Democracy: Trump, the GOP, and Racism

By dianeravitch
October 20, 2024 //
2

Our reader who goes by the pen name “Democracy” left the following comment on recent events. We are familiar with Trump’s racist, enophobic outbursts. He has no problem with immigration from Europe but is apoplectic about immigration from nonwhite countries. The usual word for this is racism. How do other Republicans react to Trump’s overt racism?

Democracy wrote:

Here are the parts of the Heather Cox Richardson article that I found to be astounding:

“Since he announced his presidential candidacy in June 2015 by calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals, Trump has trafficked in racist anti-immigrant stories. But since the September 10 presidential debate when he drew ridicule for his outburst regurgitating the lie that legal Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating their white neighbors’ pets, Trump has used increasingly fascist rhetoric. By this weekend, he had fully embraced the idea that the United States is being overrun by Black and Brown criminals and that they, along with their Democratic accomplices, must be rounded up, deported, or executed, with the help of the military. 

Myah Ward of Politico noted on October 12 that Trump’s speeches have escalated to the point that he now promises that he alone can save the country from those people he calls ‘animals,’ ‘stone cold killers,’ the ‘worst people,’ and the “]’enemy from within.’  He falsely claims Vice President Kamala Harris ‘has imported an army of illegal alien gang members and migrant criminals from the dungeons of the third world…from prisons and jails and insane asylums and mental institutions, and she has had them resettled beautifully into your community to prey upon innocent American citizens.’

When Trump said, ‘We have to live with these animals, but we won’t live with them for long, a person in the crowd shouted: ‘Kill them!’ “

Jennifer Rubin put it like this today in The Washington Post:

“Trump has consistently evidenced racism throughout his career. He might have flipped on abortion, but racial animus seems baked into his psyche. Whether being sued for refusing to rent to African Americans, demonizing the innocent Central Park Five, promoting the ‘birther’ conspiracy theory to delegitimize the first Black president, announcing his entry into politics by slandering immigrants as murderers and thugs, refusing to denounce white nationalists at a debate in 2016, referring to non-White-majority countries as ‘s—holes’ or preemptively blaming Jews for his defeat, Trump has never departed from a steady stream of racism, xenophobia and antisemitism. His exaggeration about crime in big cities is a racial dog whistle; his phony ‘immigrant crime wave’ is a racial bullhorn. This is who he is.

…for Trump, racism is crucial to his voter suppression and election denial. The spate of voter suppression laws following Jan. 6 disproportionately affecting non-Whites, the targeting of cities in swing states with large Black electorates in 2020 (Detroit, Philadelphia), the attacks on Black poll workers and the ongoing claims of millions of undocumented immigrants voting all have a common purpose. Trump and his followers aim to put non-Whites outside the American electorate (not ‘real Americans’) and cry foul based on unsubstantiated charges of fraud when the candidate loses. If non-Whites are not ‘real’ Americans or stand in the way of Whites attaining or retaining power, then making it harder to vote (or not counting their votes) — and removing immigrants on the mere suspicion that they are illegal — are justified.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/10/15/trump-racism-detroit-immigration/

Like Rubin notes, it’s NOT just Trump. It’s virtually the entirety of Republican politicians AND Republican voters.

Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin was on CNN yesterday defending Trump’s racist rhetoric.

As Tom Nichols at The Atlantic described it,

“Tapper read Trump’s remarks verbatim, and then asked: ‘Is that something that you support?’ Youngkin replied that Tapper misunderstood Trump, who he said was referring to undocumented immigrants. No, Tapper responded, Trump clearly meant American citizens…Youngkin aw-shucksed his way through stories about Venezuelan criminals and Virginians dying from fentanyl. “’Obviously there is a border crisis,’ Tapper said. ‘Obviously there are too many criminals who should not be in this country, and they should be jailed and deported completely, but that’s not what I’m talking about.’ And then, to his credit, Tapper wouldn’t let go: What about Trump’s threat to use the military against Americans?

Well, Youngkin shrugged, he ‘can’t speak’ for Trump, but he was certain that Tapper was ‘misrepresenting [Trump’s] thoughts.’ “

UVA political analyst Larry Sabato described the Youngkin Critical Race Theory strategy this way:

“The operative word is not critical.And it’s not theory. It’s race. What a shock, huh? Race. That is what matters. And that’s why it’s sticks. There’s a lot of, we can call it white backlash, white resistance, whatever you want to call it. It has to do with race. And so we live in a post-factual era … It doesn’t matter that [CRT] isn’t taught in Virginia schools. It’s this generalized attitude that whites are being put upon and we’ve got to do something about it. We being white voters.”

When Youngkin ran for governor in 2021, his entire campaign was overtly racist. Youngkin claimed – falsely – that Critical Race Theory permeated all of Virginia’s public schools, and that teachers were teaching to kids – white kids – that they were “racists.” Noe of this was true, but Youngkin turned out the low-education white cracker vote.

THIS is where we are now with Trump, and expect it to get even worse between now and November 5.

