Trump Promises to End Voting

Sure, he was talking to his base yesterday, and he is spouting to them just what he plans to do:

 

Harris campaign response:

When Vice President Harris says this election is about freedom she means it. Our democracy is under assault by criminal Donald Trump: After the last election Trump lost, he sent a mob to overturn the results. 

This campaign, he has promised violence if he loses, the end of our elections if he wins, and the termination of the Constitution to empower him to be a dictator to enact his dangerous Project 2025 agenda on America. Donald Trump wants to take America backward, to a politics of hate, chaos, and fear - this November America will unite around Vice President Kamala Harris to stop him.

Trump Party's "Project 2025" on Education

 Media Matters has a great synopsis of the major policy changes that in store beginning next year if convicted felon and malignant narcissist, Donald Trump, is elected in November.  Despite Trump's lies, his fingerprints are all over "Project 2025."

Here are the major bullet points on Education:

• Project 2025’s proposal for America’s education system would be one of the most extreme plans yet, calling for eliminating the Department of Education, getting rid of all teachers unions, and tearing down regulations on education spending. Far-right “parental rights” organization Moms for Liberty and the anti-union Institute for Education Reform have partnered with Project 2025 to create these proposals.

  • The first sentence of Project 2025’s chapter on the Department of Education simply states: “Federal education policy should be limited and, ultimately, the federal Department of Education should be eliminated.” [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023] 
  • Citing “the path outlined by Milton Friedman in 1955,” Heritage’s Lindsey Burke advocates for American education through school vouchers, claiming, “Ultimately, every parent should have the option to direct his or her child’s share of education funding through an education savings account (ESA), funded overwhelmingly by state and local taxpayers, which would empower parents to choose a set of education options that meet their child's unique needs.” [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023]
  • Project 2025 seeks to eliminate the National Education Association’s congressional charter, which allows for the existence of teachers unions, calling it “a demonstrably radical special interest group that overwhelmingly supports left-of-center policies and policymakers.” [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023]
  • The plan also wants to remove federal oversight for funds under Title 1, “which provides support for low-income districts,” instead handling them as “no-strings-attached” state grants “with no regulation or oversight.” Federal education funding for students with special needs would “also be converted to unregulated block grants.” [Bucks County Beacon, 11/20/23]
  • The proposal also aims at eliminating any policies implemented under the Obama administration that support diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives or so-called “critical race theory,” arguing that CRT specifically disrupts “the values that hold communities together such as equality under the law and colorblindness.” [Bucks County Beacon, 11/20/23; Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023]

Kamala Harris Launches Her Campaign for President

Dem VP Choice Should Support Public Schools

Pennsylvania's governor, Josh Shapiro, is one of the favorites for Harris's VP pick.  From where I sit, Shapiro's position on school privatization should eliminate him from the running.  

From Chalkbeat, May 2024:

Shapiro said during the [budget] address that he still supports some form of voucher funding for students in underperforming school districts to spend towards “extra tutoring, books and computers, or yes, going to another school.”

Shapiro added, “the Senate passed a proposal last year that included important elements of that, and it’s something I support and consider to be unfinished business.”

 

Who Is Favored to Win, Biden or Trump?

From 538 website, July 18, 2024:

 

Rachel Maddow lists the ways J.D. Vance attacked Trump

KARMA?

Here's a recent sampling of Trump headlines prior to Saturday's attack. You tell me: could there be some connection, perhaps?!

 

May 31, 2024

Trump supporters try to dox jurors and post violent threats after his conviction

On social media and web forums, users called for jurors, judges and prosecutors to be killed after the former president was found guilty on 34 felony counts. . .  .

 March 18, 2024

Trump under fire again for violent language and dehumanizing anti-immigrant rhetoric

 

January 9, 2021

Donald Trump is the accelerant

A comprehensive timeline of Trump encouraging hate groups and political violence.

 

 October 2, 2023

Trump ramps up violent rhetoric

NBC News’ analysis of all of the former president’s public remarks shows that his recent statements and social media posts have taken a dark and aggressive turn.

 

August 17, 2023

Judges, jurors, prosecutors in Trump cases face death threats and doxing fears

 

September 16, 2022

Nice Democracy You’ve Got Here. Shame If Something Happened to It.

Donald Trump’s newest defense strategy is laced with menace.

 

May 31, 2024

Violent threats are at a fever pitch as Trump stokes anger over his conviction

 

 

 

 

Wanna-Be Trump Assassin: White Registered Republican Gun Nut

Had Trump been neutralized, one may wonder if his supporters would alter their views on the legality of assault rifles. 

From The Daily Beast:

The FBI identified Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, as the gunman who fired multiple shots with an AR-style rifle in a failed assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday. . . . During the attack, Crooks wore a gray T-shirt with an American flag on the sleeve, matching merchandise sold by the popular YouTube firearm channel Demolition Ranch. The channel has over 11 million subscribers and frequently posts videos about various types of weaponry.

Lawrence: Biden speaks to NATO and AFL-CIO after Trump read a teleprompter

Last evening Lawrence O'Donnell had a video clip of Joe Biden publicly speaking yesterday at AFL-CIO headquarters for 6 minutes without notes or teleprompter.  Lawrence's setup begins around 10:20 of the clip from his show, and Biden's impromptu remarks end at 19:25.  The remaining four minutes are pretty priceless, so watch the rest--please.

O'Donnell notes that this video was available yesterday to all networks, channels, stations, URLs, etc., but no one in the media, not one outlet bothered to show Joe Biden walking normally or speaking normally in public.  This self-imposed blindness by the news media provides a prime example of what can happen when the most common cognitive bias-- which is confirmation bias-- sets in at an institutional level.  Any evidence that does not confirm the breathless conclusion formed during and just after the first presidential debate is summarily ignored. And it was a performance by Biden that actually confirmed an already strongly-held  hypothesis made possible by months and months of hammering the proposition that Joe Biden is too old to be President.

The corporate media echo chamber, led by the New York Times and Washington's Amazon Post, is now so invested in destroying Joe Biden's candidacy that they cannot or will not see any evidence that runs contrary to the news story (now a fortnight old), a news story that has now taken on the full dress of a major propaganda campaign designed to poison public opinion about Joe Biden, all for the purpose of confirming a conclusion made possible by a 90 minute debate performance. 

So as knowledge is the only remedy for beliefs that do not depend upon evidence (all the evidence), have a 10 minute lesson in what the corporate media is not telling the world. And someone call Mr. Clooney and let him know that it's alright for him to come out from under his blankie and watch, along with the adults.

First Study on First Debate Impact Shows No Change in the Presidential Race

 How about this headline that actually matches what we find in the text that follows:  No change: Evaluating the short-term impact of the first presidential debate on voter preferences

Here is a brief clip from the new research:

The predominant pattern we see in the data is stability in voters’ preferences.Overall, 94% of those who chose Biden and 86% of those who chose Trump in our May survey still preferred the same candidate after the debate. There was a small rate of change from Biden to Trump or vice versa –less than 3% shifted in either direction. We observed more churn between those who favored either Biden or Trump and the “Other” category. About 4% of Biden’s and 6% of Trump’s supporters in the earlier wave shifted to “Other” post-debate. At the same time, 6% of “Other” shifted to Biden, and another 6% shifted to Trump.  

Will this research be reported on or even acknowledged by the New York Times? 

Why I Just Cancelled My Long-Held Subscription to the New York Times

I've been a subscriber to the New York Times for too long to remember, but today I've had it.  The once-great Grey Lady is now engaged in a propaganda campaign to sow confusion and cast doubt on the legitimacy of Joe Biden's presidency and his candidacy. 

Why they are doing this, I cannot say.  Do they want a return of the insane gangster clown, Donald Trump?  Maybe. Has their elitist hubris finally got the better of them.  Don't know.

So let me make this short and not so sweet by quoting former Vice-President, Dick Cheney, whose infamous imperative was used many times, but never in the context with which I use it now toward the New York Times: GO FUCK YOURSELF!

