Politics & Stuff

[Vesper 30,224]

Top Republicans disavow Trump’s ‘mentally disabled’ attacks on Harris

Lindsey Graham pushes back on ex-president’s remarks as Minnesota’s Emmer says ‘we should stick on the issues’

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/29/trump-republicans-mentally-disabled-comments-harris

Senior Republicans distanced themselves Sunday from comments made by Donald Trump at campaign stops over the weekend that opponent Kamala Harris was born “mentally disabled” and had compared her actions to that of “a mentally disabled person”.

Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, pushed back on Trump’s remarks, which came in what Trump himself admitted was a “dark” speech.

“I just think the better course to take is to prosecute the case that her policies are destroying the country,” Graham said on CNN. “I’m not saying she’s crazy, her policies are crazy.”

Graham’s comments came as immigration and border security remained the top domestic issue on Sunday’s political talk shows. Trump made his comments during a rally in Wisconsin on Saturday amid remarks on Harris’s actions on those issues as vice-president.

“Kamala is mentally impaired. If a Republican did what she did, that Republican would be impeached and removed from office, and rightfully so, for high crimes and misdemeanors,” he said.

Trump added: “Joe Biden became mentally impaired. Kamala was born that way. She was born that way. And if you think about it, only a mentally disabled person could have allowed this to happen to our country.”

Minnesota Republican representative Tom Emmer, a member of JD Vance’s debate preparation team, told ABC News: “I think we should stick on the issues. The issues are, Donald Trump fixed it once. They broke it. He’s going to fix it again. That – those are the issues.”

But Maryland governor Larry Hogan struck back, telling CBS News that Trump’s comments were “insulting not only to the vice-president, but to people that actually do have mental disabilities.

“I’ve said for years that Trump’s divisive rhetoric is something we can do without,” Hogan added.

Steven Cheung, the communications director for the Trump campaign, did not directly address Trump’s comments, widely criticized as offensive, but said Harris’s record on immigration and border security made her “wholly unfit to serve as president”.

Trump’s comments joined a long list of personal attacks against opponents that supporters at his campaign eagerly lap up. Democrats have their own reductive articulations, calling Trump and Vance “weird”.

But the use of mental disability to describe Harris’s faculties has been widely seized upon. Democrat Illinois governor JB Pritzker told CNN that Trump’s remarks were “name-calling”.

“Whenever he says things like that, he’s talking about himself but trying to project it onto others,” Pritzker said. Eric Holder, the former Obama administration attorney general, said Trump’s comments indicated “cognitive decline”.

“Trump made a great deal of the cognitive abilities of Joe Biden,” he told MSNBC. “If this is where he is now, where is he going to be three and four years from now?”

Maria Town, president of the American Association of People with Disabilities, pointed out that many presidents had disabilities.

Town said in a statement to the Washington Post that Trump’s comments “say far more about him and his inaccurate, hateful biases against disabled people than it does about Vice President Harris, or any person with a disability”.

 

[Vesper 30,224]

 

 

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/10/07/kamala-harris-for-president-endorsement

At the 1940 Republican National Convention, in Philadelphia, an uneasy affair marked by bomb scares, a British espionage scandal, and the imminence of global conflict, ten names were placed in nomination. On the sixth ballot, a corporate executive from Indiana named Wendell Willkie finally emerged as the challenger to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was running for a third term. Desperate to find a way to compete with F.D.R., a political colossus who had lately engineered the New Deal and ended the Great Depression, Willkie challenged him to a series of radio debates.

This was something new in American life. F.D.R. hardly feared the medium—he’d been delivering his homey yet substance-rich fireside chats to the nation since 1933—but he nonetheless dodged Willkie’s invitation, citing scheduling conflicts. In November, he crushed Willkie, and by the end of 1941 he was engaged in the struggle against fascism.

The 2024 election also comes at a moment of national crisis. This time, however, the threat to the country’s future—to its rule of law and its democratic institutions, its security and its character—resides not in a foreign capital but at a twenty-acre Xanadu on the Florida coast. For nine years, Donald Trump has represented an ongoing assault on the stability, the nerves, and the nature of the United States. As President, he amplified some of the ugliest currents in our political culture: nativism, racism, misogyny, indifference to the disadvantaged, amoral isolationism. His narcissism and casual cruelty, his contempt for the truth, have contaminated public life. As Commander-in-Chief, he ridiculed the valor of fallen soldiers, he threatened to unravel the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and he emboldened autocrats everywhere, including Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, and Viktor Orbán. When Trump lost to Joe Biden, in 2020, he tried every means possible to deny the will of the electorate and helped incite a violent insurrection on Capitol Hill.

In contrast, the Democratic Party’s nominee, Vice-President Kamala Harris, has displayed the basic values and political skills that would enable her to build on the successes of the Biden Administration and to help end, once and for all, a poisonous era defined by Trump. Few, if any, of our readers will be surprised that we endorse Harris in this election—but many would have been surprised, earlier this year, that the choice would end up being between Trump and the Vice-President. The change in the Democratic candidate is the result, of course, of a debate of the sort that F.D.R. sidestepped.

During the past half century, these quadrennial confrontations have become a centerpiece of election season—a chance to glimpse the choice in real time, side by side. Aficionados may know the highlights of debates past: Ronald Reagan, at the age of seventy-three, joking nimbly that he would not “exploit” the “youth and inexperience” of his fifty-six-year-old opponent, Walter Mondale; George H. W. Bush glancing at his watch after Bill Clinton answered a question from the audience; Mitt Romney assuring the country that, far from being a sexist, he had, in fact, “whole binders full of women” he had consulted for his gubernatorial cabinet.

Yet no debates have been as unusual or as consequential as the two we have just witnessed. The first—on June 27th, in Atlanta, between Trump and President Biden—proved to be an unmasking. On a human level, Biden’s nationally televised disintegration was a poignant spectacle. Viewed more coldly, it was a gift. Had it taken place, say, after the Conventions, it might have been too late to force a reassessment.

It was hardly a secret that Biden has aged, growing markedly less robust, particularly in the past eighteen months or so. If he got through an interview or a (rare) press conference without incident, staff and supporters exhaled and treated it as a victory. But, rather than open the gate to a younger generation of Democratic candidates, Biden, his advisers, and the Party leadership stood in the way. They made it plain that a challenger would inevitably be defeated. Meanwhile, through spin and deft scheduling, the White House staff protected the President and hoped for the best. Tens of millions of voters, fearing another Trump Presidency, had little choice but to close their eyes and think of America.