Categories Bigotry, Elections, Extremism, Racism, Republicans, Trump

Melting Glaciers Produce Long-Lost Corpses: Climate Change Is Real

By dianeravitch
October 19, 2024 //
7

Some Republican leaders, including Trump, believe that climate change is a hoax. The Trump administration banned the use of the term by government agencies. Florida recently declared it would not adopt science textbooks that explain climate change. It’s not real.

Really? Read this story, which appeared in the Los Angeles Times.

Jack Dolan, staff writer, reports:

In late June, as a group of mountaineers descended a treacherous glacier high in the Peruvian Andes, they spotted a dark, out-of-place lump resting on the blinding white snow.

When they approached, they realized it wasn’t a rock, as they had initially assumed. 

It was a corpse. 

When they got a little closer, they could tell from the out-of-date clothes and the condition of the skin that the dead man had been there for a very long time. A miraculously well-preserved California driver’s license in the man’s pocket identified him as Bill Stampfl, a mountaineer from Chino who had been buried by an avalanche in 2002.

Avalanches begin as loose, flowing rivers of ice and snow that sweep their victims off their feet and wash them down the mountain. When the frozen debris stops, it quickly solidifies into something like a concrete tomb.
But in recent years, as the planet has warmed and ice has melted at an alarming rate, receding glaciers on the upper reaches of many of the world’s most celebrated and deadly peaks have begun surrendering the bodies of long-lost mountaineers.
It’s a blessing and a relief for grieving families who crave closure, but it creates a grim chore for public officials whose job it is to respectfully remove the remains.

Last year, on the heels of a heat wave that triggered the fastest loss of glacial ice in Swiss history, the boot of a German climber who disappeared in 1986 began poking out of a well-traveled glacier near the mountain town of Zermatt, not far from the Matterhorn.
In the Himalayas, where hundreds of adventurers have perished on the slopes of Mt. Everest since the 1920s, Nepali officials have been forced to launch risky, arduous expeditions to retrieve the recently revealed — and rapidly thawing — corpses.
“Because of global warming, the ice sheet and glaciers are fast melting and the dead bodies that remained buried all these years are now becoming exposed,” Ang Tshering Sherpa, former president of the Nepal Mountaineering Assn., told the BBC in 2019.
And now, a similarly gruesome scenario has played out on the slopes of 22,000-foot Huascaran, Peru’s highest mountain.

The warming planet is “definitely the reason we found Bill,” said Ryan Cooper, a personal trainer from Las Vegas who was among the group of climbers who discovered Stampfl’s body a few weeks ago.
When Stampfl and two climbing partners disappeared in 2002, rescuers went looking for them. They found one body, that of Steve Erskine, but Matthew Richardson and Stampfl could not be located.
“If Bill had been on top of the ice they would have found him, but he was buried back then,” Cooper said in an interview.

A lot has changed in 22 years.
Hauscaran is the highest point, and crown jewel, of the Cordillera Blanca, a region of breathtaking natural beauty that’s home to a dozen peaks higher than 20,000 feet and hundreds of alpine glaciers.
These ancient, frozen reservoirs supply irrigation and hydroelectric power to much of Peru. But, as with glaciers everywhere on the planet as temperatures have risen, those in the Cordillera Blanca have lost significant mass, as much as 27% in the last five decades, according to official estimates.

Cooper said he didn’t understand the extent and speed of the changes underway until days before his guided climb was supposed to begin. He and his brother, Wes Warne, were hanging out in the Peruvian mountain town of Huaraz, listening in as other climbers and guides compared notes.
They heard the glaciers were melting so fast that previously manageable crevasses — cracks caused by natural movement of the ice — had turned into deep, yawning chasms up to 60 feet wide that could swallow an entire team of climbers.
And they heard that many guides had begun steering their clients to more stable summits, because conditions on Huascaran had become so dicey.
Nevertheless, Cooper’s team decided to give their planned route a try.

The five days they spent on the glaciers were tense, Cooper said, an up-close look at the chaos warmer-than-expected temperatures can cause.
“You’re just hearing avalanches, you’re hearing rock fall, you’re hearing ice fall all around you,” Cooper said. “I’ve never been on a mountain that was so active.”
Eventually, the guides decided not to push for the summit, Cooper said. Instead, they led the group down an older, less traveled route that had been the standard track “back in the day,” he said, before shifting terrain prompted climbers to start taking a different approach.
That’s where they came upon Stampfl’s body, at about 17,000 feet, resting alone, undisturbed and almost completely exposed.
In other cases, when just part of a body is sticking out of the ice, excavation can be a grueling ordeal. Rescuers use shovels, axes, boiling water — anything to help coax and pry remains free.
As soon as they discovered Stampfl was American, Cooper said, he and his brother set aside their frustrations about not making the summit. They now had a much higher goal — getting Bill home.
Once they had climbed down far enough to have cellphone reception, a flurry of text messages began, and Cooper’s wife joined the search for Stampfl’s family.
Before long, Cooper found himself on the phone with Joseph Stampfl, Bill’s son.

Please open the link to finish the story.

