This is the Ingraham Angle from Washington tonight. Thank you for joining us.
They're desperate, I tell you, desperate! to find any edge on Republicans as midterms approach. In the aftermath of this hideous attack on Paul Pelosi in their San Francisco home, of course we hope and pray for his full recovery from this disgusting attack. The question is will Democrats attempt to use the attacks of lone lunatics to chill political speech.
Her (fallacious) answer is of course. Though the rest of Laura Ingraham's monologue had nothing to do with the apparent terrorist attack in San Francisco, her rant was a fine display of conservative grievance politics. But that is not what makes her remarks dangerous.
I may be going out on the limb here, but I have a hunch that, whatever her hope, Laura Ingraham is not praying for Paul Pelosi's full recovery.
Nor is the atrocious assault by David DePape an attack of a "lone lunatic." There are approximately 362,000 households in San Francisco. DePape decided to break into the home of the Speaker of the Untied States House of Representatives. There are approximately 888,000 people residing in San Francisco. The alleged perpetrator did not yell out "where's Janet" or "where's Michelle" or "where's Ashley." He yelled "where's Nancy" and, given that it was Mr. Paul Pelosi he was attacking, the betting here is he was targeting the most powerful and most hated woman in the USA.
We don't know whether the alleged culprit is mentally ill, although most mentally ill individuals don't take a hammer to the head of someone else, and the vast majority of violent offenders are not "crazy" or "lunatics." We can assume that DePape's choice of the Pelosi couple had something to do with Nancy's position as probably the second most powerful individual in the nation. Had the Speaker been home, it would have qualified as an assassination attempt.
"Mental illness" has been a dodge for decades, in and out of politics- here by a Putin sympathizer. For most of that time, it has been largely harmless. Of late, it has become the GOP excuse for avoiding gun safety legislation, and will increasingly be used to wave away political violence.
Eleven days before Election Day, the Fox News spin machine
is in high gear, even during discussion of the violent attack upon Paul Pelosi,
the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. As Dana Perino and Bill Hemmer cite
recent cases of election intimidation, the latter remarks "
point being, depending on how the circumstances of this
story work out here, crime hits everybody..... point being, this can happen
anywhere and that's why it's such a significant part of this election story
here.
People yelling "where's Nancy?" could strike any of us anytime, anywhere https://t.co/a1WoPzBU2C
By this reasoning, a random act of violence, which can hit
anybody, anywhere takes place when
According to a person briefed on the case, who spoke with
The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity to describe the details,
(alleged assailant David) DePape was searching for Speaker Pelosi when he
entered, shouting out, “Where is Nancy?”
Moreover
police were dispatched to the Pelosi home at about 2:30 in
the morning, where they found both DePape and Pelosi holding a hammer. DePape
allegedly pulled the hammer away from Pelosi and attacked him, before a police
officer tackled DePape. Both men were taken to a hospital, Scott said. The
motive behind the attack is still under investigation.
DePape is said to have shouted "Where is Nancy? Where
is Nancy?" before beating Paul Pelosi in an incident which Hemmer claims "can happen anywhere." It probably was an attack
planned and executed by a far-right conspiratorialist bent on killing
Speaker Pelosi and inspired by an ex-President who has long been publicly partial to violence enemies and others. Probably.
There are two other, less likely, possibilities, one that a
"secretly gay" Paul Pelosi was attacked by a crazy Grindr pickup, a
"grinder hookup gone terribly wrong," which combines the qualities of denying it was a MAGA-style assault with an assertion
that Nancy Pelosi's husband is gay, a jibe against the hated Speaker herself.
Less discussed, but at least a realistic (though improbable)
possibility:
Marjorie Taylor Greene previously said Nancy Pelosi was 'guilty of treason' and told her followers it was a 'crime punishable by death.' https://t.co/aoWfrWdGZo
Maybe Representative Greene would lie, as she has done before, and flawlessly. But it's at least a question worth asking,
especially when Trump TV will exploit the assault to reinforce their narrative
of apathy of Democrats to urban crime.
Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman of Pennsylvania
demonstrated that he is not a good debater. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported
that in the Senate debate, Fetterman "appeared less polished than
his" opposition and was "uncomfortable" with "frequent
criticism." He had, as noted, "campaigned in a way that had, until
now, largely shielded him from scrutiny on a big stage."
Those words were written on April 22 the day after the primary
debate among Fetterman, Representative Conor Lamb, and State Senator Malcolm
Kenyatta.
Soon afterward, and shortly before the primary he won, the
Lieutenant Governor suffered a stroke, effects of which were evident at the faceoff Tuesday
night.
That may- or may not- have been why Fetterman did not jump
on Mehmet Oz's now infamous remark
As a physician, I’ve been in the room when there’s some
difficult conversations happening. I don’t want the federal government involved
with that at all. I want women, doctors, local political leaders letting the
democracy that’s always allowed our nation to thrive to put the best ideas
forward so states can decide for themselves.
Every voter should see this clip of Mehmet Oz, the Republican candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania, claiming that abortion should be a decision between “women, doctors, and local political leaders.”
Local political leaders? Picture a tearful of fearful
pregnant woman in an office with her doctor and, say, Senator Ted Cruz- or
perhaps Q Anon- adjacent Doug Mastriano, who will remain a Pennsylvania state
senator after he loses the gubernatorial race to Democrat Josh Shapiro in two
weeks. Better yet would have been Fetterman himself painting that picture.
Some of us are not quick on our feet. However,
that's no excuse not to have prepared a pithy remark or two to undermine Mehmet
Oz.
