Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Trump cannot change, nor will he

“Are we in La La Land?” asks Colbert I. King in the Washington Post.

“He’s on our side,” Donald Trump told a rally crowd on Friday as police hauled off a supporter for attempting to assault reporters.

Associated Press:

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A man at Donald Trump’s rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, stormed into the press area as the former president spoke Friday but was surrounded by police and sheriff’s deputies and was eventually subdued with a Taser.

The altercation came moments after Trump criticized major media outlets for what he said was unfavorable coverage and dismissed CNN as fawning for its interview Thursday with his Democratic rival Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz.

The man made it over a bicycle rack ringing the media area, and began climbing the back side of a riser where television reporters and cameras were stationed, according to a video of the incident posted to social media by a reporter for CBS News. People near him tried to pull him off the riser and were quickly joined by police officers.

The crowd cheered as a pack of police led the man away, prompting Trump to declare, “Is there anywhere that’s more fun to be than a Trump rally?”

Yes, at Harris-Walz victory party, numbnuts.

🚨🇺🇸 MAN SUBDUED AT TRUMP RALLY AFTER STORMING PRESS AREA

During a Trump rally in Johnstown, PA, a man stormed the press area but was quickly subdued by police with a Taser. The incident followed Trump’s criticism of major media outlets.

Source: AP

pic.twitter.com/RVOHl1HolP

— World Media News (@WMEDIAPR) August 31, 2024

Clearly “on our side,” Trump said approvingly.

It’s a measure of the gangrenous rot Trump has spread across the country that even after the January 6 insurrection he fomented, after his attempts to overthrow the 2020 election, after the threats he’s inspired against election workers, after his repeated dishonoring of veterans, and after 34 felony convictions, Trump glibly keeps inspiring followers to violence and his cultish followers keep being inspired to act out on his behalf. It’s who he is. He will not change. He has no conscience. He never had a moral compass. Whether he has a soul is beyond my discernment.

King continues:

If I didn’t know better, I might conclude that the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, in which rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol to prevent the certification of the 2020 presidential election, was merely the act of exuberant “patriots” voicing their displeasure with Joe Biden’s victory — and that Donald Trump had nothing to do with it. What else to think, based on the media’s treatment of the twice-impeached former president and felon and his campaign to return to the White House?

Trump is being covered by the press as if Jan. 6 were old news.

A fifth grand jury indicted Trump this week in the stolen government documents case against Trump. Special counsel Jack Smith filed the charges even as a large fraction of addled people in this country seem torn between which party’s presidential ticket to choose in November. La La Land, indeed.

King goes on:

Imagine a president singling out his own vice president for the scorn of a bloodthirsty mob and sitting back as Secret Service agents scrambled to protect him and his family. Imagine a president receiving reports of members of Congress fleeing the Capitol for their lives and not immediately sending reinforcements to the Hill. Imagine a president leaving it to a D.C. mayor and her police force to rescue U.S. Capitol Police.

We don’t have to imagine it. We watched it. We’ve lived it. Trump’s voters don’t have to imagine it either. It’s what they voted for in 2016 and in 2020. It’s what people like the man arrested in Johnstown, and those convicted and jailed over Jan. 6, and those still awaiting trial and sentencing for it will vote for in 2024. All the while calling themselves American patriots.

We want our leaders to be inspiring. But this is not what we imagined getting.

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And when to dismiss him as a boob

Kamala Harris is driving Donald Trump crazy by shrugging off his racist and misogynist attacks, Karen Tumulty believes:

The standout moment in Kamala Harris’s first interview as Democratic presidential nominee consisted of a mere seven words: “Same old tired playbook. Next question, please.”

That was her answer when CNN’s Dana Bash brought up Donald Trump’s recent outrageous suggestion that the vice president, who is the daughter of Indian and Jamaican parents, “happened to turn Black” as a matter of political expediency.

David Cohen, friend, cartoonist and drummer extraordinaire, crafted an even pithier rejoinder that would have elicited cheers and fist pumps from Democrats had Harris thought of it: “When did he decide to be orange?”

Harris and her team have generally refused to take the bait from Trump. “Why would we step in this man’s way?” said one campaign official.

Trump’s live and online rants have become even more outrageous and insane lately than those to which we are sadly accustomed. Running against a woman, a Black woman, and this Black woman have thrown him completely off his game. He’ll face the rest of his life in jail or in court if he loses this November. His flailing, however, disproves the old saw about a hanging in the morning focusing the mind.