Categories DeSantis, Environment, Florida, Hoax, Lies

Team Trump Is in Talks with Nikki Haley to Create a Joint Event

By dianeravitch
October 19, 2024 //
17

Marc Caputo reported that negotiations are underway behind the scenes to persuade Nikki Haley to moderate a town hall with Trump in the last few days of the campaign. The Trump team knows that he has poor ratings among women, largely because of the reproductive rights issue. Haley might help him with women. He has already held events with MAGA women, including former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard in Wisconsin, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders in Michigan, Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn in Michigan, Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna in North Carolina, and Fox News personality Harris Faulkner in Georgia. Haley would be a coup for him to reassure women who are angry that Trump’s Supreme Court eliminated their right to control their bodies.

Caputo writes in the Bulwark:

DONALD TRUMP’S ONETIME ambassador and former primary rival, Nikki Haley, is in talks to join him on the campaign trail in an attempt to win over disaffected Republicans, sources familiar with the discussions tell The Bulwark.

The details and dates for the joint appearance haven’t been fully worked out, but the likeliest scenario would put the two together at a town hall toward the end of the month, perhaps involving Fox News personality Sean Hannity, the sources said.

Facing a yawning gender gap, Trump’s campaign has hosted five other town halls moderated by female political figures since August, but none with the stature of Haley. The former UN Ambassador ran a tough primary race against Trump, becoming the last Republican standing against him. Though the primary ended on a contentious note, she spoke on his behalf at the Republican National Convention on July 16.

Since then, however, Haley and Trump have not appeared together. And she hinted that tensions still linger on her new SiriusXM satellite radio show last month.

“I don’t agree with Trump 100 percent of the time,” Haley said. 

“I have not forgotten what he said about me. I’ve not forgotten what he said about my husband or his, you know, deployment time or his military service. I haven’t forgotten about his or his campaign’s tactics from, you know, putting a bird cage outside our hotel room to calling me ‘bird brain,’” Haley said on her show, adding that she’s still for Trump because she thinks he “will make the country better.”

Those comments garnered some attention in Trump’s orbit. One confidant of the ex-president privately joked that talk like that is usually taboo in his circles because “if you’re with him 99 percent of the time, you’re a fucking traitor in Trump’s eyes.”

But Trump prizes winning over servile loyalty, and he recognizes that Haley’s brand as an establishment Republican—one who respectfully disagrees with him on the margins—could help in November, even if he said the opposite during the primary. 

Open the link to finish the post.

Categories Elections, Extremism, Gender, Health, Trump

General Mark Hertling on the Traits of a Successful Leader

By dianeravitch
October 19, 2024 //
4

I have recently been following @MarkHertling on Twitter. He had a long career in the U.S. Army. He frequently teaches the principles of leadership.

He recently tweeted what he calls “the traits of a successful leader.” Since we are about to select our national leader for the next four years, I decided to post his list:

At the @WimedicineOrg conference, a 3d yr resident asked me what traits I’ve seen in successful leaders.

Here’s what I said:
-Character, integrity and humility
-Accepting the inherent good in ALL people
-The ability to name the values that guide them
-Polished communication skills
-Presence
-A vision for the future
-The desire to develop others
-A desire to learn & grow daily
-Getting things done (while not seeking credit)

Categories Character, Elections, Harris, Kamala, Trump

Eugene Robinson: Bret Baier Showed FOX Viewers How Smart and Strong Kamala Is

By dianeravitch
October 18, 2024 //
28

Eugene Robinson, a regular columnist for The Washington Post, says that Bret Baier intended to make Kamala Harris look bad when he interviewed her on FOX News, but he actually allowed her to demonstrate that she’s articulate, fearless, and strong.

He writes:

One of the people Vice President Kamala Harris might want to thank in her victory speech, if she wins the election, is Fox News anchor Bret Baier. His combative interview Wednesday gave Harris the chance to display qualities — and present facts — that Donald Trump desperately wants to keep hidden from the network’s millions of viewers.

Don’t take it from me; take it from Baier himself. He said afterward that he thought Harris came to the interview seeking “a viral moment” and added: “I think she may have gotten that.”

Baier was surely referring to the exchange about Trump’s repeated threat to deploy the U.S. military against domestic critics he calls “the enemy within” — using the language of totalitarian despots. Baier presented a too-brief clip from a town hall event, aired on Fox earlier Wednesday, in which Trump denied saying any such thing. This was gaslighting: A slightly longer clip would have shown Trump railing against “the enemy from within” and naming two leading Democrats, Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff, as being part of that “sick” group.

Baier obviously knew that — and Harris called him on it.

“Bret, I’m sorry, and with all due respect, that clip was not what he has been saying about the ‘enemy within,’ that he has repeated. … That’s not what you just showed,” Harris said forcefully. “Here’s the bottom line: He has repeated it many times, and you and I both know that. And you and I both know that he has talked about turning the American military on the American people. He has talked about going after people who are engaged in peaceful protest. He has talked about locking people up because they disagree with him.”

Only after having her say — and mentioning that retired Gen. Mark A. Milley, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Trump, believes he is a threat to U.S. democracy and national security — did she let Baier move on to another topic.