But staying the course was, as the polls were suggesting, probably a doomed strategy. In an attempt to invigorate the campaign, Biden and his team took the risk of challenging Trump to an early debate. Perhaps a forceful, coherent performance would diminish the doubts about the President’s capacity to govern well into his mid-eighties. It was not to be. The debate, broadcast on CNN, was a humbling. Biden’s resting expression of slack confusion was almost as unnerving as his faltering efforts to make a clear and vivid case for his reëlection. When Jake Tapper asked him about the national debt, he delivered a wobbly reply that concluded, “Look, if—we finally beat Medicare.” After Biden gave a similarly jumbled response to a question about immigration, Trump said only, “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said, either.” By Trumpian standards, this was a kindness. It was also the end of the Biden candidacy.

For the next twenty-four days, the President travelled a hard road from denial to acceptance. All of us face the assault of time, but few must reckon with mortality before the eyes of the world. Biden loves the job and thought he was uniquely positioned to defeat Trump once more. But finally, after absorbing discouragement from Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, the Obamas, and others, Biden, in an act of grace, issued a letter concluding that it was “in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down.” In a separate message, he gave his endorsement to Kamala Harris.

The second Presidential debate, at the National Constitution Center, in Philadelphia, was an unmasking of another kind. For some time, observers have asked whether Trump, who is now seventy-eight, has himself suffered from some form of decline. On a given day, it is hard to determine if a particular insult, lie, or rant represents his usual malevolence or something else. Not long before the debate, Trump took to speculating whether it would be preferable, in the event of finding oneself on a sinking boat, to die by shark attack or by electrocution from the boat’s battery. (“I’ll take electrocution every single time,” he assured a grateful nation.) There is nothing he will not say. When a group of Proud Boys were convicted of conspiracy last year, he warned that the F.B.I. and the Justice Department were just getting started: “get smart america, they are coming after you!!!” Trump has defied multiple legal gag orders, attacking judges and jurors, and has even blamed the latest attempt on his life, a deeply alarming event, not on the would-be assailant or the easy availability of assault weapons but on the Democratic ticket.

For Harris, the debate presented an opportunity to expose Trump at his worst. All she had to do was to prick his vanity. Trump’s rallies were boring, she suggested. Military leaders thought he was a “disgrace.” Foreign leaders ate his lunch, considered him weak, laughed at him. With growing rage, Trump began howling from a familiar hymnal. America is a “failing nation.” Migrants are pouring in from “prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums.” Indelibly, Trump picked up on a racist, J. D. Vance-endorsed conspiracy theory about Haitian migrants in Ohio and gave it his full voice:

In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country. And it’s a shame.

Trump went on in this vein of fact-free bluster, bringing discomfort even to some fellow-Republicans. He had been calling Harris “dumb as a rock” and “unable to speak properly without a teleprompter” or even “put two sentences together,” while mocking her looks, her family, her racial identity, her personal life. He refused to pronounce her name correctly. Harris decided to flick all that lint from her shoulder. She left it to the moderators to correct Trump’s facts and the electorate to behold his lunacy. It was a performance that had the potential to lay bare Trump’s character for those voters who might not have been paying much attention. After the debate, Trump, of course, declared a “BIG WIN,” but he then issued a loser’s proclamation: “there will be no third debate.” Some days later, he had more to say about that night, particularly about an endorsement that came his opponent’s way minutes after the debate’s conclusion. On his social-media platform, he wrote, “i hate taylor swift!”

In the fall of 2016, the editors of The New Yorker published an enthusiastic endorsement of Hillary Clinton:

On November 8th, barring some astonishment, the people of the United States will, after two hundred and forty years, send a woman to the White House. The election of Hillary Clinton is an event that we will welcome for its immense historical importance, and greet with indescribable relief. It will be especially gratifying to have a woman as commander-in-chief after such a sickeningly sexist and racist campaign, one that exposed so starkly how far our society has to go.

The lack of sufficient caution remains, well, an astonishment. We all learned a painful lesson. Trump has never won the national popular vote, and the elections of 2018 and 2020 were setbacks for the Republicans; in 2022, the anticipated “red wave” failed to materialize. And yet in rural towns, in struggling deindustrialized cities, in the South and the Midwest, his popularity is broad and deep. His strength among Black and Latino men has grown. He has the ardent backing of tech billionaires like Elon Musk, right-wing legal activists like Leonard Leo, and no small number of Wall Street executives whose highest priorities are to prevent regulation and changes to their tax status. Coming out of the Democratic National Convention, and then the September 10th debate, Harris made extraordinary inroads with the electorate; she’s got the “vibes,” as this year’s cliché has it. But the race remains very close. In both 2016 and 2020, Trump outperformed the polls. No responsible assessment of the contest has the luxury of focussing only on the imperatives for a Harris Administration and gliding past the ramifications of another Trump Administration.

There’s every reason to think that Trump II would be far worse than Trump I. Twice impeached, found liable for sexual abuse, convicted of thirty-four felony counts, and facing many more state and federal charges, Trump would return to the White House in a spirit of vengeance. He would immediately set about betraying his oath to “preserve, protect, and defend” the Constitution and wage battle against the independence of the Department of Justice in order to preserve, protect, and defend himself. He has made it clear that he would also use the powers at his disposal to punish his opponents. And this time there would be no advisers who would rein him in.

Trump is a menacing presence in American life, and most of his former associates know it. Of his forty-two former Cabinet secretaries, only half have endorsed him. More than two hundred staffers for four previous Republican Presidents and Presidential candidates have endorsed the Democratic ticket. High-ranking officials who once surrounded Trump—including former Vice-President Mike Pence, former Defense Secretaries Jim Mattis and Mark Esper, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the former chief of staff John Kelly, the former national-security advisers John Bolton and H. R. McMaster, and the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley—regard him as unfit, a threat to national security.

Trump’s campaign has centered on immigration. His first-term abominations included family separation, the Muslim ban, and the decimation of the refugee and asylum system. Now he and advisers like Stephen Miller want to carry out mass deportations reminiscent of the Eisenhower Administration’s “Operation Wetback,” promising the creation of vast internment camps for undocumented immigrants. Such efforts would require the participation of the Department of Defense and the National Guard. These goals are not only unrealistic; they’re undemocratic.

There are more than eleven million undocumented immigrants living in the United States; at least sixty per cent of them have lived here for more than a decade. Under Trump, federal agents would target anyone they could, without clear guidelines or priorities. This policy would tear apart families, unleash fear in immigrant communities, and lead to racial profiling and discrimination.

A second Trump Administration also augurs economic disaster. His promised tax cuts would hollow out the government’s finances, especially if he manages to enact the escalating measures that he has promised while campaigning, such as making Social Security benefits tax-free. Then, there’s his plan to impose tariffs of up to twenty per cent on imports, plus much higher duties on anything made in China. According to credible economic models, this would bring a resurgence of inflation, raising the cost of living for those least able to afford it.

Trump’s effect on the judiciary would be no less alarming. In his first term, he appointed three Supreme Court Justices, who played an essential role in eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion. Twenty-two states have since either restricted the procedure or banned it outright, and states in the latter category (including Tennessee, Louisiana, and Mississippi) have some of the country’s highest rates of maternal and infant mortality.

Nor is this the only respect in which Trump’s judicial appointments have imperilled public health and safety. The judges he named to the federal bench have continued his campaign of regulatory sabotage. A series of recent Supreme Court rulings have invited polluting industries to challenge pretty much any rule, old or new, that they don’t like.

Despite such rulings—and despite a recklessly expansive opinion about Presidential immunity—Trump has sometimes complained that the Court remains insufficiently compliant. Three Justices are currently in their seventies; if Trump gets another round of picks, he is likely to make personal loyalty a deciding factor. Notwithstanding a constitutional duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” he has indicated that, once in office, he would dismiss federal criminal cases pending against him, and, with the help of a suitably pliable Attorney General, he would almost certainly fire the special counsel Jack Smith. “I have the absolute right to pardon myself,” Trump has said. A subservient Justice Department and judiciary could readily be enlisted in his vendettas: Trump—who has insinuated that Mark Milley should have been executed for disloyalty—has also said that he might well prosecute political opponents, including Joe Biden.

Trump’s record on the environment is the worst of any President in modern history. His Administration rolled back nearly a hundred regulations aimed at protecting the nation’s air, water, and wildlife. It dismantled Obama-era efforts to limit greenhouse-gas emissions and withdrew the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement. Trump’s Department of the Interior rushed to lease public lands for oil and gas drilling, and his Department of Energy worked methodically to weaken efficiency standards. A 2020 analysis by the Rhodium Group estimated that the Trump Administration’s actions would result in the release of an extra 1.8 billion tons of CO₂ by 2035, a planetarily disastrous outcome. And Trump has continued to scoff at climate science. Talking to Elon Musk, in August, he asserted that one impact of sea-level rise would be the creation of “more oceanfront property.”

Discussion about foreign policy in this election season has been, as always, limited at best. Trump’s pronouncements are either flip (“I don’t give a shit about nato”) or dismaying in both their specifics and their evasions. With respect to the horrific events of the past year in the Middle East—the Hamas attack on October 7th, in which twelve hundred people were killed and more than two hundred taken hostage, and Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza, which has left more than forty thousand Palestinians dead and countless people displaced—Trump’s response is that it “would have never happened” if he had been in office. When he was in the White House, he presided over the signing of the Abraham Accords, which promised a new era in relations between Israel and more of its Arab neighbors but paid almost no attention to the rights and the future of the Palestinian people.

In the recent debate, Trump was asked simply if he wanted Ukraine to prevail against its invader, Putin’s Russia. Trump, who appears to prefer aggressive Russian authoritarianism to Ukraine’s evolving democracy, could not bring himself to answer in the affirmative and convey support for Ukraine’s struggle to preserve its sovereignty and independence. Indeed, Trump radiates contempt for Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, who failed to deliver on Trump’s thuggish demand, in 2019, that, in exchange for weapons shipments already earmarked for Kyiv, he investigate the Biden family. Putin, who has shredded nascent democratic institutions and procedures in his own country to create a system based solely on his authority, is more Trump’s style.

Trump is no more assuring when it comes to China policy. Xi Jinping, whom Trump has recently praised as a “brilliant guy” who “runs 1.4 billion people with an iron fist,” believes that the world is undergoing a realignment—“changes unseen in a century.” Once again, Trump seems uninterested. He has suggested that he might leave Taiwan to fend for itself in the event of a Chinese attack. The island should “pay us for defense,” he said. Trump warns of another world war, and yet here, too, his policies seem designed to encourage aggression and destabilize the international order.

In every arena, there is little question that a Harris Presidency promises far greater sanity and far greater humanity. As recently as three months ago, the Washington cognoscenti cast aspersions on her political skills. These quickly evaporated as Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, the shrewd and appealing governor of Minnesota, have rapidly proved to be effective campaigners. Their swift transformation of the Democratic Party’s prospects for November has been astonishing. Harris deserves enormous credit for stepping fearlessly into the role that fate has dealt her. In the face of a malign opponent, she has behaved with poise, conviction, and intelligence. Of course, her ability to carry out her policy ambitions would improve immeasurably with the election of Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate. But, whatever the circumstances, her positions on the critical issues are rational, undergirded by a basic sense of decency, and often compelling.

Where Trump promises mass deportations, she has expressed support both for boosting border enforcement and for opening avenues that would lead to legal immigration. The refugee program, which is both a moral imperative and a pragmatic tool of U.S. foreign policy, has grown substantially during the Biden-Harris Administration. The government has also tempered interior enforcement, allowing the large undocumented population, particularly those with families and deep ties to local communities, to live without constant fear of arrest and deportation.

The Biden-Harris record on asylum at the border is mixed, partly because the policy solutions are far more complex. Harris has said that she would support a bipartisan Senate bill that drastically curtails asylum, and, in the current climate, support for that bill is politically expedient. But there is good reason to believe that, if elected, Harris could be pushed to combine increasing vigilance at the border with more policies that would provide relief to those in desperate need. She has been clear that she would protect undocumented families and find ways to bring a sense of compassion to the immigration system. Congress, to be sure, has been a barrier to any meaningful efforts at immigration reform; conservative courts, together with Republican state attorneys general, would try to limit what Harris could do by executive order. But the alternative is unimaginably bad.

On the subject of economics, Harris’s proposals have sometimes lacked detail, but they thoughtfully address concerns of working-class and middle-class Americans, with a particular focus on the cost of housing. President Biden, for his part, has made a concerted effort to reëstablish the Democratic Party’s bond with blue-collar voters. He has been unusually pro-union and pro-manufacturing. There’s a reason that, after the disastrous first debate, some of the most diehard Biden loyalists were on the Party’s left. The inflation that rose earlier in his term—and that his political adversaries have used to define his economic record—has now abated, while Biden can be credited with passing programs that directed federal spending toward badly needed infrastructure projects and green-energy projects. The U.S. is currently leading its peers in the rate of economic growth.

Owing to Senate opposition, Biden has struggled to follow through on his ambition to bolster the “care economy,” through paid family leave, child tax credits, and other measures. Although Harris has pulled back from Biden’s positions in certain areas—she favors, for example, a more modest corporate tax increase—these family-relief programs are the part of Biden’s agenda that she is most enthusiastic about. She will push hard for them, alongside her initiatives aimed at easing the housing crisis.

For the Harris campaign, the most emotionally galvanizing issue has been abortion. This will be the first Presidential election since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Close to ninety million women have registered to vote this November, and historical data show that women have favored Democrats over Republicans in every general election since 1992. As Vice-President, Harris has emerged as a leading voice on abortion, framing it powerfully as a matter of bodily autonomy and a right to health care. She has called for concrete policy changes, such as reinstating federal protections for abortion, and has never shied away from making forceful statements on the issue. In March, Harris toured a Planned Parenthood clinic in Minnesota, becoming the first Vice-President to make a public appearance at an abortion provider.

Leaders in the field of women’s health have praised her directness and see it as a welcome change from Biden’s wavering stance. (In this year’s State of the Union address, he failed to say the word “abortion” once, even though it was included in his prepared remarks.) As a senator, she sponsored bills designed to improve maternal health and guarantee access to contraception. In 2018, during Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings, she memorably asked him, “Can you think of any laws that give government the power to make decisions about the male body?” She also sought to limit a state’s ability to ban abortion unilaterally. “If there are those who dare to take the freedom to make such a fundamental decision for an individual, which is about one’s own body,” Harris said of abortion rights at a campaign fund-raiser in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, “what other freedoms could be on the table for the taking?”

Harris has a reasonably strong environmental record, even if in recent months she has chosen to give it only modest attention. As California’s attorney general, she pursued several high-profile cases against polluters, including one against ConocoPhillips for endangering water supplies. In 2016, she sued the Obama Administration over a plan to allow offshore fracking in the Santa Barbara Channel. (A federal judge sided with Harris, and an injunction remains in place.) In the Senate, she promoted electric school buses and was an early co-sponsor of a resolution calling for a Green New Deal. Running for President in 2019, Harris, who has called climate change an “existential threat,” said that she would ban fracking for oil and gas. She has since reversed that position, but, as Vice-President, she cast the tie-breaking vote for the Inflation Reduction Act, which contains hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of new spending and tax breaks for clean-energy projects.

On foreign policy, Harris, who has spent many hours in national-security briefings, speaks the language of liberal internationalism, echoing Biden’s policies, from Ukraine to the Middle East. But she is of a different generation than Biden. We can reasonably hope that, as she maintains his commitment to traditional allies and alliances, she will also employ American leverage when those allies are acting heedlessly. With respect to Gaza, she has voiced support for two states for two peoples; she has reasserted Israel’s right to security while at the same time evoking the “heartbreaking” suffering of the Palestinian people, and calling for an immediate end to the war, with a resolution that would enable Palestinians to “realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination.” But she also will need to act decisively in the United States’ interest when dealing with someone like Benjamin Netanyahu, who has frequently given American Presidents the back of his hand while benefitting immensely from American support.

With regard to China, Harris is likely to extend Biden’s posture of watchful, skeptical competitiveness. A former prosecutor, she often views foreign policy through the lens of international law, and she has rebuked China for expanding its territorial footprint. In 2022, shortly after her first meeting with Xi, when some leaders might have attempted to send reassuring signals, Harris did the opposite: during a visit to the Philippines, she vowed America’s support “in the face of intimidation and coercion in the South China Sea.”

Four years ago, in our endorsement of Joe Biden, we said that, while he was leading in the polls, we hoped he would displace Trump “by a margin that prevents prolonged dispute or the kind of civil unrest that Trump appears to relish.” We know what happened: the margins, in four decisive states, were extremely narrow, and Trump refused to concede. Instead, he levelled wild accusations and filed dozens of lawsuits. When those failed, he called on his MAGA believers to march on the Capitol. This time around, the Trump campaign and various right-wing groups have already deployed deny-the-vote efforts around the country, particularly in swing states like Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Arizona. There is every likelihood that, if Trump loses, the drama could go on for weeks or months after Election Day. He has made no secret of the fact that he is willing to use every lever, deploy every dirty trick, political and rhetorical, to bring the country to the brink once more.

And so the choice is stark. The United States simply cannot endure another four years of Donald Trump. He is an agent of chaos, an enemy of liberal democracy, and a threat to America’s moral standing in the world. Kamala Harris—who has shown herself to be sensible, humane, and liberal-minded—is our choice for the Presidency. At the National Constitution Center, in Philadelphia, a few weeks ago, the American people were able to see both the stakes of this election and the vast differences between the candidates.

The right choice—the necessary choice—is beyond debate. ♦

 

Published in the print edition of the October 7, 2024, issue, with the headline “Harris for President.”

Edited September 30, 2024 by Vesper

[Vesper 30,224]

🤪

According to rabbinic tradition, Saint Michael the Archangel acted as the advocate of Israel, and sometimes had to fight with the princes of the other nations (Daniel 10:13) and particularly with the Archangel Samael, Israel's accuser.

Their enmity dates from the time Samael was thrown from heaven and tried to drag Michael down with him, necessitating God's intervention.

The idea that Michael was the advocate of the Jews became so prevalent that in spite of the rabbinical prohibition against appealing to angels as intermediaries between God and his people, he held a place in the Jewish liturgy.

 

I deffo am a fangirl of

Edited September 30, 2024 by Vesper

[cosmicway 1,333]

21 hours ago, Fernando said:

What you think is going to happen?

A bigger war? Just Hezbollah? or other countries? 

The strategy of the axis of evil is this:
Trump wins in America, declares isolationism. Europe is driven further into chaos and disarray.
In Europe there will be as a result some left wing governments friendly to Hamash and some right wing neutrals like Orban.
This will help them escalate things and will certainly help Putin and nuclear Iran who are the masterminds behind everything.
The Palestinians are being taken for a ride just like they were taken for a ride in the six day war by the Soviets, but they are blind to this because of their centuries old antisemitism.
If Trump loses in America it's going to be a setback but at the same time they seem to be doing rather well in Europe, taking out countries piece by piece.
As for the disaster that has befallen them in Gaza and Lebanon, they don't care. The populations are docile and they had plenty of such things before.

All the Arabs are very antisemitic.
I have met quite a few. From Egypt, from the gulf states and from further out to the east.
From the more recent breed of islam fanatics I have no personal acquaintances - I 'm talking about before the nineties, when they were baathists.
But the islam fanatics are even worse as we all now.
 

Edited September 30, 2024 by cosmicway

[Vesper 30,224]

Israeli tanks mass on Lebanese border as fears rise of ground invasion

 

The US issues last-minute appeal for restraint, saying an escalation in the conflict would not return evacuated Israelis to their homes

https://www.thetimes.com/world/israel-hamas-war/article/israeli-tanks-mass-on-lebanese-border-as-fears-rise-of-ground-invasion-93gdqrg5r

Israel appeared to be gearing up for a ground invasion of Lebanon as hundreds of tanks massed on the country’s northern border.

Soldiers carrying wrenches made final preparations to their armoured vehicles as plumes of smoke rose from wildfires started by Hezbollah rockets.

The United States issued a last-minute appeal to both sides for restraint, warning Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, that war would not return 60,000 displaced Israelis to their homes in the north of the country.

Israeli reservists, savouring a final takeaway at petrol stations near the Lebanese border, were resolved to their task, energised by the news that Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, had been killed in an Israeli airstrike on Beirut on Friday.

“We must do what we must do,” said Yehuda, 28, a reservist engineer in an Israeli armoured brigade.

As the Middle East stumbled closer to regional war, Israeli planes bombed a Houthi port and power plants in Yemen, more than 1,000 miles from Israel, in retaliation for a series of ballistic missile attacks on Tel Aviv.

The aftermath of an Israeli attack on Nabatieh, Lebanon

RAMIZ DALLAH/ANADOLU/GETTY IMAGES

Meanwhile, Israel continued its airstrikes in Lebanon, pummelling Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Beirut, as well as the Beqaa Valley. At least 100 people died on Sunday, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

An Israeli strike in the early hours of Monday hit an upper floor of an apartment building in the Kola district of Beirut, Reuters witnesses said.

In a dusty field close to the border, hundreds of Israeli Merkava IV tanks, armoured bulldozers and recovery vehicles were lined up beneath the setting sun. Israeli soldiers, hanging out of the back of buggies, bounced north towards the mountains of Lebanon.

The last time Israel launched a ground invasion of Lebanon in 2006, Hezbollah fought them to a bloody stalemate over 34 days of fighting.

However, the Shia militia has been decapitated by almost two weeks of bombing that has obliterated Lebanese towns along the border, left 1,000 people dead and displaced another half a million.

“We let them build up again on our border after 2006 and that was a mistake” said Yuval 39, a British citizen and reservist infantryman, whose parents moved to Israel in the 1970s. He has spent four months fighting in Gaza with the IDF.

“Now there’s not a chance in hell we’ll let them sit on our border. I understand the world doesn’t like conflict. But whether it’s with airstrikes or a ground invasion, we need to move them.”

He added: “The soldiers are ready, the tanks are ready. We know they are waiting for us … I’m tired, but we’re here because it’s important.”

In Tehran, the Iranian foreign minister vowed revenge for the deaths of Nasrallah and Abbas Nilforoushan, deputy commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, who was also killed in Friday’s attack on Beirut.

“This horrible crime of the aggressor Zionist regime will not go unanswered,” Abbas Araghchi said.

Displaced families have had to sleep on the streets of Beirut

CARL COURT/GETTY IMAGES

Analysts said that Iran was unlikely to follow through on its threats and may not have the means to conduct an attack that would restore its deterrence against Israel. “Iran looks like it’s in quite a tight situation, in that it knows that any response will elicit a stronger counter from Israel,” Sanam Vakil, the director of Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa programme, said.

John Kirby, the White House national security spokesman, warned Netanyahu that he risked a wider regional war by sending troops into Lebanon and said a large conflict would not return evacuated Israelis to their homes.

“An all-out war with Hezbollah, certainly with Iran, is not the way to do that. If you want to get those folks back home safely and sustainably, we believe that a diplomatic path is the right course,” he told CNN.

The Israeli military said dozens of ­aircraft struck Houthi targets in Yemen on Sunday as it expanded its confrontation with Iran’s regional allies. It was the second-ever Israeli strike on Yemen, killing four people and wounding more than 30, Houthi media reported, with the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) claiming to have hit targets in the Iran-backed rebels’ territory including weapon stores, power plants and a seaport.

The IDF said the strikes were carried out in response to the Houthis’ ballistic missile attacks on Israel, ­including one that was aimed at Tel Aviv’s international airport on Saturday upon Netanyahu’s return from New York.

“Our message is clear — for us, no place is too far,” Yoav Gallant, the ­defence minister, said after monitoring the attack on Yemen from a command centre about 1,300 miles away.

In Lebanon, 20 Hezbollah operatives were killed during Israel’s airstrike on Beirut on Friday, the IDF said. Lebanese rescuers continued to pick through the rubble on Sunday, and were said to have retrieved the body of ­Nasrallah.

Among the 20 were Ali Karaki, commander of the group’s southern front, Ibrahim Hussein Jazini, head of Nasrallah’s personal security team, and the senior advisers and commanders Samir Tawfik Diab, Abd al-Amir Muhammad Siblini and Ali Nawaf Ayoub.

The IDF also declared the successful assassination of Nabil Qaouk, a senior member of Hezbollah’s political wing.

Hezbollah remained quiet, with no plans announced for Nasrallah’s ­successor. Reuters cited two security sources who claimed his body had been recovered from the blast site.

As tanks massed on the Lebanese border, reports suggested that Israeli generals may favour using special forces to conduct raids on Hezbollah strongholds rather than a sweeping offensive.

Densely populated areas in Beirut’s southern suburbs have been largely emptied since intense bombing began on Friday. The mass displacement of people has threatened a rise in sectarian tensions in Lebanon with Shia Muslim-majority areas disproportionately targeted, forcing residents to seek refuge in a number of Sunni and Christian-dominated areas. Government authorities have made appeals for national unity, with the army urging citizens “not to be drawn into actions that may affect civil peace”.

Israel began to muster its forces on the Lebanese border after this month’s pager attacks, redeploying the 98th ­Division, a contingent of 10,000 to 20,000 paratroopers and commandos, from Gaza to the north. It has called up reservists from the Etzioni 6th brigade and Northern ­Nahal 228th brigade, each consisting of 1,000 to 2,000 troops. Generals can also deploy the 7th Armoured Brigade, which has been wargaming a ground offensive on the border. But the mountains of southern Lebanon present a daunting battleground for an invading force and Hezbollah, despite the ­setbacks of recent weeks, has 45,000 ­soldiers at its disposal, many of them battle-hardened in Syria.

Netanyahu has vowed to return 60,000 displaced Israeli citizens to their homes along the Lebanese border and dismissed western calls for a ceasefire.

Najib Mikati, the Lebanese prime minister, said that a million people, about a fifth of Lebanon’s population, may be internally displaced in what could be “the largest displacement movement” in the nation’s history. In a statement, Lebanon’s health ministry announced the deaths of 14 paramedics killed in airstrikes over two days and accused Israel of disregarding the Geneva conventions.

Edited September 30, 2024 by Vesper

[cosmicway 1,333]

47 minutes ago, Vesper said:

🤪

According to rabbinic tradition, Saint Michael the Archangel acted as the advocate of Israel, and sometimes had to fight with the princes of the other nations (Daniel 10:13) and particularly with the archangel Samael, Israel's accuser.

Their enmity dates from the time Samael was thrown from heaven and tried to drag Michael down with him, necessitating God's intervention.

The idea that Michael was the advocate of the Jews became so prevalent that in spite of the rabbinical prohibition against appealing to angels as intermediaries between God and his people, he held a place in the Jewish liturgy.

 

I deffo am a fangirl of

You don't know the truth about this.
Satan and the fallen angels are forbidden from doing supernatural things.
If they try then the angels of god will burn them - they know this and they don't.
But satan operates in other ways.
He takes advantage of the law of uncertainty that governs the universe.
The law of uncertainty is essential for the universe to function - the universe cannot exist without it.
Even if it causes bad things to happen, such as the premature death of some persons, it is essential.
So satan takes advantage of this, conspires and plots to destroy humanity.
Ultimately it does n't work for him but he enjoys temporary successes.
 

Edited September 30, 2024 by cosmicway

[Vesper 30,224]

[Vesper 30,224]

2 minutes ago, cosmicway said:

You don't know the truth about this.

yes I do

there are no god(s)

there are no demons

there are no angels

Its all the stuff of children's fairy tales, but then bent and fit for purpose in the pursuit of power and domination, poisoned to the core by the erecting of various and sundry religions

The tools of sorrow are, to name a few, hate, fear, greed, misery, guilt, shame, torture and death.

 

[cosmicway 1,333]

5 minutes ago, Vesper said:

yes I do

there are no god(s)

there are no demons

there are no angels

Its all the stuff of children's fairy tales, but then bent and fit for purpose in the pursuit of power and domination, poisoned to the core by the erecting of various and sundry religions

The tools of sorrow are, to name a few, hate, fear, greed, misery, guilt, shame, torture and death.

 

Ignorant stuff.

[Vesper 30,224]

Just now, cosmicway said:

Ignorant stuff.

yes, yes it is

gods are the oldest, most vile invention of humans/hominids over the past several million years

the first, most ancient and primordial woo

it is all predicated upon the wilful suspension of disbelief, aka magical thinking

and that wilful suspension of disbelief opens the doors for all endeavours that are anti-human by their very nature

human beings are not the misshapen product of gods, gods are the misshapen product of humans

[cosmicway 1,333]

3 minutes ago, Vesper said:

yes, yes it is

gods are the oldest, most vile invention of humans/hominids over the past several million years

the first, most ancient and primordial woo

it is all predicated upon the wilful suspension of disbelief, aka magical thinking

and that wilful suspension of disbelief opens the doors for all endeavours that are anti-human by their very nature

human beings are not the misshapen product of gods, gods are the misshapen product of humans

The gods could be vile as you say even if they were amongst us.
This is neither here nor there and how can you answer questions about divinity from your pitiful standpoint ?
My standpojnt is also pitiful even though I ventured a probable looking explanation.
But regarding your opinion about religion openiing the door for "anti-human"endeavours", with what logic would the opposite thing -i.e. no religion- not do the same ?
Without religion things like burglary - pickpocketing become legal activities. So we all become burglars and pickpockets.

[Vesper 30,224]

Two senior Israeli defense officials told The New York Times that more than 80 bombs were dropped to kill Nasrallah. A Times analysis showed that the attack destroyed at least four apartment buildings, and that the damage was most likely caused by 2,000-pound bombs.

[Fulham Broadway 17,333]

39 minutes ago, cosmicway said:

You don't know the truth about this.
Satan and the fallen angels are forbidden from doing supernatural things.
If they try then the angels of god will burn them - they know this and they don't.
But satan operates in other ways.
He takes advantage of the law of uncertainty that governs the universe.
The law of uncertainty is essential for the universe to function - the universe cannot exist without it.
Even if it causes bad things to happen, such as the premature death of some persons, it is essential.
So satan takes advantage of this, conspires and plots to destroy humanity.
Ultimately it does n't work for him but he enjoys temporary successes.
 

Any proof ? 

Not a shred of evidence -otherwise its all a load of bollocks

[Vesper 30,224]

Just now, cosmicway said:

Without religion things like burglary - pickpocketing become legal activities.

that statement is an absolute non sequitur

secular laws are foundationally capable of preventing those things via outlawing them and proscribing sanctions for those who break the law

there is zero need for the injection of any religion into the legal equation

[Vesper 30,224]

6 minutes ago, Fulham Broadway said:

Any proof ? 

Not a shred of evidence -otherwise its all a load of bollocks

 

[cosmicway 1,333]

22 minutes ago, Vesper said:

that statement is an absolute non sequitur

secular laws are foundationally capable of preventing those things via outlawing them and proscribing sanctions for those who break the law

there is zero need for the injection of any religion into the legal equation

This does n't have to do with the supernatural but no, they are not capable.

[Vesper 30,224]

giant chemi death clouds spewing from an industrial chemical plant fire near Atlanta, Georgia

did not have that on my Q3 (last day of Q3 is today btw) bingo card

Edited September 30, 2024 by Vesper

[Vesper 30,224]

US ports brace for shut down as dockworkers strike

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3vkdp3rx17o

A dockworkers' strike is set to shut down ports across much of the US indefinitely, threatening significant trade and economic disruption ahead of the presidential election and the busy holiday shopping season.

Tens of thousands of members of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) are preparing to walk out on Tuesday at 14 major ports along the east and gulf coasts, halting container traffic from Maine to Texas.

Barring a last-minute intervention, the action will mark the first shutdown in almost 50 years.

President Joe Biden has the power to suspend the strike for 80 days for further negotiations, but the White House has said he is not planning to act.

What is the strike about?

The two sides are fighting over a six-year master contract that covers about 25,000 port workers employed in container and roll-on/roll-off operations, according to the US Maritime Alliance, known as USMX, which represents shipping firms, port associations and marine terminal operators.

Talks have been stalled for months and the current contract between parties expires on Monday.

Union boss Harold Daggett has called for significant pay increases for his members, while voicing concerns about threats from automation.

USMX has accused the union of refusing to bargain, filing a complaint with labour regulators that asked them to order the union back to the table.

Under the previous contract, starting wages ranged from $20 to $39 per hour, depending on a worker's experience. Workers also receive other benefits, such as bonuses connected to container trade.

Mr Daggett has indicated the union wants to see per-hour pay increase by five dollars per year over the life of the six-year deal, which he estimated amounted to about 10% per year.

The ILA said workers are owed after shipping firm profits soared during the Covid pandemic, while inflation hit salaries. It has warned to expect a wider strike of its members, including those not directly involved in this dispute, though the exact numbers are unclear.

The union has said it represents more than 85,000 people; it claimed about 47,000 active members in its annual report to the Labor Department.

What items will be affected by the strike?

Time-sensitive imports, such as food, are likely to be among the goods first impacted.

The ports involved handle about 14% of agricultural exports shipped by sea and more than half of imports, including a significant share of trade in bananas and chocolate, according to the Farm Bureau.

Other sectors exposed to disruption include tin, tobacco and nicotine, Oxford Economics said. Clothing and footwear firms, and European carmakers, which route many of their shipments through the Port of Baltimore, will also take a hit.

Imports in the US surged over the summer, as many businesses took steps to rush shipments ahead of the strike.

"I don't think we will see immediate, significant economic impacts...but over the course of weeks, if the strike lasts that long, we can begin to see prices rise and for there to be some shortages in goods," said Seth Harris, a professor at Northeastern University and a former White House adviser on labour issues.

What will the economic impact be?

More than a third of exports and imports could be affected by the strike, hitting US economic growth to the tune of at least $4.5bn each week of the strike, according to Grace Zemmer, an associate US economist at Oxford Economics, though others have estimated the economic hit could be higher.

She said more than 100,000 people could find themselves temporarily out of work as the impact of the stoppage spreads.

"This is really a trigger event, one that will see dominoes fall over the coming months," said Peter Sand, chief analyst at ocean freight analytics firm Xeneta, warning that the stand-off also has the potential push up wider shipping costs.

That would hit consumers and businesses which tend to rely on so-called "just-in-time" supply chains for goods, he added.

How could this affect the US election?

The stand-off injects uncertainty into the US economy at a delicate time.

The economy has been slower and the unemployment rate is ticking higher as the US election approaches in six weeks.

The strike risks putting President Biden in a tricky spot.

US presidents can intervene in labour disputes that threaten national security or safety by imposing an 80-day cooling-off period, forcing workers back on the job while negotiations continue.

In 2002, Republican President George W Bush intervened to open ports after 11 days of a strike action by dockworkers on the west coast.

The US Chamber of Commerce business group has called on President Biden to take action.

"Americans experienced the pain of delays and shortages of goods during the pandemic-era supply chain backlogs in 2021. It would be unconscionable to allow a contract dispute to inflict such a shock to our economy," said Suzanne P. Clark, president and chief executive of the business group.

The ILA's Mr Daggett endorsed Democrat Biden in 2020, but has been critical of the president more recently, citing pressure on west coast dockworkers to reach a deal a year ago. He met with Donald Trump in July.

Although any strike chaos is likely to hurt Democrats, the cost of alienating allies in the labour movement just weeks before the election would be greater, said William Brucher, a professor of labor studies and employment relations at Rutgers University.

But public support of strikes could be tested by the dispute, which has been championed by Mr Daggett, who was acquitted of having links to organised crime in a 2004 case by federal prosecutors. A related civil suit remains unresolved.

Films such as the 1954 classic On the Waterfront once defined the dockworkers union's image, but Prof Brucher said he thought that historical memory had largely faded and many people shared the dockworkers' concerns about cost-of living and automation.

"As much as it could sway public opinion against the ILA, a strike by ILA members is their decision and I don't think they will be swayed by public opinion in any meaningful way," he said.

"What is more likely to happen is the pressure of a strike will likely force the employers back to the table with a much more substantial offer."

end

 

How a massive port worker strike could scramble the 2024 race

A lengthy work stoppage could drive up prices and delay imports of automobiles, bananas and even Christmas decorations.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/27/port-strike-harris-biden-trump-election-00181319

Ports along the East and Gulf coasts are on the verge of a dockworkers strike that could damage the U.S. economy just a month before the election — creating a political quandary for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Intervening to stop the strike — as Biden did two years ago to prevent rail workers from walking off the job — could sour labor voters on Harris, who is trying to shore up support from blue-collar workers who could decide the election in critical swing states. But allowing a lengthy work stoppage could unleash pain on consumers, driving up prices and delaying imports of automobiles, bananas and even Christmas decorations.

A strike could begin as soon as Tuesday if the International Longshoremen’s Association doesn’t reach a deal with the alliance of companies that operate at more than a dozen major ports along the Eastern Seaboard and Gulf Coast. The two sides are nowhere near an agreement.

The president of the 132-year-old union, erstwhile Biden ally Harold Daggett, said he’s willing to push the economy past its breaking point if the United States Maritime Alliance doesn’t agree to substantial wage hikes and safeguards against the automation of union jobs.

The White House has said that Biden will not use his executive powers to halt any ILA strike.

“My advice is to stay out of it,” said Marty Walsh, the former Boston mayor and Labor Secretary who helped lead the Biden administration’s response to the 2022 freight rail labor dispute. “You don’t have to get involved until both sides ask. Encourage both sides to stay in conversation.”

Other Democrats made their angst plain.

“We gotta find a deal,” said Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat whose state is home to one of the largest ports on the East Coast. “I’m not gonna give ‘em advice about how to do it, but it would be a bad thing for Virginia and for the country to have a strike.”

White House spokesperson Robyn Patterson said Biden is encouraging “all parties to come to the bargaining table.” Senior officials from the White House, Labor Department and Transportation Departmetn are delivering that message to the union and USMX members “directly on being at the table and negotiating in good faith fairly and quickly,” she added.

For Harris, the labor dispute will force her to square pro-union stances with the business-friendly economic agenda she’s unveiled since taking over the Democratic presidential race. The vice president has been endorsed by most major private sector unions but has faced resistance among some rank-and-file members, as well as the Teamsters’ national leadership.

Former President Donald Trump, meanwhile, would have a chance to exploit whatever economic havoc a strike creates, furthering his message that the Biden-era has saddled consumers with high prices and supply-chain misery. Democrats could try to use Trump’s track record on labor policy — along with his recent comments to Elon Musk about firing striking workers — to blunt his attempts to curry favor with working class voters.

The Harris and Trump campaigns declined to comment.

The actual economic pain that could be inflicted by an ILA strike is difficult to calculate and would depend on its length.

The affected ports span from New York to Houston and manage more than half of the country’s port capacity, according to the Mitre Corporation. The cargo includes weekly volumes of agricultural imports and exports that are worth around $1.4 billion, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.

Analysts from JPMorgan have estimated the costs of strike-related closures could climb as high as $5 billion per day, while the shipping container marketplace Container xChange has pegged the daily economic toll at around $1 billion. Maersk has already announced disruption surcharges for cargo that’s moving in and out of terminals on the East and Gulf coasts.

The degree to which those costs are passed along to consumers will depend not only on shipping delay costs, but also the existing inventories at retailers, said Seth Harris, a former acting labor secretary under former President Barack Obama who went on to advise the Biden White House on economic policy. In a recent research note, JPMorgan Chase analysts said that companies have been pulling forward shipments ahead of the potential disruption and diverting cargo to West Coast ports that wouldn’t be impacted by the strike.

