling them “pornography.”

I remember being shocked and stunned by Trump stalking Hillary on the debate stage and the lack of response to it by the debate’s moderators.  Now I think we know exactly how low they go, and as far as I can tell, there is no bottom. If they stage an insurrection and try to nullify votes, they’ll do anything, and we should all be prepared.  So, the Harris/DonOld debate with ABC is now in jeopardy.  I bet we all had this on our bingo card.  This is from Marianne Levine, who is writing for the Washington Post. “Trump suggests he might skip ABC debate with Harris. The Sept. 10 debate with ABC is the only one both campaigns have agreed to.”

Former president Donald Trump suggested Sunday evening that he might skip a Sept. 10 ABC News debate with Vice President Kamala Harris (D), after agreeing earlier this month to participate.

“I watched ABC FAKE NEWS this morning, both lightweight reporter Jonathan Carl’s (K?) ridiculous and biased interview of Tom Cotton (who was fantastic!), and their so-called Panel of Trump Haters, and I ask, why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network?” Trump asked in a social media post Sunday evening.

During a campaign stop Monday after visiting Arlington National Cemetery, Trump reiterated his criticism of ABC News, calling it “the single worst network for unfairness” and saying that ABC “really should be shut out.”

The Sept. 10 debate is the only one that both campaigns have officially committed to. Trump’s renewed questioning of the ABC News debate comes as Harris has increased her lead in national polls and is gaining ground in key swing states. As of Sunday, The Washington Post polling average has the vice president leading in Wisconsin by three percentage points, in Pennsylvania by two points and in Michigan by less than one point. Trump continues to lead in four Sun Belt swing states, but Harris has significantly narrowed the gap.

The latest rift between the campaigns is about the terms and conditions about how the debate would work. Brian Fallon, the Harris campaign’s senior adviser for communications, said in a statement that the campaign has told ABC and other networks that “both candidates’ microphones should be live throughout the full broadcast.”

“Our understanding is that Trump’s handlers prefer the muted microphone because they don’t think their candidate can act presidential for 90 minutes on his own,” Fallon said.

When asked by a reporter Monday about whether he wanted his microphone muted, Trump replied, “Doesn’t matter to me, I’d rather have it probably on.”

Jason Miller, senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said the campaign agreed to the “the ABC debate under the exact same terms as the CNN debate,” referring to a June 27 debate between Trump and President Joe Biden, before Biden ended his reelection campaign.

Oh, I officially quit the New York Times a while ago.  I would like to say that seeing the headline on a guest’s op-ed today reinforced my excellent decision. Here’s a brief statement: I agree with her.  I can’t say

more because I refuse to read it. Rich Lowry can bite his crank for  writing “Trump Can Win on Character.” RIFF NYT.  Rest in Fuckery and Failure.

Now, back to the normal news.  This is from Salon’s Charles R. Davis.  As the Vice President said, she’s been a prosecutor and knows his type. “”He’s now terrified of debating her”: Trump’s debate flip-flop is a sign Harris has him figured out. The former president suggested Sunday that he would not attend his scheduled Sept. 10 debate with Kamala Harris.”

Donald Trump is not feeling great. This year alone he’s been found liable by a jury for sexual assault, convicted by another jury on 34 felony counts of fraud, and shot at by a young registered Republican at a campaign rally, the one previously safe space where the president could comfortably rant and complain to certain applause. Then he had to spend a week at home watching Democrats pull off their convention without a hitch, just a month after an unprecedented switch at the top of the ticket.

The former president’s own campaign is publicly predicting that Vice President Kamala Harris will now surge in the polls (after already leading, nationally, by an average of about 3.6%). In a similar situation, the current president and his team decided it was time to debate, saying a televised contest would “reset” the race; the subsequent performance cost Joe Biden the Democratic nomination.

Perhaps that’s why Trump himself is doubting his own commitments.

“Why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network?” Trump posted on social media Sunday night, complaining about an ABC News interview with Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and panel discussion earlier that day, saying the former was “biased” and the latter full of “Trump Haters.” The Republican nominee filled the rest of his post with tedious name calling — “Crooked,” “Marxist” — and attacks on the insufficiently fawning journalists of ABC.

“They’ve got a lot o questions to answer!!!” Trump posted just after 10 p.m. Eastern. “Why did Harris turn down Fox, NBC, CBS, and even CNN? Stay tuned!!!”

