Springfield, OH

The 'Haitians eating dogs and cats' of the residents of Springfield, OH story has been debunked many times. The woman who first posted the BS found her own cat in her basement. But debunking the story has not stopped Trump or Vance from repeating the lie. Nothing stops these guys from lying. As Barack Obama might say, "It's what they do!"

But all the lies and fear-mongering should matter to Trump supporters. They probably believe the lie. After all, their Orange God has claimed that "I never lie." Only others lie, but never Trump. The fact they believe him only adds to the evidence of the Trump Cult. They are so deep in the cult, they cannot see the real world any longer. At some point, the truth will start to break through to them, and they will feel a ton of shame that they were taken in so easily. 

But, not yet. The article below was written by Molly Jong-Fast. She is currently writing for Vanity Fair and can be seen frequently on MSNBC. 

Donald Trump's Springfield Scapegoat

Haitian immigrants in Ohio are just the latest target in Trump’s long-running ploy to convince his supporters they’re under siege.

BY MOLLY JONG-FAST

SEPTEMBER 16, 2024

Donald Trump doesn’t so much run for something as he runs against somebody. His latest attacks are aimed at Haitian immigrants, but what we’re seeing is a playbook previously used to target other ethnic or religious groups, and with a similar goal: to make the MAGA base feel like they’re under attack.

“The followers must feel besieged,” as the late Italian writer Umberto Eco, who grew up in fascist Italy, wrote nearly three decades ago in The New York Review of Books. “The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia.” Indeed, in order to enact much of his radical right-wing agenda, Trump needs his people to think America is on the brink of collapse—and to associate that collapse with an “other.” The goal is to panic the base, and since there isn’t a scary enough truth, lies will do.

“They’re eating the dogs,” Trump bellowed to Kamala Harris last Tuesday night, alluding to the utterly baseless claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio are stealing and feasting on people’s pets. It was immediately clear what Trump was doing. After all, scapegoating is one of Trump’s favorite ploys. He demonized Mexicans and Muslims in 2016, and long insisted that immigrants are “destroying the blood” and the “fabric” of America.” He even used his closing remarks at the debate to stoke fears of “criminals” entering the United States and “destroying our country.”

But the irony of Trump’s fascist rhetoric was particularly rich in Springfield, where the Haitian influx has revitalized the city’s workforce—as with so many places in America, where there just weren’t enough people living in the area to keep the economy going.

It bears repeating that there is no pet-eating of any kind going on. In fact, Trump running mate JD Vance basically admitted as much in a CNN interview over the weekend. “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people,” he told Dana Bash, “then that’s what I'm going to do, Dana, because you guys are completely letting Kamala Harris coast. You had one interview with her. You talk about pushing back against me, Dana. You didn’t push back against the fact that she cast the deciding vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, which is why a lot of Americans can’t afford food and housing. We ought to be talking about public policy.”

“You just said that you’re creating a story,” Bash rightly responded. “So the eating dogs and cats thing is not accurate.”

“We are creating, we are…,” Vance caught himself. “Dana, it comes from first-hand accounts from my constituents.”

Trump’s lie about Springfield might be particularly grotesque. But it’s in the same tradition of racist rhetoric that he has been testing out since the beginning of his campaign.

A campaign that started in June 2015 when he came down that bronze escalator and announced he was running for president. “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you,” he said, while unveiling his bid. “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

The othering continued, as the former president has kept scapegoating ethnic and religious minorities going through his first, second, and third presidential campaigns, including Muslims (by blaming them for domestic terrorism, culminating in his notorious Muslim travel ban); Chinese people (by blaming them for the COVID crisis); Mexican people (by blaming them for the fentanyl crisis); Venezuelans (whose gangs he’s accused of taking over the town of Aurora, Colorado); and most recently, of course, Haitians.

Almost all of these attacks are bits of unreality spliced together, based on events that are wildly exaggerated or ones that simply did not happen. Springfield, Ohio just had the misfortune of getting caught up in those lies. Now, two of their hospitals have been sentinto lockdown after bomb threats. Public schools and municipal buildings have been shut down for consecutive days because of similar concerns. Trump reportedly plans to soon visit Springfield, a trip that could further inflame a nation already gripped by fears of political violence. Trump, himself, faced an apparent assassination attempt on Sunday, just two months since he was nearly killed in Butler, Pennsylvania.

