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Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Massive Prisoner Exchange

Published by digby on August 1, 2024

Another accomplishment to add to Biden’s legacy

A Big F-ing Deal:

A prisoner swap at a Turkish airport on Thursday involving seven countries freed the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and two other Americans held in Russia, along with several jailed Russian opposition figures, the White House said, in the most far-reaching exchange between Russia and the West in decades.

The scope of the deal has little precedent in the post-Soviet era. For the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union, Moscow freed prominent dissidents as part of a swap; 16 people in total were released from Russian custody. In exchange, eight people were freed by the West, after a complex web of negotiations that took place behind the scenes for months among nations that are otherwise bitterly at odds over Russian aggression in Ukraine.

The exchange took place at the international airport in Ankara, Turkey’s capital, and involved seven different planes ferrying 24 prisoners from the United States, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway, and Russia, a Turkish intelligence official said.

The deal seemed sure to prompt jubilation among Western nations that had condemned the charges against the imprisoned Americans and opposition figures as baseless and politically motivated. It also delivered a diplomatic victory for President Biden, who has long pledged to bring home imprisoned Americans and to support Russia’s embattled pro-democracy movement.

It was also a triumph of a different sort for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who can use the deal to highlight his loyalty to Russian agents who get arrested abroad. But the deal also carried risks at home for him, by releasing imprisoned politicians who could energize Russia’s moribund, exiled opposition.

Meanwhile, no:

A Fiery Train Wreck

Published by digby on August 1, 2024

That is an 11 minute super cut of the most outrageous moments of Trump’s appearance before the National Association of Black Journalists yesterday. He only stayed for half an hour until his team stepped in and ended the interview, it was that bad.

I think he was startled by the questions because he is so rarely put on the spot by journalists (Tapper and Bash for example) and doesn’t know how to smoothly respond. And he’s been in his MAGA bubble so long that he’s persuaded himself that Black people actually love him.

Earlier, Tom surveyed some of the responses to Trump’s weird and disturbing racist responses to questions put before him. Most were shocked and appalled. I was curious about how Republicans responded and according to Axios they were “reeling.”

“It was awful,” one House Republican said of the interview, telling Axios it raised concerns about whether Trump can contain his impulses while running against the first woman, Black and Asian American vice president.

Sen Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said of the Trump campaign: “Maybe they don’t know how to handle the campaign, and so you default to issues that just should simply not be an issue.”

“That was not a demonstration on how to win over undecided voters,” another House Republican said.

Senate candidate Larry Hogan of Maryland piped up too but note that only two had the guts to put their names to it. Most wouldn’t comment at all when asked.

This has probably marked the end of the attempt by GOP leadership to persuade their people not to attack Harris on race and gender. Speaker Mike Johnson told his people to refrain from doing it the other day and others made statements to the press declaring their intention not to do so:

Trump’s performance all but shredded an effort by Republican leaders to stop their party from going after Harris’ identity, including by calling her a “DEI hire,” as several House Republicans have done.

“I think the better approach is to focus on their policies of Kamala Harris … that’s what I’ve been talking about,” said Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), the Senate GOP’s campaign chief.

“To be focusing on on anyone’s race or gender when there are plenty of things to talk about on the issues that voters actually care about is frustrating for a lot of us,” said a third House Republican.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said it is “not a great idea for either of the parties to be playing racial identity politics.”

Trump can’t help himself. This is who he is. That goes all the way back to the 70s and 80s when he was sued for racial discrimination and demanded that innocent Black kids be given the death penalty. It’s not a mystery, And he believes he won the 2016 election because he wasn’t afraid to be a crude, angry sexist and racist white guy standing up for “Real Americans.” His political rise was fueled by birtherism, after all. He believes it’s his super power.

And the campaign is rolling with it:

Trump’s remarks on Wednesday’s panel weren’t a one-off. His campaign, for now at least, seems to be leaning in. Trump followed up by posting a 2019 video of Harris discussing her Indian heritage with Indian-American actress Mindy Kaling, labeling Harris a “stone cold phony.” At his rally hours later in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the Trump campaign displayed a Business Insider headline recognizing Harris as the first Indian-American elected to the Senate. Speaking before Trump, lawyer and Trump adviser Alina Habba said: “Unlike you Kamala, I know who my roots are.”

