The Washington Post reports today that consumer sentiment softened this month. That’s true enough. But they also say this:
That pessimism is altering consumers’ spending habits. McDonald’s, Home Depot, Under Armour and Starbucks all recently reported disappointing earnings, as people cut back on fast food, kitchen renovations, sneakers and afternoon lattes.
….Employers are adding fewer jobs, wage growth has decelerated, and Americans are holding off on big purchases like homes, cars and washing machines.
Come on, folks. Do we have to keep doing this? Nobody has to guess at consumer buying habits by looking at fast food, kitchen renovations, sneakers or afternoon lattes. Why? Because every month the government publishes a nice, tidy summary of all consumer spending. Here it is through March:
If the Washington Post thinks the government is rigging the statistics they should say so. But maybe they don’t know about government statistics. Maybe someone should tell them.
Kevin concludes:
And guess what? The government also publishes lots of other handy statistics! I’ll spare you the charts, but real wage growth has been up steadily; home sales are down from their 2021 boom year but have increased lately; auto sales are up and have been steady lately; and durable goods consumption is up. Inflation has been hovering around 3% for an entire year, which is not especially dire. Hell, even consumer sentiment, which sparked this article in the first place, has been steadily up except for the single month of May—so it’s a little early to be pretending there’s some kind of downward trend.
It’s hard not to feel like giving up sometimes. This is not arcane information. It’s all easily available in a matter of minutes from FRED or the agency websites. So why does the Post publish a jumble of misleading or outright incorrect economic statistics instead of just looking them up first? I will never figure this out.
I think they have decided that “vibes” are all that matters. It stems from the idea that if they send an expedition into the wilds of America and a bunch of right wing men in an Idaho diner complain about prices, that’s the story. It’s not actually new except for the fact that they used to at least pay some attention to the actual statistics.
It’s either that or they feel such a need to prove that they aren’t liberal that they are purposefully sabotaging Biden’s re-election. It wouldn’t be the first time.
For many months former president Donald Trump’s henchmen pushed the candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as an agent of chaos and a boon to Trump’s latest bid for the presidency. Salon’s Amanda Marcotte presciently called out their strategy in a piece last May called “Of course Steve Bannon and Alex Jones love RFK Jr. — he’s a great weapon for their war on reality.” At that time Kennedy was running in the Democratic primary and it was easy to dismiss the right wing “support” from the likes of Bannon and Jones as well as former Trump admirer and QANON adherent Michael Flynn, Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk and Trump henchman Roger Stone as partisan mischief. But it was more than that. They touted Kennedy as a perfect Trump running mate — a “dream ticket” ostensibly to attract low information, liberal anti-vaxxers and environmentalists to the GOP.
Unfortunately for the Trumpers, their tactics appear to have backfired.
Bannon worked this idea hard, suggesting that a Trump Kennedy ticket would win in a landslide. In one of his podcasts last spring he told his audience that when MAGA crowds heard him say that Kennedy would be an excellent choice for Trump’s V.P., he would get a standing ovation. (Kennedy denies that they ever spoke about it.)
In the beginning, Trump was very complimentary, calling Kennedy a “very smart guy, and a good guy. He’s a common-sense guy, and so am I. So, whether you’re conservative or liberal, common sense is common sense.” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, while he was still in the primary, said that he would appoint the conspiracy theorist, anti-vaxxer to run the FDA or the CDC. Even Tucker Carlson declared that Kennedy was not an extremist, extolling his character as “deeply insightful and above all honest.” The House Republicans called him to testify about censorship (because twitter had banned him for spewing dangerous vaccine disinformation.) They all just loved the guy.
When Kennedy dropped out of the Democratic primary to run as an independent, the assumption among the political pundits was that this was yet another disaster for the Biden campaign. He had been garnering around 15 to 20% in the primary polls and the glittering Kennedy name was considered a massive draw among Democratic voters. If he could hold that 15% in a general election Trump would win. Maybe that bizarre Trump-Kennedy ticket wasn’t going to happen but Bannon looked like a hero in that moment for drawing Kennedy into the race anyway.