Practically since the day Harris became the Democratic nominee, Fox News hosts and guests have blasted her for not doing more unscripted interviews. Wednesday’s half-hour encounter was a reminder that we should all be careful what we wish for.

From start to finish, Baier was more of an inquisitor than an interviewer; there was none of the deference that fellow Fox anchor Harris Faulkner had given Trump when she moderated his town hall. Baier repeatedly interrupted the vice president, trying to talk over her and posing questions seemingly cut and pasted from the list of Republican talking points.

Intentionally or not, all of this was a gift to Harris. She stood her ground, refuting the Trump campaign’s claim that she is weak and easily pushed around. She spoke fluently and cogently, putting to rest GOP claims that all she offers is word salad. She brushed off the most tendentious questions, engaged with the substantive ones, and insisted on finishing her answers whether or not Baier liked it.

When he laid an obvious trap, asking whether she thought the millions of voters who support Trump are “stupid,” she sidestepped it with ease. “Oh, God, I would never say that about the American people,” she said — before reminding Baier of some of the vicious things Trump does say about Americans who oppose him.

Harris got to present facts that Fox tries to keep its audience from learning. Viewers heard that Harris had just come from a rally attended by 100 prominent Republicans who are crossing party lines to endorse her candidacy. They heard about the host of Trump administration officials who oppose giving their former boss another term in office. They heard Harris say she does not favor “decriminalizing” undocumented border crossings, despite what some Fox hosts regularly claim.

Fox viewers heard, perhaps for the first time, that Harris has offered concrete plans to boost the economy and support middle-class families. And they learned about all the economists who say Trump’s policies, compared with hers, will make inflation much worse and add trillions of dollars to the national debt.

In a contest that polls show as margin-of-error close, will Harris’s foray into hostile territory make any difference? Who knows. It is hard for me to imagine anything Harris might say or do that would weaken the bond between Trump and the core MAGA faithful. They are accustomed to believing what their Dear Leader says over the “lies” told by their own eyes and ears.

But there are moderate Republicans and right-leaning independents who recognize Trump’s faults but have been told by Fox News that Harris is insubstantial, inarticulate and unqualified. If they watched the interview, they saw a woman whose policies they might not love but who has command of the issues, handles pressure with ease and is nobody’s pushover. Those voters saw a viable alternative to four more years of Trump and his insanity.

Some might think Baier was properly adversarial, others might think he was obnoxiously rude. Either way, the Harris campaign ought to send him flowers.

Categories Elections, Harris, Kamala, Media, Trump

New York Times: Trump Administration Approved Gender-Affirming Care to Prisoners!

By dianeravitch
October 18, 2024 //
3

The Trump campaign has rolled out a steady barrage of hate and fear against two groups: migrants and trans-sexual people. Hate, hate, hate!

But! The New York Times reported that the Trump administration offered gender-affirming care to prisoners. Shocking.

A campaign ad released by former President Donald J. Trump in battleground states slams Vice President Harris for supporting taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries for prisoners and migrants, concluding: “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”

But the Trump administration’s record on providing services for transgender people in the sprawling federal prison system, which houses thousands of undocumented immigrants awaiting trial or deportation, is more nuanced than the 30-second spot suggests.

Trump appointees at the Bureau of Prisons, a division of the Justice Department, provided an array of gender-affirming treatments, including hormone therapy, for a small group of inmates who requested it during Mr. Trump’s four years in office.

In a February 2018 budget memo to Congress, bureau officials wrote that under federal law, they were obligated to pay for a prisoner’s “surgery” if it was deemed medically necessary. Still, legal wrangling delayed the first such operation until 2022, long after Mr. Trump left office.

“Transgender offenders may require individual counseling and emotional support,” officials wrote. “Medical care may include pharmaceutical interventions (e.g., cross-gender hormone therapy), hair removal and surgery (if individualized assessment indicates surgical intervention is applicable).”

Categories Elections, Extremism, Health, Hypocrisy, Trump

Will Wisconsin Elect a Jerk to the Senate?

By dianeravitch
October 18, 2024 //
5

Bill Lueders wrote this article at the Never-Trump site called “The Bulwark.” He asked the question that is the title of this post. Lueders is editor-army-large for The Progressive. He says that Eric Hovde, who is challenging Senator Tammy Baldwin, has “high hopes and low scruples.”

He writes:

ERIC HOVDE’S CAMPAIGN IS “running out of money.” He told me so the other day. He’s worth hundreds of millions of dollars. But apparently he can’t afford to keep up with the cost of his own attack ads.

“Fellow Conservative,” began his recent email, addressed to me. “I need your immediate help to keep this ad running 24/7 online in Wisconsin through Election Day!” He said it was very important that this particular ad continue to run, as it represents “our best opportunity to expose undecided Wisconsin voters who will decide this TOSS-UP election to Tammy Baldwin’s willingness to line her own pockets at the expense of Wisconsin voters.” 

I don’t know if Hovde’s campaign scared up the $50,000 that he said was needed within 48 hours in order for the ad to keep running, but the ad was definitely not pulled. You can watch it here. It pictures Baldwin, the first openly lesbian (or gay) senator in U.S. history, alongside her partner, Maria Brisbane, who is described in a voiceover as “a Wall Street exec who makes millions advising the super-rich how to make money off of industries Tammy regulates.” 

