Walter Chandoha’s daughter Marie and kitten.
Today’s illustrations are by Walter Chandoha, a famed cat photographer.
It’s difficult to believe that Trump’s lying could get any worse, but it has. He is now spreading outrageous lies at a level no one has seen before, to use one of his favorite phrases. And when Trump lies, MAGA Republicans follow his example. Lately, Trump has been spreading dangerous lies about the government’s efforts to aid communities devastated by Hurricane Helene.
Historian Heather Cox Richardson published a piece about this today at her Substack “Letters from an American.”
MAGA Republicans are now lying about the federal response to Hurricane Helene in much the same way they lied about Haitian migrants bringing chaos and disease to Springfield, Ohio. Both disinformation efforts are flat-out lies, and both are designed to demonize immigrants. Immigration was the issue Trump was so eager to run on that he demanded Republican lawmakers reject the strong border bill a bipartisan group of lawmakers had hammered out.
The federal response to Hurricane Helene has drawn bipartisan praise, with Republican governor Henry McMaster of South Carolina thanking Biden by name for what McMaster called a “superb” response.
But on Sunday, September 29, two days after the hurricane hit, the right-wing organization started by anti-immigrant Trump loyalist Stephen Miller posted: “Billions for Ukraine. Billions for illegal aliens. And what for the Americans? Reprogram every single dollar that FEMA has dedicated to support illegal aliens to go towards Americans who are facing unprecedented devastation!”
Yesterday, in Saginaw, Michigan, Trump echoed Miller, claiming that the Biden administration is botching the hurricane response because it has spent all the money appropriated for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on “illegal immigrants.” “They spent it all on illegal migrants.… They stole the FEMA money just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them,” he said. Today, he claimed that “a billion dollars was stolen from FEMA to use it for illegal migrants, many of whom are criminals, to come into our country.”
Early this morning, X owner Elon Musk posted to his more than 200 million followers: “Yes, they are literally using YOUR tax dollars to import voters and disenfranchise you! It is happening right in front of your eyes. And FEMA used up its budget ferrying illegals into the country instead of saving American lives. Treason.” On Wednesday, Dana Mattioli, Joe Palazzolo, and Khadeeja Safdar of the Wall Street Journal broke the story that Musk has been financing groups with ties to Miller since 2022.
But of course, it is NOT happening in front of anyone’s eyes.
Walter Chandoha, The Mob
As always, Trump’s false claims represent projection of his own behavior onto others. Back to the Richardson piece:
Congress also appropriated money for a different fund, the Shelter and Services Program (SSP), which is part of Customs and Border Protection but is administered by FEMA. Established under the Trump administration in 2019, SSP gives grants to states and local governments to provide shelter, food, and transportation to undocumented immigrants. After Trump’s accusation, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement: “These claims are completely false. As Secretary Mayorkas said, FEMA has the necessary resources to meet the immediate needs associated with Hurricane Helene and other disasters. The Shelter and Services Program (SSP) is a completely separate, appropriated grant program that was authorized and funded by Congress and is not associated in any way with FEMA’s disaster-related authorities or funding streams.”
Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post did not leave the story there. “Trump has a habit of assuming other politicians act in the same way as he would,” Kessler wrote. So he looked into why Trump would have accused Biden “of raiding the FEMA disaster fund to handle undocumented migrants. It turns out that’s because he did this.”
In the middle of hurricane season in 2019, Kessler explains, Trump took $155 million from the FEMA disaster fund and redirected it to pay for detention space and temporary hearing locations for immigrants seeking asylum. “No, Biden didn’t take FEMA relief money to use on migrants,” the article title reads, “but Trump did.”
Unfortunately, Trump supporters actually believe his nonsensical lies, and that could lead to people failing to get the help they need from FEMA. Read more examples at the Substack link above.
WYFF4 in Greenville, SC, posted FEMA’s responses to several rumors that have been fed by the MAGAs:
Rumor: FEMA does not have enough money to provide disaster assistance for Helene.
Fact: FEMA has enough money right now for immediate response and recovery needs. If you were affected by Helene, do not hesitate to apply for disaster assistance as there is a variety of help available for different needs.
By Walter Chandoha
Rumor: FEMA is asking for cash donations and turning away volunteers.
Fact: This is false: FEMA does not ask for or generally accept any cash donations or volunteers for disaster response. We do encourage people who want to help to volunteer with or donate cash to reputable voluntary or charitable organizations. After a disaster, cash is often the best way to help as it provides the greatest flexibility for these reputable organizations working on the ground to purchase exactly what is needed. If you encounter someone claiming to represent FEMA and asking for donations, be careful as that is likely a scam. Government employees will never solicit money. Learn more about how to help after a disaster: How to Help After Hurricane Helene
Fact: This is false. No money is being diverted from disaster response needs. FEMA’s disaster response efforts and individual assistance is funded through the Disaster Relief Fund, which is a dedicated fund for disaster efforts. Disaster Relief Fund money has not been diverted to other, non-disaster related efforts.
Rumor: FEMA is confiscating donations for survivors.
Fact: Rumors about FEMA turning away donations, stopping trucks or vehicles with donations, confiscating and seizing supplies often spread after a disaster. These are all false. FEMA does not take donations and/or food from survivors or voluntary organizations. Donations of food, water, or other goods are handled by voluntary agencies who specialize in storing, sorting, cleaning, and distributing donated items. FEMA does not conduct vehicle stops or handle road closures with armed guards — those are done by local law enforcement.
And this one in particular could badly hurt desperate survivors:
Rumor: FEMA will only provide $750 to disaster survivors to support their recovery.
Fact: This is false. One type of assistance that is often approved quickly after you apply is Serious Needs Assistance, which is $750 to help pay for essential items like food, water, baby formula, breastfeeding supplies, medication and other emergency supplies. There are other forms of assistance that you may qualify to receive once you apply for disaster assistance. As your application continues to be reviewed, you may still receive additional forms of assistance for other needs such as support for temporary housing and home repair costs. Learn more about the types of assistance available. If you have questions about your disaster assistance application and what you qualify for, contact us at 1-800-621-3362 to speak with a FEMA representative.
It’s sickening that Trump and his followers are pushing this nonsense, and they will continue to do so.
From Reuters, another article on Helene misinformation: US officials struggle to quash Hurricane Helene conspiracy theories.
In the wake of the devastation of Hurricane Helene in the United States this week, a new storm emerged on social media – false rumors about how disaster funds have been used, and even claims that officials control the weather.
Local and national government officials say they are trying to combat the rumors, including one spread by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
By Walter Chandoha
One of the more far-fetched rumors is that Helene was an engineered storm to allow corporations to mine regional lithium deposits. Others accuse the administration of President Joe Biden of using federal disaster funds to help migrants in the country illegally, or suggest officials are deliberately abandoning bodies in the cleanup.
Republican Congress member Marjorie Taylor Greene posted on X Thursday night: “Yes they can control the weather. It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.”
The conspiracy theories come at a pivotal time for rescue and recovery efforts following the storm, one of the deadliest U.S. hurricanes this century. And the presidential election between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris is just over a month away.
Republicans and Democrats alike say the rumors are causing problems.
“I just talked to one Senator that has had 15 calls TODAY about why we don’t stop …….. ‘fill in the blank,'” said Kevin Corbin, a Republican in the North Carolina Senate – a state that is one of the hardest hit by Helene. “98% chance it’s not true and if it is a problem, somebody is aware and on it,” he wrote on Facebook.
“I’m growing a bit weary of intentional distractions,” he added.
White House officials on Friday accused some Republican leaders and conservative media of intentionally peddling rumors to divide Americans in a way that could harm disaster relief efforts.
“Disinformation of this kind can discourage people from seeking critical assistance when they need it most,” a White House memo said. “It is paramount that every leader, whatever their political beliefs, stops spreading this poison.”
This piece on disinformation is from Jordan Green at Raw Story:
GREENSBORO, N.C. — Denver Riggleman, who served as senior technical advisor to the January 6th Committee, said he believes there is a significant risk of violence during the vote count of the Nov. 5, 2024 election because supporters of Republican nominee Donald Trump are so deeply immersed in conspiracy theories.
“They still have a plan to probably use lawfare to go after some of these certain states, but violence is certainly possible,” Riggleman told Raw Story. “I would say it’s actually probable. And I think it’s because you have people that are so riled up with these conspiracy theories and this good-against-evilvendetta that Donald Trump and I think a lot of the far right and the Christian nationalist type of individuals have been pushing into sort of the MAGA communications ecosystem.
Walter Chandoha’s daughter Marie feeding cats.
“It scares the hell out of me, as someone who’s dealt in counterterrorism for so long, to know that some of the same people who are around him — or a lot of the same people around him — for January 6th, 2021,” Riggleman added, “are the same people in his campaign today and the same people who were authors of Project 2025.”
A former Republican congressman and former military intelligence officer, Riggleman spoke to Raw Story after taping a message to North Carolina Republicans and independent voters on behalf of the Harris campaign at a recreation center in Greensboro on Thursday.