But then a funny thing happened. Right after he announced his independent bid , NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist , conducted a poll that found Biden would beat Trump in by 49 to 46%, but when Kennedy entered the mix, Biden’s lead over Trump jumped to 7 points. (Biden lost 5 points, but Trump lost 10.) It turns out that the “common sense guy” who pushes a raft of conspiracy theories is more appealing to the right than the left. Who could have guessed?
In case you’re wondering, here’s a very small sample of his cracked beliefs. Setting aside his decades-long disinformation campaign against vaccines, he has also said that mass shootings are caused by antidepressents and that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was a neocon and CIA operation. He promises to seal the border permanently and thinks that kids are swimming through a soup of toxic chemicals that cause them to become transgender. And he thinks 5G cell towers are going to control our behavior and Bill Gates want to genetically modify humanity. That’s just for starters. This “common sense guy” is a full fledged conspiracy freak. It stands to reason that he would be popular among Republicans. They “do their own research” too.
That polling has not changed in the intervening months. A recent NBC poll showed that Trump leads Biden by two points but with Kennedy in the race, Biden leads by the same number. Trump’s favorite pollster, John McLaughlin, showed an even more alarming result among Independents in its new survey. In the head to head, Indies preferred Biden by 4. But with Kennedy on the ballot, it’s Biden 29%, Kennedy 23% and Trump 22%. All of this explains why Donald Trump has suddenly gone on the offensive against Kennedy in a big way.
He first tried to spin this on a Truth Social video by saying that Kennedy has “got some nice things about him” and “I happen to like him”, but he’s really “more in line with Democrats” and he believes that he “will do very well” and take a lot of votes from Biden. He offered that if he were a Democrat he would vote for him. That’s what passes for subtlety from Donald Trump.
But those numbers must be getting worse because now he’s taken off the gloves and poor junior isn’t a nice guy after all. In one of his most “up-is-down” rants ever, Trump filmed another Truth Social video claiming that RFK Jr is a “Democratic plant” and a “Radical Left Liberal who’s been put in place in order to help Crooked Joe Biden, the Worst President in the History of the United States, get Re-Elected.” As we’ve seen, if he’s a plant he’s a Republican plant, coaxed into the race by Steve Bannon and Roger Stone. And Trump actually had the audacity to issue one of the most ridiculous whoppers ever. He said that Kennedy isn’t a real anti-vaxxer:
Donald Trump is worried he is losing his anti-vax supporters to RFK Jr:
“He said that vaccines are fine…Those of you who want to vote because you think he's an anti-vaxxer, he's not really an anti-vaxxer.” pic.twitter.com/PJnuY6OXqG
— Republican Voters Against Trump (@AccountableGOP) May 9, 2024
You think he’s an anti-vaxxer, he’s not really an anti-vaxxer. That’s only his political moment. He said the other night he’s okay with a vaccine. RFK’s views on vaccines are fake, as is everything else about his candidacy.
Say what you will about RFK Jr, but he isthe nation’s foremost anti-vaxxer and has been for many years. If that’s your jam, he’s the real deal. Trump, on the other hand, is the guy who is yearning to take credit for the COVID vaccines for green-lighting the sped up development, but he can’t because he gets booed by his cult followers. He’s the fake anti-vaxxer.
Over the weekend Trump sounded uncharacteristically desperate at the NRA convention on Saturday slamming Kennedy again, saying that he calls the NRA a terrorist group and comparing him to a fly that was driving him crazy.
Trump: RFK Jr. calls you a terrorist group.
His family is angry at him (for registering Independent). They won't talk to him. We can't waste any votes.