A still from Hovde’s ad.

The ad, part of a tsunami of political spending on the race that has been going on for months, says Baldwin often doesn’t make it home to Wisconsin on weekends because “she’d rather be in New York at Maria’s $7 million condo.” For this reason, the narrator intones, “New Yorkers have given Tammy more than $1.3 million. Tammy Baldwin is not Wisconsin’s senator anymore, she’s the third senator from New York.”

As he heads into what is seen as one of the most competitive and potentially pivotal races for the U.S. Senate on the November 5 ballot, Hovde is doing his darnedest to shake off the image some people have of him as an elite outsider and somewhat of a jerk. He insists this is a false impression. 

Just because he is a California banker with listed assets of between $195 million and $563 million, lives mostly in a $7 million oceanview mansion in Laguna Beach, was for three straight years named one of Orange County’s most influential people by a local business journal, and has frequently not even bothered to vote in Wisconsin elections, doesn’t mean Hovde is not intimately connected to the state’s working stiffs. In February, he even jumped into the icy waters of Lake Mendota in Madison to prove it.

Hovde in a still from his video from Lake Mendota.

“So the Dems and Senator Baldwin keep saying I’m not from Wisconsin,” he says in the video while shirtless in the freezing lake. “Which is a complete joke. All right, Sen. Baldwin, why don’t you get out here in this frozen lake and let’s really see who’s from Wisconsin.” Like most sensible Wisconsinites, the senator stayed out of the frigid water.

Baldwin keeps most of her relatively meager assets, reportedly worth around $1.2 million, in a blind trust. Hovde has not committed to doing so, although he has vowed to “step out of any management role” at the Utah-based bank where he now serves as chairman of board. (The bank, ingeniously named Sunwest Bank, has branchesin five states, not including Wisconsin, and some $3.4 billion in assets.)

And so even though his own financial conflicts are much greater and less well safeguarded, Hovde is going after Baldwin on this score, claiming she’s somehow helping the super-rich “make money off of industries Tammy regulates.” Hovde groused to the Wisconsin State Journalthat Baldwin “doesn’t report what her partner is doing. If she was married, they’d have to report that, right? So she’s, again, trying to confuse people.”

But who is trying to confuse whom? Baldwin and Brisbane are not married, so under the law, neither has to report Brisbane’s assets. Hovde, in contrast, has potential conflicts that are genuinely concerning, including his bank’s decision to accept money from a Mexican bank that has been tied to drug traffickers.….

Hovde, meanwhile, has tried to paint Baldwin as a dangerous radical. In a pair of similar ads that began airing last week, the ominous voiceover accuses Baldwin and Vice President Kamala Harris of being birds of a feather in, as one of these ads puts it, “allowing men to compete in girls’ sports, funding a clinic that offers transgender therapy to minors without parents’ consent, giving stimulus checks to illegals while Wisconsin families struggle.”

A still from one of Hovde’s attack ads.

To finish reading, open the link.

Categories Education Reform, Elections, Extremism, Politics, Wisconsin

MAGA on Climate Change: Are They Lying or Stupid?

By dianeravitch
October 18, 2024 //
9

Jack Hassard is a retired professor of science education emeritus at Georgia State University. His blog is titled “Citizen Jack.” In this post, he asks whether Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene are lying about climate change or just plain ignorant.

Hassard writes:

This post is about the misinformation that Republicans are spreading in light of recent disasters. Two of the deadliest hurricanes have swept through Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, East Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia and then through Florida again.

Millions of Floridians were displaced by one of the fiercest storms of the century to strike the west coast of the state. I saw some of the displaced people as they escaped Hurricane Milton to Atlanta and beyond.

Life in our warming world is becoming more dangerous.   Many have been forced to flee their homes two times in the past month. They know that hurricanes are part of life living where they do. One person wrote that her house has been demolished three times by hurricanes before Milton came roaring into the St Petersburg-Tampa Bay shoreline cities.

The rescue efforts by first responders are planned by folks that take their life saving work seriously. The people in need during these disasters look for help from first responders and local, state, and federal government.

THE DESPICABLES

But lurking in the bushes are two despicable liars, Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Donald Trump is the one who never changed a tire or diaper (accord, but can spread misinformation about the weather (remember Sharpie), immigration, political rivals, the press, etc.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a do-nothing conspiracy theorist. She thinks “they” cause Hurricanes. Not so.

One is a convicted felon, a sex offender and rapist, and a fraudster. He also was impeached twice and indicted for trying to overthrow the results of the 2020 election and stealing classified documents from the U.S. government. 

The other is a known bully, liar, and conspiracy storyteller. She is a Republican representative from one district in Georgia. During her first term in Washington, she was barred from serving on any committees because of one of her conspiracy theories. She has done nothing in Congress except shout, insult, argue, and defame others.

DISINFORMATION: AN INSULT TO FIRST RESPONDERS AND PEOPLE IN NEED

Deliberately spreading false informationamid national disasters should be a crime, as Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene have done. We call this disinformation. 