“Violence is bubbling right beneath the surface,” Riggleman said, citing the brutal attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the two assassination attempts on Trump this past summer. Riggleman identified variations on the QAnon conspiracy theory as a driving force of political violence.
“QAnon and that whole conspiracy theory mindset of ‘the Deep State’ or ‘globalists,’ or ‘false flags,’ that has bubbled into almost a mainstream belief, I would say within 30 to 35 percent of the Republican Party,” he said. “So, now it’s a battle of good against evil, as far as they’re concerned. The Democrats, independents and the RINOs — whoever they are — represent what’s evil. And I think that should scare the hell out of people. Because once you start dehumanizing people, that’s when violence is possible.
Read more at Raw Story.
Walter Chandoha, Cat and kitten
The Washington Post declines to use the word “lie”: As Trump makes false claims about hurricane relief, White House calls it ‘poison.’
EVANS, Ga. — Former president Donald Trump doubled down on misinformation about Hurricane Helene in an appearance in this storm-ravaged state Friday, repeating the falsehood that the White House used disaster funds for migrants.
Kamala Harris completely dominated Trump in last night’s debate, and in the process made him look like a foolish, angry old man. She threw him off at the outset by forcing him to shake her hand after he stalked to the podium, obviously trying to avoid her. Trump never looked at Harris once during the debate and never said her name, but she looked at him and spoke directly to him.
The moderators gave Trump more time to rant and rave, but Harris made good use of that by using facial expressions to demonstrate her disdain for his stupidity and his many blatant lies. Every time she had the floor, she mocked him mercilessly. She never once lost her cool.
Trump, on the other hand, lost control early on after she mocked his rallies and his obsessions with Hannibal Lector and windmills and then noted that people leave his rallies early because they are bored stiff by his repetitive, nonsensical rants. After that, he flew into a rage and never recovered.
I’m going to share some media reactions to the debate–mostly from independent writers, because I’m personally fed up with the mainstream outlets–especially the NYT and WaPo.
David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo: Kamala Harris Directly Confronted The Trump Menace In Our Midst.
Kamala Harris practiced a different kind of dominance politics in last night’s debate, confronting the menace of Donald Trump directly and taking him down a peg like you would a schoolyard bully.
After nearly a decade of Trump doing as he pleases with little accountability, a lot of appeasement, and very rare consequence, he was brought up short by an opponent who looked him in the eye, called him out, didn’t back down, and in the process threw him off his game and took command of the debate stage.
The emotional weight of her presentation was centered on confronting him with a combination of mockery, scorn, bemusement, disdain, and condescension. Yes, it got under his skin, Yes, he was rattled, Yes, it turned him into a fulminating old man. I’m less interested though in the stagecraft she used than in the catharsis it provided to viewers who have craved to see Trump get his comeuppance for so many years, only to be repeatedly and endlessly disappointed.
It was Joe Biden’s failure to confront Trump on this level during their debate in June that led to the existential crisis among Democrats. Biden failed in multiple ways in that debate, but the biggest letdown was his failure to stand up to Trump in a convincing fashion and instead let Trump run all over him.
In contrast, Harris confronted Trump repeatedly. She referred to him as a “disgrace” twice, as “dangerous and unfit,” as “confused,” and as lacking the right “temperament” to be president. She derided him to his face as someone dictators know “they can manipulate … with flattery and favors.” She often referred to him in the second person, a more charged and direct way of punching the bully in the nose. She called him out for warring against the rule of law and the Constitution and for his own criminally-charged conduct.
Kurtz posted a number of Harris’ facial reactions to Trump’s nonsense; click the link to see them.
From You Tube, Trump losing it and claiming immigrants are “eating the dogs.”
The Independent on Trump buying into this weird conspiracy theory: Bizarre debate moment Trump wildly claims Haitian migrants are eating pet dogs and cats.
Donald Trump’s false claim that immigrants in Ohio are abducting pets and eating them during Tuesday’s presidential debate was quickly slapped down by ABC News moderator David Muir.
While on the debate stage in Philadelphia, the former president asserted that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were “eating dogs” and “eating the cats” while pushing his anti-immigration policies.
“What they have done to our country by allowing these millions and millions of people to come into our country and look at what’s happening to the towns all over the United States,” the former president said.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating – they’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame,” the former president claimed.
As he spoke, Harris looked in disbelief at the former president before laughing.
There is no evidence that Haitian immigrants in Ohio are abducting and eating pets.
Muir corrected the former president, adding: “ABC News did reach out to the city manager there. He told us there had been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.”
Trump interrupted Muir and disputed him, claiming he saw it “on television.”
“Well, I’ve seen people on television. People on television say, ‘My dog was taken and used for food,’ so maybe he said that and maybe that’s a good thing to say for a city manager,” Trump said.
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris (R) shakes hands with former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a presidential debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 10, 2024. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP)
Josh Fiallo at The Daily Beast on Harris forcing Trump to shake hands: Trump Tries to Dodge Harris’ Handshake Before Debate Starts.
Who saw that coming?
In a shocking slice of professionalism, or perhaps mind games, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris shared an awkward handshake before Tuesday night’s presidential debate.
Harris initiated the greeting, walking to behind Trump’s podium for the brief moment after they each took the stage—Trump from the left and Harris from the right on TV broadcasts.
Trump gave Harris a strong handshake and told her “good luck” before Harris returned to her podium. In photos of the encounter, Harris appears to be smirking and giving Trump a side-eye.
It’s the first handshake before a presidential debate since Trump and Hillary Clinton met for the first time on stage in 2016.
Aaron Rupar’s assessment of the debate at Public Notice: Kamala Harris dogwalks Trump. She put on a debate masterclass, triggering Donald into a tailspin.
Kamala Harris walked right onto that stage in Philadelphia last night, approached Donald Trump as he tried to slink away behind his podium, and shook his hand.
That subtle show of dominance (watch it below) set the tone for a debate performance from the Democratic nominee that was everything Democrats could’ve hoped for and then some.
After a June debate that left me feeling catatonic and made the terrifying prospect of a second Trump presidency more palpable than ever, last night served as a morale-boosting reminder that he’s very beatable — especially considering who he’s up against now.
Kamala Harris won and did so convincingly. And a frazzled Trump doesn’t seem to have answers….
Trump started the debate off calmly, but it didn’t last long. Things really started slipping for him after Harris hit him where it hurts by bringing up the fact that his fans are in the habit of leaving his rallies early.
The facial expressions Harris made as Trump responded by spewing a bunch of angry lies were priceless.
Trump was off balance the rest of the night. He threw JD Vance under the bus while serving up a word salad about his views on abortion. He defended his call decades ago for a group of Black teens to be executed for a crime they did not commit by insisting “a lot of people agreed with me.” He repeatedly refused to answer a question about whether he wants Ukraine or Russia to win the war his dictator buddy started, though he did at one point suggest disconcertingly that Putin might nuke the United States.
One of Trump’s worst moments came during the healthcare discussion. Asked by ABC moderator Linsey Davis if he’s developed any sort of plan over over the past nine years, Trump made clear that he still hasn’t, lamely saying that “I have concepts of a plan.”
Trump was so bad that even Fox News couldn’t sugarcoat it, and CNN’s post-debate panel was openly talking about his obvious decline. And while some of Trump’s troubles were self-inflicted, Harris deserves a lot of credit for masterfully dogwalking him all over the stage….
In addition to triggering Trump over crowd size, Harris pulled no punches during the foreign affairs portion of the debate, saying “world leaders are laughing at Donald Trump” and military leaders think he’s “a disgrace.”
Trump then played right into Harris’s hands by touting his endorsement from Hungarian strongman Victor Orban.
Read more and see more videos at Public Notice.
At The Daily Beast, Lilly Mae Lazarus wrote about Harris’s hilarious facial expressions while Trump was talking: How Kamala Harris’ Face Told the Story of the Debate.
With mics muted during Tuesday night’s debate, there were few opportunities for cross-talk or clapbacks. (At least at the beginning of the night.) Kamala Harris didn’t need to say what she was thinking out loud, though. Her face did most of the talking for her.
The vice president abandoned any semblance of a poker face while Donald Trump rambled and rebutted. She cocked her brow, cringed, and served incredulous side-eye at her political opponent throughout the night. The GOP presidential candidate, meanwhile, did his best to maintain a stoic face.
Please check out the photos of the facial expressions at the Daily Beast link above.
Rolling Stone: Harris Does What Biden Couldn’t at Debate, Destroys Trump on Abortion.
When Donald Trump debated President Joe Biden in June, one of the most cringe-inducing moments was when Trump announced, unchallenged, the batshit insane lie that Democrats want to “kill” babies. “They will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month, and even after birth — after birth — if you look at the former governor of Virginia, he was willing to do this,” Trump said. “He said, ‘We’ll put the baby aside, and will determine what we do with the baby,’ meaning: We’ll kill the baby.’”
