I watched Tim Walz speak to a crowd in his home state of Nebraska, and he was wonderful.
I encourage you to watch this good, decent man. He knows that what matters most in our leaders is their character and their values. He has them.
The above link is for Tim Walz’s speech.
If you want to watch the whole event, including his introduction by his wife Gwen, open this link. If you are a teacher, you will love her call-out to teachers, and the crowd roaring “TEACHERS! TEACHERS! TEACHERS!”
Thom Hartmann encourages readers to beware of political scams right before the elections. The economy is cooling off. Why isn’t the Federal Reserve lowering interest rates? Is it because the chair of the Federal Reserve is a Republican? Did you know about Trump’s increase in wealth during his presidency? I don’t agree that Trump wants to get elected to make money; I think he wants to stay out of jail. But we may both be right.
He writes:
— Is the Fed Chair “trying to get Donald Trump elected” by keeping rates high? The anti-corruption watchdog group Revolving Door Project is claiming that lifetime Republican and former commercial banker Jerome Powell, now the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, is “trying to get Donald Trump elected.” Fully two months ago, Powell noted that “this is no longer an overheated economy” and “the labor market appears to be fully back in balance.” Yesterday’s jobs numbers — lower than expected new jobs (144,000) and a jump in unemployment to 4.3% — suggest the economy is on the verge of tipping into recession, an event that Trump yesterday pointed out and proclaimed is happening because of “Kamalanomics.” The Project’s Executive Director Jeff Hauser was explicit: “That Powell’s Fed still refuses to lower interest rates—after Trump said that rates shouldn’t be lowered before the election—raises questions about the central bank’s independence. Whether the Fed keeps rates high or brings them down, one of two presidential candidates will benefit. While lower rates would provide much-needed economic relief to the American people, Powell has instead chosen to stick it to the people and give an electoral boost to Trump.” Senator Elizabeth Warren yesterday called on the Fed chair to “cancel his summer vacation” and “lower interest rates now.” The warnings signs are flashing bright red — with worldwide declines in stock market indexes — and if Powell and the Fed don’t lower interest rates at least a half point within the next few weeks, it’ll be safe to conclude that Hauser is exactly right in his diagnosis of this situation.
— Did Egypt give a $10 million bribe to Trump? The Washington Post published a blockbuster report yesterday, detailing how the Egyptian government pulled together $10 million in cash in 2016 right after Donald Trump sought out Egyptian dictator El-Sisi and promised him a presidential visit (which he fulfilled) right after his inauguration. The Department of Justice found out about it in 2019 and the FBI began an investigation, but Attorney General Bill Barr — one of the most publicly corrupt senior government officials in modern history — put the kibosh on the investigation. As a result, nobody knows if or how the money was delivered to Trump, although right around the time it would have been delivered Trump took the unusual step of putting exactly $10 million of his own money into his campaign. Saudis and Russians own large parts of Trump Tower and multiple nations funneled millions to Trump by booking blocks of rooms in his DC hotel and then just leaving them empty. Forbes estimates that Trump’s businesses brought in $2.4 billion during his four years as president; hundreds of millions of that came from foreign governments and from his charging the Secret Service and our US government a small fortune for their stays at Trump properties around the world. His entire presidency, it turns out, was a giant grift; no wonder he wants back into office.
— Senate Republicans tell us who they are. President Biden’s American Rescue Plan increased child tax credits in a way that lifted an estimated 30 million children out of poverty, cutting the US child poverty rate in half. They expired last year, and legislation to reinstate them passed the House with roughly equal votes from both Democrats and Republicans. Iowa Senate Republican Chuck Grassley famously opposes help to poor families, saying “passing a tax bill that makes the president look good mailing out checks before the election, means he could be reelected and then we won’t extend the 2017 tax cuts.” Senate Republicans got the message and killed the bill on Thursday afternoon, keeping child poverty in America at a higher level than any other developed nation in the world.