The former president already agreed to debate Harris on Sept. 10, which was originally slated to be the second of two televised confrontations with Biden. He did so after previously trying to pull out of the event when Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee, initially claiming the debate was off because Biden was out of the race and then trying to move it to the friendlier waters of Fox News, a media platform that was forced to pay out $787 million after admitting that it cynically aired what its knew to be MAGA lies about the 2020 election.

This last read is from the New Republic‘s Michael Tomasky. “Finally, the Democrats Have Found Trump’s Achilles’ Heel: Ridicule Him. Kamala Harris gets it. Yes, we should fear Trump—but we should also mock him mercilessly because it drives him nuts.”

Donald Trump is in free fall. Read this description from Sunday’s Washington Post of how the GOP nominee spent last week: “[A]ides did not want a situation where he was watching the convention every night, getting angry, and then just golfing all day and stewing, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private interactions. Trump also had grown annoyed with the news coverage that depicted him as not working as hard as his opponent, one person who talked to him said.”

If you didn’t know that the article was about Trump and you just read it cold without knowledge of the context, you might think it was a description of parents trying to figure out how to handle an ungovernable four-year-old. So they convinced Trump to get out of Bedminster and hit the road, trading suck-ups with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In the past, Trump has called Kennedy the “dumbest member” of the Kennedy family and a “radical left lunatic.” Kennedy has called Trump a “terrible human being” and “probably a sociopath.”

Will RFK’s endorsement get Trump a few votes? It might. But these two unprincipled freakos deserve each other, and if it ever looks like RFK might matter, all Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have to do is say something like that.

Harris’s campaign so far has been a work of genius on several levels, but maybe the most ingenious stroke of all has been the decision to mock Trump—to present him not only as someone to fear but also to ridicule. Harris perfectly encapsulated this two-pronged attack in these memorable lines from her acceptance speech: “In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences—but the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.… Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails.”

But the emphasis has been on ridicule (Tim Walz’s “weird” comment, Maryland Governor Wes Moore’s jab at Trump’s bone spurs, Barack Obama’s hilarious hand gesture when he was talking about Trump’s obsession with crowd size). It’s great on three levels. The first is that it must drive Trump nuts, and when he goes nuts, he says especially nutty things. Second, it’s arguably more persuasive to swing voters than calling Trump a fascist. Trump is a fascist, make no mistake. But he’s also ridiculous. Mocking him over his Hannibal Lecter obsession will stick in apolitical people’s minds far more strongly than warning about his plans to wreck the Justice Department, and in its way, it’s just as disqualifying. Do we really want a president who thinks an eater of human flesh, however fictional, was misunderstood?

And third and most of all: Sustained ridicule has the potential to reinforce the downward spiral Trump is now in. He probably likes it when we call him a fascist or authoritarian, because it expresses fear of him, and he aches to be feared. It acknowledges his power. This motivates him and makes him stronger.

Ridicule makes him weaker. Ridicule makes him small. Ridicule makes him desperate. He’ll try to respond with ridicule of his own, but he is not a clever man. He’s a stupid man. He has no wit. He has no sense of mischief. He doesn’t read. He doesn’t think beyond first reactions. These nicknames of his, which the press has made such a big deal of over the years—they’re nothing. They’re dick contests put into words. Little Marco, Sleepy Joe. There’s nothing remotely clever about any of them.

And now he reportedly thinks he’s come up with a great one in “Communist Kamala.” Well, it’s alliterative, I’ll give him that. But I doubt very much that it’ll play beyond the base. First of all, people under 40 barely know what a communist was. Even for older people who do know, is communism the specter it once was?

Brilliant!  When he goes low, we make fun of him and call him weird.  He becomes lethargic and fussy.  He says weird things and makes weird decisions.  That’s a daily event in Day Cares everywhere and evidently in not-so-posh Jersey Golf Clubs with Galas for Criminals.  This is getting fun.

Embrace the JOY!!!!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Finally Friday Reads: The Decline and Fall of the DonOld Empire

Posted: August 16, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Kamala Harris 2024 | Tags: , , , , , | 3 Comments

“For those wondering, since the press isn’t reporting what happened after the fly left Donold’s face.” John Buss @repeat1968

Good Afternoon Sky Dancers!

Sorry for being a bit late.  I had to be retrained on the same things again this year and then ensure the paperwork got into the right places.  I’ve been at this for two days.  I must get caught up with the world outside compliance with Higher Ed. Regulations.

Whenever the Former Guy emerges from his hidey hole in Mara Lardo, his lies, bizarro stories, and slurring worsen his travails.  I still refuse to watch this stuff on the Boob Tube, but I’m sure up to reading about it.  There’s just something about his demeanor and voice that I cannot take.  So far, he’s attacking veterans, decided that illegal immigrants have taken more than 100% of the jobs that have been created, and then there is this. “Trump Warns That if Kamala Harris Wins, ‘Everybody Gets Health Care. Donald Trump repeatedly lies about single-payer health care — an idea he and Harris both previously supported but no longer do’” That headline is in Rolling Stone.  CNN also has an explanation but without the ironic headline. “Kamala Harris’ complicated history with Medicare for All becomes a Trump campaign attack line.”  Harris actually dropped her support for Medicare for All when Biden pulled ahead because of his stance for just improving ObamaCare instead.

But Harris has not addressed the question herself, touting the Biden administration’s record while trying avoid any relitigation of the years-old fight, and putting out word now only through campaign aides. Now, Trump is reviving the debate as he seeks to paint Harris as both a radical liberal and a flip flopper.

“Kamala Harris’ spokespeople are once again alleging she has flip flopped on her positions – this time saying she no longer supports socialist Medicare for All,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday, calling on Harris “to explain why she is running from every liberal policy she has ever supported.”

The Trump camp’s focus on Medicare for All is emerging as the centerpiece of a wider strategy to use Harris’ 2020 primary positions against her now, less than 90 days before the general election. Harris dropped out of the Democratic primary before the first votes werecast, but her campaign that year frequently jousted with Sanders and reporters trying to pin down her position on the plan, which would eliminate private insurance plans and replace them with a government-funded and operated single-payer system.

That debate quieted when Biden consolidated the party on his way to winning the nomination and, eventually, the presidency with Harris as his running mate. Trump – who repeatedly attempted to repeal ACA, also known as Obamacare, without success and to significant electoral backlash – has never spelled out a clear plan of his own.

“She wants to outlaw private health insurance,” Trump said in late July at the conservative Turning Point Action’s Believers’ Summit in West Palm Beach. “A lot of people have private health insurance. They want to keep it that way. It’s phenomenal.”

Harris responded the next day at a fundraiser in Massachusetts, raising Trump’s 2017 campaign to end Obamacare.

“He intends to end the Affordable Care Act and take us back to a time when insurance companies had the power to deny people with preexisting conditions,” Harris said. “You guys remember what that was? It was real. Children with asthma. Breast cancer survivors. Grandparents with diabetes.”

The Harris campaign, in response to CNN, pointed to the record high number of Americans now enrolled in Obamacare and other initiatives, including moves to lower prescription drug prices.

“Vice President Harris believes real leadership means bringing all sides together to build consensus. It is that approach that made it possible for the Biden-Harris administration to achieve bipartisan breakthroughs on everything from infrastructure to gun violence prevention,” campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said. “As President, she will take that same pragmatic approach, focusing on common-sense solutions for the sake of progress.”

The Affordable Healthcare Act still continues to be popular.  It may need some upgrading, but there’s no reason to invent an entirely new public option.  You would think he’d move on after John McCain sunk the last attempt to get rid of it.  But since he still hasn’t found a way to do his usual dirty tricks on Vice President Harris, I suppose he is just throwing anything at the wall, including ketchup. But the Harris/Walz tickets aren’t the only ones that are getting his bile and vile treatment.  He’s after Vets again, which brings McCain back to mind.

This is from Politico. Cadet Bonespurs strikes again. “Trump veteran comments spark controversy — again. The former president has a history of making controversial comments about veterans, receiving backlash during both his 2016 and 2020 campaigns.”  Here’s the quote first.

“But [the] civilian version, it’s actually much better because everyone [who] gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they’re soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead,” former President Donald Trump said Thursday.

Irie Sentner writes this analysis.

Former President Donald Trump is facing backlash over his comments about veterans. Again.

Trump said Thursday that the country’s top civilian honor was “much better” than its top military honor, because the service members who receive the latter are “in very bad shape” or “dead” — the latest in a yearslong pattern of inflammatory comments the former president has made about veterans as barbs over military service are being traded by both campaigns during a heated election.