Biden couldn’t choke out a coherent sentence in response. On Tuesday in Philadelphia, Kamala Harris had the chance for a re-do after Trump again pushed the same lie. But even before she opened her mouth, ABC’s Linsey Davis — moderating the debate with her colleague David Muir — corrected Trump: “There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill the baby after it’s born.”
Harris went on to slam Trump for packing the Supreme Court with conservative justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, and detailed the horrific experiences of women living in states that have implemented strict abortion restrictions in the aftermath.
The vice president spoke of “Trump abortion bans that make no exception even for rape and incest, calling on viewers to “understand what that means: A survivor of a crime of violation to their body does not have the right to make a decision about what happens to their body next. That is immoral.”
She spoke of women bleeding out after miscarriages, afraid to get medical help, and children who are victims of incest being forced to carry pregnancies to term. She pledged, as she has repeatedly since becoming the Democratic nominee, to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade if she is elected with a Democratic majority. “If Donald Trump were to be reelected, he will sign a national abortion ban,” she added.
A representative for Harris campaign, which aid it was monitoring the reactions of groups of undecided voters via dial groups in battleground states, said those voters had a strong response during the debate when Harris talked about abortion: “This really was off the charts, we rarely see dials go this high.” The represented added that in the 9 p.m. hour during the debate, 71 percent of their grassroots donors were women.
One more reaction from David Frum at The Atlantic: How Harris Roped a Dope. She stayed human when Trump went feral.
Vice President Kamala Harris walked onto the ABC News debate stage with a mission: trigger a Trump meltdown.
She succeeded.
Former President Donald Trump had a mission too: control yourself.
He failed.
Trump lost his cool over and over. Goaded by predictable provocations, he succumbed again and again.
Trump was pushed into broken-sentence monologues—and even an all-out attack on the 2020 election outcome. He repeated crazy stories about immigrants eating cats and dogs, and was backwards-looking, personal, emotional, defensive, and frequently incomprehensible.
Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a presidential debate hosted by ABC with Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., September 10, 2024. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Harris hit pain point after pain point: Trump’s bankruptcies, the disdain of generals who had served with him, the boredom and early exits of crowds at his shrinking rallies. Every hit was followed by an ouch. Trump’s counterpunches flailed and missed. Harris met them with smiling mockery and cool amusement. The debate was often a battle of eyelids: Harris’s opened wide, Trump’s squinting and tightening.
Harris’s debate prep seemed to have concentrated on psychology as much as on policy. She drove Trump and trapped him and baited him—and it worked every time.
Trump exited the stage leaving uncertain voters still uncertain about whether or not he’d sign a national abortion ban. He left them certain that he did not want Ukraine to win its war of self-defense. He accused Harris of hating Israel but then never bothered to say any words of his own in support of the Jewish state’s war of self-defense against Hamas terrorism. In his confusion and reactiveness, he seemed to have forgotten any debate strategy he might have had.
Something every woman watching the debate probably noticed: Trump could not bring himself to say the name of the serving vice president, his opponent for the presidency. For him, Harris was just a pronoun: a nameless, identity-less “she,” “her,” “you.” It’s said that narcissists cope with ego injury by refusing to acknowledge the existence of the person who inflicted the hurt. If so, that might explain Trump’s behavior. Harris bruised his feelings, and Trump reacted by shutting his eyes and pretending that Harris had no existence of her own independent of President Joe Biden, whose name Trump was somehow able to speak.
Hemmed, harried, and humiliated, Trump lost his footing and his grip. He never got around to making an affirmative case for himself. If any viewer was nostalgic for the early Trump economy before its collapse in his final year in office, that viewer must have been disappointed. If a viewer wanted a conservative policy message, any conservative policy message, that viewer must have been disappointed. When asked whether he had yet developed a health-care plan after a decade in politics, Trump could reply only that he had “concepts of a plan.”
Almost from the start, Harris was in control. She had better moments and worse ones, but she was human where Trump was feral. She had warm words for political opponents such as John McCain and Dick Cheney; Trump had warm words for nobody other than Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian strongman whom Trump praised for praising Trump. It was an all-points beatdown, and no less a beating because Trump inflicted so much of it on himself.
Frum has come a long way since the GW Bush days. And face it; the guy can really write.
Even Republicans admit that Harris won the debate.
HuffPost: ‘Trump Had A Bad Night’: Conservative Pundits Declare Kamala Harris Winner Of Debate.
Conservative pundits acknowledged on Tuesday that Vice President Kamala Harris got the better of former President Donald Trump in Tuesday’s presidential debate in Philadelphia, citing her success in getting under his skin.
“Let’s make no mistake. Trump had a bad night,” Fox News host Brit Hume said. “We just heard so many of the old grievances that we all know aren’t winners politically.”
“She was exquisitely well-prepared, she laid traps, and he chased every rabbit down every hole,” added former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), who often appears as a commentator on ABC News.
“Whoever prepared Donald Trump should be fired. He was not good tonight at all,” Christie said.
Trump lost his cool early in the debate, and never recovered.
Harris baited Trump by bringing up the attendance at his campaign events, saying people leave his rallies early out of boredom and exhaustion. She also got under Trump’s skin by bringing up his calls for the execution of the Central Park Five, the teens who were later exonerated in the 1989 rape of a jogger, calling him a weak person who is mocked by world leaders and questioning his mental acuity.
“We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible in the history of politics,” Trump shot back at one point, veering off his message on immigration.
Trump also got into trouble by again denying he lost the 2020 presidential election despite only days earlier acknowledging he lost “by a whisker.” But the most bizarre moment of the night may have been Trump bringing up false reports of migrants eating people’s pets in Springfield, Ohio, which Republicans have seized on as a reason to crack down on migration at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The Hill: House Republicans bemoan Trump debate performance: ‘Not good.’
House Republicans are bemoaning former President Trump’s performance in the first — and potentially only — debate against Vice President Harris, acknowledging that the Democratic nominee successfully got under her GOP opponent’s skin.
Several times throughout the more than 90-minute debate in Philadelphia, Harris appeared to try to bait Trump with attacks on matters that hit close to home — the size of his rallies, the magnitude of his family fortune, world leaders “laughing” at him — in an effort to thwart his composed posture. Some House Republicans say she succeeded.
“I’m just sad,” one House Republican who is supportive of Trump told The Hill. “She knew exactly where to cut to get under his skin. Just overall disappointing that he isn’t being more composed like the first debate.”
“The road just got very narrow,” they added. “This is not good.”
A second House Republican, who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive topic, said “many” in the GOP conference were “disappointed” that Trump could not stay on message throughout the debate.
“She talks to us like toddlers but is doing a good job provoking him. He [is] right on policy but can’t keep to a message,” the lawmaker said. “Many are disappointed he couldn’t stay focused or land a punch. Not sure much changes but it wasn’t a good performance.”
“Lots of missed opportunities so far,” a third House Republican told The Hill in a text message during the debate. “It’s not devastating – but it’s not good.”
The final insult for Trump came after the debate, when Taylor Swift announced she will vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz for president and vice president. The Guardian: Taylor Swift endorses Kamala Harris for president in post signed ‘childless cat lady.’
Taylor Swift has endorsed Kamala Harris for president, in a post on Instagram published minutes after the US presidential debate, saying the Democratic candidate would be the “warrior” to fight for the rights and causes she believes in.
“As a voter, I make sure to watch and read everything I can,” Swift wrote on Instagram to her 283 million followers late on Tuesday, adding: “I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 presidential election”.
“I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos.”
In her statement, Swift encouraged her fans to register to vote….
Swift said she had watched the US presidential debate between Harris and Trump, and urged her fans to do their research on “the stances these candidates take on the topics that matter to you the most”.
She signed off “Childless cat lady,” a reference to comments made by Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance. The picture that appeared with the post was of Swift with her cat Benjamin Button, one of three she owns.
I’m going to end there, but I have a couple more articles that I’ll share in the comments. If you didn’t watch the debate, You can read the transcript at ABC News and/or watch the full debate on YouTube.
Have a great day!!
Taylor Swift
On Wednesday, I wrote about the insane right-wing conspiracy theories about Taylor Swift. Here’s an update from Politico: Pentagon to MAGA world: You need to calm down over Taylor Swift.
National security officials are used to shaking off absurd conspiracy theories, but the latest rumor that’s gripped MAGA world just hits different.
The claims by Fox News and far-right influencers that pop star Taylor Swift is part of a Pentagon “psychological operation” to get President Joe Biden reelected, and somehow rig the Super Bowl to benefit Kansas City Chiefs tight end (and Swift’s boyfriend) Travis Kelce, has been met with forehead slaps in the national security world.
“The absurdity of it all boggles the mind,” said one senior administration official, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly on the matter. “It feels like one of those ‘tell me you are a MAGA conspiracy theorist, without telling me you are a MAGA conspiracy theorist’ memes.”
Let’s go back to December: A wild theory gained traction on far-right corners of social media after Swift was named Time magazine’s person of year on Dec. 6. Last month, Fox News host Jesse Watters did a segment about the idea, playing a clip from a NATO conference that he said backed up the theory that Swift was part of a Pentagon “psy-op,” or psychological operation, for combating online information.