Republicans say that the child tax credits are an effort by Democrats to buy votes. Maybe they are but when they were in effect, they cut child poverty rates in half. That’s reason enough for both parties to support them.
Lawrence O’Donnell appears nightly on MSNBC at 10 pm EST. I love his show because he is so smart.
As a bonus, here is Robert Reich wondering why the media doesn’t report honestly about Trump’s dementia.
CNN reported that Michele Morrow, the GOP candidate for State Superintendent of Schools in North Carolina, filmed a video on January 6 urging Trump to “put the Coonstitution to the side” and use the military to stay in power. Morrow was in DC for the January 6 rally but she says she never entered the Capitol.
In a deleted Facebook livestream she filmed from her hotel room, Morrow called for mass arrests of anyone who helped certify the 2020 election. “And if the police won’t do it and the Department of Justice won’t do it, then he will have to enact the Insurrection Act,” said Morrow. “In which case the Insurrection Act completely puts the Constitution to the side and says, now the military rules all.”
Morrow was at the Capitol as the attack occurred, according to public videos reviewed by CNN that show her in a restricted area on the northwest side of the Capitol. CNN has seen no evidence that Morrow entered the Capitol building that day or that she engaged in violence, and she was not charged with any crimes.
In March’s Republican primary, Morrow defeated the incumbent North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction, a job that manages the state’s $11 billion budget for K-12 public schools and helps set education priorities and implement curriculum standards.
That same month, CNN’s KFile reported Morrow had previously called for the public execution of Barack Obama and the death of Joe Biden and other prominent Democrats in comments on a since-deleted X account.
“I prefer a Pay Per View of him in front of the firing squad,” Morrow wrote in a since-deleted post from May 2020 about Obama. “I do not want to waste another dime on supporting his life. We could make some money back from televising his death.”
Morrow home-schooled her children. She previously lost a local school board election. She is running now to take control of the education of all the children in North Carolina.
A terrifying prospect.
For three weeks, I was locked out of Twitter because of a snafu that’s not worth recounting. Every time I tried to log on, I received a notice saying I was underage and not allowed to engage on Twitter. I have been on Twitter since 2009. So, even though I have been an active participant on Twitter for 15 years, Twitter concluded I had not yet passed my 13th birthday!
Anyway, I didn’t watch or listen when Elon Musk held a conversation with Trump last night. I did notice, however, that the topic “slurring” was trending, and I discovered hundreds of comments about Trump slurring his language in the conversation, which led to comments about weird things Trump said: congratulating Musk for firing workers who dared to strike; brushing off climate change and rising seas, instead saying that he would get “more oceanfront property” and that our real worry should be “nuclear warming.” Many more non sequiturs.
Rex Huppke of USA Today wrote about the Musk-Trump show and summed it up well: it was a disaster. Worse, it was boring.
It started 40-45 minutes late, due to technical problems.
It was downhill from there.
For a fascism-curious billionaire who loves cuddling up to right-wing loons, Elon Musk sure is good at making right-wing politicians look stupid.
Former President Donald Trump had loudly trumpeted a planned Monday night interview with Musk that would stream on X. But much like the disastrous X-platformed launch of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign, the Musk/Trump interview failed to launch, leaving social media users laughing at the collective incompetence.
Since Vice President Kamala Harris rose to the top of the Democratic presidential ticket last month, Trump’s reelection campaign has been flailing. His childish attacks against her aren’t working. His racist comments about her mixed-race heritage have repelled all but his most loyal supporters. His vice presidential pick, JD Vance, becomes less likable every time he speaks.
So his answer, weirdly, was to sit down with Musk and talk to what would undoubtedly be a very online audience that doesn’t represent the broader electorate. Had the conversation gone off without a hitch, it still would have been odd and largely useless for Trump’s effort to halt Harris’ momentum….