When 37 seconds in, Fetterman stated "Send Dr. Oz back
to New Jersey," that should not have been the high point of the debate for
the Democrat. Yet, in the next 59 minutes and 23 seconds, the candidate whose
social media feed once relentlessly slammed Oz for living outside of Pennsylvania, did not again utter "New Jersey."
Alex Norcia in The New York Times Magazine noted 7-8 weeks
ago that the Fetterman campaign was (effectively) portraying Oz as
"something that is, both regionally and nationwide, way more loathed: a
guy from New Jersey." He explained
It is, specifically, the idea that Oz is from New Jersey — a place
that the rest of the country finds annoying and distasteful, and whose
neighbors find it especially so — that resonates above all else....
Outsiders tend to see an obnoxious land of corrupt lawmakers,
oil refineries and expensive tolls, the area you pass through on your way from
Philadelphia to New York City.
It is a largely misleading stereotype, but worse yet (though
unmentioned by Norcia): Oz is from north Jersey, the home of the "New
York" Giants and "New York" Jets. Nonetheless, Fetterman made
only a feeble effort on Tuesday night to connect his opponent to Pennsylvania's
neighbor to the east. One possibility would have been "I'd like your vote to continue fighting
for Pennsylvanians, as I have as Lieutenant Governor. Mehmet Oz wants to be the
third Senator from New Jersey."
There was at least one more failure. Appropriately, the
debate's moderators referred to "Mr. Oz" and "Mr.
Fetterman" while the Democratic candidate, incomprehensibly, referred to
"Dr. Oz," rendering the Republican the legitimacy he arguably does
not deserve and inarguably should not be granted by his opponent. Moreover, in this informal age, in which people often dress casually for church and funerals, hug rather than shake hands, and address strangers by their first name, there is no good reason for an opponent not to call Oz "Mehmet." None.
John Fetterman may yet prevail in this race. However, it is
one which should not have been close, stroke or not.
"The left defunded the police and let criminals out of
jail."
Odd, his tweets always read like they are directed at semi-literate, low-information, gullible people who require small words, short sentences and zero facts. pic.twitter.com/gaoqj377V3
Odd, his tweets always read like they are directed at
semi-literate, low-information, gullible people who require small words, short
sentences and zero facts.
Unfortunately, many voters are gullible people possessing
little information and requiring small words, short sentences, and zero facts.
So they responded positively when Republicans, approximately a month ago
unleashed a barrage of negative ads in the final weeks of
the midterms that hammer Democrats on crime.
In at least two states, the strategy appears to be taking
hold.
Recent polling suggests that after GOP Senate candidates
zeroed in on crime in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, the trajectory of the races
shifted. In Wisconsin in particular, the negative ads have relentlessly
targeted Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who is challenging Sen. Ron
Johnson.
“They’ve all got the same crib notes: Attack Democrats on
crime,” said political science professor Charles Franklin, the director of the
Marquette University Law School poll.
A Democrat "who asked not to be named for fear of
political retribution asked “Why has it taken so long to figure out an answer to this
crime messaging?” Why does it feel like Ron Johnson had
like a month to hammer away at Mandela unanswered?”
Well, of course, he or she feared political retribution.
Mention "crime" and most people- by a long shot, not all of them
white- think of street crime and think blacks. It's not an easy issue for
Democrats to address, given their base of black-dominated civil rights
organizations and their liberal white allies. Understandably, though
repulsively, the GOP ads sometimes feature unnamed young black males and, even
when they do not, omit faces of white criminals.
The valid "crime is not committed by blacks because
they are black" explanation does not fit easily into a political slogan or
a campaign ad. Yet, Democrats know they cannot cede the playing field to the
GOP.
There has been a Democratic crime message just begging to be
used. It has been out in the open,
visible to all, for the better part of a year. It even has a name-
"January 6."
The Democratic Party could have adopted a unifying message,
one circumventing the conflict (mostly manufactured by the media, but still)
between emphasis on abortion and emphasis on inflation, gas prices, or what the
superficial punditocracy sometimes refers to as "kitchen table
issues." (The 1970s wants its family lifestyle back.)
Ads would feature footage of the insurrection which took
place on January 6, 2021. They could have been accompanied with a voiceover
referring to an attempt to overthrow the government, an effort to destroy the
United States of America as we have known it.
Blame would be laid upon Republicans- or at least among "MAGA
Republicans" as the timid would prefer, while making clear that these
latter are representative of the Republican Party itself.
In the waning days of the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald
Trump, in the greatest political irony ever, stated
- “If Hillary Clinton were to be elected, it would create an
unprecedented and protracted constitutional crisis. Haven’t we just been
through a lot with the Clintons, right?”
- “Hillary is likely to be under investigation for many
years, probably concluding in a criminal trial.”
- “She'll be under investigation for years. She'll be with
trials. Our country, we have to get back to work.”
- If she were to win
this election, it would create an unprecedented constitutional crisis. In that
situation, we could very well have a sitting president under felony indictment
and ultimately a criminal trial.”
- “Her current scandals and controversies will continue
throughout her presidency and we will make it honestly, look, it's gonna be
virtually impossible for her to govern. Now, the Republicans have talked very
tough and the Democrats. It's gonna be just another mess for another four
years, folks. A mess. We've got to get back to work, right? I mean, we have to
get back to work.”
Then Donald Trump pulled off one of the greatest, albeit
most catastrophic, upsets in American political history, if not world
history. He did so in part by convincing a significant
number of voters that if he lost, there would be endless chaos, investigations,
and disruption.
At 3:53 of this video above, a leading political
behaviouralist explains that Republicans have been airing their crime videos
because "you know, it's all more vivid. I guess, you get more of a
visceral reaction, which is probably what ad makers are going for."