As for Harris, Tumulty suggests:

Harris, not known as a particularly deft politician, is also walking a thin line. Although she declares herself proud of what the Biden-Harris administration has achieved, she is portraying herself as a candidate of change who will “turn the page on the last decade of what I believe has been contrary to where the spirit of our country really lies.”

We are back to Salena Zito’s formulation in The Atlantic eight years ago. When Trump says bonkers things, “the press takes him literally, but not seriously,” she wrote, while “his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.”

That thin line Harris must walk lies somewhere in between. She must brush off his crude attempts to “get her goat” with what he says (to borrow an ancient phrase). At the same time, she must take seriously what he does.

Trump’s antics this week at Arlington National Cemetery were clownish and boorish, but also illegal behavior to be taken seriously. Trump clearly thought with the cemetery visit he could repair the self-inflicted wounds his campaign recently incurred when he equated civilian Presidential Medal of Freedom winners with veterans who’d earned the Congressional Medal of Honor with their blood.

The Medal of Freedom is actually better, he quipped, because the latter goes to soldiers “either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead.” When he gave it to his friend and donor, Miriam Adelson, she was still “a healthy, beautiful woman.”

The Arlington visit Trump thought might help repair his image with veterans simply made it worse (CNN):

The US Army issued a stark rebuke of former President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign over the incident on Monday at Arlington National Cemetery, saying in a statement on Thursday that participants in the ceremony “were made aware of federal laws” regarding political activity at the cemetery, and “abruptly pushed aside” an employee of the cemetery.

“Participants in the August 26th ceremony and the subsequent Section 60 visit were made aware of federal laws, Army regulations and DoD policies, which clearly prohibit political activities on cemetery grounds. An ANC employee who attempted to ensure adherence to these rules was abruptly pushed aside,” the Army spokesperson said in the statement on Thursday. Section 60 is an area in the cemetery largely reserved for the graves of those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is Trump behavior to take seriously. It reinforces, writes Michael Tomasky, “the view—potentially deadly to him—that he has contempt for veterans and soldiers who died serving the country.”

It reveals, adds Greg Sargent, “a level of contempt for the law and public service that’s incompatible with democracy.”

Democrats should get to the bottom of the Arlington fiasco. At issue is the casual designation of public servants as the enemy, the blithe treatment of public procedures as thoroughly dispensable, and the contempt for the ideal of an independent military—all hitched to the passing whims and needs of Trump and his movement. They’re all incompatible with maintaining a healthy democratic public sphere, and the question once again is whether Trump will be allowed to get away with all of it.

Trump desperately want to be taken seriously. He just wants to dictate which of his behaviors and comments get treated that way and to claim victimhood when backlash comes down on his head.

Kamala Harris is beginning to get which is which.

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In honor of childless cat ladies (and anyone who loves cats, childless or not), may I present the best cat feed on Instagram:

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Drennon Davis (@drennondavis)

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Drennon Davis (@drennondavis)

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Drennon Davis (@drennondavis)

Comedian Drennan Davis has made his cats, Frog, Toad, Newt and Doug famous. Once you take a deep dive into his Insta you won’t be able to get out easily. They’ve gotten me through more than a few depressing days.

What?

I honestly don’t know what to say about the NY Times anymore. It just gets worse and worse. There are obviously some great reporters there and they do some incredible work. But this kind of stuff is just killing their credibility.

America’s gaping shortage of affordable housing has rocketed to the top of voter worry lists and to the forefront of campaign promises, as both the Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, and the Republican candidate, Donald J. Trump, promise to fix the problem if they are elected.

Their two visions of how to solve America’s affordable housing shortage have little in common, and Ms. Harris’s plan is far more detailed. But they do share one quality: Both have drawn skepticism from outside economists.

NY Times Pitchbot couldn’t have said it better.

In fact, only one of them is an actual policy while the other one is a xenophobic wet dream disguised as one. To even compare them is absurd,

Ms. Harris is promising a cocktail of tax cuts meant to spur home construction — which several economists said could help create supply. But she is also floating a $25,000 benefit to help first-time buyers break into the market, which many economists worry could boost demand too much, pushing home prices even higher. And both sets of policies would need to pass in Congress, which would influence their design and feasibility.

That sounds like a plan, which will have to be worked out through negotiation with all sides and depending on the majorities or lack thereof in congress it may or may not be realized. That’s called normal democratic governance. Fine.

So what does the other side have to offer to solve this problem?

Mr. Trump’s plan is garnering even more doubt. He pledges to deport undocumented immigrants, which could cut back temporarily on housing demand but would also most likely cut into the construction work force and eventually limit new housing supply. His other ideas include lowering interest rates, something that he has no direct control over and that is poised to happen anyway.

It’s “garnering even more doubt?” No kidding. It sounds like they are trying to sell their fascist round up as a way to confiscate people’s property. Golly, I wonder where they got that idea?

The deportation plan, if implemented, would wreck the US economy in general and the idea that anyone would take it seriously as a housing policy is beyond belief. What in the world are they thinking?

As for interest rates, Trump will just take credit for lowering them even though anyone who understands what the Fed is knows he would have nothing to do with it. Nonetheless, it’s part of his “plan” that we are asked to measure against Harris’ actual policy and judge to be no more lacking in substance.

Something very bad is happening at the paper of record. This isn’t about “taking sides” or reporting the fact. They are no longer reporting the truth.

Q: Trump is sharing QAnon statements and misogynistic memes. Do you support that?

Vance: That is how you lift people up pic.twitter.com/Va9j5hL4eU

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) August 30, 2024

Calling women whores is always good fun, everyone knows that. And when you’re trying to get every vote in a close election it’s especially entertaining — to the incel community anyway. (I do believe that despite his marital status he is a true incel at heart.)

Keep it up JD, the women are loving it.

Some more good news. Are people starting to hear it?

The Federal Reserve’s go-to inflation gauge held at 2.5% in July, Commerce Department data showed Friday. That’s better than anticipated and shows progress — but still underscores the bumpy process for inflation’s descent.

Friday’s report also reaffirmed that the backbone of the US economy — the consumer — is still holding strong, although their piggy banks are getting lighter.

Spending was up by 0.5%, or 0.4% when adjusted for inflation, landing above expectations for the month when car dealerships were back in gear after a massive software outage in June and when Amazon puts on its annual Prime Day sales event.

The Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, which the Fed uses for its 2% target rate, was 2.5% for the year ended in July, unchanged from June. On a monthly basis, prices increased 0.2% versus 0.1% the prior month.

The latest inflation reading, which served as further confirmation that the pace of price hikes is sustainably cooling, comes just weeks before the Fed is expected to start easing monetary policy and cutting interest rates.

“I thought the report was right down the strike zone,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, told CNN in an interview Friday. “Bottom line, it indicates that inflation continues to moderate and is within spitting distance of the [Fed’s] target.”

The core PCE index, a closely watched measure of underlying inflation that strips out the more volatile components of food and energy, held steady as well by rising 0.2% for the month and 2.6% annually.

The biggest reason why inflation is not yet at 2% is housing services, particularly the implicit cost of homeownership, Zandi said. Rental and housing inflation has cooled substantially in the market but is measured with a lag in PCE and other inflation gauges, such as the Consumer Price Index.

For all intents and purposes, the Fed has achieved its inflation goals, Zandi said.

“We’re there, and it’s a bright green light for them to start easing interest rates,” he said.

It’s overdue. They need to pull the trigger.

*The quote in the headline is from Chris Hayes.

Absolute incoherence, can’t keep track of a thought from one second to the next, bubbling over with whiny rage. Where are the headlines?pic.twitter.com/6OHe4s85zp

— Jesse Lee (@JesseCharlesLee) August 29, 2024

You can see why his team is so desperate to keep his mic muted as much as possible during the debate.

By the way, note that in his comparison to Lincoln, Jefferson and Jackson he says “I even got shot.”

I think we can all see the ignorance and insanity in that comment, can’t we?

It was normal. How refreshing.

Ah, the lazy, crazy days of August during a presidential election year are upon us. That’s when the political press decides that the Democratic candidate is not being accessible enough to them so they spend weeks badgering them for interviews and demanding press conferences always insinuating that he or she much be hiding something.

I’m reminds me of the 2016 cycle when, during the month of August, the press had a collective tantrum when HIllary Clinton’s people roped her off as she walked in a parade in order to keep reporters and photographers from turning the event into a paparazzi style scrum. I wrote at the time:

Aaron Blake recounted the event in all its chilling detail and then rather sheepishly admitted that nobody in America really gives a damn about how Hillary Clinton treats the press. (A point I made a month ago.) After all, the press is held in only slightly higher esteem by the public than loan sharks and puppy mill operators. The thinly veiled threat underneath all this outrage is that the media will react to being treated badly by giving the candidate bad press, but it’s pretty clear that train left the station a long time ago when it comes to Clinton, so the cost-benefit analysis probably doesn’t argue in favor of the campaign giving a damn either.

You could not blame her. That election year was the worst. It was the “but her emails” campaign and we all know how the political media dropped the ball on that. They hysterically chased rumors that Clinton had brain damage and was hiding serious health issues, demanding that she open her medical records to the public and share the details of every doctor visit. (They happily relied on her opponent’s Dr. Feelgood for a laughable rundown of Donald Trump’s health. )

As far as we can tell, they never accepted their culpability in that shocking upset despite their knowledge that it was a ridiculous obsession that was relentlessly pursued out of a desire to get the “scoop” that would finally bring Hillary Clinton down. If they weren’t that far gone, they did think it was good sport since they were sure that Donald Trump couldn’t possibly win. The consequences of that behavior were world changing.

This year we’ve had another version of that same dynamic with the relentless demands earlier in the year for President Biden to sit down for an interview with the NY Times. In retrospect, it’s clear that they were looking to confirm the rumors of his alleged incapacity, which he ended up confirming on his own in a debate that his team had asked for. But the imperiousness of the NY Times in their quest to expose him is still galling.

Take, for example, this interview with Times editor Joe Kahn with Semafor back in April in which he was asked about a comment by former Obama official Dan Pfeiffer who said: “They do not see their job as saving democracy or stopping an authoritarian from taking power.” Kahn replied:

To say that the threats of democracy are so great that the media is going to abandon its central role as a source of impartial information to help people vote — that’s essentially saying that the news media should become a propaganda arm for a single candidate, because we prefer that candidate’s agenda

Needless to say, Pfeiffer wasn’t talking about Biden or Trump’s policy agenda. He was talking about the “Big Agenda” to destroy democracy (Project 2025?) which Kahn made clear later that he really doesn’t see as a problem. He went on to say that the papers job is to write about what people care about and democracy is way down the list after immigration and crime. He sounded very sanguine about Trump winning another term.

Keep in mind, though, that at this moment he and his reporters and editorialists were pounding on Biden over his age. Now that might very well be a legitimate line of inquiry but when you pursue that line without also probing the increasingly batshit crazy behavior of Donald Trump (who is also elderly) you give away the game.

Biden was hostile to the Times and other members of the elite press because they refused to give him credit for a somewhat miraculous economic recovery (ostensibly because of vibes) and dogged him about his advanced age. Trump, on the other hand, lives for media attention even though he rarely says anything that makes sens so they see him as a candidate playing by the rules because he makes himself available to spout his gibberish.

I had thought when Biden finally withdrew and Harris became the nominee that they might be satisfied and give Harris some running room. (They do that with certain Democratic candidates they like.) But that was not to be. Sure, she’s running against someone who is getting in fights with the Army, flip-flopping so violently it’s only a matter of time before he comes out for MediCare for All and a 60% tax on millionaires but they don’t seem to be bothered much by it. Rather than the relentless, focused coverage we saw with “butheremails” and “Bidenis old” they’re covering him like just another candidate. As Kahn said in that interview:

It’s our job to cover the full range of issues that people have. At the moment, democracy is one of them. But it’s not the top one — immigration happens to be the top [of polls], and the economy and inflation is the second. Should we stop covering those things because they’re favorable to Trump and minimize them?

Talk about missing the forest for the trees. Trump’s “ideas” about all those things are, to use a technical term, cracked. More importantly, there is a massive story unfolding before our very eyes in which one of America’s political parties has turned itself into an authoritarian cult led by a convicted criminal. All those “issues” Kahn believes are so important to present in a fair unbiased manner are informed by this much more important story. Whether or not Americans are going to go along with Trump’s dark, foreboding vision of the future or will choose something normal is what this election is about.

Last night Harris and VP candidate Tim Walz appeared on CNN for an interview. When it was announced, many people criticized the dual appearance, suggesting that she needed Walz to lean on so she must be weak. But it’s actually a tradition for the ticket to appear together for a big interview, often right after the convention. (The press knows they, they just played dumb.)

(Former President Bush even refused to meet without Vice President Cheney for the interview by the 9/11 Commission. Talk about a crutch.)

Harris and Walz gave a very predictable, anodyne interview. They are both experienced politicians and know how to do these things. As usual, they had to spend about half the time rebutting right wing smears, dutifully regurgitated by the host Dana Bash. Harris clearly did not need Walz as a crutch and he was his usual charming self when called upon. They got into some policy details, both seemed comfortable, that was it. It was hard to see what all the media frenzy was about.

But it hasn’t ended. Almost immediately there were calls for a press conference. Maybe she should just do one like Trump does: say anything she wants for a hour and then just take three or four questions and call it a day. They seem perfectly satisfied when he does it.

Salon

Dana Bash asked some stupid questions. Surprise.

Why must these candidate interviews be masturbatory efforts designed more to boost the journalist’s profile, reinforce media-created narratives, sell ads, and provide filler for the 24-hour news cycle than to, you know, actually inform the voters?

Jamelle Bouie has thoughts.

@jamellebouie

some thoughts on the spectacle

♬ original sound – b-boy bouiebaisse

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For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.

Labor Day weekend is here

Most Americans are not political geeks. They don’t spend their mornings writing things like this, or reading things like this. They don’t stay up late at night generating charts trying to get politicos higher up the food chain to address turnout anomalies that could help them win up and down the ballot. (UNA stands for UNAffiliated voter.)

Most Americans don’t really pay attention to the fall elections until after Labor Day. Nor do they pay attention to crucial downballot races that have much more impact on their daily lives than the presidential contest.

LOLGOP suggests they do, and you do:

🚨IT’S TIME TO THROW EVERYTHING YOU’VE GOT DOWNBALLOT🚨

This is part of our Downballot for Democracy mission.

It’s basically Labor Day. That means Election Season for most Americans, who avoid politics better than they do COVID, has finally begun.

Of course, this particular election—with its 34 felony convictions, Republican-on-Republican shooting, and miraculous elevation of Kamala Harris to the top of the ticket—has attracted more attention than most presidential races. And the surprising result of all this mishegas is that Democrats are pumped.

But what’s depressing as hell is that all the joy for the top of the ticket isn’t helping downballot candidates. Instead, it’s actually hurting them.

That’s what Run for Something‘s Amanda Litman told the great Greg Sargent on his Daily Blast podcast earlier this month.

And no one would know better than our patron saint of Reverse Coattails, who has worked with hundreds of young, progressive downballot candidates, operating basically as the farm team for the Democratic Party and democracy itself.

Check out the video above to hear her explain the current fundraising crisis. She then quickly offers a perfect example of why winning downballot races is essential to ending our crisis, where our freedoms are on the line every election. If you’re not inspired to go downballot and back Run for Something after listening to this two minutes and 26 seconds, democracy may not be for you.

Harris/Walz will have the money they need. And they seem to be spending it in brilliant, highly targeted ways.

But the truth is nothing can replace money doing directly to downballot campaigns for a simple reason: it frees candidates up to reach out to voters in every possible way.

Some imagine a trickle-down effect from the money sent to the top of the ticket. And, yes, an exceptional presidential campaign can lift most boats. But Harris/Walz isn’t going to take that extra cash and start spreading it out. First of all, there’s no such thing as extra cash. Campaigns should spend every dime to ensure the candidates win, and that’s why donors send checks to a particular campaign.

Without the money in the bank, the campaign and the candidate cannot plan; they can’t invest in ads, swag, or staff. And the time when they can do that is quickly fading.

So if you have the money you can give, please give it to a downballot candidate as soon as possible. And if you need ideas about where the best opportunities are, check out Downballot for Democracy, and please share this with anyone who cares.

Do. Not. Forget. Downballot candidates.

It is legend here in N.C. that Chief Justice Cheri Beasley lost her seat on the state Supreme Court in 2020 by 401 votes out of 5.5 million cast. Voters fill in the top of the ticket races and “drop off” as they go down the ballot. They leave blank critical races. Help remind your neighbors how important those races are. Democrats here lost control of the state’s highest court and have suffered the gerrymandering and vote-suppressing consequences.

Don’t let this happen to you.

Pro Tip: Don’t just trust what comes out of the computer.

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For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.