I'll be meeting with Libertarians…we have to join with them because we need their votes. We can't take a chance on Biden. pic.twitter.com/5YCnDLWwyv
There’s no way of knowing if Kennedy will get on the ballot in all the swing states or if people will actually vote for him or one of the other third party candidates in November. It would be better not to have them running when the stakes are so high. But it would be poetic justice if Steve Bannon putting an anti-vax conspiracy theorist into the mix proved to be Trump’s undoing. Live by the rat-f***k, die by the rat-f***k.
Jonathan Last on Friday made sure readers saw clearly that for Republicans “law and order” has a very, very narrow meaning. Last was commenting on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s pardon of Daniel Perry, convicted and sentenced to 25 years for the vigilante murder of Garrett Foster during a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest in 2020.
Last recounts the details that put Perry, a racist murderer, behind bars, but the key detail is Abbott’s pardon:
There is no legal or moral justification for pardoning Perry. His trial was fair. The jury acted reasonably. The laws he broke were well-defined and serious. He is not a good guy who had one bad moment. There is no indication that he has repented and become a different man than the one who fantasized about murder and then carried it out.
The only reason to pardon Perry is political. Pardoning Perry creates political gain for Gov. Abbott because his constituents like Perry. And these voters like Perry precisely because of who he murdered.
Texas last year passed a law allowing the removal of “rogue” elected district attorneys like the one who brought charges against Perry, and like the ones removed in Florida by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
While pardoning Perry, Gov. Abbott claimed that Garza had “demonstrated unethical and biased misuse of his office in prosecuting Daniel Scott Perry.”
Texas Republicans are not content to allow Perry’s murder of Garrett Foster. They also want to send a message that even using the law to bring charges against members of the ingroup who kill members of the outgroup is verboten.
That is what “law and order” means to Republicans. And it is all perfectly legal.
Will Bunch tells Philadelphia Inquirer readers that the Perry pardon “was a gross injustice in a former Confederate state that reeked of the bad old days of Southern jury nullification, a modern update on the impunity with which white men lynched Emmett Till and then laughed at justice.” This was not simply another warning light on the dashboard of democracy, a “Check Engine” light we’ve learned to ignore:
In this sprawling state of just over 30 million people, supposedly First Amendment-protected protests for causes like Black civil rights or against the slaughter of civilians in Gaza can, and probably will, expose you to arrest or state violence, risk your schooling or your job, or — when all else fails — leave you in danger of deadly vigilante justice. Abbott’s pardon was the last bootheel on Texans’ right to dissent.
Administrators at the public University of Texas-San Antonio were caught on video by the Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) telling students that they’d be turned over to police if they merely chanted, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” It hardly seemed an idle threat after Abbott had sent state troopers clad in riot gear to UT’s main campus in Austin to forcefully shut down a large pro-Palestinian protest as soon as it began.
Texas’ overly harsh, militarized approach to protests is an inevitable outgrowth of the Lone Star State’s hyper-aggressive response to migrants at its southern border. The Abbott administration has spent an astronomical $11 billion, and counting, on maintaining a massive Texas army of soldiers who’ve threatened the federal government’s supposed hegemony over border issues.
The governor’s tin soldiers have — unlawfully, federal courts have found — strung razor wire and other barriers on the Rio Grande to deter asylum seekers. The wires have slashed desperate kids and pregnant moms, and efforts to evade them have been blamed for several migrant drownings — joining the Air Force veteran Foster in the rising body count of a U.S. state in thrall to violent authoritarianism.
Coming soon to state near you, Bunch warns, “Texas is merely the leading edge of the storm.”
Republicans are signaling daily that the law only applies to out-groups as they define them, driven by their “instinctive revulsion against the leveling of hierarchies and social change.” Those of a certain age recall religious and political conservatives railing against the supposed moral relativism of the 1960s left. Nowadays, they view the application of law as relative to one’s place on the social ladder, determined at its coarsest grit by the color of one’s skin, and more subtly by the color of someone’s politics.