“It’s real. The Pentagon psy-op unit pitched NATO on turning Taylor Swift into an asset for combating misinformation online,” Watters said.
Robert Downey Jr.
The Pentagon responded at the time, but the rumors continued to proliferate on social media. Influential MAGA types are now promoting the dizzying notion that Swift’s relationship with Kelce — another right-wing anti-hero after appearing in an ad for pharmaceutical giant Pfizer promoting the Covid and flu vaccines — is part of a plot by the NFL and Democratic Party for Swift to endorse Biden at the Super Bowl.
Faced with an onslaught of journalist questions about the theory, spokesperson Sabrina Singh was ready for it.
In the name of being honest, Singh vehemently denied Swift is part of a DOD operation.
“We know all too well the dangers of conspiracy theories, so to set the record straight — Taylor Swift is not part of a DOD psychological operation. Period,” Singh told POLITICO.
I’m sure MAGA world will just find a way to work this denial into their nutty theories. Unfortunately, Swift is going to need serious protection from the Trump crazies.
In more serious news, yesterday President Biden ordered strikes on Iranian-linked targets in Syria and Iraq. ABC News: U.S. strikes more than 85 targets in Iraq and Syria in initial barrage of retaliatory attacks.
The United States launched attacks Friday against 85 sites in Iraq and Syria used by Iranian forces and Iran-backed militants, its first retaliatory strikes for the killing of three American soldiers in Jordan last weekend, U.S. officials said.
U.S. military forces struck targets at seven facilities tied to attacks on U.S. personnel in the region, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters. U.S. Central Command said the facilities included command and control operations, intelligence centers, rockets and missiles, and drone storage sites.
Stephen King
“Our response began today. It will continue at times and places of our choosing,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. “The United States does not seek conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world. But let all those who might seek to do us harm know this: If you harm an American, we will respond.”
The military action is a significant escalation in Washington’s bid to deter the growing threat from Iran-backed groups across the Middle East — a step fraught with risk abroad and at home, as Biden seeks to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from spiraling into a wider conflict while working to secure his re-election.
The Biden administration had made clear that the U.S. would take military action after the drone attack by Iran-backed militants at a remote U.S. base in Jordan, in which more than 40 others were wounded. Biden attended the dignified return of the three slain U.S. soldiers at Dover Air Force Base earlier Friday.
Also yesterday, Biden met with families of three dead soldiers. The HIll: Biden attends solemn ceremony for troops killed in Jordan drone strike.
President Biden met Friday with the families of American service members killed last month in a drone strike in Jordan and participated in a dignified transfer, a solemn ceremony in which the troops’ remains return to the U.S.
The president and first lady Jill Biden attended the ceremony at Dover Air Force Base along with other U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. C.Q. Brown, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The president and first lady looked on with their hands over their hearts as three flag-draped coffins were removed from a C-5 plane and taken by military personnel to a van.
The Pentagon on Monday identified the soldiers, who all served in the Army Reserve and were assigned to Georgia’s Fort Moore. The soldiers are Sgt. William Jerome Rivers, 46, of Carrollton, Ga.; Spc. Kennedy Ladon Sanders, 24, of Waycross, Ga.; and Spc. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23, of Savannah, Ga.
Biden spoke Tuesday with the families of the fallen service members to express his condolences, and he met with them in person Friday.
“They risked it all,” Biden said Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast. “And we’ll never forget [their] sacrifices and service to our country.”
The three troops were killed, and roughly 40 others were injured in a drone strike in Jordan near the Syrian border Sunday. The White House has attributed the attack to the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group that contains different militias backed by Iran.
Dick Van Dyke
Trump didn’t care for these ceremonies when he was in the White House. From HuffPost:
In the world of President Donald Trump, he has paid his respects to “many, many” returning soldiers killed in the line of duty, with daughter and top presidential aide Ivanka Trump adding that “each time” she has stood by his side at one of these ceremonies, it has hardened his resolve to bring troops home.
In the real world, Trump has traveled to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware exactly four times ― fewer than half as many times as his vice president ― and avoided going at all for nearly two years after getting berated for his incompetence by the father of a slain Navy SEAL, according to a former White House aide who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Bill Owens, the father of William “Ryan” Owens, refused to shake Trump’s hand at that Feb. 1, 2017, encounter, the aide said, and then told Trump that he was responsible for his son’s death for approving the disastrous raid in Yemen without bothering to understand the risks.
“He refused to go back for two years, he was so rattled,” the aide said, adding that the main reason Trump had approved the raid just five days after taking office was that predecessor Barack Obama had refused to do so.
What’s more, Trump made the decision at a social dinner that included his son-in-law and top adviser, Jared Kushner, and then-chief strategist Stephen Bannon, rather than his National Security Council staff.
“You can count on one hand the number of times Donald Trump has been to Dover,” said Jon Soltz, chairman of the progressive political group VoteVets and an Iraq War veteran. “There simply is no bottom when it comes to what he’ll lie about. I wish there was more outrage about Trump lying about the dignified transfer of the fallen for political reasons, because as a veteran it really disgusts me.”
Just a reminder of the embarrassment to his country Trump was and is.
Before I get to the new about Trump’s legal woes, I was amazed that The New York Times actually published a somewhat positive story about Vice President Kamala Harris: Kamala Harris Bolsters Biden for 2024 and Lays Groundwork for 2028, by Reid Epstein and Maya King.
When President Biden pushed Democrats to place South Carolina first on their presidential primary calendar, the geography for the party’s political strivers changed. They are now working to build support not in mostly white Northern places but in a Southern state with a predominantly Black primary voting base that better represents the modern Democratic Party.
So when Vice President Kamala Harris arrived on Friday in Orangeburg, S.C., for her ninth visit to South Carolina since taking office, she came as a known quantity. While she and Mr. Biden are running for renomination without serious challengers, the relationships she has developed in the state are expected to play a part in lifting their ticket to a comfortable triumph on Saturday in the party’s first recognized primary election.
Sigourney Weaver
Ms. Harris’s trip, as well as her college tour last year and an ongoing circuit to defend abortion rights and promote the Democratic agenda, also served two larger purposes: working to shore up Mr. Biden’s lingering vulnerabilities with Black voters and young voters, and keeping the first woman and first woman of color to serve as vice president at the forefront for the next presidential contest in 2028.
Perhaps the most influential Democrat in South Carolina is already on board with Ms. Harris as a future White House candidate.
“I made very clear months ago that I support her,” said Representative James E. Clyburn, whose 2020 endorsement of Mr. Biden before his state’s primary election helped rejuvenate the former vice president’s struggling campaign and carry him to the nomination. “That’s why we got to re-elect the ticket. Then you talk about viability after that.”
Ms. Harris, who ended her 2020 presidential campaign months before the South Carolina primary, has sought to deepen her ties here.
“There is an unspoken language between the vice president and African American women in this state,” said Trav Robertson, a former chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party. “She doesn’t have to go into a room and say things — because they already know they have a shared experience.”
Read the rest at the NYT.
The legal news is kind of depressing–Trump is succeeding with his delay tactics.
NBC News: Judge delays Trump’s federal trial as court considers his presidential immunity claim.
Former President Donald Trump’s federal election interference trial in Washington, D.C., will no longer begin on March 4, Judge Tanya Chutkan wrote in a court order released Friday.
It is unclear when exactly the trial will now start, but the case has been on pause for nearly two months — Trump’s team requested a stay on Dec. 7, and it was granted on Dec. 13 — which would mean the soonest the trial could start would likely be late April or early May.
A start date in early May could easily mean the trial won’t conclude until after the Republican National Convention, scheduled for July 15-18 in Milwaukee.
In a previous order, Chutkan reiterated that a total of seven months was “sufficient time” for Trump to prepare for trial, not including the time the case has been on pause.
Friday’s ruling comes as the D.C. Circuit Court has not yet decided on whether the former president is immune from prosecution. A panel of federal appeals court judges heard oral argumentson Jan. 9, and the case is on an expedited schedule.
“The court will set a new schedule if and when the mandate is returned,” said the court orderfrom Chutkan.
About that “expedited schedule”:
Alan Feuer and Charlie Savage at The New York Times: After Speedy Start, Appeals Court Slows Down on Trump Immunity Decision.
In December, when a federal appeals court agreed to hear former President Donald J. Trump’s sweeping claims to be immune from charges of plotting overturn the 2020 election, it laid out a lightning-fast briefing schedule, asking the defense and prosecution to file their papers on successive Saturdays during the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.
Elvis Presley
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit also moved with unusual alacrity in setting up a hearing for arguments on the issue, scheduling the proceeding on Jan. 9, just one week after all of the papers were submitted — a remarkably short window by the standards of the judicial system.
But after sending up what appeared to be clear signals that they intended to swiftly resolve this phase of the immunity dispute — which lies at the heart of both the viability and timing of Mr. Trump’s trial on the election subversion charges — the appeals court judges have yet to issue a decision….