Speaking at an event on antisemitism at his Bedminster, New Jersey, estate, Trump was discussing Miriam Adelson and her late husband Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire pro-Israel GOP megadonors who set a donation record in 2020 by spending over $170 million. Trump bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Miriam Adelson in 2018 for her history of contributions to U.S. national interests and “world peace.”

“That’s the highest award you can get as a civilian. It’s the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor,” Trump said Thursday. “But [the] civilian version, it’s actually much better because everyone [who] gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they’re soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead.”

Trump has a history of making controversial comments about veterans, receiving backlash for them during both his 2016 and 2020 campaigns. But now, both parties’ vice presidential candidates are veterans — and as the GOP attacks the service record of the Democratic vice presidential hopeful, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Trump’s comments Thursday gave Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign ammunition for a counterattack.

“Donald Trump knows nothing about service to anyone or anything but himself,” Harris campaign senior spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said Friday in a statement. “For him to insult Medal of Honor recipients, just as he has previously attacked Gold Star families, mocked prisoners of war, and referred to those who lost their lives in service to our country as ‘suckers’ and ‘losers,’ should remind all Americans that we owe it to our service members, our country, and our future to make sure Donald Trump is never our nation’s commander in chief again.”

“Blinded by light”, John Buss, @repeat1968

As I said, I totally missed this “press conference,” so I’m relying on sources like the AP.  “FACT FOCUS: Trump blends falsehoods and exaggerations at rambling NJ press conference.”

Inflation did not take the toll Trump claimed. Growth surged under Biden

TRUMP: “As a result of Kamala’s inflation, price hikes have cost the typical household a total of $28,000. … When I left office, I left Kamala and crooked Joe Biden a surging economy and no inflation. The mortgage rate was around 2%. Gasoline had reached $1.87 a gallon. … Harris and Biden blew it all up.”

THE FACTS: Trump made numerous economic claims that were either exaggerated or misleading. Prices did surge during the Biden-Harris administration, though $28,000 is far higher than independent estimates. Moody’s Analytics calculated last year that price increases over the previous two years were costing the typical U.S. household $709 a month. That would equal $8,500 a year.

Here’s the more facts on that from CBS News. 

Inflation continued to retreat in July, aided by easing price pressures for consumer staples like food and energy and physical goods like new and used cars.

The consumer price index, a key inflation gauge, rose 2.9% in July from a year ago, the U.S. Department of Labor reported Wednesday. That figure is down from 3% in June and the lowest reading since March 2021.

The CPI gauges how fast prices are changing across the U.S. economy. It measures everything from fruits and vegetables to haircuts, concert tickets and household appliances.

Bruce Plante Cartoon: Trump and the Cashier

Trump set up a little grocery store at this “presser” where he told whopper after whopper. I love this headline from Vanity Fair. “Does Anyone Know What Donald Trump Is Talking About Anymore?  Hannibal Lecter? Cheerios? “Bird cemeteries?” The former president is tying himself in a knot of discursive tangents and in-jokes that only makes sense to an increasingly small sect of the American public.”

Donald Trump has never been what you’d call eloquent. An orator, he is not. And yet, the former president seems to be getting even more incoherent by the day, as his latest “press conference” underscored Thursday.

Speaking to reporters at his Bedminster country club in New Jersey, Trump stood before a display of groceries—coffee, cereal, milk—for what was billed as a presser on the economy, one of those “issues” his allies and advisers wish he’d spend more time talking about. What everyone got instead was a series of rants on subjects ranging from his anger at Kamala Harris calling him and JD Vance “weird” to the “bird cemeteries” under windmills to his math-defying contention that “beyond…100 percent” of job creation under Joe Biden in the past year has “gone to migrants.”

“It’s a much higher number than that,” Trump said, “but the government has not caught up with that yet.”

“I haven’t seen Cheerios in a long time,” he remarked at another point, saying he wanted to “take some of them back to [his] cottage and have a lot of fun.”

What, exactly, does that mean, you might ask? Well, what does any of this mean? Trump isn’t just inarticulate, trying in vain to express his thoughts and emotions with a vocabulary that seems limited to “beautiful,” “perfect,” and maybe thirty other words. He’s now riffing on riffs, becoming so self-referential and so discursive that you need to leave a trail of breadcrumbs to find your way back to the original thought. Take Trump’s latest addition to his repertoire about Hannibal Lecter, the fictional cannibal of page and screen portrayed by Anthony Hopkins: “He’d love to have you for dinner,” the former president said during a rant on immigration during his Republican National Convention speech last month. “That’s insane asylums. They’re emptying out their insane asylums.”