“Nowadays” is generous. Jim Crow enforced that legal regime for 100 years. It just went underground for fifty or so years since the Civil Rights movement.
Everything that’s happening in Abbott’s Texas — the relentless war against liberalism and education itself, the influence of a corporate oligarchy, the surge of Christian nationalism, the war on feminism that features its strict abortion ban, and its own state military and militarized cops now deployed against its own people — is textbook fascism. The crackdown on dissent is the flame that keeps this downward spiral going. Knowing that attending a protest can expose you to legalized vigilante murder is just pouring more Texas crude on the fire.
It’s important to remember that — whether or not you agree with the cause — state violence currently directed at pro-Palestinian protests from Brooklyn to Austin is merely a trial run for what could come if Trump is sworn in for a second presidency in January. He has already pledged to send out troops to crush any Inauguration Day protests. But the best way to stop full-blown autocracy in 2025 is to speak out against the police-state authoritarianism we have now.
Speaking out is not enough. Get active. Donate to local campaigns. Knock doors. Turn out voters. That is, if you expect to get another chance.
Update: Removed a line about Foster’s race. Misremembered that and did not check. Thx: AR.
International alliances are sometimes untidy affairs. Some are built on ideological or cultural common ground. Others on trade or security interests. Or a mix. We Americans like to think of ourselves as the good guys allied with other good guys, but that’s a flattering oversimplification.
Our WWII alliance with the Soviet Union under Stalin’s murderous regime was one of strategic necessity that lasted long enough to defeat Nazi Germany, and no longer. When the Saudis murdered and dismembered dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, Americans expressed appropriate outrage for an appropriate interval and then went about our business. Because the Saudis are good for U.S. business.
Now Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists and its toll on civilians in Gaza is straining U.S. relations with its longtime ally. It’s about to get more strained. This is breaking news (New York Times):
The International Criminal Court prosecutor, Karim Khan, said Monday that he had requested arrest warrants for the leaders of Hamas and for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel for war crimes and crimes against humanity in relation to the Oct. 7 attack and the war in Gaza.
In a statement, Mr. Khan said he was applying for arrest warrants for Yahya Sinwar, Muhammad Deif and Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas. He also said he was requesting warrants for Mr. Netanyahu and for Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant.
Why it matters: The move, by ICC prosecutor Karim Khan, will further isolate Israel internationally and increase pressure on the Biden administration to press Netanyahu to end the war in Gaza. It could also trigger legislation by Congress against the ICC.
This is the first time the ICC seeks arrest warrants against a major U.S. ally, as well as the first time it has issued warrants for the leader of a democratic country.
Israel is not a member of the ICC.
A panel of judges will decide whether to issue the warrants.
The decision puts Netanyahu in the company of the Russian President Vladimir Putin, for whom the ICC issued an arrest warrant over Moscow’s war on Ukraine, and the Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi, who was facing an arrest warrant from the ICC for alleged crimes against humanity at the time of his capture and killing in October 2011.
So grab your RE50s, D.C. press corps, and prepare for a morning of maximum posturing by spokespersons from MAGAstan. (At least from those not making a pilgrimage this morning to the Donald Trump trial in Lower Manhattan to stare into that human abyss.) They’ll want to issue fist-shaking threats against the ICC for failing to heed their previous fist-shaking threats.
A dozen Republican senators have warned the International Criminal Court against issuing arrest warrants for Israeli officials over the nation’s conduct during the war in Gaza.
In a letter led by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), the senators warn ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan, citing reports that the court may be considering issuing international arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials.
Such actions are “illegitimate and lack legal basis,” the lawmakers wrote, warning they would result in severe sanctions against Khan and the ICC.
“Target Israel and we will target you. If you move forward with the measures indicated in the report, we will move to end all American support for the ICC, sanction your employees and associates, and bar you and your families from the United States,” the senators wrote in the letter sent April 24.
“You have been warned,” the letter concluded.
