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Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Biden Campaign Hitting Project 2025 Hard

Published by digby on June 27, 2024

Thank God

There has been an upsurge in google searches for Project 2025. The Biden campaign has noticed and they are here to help:

Axios reported:

The Biden campaign is using Thursday’s debate to launch a new offensive against Trump allies’ radical plans to transform the U.S. government, known as “Project 2025.”

The Biden campaign wants to convince jaded voters that a second Trump presidency poses grave risks to the country. Biden officials see Project 2025 — which calls for an unprecedented expansion of presidential power — as a useful blueprint for what Trump’s return would bring. The controversial transition agenda was compiled by the Heritage Foundation with input from close Trump allies and former aides — some of whom are likely to take top jobs if he wins — but Project 2025 is not an official campaign platform.

The Trump campaign points instead to the Agenda47 website for policies explicitly endorsed by former President Trump.

The Project 2025 proposals have started to attract more attention online as more Americans tune into the race.Google search interest in “Project 2025” surged earlier this month, and a John Oliver segment on Trump’s plans for a second term racked up nearly 5 million views on YouTube in under a week.

The Biden campaign, whose messaging around Project 2025 accelerated after March’s State of the Union address, is trying to capitalize on the viral momentum. It launched a new website Thursday highlighting contentious policies from the Heritage Foundation’s 920-page “Mandate for Leadership,” a comprehensive policy guide for reshaping the federal government.

I think the John Oliver segment that went viral had a big impact, which is telling. (We could use more of that sort of thing.) In case you missed it:

Here’s a new Biden ad. Project 2025 is all about the Comstock Act and banning abortion and contraception.:

Also, this is very good:

Trail Mix Nuts

Published by digby on June 27, 2024

I’m so old I remember when candidate Barack Obama was forced to give a major address to distance himself from a pastor whose church he attended from time to time because of comments the pastor made when he wasn’t present. The whole country was Up In Arms.

Today, the GOP candidate invites actual Nazi psychos to his house to give talks and is on the campaign trail for him:

Extremist commentator Christiane Northrup has promoted a pro-Nazi film that denies the Holocaust, encouraged people to check out the infamous antisemitic tract Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and repeatedly pushed the conspiracy theory that a secretive mafia is hiding behind Jewish identity to control world events. Still, Northrup has spoken twice at Trump’s Miami resort alongside Eric and Lara Trump and been featured in a Robert F. Kennedy Jr. campaign video. 

Northrup is a former OBGYN who initially gained fame as a self-help author who was praised by Oprah Winfrey. Since then, as The Washington Post reported in May 2022, Northrup has claimed COVID-19 “was part of a plot involving Deep State brainwashing and treacherous depopulation schemes” and she “encouraged fans to check out QAnon, called the Centers for Disease Control a ‘covid death cult,’ and described the vaccines as crimes against humanity.” 

Northrup is listed as a “featured” speaker on the pro-Trump ReAwaken America Tour. She, along with Eric and Lara Trump — now the co-chair of the Republican National Committee — appeared on the tour’s stops at Trump Doral in Miami, Florida, in May and October 2023.

A poster for the tour’s next stop in Selma, North Carolina, in October lists Northrup, Eric Trump, and Lara Trump as scheduled speakers. 

The tour has become a magnet for Hitler-promoting antisemites. Including Northrup, Media Matters has now identified at least five speakers who have shared antisemitic and pro-Hitler material. 

Fine, fine, perfectly fine…

This is the caliber of people who come to speak at the Republican presidential candidate’s home. Raving nut-cases. And the chair of the RNC and her husband, the candidate’s son, are on the campaign trail with her. ((Not to mention fellow weirdo Robert F. Kennedy Jr.)

Just don’t use the “N” word (Nazi) to describe them. People get very upset.

This Time In 2012

Published by digby on June 27, 2024

There was much hand-wringing

July of that year was a real nail biter … and Obama went on to win by 4 points.

How about 1992?

G. Elliott Morris of 538 (formerly the Economist poll) has this to say about that new NY Times poll, dropped coincidentally on the night before the debate, showing Trump up 6 among registered voters. (Biden is ahead among likely voters,.)

Caveat emptor

It ain’t over til it’s over.

The Toddler

Published by digby on June 27, 2024

From 2015:


Donald Trump’s plans to make America great again are going to include a lot of whining.

Trump on Tuesday morning in an interview on CNN’s “New Day” proclaimed that he is “the most fabulous whiner” when confronted with an opinion piece that criticized him using the same label.

“I do whine because I want to win and I’m not happy about not winning and I am a whiner and I keep whining and whining until I win,” Trump told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Tuesday.

This is what four year olds do before they learn that they can’t have everything they want when they want it. Trump never learned that lesson.

Trump’s Formula For Success: Skip mock debates, fundraise and undermine the results

Published by digby on June 27, 2024

He knows he no longer has to legitimately win anything

Propaganda uber alles:

Donald Trump in recent days gave speeches in Washington and Philadelphia and greeted supporters at a cheesesteak restaurant in Pennsylvania. He flew to New Orleans for a fundraiser Monday, and called in to a roundtable with Black leaders on Wednesday in Atlanta.

Ahead of what could be the most consequential political event of the cycle, Trump has continued campaigning and has eschewed intense debate preparations, even as Joe Biden has remained hidden away at Camp David to get ready.

That’s made easier by the fact that he’s already declared the debate is essentially rigged.

Trump and his team have worked to undermine, undercut and cast doubt on the historic debate before it’s started: They’ve questioned the fairness of CNN moderators Dana Bash and Jake Tapper. Trump and his allies have criticized the format of the debate. They’ve repeatedly asked President Joe Biden to take a drug test.

It’s a playbook Trump has followed for years, most notably ahead of the 2020 election and his criminal trial this spring in Manhattan. If Trump comes out the winner of the debate, his allies predict, then it will be in spite of the obstacles. If Trump stumbles, then he has already set up who and what to blame. It’s also a brand of grievance politics that has long animated Trump’s most fervent supporters and helped him, baselessly, explain away past political failures and legal setbacks.

Win-win for the sore loser. And his followers can’t get enough of it.

Trump’s Himmler:

Here’s our future Secretary Of State:

More from Vanity Fair:

A strong showing by Biden will neutralize Trump’s claims about his opponent’s cognitive decline.The Trump campaign knows this. That’s why, in recent days, Trump and his aides have been working overtime to mitigate the damage should Biden deliver a commanding performance similar to his fiery State of the Union address. The Trump campaign’s first tactic is the most Trumpian: Spread a nasty smear. At a Pennsylvania rally on June 22, Trump made the baseless claim that Biden will use drugs to get “jacked up” for the debate. Trump senior adviser Jason Miller told me that Biden’s State of the Union speech was “evidence” that Biden uses performance-enhancing drugs. “The Joe Biden who delivered the State of the Union is not the same Joe Biden the American people see every day. It’s clearly two different people. It’s literally Jekyll and Hyde,” Miller said. (Asked about Trump’s drug claims, a Biden campaign spokesperson said the former president is “resorting to desperate, obviously false lies.”)

Secondly, the Trump campaign is lowering the bar by playing the media’s victim. If Biden wins on Thursday, Trump can say CNN rigged the debate in Biden’s favor, regardless of whatever millions of Americans see with their own eyes. “It’s a three-on-one dynamic with Biden, [Jake] Tapper and [Dana] Bash,” Miller told me. “The structure makes it impossible for President Trump to get a fair shake,” Miller said. The Trump campaign will also say the media grades Biden on a curve. “The media has lowered the bar so much that if Biden can stand up for 90 minutes, he’ll be declared the winner,” Miller told me.

Trumpworld’s third move is to turn Biden’s serious debate preparation against him by highlighting that Trump is conspicuously not doing formal debate prep—a clear flex to show Trump isn’t worried about Biden. According to Miller, Biden is spending a week prepping at Camp David because the Biden campaign didn’t expect Trump to accept their offer to debate with a mainstream media moderator. “The Biden people didn’t want the debate to happen. The terms of the debate were so one-sided in their favor they didn’t think Trump would accept. But Trump called their bluff. That’s why Biden is freaking out and taking a week off to prepare,” Miller said.

Apparently, they don’t believe there’s a chance in hell of Trump just winning the debate on the merits. And they’re right about that. He’s a narcissistic imbecile. But these people do have a talent for influencing the media and indoctrinating their followers.

Rules to Debate-Watch By

Published by Tom Sullivan on June 27, 2024

Rick Wilson counts ’em down

Rick Wilson via FKA Twitter:

For the debate tonight, not only for the spin before and after, but for every Trump utterance on stage, remember the Rules of MAGA:

Every accusation is a confession.

Every denial is a full confession of guilt.

Every claim of evil is projection.

Every boast of strength is an admission of failure.

Every fact is subject to Trump’s sole interpretation.

Every law is a conspiracy against Trump.

Every anecdote is pure fiction.

Every casual cruelty and crazed conspiracy leads deeper into more cruelty and conspiracy.

Every word is a lie, every lie is a promise of betrayal.

Every person or group Trump claims to stand for, he loathes.

Finally, Everything Trump Touches Dies.

That sums it up neatly. But ICYMI, I’d add this about MAGA, Christian nationalists, or financial or tech oligarchs, or all of the above (it’s a type):

They don’t want to govern. They want to rule.

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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.

Not Sanguine About Tonight

Published by Tom Sullivan on June 27, 2024

Rules. Yeah rules ought to hold him.

So CNN believes it can keep Donald John Trump under control during tonight’s debate. They have rules. Rules will tame him. And no live audience to mug for. They’ll mute the candidates’ mics when their answer periods are up.

Slate’s Molly Olmstead wonders:

Will all those rules keep this exercise on the rails? CNN has said that moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash “will use all tools at their disposal to enforce timing and ensure a civilized discussion” (emphasis mine).

But it remains to be seen what that means. If Trump begins stalking the stage menacingly or either candidate starts interrupting (or even yelling), will Tapper and Bash open up a trapdoor? Whip out a lasso or old-timey shepherd’s crook to yank the candidates offstage? Pull a fire alarm?

And there’s no plan for live fact-checking. How will any falsehoods be curtailed?

They won’t be. Trump is a firehose of falsehoods.

CNN CEO Chris Licht was fired a month after a town hall with Trump moderated by Kaitlan Collins last May became an “opportunity to spew lies, smear enemies, and insult the moderator.” No one (here) needs reminding that Trump lost the 2020 election yet incited a mob to storm the Capitol on his behalf. Rules are for suckers and always “rigged.”

“I also expect that CNN is going to rig it as much as possible and make it as favorable as they possibly can for President [Joe] Biden, but I don’t think it’s going to work,” Speaker Mike Johnson told Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council.

Team Trump is pre-spinning the debate every which way so Trump can claim victory whatever happens tonight. Heads he wins, tails Biden loses. They’re pre-spinning November as well.

Still, the big question of the night is: Will CNN be able to keep things civil? Cutting the mics will certainly help, but presumably, the moderators won’t be able to physically restrain Trump from, say, wandering up and talking into Biden’s microphone. Less dramatically, a candidate’s mic might still pick up another candidate’s shouting. Plus, the reality is, they’ll be in the same room. Trump yelling at Biden, calling him crooked or sleepy or accusing him of being on drugs, might prove distracting enough to derail the debate, even if viewers at home can’t hear it. CNN may have removed the unpredictability of a live studio audience, but it can’t remove the unpredictability of Donald Trump.

No flashbulbs, please. They upset the big gorilla.

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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.

Polling Predictions For Dummies

Published by digby on June 26, 2024

Nate Silver is out with a new polling model that says Donald Trump has a 66% chance of winning and everyone on social media is having a fit.

If you come across that I would just suggest you remember this:

You’ll note that’s dated the day of the election. How’d that work out?

Just keep in mind that these close races, as they all are these days, are impossible to predict and data guys like Silver should stop with this nonsense. All it does is make people nervous and unhappy.

Trump’s Close Adviser

Published by digby on June 26, 2024

You have to watch this. It’s short:

Here’s Trump’s top adviser just five years ago:

A global “cable” of satan worshiping pedophiles.

This is one of the most powerful people in the United States.

Good For Him

Published by digby on June 26, 2024

More Republicans should do that.

That’s what I’m talking about. There must be some Indies and moderate GOPers who are getting tired of Trump’s whiny, sore-loserism. They can’t all have Fox News Brain Rot. Can they?

Here’s another one: