Idiot of the week? Let's give it to Ron DeSantis. Why? See Elaine's "Ron DeSantis is such an idiot" -- when a judge's verdict rules you are "stupid" -- that's really the last word, isn't it? Let me quote from Elaine's post:
What an idiot. What a stooge. Explain to me why, when a judge has just ruled that you do not even understand the basics of the Constitution, an automatic effort to remove you from office does not kick in? Again, that should be automatic. You've taken an oath to uphold the Constitution but you clearly do not understand it -- or the oath you took swearing to uphold the Constitution.
Exactly.
Let's do some news and then I'll make some comments re: Colin Allred. Rhian Lubin (INDEPENDENT) reports:
JD Vance demanded $40,000 and first-class flights while promoting his Hillbilly Elegy book in 2017, years before he entered politics, according to a report.
Vance made the lavish request for an appearance at a Midwestern public university four years before he was elected to the Senate, records obtained by POLITICO show.
On Sept. 28, Vance held an official campaign event in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, in partnership with the Courage Tour, a series of swing-state rallies hosted by a pro-Trump Christian influencer that combine prayer, public speakers, tutorials on how to become a poll worker and get-out-the-vote programming.
Ziklag, a secretive organization of wealthy Christians, funds the Courage Tour, according to previously unreported documents obtained by ProPublica and Documented. A private donor video produced by Ziklag said the group intended to spend $700,000 in 2024 to mobilize Christian voters by funding “targeted rallies in swing states” led by Lance Wallnau, the pro-Trump influencer.
Even before the Vance event, ProPublica previously reported that tax experts believed Ziklag’s 2024 election-related efforts could be in violation of tax law. The Vance event, they said, raised even more red flags about whether a tax-exempt charity had improperly benefited the Trump-Vance campaign.
According to Texas corporation records, the Courage Tour is a project of Lance Wallnau Ministries Inc., a 501(c)(3) charity led by Wallnau. There have been five Courage Tour events this year, and Vance is the only top-of-the-ticket candidate to appear at any of them.
Wallnau has said that Vice President Kamala Harris is possessed by “the spirit of Jezebel” and practices “witchcraft.” As ProPublica reported, Wallnau is also an adviser to Ziklag, whose long-term goal is to help conservative Christians “take dominion” over the most important areas of American society, such as education, government and entertainment.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Friday, October 18, 2024. Donald Trump continues to flame out before our eyes as the mind goes and his little weasel JD demonstrates clearly that you wouldn't want him around your own mother.
On Monday, radio host Charlamagne tha God described what he saw as the alternative Americans faced if they rejected Harris. “The other is about fascism,” he said. “Why can’t we just say it?”
She responded: “Yes, we can say that.”
Harris’ explicit overtures to Republicans reflect her campaign’s view that there are sizeable numbers of mainline GOP voters who have been repulsed by Trump over the last nine years, and particularly following his Jan. 6, 2021, coup attempt.
As more than a dozen former Republican elected officials and White House aides stood on stage, a local couple introduced Harris, saying that although they had previously supported Trump, she’d won their vote this year.
“Jan. 6 was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me,” said Bob Lange, who said his wife, Kristina, was “ahead of the curve” because she only voted for Trump once, rather than twice like he did.
Harris spoke in detail about Trump’s actions leading up to and on Jan. 6, including an element that has received little attention: what would have happened if Trump had had a more pliant vice president and his coup had succeeded.
“He sent a mob, an armed mob, to the United States Capitol, where they violently assaulted police officers, law enforcement officials, and threatened the life of his own vice president, and he refused to engage in the peaceful transfer of power,” Harris said. “Were it not for the courage and patriotism of Vice President [Mike] Pence that day, Donald Trump might have actually succeeded in overturning the will of the American people.”
She then tied Trump’s actions in the final days of his term to his new claim that Americans who oppose him constitute an “enemy from within” and his threat to deploy the U.S. military against them.
Remember, Chief Justice John Roberts and the U.S. Supreme Court killed democracy this year. They gave the president unlimited immunity for official acts. Only the Supreme Court can decide what “official” acts are. That’s a star chamber – right out in the open. That’s not democracy.
Trump has already said he’ll jail his opponents. That would be an official act, as defined by the U.S. Supreme Court. James Carville is one of the few people who recognize this and was laughed at in some circles for saying it recently. But he’s not the only one sounding the warning bell.