D’you hear that, Khan? “Severe.” Also sprach Tom Cotton, et al.
What Hamas did in its murderous rampage against Israeli civilians on October 7 was monstrous. And the carnage, destruction and starvation the Israeli military has since wrought against the people of Gaza in fighting monsters? Netanyahu might have consulted Nietzsche before staring into the abyss.
Donald Trump accusing Joe Biden of being a Manchurian candidate who deserves the electric chair for taking money from China and Russia is the ultimate projection.
Biden doesn't owe hundreds of millions to the CCP.
— thee nasty rougarou in the machine (@theerougarou) May 19, 2024
You’ll notice at the end of that ridiculous rant he also complains that Biden says he’s a “threat to democracy” plaintively wailing “what did I do?” He says he had “no wars” which is a lie. He didn’t get out of Afghanistan as he promised and his drone war was lethal. He had American troops in war zones all over the world.
But be that as it may, asking “what did I do?” to deserve being called a threat to democracy is a very stupid thing to say. He is the only president to have ever illegally tried to overturn an election so that he could stay in office and incite an insurrectionist mob to storm the Capitol and stop the peaceful transfer of power during a joint session of congress. Maybe his cult members in the NRA don’t believe that was a threat to democracy but it most assuredly was.
I confess to feeling a little bit disoriented lately by the flagrant gaslighting we are suffering through in this election. It’s worse than ever and it’s hard to force yourself to pay attention to it. I can’t say I blame the average voter for tuning it out.
A few more highlights from his NRA speech. It was a doozy.
Trump says he will appoint extreme MAGA judges who are as young as possible so they will be in power for “50 years” if he wins pic.twitter.com/5dBy4x02sD
There is no doubt that Alito and Thomas will retire if he wins.
Trump: And honestly, there's been no president since Abraham Lincoln, perhaps in a certain way including Abraham Lincoln, that has done more for the Black individual in this country than Donald J. Trump. Nobody. Not even close pic.twitter.com/EoEFTRZPrf
Trump: Even I say to myself ‘you’re a genius.’ I had an uncle, the longest-serving preside— professor in the history of MIT. He was a real genius. I believe in the racehorse theory. Fast horses produce fast horses. pic.twitter.com/WjEZbcV0js
Trump on his rambling tales of old phone calls: There is a genius to this. It all comes back into a beautiful picture. Did you notice? It all comes back into a beautiful picture! Great memory. It is a beautiful thing. pic.twitter.com/pUnghSGjjc
Trump: They asked him who is a better physical specimen, is it Donald Trump, or is it Obama? He said it is not even close, Donald Trump, not even close, I said I love this guy. Dr. Ronny Jackson pic.twitter.com/G8vIkc8d9D
“The Texas spirit of proud independence was forged by cowboys and cattle hands, ranchers and rangers, oil workers, soldiers and brave, brave, brave, pioneers,” Mr Trump told the crowd of gun owners.
“Many came here with nothing but the boots or their feet, the clothes on their back, and the gun in their saddle. Together they helped make America into the single greatest nation in the history of the world.”
At that moment, Mr Trump suddenly froze as music played. At one point in the lengthy pause, the former president shook his head.
“But now we are a nation in decline,” Mr Trump then continued. “We are a failing nation. We are a nation that has the highest inflation in 58 years, where banks are collapsing, and interest rates are skyrocketing.”
BREAKING: Donald Trump just glitched out and froze at his rally tonight. He is clearly unfit for office. Retweet so every American knows Trump is senile. pic.twitter.com/QTa5qKNy8H
He was 2 hours late for that speech with no explanation.
Just a reminder from that time he went to Walter Reed with no notice:
President Donald Trump posted a baffling tweet Tuesday declaring that he has not had a series of “mini-strokes” — and he had the White House physician release a statement backing up his claim.