The disconnect between the expectations set up by the panel’s early moves to expedite the case and the weeks that have now accumulated without a ruling has captured the attention of some legal experts who are closely watching the case.
It has also caught the eye of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, who have been watching from the sidelines with something akin to quiet glee. Each day that passes without a ruling bolsters their strategy of seeking to postpone the trial until after the presidential race is decided.
So what’s going on? It seems there could be another judge like Aileen Cannon trying to help Trump.
“It is surprising, given how quickly they moved to have this appeal briefed and argued, for the court to not yet have issued a decision,” said Stephen I. Vladeck, a University of Texas at Austin law professor who specializes in federal courts. “It’s surprising both just because of how fast they moved and because of the broader timing considerations in this case — both the March 4 trial date and the looming specter of the election.”
It is impossible at this point to gain real insight into what is going on among the members of the panel, which is composed of two judges appointed by President Biden and one placed on the bench by President George H.W. Bush.
The latter judge, Karen L. Henderson, had previously dissented from expediting the immunity appeal and has voted in Mr. Trump’s favor in several previous politically charged cases. As the panel’s senior jurist, Judge Henderson has the authority to write the opinion if she is in the majority. And she faces no deadline to complete the job.
Professor Vladeck said that many people in the legal community had been speculating about what Judge Henderson’s role in the delay might be, though he also noted that no formal rule prevented the other two judges on a panel from moving ahead in issuing a ruling on their own.
While that would be a “breach of judicial decorum,” he said, Judge Henderson’s colleagues — Florence Y. Pan and J. Michelle Childs — could in theory release a decision without her.
So far that’s not happening–just more obstruction. And after this court gives their opinion, the case might go to the Supreme Court for more delays.
Robert De Niro
Judge Cannon is stalling the stolen documents case, and the case in Georgia is also facing difficulties. It’s looking like the first criminal trial Trump will face is the one over paying hush money to Stormy Daniels. From The Washington Post:
Trump’s legal team had already been preparing for the New York case to be first, according to people familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal strategy. Some Trump advisers view the New York case as the weakest of the four and believe that indictment last March helped Trump rebuild support among Republicans, these people said. Many advisers think the GOP reaction to Trump’s criminal charges would have been different if another case — related to possession of classified documents — had come first.
So instead of hearing evidence about efforts to block a U.S. election or improperly keep highly classified U.S. secrets, the first jury to weigh alleged crimes by Trump as he again runs for president could be focused on sordid allegations of a long-ago sexual encounter with an adult-film star. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him.
“This was the first indictment of Trump but quickly became seen as the runt of the litter, compared to bigger, more consequential cases,” said Ronald Kuby, a veteran criminal defense lawyer in New York. He said the New York trial may be a “garden-variety fraud case,” but its simplicity is also its saving grace.
“Unlike the D.C. case, this does not involve any question of presidential immunity. Unlike the Florida documents case, this does not involve the lengthy proceedings that are needed in cases where classified information is at issue, and unlike the Georgia case, it is not a sprawling indictment of 18 people — there’s one defendant,” Kuby said. “And the evidence that has been made publicly available is compelling.”
I guess one criminal conviction is better than none.
This is crazy: I guess some FBI agents didn’t want to do a surprise search of Mar-a-Lago, and when they did do it, they may have missed something important.
Special counsel Jack Smith’s team has questioned several witnesses about a closet and a so-called “hidden room” inside former President Donald Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago that the FBI didn’t check while searching the estate in August 2022, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
As described to ABC News, the line of questioning in several interviews ahead of Trump’s indictment last year on classified document charges suggests that — long after the FBI seized dozens of boxes and more than 100 documents marked classified from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate — Smith’s team was trying to determine if there might still be more classified documents there.
According to sources, some investigators involved in the case came to later believe that the closet, which was locked on the day of the search, should have been opened and checked.
As investigators would later learn, Trump allegedly had the closet’s lock changed while his attorney was in Mar-a-Lago’s basement, searching for classified documents in a storage room that he was told would have all such documents. Trump’s alleged efforts to conceal classified documents from both the FBI and his own attorney are a key part of Smith’s indictment against Trump in Florida.
Benedict Cumberbatch
Jordan Strauss, a former federal prosecutor and former national security official in the Justice Department, called the FBI’s alleged failure to search the closet “a bit astonishing.”
“You’re searching a former president’s house. You [should] get it right the first time,” Strauss told ABC News.
In addition to the closet, the FBI also didn’t search what authorities have called a “hidden room” connected to Trump’s bedroom, sources said.
Smith’s investigators were later told that, in the days right after the search, some of Trump’s employees heard that the FBI had missed at least one room at Mar-a-Lago, the sources said.
According to a senior FBI official, agents focused on areas they believed might have government documents.
One more on the stolen documents case from Politico: Special counsel mounts forceful — and unusual — defense of Trump classified documents case.
Special counsel Jack Smith used a routine legal filing Friday to offer a forceful public rebuttal against Donald Trump’s claims that his criminal prosecution for allegedly hoarding classified documents has been infected by politics and legal impropriety.
The 68-page document began with what Smith’s team described as an effort to correct false assertions the former president had made about the nature of the case against him.
“It is necessary to set the record straight on the underlying facts that led to this prosecution,” the prosecutors argued. “The government will clear the air on those issues … because the defendants’ misstatements, if unanswered, leave a highly misleading impression.”
What followed was a lengthy recitation of the events that led prosecutors to suspect Trump had been squirreling reams of classified records at his Mar-a-Lago estate. Rather than the bloodthirsty partisan endeavor Trump describes, prosecutors say federal officials from the National Archives, intelligence community and White House counsel’s office took “measures” and “incremental” steps to retrieve the documents — often in coordination with some of Trump’s own designated advisers — before escalating the matter as the former president continued to resist.
The approach taken in the legal brief is somewhat unusual for the Justice Department. Though the filing was submitted to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, at times it sounded like an opening argument to a jury Trump could face in the future or the first chapter of a report meant to detail investigative findings to the public.
It’s unclear whether the “misimpressions” prosecutors say they’re trying to correct are ones they fear Cannon could fall prey to, whether the target audience for the brief is a larger one, and how the Fort Pierce, Fla.-based Trump appointee will respond to the tactic.
The substance of the prosecution brief is aimed at countering the demands by Trump and his two co-defendants — Walt Nauta and Carlos DeOliveira — for access to a broad range of documents from across the government that the defense attorneys contend could be useful in defending their clients. They’ve asked Cannon to consider massive executive branch agencies and the White House as appendages of Smith’s prosecution team — a decision that could open their files to defendants beyond the typical evidence-sharing that occurs for witnesses in criminal proceedings.
Sam Elliot
Here’s the most shocking part of the brief:
The brief is also peppered with factual claims that make Trump’s behavior sound more serious and egregious. When discussing the defense’s request for more information from the Secret Service, prosecutors assert that their interaction with the federal agency that guards the president and his family underscored Trump’s recklessness in keeping a large volume of classified information at his Florida home, which also serves as a social club and a site for political and social events with lengthy guest lists.
The Secret Service reported that “of the approximately 48,000 guests who visited Mar-a-Lago between January 2021 and May 2022, while classified documents were at the property, only 2,200 had their names checked and only 2,900 passed through magnetometers,” the prosecution filing says.
All while Trump left secret documents in a bathroom, on a ballroom stage, and in a storage room located near the swimming pool.
One more unbelievable piece from Philip Bump at The Washington Post: Most Republicans aren’t aware of Trump’s various legal issues.
There is an assumption, probably particularly among those who cover the news and those who read it, that Donald Trump’s legal travails are common knowledge. We talk about things like the potential effects of a Trump conviction on the 2024 presidential election with the assumption that this would be an event that rose to the nation’s consciousness, triggering a response from both his supporters and detractors.
But this is a sort of vanity: Just because it is interesting to us certainly doesn’t mean it is interesting to others. Polling released by CNN on Thursday shows that only a quarter of voters seek out news about the campaign; a third pay little to no attention at all.
As it turns out, even major developments often fly under the average American’s radar. New polling conducted by YouGov shows that only a bit over half of the country on average is aware of the various legal challenges Trump faces. And among those Republicans on whose political support he depends? Consistently, only a minority say they are aware of his lawsuits and charges.
YouGov presented American adults with eight legal scenarios to judge the extent of the public’s awareness. Two were invented: that Trump faces charges related to emoluments or related to drug trafficking. Happily, less than a quarter of respondents said those legal threats actually existed.
The other six were real. The one that was familiar to the most people was the federal classified-documents case that is moving forward in Florida; 6 in 10 Americans said they were aware of that case. The one that had the least awareness was the civil suit in New York in which a judge determined that he’d fraudulently inflated the value of his assets. Just under 50 percent of Americans knew about that.
But the pattern among Republicans is clear. At most, 45 percent of Republicans said they knew about legal issues: specifically, the documents case and his being found liable for assaulting the writer E. Jean Carroll. Only a quarter knew about the value-inflation suit, and only 4 in 10 knew about the criminal charges in Manhattan related to the hush money payments to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels.
