Trump said Biden’s speech was an “angry, dark, hate-filled” divisive rant. And then he mocked Biden’s stutter and spent two hours spewing vile, grotesque rhetoric to rival even American Carnage
Early in his remarks at what was effectively his first campaign rally of the general election, former President Donald J. Trump on Saturday blasted President Biden’s State of the Union address as an “angry, dark, hate-filled rant” that was more divisive than unifying.
Then, in the nearly two hours that followed, Mr. Trump, speaking in Rome, Ga., used inflammatory language to stoke fears on immigration, and repeated his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
The former president, who faces four criminal cases, called the press “criminals.” And he mocked President Biden’s stutter and revived a litany of grievances against political opponents, prosecutors and television executives.
Mr. Trump told thousands of his supporters gathered at the rally that “everything Joe Biden touches” turns to filth, though he used an expletive to describe the result. “Everything. I tried finding a different word, but there are some words that cannot be duplicated.” (He used the word, or a variant, at least four times in his speech.)
He’s used the word fuck and motherfuckers in some speeches before. It’s only a matter of time before he starts doing it commonly as he’s now using the words shit and bullshit. His classy followers love it.
He went on to pitch the now usual Nazi-esque ideas that the country is threatened “from within” even going so far as to say that his political enemies are more dangerous than his buddy Vladimir Putin. And the dehumanization of migrants is becoming so hysterical and over the top that I’m afraid he’s going to start ordering his cult to start killing people.
While vowing to expand his crackdown on immigration, Mr. Trump described the continuing surge of migrants across the southern border as “the agony of our people, the plunder of our cities, the sacking of our towns, the violation of our citizens and the conquest of our country.”
Apparently the migrants are Visigoths and we are actually living in the 5th century.
The speech that Mr. Trump gave on Saturday was his first since Mr. Biden repeatedly attacked him and his policies in his State of the Union address. “Joe Biden should not be shouting angrily at America,” Mr. Trump said. “America should be shouting angrily at Joe Biden.”
But his critiques moved toward personal insults. At one point, Mr. Trump slurred his words and pretended to stutter in a mocking imitation of the president, who has dealt with a stutter since childhood.
It was one of several such attacks Mr. Trump lobbed during the event. Of the former television anchor Megyn Kelly, with whom Mr. Trump sparred during his first presidential run, he said “may she rest in peace.” While talking about the success that his time on “The Apprentice” had brought NBC, he called Jeff Zucker, the network’s former chief executive, an “idiot.”
Mr. Trump also denigrated a number of prosecutors and judges involved in the criminal cases and multiple civil lawsuits in which he is entangled. He spent a considerable amount of time attacking Fani T. Willis, the district attorney prosecuting him over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia.
And yes, he spent plenty of time on the Big Lie too and defamed E. Jean Carroll again among other things. His entire speech was nothing more than an odious assault on decency at every level.
His cult members loved it. People like this:
Woman at Trump rally today in GA says she is concerned about (Russian propaganda) that 60,000 Ukrainian children have been kidnapped by Western elites so they can be sex trafficked, and knows that Trump is going to stop it. pic.twitter.com/TB7rQoUGQl
Upset by the surge in union drives, several of the best-known corporations in the US are seeking to cripple the country’s top labor watchdog, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), by having it declared unconstitutional. Some labor experts warn that if those efforts succeed, US labor relations might return to “the law of the jungle”.
In recent weeks, Elon Musk’s SpaceX as well as Amazon, Starbucks and Trader Joe’s have filed legal papers that advance novel arguments aimed at hobbling and perhaps shutting down the NLRB – the federal agency that enforces labor rights and oversees unionization efforts. Those companies are eager to thwart the NLRB after it accused Amazon, Starbucks and Trader Joe’s of breaking the law in battling against unionization and accused SpaceX of illegally firing eight workers for criticizing Musk.
Roger King, a longtime management-side lawyer who is senior labor counsel for the HR Policy Association, said “it will be a lose-lose” if the federal courts overturn the 89-year-old National Labor Relations Act, which has governed labor relations since Franklin Roosevelt was president. “We’ll have the law of the jungle, the law of the streets,” King said. “It will be who has the most power. It’s potential for chaos.”
Kate Andrias, a Columbia University law professor, said workers would be hurt if the courts issue a sweeping decision that declares both the NLRB and the National Labor Relations Act unconstitutional. “Without them, workers will be even worse off,” she said. “It’s critical that they continue to exist to protect the basic right to organize and engage in collective bargaining. This is an assault on rights we have considered fundamental since the New Deal.”
Some worker advocates have voiced surprise that these companies are seeking to hobble the NLRB when, in their view, the labor board is already too weak, its penalties toothless. The NLRB can’t fine companies even one dollar for breaking the law – for instance, by illegally firing workers for supporting a union.
SpaceX, Starbucks, Amazon and Trader Joe’s have put forward three main arguments for holding the NLRB unconstitutional: it penalizes companies without a jury trial, exercises executive powers without the president being free to remove board officials, and violates the separation of powers by exercising executive, legislative and judicial functions. This corporate attack is part of a wave of lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of various federal agencies that regulate business.
Andrias said one factor spurring the challenges to the NLRB is that “the supreme court over the last decade, but especially in the last couple of years, has signaled a hostility to the administrative state and has radically remade administrative law in a way that would curb the government’s ability to protect workers and consumers. Companies are now trying to capitalize on the court’s conservative majority.”
Bingo. They know they have a better chance today than any time in a century to get protections from the high court.
It’s worth reading the whole thing. Unsurprisingly, this crusade is being led by Elon Musk who is clearly supporting Donald Trump and the MAGA plan to strip the executive branch of all authority to regulate business. (Trump also wants to lower the corporate tax and hand out more tax cut candy to himself and his rich buddies like Musk.)
As much damage as the far right Supreme Court has done to our society they’re only getting started. This is where their heart is.
DeSantis’ spectacular flame out sours his followers on his strategy
Oh my. It looks like Ron DeSantis has lost his clout. Florida’s sick of the “war on woke.” Just this last week the GOP legislature failed to even get a rainbow flag ban out of committee! What is this world coming to?
It wasn’t the only culture war proposal from conservative lawmakers to end up in the bill graveyard during the session that ended Friday. One rejected bill would have banned the removal of Confederate monuments. Another would have required transgender people to use their sex assigned at birth on driver’s licenses — something the state Department of Motor Vehicles is already mandating. A third proposed forbiddinglocal and state government officials from using transgender people’s pronouns.
Some of those ideas have come up in the past and may surface again next year. But the fact that the bills failed, even with public support from DeSantis, marks a change from the days when the GOP supermajority in Tallahassee passed nearly everything the governor asked for.
Florida has firmly cemented itself in recent years as ground zero for the nation’s culture wars. The Sunshine State is the birthplace of conservative parental rights group Moms for Liberty, the original law restricting LGBTQ+ discussion in classrooms, one of the strictest abortion laws in the country and legislation that has led to the banning of more books than in any other state in America.
But the pushback is growing.
Parents and others have organized and protested schoolbook bans. Abortion rights advocates gathered enough signatures to put the issue on the ballot in Florida in November. A bill that would have established “fetal personhood” stalled before it could reach a full vote.
Judges are also canceling some of DeSantis’s marquee laws, including the “Stop Woke Act.”A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled Monday that the law “exceeds the bounds” of the Constitution’s First Amendment right to freedom of speech and expression.
Even the governor recently admitted the state might have gone too far in trying to remove certain books from school shelves, suggesting laws on book challenges should be “tweaked” to prevent “bad actors” from having too much influence.
Democrats and other DeSantis critics say the laws that the governor has pushed will continue to shape public life in Florida for years to come, and they don’t expect the Republican supermajority in the state House to suddenly abandon conservative causes. But they do sense a shift.
“When his presidential race ended, I think that a lot of his influence and power died at the same time,” said state Sen. Shevrin Jones, a South Florida Democrat. “And I think that people in Florida and across the country, including Republicans, are starting to see that the culture wars are getting us nowhere.”
That’s what happens when you are the Great White Bread Hope and get knocked out in the first round. Nobody is frightened of you anymore and your fans are embarrassed. DeSantis is almost certainly going to run in 2028 and it will be interesting (and, no doubt, nauseating) to see what DeSanctimonious 2.0 looks like. It probably won’t look a lot like 1.0.
I wonder if any of this will have an effect on 2024 in Florida. I won’t get my hopes off. That state is way down the rabbit hole and it’s MAGA central now. But you never know. Rick Scott is extremely unpopular (I can’t imagine why) so maybe he’s vulnerable? He’s only leading his challenger Debbie Mucarsal-Powell by 3 points in the latest polling.
The culture war will never die, unfortunately. It always seamlessly morphs into something else. I think the new themes are going to come straight out of Christian Nationalism which is the Big New Thing on the right. Get ready. This next battle is going to be something else.
While criticizing President Biden for mispronouncing Laken Riley’s name, Marjorie Taylor Greene makes the same mistake and calls her Lincoln Riley pic.twitter.com/RcJAymy0lV
I don’t think I’ve ever agreed with Kevin McCarthy about anything. But his loathing for this woman is well taken. I hope he succeeds in using his network to take her out. She’s almost as nuts as George Santos.