Of course, things didn’t get better for Trump once the interview was able to proceed. …
He was rambling, babbling on about crowd sizes and immigration and President Joe Biden and whatever else seemed to pass through his mind. He was also badly slurring his words, raising questions about his health, and doing nothing to knock down rising concerns about his age and well-being.
He sounded like a disoriented, racist Daffy Duck…
I’m not going to quote anything Trump said in the interview because it was either too stupid to merit transcription or a mere repetition of the nonsense he spouts at every rally he holds.
A big part of Trump’s problem right now is he has become almost unbearably boring. Build a wall. Drill, baby, drill. Marxist, socialist something-something. Harris only recently became Black. Blah, blah, blah.
So for Trump, sitting down with a rich weirdo few people like and slurring his way through an interview that failed to launch was, in the words of one Donald J. Trump, “a DISASTER!”
Musk, with his social-media ineptness and unmerited sense of self-importance, made DeSantis look like a fool. And now he’s done the same to Trump.
Trump has the same reaction to every adverse circumstance in his life: Sue. Sue. Sue. He has been involved in literally thousands of law suits in his life. That’s his style. Sometimes the threat of a lawsuit is enough to frighten away an adversary. Sometimes a lawsuit forces a settlement, which works to his advantage.
Now he is suing the Justice Department for searching Mar-a-Lago for top-secret documents which he falsely claimed were his personal property. He no doubt expects the lawsuit to go before a friendly pro-Trump judge or the U.S. Supreme Court, which usually rules in his favor. If he is lucky, it will land in Judge Aileen Cannon’s court.
The New York Daily News reported:
Former President Trump is reportedly planning to sue the federal government for $115 million over the 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago estate, accusing the Department of Justice of unconstitutional “political persecution.”
Even though the search turned up hundreds of classified documents and led to his indictment on federal charges, Trump says prosecutors improperly targeted him in hopes of damaging his campaign to win back the White House.
“What President Trump is doing here is not just standing up for himself — he is standing up for all Americans who believe in the rule of law,” Daniel Epstein, a lawyer for Trump, told Fox Business News.
Trump is demanding $15 million in compensation for his legal costs, plus $100 million in punitive damages.
Trump accuses Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray of failing to implement normal procedures for getting back the documents in order to carry out the search and humiliate the Republican ex-president….
The filing sets the clock ticking on a 180-day period during which Trump and the government can seek to work out a settlement. If no deal is reached, a federal judge will hear the case in south Florida.
Trump admits taking the documents with him to his Florida estate after leaving the White House in January 2021, but claims he had the legal right to do so.
He returned some of the documents when hit with a subpoena to give them back.
Suspecting Trump was hiding more documents, the feds asked a judge to approve a search warrant for Mar-a-Lago, which was carried out on Aug. 22, 2022.
Garland appointed Special Counsel Jack Smith to investigate the case after Trump announced he would run for president again in 2024.
Trump was indicted on a string of charges accusing him of improperly retaining the documents and obstructing justice. Two Mar-a-Lago workers were also charged with moving boxes of sensitive documents to hide them from investigators and even Trump’s own defense attorney.
Judge Aileen Cannon recently dismissed the case on the grounds that Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional. The prosecution is appealing that decision to a higher court but it will likely wind up being decided by the Supreme Court.
Two top political reporters at The New York Times, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, dug deep into the worst three weeks of Donald Trump’s campaign. Until the day President Biden stepped aside, Trump and his aides thought he was cruising to victory. They spent millions preparing to display Biden’s every gaffe and stumble. The failed assassination attempt in Pennsylvania turned him into a martyr, then the worshipful Republican Convention showed the party completely solidified behind him. His pick for VP, JD Vance, he believed, guaranteed MAGA control of the party far into the future. He was unstoppable, he thought.
But then Biden withdrew from the race and endorsed Kamala Harris. Then JD Vance’s past remarks about “childless cat ladies” surfaced, followed by a furor. Allies urged Trump to replace Vance, but Trump doesn’t admit error.
Trump sneered at Kamala Harris, but she attracted huge crowds. Trump couldn’t understand. He insisted that photos showing her enthusiastic crowds were fake, created by artificial intelligence. He views her with contempt, “dumb,” “low IQ.”
Haberman and Swan wrote:
The Aug. 2 dinner at the Bridgehampton, N.Y., home of Howard Lutnick, the Cantor Fitzgerald chief executive, was a high-powered affair. Among the roughly 130 people who dined under an air-conditioned tent were some of Donald Trump’s wealthiest supporters, including the billionaire hedge-fund financier Bill Ackman, who sat next to the former president, and Omeed Malik, the president of another fund, 1789 Capital.
Some guests hoped Mr. Trump would signal that he was recalibrating after a series of damaging mistakes. He did not.
Before the dinner, answering a question that voiced concerns about the upcoming election during a small round-table discussion inside Mr. Lutnick’s house, Mr. Trump said, “We’ve got to stop the steal,” reviving yet again his false claims about the 2020 election — claims that his advisers have urged him to drop because they don’t help him with swing voters.
According to two people present, Mr. Trump himself also brought up his remark, made two days earlier at a gathering of the National Association of Black Journalists, in which he had questioned Vice President Kamala Harris’s racial identity.
It had been a display of flagrant race-baiting that was egregious even by Mr. Trump’s standards, and it instantly reprogrammed America’s TV news chyrons: He falsely claimed that Ms. Harris had only recently decided to identify as Black for political purposes.
But Mr. Trump showed no regret. “I think I was right,” he told the rattled donors that Friday night.
Later, at dinner under the tent, Harrison LeFrak, the scion of a New York real-estate family, whose father is an old friend of Mr. Trump’s, asked how Mr. Trump planned to take the narrative back from Democrats, and what his positive vision for the country would be. It appeared to be a request for reassurance.
Mr. Trump provided none. Instead, he criticized Ms. Harris on a range of fronts, before adding: “I am who I am.”
Trump is furious that Harris is drawing large, enthusiastic crowds. For the first time, he is facing an opponent who gets more news coverage than he does.
He is beginning to realize that if he wants to win, he has to work for it. Not so easy for a 78-year-old man. He would rather be playing golf.
He is angry. He’s lashing out at people he needs, like Governor Kemp of Georgia. He is focused on re-litigating his loss in 2020.
Last night, he spoke at length with Elon Musk on Twitter. Many who listened responded that he was “slurring” his words. The term “slurring” was trending on the site.
In his anger, he is even more unhinged and bitter than ever.
It’s not news when Donald Trump lies. Maybe it’s news when he tells the truth. But this is too weird to pass up.
Trump is angry that Kamala Harris is drawing large crowds whenever she gives a speech. So when she landed in Detroit and was met by a large crowd, Trump insisted that there was no crowd at all and that the image of a crowd was generated by artificial intelligence.
Trump claimed that no one attended Kamala’s rally at the airport: No one.
The news media covered the event; they saw the crowd. People who attended the event saw the crowd. But Trump insisted they were all lying. No one was there.
Donald Trump falsely claimed in a series of social media posts Sunday that “nobody” attended Vice President Kamala Harris’ Michigan rally last week — and said his Democratic rival should be “disqualified” over a “fake crowd picture.”
The former president appeared to have fallen for a far-right conspiracy theory — one easily disproved by photos and videos captured by attendees and media showing thousands of supporters at the event at an airport hangar near Detroit.
The false claims about attendance at Harris’ event come as Trump navigates the contours of a changed presidential race, with the vice president riding a wave of new Democratic enthusiasm after replacing President Joe Biden atop the ticket. The GOP nominee, who regularly draws large crowds of his own, has long been fixated on audience size, with his speeches often filled with exaggerated boasts about the turnout.
Trump, on his social media website Truth Social, made the fabricated claim that Harris had been “turned in” by an airport maintenance worker who “noticed the fake crowd picture.”