Democrats could have turned the tables on the other guys and gals with a few ads of
their own, even noting that Republicans have promised endless investigations if
they get back into power, with impeachment of President Biden likely.
Remind the public that so many of these Republican
officials- better yet, "Washington politicians"- support dangerous,
violent thugs who want to destroy Americans and their way of life.
Truth has its own appeal.
The media have largely ignored the story of workers quitting
bad jobs for ones that pay better and/or offer better working conditions.
It’s not just workers at the bottom who are doing better
today than they were before the pandemic, tens of millions of homeowners were
able to take advantage of the low mortgage interest rates that we had until the
Fed rate hikes started. They refinanced their homes at rates that were often a
percentage point or more below the rate they paid before the pandemic.
This could mean $2000-$3000 a year in interest savings for a
typical homeowner. Are we really supposed to believe that these interest
savings won’t cover paying $1 more for a gallon of milk at the supermarket?
Obviously, no one is happy about paying higher prices for food and other items,
but the families that were able to refinance are almost certainly better off today,
even with the higher prices, than they were before the pandemic.
There is a similar story with the tens of millions of people
who are now able to work from home as a result of changes workplaces
implemented in the pandemic. These people are saving thousands of dollars a
year in commuting costs. Are we really supposed to believe that these people
are all worse off due to inflation, in spite of these savings?
It is worth noting that the average hourly wage has almost
kept pace with inflation since the start of the pandemic. It’s down by just 0.7
percent (it dropped 3.9 percent during the “Reagan Boom”), so there is not that
much ground that workers need to make up through paying lower mortgage interest
or savings on commuting costs.
So, given the economic reality, is it plausible that
everyone feels they are being devastated by inflation? That one doesn’t seem to
fit, just like the story that everyone believed Social Security was in a crisis
back in the 1990s didn’t make sense.
However, he recognizes
We know politicians can’t stick their necks out and say that
inflation isn’t that bad, the media will mercilessly trash them for being out
of touch. But people whose jobs don’t prevent them from telling the truth can
point out what the data show. Most families are not being devastated by
inflation, and that fact will not change no matter how many times the media and
Republican politicians assert the opposite.
However, the vast majority of persuadable voters will blow
off the fairly complicated message that the economy isn't as they keep hearing
it is. As summarized by Robert Kuttner, Democratic strategist Mike Lux favors a
multi-pronged approach in which Democrats emphasize:
1. Wealthy corporations with monopoly power are jacking up
their prices, and their profits are going through the roof.
2. Drug prices and health insurance premiums are going to go
down because of the Inflation Reduction Act … Republicans have no plan of their
own.
3. Seniors will be getting the biggest increase in their
Social Security payments in 40 years … Republicans are talking about ending
Social Security.
4. Manufacturing jobs are coming back to the United States …
and our infrastructure is being rebuilt. All of this will end our supply chain
problems and create millions more good jobs.
5. I will fight for the Child Tax Credit, which will give
parents up to $600 a month to help with groceries, gas, and housing. And I’m
going to pay for it by taxing wealthy corporations and millionaires who are
paying little or nothing in taxes right now. My opponent is against the Child
Tax Credit
Falling just short of using
the word "cut," Republicans have been clear that if put into power, they will reduce Social
Security benefits, and it is political malpractice that Democrats have reduced this to nary an issue.
But voters are
in no mood to be informed that manufacturing jobs are returning, infrastructure
is being built or rebuilt, and that the job market has been improving. They are
simply in a sour mood, and don't want to hear that things are not as bad as
they've been told they are.
Voters will blame someone for inflation and Republicans want them to blame Joe Biden. Yet, as explained by the Economic Policy Institute, the "main
components of cost"
include labor costs, nonlabor inputs, and the
“mark-up” of profits over the first two components. Good data on these separate
cost components exist for the nonfinancial corporate (NFC) sector—those
companies that produce goods and services—of the economy, which makes up
roughly 75% of the entire private sector.
Since the trough of the COVID-19 recession in the second
quarter of 2020, overall prices in the NFC sector have risen at an annualized
rate of 6.1%—a pronounced acceleration over the 1.8% price growth that
characterized the pre-pandemic business cycle of 2007–2019. Strikingly, over
half of this increase (53.9%) can be attributed to fatter profit margins, with
labor costs contributing less than 8% of this increase. This is not normal.
From 1979 to 2019, profits only contributed about 11% to price growth and labor
costs over 60%, as shown in Figure A below. Nonlabor inputs—a decent indicator
for supply-chain snarls—are also driving up prices more than usual in the
current economic recovery.
As luck would have it, this was exactly Representative Katie
Porter's point, that corporate greed is most responsible for inflation.
Don't defend; accuse. That's why Porter's argument and Lux's
point #1 constitute the best approach.
It's a message that doesn't have to be- or because Election Day is
almost upon us- didn't have to be wonky or complicated. Everyone understands gluttony, and resents it in others. A message attacking corporations for disagreeable inflation would have been in keeping with the great American tradition- perhaps even of human
nature- of blaming someone.
Yes, it is the ascendant, probably the dominant, position of
the right. Heads we win; tails, you lose. Similarly: if we're acquitted, the trial is fair; if we
lose, it's rigged.
Devin Nunes, chief executive of Donald Trump's social media
operation, claims
... that we have this other problem, that if you get tired
as a Republican in a- one of the large cities, large jurisdiction in this
country- there is a high likelihood that you're going to be on the losing side
of that argument in court. Um, and this is- this is what's developed now, this
two-tiered justice system.
