Category: Courts / Laws / legal

Letters From An American

October 27, 2024 by Heather Cox Richardson Read on Substack

(Honestly, the entire Don-Madison Square Garden “event” idea sickened me, but I didn’t think his campaign could afford to do it. Anyway, it happened, and the fact that there was any crowd at all nauseates me. One of my great grandfathers immigrated to the US before the 1st World War, earning his citizenship in part by fighting for the US and allies in that war. The other side of the family immigrated between the wars, as they could see what may have been coming, and did. I’m fairly certain all their spirits, including each and every US veteran in my family living or dead, are also nauseated and maybe angry about this “event.” I’m happy there are people like Heather Cox Richardson, who put sensible light onto historic events. So everybody do all you can to Get Out The Vote! The facts are all on our side. -A)

I stand corrected. I thought this year’s October surprise was the reality that Trump’s mental state had slipped so badly he could not campaign in any coherent way. 

It turns out that the 2024 October surprise was the Trump campaign’s fascist rally at Madison Square Garden, a rally so extreme that Republicans running for office have been denouncing it all over social media tonight. 

There was never any question that this rally was going to be anything but an attempt to inflame Trump’s base. The plan for a rally at Madison Square Garden itself deliberately evoked its predecessor: a Nazi rally at the old Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939. About 18,000 people showed up for that “true Americanism” event, held on a stage that featured a huge portrait of George Washington in his Continental Army uniform flanked by swastikas. 

Like that earlier event, Trump’s rally was supposed to demonstrate power and inspire his base to violence.  

Apparently in anticipation of the rally, Trump on Friday night replaced his signature blue suit and red tie with the black and gold of the neofascist Proud Boys. That extremist group was central to the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and has been rebuilding to support Trump again in 2024. 

On Saturday the Trump campaign released a list of 29 people set to be on the stage at the rally. Notably, the list was all MAGA Republicans, including vice presidential nominee Ohio senator J.D. Vance, House speaker Mike Johnson (LA), Representative Elise Stefanik (NY), Representative Byron Donalds (FL), Trump backer Elon Musk, Trump ally Rudy Giuliani, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., right-wing host Tucker Carlson, Trump sons Don Jr. and Eric, and Eric’s wife, Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump. 

Libbey Dean of NewsNation noted that none of the seven Republicans running in New York’s competitive House races were on the list. When asked why not, according to Dean, Trump senior advisor Jason Miller said: “The demand, the request for people to speak, is quite extensive.” Asked if the campaign had turned down anyone who asked to speak, Miller said no.  

Meanwhile, the decision of the owners of the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post not to endorse Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris seems to have sparked a backlash. As Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer noted, “in a strange way the papers did perform a public service: showing American voters what life under a dictator would feel like.”

Early on October 26, the Washington Post itself went after Trump backer billionaire Elon Musk with a major story highlighting the information that Musk, an immigrant from South Africa, had worked illegally when he started his career in the U.S. Musk “did not have the legal right to work” in the U.S. when he started his first successful company. As part of the Trump campaign, Musk has emphasized his opposition to undocumented immigrants.

The New York Times has tended to downplay Trump’s outrageous statements, but on Saturday it ran a round-up of Trump’s threats in the center of the front page, above the fold. It noted that Trump has vowed to expand presidential power, prosecute his political opponents, and crack down on immigration with mass deportations and detention camps. It went on to list his determination to undermine the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), use the U.S. military against Mexican drug cartels “in potential violation of international law,” and use federal troops against U.S. citizens. It added that he plans to “upend trade” with sweeping new tariffs that will raise consumer prices, and to rein in regulatory agencies. 

“To help achieve these and other goals,” the paper concluded, “his advisers are vetting lawyers seen as more likely to embrace aggressive legal theories about the scope of his power.” 

On Sunday the front page of the New York Times opinion section read, in giant capital letters: “DONALD TRUMP/ SAYS HE WILL PROSECUTE HIS ENEMIES/ ORDER MASS DEPORTATIONS/ USE SOLDIERS AGAINST CITIZENS/ ABANDON ALLIES/ PLAY POLITICS WITH DISASTERS/ BELIEVE HIM.” And then, inside the section, the paper provided the receipts: Trump’s own words outlining his fascist plans. “BELIEVE HIM,” the paper said. 

On CNN’s State of the Union this morning, host Jake Tapper refused to permit Trump’s running mate, Ohio senator J.D. Vance, to gaslight viewers. Vance angrily denied that Trump has repeatedly called for using the U.S. military against Americans, but Tapper came with receipts that proved the very things Vance denied. 

Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden began in the early afternoon. The hateful performances of the early participants set the tone for the rally. Early on, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who goes by Kill Tony, delivered a steamingly racist set. He said, for example: “There’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.” He went on: “And these Latinos, they love making babies too. Just know that. They do. They do. There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that. They come inside. Just like they did to our country.” Hinchcliffe also talked about Black people carving watermelons instead of pumpkins. 

The speakers who followed Hinchcliffe called Vice President Kamala Harris “the Antichrist” and “the devil.” They called former secretary of state Hillary Clinton “a sick son of a b*tch,” and they railed against “f*cking illegals.” They insulted Latinos generally, Black Americans, Palestinians and Jews. Trump advisor Stephen Miller’s claim that “America is for Americans and Americans only” directly echoed the statement of Adolf Hitler that “Germany is for Germans and Germans only.” 

Trump took the stage about two hours late, prompting people to stream toward the exits before he finished speaking. He hit his usual highlights, notably undermining Vance’s argument from earlier in the day by saying that, indeed, he believes fellow Americans are “the enemy within.”  

But Trump perhaps gave away the game with his inflammatory language and with an aside, seemingly aimed at House speaker Johnson. “I think with our little secret we are gonna do really well with the House, right? Our little secret is having a big impact, he and I have a secret, we will tell you what it is when the race is over,” Trump said. 

It seems possible—probable, even—that Trump was alluding to putting in play the plan his people tried in 2020. That plan was to create enough chaos over the certification of electoral votes in the states to throw the election into the House of Representatives. There, each state delegation gets a single vote, so if the Republicans have control of more states than the Democrats, Trump could pull out a victory even if he had dramatically lost the popular vote.

Since he has made virtually no effort to win votes in 2024, this seems his likely plan. 

But to do that, he needs at least a plausibly close election, or at least to convince his supporters that the election has been stolen from him. Tonight’s rally badly hurt that plan. 

As Hinchcliffe was talking about Puerto Rico as a floating island of garbage, Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris was at a Puerto Rican restaurant in Philadelphia talking about her plan to spread her opportunity economy to Puerto Rico. She has called for strengthening Puerto Rico’s energy grid and making it easier to get permits to build there. 

After the “floating island of garbage” comment, Puerto Rican superstar musician Bad Bunny, who has more than 45 million followers on Instagram, posted Harris’s plan for Puerto Rico, and his spokesperson said he is endorsing Harris. 

Puerto Rican singer and actor Ricky Martin shared a clip from Hinchcliffe’s set with his 16 million followers. His caption read: “This is what they think of us.” Singer and actress Jennifer Lopez, who has 250 million Instagram followers, posted Harris’s plan. Later, singer-songwriter and actress Ariana Grande posted that she had voted for Harris. Grande has 376 million followers on Instagram. Singer Luis Fonsi, who has 16 million followers, also called out the “constant hate.”

The headlines were brutal. “MAGA speakers unleash ugly rhetoric at Trump’s MSG rally,” read Axios. Politico wrote: “Trump’s New York homecoming sparks backlash over racist and vulgar remarks.” “Racist Remarks and Insults Mark Trump’s Madison Square Garden Rally,” the New York Times announced. “Speakers at Trump rally make racist comments, hurl insults,” read CNN.

But the biggest sign of the damage the rally did was the frantic backpedaling from Republicans in tight elections, who distanced themselves as fast as they could from the insults against Puerto Ricans, especially. The Trump campaign itself tried to distance itself from the “floating island of garbage” quotation, only to be met with comments pointing out that Hinchcliffe’s set had been vetted and uploaded to the teleprompters. 

As the clips spread like wildfire, political writer Charlotte Clymer pointed out that almost 6 million Puerto Ricans live in the states—about a million in Florida, half a million in Pennsylvania, 100,000 in Georgia, 100,000 in Michigan, 100,000 in North Carolina, 45,000 in Arizona, and 40,000 in Nevada—and that over half of them voted in 2020. 

In 1939, as about 18,000 American Nazis rallied inside Madison Square Garden, newspapers reported that a crowd of about 100,000 anti-Nazis gathered outside to protest. It took 1,700 police officers, the largest number of officers ever before detailed for a single event, to hold them back from storming the venue.

—

Notes:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-election-proudboys/

New York Times, October 26, 2024, p. 1.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/10/26/elon-musk-immigration-status/

Click to access Fact-Sheet_Puerto-Rico_EN.pdf

https://www.axios.com/2024/10/27/trump-madison-square-garden-rally

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/27/trumps-madison-square-garden-racist-00185770

Trump Rally Speaker Jokes About Black People ‘Carving Watermelons’ and Puerto Rico Being ‘A Floating Pile of Garbage’

Imperial Valley Press, February 21, 1939, p. 4.

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/washington-post-la-times-endorsements-trump-harris-20241027.html

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More rat fucking from the republicans.

DeSantis Spends Opioid Settlement On Anti-Weed Ads
California Cultist Fired After Boasting About Voter Fraud
Graham Rages Over Trump Being Called A Fascist
Musk: Put Licenses Of Major Networks Up For Auction
RFK To FDA Officials: “Pack Your Bags” Because I Will Undo Everything You’ve Done To Protect Public Health
Vance Applauds Cultist’s Vulgar Abuse Of Poll Workers
Cultist Group Already Planning Lawsuits In Swing States
Axios: GOP Steps Up Attacks On Overseas Voting
WaPo Editor: Bezos Struck Backroom Deal With Trump
Vance Defends Trump’s “Enemy From Within” Claims
“Constitutional Sheriffs” Train Militia To Disrupt Election
Wisconsin Republican PAC Spends Big Backing Jill Stein
Trump Refused Disaster Aid For Blue State WA In 2020
Trump’s MSG Rally: Racist, Vulgar, Antisemitic, Cruel
Voldemort At MSG: “America Is For Americans Only”

Judge Declines to Fix DMV Error Disenfranchising 11,000 South Carolina Teens

Judge Declines to Fix DMV Error Disenfranchising 11,000 South Carolina Teens

Between 11,000 and 17,000 young voters will not be able to vote due to this … deliberate mistake.  Why?  Because the majority of young people vote democratic, which means in this election would vote for Harris.  The right wing older people couldn’t have that despite the law clearly saying they should have been registered and now be allowed to vote.  But because the right is afraid of who they will vote for they will deny these people their vote / their say.   That is how the right needs to act to win, the republicans know they are unpopular, and they don’t want to serve but they demand to rule.  So they stop the people against them from voting because they do not believe in democracy but in dictatorship, as long as they can be the dictators.  Hugs.  

By Kaei Li, Crystal Hill

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The South Carolina flag flies outside city hall in North Charleston, S.C., Aug. 12, 2011. The state will hold runoff elections on Tuesday, June 25, 2024, to decide a handful of races where no candidate received a vote majority in the primary held just two weeks earlier. (AP Photo/Bruce Smith, File)
 

A judge declined to order South Carolina’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and State Election Commission (SEC) to register thousands of young voters whose registrations were mistakenly denied because they were not yet 18 when they registered but would be by Election Day. These voters will not be allowed to cast a ballot this November.

The Richland County judge called the requested relief “too drastic” and said it would “create disorder in the voting system.”

The court held a hearing Friday after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of South Carolina filed a lawsuit asking that the voters be registered despite the state’s voter registration deadline having passed. 

South Carolina law allows 17-year-olds who will be 18 by the next election, and otherwise eligible, to register to vote. For the past 13 months, when a 17-year-old applied for a driver’s license or state ID and marked that they would like to register, the DMV’s system did not transmit their voter registration application to the SEC. As a result, approximately 17,000 young voters were not registered to vote despite indicating a desire to do so. These voters were also not notified that their registrations had been rejected.

The DMV has been working to identify the impacted voters. So far, 6,000 were able to register through other means and the names of the remaining 11,000 were sent to the SEC for processing. The SEC has thus far refused to register those 11,000 voters. 

“Although thousands of these individuals were eligible to register to vote, were entitled to easily register through their [DMV] transaction, timely provided state officials with the information necessary to register, and indicated a desire to do so, SEC is unwilling to add them to the voter rolls or otherwise protect their fundamental right to cast a ballot in the 2024 general election,” the complaint read.

The ACLU asked the court to suspend the voter registration deadline, direct the DMV to identify all impacted voters and order the SEC to add those voters to the rolls. They also asked for every impacted voter to be notified of their registration status.

Read the order here.

 

Last update, Oct. 22

Civil rights advocates are suing the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles and the state Election Commission for allegedly preventing thousands of  17-year-olds who will be 18 by Election Day from registering to vote.

The American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina said Tuesday that over the past year, the DMV has “unlawfully denied voter registration opportunities to over 17,000 young South Carolinians who were entitled to register to vote under” state law. Democracy Docket reached out to the DMV for comment. 

The lawsuit references a statute that says a person who isn’t 18 by the time registration ends but “attains that age before the next ensuing election” and wants to register is “otherwise qualified.” In other words, a South Carolinian can register at 17, before they reach the lawful voting-age, if they will be eligible by the time the election actually happens.

“Therefore, individuals who turn 18 between January 4, 2024 (close of books for the first primary), and November 5, 2024 (Election Day), were eligible to register to vote … starting 120 days before January 4, 2024, which is September 6, 2023,” the complaint said.

The lawsuit alleges the DMV wrongfully denied those 17-year-old registrants, and says South Carolina’s DMV “will not provide, process, or transmit voter registration applications for anyone under the age of 18.” The ACLU also says the people who were rejected weren’t provided with written notification of the rejection, which is required by law. 

The lawsuit says recently the DMV has been working to identify teens who registered between Sept. 5, 2023 and Oct. 14. A list of around 17,000 individuals was sent to the South Carolina Elections Commission (SEC), which determined that roughly 6,000 were able to successfully register to vote by other means. The DMV is now working on reviewing the remaining 11,000 registration forms to determine which individuals tried to register.

But the ACLU is seeking a more efficient solution, according to the lawsuit, and wants the SEC to give all of the affected individuals a chance to register.

“We appreciate SCDMV’s candor and the agency’s willingness to identify the affected voters,” Allen Chaney, legal director of the ACLU of South Carolina, said in a statement. “I am hopeful that the court will order the Election Commission to add these thousands of young, first-time voters to the voter rolls so that they can cast a ballot on Election Day.”

The nonprofit is asking a court to order the DMV to send a list of the impacted teens to the SEC by Thursday, and wants the SEC to notify those individuals and let them know they’re entitled to complete their voter registration application by Friday. This would allow the eligible registrants to be able to vote on Nov. 5.

Democracy Docket reached out to the SEC for comment.

Read the lawsuit here.

Read more about the case here.

They walk among us and they vote

These took several days to wade through.  I admit I do it not only for the news but for the memes in the comment sections which are pure gold.  But just reading the headlines and blurbs can give you a great idea of how really dangerous and disastrous the right / republicans are.   Fox is a totally unhinged media arm of cult tRump.   The rest of the right wing media is desperate for their cult ideas of ruling people and having control of their private lives, sexual expressions, and how people simply exist.  Please look these over and read the ones that interest you.   This shit is serious and real and we have few days left before a direction is chosen for this country.   Also notice that why the right claims that crime is up and people are terrified to step outside their homes, crime is way down.  Hugs

Freedom Caucus Chairman Calls For Allocating All Of North Carolina’s Electors To Trump Ahead Of Election

Raikin, you may know, is a far-right extremist.

Harris appeared here in June 2021 when he attempted to bring a loaded and concealed handgun onto the House floor. He then denounced calls for his resignation as “cancel culture.”

In October 2021 he had to be physically separated from Democratic Rep. Collin Allred after an argument over the certification of the 2020 election, which Harris had voted against.

Newsmax: Revoke Medals From Trump’s Generals
Texas Town Council Approves Anti-Trans Bathroom Ban

Residents pleaded with the council, arguing that such proposals were divisive, stoked fear among the community, and would further stretch city services. “It is not only unnecessary but also a complete waste of the city’s time, money and resources,” Alexander Ermels, president of PFLAG’s Odessa chapter and a transgender man, said. Mayor Javier Joven [photo], who is up for reelection in November, has said his mission has been to help the city “repent.”

Penalties include a $500 fine and trespassing charges. Odessa, located in west Texas, has a population of 120,000.

Kremlin Behind Hurricane Disinfo Spread By Cultists
Felon: “I’ll Fire Crooked Jack Smith In Two Seconds”
Multiple Felon: “Jack Smith Should Be Considered Mentally Deranged And Thrown Out Of The Country”
Cleta Mitchell: “Dems See Illegals As Their Power Base”
Shapiro: Nobody “Gives A Shit” About Trump Praising Hitler Because They’re So Worried About Street Crime
Heritage Group Publishes Hit List Of “Subversive” Feds
FBI: Russia Behind Fake Video Of Destroyed Ballots
Trump: America Is “The Garbage Can For The World”
Multiple Felon Threatens “Long Prison Sentences” If Dems Repeat “Cheating And Skullduggery” Of 2020
Trump Crashes Vance Town Hall To Demand Praise
WSJ: Musk Is Having “Secret Conversations” With Putin

The contacts also raise potential national-security concerns.

Pentagon Debunks New Lie From Prominent Nutbags
NBC: Sheehy Lied About Navy’s “Medical Discharge”
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1849845488352108979
Fox Host: Calling Trump “Fascist” Is “Hate Speech”
Feds: FL Postal Worker Tossed Political Mail Into Woods
https://twitter.com/Fla_Pol/status/1849867521836683335
Cops: TX Cultist Pummeled Elderly Poll Worker [VIDEO]
SC Judge Won’t Fix Glitch That Denied Young Voters

For the past 13 months, when a 17-year-old applied for a driver’s license or state ID and marked that they would like to register, the DMV’s system did not transmit their voter registration application to the SEC. As a result, approximately 17,000 young voters were not registered to vote despite indicating a desire to do so. These voters were also not notified that their registrations had been rejected.

