You may have heard that Republican Congrssman Mike Lawler of New York has been found to have dressed up as Michael Jackson when he was in college, including the blackface. Yeah, Not good. The NY Times reports that Lawler was a Michael Jackson super fan — and I mean super fan, so you’d think he’d know better.
But get a load of this:
In 2005, as a high school senior, Mr. Lawler flew from New York to California to attend parts of Jackson’s criminal trial. The pop star had been charged with molesting a 13-year-old boy at his Neverland Ranch; the case ended in acquittal.
J. Randy Taraborrelli, a Jackson biographer, helped get Mr. Lawler into the courtroom and recalled in his book that the young fan had been “so disgusted” by testimony against Jackson “that he couldn’t help but mutter something derogatory under his breath.” Mr. Lawler was removed from the courtroom, according to Mr. Taraborrelli’s biography, “Michael Jackson: The Magic, the Madness, the Whole Story.”
I’ve always gotten a strange vibe from this guy. There’s just something off about him. I mean, many people travel to see their musical idols perform, there’s nothing odd about that. But this was a high school senior who was such a fan that he traveled across the country to attend the molestation trial of his idol and hackled the witnesses! What?
I know we should be forgiving of what people do when they’re kids. But this is just creepy.
But it won’t be. The rest of the media has hardly mentioned it
“Here is a true smoking gun. People that worked for Trump, speaking openly about what ought to be a truly impeachment-level offense: an American president refusing to sign off on disaster aid to people he thought weren’t sufficiently supportive of his political ambitions.”
They literally had to bring him data showing Republican voters in Orange County before he would sign the emergency declaration for California’s devastating wildfires. We knew he’d threatened to do it. We didn’t know he actually did it and had to be talked out of it by staff.
For people who think all this talk about how he was held back by the adults in the room in the first term is overblown, this should put that to rest. And guess what? There won’t be any adults in the room next time. .
Marco Rubio used to be a normal politician. Yes, he was a conservative and he was full of shit in many different ways. But he was taken seriously on foreign policy as someone who understood the issues, even if people disagreed with him ideologically. He worked on immigration reform and had collegial relationships across the aisle. And at one time he was considered one of the prime GOP contenders for the presidency.
Now he routinely panders to the dumbest MAGA conspiracy theorist, pushing whatever the cult demands.
Literally in this jobs report, the lukewarm reports of the past two months were revised upward https://t.co/XFNxmEB48n
It’s unclear if he’s just become one of them, buying into every nonsensical bit of BS the fever swamp spits out or if he’s just cynically exploiting it for power. It actually doesn’t matter which because in the end it illustrates that the GOP is now fully merged with MAGA and whether Trump wins or not, there is no going back. They’ve trained tens of millions of their followers to think like this and they are now stuck in the same delusional rabbit hole and can’t get back out.
Will it take generations to purge this from the body politic? Will it even be possible?
These findings suggest that Harris has been effective at improving voters’ perception of how she would handle various economic issues, including top issues like reducing inflation, and by extension, reducing the cost of housing and groceries. While a plurality of voters think Vance won the recent vice presidential debate, voters still have a more favorable opinion of Walz than Vance overall, and choose Harris over Trump by 3 points in a head-to-head race.
Even Fox is having a hard time spinning the economy:
I guess this is good news? More people have decided that they can believe their eyes over GOP propaganda? Good news. But damn, it should not be this close.
Look at this guy.
While we're still awaiting Biden's 1929 style depression, Trump is out here insisting that if Kamala wins there will be a 1929 style depression pic.twitter.com/Qg9XAGqjea
Trump in Milwaukee says he will have Elon Musk in his administration to cut trillions of dollars of federal spending but reassures people that "nobody will feel a thing" pic.twitter.com/swLfF8B1W0
Q: What specific legislation will you commit to to make child care affordable?
Trump: Well, I would do that and we're sitting down, you know, I was, somebody, we had Marco Rubio and my daughter, Ivanka… But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I'm talking about… pic.twitter.com/v8gqLUHS2v
Today, more than 6,600 National Guard Soldiers and Airmen from 17 states continue to support federal, state and local #Helene response efforts across the Southeast. pic.twitter.com/glhsMzhLZW
MAGA Republicans are now lying about the federal response to Hurricane Helene in much the same way they lied about Haitian migrants bringing chaos and disease to Springfield, Ohio. Both disinformation efforts are flat-out lies, and both are designed to demonize immigrants. Immigration was the issue Trump was so eager to run on that he demanded Republican lawmakers reject the strong border bill a bipartisan group of lawmakers had hammered out.