And with that, I’ll turn the floor over to you. What’s do you think about all this? What else is on your mind?
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Today’s news reflects the natural and manmade disasters lurking in today’s headlines. It’s difficult to know where to start, but I do want to recognize the 22nd Anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center Towers. This includes the news from The Hill that “Two new 9/11 victims identified by New York officials” and a Hindustan Times article on “5 bizarre 9/11 conspiracy theories that refuse to die out.” I hope the day is remembered for more than this from The Guardian. “How 9/11 influenced the way conspiracy theories spread today” by Andrew Griffin.
The theories themselves are so well-worn that they have progressed all the way to memes: the common refrain that “jet fuel can’t melt steel beams”, once an earnestly communicated part of conspiracy lore, has now become so hackneyed that it is almost meaningless. But there are many others, which either tend to suggest that the US could have intervened but decided not to, or that it actually orchestrated the attacks itself.
At the same time, however, they borrowed from tropes and ideas that had existed for centuries before, and which have continued to prove popular in the decades since. For the most part, 9/11 conspiracy theories are the same as those that went before, and those that followed, with the nouns swapped.
Perhaps the most distinct facet about the 9/11 conspiracy theories is the way they were pushed through formats that are familiar now in everything from advertising to the arts. In 2005, as the early viral internet we know today was finding its feet – it was the year of the first Pepe the Frog drawing, the beginnings of “Chuck Norris facts” and the “Million Dollar Homepage” – there appeared a video known as Loose Change, a documentary that presented the central ideas of the 9/11 conspiracy theory in a way that sent it swiftly across the internet.
Korey Rowe, the Iraq and Afghanistan veteran who made the film with friend Dylan Avery after returning from those wars confused and disillusioned, has drawn a straight line from the film to the various conspiracy theories that surround us today.
“Look at where it’s gone: you have people storming the Capitol because they believe the election was a fraud. You have people who won’t get vaccinated and they’re dying in hospitals,” he told the Associated Press. “We’ve gotten to the point where information is actually killing people.”
Today’s headlines also include a heavily armored train carrying the North Korean Dictator on its way to a meeting with Russia’s Putin. It’s like a 2fer day in Bond villains. This is from the AP. “North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will visit Russia, setting the stage for a meeting with Putin.” Putin needs ammunition. Un has a surplus. What does this mean for Ukraine? Will they be Comrades-in-Arms?
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will visit Russia, both countries said Monday, and he is expected to hold a highly anticipated meeting with President Vladimir Putin that has sparked Western concerns about a potential arms deal for Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
A brief statement on the Kremlin’s website said the visit is at Putin’s invitation and would take place “in the coming days.” It also was reported by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency, which said the leaders would meet — without specifying when and where.
“The respected Comrade Kim Jong Un will meet and have a talk with Comrade Putin during the visit,” it said.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Putin and Kim will lead their delegations in talks and could also meet “one-on-one if necessary.”
Speaking of Bond Villians, CNN reports that the “Justice Department drops Mueller-era case against Michael Flynn ex-lobbying partner Bijan Kian.” Are they still after Flynn? This is reported by Katelyn Polantz.
The Justice Department is dropping its five-year-old criminal case against Bijan Kian, the former lobbying partner of Michael Flynn whom prosecutors had accused of illicit lobbying for Turkey during the 2016 US presidential election.
The move wraps up a long-running tangent of the Mueller-era Russia investigation that originally had been used as leverage to pressure Flynn. Investigators had looked into the Trump ally’s unregistered work for Turkey before becoming the US national security adviser, charged him with false statements and sought his testimony against Kian, then allowed his guilty plea and cooperation to unravel.
Kian’s case has wound through the courts for years. After his indictment in 2018, the Iranian-American businessman went to trial, with prosecutors planning on calling Flynn to testify against him to solidify their evidence of a connection between Flynn’s lobbying group and the government of Turkey.
But Flynn was already working on contesting own case with prosecutors—which he ultimately achieved with the agreement of then-Attorney General Bill Barr – and avoided being called to testify.
A jury in the Eastern District of Virginia voted to convict Kian on charges of conspiring to hide lobbying work for Turkey from the Justice Department and acting as an illegal foreign agent. Yet Judge Anthony Trenga threw out the verdict, citing insufficient evidence and other issues related to Flynn’s role in the lobbying effort. The judge found there wasn’t evidence that Kian agreed to act as a foreign agent for Turkey. The case then went into appeals, hanging in the criminal justice system for years.
In a court filing on Monday, the Justice Department told Trenga it sought to dismiss the charges against Kian, who is also known as Bijan Rafiekian.
“After carefully considering the Fourth Circuit’s recent decision in this case and the principles of federal prosecution, the United States believes it is not in the public interest to pursue the case against defendant Bijan Rafiekian further,” prosecutors wrote.
The judge hasn’t yet formally dismissed the case but is expected to.
Other Bond Villians in the news include the vile Ex-President Trump. Judd Legum from Popular Information writes this analysis. “The key to understanding Donald Trump’s enduring appeal is Vince McMahon.”
To better understand Trump’s enduring appeal, Popular Information spoke with Abraham Josephine Riesman, author of Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America. Why talk to the biographer of a wrestling executive to understand Trump? McMahon is one of Trump’s closest associates and, Riesman reports, one of the few people whose calls Trump takes in private. McMahon, who inducted Trump into the WWE Hall of Fame, could be serving as something of a role model to Trump right now. How many other people beat federal felony charges in court, weathered multiple sex scandals (so far), and emerged wealthier and more powerful?
Perhaps more importantly, McMahon is the creator of neo-kayfabe, the blending of fact and fiction — and good and evil — until it is all impossible to distinguish. McMahon himself became the most popular character on WWE shows, assuming the character of the arch-villain Mr. McMahon. There is now little distinction between McMahon and his WWE persona.
In her book, Riesman makes the case that Trump’s political strategy is shaped directly and indirectly by McMahon. “For more than three decades, Trump has watched and admired Vince’s product,” Riesman writes. “He has been both host and performer at many of Vince’s wrestling extravaganzas, honing his abilities as a rabble-rouser. Through Trump, Vince’s wrestling-infused mentality has reached the highest levels of the American system.”
Popular Information spoke to Riesman about what McMahon and WWE wrestling can teach us about Trump’s continued popularity, Trump’s response to federal indictments, and whether Trump believes his lies about the 2020 election. The interview was edited for length and clarity.
On how some people on the left misunderstand Trump’s appeal:
What we have with Trump is a guy who a lot of people on the left misunderstand as being just loved by the people who vote for him. And I think the feeling is not just, “Oh, Trump is good and strong and loves people and is a good Christian.” Very often, people will approach Trump in the way that they approach what they call in wrestling a “tweener.” Somebody who’s not exactly good or not exactly evil, where they go, “Yeah, I don’t approve of all of his methods or the things he says, but he’s cool, and he gets the job done.” I think thinking in terms of face [a “good guy” in wrestling] and heel [a “bad guy” in wrestling] for Trump is too binary, because it’s too much in the old way of doing things. The old kayfabe, not the neo-kayfabe. Trump is not perceived just as a good guy or a bad guy.
On the wrestler who is most similar to Trump:
Stone Cold Steve Austin is the person who, more than anyone else, altered the way the wrestling public uses their protagonists. Because Steve Austin was billed as a heel. He was introduced as a bad guy. And they were pushing him hard as a bad guy. But the crowd was seeing all these evil acts and just eating them up. They were obsessed, and cheering for this horrible character who was doing awful things. And that’s a real sea change for wrestling that, and then it ends up being a sea change for the culture.
On how WWE primed a generation for Trump:
You can’t deny that millennial boys grew up watching Stone Cold Steve Austin, and then the Rock and Triple H, and all these other people in that mold. These are people who are not quite face, not quite heel, but beloved by the crowd, despite their evil acts. Millennial boys shaped their whole worldviews when they’re 11 to 15 around that sense of morality. Not: Is it good, or is it evil? Just: Is it exciting? Is it cool? That’s what the premium is placed on. And that’s true now in politics, too. Maybe it’s always been true in politics to a certain extent. But right now, the thing that grabs people to vote is very often just: Do I find this person entertaining, recognizable, iconic, or funny? As opposed to: Will this person do a good job in the elected office that I’m voting for them for? And wrestling turned that into a science.
Well, it’s one possible hypothesis. Trump has another extravaganza ready for your TV viewing. The Daily Beast Reports that “Donald Trump Challenges Rupert Murdoch to a Mental Acuity Test.” Please tell me all channels will be ignoring this. The fun news is that Trump’s trip to a classic Iowa match-up football game was met with the Middle Finger Salute. Ah, that’s the Iowa I grew up in! This is from HuffPo. “Some Football Fans Hit Trump With Harsh 1-Finger Salute During Iowa vs. Iowa State Game.”