“Disinformation is designed or spread with full knowledge of it being false (information has been manipulated) as part of an intention to deceive and cause harm. The motivations can be economic gain, ideological, religious, political, or supporting a social agenda. Misinformation and disinformation may cause harm, which comprises threats to decision-making processes and health, environment, or security. The critical difference between disinformation and misinformation is not the content of the falsehood but the knowledge and intention of the sender.” (Source: World Health Organization).

Trump is spreading lies about the government’s ability and will to help people recover from these hurricanes. He’s said that FEMA has no money for disaster relief because they gave it to migrants. This is not true. 

He says that folks in need will only get $750. This is not true. These lies have caused great harm, and he doesn’t care. He will continue with these lies forever. He lacks empathy. Instead, he kicks people when they are down. 

According to the World Health Organization, spreading disinformation is considered one of the top five threats to human health. 

“THEY”

CLIMATE CHANGE

Marjorie Taylor Greene believes that “they” control the weather. In fact she reports that “they” direct hurricanes over people living in red states such as Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina. Well, let’s see. Georgia has two blue Senators, and NC has a blue governor. That should debunk her theory, but not in MAGA land nor in Greene’s conspired mind. Scientists have had to publicly admit that we humans can’t control hurricanes, or tornadoes, and any other weather phenomenon. 

Neither Trump or Greene have clue about the effect of the earth’s warming on hurricanes and other environmental disasters inciting fires, flooding and drought.

They deny global warming and claim it’s a hoax. Trump thinks the Chinese created the hoax. Their denial is dangerous. They deliberately harm others by refusing to accept the established truth that earth’s climate has warmed because of fossil fuel burning. 

For decades, science education researchers have explored trends in proposed US state legislation employed from 2003 to 2023 by anti-evolution and anti-climate change education movements to constrain the teaching of these sciences.  This is a critical issue in the education of students who will live in rapidly changing world. 

ANTI-CLIMATE CHANGE AND ANTI-EVOLUTION

In a recent study about anti-climate change and anti-evolution, researchers used a historical qualitative research design; document analysis was used to evaluate state legislation and reports from the National Center for Science Education(NCSE).

Two hundred and seventy-three climate and evolution-related House and Senate bills, concurrent resolutions, and joint resolutions were identified, coded, and analyzed. 

Eleven anti-science education legislative tactics were employed from 2003 to 2023. Five were first identified in the literature review: academic freedom (42.1%), rebranding (12.1%), balanced treatment (12.1%), censorship (2.6%), and disclaimers (2.6%). 

The analysis revealed six new tactics: anti-indoctrination (16.8%), standards (12.1%), instructional materials (10.3%), religious liberty (8.8%), avoidance (4.4%), and religious instruction (4.0%). 

One-quarter of bills and resolutions employed a combination of tactics. The most ubiquitous tactics were academic freedom bills, which urge science teachers to introduce ideas like intelligent design or climate change denial under the mantle of academic freedom, and anti-indoctrination bills, which prevent teachers from advocating for controversial topics deemed political. 

Since 2017, anti-indoctrination has become the preferred tactic. Southern, southeastern, and midwestern states were the most prolific in their contribution to anti-science education legislation. Qualitative analysis revealed that bill and resolution language was often recycled across years and states, with slight changes to wording. From 2003 to 2023, the total number of anti-science education state legislative efforts increased, as did the number of passed bills and resolutions. 

CLIMATE RESOURCES

Categories Elections, Environment, Ethics, Extremism, Failure, Fake News, Ignorance, Lies, Trump

Heather Cox Richardson: Harris Won the Debate with FOX News

By dianeravitch
October 17, 2024 //
20

In my household, there was a vigorous debate about whether Kamala Harris should sit for an interview with Bret Baier of FOX News. Was it wise to enter the Lion’s den? I thought it was a great idea; Mary did not. From what I have read, it was a debate, not an interview, as Baier turned his questions into MAGA talking points.

Heather Cox Richardson watched the debate and believes that Kamala was dominant, even though Baier repeatedly interrupted her, spoke over her, and didn’t let her finish her answers to his questions.

She wrote:

Two Fox News Channel interviews bracketed today: one this morning with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in front of an audience of hand-picked Republican women in Georgia, the other by Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris with host Bret Baier. Together, the two were a performance of dominance. 

FNC billed Trump’s so-called town hall as a chance for female voters, a demographic that is swinging heavily to Harris, to ask Trump about issues they care about. But Hadas Gold and Liam Reilly of CNN reported that FNC had packed the audience with Trump supporters. The first question came from the president of the Fulton County Republican Women, though she was not identified as such. FNC then edited the broadcast to cut out remarks in which the attendees expressed support for Trump. 

It seems unlikely that Trump attracted any new voters by speaking to an audience of loyalists audibly cheering him on.

After Trump refused to debate her again, Harris voluntarily moved into his right-wing territory, agreeing to an interview with FNC host Bret Baier. In that interview, Baier reframed right-wing talking points as questions, essentially giving Trump a second shot at a debate. Baier kept talking over the vice president’s attempts to answer—even putting out a hand to interrupt her—in a stark contrast to FNC’s deference to Trump. Harris asked him to let her reply, and then answered his questions, sometimes testily, usually turning them into opportunities to contrast her own candidacy and record with Trump’s. 