The federal response to Hurricane Helene has drawn bipartisan praise, with Republican governor Henry McMaster of South Carolina thanking Biden by name for what McMaster called a “superb” response.
But on Sunday, September 29, two days after the hurricane hit, the right-wing organization started by anti-immigrant Trump loyalist Stephen Miller posted: “Billions for Ukraine. Billions for illegal aliens. And what for the Americans? Reprogram every single dollar that FEMA has dedicated to support illegal aliens to go towards Americans who are facing unprecedented devastation!”
Yesterday, in Saginaw, Michigan, Trump echoed Miller, claiming that the Biden administration is botching the hurricane response because it has spent all the money appropriated for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on “illegal immigrants.” “They spent it all on illegal migrants.… They stole the FEMA money just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them,” he said. Today, he claimed that “a billion dollars was stolen from FEMA to use it for illegal migrants, many of whom are criminals, to come into our country.”
Early this morning, X owner Elon Musk posted to his more than 200 million followers: “Yes, they are literally using YOUR tax dollars to import voters and disenfranchise you! It is happening right in front of your eyes. And FEMA used up its budget ferrying illegals into the country instead of saving American lives. Treason.” On Wednesday, Dana Mattioli, Joe Palazzolo, and Khadeeja Safdar of the Wall Street Journal broke the story that Musk has been financing groups with ties to Miller since 2022.
But of course, it is NOT happening in front of anyone’s eyes.
Trump has a habit of assuming other politicians act in the same way as he would. So we wondered why he would accuse Biden of raiding the FEMA disaster fund to handle undocumented migrants.
It turns out that’s because he did this. In 2019, the Trump administration, in the middle of hurricane season, told Congress that it was taking $271 million from DHS programs, including $155 million from the disaster fund, to pay for immigration detention space and temporary hearing locations for asylum seekers who had been forced to wait in Mexico. “The U.S. is facing a security and humanitarian crisis on the Southern border,” the administration said in its notice that it was redirecting the funds.
The monthly reports issued by the FEMA disaster fund show $38 million was plucked and given to Immigration and Customs Enforcement in August that year — just before the prime storm period of September and October.
I suppose it was inevitable that they’d try to turn this into Kamala’s Katrina. But they’re actively interfering with the rescue efforts and hurting their own voters in the process. Musk has been especially malevolent, reaching into Alex Jones territory.
Don’t believe the bullshit @elonmusk is spreading around Twitter. Here’s a Republican US senator from North Carolina talking about the Hurricane Helene response. https://t.co/VZeV5TMyTc
That’s a total lie. And Valentina Gomez is one of the most disgusting Republicans on the planet, just coming off of a losing primary race in which her platform was grotesque assaults on LGBTQ people. It figures that she is on Musk’s radar.
Ron DeSantis refused to meet with Biden, no doubt trying to avoid the Chris Christie curse (the rightwingers excoriated him for meeting with Obama after Hurricane Sandy in 2012) but for the most part local Repubican officials are beside themselves over the disinformation which is making it impossible to help people. From mayors to county executives to Governors, they’re all begging people to knock it off but it’s falling on deaf ears.
Social media is awash in disinformation led by Republicans and no doubt foreign bots have joined in the action. It’s sick.
This guy is on the ground correcting the record every day:
Yesterday as we were delivering food and water to Bat Cave we found a @fema Urban Search and rescue unit NY-TF1 after a long day airlifting people, etc..a team 18 people and 3 dogs. People like them are heroes all over NC….@DHSgov this what government does and we don’t realize… pic.twitter.com/6eAoXxpcfl
Reporting from Bakersville,Mitchell county we @wckitchen landed to provide meals to @Bakersville to the city and @NationalGuard doing amazing work, and even under the circumstances and damage that their city and county had…they have water, food, medicines @fema… pic.twitter.com/zwgCYCU3NZ
Update: I should have mentioned local media which has been doing a fantastic job:
What a front page. Our state and local newspapers are going to save our democracy. THIS is how it’s done. Bravo, Winston-Salem Journal pic.twitter.com/MrVp59LJhQ
Trump: I don't sleep that much. I toss and turn. I think. I think. I think. I'm always thinking. Do you ever do that? You're sweating and you're thinking and you're trying to figure out how to beat this one, that one… I toss and I turn pic.twitter.com/seE4BalGsM
I’m slowly catching up with Hurricane Helene images and stories about my neighborhood that the cellular blackout made impossible to see. (Still having signal issues this morning.) Asheville Watchdog has an explanation for why that occurred. It could happen where you live. (Where’d I put that satellite phone I don’t own?)
Seventy-two are reported dead in my county. There will be more. Someone reported friends in Swannanoa getting out of their house and up slope with the dog just before waters washed it away.
A friend downriver in Marshall lives in a second floor apartment downtown. She called yesterday to say she and her neighbors watched water rise to three steps below their floor before subsiding. The picturesque town was a location for “The Peripheral.”
The Washington Post has an explainer on how “what fueled Helene and caused so much devastation in the Appalachian Mountains.” I can read the text but not load the images on my laptop. I can on the phone.
A couple of the government resources that have been flying over my house for days, despite what you read on FKA Twitter and RW social media.
[Signal weak this a.m., making it a slog to load web pages, but here goes.]
Back in the hippie-dippy days of the Jesus Freak movement of the early 1970s, Moses David (David Berg) and his Children of God used, um, “alternative” methods for sucking in members to their religious cult that included (IIRC) seductions and “lying for Jesus” about the nature of group and its founder.
Evangelicals around these parts thought this behavior a lie of the Devil, no matter the Jesusy pretensions and trappings. So like the adoption over the last decades of propaganda techniques conservatives decried in the 1960s as tools of the “commies,” the vacant-eyed embrace by nald Trump’s MAGA minions of stupidly obvious lies is just as confounding. WTF Real American™ values do they think they stand for?
An image depicting former president Donald Trump wading through floodwaters alongside a fellow disaster responder went viral on social media this week.
But there’s one tiny problem: the image is an AI-generated fake, as multiple publications have confirmed.
The image, which shows Trump wearing a lifejacket and blue jeans as he marches through thigh-high waters, first picked up steam on Facebook last weekend.
And it doesn’t hold up to virtually any degree of scrutiny. Trump’s right hand is distorted, and the lettering pictured on either man’s clothing is completely illegible.
The former president has visitedsome areas impacted by the storm, but there are no credible reports of the candidate physically going into floodwaters in blue jeans, making it only the latest instance of highly politicized AI slop ahead of the presidential elections next month.
Like the conspiracy fantasies about Hurricane Helene recovery efforts I’ve heard this week, removal of faked photos by social media sites is itself treated as a dark conspiracy against free speech by, you know, THEM.
As of publishing this article, the image has garnered over ten thousand likes on Facebook.
“I don’t think FB wants this picture on FB,” the poster wrote in a caption, implying the social media giant may have been removing the post for political reasons. “They have been deleting it.”
Despite alleged censorship, the image was shared roughly 160,000 times in just two days, according to a fact check from USA Today. (The photo is still live on Facebook, though has been flagged with an “altered photo” warning and a link to an independent, third-party fact check.)
The image quickly spread to other corners of social media, where users captioned the synthetic image with notes about how “they don’t want you to see this side of Trump” and messages to leaders to “not tell me how much you care about Americans… show me though [sic] your actions.”
The fake image of Trump is one of many AI-generated fake photos to circulate in the wake of the deadly storm, which wrought extensive damage throughout parts of Appalachia.
It’s not as if there aren’t people on the left willing to suspend disbelief outside a movie theater. That is, lefties who fantasize access to secret knowledge concealed either by the Deep State or the Illuminati. But those people were never numerous enough to elect a Jill Stein or an RFK Jr. Or to suspend the Constitution and install a wannabe dictator bent on revenge where the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave once stood.
Former Mesa County, Colo. Clerk Sue Peters is headed to nine years in jail for her embrace of stupid MAGA lies. They have consequences. They won’t if Trump wins reelection this November.
Other AI-generated images of alleged hurricane devastation have depicted scenes like flooded homes, abandoned, sad-looking dogs on roofs, and men in knee-high water barbequing.
Most notably, a widely-shared AI image showing a crying young girl clutching a puppy while evacuating in a canoe has made its rounds on X-formerly-Twitter, where it’s been repeatedly shared by right-wing influencers and close Trump allies.
As far as the health of our information world goes, the apparent believability of these images is troubling. The fact that so many netizens are taking clearly AI-generated images at face value is a damning indictment of the extent of media illiteracy plaguing the US today.
But this is more than media illiteracy. Willingness to repeat Trump’s Big Lie is a requirement of membership in the Trump cult. It’s male infant circumcision of the rational brain, accepted willingly by those seeking the phony embrace of the world’s greatest con man, the edjudicated-rapist protector of women, etc. The Republican Party is gone. In its place, a conspiracy of dunces. Dangerous ones at that.
Hurricane Helene has devastated communities across the Southeastern U.S. We've compiled several organizations that have been working tirelessly to transport animals to safety and provide critical supplies. They all desperately need donations, and we encourage you to support them. pic.twitter.com/ZuyZTmMNRD
Brother Wolf Rescue lost their facility, vehicles, and supplies. They were able to evacuate all of their animals before the hurricane hit. They're working to provide resources for the animals in their care as well as those in the community. https://t.co/hdpvxfo7lZpic.twitter.com/SE9k3h0UeR
These are not the only places to direct your support, but they are the ones many of you suggested. As always, please feel free to leave more suggestions in the comments. Our hearts are with everyone affected by Hurricane Helene ❤
A race to evacuate over 100 animals from Asheville, North Carolina’s main animal shelter ahead of Hurricane Helene’s torrential rains and devastating flooding likely saved all of their lives. But now comes the struggle to find more permanent housing, as the shelter would later become destroyed in the historic flood.
“It’s been a really, really hard week for everyone,” said Leah Craig Chumbley of Brother Wolf Animal Rescue. “We’re working around the clock.”
The shelter cares for mostly dogs and cats, but also such pets as rabbits and guinea pigs.
“We know that when the river rises, we get some water in our building. And we really thought worst-case scenario, 6 to 12 inches,” she said.
But this storm was going way beyond those levels.
“So we knew that we needed to get our animals out,” she said. “The day before this storm, we sent out a social plea and email to our supporters, our fosters, our volunteers and said, you know, can you help us?”
“We got 100 animals out of that building in two hours (and) we already had 50 animals in foster care,” she said. “So, since the storm hit, you know, we woke up, I actually went to the shelter the very next day. And you still just didn’t know what to expect because we were cut off from the rest of the world immediately. And, you know, you’re seeing water in your neighborhoods, and you’re hearing stories from people. But these are the very early hours of realizing the catastrophe that happened.”
Then she reached the shelter building to find it in ruins.
“When I went there, and I saw everything underwater, it was just devastating,” she said. “And also, my gosh, thank God we got them out … If we hadn’t done that, all of them would have perished in that building.”
She said their buildings had saved the lives of over 100,000 animals in its history “and (the buildings are) gone. Everything we have is gone.”
“The support that we bring to this community is so vital because we work throughout all of western North Carolina,” Chumbley said. “So all of these communities that have been impacted are ones that we serve. We know these communities. They don’t look anything like the ones that we knew. But we are going to be here to help them and to get back on our feet after this.”
And now comes the process of making sure the evacuated animals are well cared for as they begin the long rebuilding process.
“We need so much support, and we’re just so glad for everyone who is caring and sending love our way,” she said. “Asheville is amazing. I mean, Asheville is love. Asheville is community, and Asheville is Dog Town USA … This is what Brother Wolf has seen for years from this community. We are supported only by this community. It is the heart and soul of this community that makes up Brother Wolf. And we need this community. We need the whole country right now to look at us and help us rebuild.”
I’ve seen so much footage of people rescuing animals from the floods. It’s just heartwrenching to see these innocent creatures trapped. And then I think about all the wild animals that must have perished. It’s so sad.
The people doing this are unsung heroes. They deserve support.
E. Jean Carroll V. Donald Trump is a powerful documentary that brings to life the brave testimony of writer E. Jean Carroll, who accused former President Donald Trump of sexual abuse. In a landmark legal case, Trump was held liable for sexual abuse and defamation, with a court ordering him to pay $83.3 million in damages.
Directed by Robert Greenwald, this Brave New Films production features powerful performances from prominent actors, including Kathryn Hahn, Ellen Burstyn, Lexi Underwood, and Regina Taylor. Through their voices, the film vividly portrays Carroll’s courageous fight for justice.
As Election Day nears, E. Jean Carroll V. Donald Trump is a must-watch for anyone concerned about justice, accountability, and the future of American democracy. Watch now and share with friends, especially those in battleground states, as we fight to make sure the truth is heard. A big thank you to Kathryn Hahn, Ellen Burstyn, Lexi Underwood, and Regina Taylor for their incredible performances. And of course, a major thank you to E. Jean Carroll for standing up to Donald Trump.
This is well worth watching. Grab a cocktail and spent the 20 minutes with this to remember just how evil he really is.