Here's the straw that broke the camel's back.  From Sarah Burris at Raw Story:

'They make up news': Nancy Pelosi lashes out at NY Times' report on her Biden comments

Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is trashing the New York Times after it ran a story saying she suggested President Joe Biden could "reconsider" running for reelection against Donald Trump.

Pelosi appeared on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Wednesday, saying that right now isn't the time to focus on Biden when the country is hosting a significant NATO summit with world leaders celebrating the alliance's 75th anniversary.

“It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run,” Pelosi said. “We’re all encouraging him to make that decision. Because time is running short.”

Pressed, Pelosi replied: “I want him to do whatever he decides to do. And that’s the way it is. Whatever he decides, we go with.”

The New York Times took the quotes and ran a story with the headline: "Pelosi Suggests That Biden Could Reconsider Decision to Stay in the Race."

After the report was published, Pelosi was confronted by CBS News reporter Jaala Brown.

“I never said he should reconsider his decision," Pelosi told her. "The decision is the president’s. I don’t know what’s happened to The New York Times that they make up news. It isn’t true," she said.

"I think the President is great. And there are some misrepresentations of what I have said," Pelosi added.

Pelosi told MSNBC she wanted to "hold off. Whatever you’re thinking, either tell somebody privately, but you don’t have to put that out on the table until we see how we go this week.” . . . .

The Elites of Non-Elitism Are Dogpiling Joe Biden

Hey, there's a new soap opera being written daily in the corporate media, and there's a growing cast of players to act out their unconvincing roles as democracy-cherishing, elder-protecting patriots.  

There's Michael Moore, whose overriding concern is to protect democracy and the aged, going so far as to imply that the Biden campaign is engaged in elder abuse: 

If I have to be the only one to stand up for Joe Biden here, to protect him from the cruelest form of elder abuse I’ve ever been forced to watch, well then that’s what I’ll do,” Moore said. “He was in epic distress that Thursday night. Every cognitive default in his mind seemed to be shutting down. If this had been someone that you truly cared about, loved, embraced … what would you have done? 

Apparently, it never dawned on Michael that even the aged and decrepit have the right to make choices, at least until their protectors convince them they're no longer able to. Does he think that someone took Joe's apple sauce away from him on debate night and pushed him out onstage? 

I have a lot of respect for Michael Moore, but this is of the weakest most patronizing steamy pile variety of rationalizations for relieving someone of his rights under the Constitution that Michael, otherwise, cherishes.  Would Michael really be the dutiful and protective son, willing to involuntarily retire Dad from the world's most important job that he's proven to be the best at since Lyndon Johnson, and shove him in the old folks home regardless of what Dad has to say on the matter?

And then there's Rob Reiner, who says "it's time to stop fucking around . . . it's time for Joe Biden to step down." Rob Reiner, one of Hollywood's most famous large "D" Democrats, whose concern for preserving our democracy goes so far, obviously, as to force out the Democratic candidate who collected 87 percent of the democratic votes cast in all the Democratic primaries.  

That's 14,000,000 people who participated in the only democratic process we have for selecting a candidate.  Should Biden desert those folks who chose him in order to satisfy the Rob Reiners of the world, who would preserve democracy by simply ignoring how it works.  Maybe Reiner should take Joe's advice and put his favored candidate forward at the upcoming convention, rather than sitting in the balcony making a lot of noise and throwing spitballs.  Who the fuck does he think he is?

 

More Shameless, Misleading Headlines from the New York Times

The highest caste of Manhattan elites who comprise the New York Times Editorial Board has its vast army of reporters beating the bushes looking for any suggestion of evidence that Joe Biden could be, may be, might be unfit for office.  

If you are one of the hundreds of thousands who have already seen today's scary Biden headline without reading the story, then you probably think that Joe Biden probably has Parkinson's.  Here's the headline, above the digital fold, p. 1: "Parkinson’s Expert Visited the White House Eight Times in Eight Months."  