That visit to Springfield—which could happen imminently, or perhaps never—is unlikely to cool the national temperature. But in the meantime, the town’s residents will continue to live in fear, including the Haitian immigrants, who are there legally but who Trump has promised to deport “back to Venezuela.” This is the post-truth Republican Party: fake stories, real consequences. If Trump wins, we’ll see a whole lot more of this—more othering, more scapegoating, more racism, more of anything to panic the base so that he can enact the kind of laws that turn a democracy into an autocracy.

Molly Jong-Fast

SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

Molly Jong-Fast is a special correspondent for Vanity Fair. She is the host of the podcast Fast Politics. You can follow her on Twitter here.

Original.

GOP for Harris

Finally, more level-headed Republicans are coming out to support Kamala Harris over Donald Trump. Over 100 GOP'ers have written an open letter stating why.

The story below is written by Peter Baker, the head weasel correspondent to the White House for the New York Times. He usually writes "horse-race" pieces and "sane-washes" many of Trump's lies, babbling and threats against anyone that opposes him. Sometimes he writes a decent piece, like this one. It's rare, but it happens.

Anyone with a functioning brain, that is not in the Trump cult and a real patriot, is actually well-educated and still has some ability to generate empathy, should not be supporting Donald Trump, no matter how much you may hate Democrats. As stated in the letter, you don't have to agree with every policy of the Democrats to see that Trump is a real danger to the country.  I expect more of this kind of thing leading up to the election.

111 Former G.O.P Officials Back Harris, Calling Trump 'Unfit to Serve'

The signatories of a letter endorsing the Democratic vice president included former members of Congress, defense secretaries, C.I.A. directors and other national security officials.

by Peter Baker

September 18, 2024

More than 100 former national security officials from Republican administrations and former Republican members of Congress endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday after concluding that their party’s nominee, Donald J. Trump, is “unfit to serve again as president.”

In a letter to the public, the Republicans, including both vocal longtime Trump opponents and others who had not endorsed Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2020, argued that while they might “disagree with Kamala Harris” on many issues, Mr. Trump had demonstrated “dangerous qualities.” Those include, they said, “unusual affinity” for dictators like President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and “contempt for the norms of decent, ethical and lawful behavior.”

“As president,” the letter said, “he promoted daily chaos in government, praised our enemies and undermined our allies, politicized the military and disparaged our veterans, prioritized his personal interest above American interests and betrayed our values, democracy and this country’s founding documents.”

The letter condemned Mr. Trump’s incitement of the mob attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, aimed at allowing him to hold onto power after losing an election, saying that “he has violated his oath of office and brought danger to our country.” It quoted Mr. Trump’s own former vice president, Mike Pence, who has said that “anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States.”

The letter came not long after former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, former Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, both said they would vote for Ms. Harris. Democrats featured a number of anti-Trump Republicans at their nominating convention last month, including former Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. Mr. Pence has said he will not endorse Mr. Trump but has not endorsed Ms. Harris.

The 111 signatories included former officials who served under Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush or George W. Bush. Many of them had previously broken with Mr. Trump, including two former defense secretaries, Chuck Hagel and William S. Cohen; Robert B. Zoellick, a former president of the World Bank; the former C.I.A. directors Michael V. Hayden and William H. Webster; a former director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte; and former Gov. William F. Weld of Massachusetts. Miles Taylor and Olivia Troye, two Trump administration officials who became vocal critics, also signed.

But a number of Republicans who did not sign a similar letter on behalf of Mr. Biden in 2020 signed the one for Ms. Harris this time, including several former House members, like Charles W. Boustany Jr. of Louisiana, Barbara Comstock of Virginia, Dan Miller of Florida and Bill Paxon of New York.

In their letter, the Republicans acknowledged concerns about “some of the positions advocated by the left wing of the Democratic Party,” and some of them have been quite critical of the Biden-Harris administration. Just last year, Mr. Zoellick wrote a newspaper essay eviscerating Democratic economic policies. But the letter said that “any potential concerns” about Ms. Harris “pale in comparison to” those over Mr. Trump.

Peter Baker is the chief White House correspondent for The Times. He has covered the last five presidents and sometimes writes analytical pieces that place presidents and their administrations in a larger context and historical framework. 