CNN Airs Clips Of Trump Labeling Harris A “Fascist” After GOP Leaders Condemn Harris For Her “Rhetoric”
WaPo: Musk Began US Career Working Here Illegally
Accused Welfare Scammer To Campaign With Felon
GOP Rep Blew Donor Money On Booze, Bars, Ubers

Peace & Justice History for 10/27:

October 27, 1659
William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson, two Quakers (formally, members of the Society of Friends) who came from England in 1656 to escape religious persecution, were executed in the Massachusetts Bay Colony for their religious beliefs. The two had violated a law, passed by the Massachusetts General Court the year before, banning Quakers from the colony under penalty of death.

Quakers opposed central church authority, preferring to seek spiritual insight and consensus through egalitarian Quaker meetings. They advocated sexual equality and became some of the most outspoken opponents of slavery in early America.
October 27, 1967
Phillip Berrigan, artist Tom Lewis, poet David Eberhardt, and United Church of Christ minister James Mengel, members of the Baltimore Interfaith Peace Mission, entered the draft board at the United States Customs House and poured duck’s blood on several hundred draft records.
Phillip Berrigan pouring blood on draft files
The Baltimore Four, as they became known, were arrested and later tried and convicted for the action which they saw as a symbolic act of civil disobedience — a nonviolent attack on the machinery of war. This day later became known as Plowshare Action Remembrance Day.
Berrigan in his jail cell drawning by Tom Lewis
Read more about Phillip Berrigan 
October 27, 1967
120,000 marched against the Vietnam War in London. Violence erupted when a 6,000-strong Maoist splinter group broke away and charged the police outside the United States Embassy in Grosvenor Square.

Read more 
October 27, 1969
Ralph Nader set up a consumer organization with young lawyers and researchers (often called “Nader’s Raiders”) who produced systematic exposés of industrial hazards, pollution, unsafe products, and governmental neglect of consumer safety laws.
 Ralph Nader (center) 
Nader is widely recognized as the founder of the consumer rights movement. He played a key role in the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Freedom of Information Act, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Read more 
October 27, 2002
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was elected president of Brazil in a runoff, becoming the country’s first elected leftist leader.
Read more 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryoctober.htm#october27

Mel Manuel, Trans Candidate for U.S. House, Injected T on Camera in a Campaign Ad

Manuel is running on a platform of abortion rights, universal healthcare, and gun control.

BY SAMANTHA RIEDEL

(Way to go-run for office! Especially in and as opposition to people like Steve Scalise-A)

A trans nonbinary Louisiana candidate for the U.S. House released a defiant campaign video this week, showing themself injecting testosterone to defend bodily autonomy.

Mel Manuel, who is running to unseat far-right House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, released the video on social media platforms on Tuesday. In the video, Manuel called on voters to “take a stand” while performing a routine testosterone injection.

“I believe that you, not the government, own your own body,” Manuel told viewers, wearing a “My Body My Choice” T-shirt. “LGBTQ+ rights are human rights.”

Manuel, who is running on a platform of abortion rights, universal healthcare, and gun control, highlighted a recent analysis that found Republicans had spent more than $65 million in anti-trans advertisements since the start of August. They also promoted Louisiana’s “Geaux Vote” app, which allows voters to find their polling location and get ballot information.

“To my LGBTQ+ family and our allies… No one is coming to save us,” Manuel wrote in the video description. “We have to show up at the polls for ourselves and for those we love. I’ve spent the last year and a half campaigning because we need to speak up and be represented before it’s too late. You can speak up now with your vote.”

Manuel is the cofounder of Queer Northshore, an LGBTQ+ activist organization based in St. Tammany Parish, and has previously organized against conservative book bans and anti-trans laws in the state. In contrast, Scalise has earned a reputation as a staunchly anti-LGBTQ+ Republican since first taking office in 2008, voting against the Byrd-Shepard Hate Crime Prevention Act, the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and the Respect for Marriage Act; he is also firmly anti-trans, condemning “the left’s radical gender ideology” in a 2022 statement calling for trans girls to be banned from school sports. Scalise even once described himself as “David Duke without the baggage,” referring to the infamous former leader of the Ku Klux Klan.

Given that Manuel is running in opposition to all that, injecting T on camera is a pretty big flex. Still, that doesn’t necessarily mean they expect to win; as their campaign website notes, Manuel’s goal is simply to get 35% of the vote. “Even if your candidate doesn’t win, if we can move the needle to 35 percent or 40 percent of the vote, that means the next progressive candidate will get more funding,” they explained to The Nation last year. “There’s a very, very small chance at winning, and I understand that, but we can still use the role of candidacy as a platform in and of itself.”

https://www.them.us/story/mel-manuel-campaign-ad-injection-testosterone

Trump praises Hitler. ADL remains silent.