The media is absolutely laughing at him. “Trump’s Magical History Tour. Under siege and self-sabotaging at his New Jersey golf club, Donald Trump is reaching for old familiar faces and enablers to imbue his flailing 2024 campaign with some 2016 magic: Corey Lewandowski, Tim Murtaugh, maybe Kellyanne. Who’s next, Roger Stone? Oh wait…” This is from Puck and Tara Palmer.

I woke up Thursday morning to a storm of text messages saying that it was really happening, and then, within an hour, Trump’s team had leaked the news to Politico. The two had been talking for a while, and Lewandowski traveled with the team on the night of the debate. But from what I hear, Trump was alone in making the call to hire Lewandowski, who has been consulting for the R.N.C. since April. “People in Trumpworld try to stop things and they can’t,” said a former aide. “Sometimes when the ship has left the port, it’s left the port.”

Sheepishly, perhaps, the news of Lewandowski’s reinstatement was bundled with a handful of other, lesser-known new hires: Taylor Budowich, Alex Pfeiffer, Alex Bruesewitz, and Tim Murtaugh—all “veterans of prior Trump campaigns” with “unmatched experience,” per a campaign statement. Spokesperson Steven Cheung told me Lewandowski’s title will be “senior advisor,” and that Wiles and LaCivita will remain as co-campaign managers. (Trump himself referred to Lewandowski during a press conference on Thursday afternoon as a “personal envoy or something.”)

All around Bedminster, where Trump has relocated to escape the South Florida heat, there is a pervasive anxiety that the candidate is trying to recreate the chaos that surrounded his winning 2016 campaign. No one thinks Lewandowski and LaCivita can cohabitate for long, leading some people close to Trump to speculate that he’s trying to push LaCivita out, just as he installed Anthony Scaramucci to fire Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus. “Susie is a survivor; she’s not going anywhere. But then you have LaCivita and Corey Lewandowski, two alpha men,” said a source close to Lewandowski. “It’s like Trump just wants them to kill each other and for one to win so he doesn’t have to actually fire anyone.”

One obvious vulnerability facing LaCivita is his astronomical fee. As Trump stews over his fading poll numbers and whether a once easily winnable election is slipping away, there has been growing chatter in some corners of Mar-a-Lago about the $50,000 that LaCivita’s firm, Advanced Strategies, collects from the campaign and R.N.C. each month, which is included in the nearly $1.7 million he’s invoiced the campaign so far this year for various services like placed media, political strategy consulting, and video production, up from the $1.65 million he billed last year. (Sure, it’s not Jeff Roe money, but it has some tongues wagging.) “I have never told anyone I will be conducting a forensic audit of the campaign, nor have I alluded to, or have any understanding of, how much money Chris LaCivita may or may not have billed this campaign,” Lewandowski told me.

I’m still enjoying the interviews with people who once worked for him.  Have you noticed he’s suddenly coming apart whenever someone mentions he’s coming up on his sentencing deadline in New York? “Scaramucci: Trump Is ‘Coming to Grips’ With Losing the Election, Trump’s former White House communications director says it’s going to be “rough” until Election Day.”  This is from The Daily Beast. This article is by Dan Ladden-Hall.

Anthony Scaramucci, Donald Trump’s one-time White House communications director, thinks his former boss is “coming to grips” with the possibility that he’ll lose the election and is consequently “growing darker.”

“Will be a rough 81 days,” Scaramucci added in an X post Thursday, referring to the time left until Election Day in November. His comment came as Trump spoke at an hour-long press conference at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, in which the Republican nominee explicitly rejected pleas from others in his party to stop personally attacking Vice President Kamala Harris.

“I’m very angry at her that she weaponized the justice system against me and other people,” Trump said at the press conference. “Very angry at her. I think I’m entitled to personal attacks. I don’t have a lot of respect for her, I don’t have a lot of respect for her intelligence, and I think she’ll be a terrible president.”

Trump has become increasingly irate in private as Harris has surpassed him in various polls, according to an Axios report over the weekend. The former president has also reportedly referred to Harris as a “b—h” behind closed doors while growing frustrated by sustained news coverage of her.