But leave it to the epic shape-shifter JD Vance to be the least self-aware person in the GOP:

“So what he said, I thought it was hysterical,” Vance said. “I think he pointed out the fundamental chameleon-like nature of Kamala Harris. And you guys saw yesterday, she was in Georgia, and she put on a southern accent for a Georgia audience. She grew up in Vancouver. What the hell is going on here? She is not who she pretends to be.”

“I know you are Kamala, but what am I” Vance added.

It was a train wreck but one that will benefit Trump with his base. If nothing else, he’s back in the spotlight which is the only thing that makes him feel alive.

Breaking Good

Published by Tom Sullivan on August 1, 2024

Only Biden could fix it

Checkpoint Charlie (1963) was on Friedrichstrasse, near Kochstrasse. It was the only crossing between West Berlin and East Berlin that could be used by Americans and other foreigners, and by members of the Allied Forces. The other six checkpoints were for residents of West Berlin or West Germany. Photo by Roger Wollstadt – Flickr: Berlin – Checkpoint Charlie (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Checkpoint Charlie no longer exists, but dramatic prisoner exchanges between NATO countries and the former Soviet Union still occur, albeit rarely. The largest prisoner swap since the end of the Cold War is happening right now.

CNN:

There is expected to be a large-scale prisoner swap between the US and Russia, including a number of Americans, according to a source familiar.

The parties have agreed to a prisoner transfer and that prisoners are expected to soon be in US custody, according to a senior administration official.

Some of the Americans that have been discussed as part of the negotiations are Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan.

More:

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan are expected to be a part of the swap, according to a senior administration official said.

Thursday’s swap comes after months of quiet and complicated negotiations between Moscow and Washington, which included US diplomats scouring the globe for offers to entice Russia to release the Americans.

Gershkovich was arrested in March 2023 while on a reporting trip to Yekaterinburg. He was found guilty of espionage by a Russian court on July 19 and sentenced to 16 years in prison in a trial that the US government, his newspaper and supporters have denounced as a sham.

Whelan – who is a US, Irish, British and Canadian citizen – was detained at a Moscow hotel in December 2018 by Russian authorities who alleged he was involved in an intelligence operation.

Still more:

Jonathan Franks, the spokesperson for the “Bring Our Families Home Campaign,” a coalition of family members of Americans detained abroad, said both Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan’s expected release “is going to be a legacy piece for President Biden, adding the administration has “brought home a historic number of people” during his administration.

No news as yet who is swapping who for whom., but seven countries are reportedly involved.

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#WhenITurnedBlack

Published by Tom Sullivan on August 1, 2024

You watched with mouths agape

A former federal official, 34-time convicted felon and adjudicated sex offender, the Republican Party’s 2024 nominee for president, is experiencing media-spotlight withdrawal symptoms. Since the close of his party’s convention, he has been displaced in the news cycle by his woman-and-cat-hating choice of running mate and the Democrats’ bi-racial, non-male replacement for President Joe Biden who withdrew from the race.

In a desperate bid to wrest back public attention, the Republican candidate agreed to take questions before the annual meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists. His behavior and racist statements were the equivalent of self-immolation. Mouth agape stuff, the NABJ agreed with gasps. Perhaps most notably when he suggested Vice President Kamala Harris is not really Black.

“I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?” Trump said.

For any other candidate, this racist attack would be the end of his/her campaign. For Donald Trump, it was just a Wednesday. If he threw all caution aside to get the attention he so needs more than oxygen, he succeeded.

That’s just about all the attention I’ll give him here. But let his niece, psychologist Mary Trump, recommend the appropriate response from normal people:

Donald, though, is not somebody to fear on his own. He is a weak, fragile man who is yes, deeply weird and deeply disturbed. He needs to be mocked mercilessly. He told us recently, that the one thing he hates, probably more than anything else, is to be laughed at.

For us not to laugh at him, not to mock him is to miss an opportunity. It isn’t mean or impolite or in bad form to mock and laugh at or make fun of somebody who wants to destroy us. We have to go full throttle because as we get closer to the election, we’re going to see the terms of the fight unfold and as bad as what they’ve been saying so far has been, it’s going to get worse.

We need to be ready to counter the danger with joy, the weirdness with mockery. And we need to keep laughing.