In a terrifying moment for American Jews, the org is nowhere to be found.

(I followed Marisa Kabas’s Substack. She was organizational in working to get Substack to stop allowing Nazis to monetize their Substacks. When Substack decided they weren’t going to do that, she broke away and writes her work on her own Handbasket. I wish I had the money to support her, but I can share her work, and this piece is extra-important. -A)

Author

Marisa Kabas October 24, 2024

Did you know that two separate stories dropped this week in which former Trump officials said he praised and admired Hitler while in office during his first term?

No, it’s possible you didn’t. It wasn’t on the front page of major newspapers. It didn’t warrant major cable news segments. The Anti-Defamation League didn’t even consider it worthy of a response. To put a finer point on it: The Republican candidate for the Presidential election taking place in less than two weeks openly praised Hitler and it was met with a yawn. How did we get here? How is this happening?

For background, The Atlantic published a story with details of a disturbing conversation:

As his presidency drew to a close, and in the years since, he has become more and more interested in the advantages of dictatorship, and the absolute control over the military that he believes it would deliver. “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had,” Trump said in a private conversation in the White House, according to two people who heard him say this.

Then an interview with former Chief of Staff John Kelly published by the Times on Tuesday evening included this bit:

Trump told him that “Hitler did some good things.”

Mr. Kelly confirmed previous reports that on more than one occasion Mr. Trump spoke positively of Hitler.

“He commented more than once that, ‘You know, Hitler did some good things, too,’” Mr. Kelly said Mr. Trump told him.

Mr. Kelly said that Mr. Trump had little appreciation for history — “I think he’s lacking in that,” he said — but said that he would still try to explain to Mr. Trump why those comments about Hitler were problematic.

It was bad enough that Vice President Harris addressed it in brief remarks from her DC residence Wednesday afternoon. “It is deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous that Donald Trump would invoke Adolf Hitler — the man who is responsible for the deaths of 6 million Jews, and hundreds of thousands of Americans,” she said.

It’s difficult for me to be incredulous anymore after nearly 10 years of a Trump-clogged news cycle, but this one makes me want to yell at the Editor-in-Chief of the New York Times, “We’re talking about Hitler! The man who orchestrated the mass murder of Jews! Your own paper has evidence that Trump admires him! Sound the alarm!” 

The interests of media bosses have always been at odds with reporters and readers, but now that conflict has been laid bare. 

Adam Serwer (@adamserwer.bsky.social)

I don’t know what is going to happen but one reason I am pessimistic about Harris’ chances is that a former Trump chief of staff saying the president praised Hitler doesn’t make the front pages, except maybe as an aside in a bigger story framed as a partisan attack by his rival

Though the story failed to be a media priority, I figured the ADL, the country’s most prominent Jewish nonprofit with a mission of combating antisemitism in all forms, would have something to say. Yet when I looked at their website, I saw nothing (aside from an announcement of a “Concert Against Hate” hosted by Ben Stiller and featuring Sia.) Their social media feeds were similarly void of any reference to Trump and Hitler. 

So on Wednesday afternoon I reached out with a brief synopsis of Trump’s positive comments on Hitler and asked if the ADL had a comment. More than 24 hours later: silence. I followed up Thursday morning and reached out via multiple social platforms to the organization and its CEO Jonathan Greenblatt. Still, nothing. 

The ADL’s failure to address Trump praising Hitler isn’t shocking, given their selective outrage in the past year about which Jews are worthy of defense, and the fact that they honored Jared Kushner with an award earlier this year. Greenblatt issued a rare rebuke of Trump in September after the Republican candidate said “If I don’t win this election…. the Jewish people would really have a lot to do with that if that happens.” But other than, Greenblatt has continually shown his willingness to kowtow to power, whether it be Trump or Elon Musk. And the current silence is galling.

Why fixate on the response of one nonprofit organization? Well, because the ADL—with Greenblatt as their public face—has positioned itself as the arbiter of what is and is not antisemitic. Whenever you’re reading an article and it cites a figure about the number of antisemitic incidents in the country, that’s likely a stat from the ADL’s annual audit. In the wake of the October 7th attacks in Israel, they’ve frequently conflated antizionism with antisemitism—so much so that Wikipedia’s editors voted in June to designate the organization as “generally unreliable” source on antisemitism. But still they’re considered an authority on the wants and needs of American Jews. 

This dangerous conflation has led to the unfair persecution of Jews against Israel’s mass murder of Palestinians, including a Harvard student who was accused of antisemitism for posting protest posters ahead of Yom Kippur. There is no world in which this makes it safer to be Jewish. 