“It never ends! Now they are trying to say that your favorite President, me, went to Walter Reed Medical Center, having suffered a series of mini-strokes. Never happened to THIS candidate – FAKE NEWS,” Trump tweeted.
No major media outlet appears to have reported in recent days that Trump had a series of mini-strokes.
Trump: So when we have a lot of cases, I don't look at that as a bad thing, I look at that as being a good thing. I view it as a badge of honor. Really, it's a badge of honor pic.twitter.com/C3KpBVWUon
Q: Why haven’t you announced a plan to get 36 million unemployed Americans back to work? You’re overseeing historic economic despair. What’s the delay? Where’s the plan?
When the greatest crisis of his presidency hit — a global pandemic the likes of which hadn’t been seen in one hundred years — he failed miserably. How anyone can think this man should be back in the White House is mind boggling and once he is dispatched next November, this nation is going to have to undergo some very serious soul searching to figure out what has happened to it and what to do about it.
Four years ago today, Trump said he would only support an economic stimulus bill if he could sign his name to it
Marjorie Taylor Greene and other MAGA leaders are demanding that Mike Johnson defind Jack Smith’s office. That’s ridiculous, of course but it’s good for fundraising, I guess. But Trump and his henchmen do have big plans for the DOJ and the FBI if they win in November:
Trump, who has been indicted on dozens of criminal charges by the Justice Department, has vowed on the campaign trail to overhaul the agency if he wins the presidential election on Nov. 5 and pledged to use it to pursue his own opponents, including Democratic President Joe Biden.
The plan is essentially twofold, according to the nine people interviewed by Reuters, some of whom requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
First: flood the Justice Department with stalwart conservatives unlikely to say “no” to controversial orders from the White House. Second: restructure the department so key decisions are concentrated in the hands of administration loyalists rather than career bureaucrats.00:11European utilities enjoy a Spring bounce
The FBI – which many Republicans see as biased against them – would have new constraints on its authority, with many of its responsibilities shifted to other law enforcement agencies, those people said.
“Trump feels that the DoJ has institutional problems,” said Steve Bannon, a prominent Trump ally who was prosecuted by the Justice Department and convicted for contempt of Congress. “It’s not just personnel: you do need to purge the DoJ, but you also need to reform it.”
Bannon has been convicted for criminal contempt of congress and is facing a jail term so he’s got a personal dog in this fight. (He’s also facing a criminal trial for fraud in New York for his “We Build The Wall” scam. It’s set for September now.)
Overhauling the Justice Department would allow the Trump administration to pursue conservative policy initiatives such as dismantling hiring programs meant to boost diversity in the workplace and ending federal oversight of police departments accused of racist practices.
[…]
Two prominent Trump allies told Reuters they support eliminating the FBI’s general counsel, an office that enraged Republicans during Trump’s 2017-2021 term for its role in approving an inquiry into contacts between his 2016 campaign and Russian officials.
The general counsel provides legal advice to FBI employees regarding ongoing probes and other matters. Closing it would force the bureau to receive legal guidance from people closer to Trump’s attorney general in the chain-of-command and limit the FBI’s ability to conduct investigations without close political oversight, according to several Trump supporters and legal professionals with knowledge of the department’s workings.
[…]
Both Bradbury and Hamilton also endorsed changing the Justice Department’s chain of command so the FBI director reports to a pair of politically appointed assistant attorneys general.The director currently reports to the deputy attorney general, a more senior official who in practice is too busy and has too large a portfolio to oversee and guide FBI probes, Bradbury said.
Bradbury and other legal experts said that change could be done without congressional authorization. He said these steps are necessary to ensure that the bureau’s enforcement priorities align with the White House’s policy preferences. Detractors say these measures will undermine the independence of the Justice Department and the FBI.
Some Trump allies and advisers also want to narrow dramatically the types of crimes the FBI can investigate, arguing the bureau’s focus is too sprawling for political appointees to oversee effectively. In a publicly available policy memo, which was published last July but received little attention, Bradbury said other law enforcement agencies, like the Drug Enforcement Administration, could take the lead where their jurisdiction overlaps with the bureau.