He then said Harris should be “disqualified” from the 2024 election “because the creation of a fake image is ELECTION INTERFERENCE. Anyone who does that will cheat at ANYTHING!”
However, photos and videos of the event — including videos captured with CNN’s cameras — reflect a sizable audience for Harris’ Wednesday event. The crowd filled a large hangar and spilled onto the sprawling tarmac where Air Force Two had stopped. Two large risers and many rows of chairs were outside, as were several giant screens for the outdoor crowd that couldn’t see the rally stage.
Hany Farid, a digital forensics expert and professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said on LinkedInthat he analyzed the photo with two models designed to detect patterns associated with AI-generated images. Both models found no evidence of AI generation, he said, adding that “the text on the signs and plane [showed] none of the usual signs of generative AI.”
“While the lack of evidence of manipulation is not evidence the image is real,” he said, “we find no evidence that this image is AI-generated or digitally altered.”
Julia Nikhinson/AP
People listen to Harris speak at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport on August 7, 2024, in Romulus, Michigan, where screens were set up for those who couldn’t see the stage.
David Plouffe, a Harris campaign senior adviser, wrote on X: “These are not conspiratorial rantings from the deepest recesses of the internet. The author could have the nuclear codes and be responsible for decisions that will affect us all for decades.”
Trump on Sunday shared a screenshot of an X post that featured two photos: one shared on X by a Harris staffer that showed thousands of people greeting Harris’ plane; another zoomed in on the curved, reflective side of one of Air Force Two’s engines in which the crowd isn’t clear.
“Has anyone noticed that Kamala CHEATED at the airport? There was nobody at the plane, and she ‘A.I.’d’ it, and showed a massive ‘crowd’ of so-called followers, BUT THEY DIDN’T EXIST!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “She was turned in by a maintenance worker at the airport when he noticed the fake crowd picture, but there was nobody there, later confirmed by the reflection of the mirror like finish on the Vice Presidential Plane.”
“She’s a CHEATER. She had NOBODY waiting, and the ‘crowd’ looked like 10,000 people! Same thing is happening with her fake ‘crowds’ at her speeches,” Trump added. “She should be disqualified because the creation of a fake image is ELECTION INTERFERENCE. Anyone who does that will cheat at ANYTHING!”
CNN suggests that Trump fell for a conspiracy theory. There is another possibility: Trump’s father suffered from dementia. Is he losing it?
Ben Meidas, a creator of The Meidas Touch blog, demonstrates Trump’s state of mind by reproducing some of his recent posts on “Truth Social,” the media site Trump launched after he was banned by Twitter for inciting violence.
The first question that occurs is: Is it normal for a 78-year-old man to refer to his political opponents by calling them derogatory names? Isn’t that what you might hear on a playground from little children? Doesn’t it seem as though he is the playground bully? Was his mental and emotional development stunted at the age of 7?
Adam Kinzinger is a military veteran who did not like JD Vance’s attack on Tim Walz’s military record. Now that I’m restored to Twitter, I have seen many military veterans express disgust for Vance’s low blows against Walz, who was a member of the National Guard for 24 years, in Nebraska and in Minnesota.
Kinzinger was elected to Congress from Illinois in 2010 as a Republican. He was a popular elected official but ran afoul of Trump when he voted to impeach him after the 2021 insurrection. He served, with Liz Cheney, on the Commission investigating the January 6 insurrection. He left Congress and is now a commentator on CNN.