So there you have it, a clear suggestion that the good doctor was there to treat poor ole' Joe for god knows what. You have to get down to the third paragraph before you get to the news that neutralizes the Times's breathless headline:

It was unclear whether Dr. Cannard was at the White House to consult specifically about the president or was there for unrelated meetings. Dr. Cannard’s LinkedIn page describes him as “supporting the White House Medical Unit” for more than 12 years. His biography on Doximity, a website for health professionals, lists him as a “neurology consultant to the White House Medical Unit and the physician to the president” from 2012 to 2022, which would include the administrations of Presidents Barack Obama and Donald J. Trump.

Records from the Obama administration, when Mr. Biden was vice president, show that Dr. Cannard made at least 10 visits in 2012 plus a family tour; four in 2013; one in 2014; four in 2015; and eight in 2016. Mr. Trump rescinded Mr. Obama’s voluntary White House visitors disclosure policy, so records are not available for his four years in office.

Dr. Cannard did not respond to repeated requests for comment. The White House would not comment specifically on the purpose of Dr. Cannard’s recent visits or whether they were related to the president. “A wide variety of specialists from the Walter Reed system visit the White House complex to treat the thousands of military personnel who work on the grounds,” Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, said in a statement.

So let me send this suggestion to the headline writers for the Times, something more appropriate to go with their nothingburger story: "The Canard about Cannard." 

Because the Brahmin on the New York Times Editorial Board have made it their mission to destroy Biden's candidacy, they will obviously use any kind of shitty trick to incentivize non-reading headline gawkers to get this new rumor going viral on antisocial media.  And even sadder, still, it looks like the leading bed wetters of the Democratic Congress are following the Times's lead. 

Update 5:15 PM Central:

To illustrate the influence the Times has, here's the latest from the headline scanners at The Daily Beast, whose desperate grab for attention easily tops the bullshit Times headline: "Biden in New Crisis Over Parkinson’s Doc’s 8 WH Visits."

MSNBC 07 08 2024 on Biden's Call Today to Morning Joe

Who's Worse, ABC Anal-ists or Sanjay Gupta?

Even before the Biden ABC interview aired yesterday, renowned TV doctor, Sanjay Gupta, had already slow-moed Biden's debate performance and come up with his own diagnosis and prescription based on what he saw from his living room easy chair: a thorough neurological and cognitive screening for the President.  Did Sanjay confer with anyone before he put in his orders with the White House and the rest of the world?  Maybe he sought confirmation from some other famous neurosurgeon--maybe Ben Carson?

With thousands of hours of tape available to him for review at CNN, has Dr. Gupta ever prescribed a thorough neurological, cognitive, and most importantly--psychiatric--workup on the lying gangster clown, Donald Trump?  Of course not.  But then Gupta and the other media jackals know that their howling and gnawing can never affect the Trump Party faithful who proved years ago that they are steadfastly immune to media yowling? 

But Gupta and the other sour-faced talking heads from ABC do know that they can get the soft-shelled Democratic hysterics inside the beltway to listen and begin to quake at all of their snapping and yammering about Joe Biden.  Yesterday ABC didn't even go to the all-important commercial following the Biden interview before its assembled panel of naysayers (so low on the totem poll that they had to work on the 4th of July weekend) leapt into their bad-mouthing rhetorical vortex. 

The adult in the room, Lawrence O'Donell reminded us the other night that in July of 1988 Michael Dukakis was ahead in the polls by 17 point. In November, he was beaten by Poppy Bush by 8.

NYTimes Headline Doesn't Match the Story

If you read the story underneath the lying headline, "Biden Told Ally That He Is Weighing Whether to Continue in the Race," you will find the anonymous source for the story did not tell the NYTimes any such bullshit. Was the headline written by the Editorial Board, or was the reporter trying to earn brownie points for making up a headline that doesn't fit the story? 

By the way, the White House emphatically denies the idiotic headline.

Unedited: ProPublica Interviews President Biden, September 2023

Posted here for the weepers, hand wringers, and pearl clutchers: