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This Cannot Be Reconciled

Published by digby on July 27, 2024

More evidence that JD Vance is shockingly un-moored from any principles — and may be literally unhinged:

J.D. Vance’s long correspondence with a transgender friend who attended his wedding has been revealed—including how he spoke about hating cops and disparaged Donald Trump and conservative icon Antonin Scalia.

Sofia Nelson, a Yale Law School contemporary of Trump’s running mate, revealed how they corresponded by text and email for years until falling out over his support for a ban on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors.

The dossier of his emails and texts was revealed by the New York Times Saturday, with Nelson telling the paper the release was to highlight Vance’s shapeshifting from anti-Trump moderate Republican to MAGA culture warrior, accusing him of using his old position to amass money and his new one to amass power.

It is the latest example of a former friend of Vance releasing their correspondence and comes after his Yale roommate revealed the now-running mate once compared Trump to “Hitler.”

Nelson, now a public defender in Detroit, also shed new light on Vance’s wife Usha’s political views with the release, revealing a message from Vance in which he said she had no “ideological chops” and had been offered a Supreme Court clerkship by Democratic appointee Elena Kagan.

Vance’s rapid conversion from anti-Trump to all in-on the former president has been widely reported and the dossier shows him calling then-Republican primary contender Trump “a demagogue” in 2015. But the emails and texts show that he was not just anti-Trump in private: he also voiced views which are almost impossible to reconcile with any Republican orthodoxy.

In October 2014, after the police killing that summer of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old Black man in Ferguson, Missouri, caused widespread protests and violence, Vance wrote to Nelson: “I hate the police. Given the number of negative experiences I’ve had in the past few years, I can’t imagine what a Black guy goes through.”

He backed compensation for Black victims of “redlining,” the practice of withholding financial services from minority areas although he said he stopped short of reparations for African Americans for slavery.

He also attacked the Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia before his death, in an exchange when he told Nelson that Scalia had interviewed Usha Vance about clerkship. Nelson wrote to Vance that Scalia was “homophobic” and Vance replied: “He’s become a very shrill old man. I used to really like him, and I used to believe all of his stuff about judicial minimalism was sincere. Now I see it as a political charade.”

This is what comes of allowing Tucker Carlson, your defective spawn and greed to dictate your choices. Clearly nobody vetted this guy. He’s obviously a total opportunist with serious mental health issues who was once woker than woke and is not putting himself out there as a MAGA wingnut. Who knows what he is?

But sure let this weirdo VP to an ancient president be one step away from the nuclear codes. Sounds like a great idea.

Why Childless Women Are So Hated

Published by digby on July 27, 2024

JV Last at the Bulwark explains what all this “single cat ladies” stuff is all about:

Watching the JD Vance / New Right obsession with natalism, I’m struck by how racially coded it is. Because while Vance and his confederates are super-duper concerned about childless people who “have no stake in America’s future” I have also heard many conservatives/Republicans express a great deal of concern about brown people having too many babies.

Here, for example, is the Manhattan Institute’s Heather Mac Donald in 2007:

Unless the life chances of children raised by single mothers suddenly improve, the explosive growth of the U.S. Hispanic population over the next couple of decades does not bode well for American social stability.

The dimensions of the Hispanic baby boom are startling. The Hispanic birthrate is twice as high as that of the rest of the American population. That high fertility rate—even more than unbounded levels of immigration—will fuel the rapid Hispanic population boom in the coming decades.

By 2050, the Latino population will have tripled, the Census Bureau projects. One in four Americans will be Hispanic by midcentury, twice the current ratio.

Pretty obvious what her problem is there, isn’t it?

You may have forgotten, but back in the 1990s, conservatives were worried about African-American women having too many babies, so they pushed for a welfare “family cap” which denied extra benefits for low-income women (translation: African-American women) who had children while on public assistance.

Sometimes the Republican pro-natalists let the mask slip. Last year in Texas Republicans pushed a bill that would give large property tax credits to households with four or more children.

As Last notes, the law only applies to couples who own their houses which favors whites people. Natch.

So remember: When you hear JD Vance & Co. talk about the importance of having babies because parenthood gives you some sort of special stake in the country, sure, that’s a batshirt idea.

But this batshirt idea isn’t even on the level. They mean something very different. Here’s what they actually mean: They are threatened by the fertility patterns of minorities and view white women who don’t have babies as race-traitors.

All you have to do is look at their great love of Viktor Orban whose natalist policies were explictly designed to boost their white population in the face of what he saw as the threat from immigrants. White women need to make babies, damn it! Get back in the kitchen and the bedroom!

Usha’s Journey

Published by digby on July 27, 2024

JD Vance’s wife seems to be a shape-shifter too:

During her rise through America’s most prestigious schools, law firms and judicial clerkships, Usha Vance rarely— if ever — volunteered her opinions on the nation’s bitterly partisan politics to friends and colleagues. But she did express revulsion at former president Donald Trump’s actionson Jan. 6, 2021.

Vance told friends she was outraged by Trump’s incitementofthe deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol and lamented the social breakdown that fueled his political support, according to one friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitiveconversations. Her view at the timecontrasts with the later pronouncements of her husband and Trump’s newly minted running mate, JD Vance, who has downplayed the storming of the Capitoland called participants who were jailed “political prisoners.”

“Usha found the incursion on the Capitol and Trump’s role in it to be deeply disturbing,” the friend recalled. “She was generally appalled by Trump, from the moment of his first election.”Speaking the morning after Usha Vance introduced her husbandat the Republican National Conventionand watched his speech from the same VIP box as Trump, the friend added, “It was surreal to see her sitting next to him last night.”

She didn’t have to do the speech. Melania didn’t. She either did it because she has not core beliefs or because her creepy husband insisted. Either way, it’s not very admirable. She knows what Trump is.

Published by digby on July 27, 2024

Lookee here:

The US economy is on the verge of an extremely rare achievement.

Economic growth in the first half of the year was solid, with the economy expanding a robust 2.8% annualized rate in the second quarter, according to fresh Commerce Department figures released Thursday, which are adjusted for inflation and seasonal swings.

Stocks surged in the morning after the economy’s powerful show of resilience, but later lost steam and closed the day mixed. The Dow rose 81 points, or 0.2%, after jumping more than 500 points earlier in the session. The S&P 500 fell 0.5% and the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.9%. That comes after the benchmark index and tech-heavy Nasdaq on Wednesday logged their worst day since 2022.

Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic output, was much stronger in the second quarter than economists had predicted. The GDP report showed that businesses are continuing to invest and that consumers are still opening their wallets. That’s key, because consumer spending is America’s economic engine, accounting for about two-thirds of US economic output.

As the economy continued to expand from April through June, inflation resumed a downward trend and seems to be on track to slowing further toward the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.

America’s economy is about to stick what’s called a “soft landing,” which is when inflation returns to the Fed’s target without a recession — a feat that’s only happened once, during the 1990s, according to some economists.

The latest GDP report showed that a key gauge of consumer demand picked up in the second quarter to an annual rate of 2.9%, matching the rate in the fourth quarter of 2023 for the strongest pace in two years. A measure of business investment also strengthened in the April-through-June period.

The current health of the American economy shows that the Fed, with Jerome Powell at the helm as chair, has successfully handled inflation so far, with the finish line coming into clear view. The Fed beginning to cut interest rates indicates that central bank officials feel confident that inflation is under control just enough.

The economy’s enduring strength is also a boon for the Biden administration. Despite the Fed aggressively raising interest rates to tamp down inflation, which have been perched at a 23-year high since last July, the economy has so far avoided a recession. Last year, the resilience of the US consumer shocked economists who widely expected an economic downturn to ensue.

“Today’s GDP report makes clear we now have the strongest economy in the world,” President Joe Biden said in a statement Thursday. “The Vice President and I will keep fighting for America’s future — a future of promise and possibilities, of ordinary Americans doing extraordinary things.”

Naturally, the article goes on to note that the “vibe”is still bad but… well, anyway.

This is astonishing. I would never have believed that we could have such a strong economy and nobody would give a damn. So much for economic determinism …

We Caste You Out!