Stepping up to the plate, #WhenITurnedBlack began trending on Xitter. Echoing #lettersfromthesecondcivilwar that trended around July 4th in 2018, users began sharing personal stories of when they too turned Black.

Leon Langford @MasonLLL

I spent my first three Thanksgivings as a Caucasian, but the first time the yams touched the Mac and cheese on my plate, everything changed. Hair, nappy. Rhythm, instilled. Shea butter, right between the fingers. #WhenITurnedBlack

Akilah Hughes @AkilahObviously

I turned Black when the Spice Girls came out. Suddenly I *was* Scary Spice in every play date. #WhenITurnedBlack

King E ⚔️ @1kingethan

I was outside with a group of white friends, around 6 years old, the streetlight started to crackle and none of them moved, I said I have to go home now, they looked at me like I was crazy. That’s when I knew I had to be black #WhenITurnedBlack

The saddest part of this trending hashtag are stories that are not at all funny.

If anyone not in the MAGA cult is unaware, that’s how Donald Trump sees all non-white people who won’t kiss his ass.

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Strength And Stamina Redux

Published by digby on July 31, 2024

Trump spent the 2016 campaign saying that Hillary Clinton didn’t have the “strength and the stamina” to be president, which was his thinly veiled way of saying that a woman can’t do the job. He’s doing the same thing to Harris:

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump suggested thatVice President Harris wouldn’t be able to stand up to world leaders because of her appearance, adding that he didn’t want to spell it out but viewers would know what he meant.

“She’ll be like a play toy,” Trump — who has a history of using sexist attacks and stereotypes in campaigns against women — said in a Fox News interview with Laura Ingraham, a portion of which aired on Tuesday night. “They look at her and they say, ‘We can’t believe we got so lucky.’ They’re going to walk all over her.”

Trump then turned to look directly at the camera and added: “And I don’t want to say as to why. But a lot of people understand it.”

The campaign tried to clean it up:

Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said he was not referring to race or gender and went on to criticize Harris over her record on immigration and other Biden administration policies

If that was what he was talking about he certainly could have said outloud that on Fox News. He’s right about one thing. We all understand exactly what he was saying.

I kind of suspect that when world leaders look at the narcissistic elderly imbecile in the orange make-up and weird Flock of Seagulls hairdo, they know exactly what they’re dealing with. Talk about a “play-toy.”

Underdog vs Victim

Published by digby on July 31, 2024

David Graham at The Atlantic looks at the way Harris and Trump are portraying themselves in the race and I think his analysis is right. Harris says she’s the underdog and she is. The Democrats have been trailing slightly all year and the media has, until now, had Trump as the clear front-runner (even though the polls haven’t really shown that clearly at all.) Trump, meanwhile, is still a juvenile whiner, which his pathetic cult followers can’t seem to get enough of:

Biden and other Democrats argue that he has been an underrated president, but that hardly matters if most voters don’t agree. By painting herself as an insurgent, Harris can try to shake off the despair and ennui that have plagued much of the party in recent months. Doesn’t everyone love an underdog? Harris’s messaging tells Democrats that they shall, or at least can, overcome. That is appealing to American progressives, who see themselves as perpetually fighting to change the nation for the better.

Trump’s approach comes from the opposite direction: a sense among him and his supporters that they used to control the country and no longer do. Eight years ago, this took the form of a vague nostalgia for yesteryear. Since 2020, it has been compounded by the more specific loss of the presidential election. That defeat has provided an answer to the question posed by “Make America Great Again.” When was America great before? In the moment just before COVID-19 struck.

Trump used to tell his supporters that control of the country was rightly theirs but had been taken away from them—perhaps (as he said explicitly) by corporations, elites, and Democrats, or perhaps (more implicitly) by racial and ethnic minorities. Now he sees himself personally as a victim, with the rightful control of the White House taken from him in an election that he still insists, against all evidence, was stolen. In fact, voters rejected him.

I’m just hoping that the American people are fed up with the years-long puerile Trump tantrum and are ready for something a little bit more positive, hopeful and … adult. They knew they needed it in 2020 to get us out of the worst health crisis in a century which was killing tens of thousands of us every week. Now, perhaps, they’re ready to turn the page for good.