Devin Nunes says Republicans can’t get a fair trial in any major American city. pic.twitter.com/fAdqRdInxh
Actually, that's quite clever, and analogous to the famous
rants of Donald Trump about the "Deep State." There might be a deep
state somewhere in American government, but not anything alleged by Trump.
Similarly, people across the political spectrum sense there is a two-tiered
justice system. There separate tiers for the wealthy and all others, not one for Democrats and one for
Republicans.
Major trials are disproportionately conducted in major
cities and if the public views a jury with at least one black face (almost
always the case), conservatives will lap up any claim that the conviction was
biased. It's a corollary to the Party which complains about federal law
enforcement while proclaiming "Back the Blue," a slavish devotion to
local law enforcement, perceived as a bulwark against lawless young black
males.
It's a brilliant move: "if we lose an election, it's
rigged" and "if we're convicted in a court of law, it's rigged," It adds up to this:
I think it's very hard to communicate to the median voter convincingly the chaos that a GOP victory is likely to unleash, and I think a lot of professionals vastly underestimate the tail risk.
When Republicans urge the overthrow of government and seek
control of government to eviscerate Medicare and Social Security, immigration
issues are often exploited as a diversion. However, former CBS correspondent Lara Logan,
while pledging undying fealty to the God of the Scriptures, appears to be a true
believer. She tells a supportive News Max host
God believes in sovereignty, national identity, and the
sanctity of family and all the things that we've lived with since the beginning
of time and he knows that the open border is Satan's way of talking control of
the world through all of these people who are his stooges and his servants. And
they may think that they're going to become God, they tell us, Gerald and Haari
and the rest of them at the World Economic Forum. You know, the ones who want
us eating insects, cockroaches, and that while they dine on the blood of
children.
Lara Logan says "the open border is Satan's way of taking control of the world," adding "The ones who want us eating insects, cockroaches, and that while they dine on the blood of children...They're not going to win" pic.twitter.com/S6W4GgbAJh
For sheer entertainment value that ranks high, though
neither cockroaches nor the blood of children is high on my list of dinner selections..
The twentieth chapter of Deuteronomy is famous for its
advocacy of the death penalty for a wide variety of infractions. In it, we
learn that God has directed Moses to inform the Israelites that death is the
punishment for bestiality, incest, homosexuality, or practicing the occult. The
sanctity of the family is addressed by warning that "anyone who curses their father or
mother is to be put to death," as are a man who commits adultery with his
neighbor's wife, the latter also to be executed. (Abortion somehow was omitted.)
Jesus himself became a refugee when "an angel of the
Lord" appeared to Joseph and told him to take his wife and his son to
Egypt to escape murder at the hands of King Herod. In that Old Testament bible Jesus was said
to have read, God encouraged the prophet Jeremiah "not (to) oppress
the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow" and told him to issue
the warning "Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or
the widow." The prophet Zechariah warned "do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor."
And Jesus assured his disciples that when he returns as King and Judge, he'll remember "For I was
hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me
something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in."
If refugees, or strangers, or aliens were to be accepted- as appears to be the case- there was an even greater imperative to treat individuals fairly once among you. In the first chapter of Deuteronomy, we read "And I charged your judges at that time: Hear the disputes between your people and judge fairly, whether the case is between an Israelite and a foreigner residing among you."
Twenty three chapters later there is "do not take advantage of a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether that fellow is a fellow Israelite or a foreigner residing in one of your towns." So I could argue that the priority is not to exploit any workers, as in encouraging immigration and then allowing the individual to be exploited because he or she has not been given citizenship.
But I won't do so because- however God is perceived- times change, people change, and issues change, especially over a couple of thousand years. However, if He is a closed borders enthusiast, God had a funny way of telling us.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said that if
Republicans win control of the House the GOP will use raising the debt limit as
leverage to force spending cuts — which could include cuts to Medicare and
Social Security — and limit additional funding to Ukraine.
“You can’t just continue down the path to keep spending and
adding to the debt,” the California Republican told Punchbowl News in a recent
interview. “And if people want to make a debt ceiling [for a longer period of
time], just like anything else, there comes a point in time where, okay, we’ll
provide you more money, but you got to change your current behavior.”
“We’re not just going to keep lifting your credit card
limit, right,” he added. “And we should seriously sit together and [figure out]
where can we eliminate some waste? Where can we make the economy grow
stronger?”
Pressed on whether changes to the entitlement programs such
as Medicare and Social Security were part of the debt ceiling discussions,
McCarthy said he would not “predetermine” anything.
The debt limit — the country’s borrowing cap — will need to
be lifted next year to protect the country’s credit score and to prevent the
United States from defaulting on its debt. But McCarthy suggested that his
party would be willing to hold the debt limit up for policy changes.
The debt limit is the total amount of money that the
government is authorized to borrow to meet its existing legal obligations,
including Social Security and Medicare benefits, military salaries, interest on
the national debt, tax refunds and other payments. The debt limit is not new
spending but rather allows the government to finance existing legal
obligations.
It is right there in the proposed budget plan from the Republican Study Committee, which proposed “raising the eligibility ages for
each program, along with withholding payments for individuals who retire early
or had a certain income, and privatized funding for Social Security to lower
income taxes.”
As Steve Benen notes,
If Republicans gain the majority, "they’ll demand changes to Social
Security and Medicare, and if the White House balks, GOP lawmakers will simply
refuse to raise the debt ceiling." Worse come to worse, they reason, at
least they'll crash the economy, and that's not nothing.