Several college football fans flipped the bird to former President Donald Trump as he waved to a crowd from a private suite at the Iowa vs. Iowa State game on Saturday.
Trump, who received a sea of cheers during a visit to a fraternity house before the game, got the one-finger salute from a number of fans as he and other GOP presidential candidates were on hand to check out the state’s intense college football rivalry.
The real interesting news from HuffPo is this. “Jamie Raskin Says Republicans Have ‘Conclusively Disproven’ Their Own Biden Corruption Allegations. Republicans are acting out of “humiliating subservience” to Donald Trump, according to the Maryland Democrat. Who is James Bond in this scenario?
In his quest to uncover evidence of corruption by President Joe Biden, House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-Ky.) has only managed to undermine his key allegations against the president, according to the committee’s top Democrat.
“Chairman Comer’s investigation has conclusively disproven the Republican allegations against President Biden,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said Monday in a statement accompanying a report summarizing the committee’s work so far this year.
It’s a scathing document that portrays the Republican investigation as a transparent effort to create a false equivalence between Biden and former President Donald Trump, who faces four criminal trials for conduct during and after his presidency.
The main corruption allegations against Biden are that he participated in his son’s business deals with foreign nationals and that as vice president he twisted U.S. foreign policy to benefit a Ukrainian gas company that employed his son as board member. House Republicans have said they may launch an impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden based on the Oversight Committee’s material.
“Mounting evidence reveals that then-Vice President Joe Biden was ‘the brand’ that his family sold around the world to enrich the Bidens,” a spokesperson for Comer said Monday. “Then-Vice President Biden spoke over 20 times by speakerphone with Hunter Biden’s foreign business associates, dined with corrupt oligarchs who funneled millions to Hunter Biden, had coffee with one of his son’s associates in Beijing, and may have engaged in a bribery scheme.”
Earlier this year, Comer and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) uncovered an FBI file indicating that a trusted source spoke to a Ukrainian oligarch who claimed to have bribed Joe and Hunter Biden. The source said the claim was characteristic of braggadocio among post-Soviet businessmen; Raskin has said FBI officials told him they assessed the material and found it not credible enough for a full investigation. (The bureau has declined to publicize its assessment.)
Oooooo. Real Russians. Now, for real Communists? Alright, this is from Red State, so I doubt it, but sheesh. What is with these people? “Communists Burn Flags Outside Jason Aldean Concert, but the Response Shuts Them Down.”
Some don’t wish us well today. They would like to see us taken down and defeated as a nation. There are those who despise the very principles upon which this nation was built. Over the weekend, the Revolutionary Communists showed up outside a Jason Aldean concert in Tinley Park, a suburb of Chicago, not only to bash him over his viral hit song but to slam America, burn the flag, and call for a Communist revolution. You can see a video of them burning American flags here.
So, I see no evidence of anything other than folks burning the US Flag in protest. Again, these folks love an excellent Conspiracy Plotline.
Okay. One more for the road. “JFK assassination witness questions whether shooter acted alone. Paul Landis’s recollection of Kennedy’s slaying is bound to fuel those who believe multiple shooters killed the late president.” This is from The Guardian.
An ex-Secret Service agent who was feet away from John F Kennedy when the former president was shot dead has broken his decades-old silence to cast doubt on the single-bullet theory held by the commission which investigated the assassination.
In an interview published by the New York Times over the weekend, Paul Landis said that he long believed the official finding that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he killed Kennedy.
But, based on discrepancies between things he saw on the day of the assassination and the report from the commission, “I’m beginning to doubt myself,” Landis said. “Now I begin to wonder.”
Landis’s recollection of Kennedy’s death is bound to fuel those who believe multiple shooters killed the late president in Dallas on 22 November 1963. Yet his remarks – coming about a month before he releases a memoir – differ from two written statements which he turned in shortly after the assassination, surely keeping one of the darkest chapters in US history shrouded in mystery.
Landis was on the running board of a car trailing the open-top limousine that Kennedy was riding when – as he tells it – he heard a barrage of gunshots and a bullet struck the president from behind. The Warren commission, convened to examine the investigation, concluded that one bullet then continued forward, striking fellow passenger and Texas governor John Connally in his back, thigh, chest and wrist.
As the New York Times noted, the main reason for that conclusion was because the bullet was found on a stretcher used to move Connally around a hospital afterward.
Enter Landis’s new interview and his upcoming memoir, The Final Witness: A Kennedy Secret Service Agent Breaks His Silence After 60 Years. Landis told the New York Times that he was the person who discovered that bullet, which he remembers being stuck in the limousine seat behind Kennedy’s seat after the president had been brought to the hospital.
Landis also said he did not think the bullet went too deeply into Kennedy’s back before “popping back out” prior to the president’s removal from the car he was in. Worried someone would try to pocket it as a souvenir, Landis said he took the bullet and placed it next to a stretchered Kennedy.
“It was a piece of evidence that I realized right away [was] very important,” Landis said. “And I didn’t want it to disappear or get lost. So it was, ‘Paul, you’ve got to make a decision’ – and I grabbed it.”
And they say yellow journalism is dead.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
By Glenn Harrington
As predicted, it got really cold here yesterday and overnight. It got down to -9 where I am, lower in other parts of Massachusetts and New England. My newly installed air heat pump worked very well. I had it set at 72, and it stayed very warm in my apartment. The temperature is back up to -1 now (feels like -16) and will continue rising into the teens today. Tomorrow we will be back up to warmer than normal temperatures in the 40s and 50s for the rest of the week. Pretty freaky. Of course, my parents, who grew up in North Dakota, wouldn’t have thought these temperatures were a big deal.
The really dramatic weather was at Mt. Washington in New Hampshire. It’s not that big a mountain, but it gets the “worst weather in the world.” They get hurricane-force winds up there all the time. Once in the 1930s, Mt. Washington recorded 231 mph winds! Last night it got to a wind chill of -109 degrees, the lowest ever recorded in the U.S.
From The Washington Post: ‘Historic Arctic outbreak’ crushes records in New England.
Parts of the Northeast woke up to the coldest morning in decades on Saturday, with temperatures 30 degrees or more below average and wind chills in the extremely dangerous category. Virtually the entirety of New England was included in wind chill warnings, while Mount Washington’s minus-109 degree wind chill set a record for the entire United States.
The National Weather Service office serving the Boston region described the cold as “a historic Arctic outbreak for the modern era,” and warned that “this is about as cold as it will ever get.”
In Boston, the morning low fell to minus-10 degrees at 5:15 a.m., the coldest reading observed in the city since Jan. 15, 1957, when Boston hit minus-12. The episode resembled the brutal Arctic blast on Valentine’s Day 2016, when Logan Airport dropped to minus-9 degrees.
Coupled with winds gusting near 40 mph, Boston witnessed its lowest wind chill ever recorded at minus-39 degrees. Records date back to 1944. Wind chill is an index that attempts to quantity the combined impact of cold and wind on the human body, since strong winds blow away one’s body heat.
By Robin Freedenfeld
The temperatures were so extreme in Maine that residents reported “frost quakes,” or cryoseisms. The earthquake-like tremors are caused by rapidly plummeting temperatures, which cause water trapped in cracks in the ground to expand.
The city of Portland, Maine, recorded its all-time lowest wind chill at minus-45 degrees. A weather balloon launched by the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine, reported the all-time lowest 850 millibar (an air pressure level corresponding to approximately 5,000 feet in altitude) temperature ever observed by that office at minus-35.5 degrees.
Farther north in Maine, Frenchville Airport in Aroostook County recorded a wind chill to minus-61 degrees, while Cadillac Mountain in Hancock County had a minus-62 degree wind chill. Even Bar Harbor, on the coast, logged a wind chill of minus-48. Greenville in Piscataquis County faced a wind chill of minus-58.
So that was interesting for those of us who are excited by extreme weather; now we go back to unseasonably warm daytime temperatures in the 40s and 50s. Freaky.
Yesterday, the right wing nuts on Twitter–including Congressional Republicans–were totally losing their minds over that Chinese balloon that was spotted over the U.S. The wingnuts demanded that the government shoot the thing down. Of course it’s flying way up in the atmosphere, beyond reach of any kind of weapon, plus it’s huge and would probably kill people if it came down, but whatever. It’s Biden’s fault. This moron is chairman of the House Oversight Committee.
Justin Baragona at The Daily Beast: GOP Rep Warns That Chinese Balloon May Have ‘Bioweapons’ From ‘Wuhan.’
House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) casually suggested to Fox News on Friday that the suspected Chinese spy balloon floating over the United States could contain “bioweapons” from “Wuhan,” invoking the “lab leak theory” that’s been embraced by Republicans.
After a Chinese surveillance balloon was spotted over the northern U.S. this week, Republicans have lashed out at President Joe Biden over his perceived “weakness” in his administration’s policy towards China. Calling for the president to “shoot down” the craft, some in the GOP called the president “Beijing Biden” while claiming this is further proof that “Communist China” doesn’t “fear or respect” Biden.