Control of the interview changed abruptly when Harris called out Trump for referring to the “enemy within” and talking about using the American military against those he considers enemies. Baier used that opportunity to show a clip of Trump saying he wasn’t threatening anyone, but the clip was edited to remove his threats against “sick,” “evil,” “dangerous” “Marxists and communists and fascists” including Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) and “the Pelosis”—presumably former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and her husband, who was attacked by a man with a hammer in 2022 by a man who wanted to force Nancy Pelosi to renounce the investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. 

Harris had had enough propaganda.

“Bret, I’m sorry, and with all due respect, that clip was not what he has been saying about the enemy within that he has repeated when he’s speaking about the American people. That’s not what you just showed…. You and I both know that he’s talked about turning the American military on the American people. He has talked about going after people who are engaged in peaceful protest. He has talked about locking people up because they disagree with him. This is a democracy. And in a democracy, the president of the United States in the United States of America should be… able to handle criticism without saying he’d lock people up for doing it. And this is what is at stake, which is why you have someone like the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff saying what Mark Milley has said about Donald Trump being a threat to the United States of America.” 

Simply by going on the right-wing network, Harris was demonstrating dominance. Then, by answering as thoroughly as she did, she undercut the right-wing narrative that she is stupid and inarticulate. By calling out the FNC for deliberately misleading its viewers, she took command. Baier, rather than Harris, was the one doing the post-interview spinning.

Writer Peter Wehner, who worked for presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush, wrote: “Bret Baier has rarely looked as bad (or tendentious) as he did in his interview with Kamala Harris. On the flip side, this was one of her best interviews. She dominated Bret. All in all it was quite a bad day for MAGA world’s most important media outlet.”

In between the two FNC events were two others that also told a story, this one about how the Republican Party’s descent into MAGA is creating a new political coalition to defend American principles.

Trump held a town hall with undecided Latino voters moderated by Mexican journalist Enrique Acevedo for Univision. Members of the audience asked excellent questions: how would he bring down household costs, who would take the jobs left behind by undocumented workers if Trump deported them and how much would that drive up food costs, why Trump took so long to stop the January 6 rioters, if he had caused deaths during the pandemic by misleading Americans, and if he agrees with his wife, Melania, about protecting abortion rights. 

But Trump did not answer the questions, instead regurgitating his usual talking points. He promised to produce more oil and gas, called undocumented immigrants criminals, repeated the lie about Haitian migrants eating pets, and, after notably referring to the January 6 rioters as “we” and law enforcement officers as “the others,” called January 6 “a day of love.” The audience did not appear convinced.

Meanwhile, Vice President Harris joined more than 100 Republicans in Pennsylvania, near the spot where George Washington and more than 2,000 Continental soldiers crossed the Delaware River on Christmas night 1776 to surprise a garrison of British soldiers at Trenton, New Jersey, where they won a strategic victory. 

Harris noted that those gathered were also near Philadelphia, where in 1787 delegates from across the country gathered to write and sign the U.S. Constitution. 

“That work was not easy. The founders often disagreed. Often quite passionately. But in the end, the Constitution of the United States laid out the foundations of our democracy, including the rule of law, that there would be checks and balances, that we would have free and fair elections and a peaceful transfer of power. And these principles and traditions have sustained our nation for over two centuries, sustained because generations of Americans, from all backgrounds, from all beliefs, have cherished them, upheld them, and defended them. 

“And now, the baton is in our hands,” she said. [A]t stake in this race are the democratic ideals that our founders and generations of Americans before us have fought for. At stake in this election is the Constitution of the United States…its very self.” 

Harris welcomed the Republicans in the crowd, saying that everyone there shared a core belief: “That we must put country before party.” The crowd chanted, “USA, USA, USA.” 

Harris noted that many of the Republicans on stage had taken the same oath to the Constitution that she had. “We here know the Constitution is not a relic from our past, but determines whether we are a country where the people can speak freely, and even criticize the president, without fear of being thrown in jail, or targeted by the military. Where the people can worship as they choose without the government interfering. Where you can vote without fear that your vote will be thrown away. All this and more depends on whether or not our leaders honor their oath to the Constitution.”

Trump, she pointed out, tried to overturn the will of the people expressed in a free and fair election, has vowed to use the military to go after any American who doesn’t support him, and has called for the “termination” of the Constitution. “It is clear,” she said, “Donald Trump is increasingly unstable and unhinged, and he is seeking unchecked power.” Trump, she said, “must never again stand behind the seal of the President of the United States.”

“And to those who are watching,” she said, “if you share that view, no matter your party, no matter who you voted for last time: There is a place for you in this campaign. The coalition we have built has room for everyone who is ready to turn the page on the chaos and instability of Donald Trump.”

“I pledge to you to be a President for all Americans. And I take that pledge seriously.”

She reiterated her promise to appoint a Republican to her cabinet and to establish a Council on Bipartisan Solutions to strengthen the middle class, secure the border, defend our freedoms, and maintain the nation’s leadership in the world. She noted that the country needs a healthy two-party system, and described how the Senate Intelligence Committee left partisanship at the door. It “was “country over party in action,” when she sat on the committee, she said, “[s]o I know it can be done.”

“[O]ur campaign is not a fight against something,” she said. “It is a fight for something. It is a fight for the fundamental principles upon which we were founded, It is a fight for a new generation of leadership that is optimistic about what we can achieve together—Republicans, Democrats, and independents who want to move past the politics of division and blame and get things done on behalf of the American people.

“[W]e are all here together this beautiful afternoon because we love our country…and we know the deep privilege and pride that comes with being an American and the duty that comes along with it…. Imperfect though we may be, America is still that ‘shining city upon a hill’ that inspires people around the world. And I do believe it is one of the highest forms of patriotism to fight for the ideals of our country.”

“So, to people from across Pennsylvania, and across our nation, let us together stand up for the rule of law, for our democratic ideals, and for the Constitution of the United States. And in twenty days, we have the power to chart a New Way Forward, one that is worthy of this magnificent country that we are all blessed to call home.” 

Categories Democracy, Elections, Harris, Kamala, Media, Trump

Judge Chutkan Rejects Trump’s Request for More Discovery of Documents

By dianeravitch
October 17, 2024 //
11

As we have seen over the past two years, Trump has used his legal team to delay, delay, delay, with the hope of eventually getting a sympathetic judge who will dismiss the case against him. That is what happened in Florida, where Trump-appointed District Court Judge Aileen Cannon threw out the entire case about Trump’s theft of documents. The reason: She believes that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional. She is the first federal judge to reach this conclusion. Many other judges and legal scholars have reached the opposite conclusion and found the appointment of special counsels to be constitutional. Her decision has been appealed by prosecutors.

Yesterday, Obama-appointed District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan dismissed most of Trump’s requests to “discover” more government documents that might show that his actions on January 6, 2021, were necessary.

The Meidas Report summarized her decision:

In a significant legal setback for Donald Trump, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a detailed ruling on his latest discovery requests in the 2020 election subversion case, dismissing most of his demands as speculative and unsupported by law. Trump had sought to compel the federal government to search for and produce a broad array of documents related to election interference, cybersecurity threats, and law enforcement actions connected to the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol.

In this article, we will succinctly analyze Judge Chutkan’s latest ruling and its implications on Trump’s election interference case. To read our full analysis below, please join as a paid subscriber to support our work.

Let’s get into it:

The ruling, issued today (October 16, 2024), addressed two key motions filed by Trump’s defense team: a Motion to Compel Discovery and a Motion for an Order Regarding the Scope of the Prosecution Team. In these motions, Trump’s lawyers asked the court to force the federal government to search nine government agencies for information across 14 categories, including classified intelligence assessments and communications about foreign election interference. Trump’s defense argued that this information would support his claim that his actions were based on legitimate concerns about election security.

Judge Chutkan, however, found that Trump’s requests were largely unsupported by the law. She pointed out that under both Brady v. Maryland and Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 16, defendants bear the burden of demonstrating that the requested materials are material to their defense. “Speculation” that the government might possess favorable evidence is not enough to justify an expansive search, Chutkan noted, and Trump had failed to show that the requested documents were likely to yield new, non-cumulative evidence.

For example, Trump sought all drafts and communications related to the 2020 Election Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), claiming that these documents would help demonstrate his “good faith” concerns about foreign interference. But Chutkan rejected this request, noting that Trump did not claim to have been aware of these drafts at the time of his indicted actions. Without showing that this information could have influenced his state of mind, Trump could not meet the standard of materiality required for discovery.

Judge Chutkan also denied Trump’s request for communications and drafts of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) statement, which had described the 2020 election as “the most secure in American history.” Trump argued that earlier versions of the statement might show narrower language that would support his defense, but the court found this request speculative and irrelevant to Trump’s intent at the time.

Trump did win a limited victory in his request for certain “discrete, identified” documents, which Judge Chutkan ruled the government must produce. However, these documents represented only a small portion of Trump’s overall requests. The ruling emphasizes that Trump’s legal strategy cannot rely on vague or speculative claims of what might be found in government records.

Chutkan’s ruling further solidifies the challenges Trump faces as he prepares his defense in the federal criminal case. Trump’s argument that his state of mind was shaped by legitimate concerns about election integrity appears increasingly difficult to substantiate, as the court continues to limit the scope of discovery to concrete and relevant evidence.

Judge Chutkan’s Conclusion and Order

This ruling follows a pattern in which courts have resisted attempts by Trump’s legal team to broaden the scope of discovery in various legal challenges. Chutkan’s decision reiterates the principle that discovery is not an unlimited right and must be grounded in specific, demonstrable need.

With the court setting an October 30 deadline for any further motions to compel discovery, the Trump defense team will need to reconsider their approach as the case moves toward trial. Judge Chutkan’s decision is another indication that Trump’s claims, both inside and outside the courtroom, face serious judicial scrutiny.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Extremism, Justice, Trump
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