Former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair retired Gen. Mark Milley called Trump “a total fascist,” according to excerpts from a recent book.
Then there’s Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen. “He absolutely will do this,” Cohen warned me. “Don’t kid yourself. When he says he’ll rain fire down on his enemies, he’s not just talking about immigrants,” Cohen added. The kicker to this is Cohen is still embroiled in legal action against Trump regarding his First Amendment rights and that has gone underreported by a press that should know better. "After all," Cohen notes, "it’s everyone’s First Amendment right. And just think what will happen if Trump is back in power. Do you think he wants critics in the press pool? Do you think he’s going to allow you back in? He’s going to go after anyone who questions him and that’s why the press should be covering this issue more. And you aren’t.”
So understand. It isn’t Harris vs. Trump. It isn’t the Democrats vs. Republicans. It’s Democracy vs. new-age nazis. If you doubt that, then take a look at the recent flotilla of boats in the South where boaters were screaming “Make America White Again,” while flying nazi and Trump flags.
Trump’s people are trying their best to avoid this issue and we in the press are doing a horrible job reporting it. Why are we still reporting about the immigration problems on the border when we know that Trump killed legislation that could help problems on the border – just so he could run on the issue? Brett Baier didn’t hesitate to ask Harris about immigration when she sat down for an interview with FOX News. I applaud her effort to reach Fox voters and I find Baier’s disingenuous question more campaign manure that shouldn’t be spread – after all too many are eager to lap it up as if it were filet instead of excrement.
In the filing — the first time Smith has formally given his view of how the Supreme Court’s decision in Fischer v. United States affects the Jan. 6 prosecution of the former president — the special counsel pointed to what he alleges were efforts by Trump and his allies to have slates of electors in states won by Joe Biden cast their vote instead for Trump. That, Smith argued, qualifies as impairment of evidence and obstruction of an official proceeding, even under the Supreme Court’s new, narrower guidance.
“In language that applies directly to the allegations here, the Supreme Court explained that [the obstruction statute]’s criminal prohibition includes ‘creating false evidence,’” namely “fraudulent electoral certificates,” prosecutors wrote in a nine-page answer to Trump’s motion to dismiss two of the four charges against him.
Contrary to Trump’s claim that he bears no factual or legal responsibility for the “events on January 6,” lead prosecutor James Pearce wrote, his indictment alleges that he “willfully caused his supporters to obstruct and attempt to obstruct the proceeding by summoning them to Washington, D.C., and then directing them to march to the Capitol to pressure the Vice President and legislators to reject the legitimate certificates and instead rely on the fraudulent electoral certificates.”
In his response at the Univision event, Trump also distanced himself from the attack on the Capitol, while minimizing the damage done by a mob of his supporters.
"Nothing done wrong at all," he said in a lengthy response after a Republican voter from Florida said Trump had lost his vote because of his response to the riot and the Covid pandemic. The voter also questioned why he should support Trump when so many people who held high positions in his administration, including former Vice President Mike Pence, weren't backing him in the 2024 race.
As the obviously fuming Lemire explained, "Mika, one more note about Donald Trump yesterday, the clip we played about January 6th, talking about 'we,' as he always talks about, uses the word 'we' when he talks about the January 6th rioters."
"He said, 'we were there peacefully, they had the guns," he reported. "The 'they'? They were Capitol police officers –– that shows you Donald Trump's framing of January 6th."
That culminated Wednesday night with a very choice word: “we.”
But Trump made no apologies for that day. What he instead did was actually link himself to the rioters — stronger than he ever has before.
“There were no guns down there; we didn’t have guns,” Trump said, before repeating: “The others had guns, but we didn’t have guns.”
The first thing to note is that’s false; Trump supporters did have guns and many other weapons. But also consider what Trump has done rhetorically. He cast the insurrectionists as a “we.”
It's a topic Lawrence O'Donnell did a strong walk through in the video below.
Donald remains a clear and present danger. He can't stop demonizing people -- American citizens -- that he doesn't like. Maria Villarroel (LATIN TIMES) notes:
Trump acknowledged his categorization of Democrats during a night town hall on Tuesday in Cumming, Georgia, hosted by Fox News' Harris Faulkner. The broadcaster asked Trump to clarify the statement, to which he responded by calling the opposing party "evil" and "dangerous."