Original.

Scientific American

I didn't really expect this group to endorse Kamala Harris for president, but it's another indication that Trump is bad, bad, bad, and people are coming together to prevent his sorry ass from re-taking the White House. People and groups from across the spectrum of humanity, (including many Republicans!) are coalescing around Kamala. Is Trump attracting any new voters, any new groups (that are not Nazis or white supremacists)?

Words fail after awhile to adequately describe this festering orange boil on the face of America. He is guilty of so much: so many lies, such ugly rhetoric, gaslighting, cozying up to dictators, narcissistic nonsense, and pitting groups of people against each other that people's eyes glaze over when you try to count the ways he is bad bad bad for America. 

I'll let scientists take a shot at it.

September 16, 2024

Vote for Kamala Harris to Support Science, Health and the Environment

Kamala Harris has plans to improve health, boost the economy and mitigate climate change. Donald Trump has threats and a dangerous record

By The Editors of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

In the November election, the U.S. faces two futures. In one, the new president offers the country better prospects, relying on science, solid evidence and the willingness to learn from experience. She pushes policies that boost good jobs nationwide by embracing technology and clean energy. She supports education, public health and reproductive rights. She treats the climate crisis as the emergency it is and seeks to mitigate its catastrophic storms, fires and droughts.

In the other future, the new president endangers public health and safety and rejects evidence, preferring instead nonsensical conspiracy fantasies. He ignores the climate crisis in favor of more pollution. He requires that federal officials show personal loyalty to him rather than upholding U.S. laws. He fills positions in federal science and other agencies with unqualified ideologues. He goads people into hate and division, and he inspires extremists at state and local levels to pass laws that disrupt education and make it harder to earn a living.

Only one of these futures will improve the fate of this country and the world. That is why, for only the second time in our magazine’s 179-year history, the editors of Scientific American are endorsing a candidate for president. That person is Kamala Harris.

Before making this endorsement, we evaluated Harris’s record as a U.S. senator and as vice president under Joe Biden, as well as policy proposals she’s made as a presidential candidate. Her opponent, Donald Trump, who was president from 2017 to 2021, also has a record—a disastrous one. Let’s compare.

Health Care

The Biden-Harris administration shored up the popular Affordable Care Act (ACA), giving more people access to health insurance through subsidies. During Harris’s September 10 debate with Trump, she said one of her goals as president would be to expand it. Scores of studies have shown that people with insurance stay healthier and live longer because they can afford to see doctors for preventive and acute care. Harris supports expansion of Medicaid, the U.S. health-care program for low-income people. States that have expanded this program have seen health gains in their populations, whereas states that continue to restrict eligibility have not. To pay for Medicare, the health insurance program primarily for older Americans, Harris supports a tax increase on people who earn $400,000 or more a year. And the Biden-Harris administration succeeded in passing the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which caps the costs of several expensive drugs, including insulin, for Medicare enrollees. Harris’s vice presidential pick, Tim Walz, signed into law a prohibition against excessive price hikes on generic drugs as governor of Minnesota.

When in office, Trump proposed cuts to Medicare and Medicaid (Congress, to its credit, refused to enact them.) He also pushed for a work requirement as a condition for Medicaid eligibility, making it harder for people to qualify for the program. As a candidate, both in 2016 and this year, he pledged to repeal the ACA, but it’s not clear what he would replace it with. When prodded during the September debate, he said, “I have concepts of a plan” but didn’t elaborate. Like Harris, however, he has voiced concern about drug prices, and in 2020 he signed an executive order designed to lower prices of drugs covered by Medicare.

The COVID pandemic has been the greatest test of the American health-care system in modern history. Harris was vice president of an administration that boosted widespread distribution of COVID vaccines and created a program for free mail-order COVID tests. Wastewater surveillance for viruses has improved, allowing public health officials to respond more quickly when levels are high. Bird flu now poses a new threat, highlighting the importance of the Biden-Harris administration’s Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy.

Trump touted his pandemic efforts during his first debate with Harris, but in 2020 he encouraged resistance to basic public health measures, spread misinformation about treatments and suggested injections of bleach could cure the disease. By the end of that year about 350,000 people in the U.S. had died of COVID; the current national total is well over a million. Trump and his staff had one great success: Operation Warp Speed, which developed effective COVID vaccines extremely quickly. Remarkably, however, Trump plans billion-dollar budget cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, which started the COVID-vaccine research program. These steps are in line with the guidance of Project 2025, an extreme conservative blueprint for the next presidency drawn up by many former Trump staffers. He’s also talked about ending the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, calling it a pork project.