Greenblatt found time in the past two days to tweet about his loathing for Jewish pro-Palestine student protesters, but didn’t have a moment to spare for the single-most terrifying thing an American Jew could read: that the potential next president thinks Adolf Hitler was good. 

https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/trump-hitler-adl-greenblatt

The republicans are at it again.

House Candidate: Require Texans To Carry Passports
Former GA Gov Candidate: Dems Created Helene In Order To “Keep Mark Robinson From Governorship”
https://twitter.com/JoeMyGod/status/1527355956773867529
Trump: I Never Heard Of A Category 5 Making Landfall
Trump Threatens “Disgusting” New York Times: “Wait Until You See What I’m Going To Do To Them” [AUDIO]
STUDY: Trump Plan Would Add $9T To National Debt
“60 Minutes” Host: Trump Canceled Over Fact-Checking
BOOK: Trump Secretly Sent Putin COVID Tests During US Shortage, Had Multiple Calls With Putin After 2020
Trump Threatens CBS’s License Over Harris Interview
Politico: Trump Is Getting Even More Racist/Fascist
Florida Claims Abortion Petition Signatures Are Invalid
Republican Candidate Ties CA Power Outage To Jews
Esper: Yes, Trump Would Use Military Against Critics
Texts Threaten WI Students With Jail If They Vote
Station Caves To DeSantis’s Threats About Abortion Ad
Trump: Only Stupid People Give Top Jobs To Old People
Federal Judge: DeSantis Can’t Prosecute Outlets Over Abortion Ads, Rules “It’s The First Amendment, Stupid”
Trump Hotel Wildly Overcharged Secret Service Agents
Inside The Massive Cultist Christian Nationalist Rally: Calls For Exorcising Dems, Implicit Threats Of Violence
Oklahoma Sued Over “Bibles In All Classrooms” Plan

we could all use a Good News Tuesday by Jeff Tiedrich

(More good news, after Scottie’s video, as to the early voting news! Blue language alert, so no reading until you’re not somewhere the f-word is not acceptable. Else scroll just a bit, because of course the first sentence is joyous and contains the f-word. Also, italicized script beneath the suns are by the author, Jeff Tiedrich.)

Kamala’s up and Donny’s down Read on Substack

LA LA LA LA no reading here if you’re at work,

LA LA LA LA no reading here if you’re at work.

LA LA LA LA no reading here if you’re at work,

LA LA LA LA no reading here if you’re at work!

🌞 🌞 🌞 🌞 🌞

Okay. Next line,

fuck this fucking nail-biter of an election. good news is out there — let’s have a look.

undecideds are deciding — and they’re breaking towards Kamala Harris.

A majority of voters (80%) say they made up their minds about which candidate to support over a month ago, while 11% made up their minds in the last month, 6% made up their minds in the past week, and 3% still have not made up their mind. 

“Voters who made their decision on who to support over a month ago break for Trump, 52% to 48%, while voters who made up their mind in the last month or week break for Harris, 60% to 36%,” Kimball said. “The three percent of voters who said they could still change their mind currently favor Harris, 48% to 43%.”

I know, right? who could be undecided in a race that’s basically everyone gets a puppy vs diarrhea forever?

but there are huge swaths of votes who just don’t pay attention to politics until the very last minute — and now that they’re finally tuned in, it’s dawning on them that wait, one of the candidates is ass-spraying mayhem? oh, fuck that shit.

think back to 1980. polling showed the race was a dead heat — but in the final weeks, just about every goddamned undecided broke towards Reagan, and what looked like a nail-biter ended up being a blowout.

this year, however, it looks like the fence-sitters are doing the right thing.

hang on, you need some more good polling news? fine, be that way.

Kamala leads dong-obsessed fry chef Donny Convict in favorability by 11 percentage points, while 58% of registered voters fucking loathe Donny.

The nationwide poll, conducted last week, found Harris’s favorability to be significantly higher than Trump’s, with 51 percent of registered voters viewing Harris as a favorable candidate compared to just 40 percent who felt the same about Trump. Independent voters, notably, were equally split on their opinions of Harris, while the majority of independent voters—58 percent—felt negatively about Trump.

don’t forget that this is going to be the first post-Roe national election.

But perhaps no Democratic stance resonated more with voters than abortion, which saw Harris lead Trump by 23 percent.

reproductive rights continues to be a losing issue for Donny, and he’s still bragging about being the guy who shitcanned Roe.