Overpriced Stock

Published by digby on July 31, 2024

Just like Trump’s Truth Social

Back when Trump first picked JD Vance, I wrote that the did it at the behest of Tucker Carlson and his sons Uday and Qusay which seems to have been the case. He was also taken with Vance’s zealous defenses of him on Fox News and the fact that he’s got a truly nasty approach to politics which is right up his alley. But I think he was also discombobulated by the assassination attempt which frightened him far more than anyone’s let on.

The decision has been a total disaster. The unmarried cat ladies insult has been revealed to have been a standard line from him for years as well as dozens of other bizarre statements. His political shape-shifting from Trump hater to ult worshiper was so precipitous he seems to have had some kind of interplanetary personality transplant. And then there is the “couch” thing which is one of the most hilarious memes to ever hit the political internet. No politician can recover from that.

Trump is having to try to clean up after his VP which is not good, especially since nobody does clean-up worse than he does. He just says “he likes families” as if that explains anything, As the Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson told Thor Benson at Public Notice:

Thor Benson

Vance has tried to present himself as a country boy even though he’s a venture capitalist and had his Senate seat bought for him by tech billionaire Peter Thiel.

Rick Wilson

JD Vance telling to sell himself as just a working class fella from the sticks is some weapons-grade horseshit. He’s been part of the meritocracy since he could escape from the suburbs. Peter Thiel funded his venture capital firm, which didn’t succeed, but he funded it. He’s a guy who’s much more at home in Silicon Valley and Aspen than the suburbs of Ohio.

He had a couple of billionaire sugar daddies, and they made him what he is. He’s a long way from stealing catalytic converters to support an oxycontin habit. 

Thor Benson

Some people have compared him to Ron DeSantis…

Rick Wilson

I did. I think I was the first. I said “I think the D in JD Vance stands for DeSantis.”

Source: twitter

Thor Benson

As was the case with DeSantis, there was this idea that Vance was some kind of conservative star when he doesn’t appear ready for the big stage.

Rick Wilson

I think it’s quite obvious this is not a guy who is as ready for primetime as they would like to imagine. Look, politics is a hard business. Nobody gets a pass once they’re actually in the arena. Nobody just gets voted in. You have to perform. He has not, so far, delivered a performance that has knocked people over.

Does he have it in him? I don’t think he does. I haven’t seen it yet. I’m always ready to see people grow and change, and some do. I look at some people who got to their first big national debate and almost blew the whole thing. In 2000, George W. Bush in his first debate — Al Gore whipped his ass all over the stage. I was there. I don’t think JD Vance has that level of comeback in him, judging by the last few days. 

He’s such a terrible politician he even brought up couches on the stump last night.

Oh dear. He’s hopeless.

When Will They Put Kamala In The Barrel?

Published by digby on July 31, 2024

So when is the media going to turn on Harris? I don’t know but I’d guess it’s going to happen pretty soon. It’s inevitable for all the reasons Brian Beutler spelled out in his excellent piece today in Off Message:

As happily as it ended for liberals, the early weeks of July were their darkest since November 2016, illuminating only how various elites will respond if Donald Trump wins the election. 

What we saw was disturbing: When it appeared that Trump would win the election all but unopposed, we did not see officeholders take steps to batten down the hatches of the political system, or media figures apply extra scrutiny to the presumptive president. (In 2016, media elites explained away their insipid obsession with Hillary Clinton’s emails by citing her poll numbers—she would likely be president, after all, and thus merited a thorough scrubbing.)

Instead, we witnessed what the scholar Timothy Snyder has famously described as “obeying in advance.”

Some of these gestures were truly ominous. Trump threatened to imprison Mark Zuckerberg if elected, and the Facebook founder responded by lifting post-January 6 restrictions on his accounts. When Trump was injured in an assassination attempt, he refused to allow the medical professionals who treated him to brief the media or release his physician notes, but reporters and law enforcement officials didn’t respond by applying their usual rigorous standards, and instead, fearful of antagonizing him, just swallowed his self-serving version of events whole. 

But a lot of it looked more like fawning than cowering. Reporters swooned over pictures of Trump bleeding from the ear. For the umpteenth time, they fell like a ward of amnesiacs for his team’s deceptive insistence that Trump would “set a new tone” with his convention speech. Large newspapers went to press celebrating the supposedly chastened Trump before he’d finished delivering his angry, meandering remarks. 

Media figures more recently raced to offer a generous interpretation of his pledge to Christian conservatives that they will no longer have to vote after this election. And through it all, they’ve shrugged at the games Trump has played with his campaign promises: selling policy to billionaires, even if it entails reversing his own positions, and lying about the Republican agenda.

Now they tell us, in so many words, that they’re sick and tired of the good Kamala Harris vibes, announcing implicitly that they intend to cover her more adversarially in the near future… It’s hard to know until we see it, but one approach would be for reporters to over-police Harris for policy consistency across a span of many years, while continuing to yawn at the thorough corruption of the Trump agenda. 

He goes on to lay out all the ways they’ve already given Trump a pass as they are wont to do and it’s depressingly spot on. The reaction to the assassination attempt was the most vivid example. His flagrant flip-flopping on issues as he corruptly bribes various constituencies has garnered almost no reporting. The man actually told oil executives that if they give him a billion dollars he’s lift all regulations on their industry. Crickets.

Meanwhile, Harris is going to be held to account for any slight variation in her policies from the 2020 primary campaign today and will be hounded as an unprincipled hypocrite for changing her mind. (You know how women are …)

Beutler concludes:

But here’s the critical difference between Harris and Trump: However Harris defines her issue positions in the year 2024, you can take them to the bank. Obviously circumstances can change in ways that require rethinking policy. But if she says no Medicare for all, she’s not going to win the election and spring a single-payer health-insurance plan on Congress when she takes office. However she evolved, the claim that she evolved will be credible. 

In Trump’s case, the same claim is not credible. His well-established record of dishonesty is central to the true story of his agenda. If anything, the press owes Harris a greater spirit of generosity: She’s not only more honest than Trump, she’s also taking up the baton unexpectedly from the administration she served for four years—why wouldn’t her new agenda reflect a commitment to finishing what she and Joe Biden started together? 

But experience should prepare us for the opposite. If campaign journalists have taught us anything it’s they’re perfectly capable of turning reality on its head and making Trump’s opponents suffer for his sins. They can make Hillary Clinton an avatar of corruption in a race against a court-sanctioned fraudster; they can make Harris an avatar of inconsistency against a guy who trades policy for cash.

Yep. My only hope is that there is so little time left and the Republicans seem to be so flat-footed that they can’t mount a full-blown “women are so flighty they don’t know what they really believe in” theme out of it. But I won’t be surprised to see it.

Veepstakes In The Endgame?

Published by Tom Sullivan on July 31, 2024

Is it over Tuesday?

Sure, I was disappointed to hear that North Carolina Roy Cooper withdrew from the competition to be Kamala Harris’s vice president. But I get his reasoning:

Cooper, the former chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, has been close to Harris since they were both state attorneys general. His potential selection was seen as a possible asset in shifting North Carolina — the Democrats’ only significant opportunity to expand on their 2020 map — into Harris’ hands.

Under the state constitution, North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who is the GOP’s nominee to replace the term-limited Cooper, becomes acting governor and can assume the Democrat’s powers when he travels out of state.

For those following along at home, that’s Mark “some folks need killing” Robinson. Simone Biles is a “weak little gymnast” Mark Robinson. “Doesn’t pay his taxes and is under investigation” for fraud Mark Robinson.

Cooper, according to two of the people, has expressed concern about what Robinson might do if he were to leave the state extensively for campaign travel. Cooper’s legal team, as well as some outside experts, do not believe Robinson would actually assume the powers that accompany being governor, such as issuing executive orders. But the governor was concerned enough, one of the people familiar with the matter said, that Robinson would try to take action that could prompt litigation and spur distractions in North Carolina, one of the most critical political states nationwide both for the presidency and in its gubernatorial race.

I get it. Besides, Cooper could just top off his career by ousting Sen. Thom Tillis (R) from the Senate in 2026. I’d take that as a consolation prize. So now what?

Politico reports: “Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to announce her running mate by Tuesday, when she will hold her first rally with her pick in Philadelphia.”

Naturally, this sets off speculation that she will pick Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. Will Bunch opines on why that would be a bad idea. Fracking, vouchers, Gaza, and a sexual harassment claim, etc.

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