When Kevin McCarthy asks "where can we eliminate some
waste?" his crew won't stop at earned benefits. The idea is to put on the
table anything for the elderly, the poor, even the middle class. And they plan,
if they don't get their way, to wreck the economy because that would pave the
way for a GOP presidential victory in 2024.
We will need more than the occasional, though valuable,
warning from President Biden:
Recognizing that there was no chance they'd garner 60 votes
to pass this in their own chamber, Senate Democrats in July offered legislation
that would guarantee women can continue using contraception
if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns the long-standing precedent, the way it did
with abortion.
But Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst blocked their efforts by
objecting to Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed Markey’s request for unanimous
consent to pass the bill, saying the measure went too far.
Under Senate procedures, no roll call vote was taken.
Unanimous consent is a fast-track way to pass bills in the
Senate, but any senator can object and block the legislation. The other path
forward for bills would require the votes of 60 senators in the evenly divided
Senate to advance beyond a filibuster....
Democratic lawmakers and advocates began raising alarm bells
the day of the ruling about Associate Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurring
opinion in the case.
Thomas, who was nominated by President George H. W. Bush,
wrote that the justices should reconsider all the precedents that rely on the
substantive due process legal reasoning that kept abortion legal nationwide for
nearly half a century.
Thomas specifically cited the 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut
ruling that recognized married couples’ right to use contraception, the 2003
Lawrence v. Texas ruling that invalidated laws criminalizing adult private
consensual sexual relationships, and the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges case that
legalized same-sex marriages...
The House-passed contraception bill and the Senate version
would specifically protect oral contraceptives, long-acting reversible
contraceptives, emergency contraceptives, internal and external condoms,
injectables, vaginal barrier methods, transdermal patches, and vaginal rings,
or other contraceptives.
The measures would allow the attorney general, an individual
or a health care provider to file a civil lawsuit against any government or
person who violates the law.
Abortion, as well as continuance of democracy, held the
opportunity- a realistic, obvious opportunity- for Democrats to set the terms
for the elections this cycle. Instead:
The 24/7 fearmongering on crime is trumping abortion rights. The Democrats are asleep at the wheel and don't seem to know what hit them. Joe Biden, get ready to get impeached in about 5 months https://t.co/SmUuU2CXOo
Reproductive freedom, as well as continuance of democracy,
presented a realistic, obvious opportunity for Democrats to set the terms of
debate for this election cycle. Yet, in Senate races which should have been won
easily, in Pennsylvania and Georgia respectively, the Democratic nominee is
focusing on his opponent's elitism or playing defense and looking not to
offend. In most of the country, Democratic candidates have decided that drilling
down on an issue or on the authoritarian preference of Republicans is simply
too risky.
A vacuum must be filled. Lacking a compelling message from
the Democratic Party, most voters are now motivated by inflation/gas
prices, somewhat by crime. If this continues through
Election Day, Democrats will have themselves at least in part to blame.
Tulsi Gabbard, continuing her tour explaining why she no longer belongs to the Party which she wanted to represent as the presidential nominee way back in 2020, has told Chris Cuomo
We should- our President needs to step up and bring the
stakeholders around the table and have a negotiated end to this war that has
been escalating ever since Putin invaded Ukraine back in February. That's what
a leader would do. That's what President JFK would do. That's what Ronald
Reagan....
After Cuomo followed up, Gabbard added
If you look at what the reports were when representatives
from Russia and Ukraine were actually negotiating all the way back in March, it
was the united States that was coming in and saying "Hey, no, don't make a
deal here. Don't make a deal. Hold out."
The host responds, and the guest continues
There was a time, there was a time, early on, where both
Russia and Ukraine were saying "Hey, we need to have a conversation. It
was the President of the United States and maybe others in NATO who were
telling them "leave the negotiating table." Every single American
should be pissed off about that because who has suffered the most? The people
of Ukraine have suffered the most and people here in the United States are
continuing to struggle and wonder the hell are we doing here.
If untrue, this is dangerous revisionist history because
it pertains to the USA's approach to a
negotiated peace. Gabbard cited no evidence in defense of her (alleged)
recollection. Journalist Julia Mendel, once a press secretary for Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelensky, wrote in September of her
visit to Zelensky’s headquarters in Kyiv a few weeks ago.
There, not far from the spot where I once worked as Zelensky’s press secretary,
I met with senior presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak. (These days Podolyak
is often described as one of the most powerful people in Ukraine, not far
behind the president himself.)
As Podolyak pointed out to me, it’s a myth — often asserted
by the Russians, by the way — that Ukraine isn’t ready for talks. In fact,
Podolyak already has experience of sitting at a table opposite a delegation
from Moscow. In February, he was part of the Ukrainian negotiation team that
met with Russian representatives at the border with Belarus just as the war was
getting underway.
The Russian negotiators, fully believing their own
propaganda, issued ultimatums to “demilitarize” and “denazify” Ukraine.
“They kept calling us ‘Nazis,’ ” he told me. “It shows you
how degraded Russian diplomacy and consequently the political process is.” He
told me that even some of the members of the Russian delegation he has known
for years referred to him with this label.
The Ukrainian delegation came with a mandate to do
everything it could to start a dialogue. At the time, Russia was killing
countless Ukrainian citizens and destroying Ukrainian cities; Ukraine had
prevented the Russian troops from taking the capital but had not yet fully
driven them out of the area to the north of Kyiv. The Kremlin demanded that
Ukrainians lay down their arms and surrender. “They were completely
unprepared,” Podolyak recalls. “The Russians knew nothing about the state of
our army. They described some of our bases, which are exclusively under
Ukrainian jurisdiction, as NATO bases. … The only thing they had to offer was
war and blackmail.”