Scaramucci was briefly Trump’s White House comms chief in 2017, losing the job after just 10 days over a foul-mouthed tirade against then-White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and strategist Steve Bannon. Scaramucci has since become an outspoken critic of his former boss, describing Trump in a Daily Beast op-ed in May as a “true narcissist” whose “ego-driven and childlike behavior” he’d witnessed up close.

No matter how befuddled or far into advanced dotage he’s become, it’s important to remember the people behind him. “Watch Undercover Video: Project 2025 Co-Author Lays Out “Radical Agenda” for Next Trump Term.”  This is from Democracy Now.   You may also read the Transcript at that link.

As Donald Trump tries to distance his campaign from Project 2025, those behind the right-wing policy blueprint to remake the U.S. government continue to brag in private about their close ties to the Republican presidential nominee and how they intend to push a radical right-wing agenda in a second Trump administration. In July, Project 2025 co-author Russell Vought met with two people he believed to be relatives of a wealthy conservative donor interested in funding the effort. In fact, he was meeting with two reporters with the U.K.-based Centre for Climate Reporting as part of an undercover sting captured on video. Over the course of two hours, Vought described Trump’s disavowal of Project 2025 as mere theater and laid out plans for mass deportations, restricting abortion, gutting independent government bureaucracies, using the military against racial justice protesters and more. The secret plans are “designed to ensure that this kind of radical agenda that the conservative movement has in the U.S. can be implemented from day one,” says Lawrence Carter, founder and director of the Centre for Climate Reporting and one of the reporters who spoke with Vought. “They want to make sure that the mistakes from the first Trump administration, as they see them, where not much got done, are avoided this time around.”

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show with a new undercover video that shows the co-author of Project 2025 bragging about his ties to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump — even as Trump is trying to distance himself from the right-wing blueprint for his potential second term.

The video features Russell Vought, who was director of the Trump White House Office of Management and Budget. It shows Vought meeting in a five-star Washington, D.C., hotel with two men he thought were relatives of a wealthy conservative donor. But Vought was actually talking to two undercover reporters with the Centre for Climate Reporting, an independent British news outlet. They were secretly recording him.

Here’s some happier reading.  “Vice President Harris Lays Out Agenda to Lower Costs for American Families.” You may read actual policy goals and solutions there.  It’s good to be back when you can see what’s on the table.

Today, Vice President Kamala Harris is announcing several proposals for her first 100 days in office to bring down costs for American families. The steps announced today will cut taxes for the middle class, reduce grocery costs, take on price gouging, lower the costs of owning and renting a home, continue to bring down the costs of prescription drugs, and relieve medical debt for millions of Americans. These bold actions will address some of the sharpest pain points American families are confronting and bolster their financial security.

These proposals are just one part of the Vice President’s economic plan, which also includes protecting and strengthening Social Security and Medicare; bringing together labor, small businesses, and major corporations to invest in America, create jobs, and deliver for Americans; lowering costs of education, child care, and long-term care; empowering workers and their right to come together to bargain for higher wages; creating a stable business environment with consistent and transparent rules; encouraging innovative technologies while protecting consumers; and so much more. Vice President Harris has made clear that building up the middle class will be a defining goal of her presidency. She will deliver for Americans who are demanding a new way forward towards a future that lifts up all Americans so that they can not just get by, but get ahead.

I’m sitting here in my little Kathouse, wondering how anyone could deny climate change as we are deep into the third intense heat wave of the summer and know that August has been the worst month for the last few years. It’s really important that we don’t go back. I was talking to one of my gay neighbors today, saying that he wasn’t going back, and watching the news felt good for a change. I said I’d already be back if I still had working ovaries and a uterus.  I don’t want my girls and the granddaughters to stay where Trump and that dreadful group of throwbacks on SCOTUS put them.  Our governor just signed a law that basically ensures that you will be arrested and your phone will be taken from you if you try to film police officers.   We have to get the correct laws into place to ensure all the book banning, the religious interference with education, and the voter suppression stop. Join in where you can to stop this.

So, I had to skip calling this week, but I will be at it again next week. Do what you can to turn out the vote for Kamala.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

For some reason, I’m singing this song a lot these days.  Have a peaceful and wonderful weekend!

 

 

Finally Friday Reads! Putting the Lousy in Lousyiana

Posted: June 21, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Republican politics, U.S. Politics, Women's Rights | Tags: , , , , , | 9 Comments

“Of course, Donald gets his cake and eats it too. SCOTUS gives him a nice birthday gift.” John Buss, @Repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

It’s a busy news day.  The Supremes and the Loose Cannon are busy slowing down the many prosecutions of Donald the Traitorous.  Today is the second anniversary of the Dobbs Decision.  The Court released another decision today that was sound. “Supreme Court Upholds Law Disarming Domestic Abusers. The justices rejected a Second Amendment challenge to a federal law that makes it a crime for people subject to domestic violence restraining orders to possess a gun.”  This was reported today in the NYT by Adam Liptak.

The Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the government may disarm a Texas man subject to a domestic violence order, limiting the sweep of its earlier blockbuster decision that vastly expanded gun rights.

That decision, issued in 2022, struck down a New York law that put strict limits on carrying guns outside the home. It also established a new legal standard for assessing laws limiting the possession of firearms, one whose reliance on historical practices has sown confusion as courts have struggled to apply it, with some judges sweeping aside gun control laws that have been on the books for decades.

The new case, United States v. Rahimi, explored the scope of that new test. Only Justice Clarence Thomas, the author of the majority opinion in the 2022 decision, dissented.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said that Second Amendment rights had limits.

“When a restraining order contains a finding that an individual poses a credible threat to the physical safety of an intimate partner, that individual may — consistent with the Second Amendment — be banned from possessing firearms while the order is in effect,” he wrote. “Since the founding, our nation’s firearm laws have included provisions preventing individuals who threaten physical harm to others from misusing firearms.”

The case started in 2019 when Zackey Rahimi, a drug dealer in Texas, assaulted his girlfriend and threatened to shoot her if she told anyone, leading her to obtain a restraining order. The order suspended Mr. Rahimi’s handgun license and prohibited him from possessing firearms.

Mr. Rahimi defied the order in flagrant fashion, according to court records.

He threatened a different woman with a gun, leading to charges of assault with a deadly weapon. Then, in the space of two months, he opened fire in public five times.

Now, if gun dealers would just follow the law.  We’re still waiting for the big decision on absolute immunity.  It’s now unlikely Donald will be put to trial for his insurrection.  We also remember the murders of Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner as they fought for voting rights.  If you haven’t watched the movie Mississippi Burning, you really should.   Here’s a link to the FBI site and information on the case.

60 years later, we still struggle to achieve the ability to vote for every eligible voter.

And in other news, the state of Louisiana is getting national attention for going after the separation of Church and State.  When people think of Louisiana, they usually think of good food, music, and fun!  It’s a beautiful, diverse state in terms of geography and people. Now we’re in the headlines for this utter idiot that a very small number of people voted into the Governor’s House.  The biggest lesson here is to go vote no matter what!  Despite SCOTUS’s decisions over the years, he’s itching to take this case to court.  Governor Klandry wants the state to create posters of the White Christian Nationalists’ version of the 10 commandments in every Louisiana public school classroom. The funny thing is the bill that’s now signed into law has 11 commandments.  There are so many versions that you wonder why the Calvinist version always takes precedence. Oh, yes, White Christian Evangelicals want the ones positing the most control.

Still, I wonder if having a rainbow in your classroom is “grooming,” why is having to explain adultery to a kindergartner something else?  Given the Dobbs Anniversary today, I’m not sure we rely on stare decisis.  Remember when the late and not-so-great Roy Moore tried to get them displayed at Alabama courthouses?  That didn’t go over so well with the court.  Neither did the attempt to put them in classrooms in 1978. This current law violates longstanding Supreme Court precedent and the First Amendment. Stone v. Graham, the Supreme Court overturned a similar state statute.   The finding stated that the First Amendment bars public schools from posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms.  That was over 40 years ago. But remember, they ignored all kinds of precedents to dump Roe and are gunning for birth control. We need to vote and be vigilant

I found this CNN interview with Louisiana State Representative Lauren Ventrella conducted by Boris Sanchez. She actually makes Marjorie Taylor Greene seem a bit less unhinged. She screams and interrupts so much that it’s difficult to watch. At one point, she attacks the interviewer personally. (Check the tape at 2:54)   I can’t believe these Republican women are getting more obnoxious than Michelle Bachman. At least this one wears professional clothing well do performance politics.  Moses was that the first historical law giver. That would be Babalyonia’s Hammarubi about 500 years prior to the entire mountain event.  The first time I went to the Louvre I had my exhusband take a picture of me standing next to a stone displaying his code.  He presented 282 case laws over all kinds of subject areas too.  That’s how impressed with it I was when I was studying ancient history in grade school and at university.