Reproductive Rights

Harris is a staunch supporter of reproductive rights. During the September debate, she spoke plainly about her desire to reinstate “the protections of Roe v. Wade” and added, “I think the American people believe that certain freedoms, in particular the freedom to make decisions about one’s own body, should not be made by the government.” She has vowed to improve access to abortion. She has defended the right to order the abortion pill mifepristone through the mail under authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, even as MAGA Republican state officials have tried—so far unsuccessfully—to revoke those rights. As a U.S. senator, she co-sponsored a package of bills to reduce rising rates of maternal mortality. In August, Trump said he would vote against a ballot measure expanding access to abortions in Florida, where he lives. The current Florida “heartbeat” law makes most abortions illegal after six weeks of pregnancy, before many people even know they are pregnant.

Trump appointed the conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, removing the constitutional right to a basic health-care procedure. He spreads misinformation about abortion—during the September debate, he said some states support abortion into the ninth month and beyond, calling it “execution after birth.” No state allows this. He also refused to answer the question of whether he would veto a federal abortion ban, saying Congress would never approve such a ban in the first place. He made no mention of an executive order and praised the Supreme Court, three justices of which he placed, for sending abortion back to states to decide. This ruling led to a patchwork of laws and entire sections of the country where abortion is dangerously limited.

Gun Safety

The Biden-Harris administration closed the gun-show loophole, which had allowed people to buy guns without a license. The evidence is clear that easy access to guns in the U.S. has increased the risk of suicides, murder and firearm accidents. Harris supports a program that temporarily removes guns from people deemed dangerous by a court.

Trump promised the National Rifle Association that he would get rid of all Biden-Harris gun measures. Even after Trump was injured and a supporter was killed in an attempted assassination, the former president remained silent on gun safety. His running mate, J. D. Vance, said the increased number of school shootings was an unhappy “fact of life” and the solution was stronger school security.

Environment and Climate

Harris said pointedly during the September debate that climate change was real. She would continue the responsible leadership shown by Biden, who has undertaken the most substantial climate action of any president. The Biden-Harris administration restored U.S. membership in the Paris Agreement on coping with climate change. Harris’s election would continue IRA tax credits for clean energy, as well as regulations to reduce power-plant emissions and coal use. This approach puts the country on course to spend the authorized billions of dollars for renewable energy that should cut U.S. carbon emissions in half by 2030. The IRA also includes a commitment to broadening electric vehicle technology.

Trump has said climate change is a hoax, and he dodged the question “What would you do to fight climate change?” during the September debate. He pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement. Under his direction the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies abandoned more than 100 environmental policies and rules, many designed to ensure clean air and water, restrict the dangers of toxic chemicals and protect wildlife. He has also tried to revoke funding for satellite-based climate-research projects.

Technology

The Biden-Harris administration’s 2023 Executive Order on Safe, Secure and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence requires that AI-based products be safe for consumers and national security. The CHIPS and Science Act invigorates the chipmaking industry and semiconductor research while growing the workforce. A new Trump administration would undo all of this work and quickly. Under the devious and divisive Project 2025 framework, technology safeguards on AI would be overturned. AI influences our criminal justice, labor and health-care systems. As is the rightful complaint now, there would be no knowing how these programs are developed, how they are tested or whether they even work.

The 2024 U.S. ballots are also about Congress and local officials—people who make decisions that affect our communities and families. Extremist state legislators in Ohio, for instance, have given politicians the right to revoke any rule from the state health department designed to limit the spread of contagious disease. Other states have passed similar measures. In education, many states now forbid lessons about racial bias. But research has shown such lessons reduce stereotypes and do not prompt schoolchildren to view one another negatively, regardless of their race. This is the kind of science MAGA politicians ignore, and such people do not deserve our votes.