By Bruce Bingham
While the Pentagon has balked over conservative demands to take down the balloon, noting that falling debris could injure or kill civilians, the Biden administration has postponed Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s upcoming trip to China. China, meanwhile, has insisted the suspected spycraft is really just a “civilian airship” that “deviated far from its planned course.”
Amid the Republican handwringing over the Chinese balloon, Comer appeared on Fox News’ The Faulkner Focus to react. And he immediately jumped into conspiratorial waters.
“I have concern this will be another example of the Biden administration’s weakness on the national scale,” he declared. “You look at what happened in Afghanistan. That hurt the reputation of America’s military strength. That hurt the reputation of our commander-in-chief. And now we have China clearly playing games with the United States.”
After saying the balloon “never should have been allowed” to cross over into the U.S., the Kentucky lawmaker then fear-mongered that the craft could be loaded down with weaponized viruses. “My concern is that the federal government doesn’t know what’s in that balloon,” he asserted. “Is that bioweapons in that balloon? Did that balloon take off from Wuhan?”
Um . . . Okay.
For some actual news about the situation, here’s Lily Kuo at The Washington Post: China rushes to cap damage over suspected spy balloon as Blinken delays trip.
Beijing on Saturday offered a subdued rebuttal to Washington’s decision to delay a high-level visit after a suspected Chinese spy balloon was discovered hovering over the United States, derailing China’s recent efforts to repair its most important bilateral relationship.
Hours before U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was to take off, Washington postponed the trip, saying it “would not be appropriate” after the discovery of the airship floating around 60,000 feet above the central United States.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement Saturday that the presence of a Chinese airship in U.S. airspace was “completely an accident,” and was caused by westerly winds knocking the balloon off course. It reiterated claims that the balloon was for scientific research such as collecting weather data, and accused “some U.S. politicians and media” of taking advantage of the situation to discredit China, which “firmly opposes this.” [….]
Blinken had been expected to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the trip, and while few expected concrete results, officials on both sides hoped it would start the process of capping tensions over issues such as Taiwan, U.S. sanctions targeting Chinese tech companies, human rights and China’s friendship with Russia. The trip would help pave the way for a potential visit to the United States by Xi when San Francisco hosts an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ meeting in November.
The balloon incident, on the eve of such a critical meeting, raises questions over whether it was an accident or a deliberate effort by Beijing to send a message to Washington. (The Pentagon said Thursday that the air vehicle is not currently considered a threat to people on the ground.) In either case, it is a setback for China’s leadership.
By Linda Lee Nelson
Ariane de Vogue has a scoop at CNN on the Supreme Court’s careless handling of sensitive information: Exclusive: Supreme Court justices used personal emails for work and ‘burn bags’ were left open in hallways, sources say.
Long before the leak of a draft opinion reversing Roe v. Wade, some Supreme Court justices often used personal email accounts for sensitive transmissions instead of secure servers set up to guard such information, among other security lapses not made public in the court’s report on the investigation last month.
New details revealed to CNN by multiple sources familiar with the court’s operations offer an even more detailed picture of yearslong lax internal procedures that could have endangered security, led to the leak and hindered an investigation into the culprit.
Supreme Court employees also used printers that didn’t produce logs – or were able to print sensitive documents off-site without tracking – and “burn bags” meant to ensure the safe destruction of materials were left open and unattended in hallways.
“This has been going on for years,” one former employee said.
The problem with the justices’ use of emails persisted in part because some justices were slow to adopt to the technology and some court employees were nervous about confronting them to urge them to take precautions, one person said. Such behavior meant that justices weren’t setting an example to take security seriously.
The justices were “not masters of information security protocol,” one former court employee told CNN.
In a statement attached to the final report, the court called the leak a “grave assault” on the court’s legitimacy and the marshal of the court issued a road map to improve security.
More details at the CNN link.
We’re getting more information about what’s in that new tell-all book by Mark Pomerantz, a former prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office–one of the two who resigned in disgust when incoming DA Alvin Bragg decided not to prosecute Trump.
Former prosecutor Andrew Weissman reviews the book at The New York Times: An insider’s critical view of an investigation of Donald Trump.
In February 2022, Mark Pomerantz was a lead attorney in the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation of former president Donald Trump and his business practices when he abruptly resigned. He cited frustration over what he saw as the office’s flagging commitment to the inquiry. Pomerantz, a renowned former prosecutor and defense lawyer, had been recruited in February 2021 by then-district attorney Cyrus Vance to assist in the long-running investigation. In his resignation letter, Pomerantz asserted that the new DA, Alvin Bragg, had “suspended indefinitely” the investigation and said that Pomerantz did not want “to become a passive participant in what I believe to be a grave failure of justice.”
Elena Berezina – Portrait of K.F. Venevtseva
Pomerantz has now expanded on his views in a book, “People vs. Donald Trump: An Inside Account.” However, in the time between Pomerantz’s resignation and the book’s publication, Bragg’s investigation of Trump has taken another turn. The district attorney’s office has impaneled a grand jury and begun hearing evidence in a sharp ramping up of its inquiry into, among other things, Trump’s role in payments to adult-film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign. As the office pushes forward on work that could lead to criminal charges against Trump, Bragg has publicly raised concerns that Pomerantz’s book could jeopardize any subsequent prosecution.
It is in this climate that Pomerantz’s book lands next week. His intent is to reveal what happened within the district attorney’s office during his year there. As he frames the question: “Why had the investigation, which by all accounts had been gaining steam and seemed likely to lead to criminal charges against the former president, come to a sudden stop?”
His assessment of the inner workings of the Manhattan district attorney’s office is brutal. Pomerantz contends that no criminal case emerged against Trump because the DA’s team of career prosecutors was simply not up to the task. He paints an unflattering portrait of the career assistant district attorneys, particularly the many who disagreed with his own assessment of the potential criminal case. “They spoke about the need to follow the evidence,” Pomerantz writes, “but to my knowledge they had not actually looked at much of it.”
In his telling, the prosecutors come across as fainthearted, lacking “energy” and “enthusiasm,” and “relentlessly negative.” The team was faced with a possible first-of-its-kind prosecution of a former president, and, Pomerantz writes, the prosecutors were perhaps “a bit fearful about bringing charges against Trump,” given his well-known penchant for public retaliation. “They seemed to me,” Pomerantz observes, “to be exactly the kind of traditional, ‘let’s do things the way we have always done them’ prosecutors that kept the district attorney’s office from being resourceful and successful in white-collar cases.” Pomerantz reveals that Vance had “privately complained many times to me … about the slow-moving and ‘gun shy’ culture in the office.” Pomerantz believed the office needed a chief of staff, “a drill sergeant,” as he puts it, to “keep the team moving.” But out of the hundreds of assistant district attorneys, he argues, “there was no suitable candidate from within the office.”
Read the rest at the NYT.
Also at The New York Times, William K. Rashbaum, Ben Protess, and Jonah E. Bromwich write: Trump Likened to Mob Boss John Gotti in Ex-Prosecutor’s New Book.
Donald J. Trump grew his business, fortune and fame “through a pattern of criminal activity,” according to a new book by a veteran prosecutor, who reveals that the Manhattan district attorney’s office once considered charging the former president with racketeering, a law often used against the Mafia.
The prosecutor, Mark F. Pomerantz, resigned in protest early last year after the newly elected district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, decided not to seek an indictment of Mr. Trump at that time. By then, the inquiry was more narrowly focused on whether the former president had fraudulently inflated the value of his assets to secure loans.
But for months beforehand, Mr. Pomerantz had mapped out a wide-ranging possible case against the former president under the state racketeering law, according to the soon-to-be published book, “People vs. Donald Trump.” That broader approach was based on the theory that Mr. Trump had presided over a corrupt business empire for years, a previously unreported aspect of the long-running inquiry.
Girl with cat, by Merle Keller
Mr. Pomerantz and his colleagues cast a wide net, examining a host of Trump enterprises — including Trump University, his for-profit real estate education venture, and his family charitable foundation.
“He demanded absolute loyalty and would go after anyone who crossed him. He seemed always to stay one step ahead of the law,” Mr. Pomerantz, a prominent litigator who has prosecuted and defended organized crime cases, writes of Mr. Trump. “In my career as a lawyer, I had encountered only one other person who touched all of these bases: John Gotti, the head of the Gambino organized crime family.”
The book, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, is a chronicle of the complicated and circuitous investigation, which produced charges against Mr. Trump’s longtime chief financial officer and his family business, but has yet to yield formal accusations against the former president himself.
Mr. Pomerantz’s book arrives as the investigation is ramping up once again, with prosecutors impaneling a new grand jury to hear evidence about Mr. Trump’s role in paying hush money to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, during the 2016 presidential campaign. Mr. Bragg’s administration, which has raised ethical and legal concerns about Mr. Pomerantz’s revealing details of the inquiry, is also applying additional pressure on the former chief financial officer, Allen H. Weisselberg, seeking to secure his cooperation against the former president.
That’s it for me today; what stories have piqued your interest? Have a great Caturday, Sky Dancers!!
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