And then there’s this piece of work:
Lara Trump: To anyone out there who's thinking about cheating in an election, we will go after you, You will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. pic.twitter.com/EW4GyRVKCu
Image from Warren Zevon’s “Excitable Boy” album cover.
Need I repeat that conservatives principles always seem to be a mile wide and an inch deep? Democracy, the rule of law, the peaceful transfer of power, peace through strength, the sacredness of the Constitution, etc.
“If you ask me what the biggest problem in America is, I’m not going to tell you debt, deficits, statistics, economics—I’ll tell you it’s moral relativism,” Congressman Paul Ryan insisted four years before becoming House Speaker. Relativism was for years a charge conservatives levied against liberals. Until it was no longer useful.
My memorable first introduction to Rick Perlstein in 2005 included something Richard Nixon once told a staffer, “Flexibility is the first principle of politics.” Expediency conservatives hold sacrosanct.
Jill Lepore asks in The New Yorker whether, having sacrificed the 14th Amendment in pursuit of political expediency, “originalists” on the Supreme Court now feel free to rexamine other amendments:
There’s more than one way to skin a Constitution. Here are two: a court might base a decision on the original intention, meaning, and public understanding, the “history and tradition,” of a constitutional provision, or it might base a decision on a consideration of the consequences. Ordinarily, a judge might apply both these and other methods, but a strict originalist might argue that the jurisprudence of originalism is fundamentally opposed to the jurisprudence of consequentialism—that it’s best to heed the past and damn the consequences. During oral arguments at the Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, for instance, Justice Samuel Alito asked about origins (“Can it be said that the right to abortion is deeply rooted in the history and traditions of the American people?”), and Justice Sonia Sotomayor inquired after consequences (“When does the life of a woman and putting her at risk enter the calculus?”). Alito wrote the majority opinion, declaring that no right to an abortion can be found in the Constitution’s history and tradition, and that therefore “the Fourteenth Amendment does not protect the right to an abortion.” Sotomayor joined a dissent that denounced “the majority’s refusal even to consider the life-altering consequences” of its decision.
This term, the tables turned. In Trump v. Anderson, the Court agreed to review a decision by the Colorado Supreme Court to strike the former President’s name from that state’s Republican primary ballot. That court had found that Donald Trump, owing to his role in the events of January 6th, had been disqualified under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits people who have sworn an oath to the Constitution and then engaged in an insurrection against it from holding office. Maine and Illinois also determined that Trump had disqualified himself.
There are strong arguments against disqualifying Trump, but none involve the historical record: the evidence of history supported affirming the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision. (I and the historians David Blight, Drew Gilpin Faust, and John Fabian Witt made this argument in an amicus brief.) During oral arguments, Justice Sotomayor asked about origins: “History proves a lot to me.” Justice Alito worried about outcomes: “The consequences of what the Colorado Supreme Court did, some people claim, would be quite severe.” So did Chief Justice John Roberts, who asked Jason Murray, the lawyer representing Colorado voters, what he’d do with what “would seem to me to be plain consequences of your position?” Alito asked Murray “to grapple with what some people have seen as the consequences of the argument that you’re advancing.” Posing one hypothetical after another, Alito asked, “Then what would we do?”
Whether to err on the side with tradition or consequences, like other political debates, depends not on principle, but on whose ox is being gored. It’s not that both liberals and conservatives aren’t flexible in their principles. It’s that conservatives are utterly shameless in Texas-two-stepping around theirs when convenient.
Until very recently, the Second Amendment, known as “the lost amendment,” hardly ever came up. In a unanimous opinion in 1939, the Court ruled that it protected the right to bear arms only as part of a well-regulated militia. Then, beginning with D.C. v. Heller, in 2008, and continuing down through New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, in 2022, the Court codified a new, individual-rights reading that it described as “original,” and devised history tests (including a “historical-analogy” test) that any effort to curtail gun violence must pass in order to be deemed constitutional. Without the fealty to originalism that these cases demanded, there could be no Dobbs—no impossible test for abortion to fail.
Historians protested that the Court’s interpretation of the Second Amendment was wrong and its tests preposterous. In Bruen, a case involving the question of where New Yorkers can and cannot carry guns, which was argued four weeks before Dobbs, oral arguments included groping for an eighteenth-century equivalent of a football stadium. Pressed by Justice Elena Kagan, the lawyer for the petitioner admitted the limits of historical analogies, given that, for instance, you can’t base denying felons the right to own guns on any eighteenth-century law, since, at the time, many crimes were capital crimes. Felons weren’t banned from carrying guns; they were executed. Justice Stephen Breyer later tried to intervene: “Even following Heller and following the history, which I thought was wrong,” he said, he wondered which way the Court could possibly rule that would not result in “a kind of gun-related chaos.” But why should anyone follow Heller or Bruen, whose reasoning attempts to defy the very passage of time? By that logic, the constitutionality of I.V.F. turns on identifying the eighteenth-century equivalent of a frozen embryo.
If the Court is now interested in consequentialist arguments, here’s one: in the past quarter century, more than three hundred thousand American children have experienced armed civilians attacking their schools. Last year, there were six hundred and fifty-six mass shootings in the United States. Four out of five murders and more than half of all suicides in this country involve a gun. Gun ownership is rising, and so is political violence. For nearly a century, beginning with the earliest public-opinion surveys, Americans have consistently supported safety measures and curbs on gun ownership. Since 2008, the Court has thwarted them.
And the Court will until gun violence reaches reaches their families. Consequences. Miraculously, the scales will fall from their eyes.
It was baked in that Saturday Night Live would use Alabama Sen. Katie Britt’s “absurdly overdramatic” SOTU performance as it’s cold open. My problem with SNL’s sketch? “Bless his heart” Britt will probably just be flattered that SNL asked Scarlett Johansson to play her.
“What was the point of that nonsense?” The American Conservativeasked, descrbing Britt’s appearance as a ” hyper-emotional speech that verged from creepy to hormonal to giddy within the span of twenty minutes.” It’s a wonder SNL did not just replicate Britt’s address almost word-for-word, as Tina Fey once did in mocking Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
But The American Conservative‘s response to Biden’s SOTU was just as bizarre, judging it a declaration of war on half the country while calling Biden a liar and Britt “authentic.”
Judge for yourself which of the likely 2024 presidential candidates is the kind of authentic you want sitting in the Oval Office.
The American Conservative declares the SOTU a tradition draped in “pseudo-monarchic pomp” and out of character for “a country that defines itself against hereditary hierarchy,” yet “arch-feudal in spirit.” On that, we agree. Especially regarding conservatives who yearn for an emotionally stunted child-king.
I’m sure you are aware that the Academy Awards ceremonies are this Sunday. As an alleged “movie critic”, I sheepishly admit I have only seen 1 of the10 nominees for 2023’s Best Picture: Oppenheimer, if you really must pry (“I must! I must!”). Then again, it’s been years since Academy voters and I have seen eye to eye as to what constitutes a “best picture”. Either my aesthetic has changed, or the Academy has lowered its standards. I don’t think my aesthetic has changed, if you catch my drift.
This is my way of explaining in advance why you may notice only one “Best Picture” winner from the last several decades made my list, which I have culled from the previous 95 Academy Awards. Or perhaps it’s just my long-winded way of saying “they don’t make ‘em like they used to”. And stay the hell off my lawn.
You Can’t Take it With You (Best Picture of 1938) – 86 years on, Frank Capra’s movie version of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s stage play (adapted for the screen by Robert Riskin, who was nominated) still resonates in light of our current economic woes.
A Wall Street fat cat (Edward Arnold) comes up with various nefarious machinations to force a stubborn but happy-go-lucky homeowner (Lionel Barrymore) and his eccentric and free-spirited family to sell him his property, in order to make way for a new factory he wants to build in a prime metropolitan location.
Complications ensue when Barrymore’s granddaughter (Jean Arthur) falls in love with Arnold’s son (James Stewart). Hilarity abounds, fueled by contrasting worldviews of Arnold’s uptight, greedy capitalist and Barrymore’s fun-loving non-conformist. There’s tons of slapstick, and in accordance with the rules of screwball comedy, nearly the entire cast eventually ends up standing before a judge (en masse) with a lot of explaining to do.
Although this is one of Capra’s more lightweight films, he still folds in social commentary about the disparity between the haves vs. the have-nots; in some respects it feels like a warm-up for It’sa Wonderful Life. Capra also picked up a Best Director win.
Casablanca (Best Picture of 1943)-Romance, exotic intrigue, Bogie, Ingrid Bergman, evil Nazis, selfless acts of quiet heroism, Paul Henreid, Peter Lorre, Sidney Greenstreet, Rick’s Café, Claude Rains rounding up the usual suspects, Dooley singing “As Time Goes By”, the beginning of a beautiful friendship, the most rousing rendition of “La Marseille” you’ve ever heard, that goodbye scene at the airfield, and a timeless message (if you love someone, set them free). What’s not to love about this movie-lover’s movie? Michael Curtiz directed; Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, and Howard Koch adapted the screenplay from a play by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison.
From Here to Eternity (Best Picture of 1953) – Even though James Jones’ steamy source novel about restless G.I.s stationed at Pearl Harbor was sanitized for the screen, Fred Zinnemann’s film was still relatively risqué and heady adult fare for its time.
Montgomery Clift was born to play angst-ridden company bugler (and sometime pugilist) Pvt. Robert E. Lee Prewitt, a “hard case” at constant loggerheads with his superiors (and his personal demons).
And what a cast-outstanding performances abound from Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, Frank Sinatra (he won Best Actor in a Supporting Role), Jack Warden, Ernest Borgnine, and Donna Reed. At that point of Reed’s career, it was considered casting against type to have her portray a sex worker, but it paid off with a Best Actress in a Supporting Role win.
Zinnemann won Best Director, screenwriter Daniel Taradash picked up a Best Writing (Screenplay) for his adaptation, Burnett Guffey won for Cinematography (Black and White), and William A. Lyon took home a statue for Best Film Editing.
West Side Story (Best Picture of 1961)- Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise co-directed this classic musical drama (with a screenplay adapted by Ernest Lehman from the stage version). You know, there are so many Deep Thoughts that I have gleaned as a result of myriad viewings of this fine film over the years; and since I am holding the Talking Stick, I wish to share a few of them with you now:
Lawrence of Arabia (Best Picture of 1962) – Until you have viewed David Lean’s masterpiece on a theater screen, you can’t really comprehend how big the desert is. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. Or how commanding and charismatic 29 year-old Peter O’Toole was in his first starring role.
O’Toole delivers a larger-than-life performance as T.E. Lawrence, a flamboyant and outspoken British army officer who reinvented himself as a guerilla leader, gathering up warring Arab tribes and uniting them in a common cause to oust the Turks during WW I.
Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson based their literate screenplay on Lawrence’s memoirs, sustaining a sense of intimacy throughout. This was no small feat, considering the film’s overall epic sweep and visual splendor (DP Freddie Young and editor Anne V. Coates more than earned their Oscars).
Omar Sharif, Anthony Quinn, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, Claude Rains and Jose Ferrer round off a fine cast, and you can’t discuss this film without acknowledging Maurice Jarre’s magnificent “Best Score”.
In the Heat of the Night (Best Picture of 1967) – “They call me Mister Tibbs!” Sidney Poitier plays a cosmopolitan police detective from Philly who gets waylaid in a torpid Mississippi backwater, where he is reluctantly recruited into helping the bigoted sheriff (Rod Steiger) solve a local murder.
Poitier really nails his performance; you can feel Virgil Tibb’s pain as he tries to maintain his professional cool amidst a brace of surly rednecks, who throw up roadblocks at every turn.
While Steiger is outstanding as well, I find it ironic that he was the one who won “Best Actor in a leading role”, when Poitier was the star of the film (it seems Hollywood didn’t get the film’s message).
Sterling Silliphant’s brilliant screenplay (another Oscar) works as a crime thriller and a “fish out of water” story. Director Norman Jewison was nominated but didn’t score a win. Future director Hal Ashby won for Best Editing. Quincy Jones composed the soundtrack, and Ray Charles sings the sultry theme.
Midnight Cowboy (Best Picture of 1969) – “I’m WALKIN’ heah!” Aside from its distinction as being the only X-rated film to earn Oscars, John Schlesinger’s groundbreaking, idiosyncratic character study Midnight Cowboy (1969) also ushered in an era of mature, gritty realism in American film that flourished from the early to mid-1970s. The film was Schlesinger’s first U.S.-based project; he had already made a name for himself in his native England with films like A Kind of Loving, Billy Liar, Darling, and Far From the Madding Crowd.
Dustin Hoffman has seldom matched his character work here as Ratso Rizzo, a homeless New York City con artist who adopts country bumpkin/aspiring male hustler Joe Buck (Jon Voight) as his “protégé”. The two leads are outstanding, as is the supporting cast, which includes John McGiver, Brenda Vaccaro, Barnard Hughes and a teenage Bob Balaban. Also look for cameos from several of Warhol’s “Factory” regulars in a memorable party scene.
In hindsight, the location filming provides a fascinating historical document of the seedy milieu that was “classic” Times Square (New York “plays itself” very well here). Schlesinger won an Oscar for Best Director, as did Waldo Salt for his screenplay.
The Godfather (Best Picture of 1972) and The Godfather, Part II (Best Picture of 1974)-Yes, I’m counting them as one; because in a narrative and artistic sense, they are. Got a problem with that? Tell it to Luca Brasi. Taken as a whole, Francis Ford Coppola’s two-part masterpiece (with screenplays co-written by the director with Mario Puzo) is best summed up thusly: Brando, Pacino, and De Niro.
Annie Hall (Best Picture of 1977) – As far as his “earlier, funny films” go, this semi-autobiographical entry ranks as one of Woody Allen’s finest, and represents the moment he found his voice as a filmmaker.
The Academy concurred, awarding three additional Oscars as well-for Best Actress (leading lady Diane Keaton, in her career-defining role), for Director (Allen) and for Best Original Screenplay (Allen again, along with co-writer Marshall Brickman).
Part 1 of a triptych (or so the theory goes) that continued with Manhattan and Hannah and Her Sisters, it is also the film that neatly divides the history of the romantic comedy in half. So many of the narrative framing techniques and comic inventions that Allen utilized have become so de rigueur for the genre that it’s easy to forget how wonderfully innovative and fresh this film was back in 1977. A funny, bittersweet, and perceptive look at modern romance.
No Country for Old Men (Best Picture of 2007) – The bodies pile up faster than you can say Blood Simple in Joel and Ethan Coen’s masterfully constructed neo-noir (which earned them a shared Best Director trophy). The brothers’ Oscar-winning screenplay (adapted from the Cormac McCarthy novel) is rich in characterization and thankfully devoid of the self-conscious quirkiness that has left some of their latter-day films teetering on self-parody.
The story is set among the sagebrush and desert heat of the Tex-Mex border, where the deer and the antelope play. One day, good ol’ boy Llewelyn (Josh Brolin) is shootin’ at some food (the playful antelope) when he encounters a grievously wounded pit bull. The blood trail leads to discovery of the aftermath of a shootout. As this is Coen country…that twisty trail does lead to a twisty tale.
Tommy Lee Jones gives a wonderful low-key performance as an old-school, Gary Cooper-ish lawman who (you guessed it) comes from a long line of lawmen. Jones’ face is a craggy, world-weary road map of someone who has reluctantly borne witness to every inhumanity man is capable of, and is counting down the days to imminent retirement (‘cos it’s becoming no country for old men…).
The cast is outstanding. Javier Bardem picked up a Best Supporting Actor statue for his turn as a psychotic hit man. His performance is understated, yet menacing, made all the more unsettling by his Peter Tork haircut. Kelly McDonald and Woody Harrelson are standouts as well. Curiously, Roger Deakins wasn’t nominated for his cinematography, but his work on this film ranks among his best. (Full review)
Sen Katie Britt says sexual assault is the worst thing that can happen to a woman while encouraging Americans to vote for a convicted sexual predator. pic.twitter.com/oKZdUZuy3u
“We know that President Biden didn’t just create this border crisis. He invited it with 94 executive actions in his first 100 days. When I took office, I took a different approach. I traveled to the Del Rio sector of Texas. That’s where I spoke to a woman who shared her story with me. She had been sex trafficked by the cartels starting at the age of 12. She told me not just that she was raped every day, but how many times a day she was raped. The cartels put her on a mattress in a shoe box of a room, and they sent men through that door over and over again for hours and hours on end. We wouldn’t be okay with this happening in a Third World country. This is the United States of America, and it is past time, in my opinion, that we start acting like it. President Biden’s border policies are a disgrace.”
If you were watching Britt’s speech on Thursday night, you likely would have thought she was talking about a recent victim of sex trafficking who was abused in the United States andsuffered because of President Biden’s policies.
If you did, you would have been wrong. Sean Ross, Britt’s communications director, confirmed that she was talking about Karla Jacinto Romero — who has testified before Congress about being forced to work in Mexican brothels from 2004 to 2008. (A viral TikTok by journalist Jonathan Katz first revealed that Britt was speaking about Romero.) In a phone conversation and a statement, Ross disputed that Britt’s language was misleading.
We disagree. Let’s take a look.
Britt’s account of Romero’s experience was a centerpiece of her rebuttal to Biden’s address. The way Britt sets up the story, there is no indication that she is talking about a woman who was working in brothels in Mexico during the George W. Bush administration. This is how the passage unfolds.
-She first blames Biden for the surge of migrants at the border.
-Then she says she visited the border shortly after she took office. That would be 2023.
-At length, she details the story of an unnamed victim that she says she met on her trip. The implication is that the woman recently crossed the border — because of “sex trafficking by the cartels.”
-She strongly suggests that her abuse took place in the United States: “We wouldn’t be okay with this happening in a Third World country. This is the United States of America, and it is past time, in my opinion, that we start acting like it.”
-She ends by reinforcing that such alleged trafficking is Biden’s fault: “President Biden’s border policies are a disgrace.”
But Biden has nothing to do with Romero’s story. As she testified nine years ago, her mother threw her out of her house at age 12 and she “fell prey to a professional pimp.” She says she then spent the next four years in brothels before a regular client helped her escape when she was 16 years old. There is no indication in her story that drug cartels were involved, though Britt said that in the State of the Union response and has made a similar claim on at least one other occasion. Romero was never trafficked to the United States; instead, she says many men who paid to have sex with her were “foreigners visiting my city looking to have sexual interactions with minors like me.”
In a YouTube video, Britt features images of her hugging Romero during her 2023 trip to the border. “If we as leaders of the greatest nation in the world are not fighting to protect the most vulnerable, we are not doing our job,” she saidin the video. The implication again is that this happened on Biden’s watch.
When Donald Trump was president, he regularly decried human trafficking that he claimed was happening at the border, including that “thousands of young girls and women” were being smuggled across the border for prostitution. In 2019, we investigated that claim and found no evidence to support it. Most human trafficking prosecutions generally involve legal border crossings, visa fraud and travel into the United States on airplanes. Victim organizations say there are relatively few cases that involve forced kidnapping across the border. This might be one reason Britt regularly cites a case that happened long ago and did not involve crossing the border.
Ross, Britt’s spokesman, said that Romero’s story was indicative of trafficking that is now happening at the border and that should be clear from Britt’s framing in the speech.
He said the reference to a “Third World country” was generic and was not intended to refer to Mexico, which he said is not a Third World country. Third World is a dated Cold War-era term previously used to refer to poor or developing countries. Global South, indicating low income and high poverty, is a more common expression today. Mexico is considered part of the Global South, though it is also a member of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Right. The current term isn’t “third world country.” It’s “shit hole country.” Everyone knows that.
He went on to claim that Britt was “100% correct” because there are, in fact, women being trafficked right now, which she blames on Biden. Hoookay.
The Post gives her 4 Pinnocchios. Because she is a liar.
Oh, and by the way:
Not only did Katie Britt dishonestly co-opt the horrific 2015 congressional testimony of a Mexican activist relating events in Mexico during the Bush admin, the anti-sex trafficking policies the activist was advocating were thwarted by *Donald Trump* & reversed under Biden pic.twitter.com/jiIw8kl2ev
— Roger Sollenberger (@SollenbergerRC) March 9, 2024
It appears that the campaign is hitting the ground running. Let’s hope they keep it up:
In “For You” President Biden discusses how his wisdom, experience, and—yes, even age—have been critical to getting big things done for the American people in his first term, and the choice Americans will face this November between Joe Biden’s experienced and effective leadership versus Donald Trump and his assault on Americans’ rights and democracy.
The six-week ad flight will air on national cable and local broadcast and cable television in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina. The ad campaign will target audiences in the key markets of Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Phoenix, Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Raleigh, with a focus on voters of color and young voters. The ad will air on popular entertainment and sports programming on stations like ESPN, TNT, FX, Adult Swim, and Comedy Central and during high-viewership moments like the NCAA March Madness Tournament. It will also run digitally across platforms – with a heavy emphasis on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.
The following is a statement from Biden-Harris Campaign Communications Director Michael Tyler:
“Y’all want to talk about age? Let’s talk about age. At 77, Joe Biden beat Donald Trump. At 78, he led us through the COVID crisis, put us on a path to creating nearly 15 million new jobs since the day he took office, and passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to repair our roads and bridges and expand access to broadband internet to every community. At 79, he got us the most significant gun safety legislation in a generation and became the first president to beat Big Pharma and cap the cost of insulin at $35 for seniors. At the same time, he made the single largest investment in history to combat climate change – all before his 80th birthday. Meanwhile, the only helpful thing Donald Trump did for the American people in four years was lose the 2020 election to Joe Biden – and it’s the one thing he won’t take credit for.”
“Now, Joe Biden is 81 and he’s going to beat Donald Trump again because he wakes up every single day fighting for the American people while Trump wages a campaign of revenge and retribution focused on himself. Trump may be four years younger than Joe Biden, but his ideas are old as hell and they’ve already been rejected by the American people. Joe Biden is running to make sure we reject them for good.”
Biden had a good SOTU address and the press is laying off of him for the moment, This ad is good and hopefully there will be more of them that we can see and send around to people who might need to see it. But I do want to caution everyone to be aware that there are going to be many bad days to come. It’s the nature of this closely divided electorate and a media that craves the controversy so I have no doubt we’ll be losing sleep over the next few months. But this moment at least marks the beginning of Biden and his campaign taking the initiative to turn the ship around and it’s heartening to see it.
He doesn’t want women being reminded about his piggish behavior
I’m not surprised he’s having problems getting the money together to pay his massive judgments. He’s such a liar about his net worth and it’s hard to believe that any legitimate financial institution is going to issue a bond for that huge amount required in the fraud case. However, he can sell secrets to rich foreign actors and there’s not much anyone can do about it. I suspect someone is going to bail him out and I don’t know that we’ll ever know who it was or exactly why they did it.
Meanwhile, this piece, also by Haberman, was a delicious little bit of tea about how much Trump hates the hush money case, which may be the only trial that he has to face before the election at this point:
For the past couple of weeks, the spotlight has been focused on the timing of Donald Trump’s four criminal trials and the prospect that at least two of them might not go to a jury before this fall’s election. And the one trial that seems certain to be held before Election Day — his so-called hush money case — has often been dismissed by experts and observers as old, legally dubious and lacking in the sort of weighty issues that sit at the heart of, say, his two election interference cases.
But the hush money case arguably is an election interference case, centering on allegations that, on the eve of the 2016 presidential race, Trump falsified business records as part of a scheme to buy the silence of a porn star to keep her from going public with claims that they had an affair.
And as the trial draws nearer — it is set to start on March 25 in Manhattan — it’s become apparent that prosecutors would like to tell a wide ranging story full of tabloid details, one that could be personally embarrassing to Trump.
The hush money case, which is being prosecuted by Alvin Bragg, the district attorney in Manhattan, has always been an awkward mix of the serious and the profane, based around a seamy tale of extramarital sex, business records and presidential politics. Trump’s aides are blunt that he particularly hates this case given the nature of the story that prosecutors intend to put in front of the jury.
Huh. He doesn’t want to brag that he is the world’s greatest cocksman who bangs porn stars and playmates two at a time? How unusual.
Well good. He should hate it because it’s yet another illustration of one particularly odious aspect of his black character. He has been a disgusting pig toward women his entire life. And apparently, Bragg wants to bring up that fact in the trial
But recently, Bragg and his team asked Justice Juan Merchan, who is presiding over the trial, for permission to tell a much more sweeping tale, one involving not just a single secret payoff but three of them. They also want to relate in detail how Trump used his ties to a publisher of supermarket tabloids to preemptively stop embarrassing accounts about him from seeing the light of day, a process known as “catch and kill.”
And if that were not enough, the prosecutors want to introduce evidence about the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape. In the tape, which surfaced in the closing weeks of the 2016 campaign and captured a conversation from years earlier, Trump spoke openly about grabbing female body parts without permission.
Oh, and by the way, he’s been found guilty of assault and defamation in a federal civil suit and has to pay his victim almost a hundred million dollars. It’s not as if any of this is hard to believe. Everyone knows what he is, even his cult followers who simply admire him for being such a manly man.
They want to bring up Karen McDougal and the doorman they paid off not to say that he fathered a child with his housekeeper (which apparently is not true.) Trump’s lawyers are having a meltdown over this, saying that it’s nothing but an attempt to sully Trump’s reputation with these salacious details which is hilarious. As I said, a jury has already found him to be rapist and he’s on tape talking about grabbing women by the pussy so I think that ship sailed a long time ago.
They’re asking the judge not to allow the prosecution to say anything about trying to influence the election at all ludicrously asserting that he just didn’t want “adverse publicity” coming out about him. Right. I don’t think that’s going to fly since they went to great lengths to conceal the payments with false invoices which they needn’t have done if they weren’t flouting campaign finance laws, which is the heart of this case. It’s not like Melania was pouring over the books.
Haberman looks at the political implications:
When Justice Merchan makes his decision about how much of this extra evidence to allow into the trial, it could have political — and not just legal — ramifications.
Trump’s aides have long regarded the hush money trial as the least legally impactful, given that it relates to allegations of behavior between consenting adults. His supporters viewed the indictment as a partisan attack when it was handed down last March, and that perspective has only hardened as Trump has insisted he’s facing a “witch hunt.”
But the details of Trump’s behavior could also further alienate women and swing voters whose backing he needs in a general election. The details being made public also upset Trump, according to people who’ve spoken with him, and the impact the case may have on his behavior inside and outside court remains to be seen.
It is not in dispute that he paid off those women and he did it in a particularly devious way, working with the National Inquirer. He’ll have to contend with all those details being on the front pages and at the top of the news again and he deserves it. He can insist that it’s a witch hunt all he wants but he can’t dispute the facts. Donald Trump is a pig and the last thing he needs at a time when he’s bragging about banning abortion and IVF being outlawed is for women to be reminded of just how grotesque he really is. You bet he’s losing sleep over this one.