Donny is being abandoned by his base.

white folks who never went to college have long been Donny’s most hardcore cultists — but this year they seem to be suffering from Dear Leader Fatigue.

here’s CNN’s Harry Enten to explain.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/8qQRrqKVV40?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

“it’s been a key demographic for him — his base. and this is what’s so interesting … in fact, it’s moving away from him. this is Trump’s margin with non-college white voters. this group is not moving towards him. it’s moving slightly away. go back eight years ago, he won it by 33. you go back four years ago, he won it be 31. now we see he’s only up by 27.”

Donny’s losing the people who have been filing out of his hate-rallies early.

after a half hour of listening to him drone on about sharks and batteries and Hannibal Lecter wants to have you for dinner, they turn to their spouse and say Lurleen, let’s go home and see if NASCAR’s on TV.

plus-27 is still a fuck-ton of support from Donny’s base — but in a close election, he can’t afford to lose the additional 6% who voted for him in 2016. these people may never vote for Komrade Kamala, but enough of them may stay home on election day to make a difference.

we’re all worried about post-election fuckery, but let’s not forget that nearly all swing state governors are Democrats.

here’s WaPo’s Jennifer Rubin to talk us all down off that ledge.

Constitutional expert Richard H. Pildes reminded us that scenarios involving mischief by governors are unlikely. “In nearly all the swing states, the governors are Democrats, who are hardly going to be receptive to any entreaties by Trump,” he wrote. Even in Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, both Republicans, “have done as much under fire as any political officials to prove their commitment to certifying an accurate, lawful count.” And although a few local boards might refuse to certify, there are remedies in court. (A Georgia court recently rejected the notion that officials could refuse to certify results.)

and, on that note, some Arizona dipshit who thought she could fuck around with certifying her state’s 2022 senate race is now learning that finding out truly sucks.

An Arizona County elections official has agreed to plead guilty after she refused to certify the 2022 election in which Kari Lake lost to Katie Hobbs.

The Washington Post reported Monday that Peggy Judd, who helps lead Cochise County southeast of Phoenix, was indicted last year for allegedly “flouting the state’s deadlines” for the 2022 election certification.

actions, consequences. it’s nice when things work out in that order.

Jill Stein might be hurting Donny this year.

perpetual Kremlin dinner guest Jill Stein is like some fucked-up asteroid. every four years, her weird-ass orbit swings her too close to the Earth, and she ends up dicking with the tides and screwing with our electoral magnetic field.

Jilly’s back, but a new poll apparently indicates that this year, she’s taking away votes from Donny.

A new poll suggests that Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein is drawing more voters from former President Donald Trump than from Vice President Kamala Harris.

The poll shows Harris leading Trump 49 percent to 47 percent. However, with Stein in the race, Trump’s support dips to 46 percent, while Harris maintains her 49 percent backing, suggesting that Stein draws more support from Trump than from Harris. Though Stein’s voter base remains relatively small, at about 1 percent, it could prove crucial in an election that hinges on tight margins in swing states.

the five innocent and exonerated black men known as the Central Park Five are suing Donny for defamation.

The five men who make up the Central Park Five and now call themselves the Exonerated Five have filed a defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump over his remarks during the presidential debate last month.

During the debate he said: “They admitted — they said, they pled guilty. And I said, well, if they pled guilty they badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately. And if they pled guilty — then they pled we’re not guilty.”

At the time of the trials, each had pleaded not guilty, and the victim of the attack survived.

ok, this one is not election-related news — but it still makes me laugh to see Donny get served another big, fat slice of Justice Pie.

Donny continues to be an increasingly-deteriorating imbecile.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/P-VHzI27h4U?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

“it’s as big a water— y’know, it’s as big a water-storm, they say, as we’ve ever seen.”

‘water-storm?’ the word is hurricane, you decompensating dotard.

Alexa, what’s aphasia?

Aphasia is a language disorder that affects how you communicate. It’s caused by damage in the area of the brain that controls language expression and comprehension. Aphasia leaves a person unable to communicate effectively with others.

Alexa, can aphasia be a sign of dementia?

what the fuck do you think?

so, there’s lots of good news all around — but as a commenter under yesterday’s post said, “we still have to fight like we’re ten points down.” that person is exactly right. we don’t have the luxury of complacency. that’s how we fucked it up in 2016 — we all thought Hillary’s got this in the bag, and so we blew up the balloons and popped the champagne way too early, and too many of us decided it was totes okay stay home on election day. after all, Nate Silver promised us that Hillary had a 99% chance of victory, right? but polls don’t vote — people do.

this year, we all understand the assignment.

Kamala understands the assignment, too. unlike the email lady in 2016, Kamala and Uncle Tim are hitting all the swing states. meanwhile, Donny Convict is squandering his time doing vanity rallies in places like California and New York — states he hasn’t a snowball’s chance of winning.

14 days to the election. if we vote, we win.

KAMALA vs TRUMP: Why This Vote Matters More Than You Think