"They're Marxists and communists and fascists, and they're sick," Trump said. "We have China, we have Russia, we have all these countries. If you have a smart president, they can all be handled. The more difficult are, you know, the Pelosis, these people, they're so sick and they're so evil."
Trump's controversial comments took place after Fox News' host Maria Bartiromo asked the former president whether he was "expecting chaos on Election Day," particularly highlighting participation from people on the terrorist watch list or migrants who have committed crimes.
"I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within," Trump responded. "We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they're the big— and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by the National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can't let that happen."
Vice President Kamala Harris quickly responded to Trump's declaration, calling a second Trump term "dangerous" at a Pennsylvania rally and releasing an ad titled "Enemy Within." She also called him "increasingly unstable and unhinged," saying he plans to use the military against American citizens and is "out for unchecked power."
Over the course of his 39 years, Vance’s first, middle and last names have all been altered in one way or another. As Vance is being introduced to voters across the country as Donald Trump’s new running mate, his name has been the source of both curiosity and questions — including why he no longer uses periods in JD.
Let's note Mike Lofgren on this same topic at COMMON DREAMS:
Why did someone a good deal wealthier than most of us abandon his own mother as a public charge on Medicaid? And even when she got off Medicaid, couldn’t he have bought her a health insurance policy, rather than relying on Obamacare? In his autohagiography, Vance made sure the reader got the message that his was a difficult, dysfunction-ridden family. But there is an answer to that.
Vance has also made sure everyone knows he is a pious Catholic of a very strict, antimodernist type, holding that theological precepts should guide secular government (his professed belief is responsible for his frankly idiotic opinions about cat ladies and childless people not deserving the same voting rights as people with children). This should of course make us wary of anyone holding such views getting his hands on executive power; these people have already wrecked the Supreme Court. It also suggests his ostentatious religiosity is largely phony and used as a vehicle for his ambition to rise in the Republican Party.
Isn’t it the Christian thing to do to help those in need, especially as they are your own family, and even more so when they are bedeviled by addiction and other problems? Jesus did not scorn the beggar and the lepers. And don’t the Ten Commandments (which Republican state governments want to make a mandatory part of the public school curriculum) tell us to “honor thy father and thy mother?”
Vance is a 24-karat fraud, the eternal rogue in the human poker deck. How appropriate that he is now the consort, as it were, of Donald Trump, the pathological liar. How fitting that he rose so quickly, after a mere two years, to the very top of the morally bankrupt party I left, more than a dozen years ago, in disgust.
If you're into the topic, read the full column, I'm cutting the above and including because it's effective. We've been hitting on JD for the last three days and maybe we just hit a pocket where he's strangely popular? It could be. But the reason we've hit on it is because some people will stand up and defend him. I haven't read all of Lofgren's column. Actually none of it. The snapshot's dictated and another friend called to ask me to include Mike's column which I'm glad to do. But they read it quickly with me saying "Next!" after the first line of each paragraph until we got the part above. And that's not an insult to Mike, his column's worth reading in full but I'm running -- I exercise while I dictate -- and don't have time to stop and pull up the column on my phone and don't have time to hear the whole thing.
We grabbed the section that would reach. Column's great and it will educate you -- including how MAGA pretends to be about family and many other thins. But on JD's duplicitous nature, nothing is making that more clear to groups we speak to then hitting on Mom's lack of insurance. That's why after this proved effective on Tuesday, I wanted to find out when the money came in and what he was doing -- and what he was doing was purchasing a house that cost more than a million dollars while ignoring the health needs of his own mother.
My mother passed away some time ago. So I throw that in and note that maybe that's why I find this so shocking -- I miss my own mother so it seems repulsive to me that someone who had so much wealth wouldn't even try to help his mother with insurance.
And that's the blow that takes out support for the little weasel when you're face to face with people. That's what they can identify with. I bring up my mother's passing and it sets the tone because their mother has passed or now they're thinking about the day when their mom will pass. And it's no longer abstract. And when you boil it down to his mother needing help to get insurance and he's off buying a house that costs over a million dollars, that tends to nail him in everyone's eyes as the selfish little weasel that he truly is. So if you're speaking to friends or speaking to groups and you need to deal with the reality of Miss Sassy JD Vance, that's a topic you should probably hit on. There's an effort afoot to redefine him and that's one of the easiest ways you can convey to others what a weirdo he is -- so much weirder than we initially knew.
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