The remnants of the bureau, Bradbury wrote, could focus exclusively on “large-scale crimes and threats to national security” that require a federal response.
And then there’s the new Tammany Hall plan called Schedule F which will allow him to replace all experts and civil servants throughout the executive branch with MAGA morons who “do their own research.”
The most important aspect of all these plans for the DOJ is the overarching right wing view (which isn’t new) that it is not an independent agency but rather a political department that serves as the president’s personal police agency. In the hands of Donald Trump and his followers that’s just terrifying. It will be the new SS.
By the way, the 2020 Black vote came in at 8% for Trump.
Today Biden spoke at the Morehouse graduation. Everyone was worried there would be a massive protest or walkout. The Morehouse president had said that they were prepared to shut down the ceremony if such a thing happened (rather than call security or police) so everyone was on high alert.
There were a couple of awkward moments but no huge protest. The valedictorian ended his address by calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and Biden applauded and then later endorsed in his speech.There was no mass protest but a handful of graduates turned their backs on him. His speech seemed to be well received.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem for Biden among young Black men. A lot of young working class men of all races and ethnicity are attracted to Trump. That’s a sad comment on our culture but it is what it is. And Gaza has animated the young beyond any other issue and many of them blame Biden for the war. But when it comes down to voting, there’s a good chance that this massive racial realignment some of the polls are suggesting is overblown.
Biden has work to do with the Black community, for sure. Today was a good move and by all accounts he did well. I have every expectation that this is just the first of many examples of outreach.
President Biden gets a standing O as he is welcomed for his address. He kicks it off by focusing it on the graduates — and their families. “You had to make sacrifices to get your kids through school. It mattered. It mattered a lot.” #gapolpic.twitter.com/6dTt2Uyyxb
“If Black men are being killed in the street, what is democracy? … Most of all, what does it mean, as you’ve heard before, to be a Black man who loves his country even if it doesn’t love him back in equal measure.” pic.twitter.com/4zW0WiLRdz
Biden’s speech ends after he speaks of the Israel-Hamas war in broad terms, saying the conflict is “heartbreaking” and that he’s working to bring it to an end. His address is well received by students, alumni and their families — who cheer as he’s given an honorary degree. pic.twitter.com/rQUMkFWjAJ
Republican officials have completely lost any sense of decency. So much so that even Fox News MAGA adherents like Bartiromo are pushing back.
By the way, Murphy is a surgeon. Honestly, this sort of thing greatly worries me. MAGA seems to infect a lot of doctors and it makes me think it’s probably wise to determine whether yours has Fox News Brain Rot before you go under the knife.
Q: Viktor Orbán seized control of universities and put them in foundations that were run by his allies. He rewrote the Constitution, he neutered the courts, and he has tried to control the media. Is that what you're advocating for in the US?
Q: Viktor Orbán seized control of universities and put them in foundations that were run by his allies. He rewrote the Constitution, he neutered the courts, and he has tried to control the media. Is that what you’re advocating for in the US?
Trump VP contender Vance: I think he’s made smart decisions that we could learn from in the United States
There you have it.
As Michael Tomasky writes in the intro to The New Republic’s issue on American fascism:
[A]nyone transported back to 1932 Germany could very, very easily have explained away Herr Hitler’s excesses and been persuaded that his critics were going overboard. After all, he spent 1932 campaigning, negotiating, doing interviews—being a mostly normal politician. But he and his people vowed all along that they would use the tools of democracy to destroy it, and it was only after he was given power that Germany saw his movement’s full face.
Today, we at The New Republic think we can spend this election year in one of two ways. We can spend it debating whether Trump meets the nine or 17 points that define fascism. Or we can spend it saying, “He’s damn close enough, and we’d better fight.”