Much of the political press is yammering on about Trump’s big fundraising leap and speculation about the VEEP Sweepstakes with folks even saying Marco Rubio might be a game changer.  However, let’s not forget the main point about Trump which is what my state did when the looked at the last govenor’s race and sat it out. his is from Stephen Robinson writing at Public Notice. ” Don’t be gaslit: Trump’s corruption is unparalleled. His egregious self-dealing is disqualifying no matter how much Republicans yell about Hunter Biden.”  The author calls the move “classic swift-boating.”

“While I am not mandated to do this under the law, I feel it is visually important, as President, to in no way have a conflict of interest with my various businesses,” Trump tweeted on November 30, 2016.

It quickly became clear, however, that Trump’s divestment plan was a joke: He merely turned over active control to his two sons, Don Jr. and Eric, which hardly satisfied ethics experts. For instance, Richard Painter, former ethics counsel to Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, argued that Trump should “put all his conflict-generating assets in a true blind trust run by an independent trustee.”

Trump held a press conference a week before his inauguration that was supposed to clarify how he planned to hand the family business over to his sons. However, the documents placed next to him as evidence of his complex financial preparations were just props, binders filled with blank paper.

There’s no way we can face any more of his monkey business in the Oval Office.  However, there’s another court trying slow down the application of Justice.  This is from Politico. “Is Jack Smith’s appointment constitutional? Trump’s Florida judge is set to decide. A hearing starting Friday will delve into Trump’s claim that the special counsel lacks authority.”  It’s hard to see such frivolous issues tie things up.  This is written by Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein.

Special counsel Jack Smith’s case against Donald Trump for allegedly stealing national security secrets is on trial Friday — just not in the way Smith intended.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has punted the case indefinitely and seems many months away from preparing it to go before a jury (assuming the case even makes it that far). Meanwhile, she has scheduled a multi-day hearing in her Fort Pierce, Florida, courtroom focused on whether Smith, the prosecutor leading the case, was unconstitutionally appointed or is otherwise acting without legal authority.

The claim is a far-fetched bid by Trump to scuttle the case altogether. Numerous courts have rejected nearly identical constitutional challenges to other special counsels.

And in a case that has moved like molasses for a year, Cannon’s decision to devote substantial time and resources to the argument is just the latest, and perhaps most blatant, example of her unusual approach. Her management of the case has frustrated the special counsel’s team and prompted critics to accuse her of being in the tank for Trump, who appointed her to the bench during his final year in office.

And in a case that has moved like molasses for a year, Cannon’s decision to devote substantial time and resources to the argument is just the latest, and perhaps most blatant, example of her unusual

The hearing on Trump’s challenge to Smith’s authority is set to begin Friday and to continue Monday morning. Later on Monday, Cannon plans to hear arguments on Smith’s request for an order barring Trump from lying about the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago that led to the criminal charges in the case. And then, on Tuesday, Cannon has scheduled an additional hearing on another Trump motion that could derail the case.

This comes after it was reported that at least two colleagues approached her to ask her to not take the case. Here’s some information on that.  This is from LA Magazine. “Judge Aileen Cannon Rebuffed Senior Colleagues’ Plea to Step Aside From Trump’s Classified Documents Case. Cannon is the first judge in American history to preside over a criminal trial of the president who nominated that judge.”

New reports came out Thursday from the New York Times that Judge Aileen Cannon was encouraged to step aside by senior judges from her position as the assigned judge to ex-president Donald Trump’s classified documents case.

In June 2023, Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon was just two years and seven months into her tenure as a federal judge for the Southern District of Florida, her first job as a judge, when she was assigned one of the highest-profile cases of our time — namely, the prosecution of Donald Trump in the classified documents case.

After Cannon was assigned the case a year ago, private expressions of Cannon-related concerns were raised across the courthouse due to her experience and lack of impartiality by her own colleagues.

Two senior judges — Chief Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga was one — waged an extraordinary effort to privately urge Cannon to step aside and allow a judge with more time on the bench to take over the case. Cannon refused.

Since then, Cannon has slow-walked pretrial motions and delayed the trial indefinitely — declining to set to a date for the trial to begin — although prosecutors have said they are prepared to start.

Well, that’s it for me!  Have a great weekend!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?