His Wikipedia says this about his military service:
Kinzinger resigned from the McLean County Board in 2003 to join the United States Air Force. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in November 2003 and later awarded his pilot wings. Kinzinger was initially a KC-135 Stratotanker pilot and flew missions in South America, Guam, Iraq and Afghanistan. He later switched to flying the RC-26 surveillance aircraft and was stationed in Iraq twice.[11]
Kinzinger has served in the Air Force Special Operations Command, Air Combat Command, Air Mobility Command, and Wisconsin Air National Guard and was progressively promoted to his current rank of lieutenant colonel.[12] As part of his continued service with the Air National Guard, Kinzinger was deployed to the Mexico–United States border in February 2019 as part of efforts to maintain border security.[13]
Kinzinger wrote on his own blog:
As anyone who has served in the military knows, there are often good-spirited jokes about other branches and jobs. The Air Force gets called the “Chair Force” (we love this, actually), the Marines get called dumb, and so on. While not true, these jokes keep interservice rivalries lively and everyone on their toes. In general, we all respect each other and understand that whether you are kicking down doors, flying planes, gassing vehicles, or cooking food, you are willing to do what 98 percent of the country isn’t: serve for a cause above all others. This makes the attacks on Tim Walz, particularly from JD Vance, especially sickening.
JD Vance was an enlisted Marine who served honorably. While he didn’t see combat (he was in public affairs), he still deployed and served his nation as expected. He got out at the end of his service commitment and did not make it a 20-year career. Tim Walz joined the Army Guard and served honorably for 24 years, achieving the highest enlisted rank offered. That is quite an accomplishment. The nation should be proud, and JD Vance should be respectful of his fellow warrior.Subscribe
The attacks on Walz have proven to be not only false but also disgusting. I will debunk the attacks that have been floating around. But first and foremost, keep one thing in mind: Donald Trump not only didn’t serve in the military, he actively avoided service by claiming he had “bone spurs.” With him, everything is a projection, and he’s projecting his cowardice onto others, in this case, Gov. Walz.
First Lie: Governor Walz quickly exited the military after learning he was going to deploy, thereby leaving his men out to dry.
Truth: Gov. Walz actually put in his paperwork for retirement before any deployments were alerted. In fact, he served for four years AFTER 9/11 and two years after the Iraq war. He did not leave at the first sign of combat. He stayed well past when he could have retired at 20 years.
Even if he had learned of a deployment and then retired (he didn’t), there were countless people during that time who were retirement eligible and left when deployments were on the horizon. After 20 years of serving, it was their right, and who could fault them?
Lie: Gov. Walz left his men without leadership.
Truth: His unit was fully staffed and had adequate leadership without him. In fact, had the unit not had appropriate staffing, they could have denied his retirement and ordered a “stop loss,” which happened to thousands of military members in jobs that needed people. Stop loss was used regularly and would have been enacted if the situation deemed it.
Lie: Gov. Walz never made Chief Master Sgt.
Truth: He was a CMSGT for a few years, and after retiring, was only demoted because he had not completed his professional military education and hadn’t served in that rank long enough to retire in it. To retire at a rank, you must have held it for three years. I retired as a Lt Colonel; had I retired before being an LTC for three years, I would have reverted to the previous rank of Major. There is no dishonor in this; it happens all the time. I still would hold the title of LTC.
In fact, in the Army aviation branch, many officers resign their commissions to become warrant officers, a lower rank, so they can keep flying and do less desk work. This is common in the Army National Guard, and just because they did that doesn’t mean it was a scandalous demotion.
We have a pandemic in this country of weak men attacking stronger men to feel better about themselves and to denigrate military service to make their own lack of service not appear so self-serving or cowardly. It bodes darkly for the future, and we must push back against this with everything we have. Serving in the military is honorable and must be seen as such, regardless of the veteran’s party affiliation.
The attacks from anyone, especially the coward Trump, are a disservice not just to Gov. Walz but to anyone who served in uniform. Now, any military member thinking of running for office could be dissuaded because who knows how any part of your military record could be twisted or distorted to make your service look less than honorable.
Finally, JD Vance got out after his initial enlistment. If we wanted to play his game, we could say he left his country out to dry by not reenlisting, and if he was a real hero, he would have stayed. Of course, I don’t mean that, he served honorably, but it’s equivalent to what they are doing to Gov. Walz now. And it makes me sick.
Diane Ravitch's blog 