At the top of the ballot, Harris does deserve our vote. She offers us a way forward lit by rationality and respect for all. Economically, the renewable-energy projects she supports will create new jobs in rural America. Her platform also increases tax deductions for new small businesses from $5,000 to $50,000, making it easier for them to turn a profit. Trump, a convicted felon who was also found liable of sexual abuse in a civil trial, offers a return to his dark fantasies and demagoguery, whether it’s denying the reality of climate change or the election results of 2020 that were confirmed by more than 60 court cases, including some that were overseen by judges whom he appointed.

One of two futures will materialize according to our choices in this election. Only one is a vote for reality and integrity. We urge you to vote for Kamala Harris.

Original.

Laura Loomer

Cray cray Loomer

Trump sinks further and further into bullshit and conspiracy theories. Now he is hanging out with Laura Loomer, aka Looney Loomer. Yeah, he is probably cheating on Melania with Loomer, which would serve Melania right. That woman is just as bad and narcissistic as Trump is. 

So the Wall Street Journal, certainly no liberal bastion, is dumping on Trump for allowing Loomer to stay close to Trump and is apparently now a Trump "advisor." That's pretty rich.  

Poor WSJ. They seem to not be able to stand Donald Trump, yet they are saddled with him. I'm sure even though they slam Trump in this Editorial Board comment, they will still hang their heads and vote for him, because the entire GOP is hopelessly corrupt and full of radicals and terrorists, and they still have an irrational hatred and fear of Democrats, because, well, because Fox News tells them to.

Donald Trump and Loomer Tunes

Why is the former President hanging with a 9/11 conspiracist?

By the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board

September 13, 2024

Donald Trump likes to call his political opponents nuts, as in “crazy Nancy Pelosi,” so then why is he hanging with the 9/11 conspiracist Laura Loomer? Is he trying to lose the election?

We can’t believe we have to write this about a presidential candidate, but then Mr. Trump seems to like the company of Ms. Loomer, the 31-year-old online provocateur. She was backstage with the Trump team during this week’s debate with Kamala Harris and was in the spin room with the former President afterward.

She then flew on Mr. Trump’s plane to the anniversary memorials of 9/11 in New York City and the site of the Flight 93 crash in Pennsylvania. Her attendance at these events was especially insulting since Ms. Loomer has claimed that 9/11 was “an inside job.” Does she think Osama bin Laden was a CIA front man?

Ms. Loomer is usually described in the press as “far right,” but that’s unfair to the fever swamps. On Sunday she posted on X that if Ms. Harris wins the election, “the White House will smell like curry,” a gibe against Ms. Harris’s Indian heritage.

She added that Ms. Harris’s speeches “will be facilitated via a call center.” U.S. companies often farm out their information lines to Indian firms, get it? We wonder if JD Vance’s Indian-American wife thinks that’s funny.

In 2018 Ms. Loomer chained herself to Twitter’s New York headquarters after the platform banned her. She suggested that Casey DeSantis, the wife of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, might have lied about having breast cancer: “I’ve never seen the medical records.” This week she smeared Sen. Lindsey Graham after he criticized her association with Mr. Trump.

All of this would be ignorable, except that others close to Mr. Trump say he is listening to Ms. Loomer’s advice. People in the Trump campaign are trying to get her out of the former President’s entourage, to no avail. Even Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene thinks Ms. Loomer is damaging the former President’s election chances.

As North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis put it on Friday: “Laura Loomer is a crazy conspiracy theorist who regularly utters disgusting garbage intended to divide Republicans. A DNC plant couldn’t do a better job than she is doing to hurt President Trump’s chances of winning re-election. Enough.”

The press is naturally having fun with all this and asked Mr. Trump about it on Friday. “Laura’s a supporter,” he said. “I have a lot of supporters.” He added that “she’s a strong person; she’s got strong opinions,” and he wondered why people are asking about her.

They’re asking because they know Mr. Trump’s association with Ms. Loomer feeds the concern among voters that Mr. Trump listens to crazy courtiers who flatter him and play to his vanity. Is this who the next four years are going to feature?

The problem here is deeper than Mr. Trump’s electoral prospects. A growing segment of the American right is populated by, and susceptible to, cranks and conspiracists. A movement that used to admire William F. Buckley Jr. and Thomas Sowell now elevates a pseudo-historian who blames Winston Churchill for World War II and media personalities who sell falsehoods as a triumph for free speech.

This isn’t an intellectual or political movement that is going to win converts, nor will it deserve them.

Original.