Published by Tom Sullivan on July 27, 2024

In the name of Orange Jesus

“FWIW I think this is gibberish, rather than a vow to end democracy. But the fact that I’m not sure speaks volumes,” tweeted media critic Dan Froomkin Friday night.

Donald Trump told the Turning Point USA Believers Summit on Friday that if only they would vote for him this time they would never have to vote again. He’d see to it, Trump promised. “We’ll have it fixed so good your not gonna have to vote.”

Even if there are still elections, there will be no point to voting. That’s how his dictator buddies do it. They will be “fixed” for good after he’s implemented Project 2025.

“Can you believe they put that thing in writing?” Vice President Kamala Harris asked a campaign rally crowd in Milwaukee this week.

How many times must normal Americans hear Trump and his MAGA cult make their intentions plain before taking them seriously?

It’s bad enough that there is an informal Caste system in this unperfected land with “created equal” in its charter. Republicans have long sought to restructure the United States as government by hereditary royalty and landed gentry, the kind Americans shed blood to cast off in the Revolutionary War. But even that oh-so British model is too genteel for a MAGA Republican Party aroused by strongman Vladimir Putin’s Russian autocracy.

@thegoodliars Asked a Trump supporter if she’d vote for Putin over Biden. #fyp #rally #awkward #interview #biden #trump #ukraine ♬ original sound – The Good Liars

@thegoodliars This person would vote for Putin over Biden. #fyp #interview #northcarolina #hm ♬ original sound – The Good Liars

And. They. Vote. I’m not saying they shouldn’t. It’s their right in a country in which the consent of the governed matters. It’s just that if more of them vote than those of us committed to preserving our freedoms, it won’t.

The dog whistles are now fog horns. MAGA Republicans now have the wife of a Supreme Court justice auditioning for the role of Betsy Ross in the new Christian nationalist autocracy/thocracy. They mean to turn the very idea of America on its head.

Trump’s Christian nationalists will caste you out if you give them a chance.

Update: This clip from Ruth Ben-Ghiat in October.

‘The endgame of election denial is that we shouldn’t have elections’: Authoritarianism expert
ReaderAR pointed this out, so I went to C-Span to check the closed captioning. Welp, that IS what the closed captioining captured.

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Kamala Works The Eye

Published by Tom Sullivan on July 27, 2024

Democrats follow for once

The first week of Harris for President has been, as they say, lit.

“DAMN. This is how you slam Donald Trump,” tweeted Victor Shi, a Gen Z phenom from the Harris Youth Engagement Team. Shi boosted a campaign statement on Trump’s remarks to Turning Point USA Believers Summit on Friday in West Palm Beach, Florida.

“Tonight, Donald Trump couldn’t pronounce words, insulted the faith of Jewish and Catholic Americans, lied about the election (again), lied about other stuff, bragged about repealing Roe, proposed cutting billions in education funding, announced he would appoint more extremist judges, revealed he planned to fill a second Trump term with more criminals like himself, attacked lawful voting, went on and on and on, and generally sounded like someone you wouldn’t want to sit near at a restaurant — let alone be President of the United States,” said James Singer.

“Someone you wouldn’t want to sit near at a restaurant” is evocative in a way seldom seen in Democratic statements. “Criminals like himself” too. The gloves are off.

Shi had more:

As lit as the Harris team is, the Trump campaign is creepy and weird. A J.D. Vance-inspired meme as taken off as well. Senators Chris Murphy (CT) and Brian Schatz (HI) picked up that fumble and ran with it, spotlighting a “super weird” 2021 statement from Vance about Americans who have babies getting more votes.

https://x.com/JamesFallows/status/1816979213015994498

Is there an embarrassing photo of Vance in weird, white boots?

No representation without procreation!

The ReidOut blog noticed this Vance-ism on Thursday:

The clip is from a 2021 speech that Vance gave to a conservative organization called the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. At one point, Vance offered up an unusual idea about voting:

Let’s give votes to all children in this country, but let’s give control over those votes to the parents of those children. When you go to the polls in this country as a parent, you should have more power — you should have more of an ability to speak your voice in our democratic republic — than people who don’t have kids. Let’s face the consequences and the reality: If you don’t have as much of an investment in the future of this country, maybe you shouldn’t get nearly the same voice.

The reason I said there’s more to the story than Vance’s disdain for childless people is this proposal also epitomizes the Republican Party’s growing embrace of openly antidemocratic policies.

“No representation without procreation!” snarked X user Abracadabrian.

In 2011, as Republicans systematically gerrymandered U.S. districts to concentrate their power and promoted voter suppression legislation aimed depressing the votes of youth and minorities, The Guardian noted this idea’s origins:

Szájer said he was inspired by the work of the American demographer Paul Demeny, who developed the concept in 1986. Under Demeny Voting, each parent is given half a vote for each child, permitting a split vote in the event that the parents have differing political loyalties.

However, to counter concerns about the Roma winning more votes, Szájer said in the Hungarian case, the move would have “permitted the passage of a law giving mothers the vote on behalf of a maximum of one child”.

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others,” wrote George Orwell in 1945 in satirizing Stalin’s Russia. Can’t have undesirables sharing power on an equal footing with white Europeans now, can we?

Better yet, Trump suggested last night that voting itself will go away if he gets one more chance in the White House: “Four more years it will be fixed. It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore.”

MAGA is not flying American flags upside down as a sign of distress. They are flying them to promote their plans for turning the very idea of America on its head.

Don’t sit back and let that happen to you. Don’t let them take your freedoms. Get busy. Harris has knocked Trump back on his heels. Don’t let him recover. Register. Vote Volunteer.

And meme the hell out of them.

We’re not going back!

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Friday Night Soother

Published by digby on July 26, 2024

Cheetah babies!

A  pair of inquisitive cheetah cubs take their first steps into public view  – in a moment of hope for the vulnerable species.

The adorable three-month-old cubs, born to mum Darcy at the award-winning Yorkshire Wildlife Park, represent a major advance for the conservation of cheetahs whose numbers have fallen to around 7,000 in the wild.

Darcy, four, and their father 13-year-old Brook moved to the park’s Cheetah Territory last year and set up home in the three reserves and two specially-designed houses as part of a European breeding project.

The cubs, the park’s first ever.  were nurtured by Darcy in the enclosure for three months but are now strong enough to be allowed out to  roam out across the 10,000 square metre reserve which is enriched with caves and grasslands.

We’re so pleased that our cubs are strong and healthy and ready to be released into the reserve where visitors will be able to see them properly for the first time,” said Dr Charlotte Macdonald, Director of Animals, at the park, near Doncaster.

The resort  partners  with the Cheetah Conservation Fund, which has a mission to preserve cheetah eco systems with interventions that are environmentally sustainable, socially responsible and economically viable. 

Cheetahs are regarded as one of the oldest of the world’s big cat species and were considered sacred by the Egyptians. They can reach speeds of up to 75 mph for short periods, and can reach 60 mph in 3 seconds. 

But their numbers have dropped over the last 50 years and cheetahs have become extinct in 13 African countries due to poaching, loss of habitat and human-wildlife conflict. 

More at the link.

Elon Musk Is An Ultra-Trumper

Published by digby on July 26, 2024

A cold, self-centered monster

This just makes me sad — and mad. How could anyone treat their own child this way?

Vivian Jenna Wilson, the transgender daughter of Elon Musk, said Thursday in her first interview that he was an absent father who was cruel to her as a child for being queer and feminine.

Wilson, 20, in an exclusive interview with NBC News, responded to comments Musk made Monday about her and her transgender identity. On social media and in an interview posted online, Musk said she was “not a girl” and was figuratively “dead,” and he alleged that he had been “tricked” into authorizing trans-related medical treatment for her when she was 16. 

Wilson said that Musk hadn’t been tricked and that, after initially having hesitated, he knew what he was doing when he agreed to her treatment, which required consent from her parents.

Musk’s recent statements crossed a line, she said. 

“I think he was under the assumption that I wasn’t going to say anything and I would just let this go unchallenged,” Wilson said in a phone interview. “Which I’m not going to do, because if you’re going to lie about me, like, blatantly to an audience of millions, I’m not just gonna let that slide.” 

Wilson said that, for as long as she could remember, Musk hasn’t been a supportive father. She said he was rarely present in her life, leaving her and her siblings to be cared for by their mother or by nannies even though Musk had joint custody, and she said Musk berated her when he was present. 

“He was cold,” she said. “He’s very quick to anger. He is uncaring and narcissistic.” 

Wilson said that, when she was a child, Musk would harass her for exhibiting feminine traits and pressure her to appear more masculine, including by pushing her to deepen her voice as early as elementary school. 

“I was in fourth grade. We went on this road trip that I didn’t know was actually just an advertisement for one of the cars — I don’t remember which one — and he was constantly yelling at me viciously because my voice was too high,” she said. “It was cruel.” 

That’s the point.

The Border Is Not In Crisis

Published by digby on July 26, 2024

I know that goes against everything America believes in but it’s true:

The number of migrants unlawfully crossing the U.S. southern border has continued to drop markedly in July, nearing a threshold that would require officials to lift a partial ban on asylum claims enacted by President Biden, according to internal government data obtained by CBS News.

July is on track to see the fifth consecutive monthly drop in migrant apprehensions along the U.S.-Mexico border and the lowest level in illegal immigration there since the fall of 2020, during the Trump administration, the internal Department of Homeland Security figures show.

In early June, President Biden invoked a far-reaching presidential authority to suspend the entry of most migrants entering the U.S. illegally, effectively shutting off access to the American asylum system outside of official ports of entry. 

Illegal border crossings — which were already falling before Mr. Biden’s action — plunged further after the order took effect, reaching a three-year low in June.

This is another bit of news that nobody seems to know about for some reason. In fact, it appears that most people think we are in the midst of a horrifying invasion and crime wave for some reason.

Also, despite Trump’s lies, Kamala Harris was not the “Border Czar”:

Harris was never put in charge of the border or immigration policy. Nor was she involved in overseeing law-enforcement efforts or guiding the federal response to the crisis. Her mandate was much narrower: to focus on examining and improving the underlying conditions in the Northern Triangle of Central America—El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras—which has been racked by decades of poverty, war, chronic violence, and political instability. The strategy relied on allocating billions for economic programs and stimulating private-sector investment in the region in hopes that these programs would ultimately lead fewer migrants to make the dangerous journey north

It was the first high-profile assignment in Harris’ tenure as Vice President, and it was an especially thankless one. At best, addressing the “push factors” that spur migration would lead to incremental improvements and take a generation to yield results. At worst, it would make Harris the face of the border crisis, one of the Biden administration’s biggest political vulnerabilities. “To the extent that this was a useful assignment, she did reasonably well in getting the private sector to invest in Central America,” says Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. “But it was an assignment that could not produce results anytime soon.”

The so-called “root causes strategy” focused on improving economic and security conditions by creating jobs, combating corruption, improving human and labor rights, and reducing violence. Harris allocated funds for humanitarian relief from natural disasters, and directed more than 10 million COVID-19 vaccines to the Northern Triangle countries. She held bilateral meetings with the region’s leaders, as well as meetings with NGOs, business executives and human rights advocates. She worked with the U.S. Justice Department to launch an Anti-Corruption task force focused on prosecuting corruption cases with ties to the region, as well as Anti-Migrant Smuggling task forces in Mexico and Guatemala.

Most importantly, Harris spearheaded a public-private partnership that, as of March 2024, had secured commitments from major U.S. and multi-national companies to invest more than $5 billion in the region. The Vice President “put her name on the line with very serious senior CEOs and kind of created a brand appeal for Central America that didn’t exist,” says Ricardo Zúniga, who until recently served as the U.S. special envoy to Central America. 

Harris also spent time in Washington communicating with regional leaders. One tangible result, according to two former U.S. officials, was that it gave the U.S. the standing and relationships to help prevent Guatemalan prosecutors from overturning the results of last year’s presidential election, which was won by anti-corruption outsider Bernardo Arévalo. While delayed, the ultimately peaceful transition of power avoided the political instability that Biden Administration officials feared could cause a spike in migration. The U.S. applied public pressure through sanctions and visa restrictions on officials they accused of undermining the democratic process, as well as behind the scenes. Harris’s team was directly involved, especially her national security adviser Philip Gordon, who traveled to the region to push for a peaceful democratic transfer of power, according to the two former U.S. officials.

It was a thankless task but an experience that makes her more than prepared to handle the issue as President of the United States. So Trump can shut his piehole. His only answer is rounding up people and deporting them and building walls.

He’s Just Weird

Published by digby on July 26, 2024

So JD Vance is supposed to be the salt of the earth guy from Appalachia who dragged himself up by his tattered bootstraps to go to Yale, write a book and become a silicon valley sweetheart and senator. A true All-American icon.

Well, he’s actually a true weirdo, even aside from his shape shifting politics which are dizzying. Even when it comes to his own name he’s a real oddball:

The senator from Ohio introduced himself to the world in 2016 when he published his bestselling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” under the name J.D. Vance — “like jay-dot-dee-dot,” he wrote, short for James David. In the book, he explained that this was not the first iteration of his name. Nor would it be the last.

Over the course of his 39 years, Vance’s first, middle and last names have all been altered in one way or another. As Vance is being introduced to voters across the country as Donald Trump’s new running mate, his name has been the source of both curiosity and questions — including why he no longer uses periods in JD.

He was born James Donald Bowman in Middletown, Ohio, on Aug. 2, 1984, his middle and last names the same as his biological father, Donald Bowman. His parents split up “around the time I started walking,” he writes. When he was about 6, his mother, Beverly, married for the third time. He was adopted by his new stepfather, Robert Hamel, and his mother renamed him James David Hamel.

When his mother erased Donald Bowman from his and her lives, the adoption process also erased the name James Donald Bowman from the public record. The only birth certificate for Vance on file at Ohio’s vital statistics office reads James David Hamel, according to information provided by the state. Beverly kept the boy’s initials the same, since he went universally by J.D., Vance explains in the book. He didn’t buy his mother’s story that he was named for his uncle David, though. “Any old D name would have done, so long as it wasn’t Donald,” he wrote.

Vance spent more than two decades as James David “J.D.” Hamel. It’s the name by which he graduated from Middletown High School, served in Iraq as a U.S. Marine (officially, Cpl. James D. Hamel), earned a political science degree at The Ohio State University and blogged his ruminations as a 26-year-old student at Yale Law School. Those facts are borne out in documentation provided by those entities upon request, or otherwise publicly available, and were confirmed by campaign spokesperson Taylor Van Kirk.

But the situation gnawed at him, particularly after his mother and adoptive father divorced.“I shared a name with no one I really cared about (which bothered me already), and with Bob gone, explaining why my name was J.D. Hamel would require a few additional awkward moments,” he writes in “Hillbilly Elegy.” “Yeah, my legal father’s last name is Hamel. You haven’t met him because I don’t see him. No, I don’t know why I don’t see him. Of all the things that I hated about my childhood, nothing compared to the revolving door of father figures.”

So he decided to change his name again, to Vance — the last name of his beloved Mamaw, the grandmother who raised him.It didn’t happen on his wedding day in 2014, as the book implies, but in April 2013, as he was about to graduate from Yale, Van Kirk said. It felt right to take the name of the woman who raised him before dying in 2005, as he was putting the struggles of his early life behind him and launching into this new phase.

“Throughout his tumultuous childhood, Mamaw — or Bonnie Blanton Vance — raised JD and was always his north star,” Van Kirk said in a statement. “It only felt right to him to take Vance as his last name.”Claiming the Vance name also served to tie JD more clearly to what he writes was “hillbilly royalty” on his grandfather’s side not long before he would release a book opining on hillbilly culture. A distant cousin to his Papaw, also named James Vance, married into the McCoy-hating Hatfield family and committed a murder that “kicked off one of the most famous family feuds in American history,” Vance wrote in his book,

I don’t believe a word of his excuses for all this ID changing. It’s obvious that this is a guy who is changing his identity like most people change their socks. He is a troubled person with some kind of burning ambition to be something other than what he is.

When you combine this with his other weird habits he seems like like a salt of the earth All-American boy that the Trump people thought they were getting and more like well … them. The whole Trump family is a bunch of phony, insecure narcissistic headcases. Also known as weirdos.