The last round of talks, held in Turkey at the end of March,
ended with the Ukrainians handing over a communique with a proposal to end the
war.
The Ukrainian delegation presented a proposal for a new
system of security guarantees that would define Ukraine’s status as a neutral
nonaligned nonnuclear state. Ukraine offered to negotiate the status of Crimea
separately within 15 years, without the use of military means. Separately, the
presidents of Ukraine and Russia would discuss the status of Donetsk and
Luhansk regions.
The Russians responded by saying that they would give
Ukraine a gift “that would please them very much.” That meant, Podolyak said,
“that they would withdraw their troops from Kyiv region.” (By then, of course,
Ukrainian fighters had already defeated the Russian forces marching on Kyiv.)
But what the Ukrainians discovered after the withdrawal
filled them with horror. In Bucha, investigators discovered the bodies of more
than 400 civilians — their hands often tied behind their backs — who were shot
by the Russian invaders. There is evidence of torture and rape. Hundreds remain
missing. What the Ukrainians saw was shocking in its brutality, this “not only
canceled out the Istanbul communique but also our understanding of what Russia
is.”
I asked what he meant by this: “We saw that the Russian army
wasn’t just fighting, it was destroying,” Podolyak told me. “And they were
doing it on the principle of genocide — not on the basis of ethnicity but of
affiliation with the Ukrainian state. As if it didn’t matter who you were
ethnically, what language you spoke, they would kill because you were a citizen
of Ukraine.”
Even after visiting the site of the massacres on April 4,
Zelensky still confirmed his readiness to negotiate: “We strive for peace, we
deserve it. And these people showed it, and the Armed Forces showed it. Peace
is impossible without victory.” And yet, he added: “We do not want to lose
millions of people. That is why there should be dialogue.
Maybe Biden (or the State Department) did throw a monkey
wrench into negotiations- but it appears otherwise. If Tulsi Gabbard doesn't
have hard evidence to back up her serious allegation, she needs to remember that
silence is golden.
In what should itself be a disturbing passage, Patricia
Mazzei, the Miami bureau chief for The New York Times, editorializes- uh, er,
writes
Nikolas Cruz, the profoundly disturbed young man who carried
out a massacre in the hallways of his former high school four years ago,
igniting an anti-gun-violence movement led by students raised in an era of mass
shootings, should not be condemned to death and instead should spend the rest
of his life in prison, a state jury said on Thursday.
The jury of seven men and five women decided that Mr. Cruz
should get life in prison without the possibility of parole for all 17
first-degree murder counts in the case, following less than a day of
deliberations in a grueling and often emotional sentencing trial.
"Disturbed" is a conclusion, one which defense counsel wanted the jury to draw. There is no category for "disturbed" in criminal law, though there is
"disturbance of the peace," which is slightly less than the murder of
seventeen innocent strangers. The Google search engine would take the curious to
"temporary insanity," which defense attorneys did not plead, lest
they themselves be accused of being insane.
Nonetheless, Mazzei reports
Nikolas Cruz was born a damaged person, Melisa McNeill, the
lead public defender in his sentencing trial, told jurors during her closing
argument on Tuesday.
She described Mr. Cruz as “poisoned” by his biological
mother’s heavy drinking while she was pregnant with him. That led to fetal
alcohol spectrum disorder, which was misdiagnosed by experts throughout Mr.
Cruz’s life, Ms. McNeill said, despite the slew of developmental problems and
sometimes violent behavior he exhibited, which overwhelmed his adoptive mother.
Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz told a prosecution
psychiatrist he began contemplating a mass murder during middle school, doing
extensive research on earlier killers to learn their methods and mistakes to
shape his own plans, video played at his penalty trial showed Monday.
Cruz told Dr. Charles Scott during a March jailhouse
interview that five years before he murdered 17 at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman
Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018, he read about the 1999 murder of 13 at
Colorado's Columbine High School, which first sparked the idea of his own mass
killing.
Cruz told Scott how Columbine, the 2007 murder of 32 at
Virginia Tech University and the 2012 killing of 12 at a Colorado movie theater
all played a part in his own preparation.
"I studied mass murderers and how they did it,"
Cruz told Scott. "How they planned, what they got and what they
used." He said he learned to watch for people coming around corners to
stop him, to keep some distance from people as he fired, to attack "as
fast as possible" and, in the earlier attacks, "the police didn't do
anything."
"I should have the opportunity to shoot people for
about 20 minutes," Cruz said.
The Parkland attack was not the impulsive act of a "disturbed"
(whatever that is) person, provoked by the victims, or induced by another immediate
factor. It was a premeditated act of murder committed by someone with a history
of violence, who conducted extensive research, purchased a semi-automatic
weapon in 2018, and modified the firearm.
That is the portrait of someone less disturbed than evil.
Many such people exist, notwithstanding our wish to the contrary. Some of the even were birthed by an alcoholic
matter, and whose resulting condition may have gone misdiagnosed. Unlike Nikola Cruz, they are not bloodthirsty, nor so disciplined as
to plan assiduously such a horrific crime. Today, a jury in Fort Lauderdale, Florida,
determined to grant mercy, cast aside its duty to pursue justice.
Inflation and the economy may be the centerpiece of the GOP
sell to voters ahead of November’s elections. But in recent months, the party
has doubled down on the issue of crime, running ads across the country in key
races accusing Democratic messaging and policy of failing to combat crime.
The harshest example of where that rhetoric has led may have
come over the weekend, when Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville claimed
Democrats were “pro-crime” because “they want to control what you have” and
want “reparations” for “the people that do the crime.
Crime, with its insinuations about race, is uppermost in the
mind of Republicans as candidates- and Democrats as, well, Democrats. However, it is not paramount in GOP thinking as legislators or public officials. Rather, as Jonathan Chait writes
Bloomberg’s Jack Fitzpatrick interviewed several Republican
contenders to lead the House Budget Committee. They all said, with varying
levels of specificity, that they plan to instigate a debt-ceiling standoff to
force Biden to accept cuts to retirement and health-care programs. “Our main
focus has got to be on nondiscretionary — it’s got to be on entitlements,” said
Representative Buddy Carter. Representative Jodey Arrington said he wants
“eligibility reforms,” which means raising the eligibility age and imposing a
means test for Social Security and Medicare benefits. “We should ensure that we
keep the promises that were made to the people who really need it, the people
who are relying on it,” said Representative Lloyd Smucker. “So some sort of
means-testing potentially would help to ensure that we can do that"...
With means testing, the GOP would turn Medicare and Social
Security into welfare programs. Then, of course, the GOP would attack welfare
and urge voters to reject Democratic politicians wanting to hand out "free
stuff."
Chait adds
Last June, the Republican Study Committee, a conservative
caucus that includes more than three-quarters of the House Republicans,
released a sweeping domestic-budget plan. It received little attention in the
mainstream media. The plan, notes Fitzpatrick, would
gradually raise the Medicare age of eligibility to 67 and
the Social Security eligibility to 70 before indexing both to life expectancy.
It backed withholding payments to those who retired early and had earnings over
a certain limit. And it endorsed the consideration of options to reduce payroll
taxes that fund Social Security and redirect them to private alternatives. It
also urged lawmakers to “phase-in an increase in means testing” for Medicare.
Conservative media, wary of public backlash, ignored these
planned cuts to earned benefits and instead celebrated the other proposals of
the NSC, including ones pertaining to energy
production, immigration, China, and transsexuals. Chait concludes by explaining that
Representative Arrington told Bloomberg's Fitzpatrick
he would prefer not to detail his proposals because “this
can get so politicized.” Politicized, of course, is a term people use when they
want the political system to advance their policy agenda without discussing it
openly. The plan is to round up party support quietly, gain power without
discussing it, then force the opposing party to make it happen.
The other bait-and-switch was almost inevitable in the wake
of the Black Lives Matter protests (uniformly applauded by Democrats and media
centrists), which in a very few instances included violence perpetrated by a
few participants. Video of the activism, seen endlessly by Fox News viewers and others, heightened fear to an irrational level. Thus followed the other
bait-and-switch: crime! in Democrat cities!
This is an election year in which Republicans can win only if Democrats allow them to hide their overarching
goal of pandering to their donors, curbing the middle and lower classes, and reinforcing rule of, by, and for the economic elite.
At a fund-raiser on October 6 in New York City, President
Biden stated
We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy
and the Cuban Missile Crisis. We are trying to figure out: What is Putin's
off-ramp? Where does he find a way out? Where does he find himself where he
does not only lose face but significant power?
On Friday evening's
Real Time, Bill Maher asked his panel of Chris Christie and journalists Chris
Wallace and Katty Kay to respond to a question from an audience member about
Biden's invocation of "Armageddon."
Although a supporter of the President's Afghanistan policy, Kay wisely
stated (as can be seen beginning at 6:45 of the video below)
I'm not sure the use of the word "Armageddon" is
very helpful. I mean, Putin wants us to be afraid and you can- I mean, half of
Europe is up in arms about him saying "Armageddon" because actually
all that does is play in to Putin's desire to make us afraid. You can say
there's a serious threat and there is a serious threat....
Historian Timothy Snyder, who believes Russian forces
probably will eventually pull out of Ukraine, notes "Right now, though, we have a certain
difficulty seeing how Ukraine gets to victory, even as the Ukrainians
advance. This is because many of our imaginations
are trapped by a single and rather unlikely variant of how the war ends: with a
nuclear detonation."
Perhaps stuck in the 1960s-1970s, Biden painted a more worrisome
scenario, seemingly unaware that even if Putin were to launch a nuclear weapon,
the consequences would be less severe than they would have been during the
Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1962, it was widely assumed that escalation would
result in an exchange of strategic, rather than tactical, nuclear weapons,
possibly resulting in the end of civilization. Moreover, the extent of development of tactical nuclear weapons by both the USA and the USSR was
largely unknown during the period in which Joe Biden was emerging as a
prominent public official, which probably informs his understanding of nuclear
firepower.
By contrast, Katty Kay would maintain "Bill Burns, the
director of the CIA who thank goodness used to be the ambassador to Moscow has
made it very clear to the Russians that were they to launch any kind of
tactical or small nuclear weapon...."
Also making sense (and it's hard to type those words) was
Christie, the former terrible governor of New Jersey, failed presidential candidate, and (usually) Trump supporter. He remarks (beginning at 7:54)
when he says nuclear Armageddon, it's clear to me doesn't
understand it because he's causing alarm in a way that is not productive- like,
you know, what if you really think that, then go and try to fix it but don't
give us some pronouncements, scare the crap out of everybody.
Following a comment by Maher and one (dead on) from Wallace,
Christie continued
To me, the problem with him saying this stuff is your job is
not to be a weatherman when you're President. "Oh, let me show you what
the map looks like." It's to go and come with a solution. And to say "oh,
yeah, we're close to nuclear Armageddon we've been since 1962." Now,
genius, what are you going to do about it?
The former disastrous governor is still what he
always has been- charismatic, gruff-talking, opportunistic, egotistical, and up
Donald Trump's rear end, albeit not as far as Ted Cruz and some others.
Nonetheless, the former dreadful governor, though far too
smart a retail politician to put it this way, recognizes the disconnect between
Biden's rhetoric and his actions. If the President truly believes that the
world may be on its way to obliteration, he needs to be doing far more than he
is. His actions don't meet the moment- if the situation is as dire as he
describes it.
Fortunately, as Snyder and almost everyone else believe,
it's very unlikely that strategic nuclear weapons will start flying. That's
very good. Having to defend Chris Christie, the hideous former governor of New
Jersey, is not.
The unemployment rate isn't tangible to most people. And if you've recently obtained employment, you probably don't credit the President of the USA. So, no one cares.
Inflation is more tangible than job creation to people. It's
especially important politically as expressed in gas prices, which drivers
recognize as they stop at a gas station, or even pass by one and observe the
numbers posted. Thus, from "an organizational strategy hub for left-leaning organizations that helps identify key elections":
This is how to go on offense on the economy and inflation. Imagine the Spanish version running in states like AZ? pic.twitter.com/3pE0oATbLw
— Rachel Bitecofer 📈🔭🇺🇲🇺🇦 (@RachelBitecofer) October 5, 2022
(Wife, presumably): "Did you get coffee?"
(Husband, presumably): "I did. And it got us right
back."
(Wife, presumably): "What? Whoa. This inflation is no
joke."
(Husband, presumably): "Yeah. Republicans need to stop
whining and start helping."
Many independent voters blame both sides, which they
experience as complaining, as whining.
Talk, talk, talk and nothing gets done, they themselves complain. They're looking for elected officials to do something.
Inflation is the issue most on the minds of voters, and this ad turns the issue back on the GOP. Democratic politicians themselves are reluctant to blame Republicans but this ad reminds voters that Republicans complain without offering solutions. Nice.
In February, the family of a black juvenile arrested in New Jersey hired renown lawyer Benjamin Crump and
Z’Kye Husain appeared Friday on CNN with Crump and his
mother, Ebone Husain, to discuss the viral video showing police officers in
Bridgewater, N.J., responding to a fight at a mall and arresting Husain, who is
Black, but not arresting the other participant in the fight, who was Latino.
Z’Kye, who is in eighth grade, told CNN’s John Berman he got
into the fight with an 11th grader to defend a friend of his. During the
arrest, Z’Kye said he felt “inferior” and “less important.”
“I was mad that they treated me differently,” he said.
In the video, a white male officer tackles the Black teen to
the ground and handcuffs him, while a white female officer sits the Latino teen
down as her partner makes the arrest. The female officer then walks away from
the Latino teen, who is not cuffed, and assists with detaining the Black
teen.
Wait for it...
Crump, who has worked with the families of George Floyd and
Ahmaud Arbery, said the incident shows “there are two justice systems in
America.”
“One for Black America and one for white America,” he said.
“The reason I think this video is so viral is because now we see it. People
have been saying forever that police treat us differently, and we have to do
something about this.”
(It appears the incident is still being investigated by the
county prosecutor's office. assisting "an internal affairs investigation
that is strictly adhering to the New Jersey Attorney General's Internal Affairs
Directive.")
Crump argues that there are two justice systems in the USA, the premise of his well-paid activism.
However, there are thousands more, each local law enforcement force being unique. Sometimes police officers are overzealous,
whatever the race of the suspect. Case in point:
A San Antonio police officer still in his probationary
period was fired after he shot at and injured a 17-year-old boy in the parking
lot of McDonald's, the department said Wednesday.
The teenager, Erik Cantu, is hospitalized with multiple
gunshot wounds. His condition was not known Friday morning.
The officer, identified as James Brennand, responded to the
fast-food eatery on Blanco Road around 10:45 p.m. Sunday for an unrelated
disturbance call, according to police.
"As the officer attempted to gather information from
witnesses, he noticed a vehicle that had evaded him the day before as the
officer attempted a stop because the registered license plate did not match the
actual vehicle," Capt. Alyssa Campos, the department’s training commander,
said in a video statement.
The car, driven by Cantu, was not the subject of the
disturbance call at the McDonald's, according to Campos.
The officer, believing the car was stolen, called "for
cover" but approached the vehicle before other officers arrived, she said.
Campos said the officer "abruptly" opened the driver's door and
ordered Cantu to get out.
Police body-camera footage released by the department shows
Cantu sitting in the driver's seat eating a McDonald's hamburger. A 17-year-old
girl is in the passenger's seat.
"Get out of the car," the officer says to Cantu,
the video shows.
Cantu put the car in reverse with the driver's door still
open and backed up, Campos said, adding the officer was hit by the open door.
"The officer then stepped back and opened fire on the
vehicle as the driver reversed away from him," she said.
Multiple gunshots can be heard in the video as the maroon
car backs away and the driver's door closes. More shots are fired as the car
flees the parking lot, the video shows.
Cantu and his passenger were found about a block away. The
passenger was not injured.
Police charged Cantu with evading detention with a vehicle
and assault on a peace officer. It's not clear if he has obtained an attorney
who can speak on his behalf. Police have not said if the car was, in fact,
stolen.
The matter has been referred to the district attorney's
office for investigation and Brennand, easily dismissed because he was still on
probation with the department, has not been charged with an offense.
It's only two days since Erik Cantu was shot in Texas.
Benjamin Crump will be arriving shortly in San Antonio to preen before
cameras and represent the Cantu family.
Cable news outlets will cover this incident extensively, emphasizing the
need to root out injustice and brutality in the nation's police forces. And it will snow in Miami.