Seth Harris said he didn’t expect prices to climb quickly “unless there is price gouging, and that could very well serve the Vice President’s interests, because that is a central part of her” economic messaging, he told POLITICO.

Still, the economic disruptions caused by a protracted strike would invariably raise difficult questions about how Harris and Trump would respond in similar circumstances.

While Harris has long had the support of labor groups — she helmed a White House task force on organizing and walked a picket line with Nevada autoworkers in 2019 — her presidential campaign has sought to bolster appeal among working class voters in the Rust Belt, where the race is likely to be decided. She is opposed to Nippon Steel’s acquisition of U.S. Steel, held campaign events at Midwest union halls and recently told the Economic Club of Pittsburgh that she has “always been and always will be a strong supporter of workers and unions.”

But her campaign has also courted major donors in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street who’ve been hostile to Biden administration regulators who’ve used their authority to extend workplace protections. If the ILA strikes, it could compel her to clarify the “real, specific ties” she has to pro-labor efforts, personnel and policies, said Alí Bustamante, the director of the worker power and economic security program at the Roosevelt Institute, a progressive think tank.

An ILA strike could accelerate the timeline for when she has to “make a lot of these critical choices that are going to provide a lot of signal to the labor community,” he said.

Trump allies expect the former president to leverage the work stoppage to extend his outreach to union voters. Notably, Daggett — who endorsed Biden in 2020 — earlier this summer said that he had a “productive” 90-minute meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in late 2023 and that he enjoys a “long relationship” with the former president.

An ILA strike “will give voters, particularly union voters, yet another reason to want a historically successful dealmaker back in the White House,” said Jonathan Berry, a former top Labor Department official under Trump who is now managing partner at the law firm Boyden Gray.

Of course, Trump’s track record on organized labor issues is a target-rich environment for Democrats looking to elevate Harris’ standing with unionized workers. While his protectionist trade and manufacturing policies have helped him chip away at the Democratic Party’s hold on blue collar workers, his first term agenda limited the ability of workers to organize.

The ILA strike could arrive a little more than six weeks after he discussed firing striking workers in a wide-ranging interview with Musk, who the former president says could have a role in his next administration.

Public opinion of unions is as high as it has been since the mid-1960s, according to Gallup. If Trump signals that Biden and Harris should intervene in an ILA strike to preserve supply chains, it could weaken whatever grip he has on conservative union voters.

“Trump ran the most vehemently anti-union administration that we’ve seen,” said Steve Rosenthal, a strategist and former political director for the AFL-CIO. “The contrast is clear.”

 

 

 

[Vesper 30,224]

Israel launches ground operation in southern Lebanon, Israeli military says

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/09/30/israel-lebanon-hezbollah-hamas-war-news-gaza/

The Israeli military said it had launched “limited, localized and targeted raids” against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon overnight Monday. The invasion is being supported by the Israeli air force and artillery, the Israel Defense Forces said.

Earlier in the day, Israel told Washington that its planned ground operation would be smaller than its last war against Hezbollah in 2006 and would focus on clearing out militant infrastructure along the border to remove the threat to Israeli border communities, a U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private talks between the two governments.

Israel’s military said about 10 projectiles crossed into northern Israel from Lebanon, with some intercepted and others falling into open areas. In a separate incident, the Israel Defense Forces said an unmanned aerial vehicle was intercepted by air defenses over the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of central Israel. The attacks come as Israeli troops enter southern Lebanon.

Key updates

 

Israel’s military says its troops have crossed into southern Lebanon

 

Lebanon’s Ministry of Health said that 95 people had been killed in Israeli strikes Monday. It...

 

Satellite imagery shows Israeli military build-up on border

 

 

Edited October 1, 2024 by Vesper

[Vesper 30,224]

Donald Trump, Unhinged Sociopath, Says Police Should Violently Assault Americans for “One Rough Hour” to Stop Shoplifting

“The word will get out and it will end immediately.”

 

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/donald-trump-police-should-violently-assault-americans-for-one-hour

 

One of the most absurd lies promulgated by MAGA Republicans is the idea that Donald Trump does not regularly endorse violence. They did it during his time in office, they did it after January 6, and they did it, most recently, following two attempts on his life—while claiming it was actually Democratic rhetoric that led to two men allegedly trying to assassinate him. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, and the latest example tearing their claims to shreds would be Trump’s call over the weekend for the police to violently assault Americans en masse in order to stop crime.

Speaking at a rally in Pennsylvania, the ex-president said the key to preventing crimes like shoplifting is state-sanctioned police beatings, which he lamented the “left” does not allow. “You see these guys walking out with air conditioners, with refrigerators on their back. The craziest thing,” Trump said. “And the police aren’t allowed to do their job. They’re told, if you do anything, you’re gonna lose your pension…. They’re not allowed to do it because the liberal left won’t let ’em do it. The liberal left wants to destroy them, and they want to destroy our country.” Then he unveiled his big idea: “If you had one really violent day…one rough hour, and I mean real rough, the word will get out and it will end immediately.”

 

During his remarks, Trump also falsely claimed one can steal up to $950 worth of goods with no consequences in California, which appeared to be both a reference to Proposition 47—which downgraded some theft offenses to misdemeanors from felonies—and an attempt to tie the law to then California attorney general Kamala Harris. But as Politico notes, while Harris was in office when the ballot initiative was approved, “she remained neutral on the matter.” Meanwhile, “the dollar threshold Trump referenced actually became law four years earlier, signed by then governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican.”

Following Trump’s remarks in Pennsylvania, a spokesperson for his campaign absurdly claimed he was “clearly just floating [police beatings] in jest,” adding: “President Trump has always been the law and order President and he continues to reiterate the importance of enforcing existing laws. Otherwise, it’s all-out anarchy, which is what Kamala Harris has created in some of these communities across America, especially during her time as attorney general when she emboldened criminals.”

Trump, of course, is the only person currently running for president who is a convicted felon. Meanwhile, the notion that he is all about “law and order” is fully laughable given that (1) he has called for defunding the DOJ and FBI and (2) prosecutors say January 6 was “the largest single-day, mass assault of law enforcement officers in our nation’s history.” As for the idea that he was totally just joking about that “one really violent day,” well, that is not exactly believable given his long history of calling for violence, a rap sheet that includes:

• Endorsing assaulting reporters
• Telling police officers to knock suspects’ heads against the sides of their squad cars
• Musing about “Second Amendment people” preventing the appointment of liberal judges
• Telling supporters, of a man who’d been ejected from one of his rallies, “I’d like to punch him in the face”
• Telling a crowd at one of his rallies, “If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously, okay. Just knock the hell—I promise you I will pay for the legal fees, I promise”
• Whipping his supporters into a violent frenzy with months of lies concerning the 2020 election, which led to a violent attack on the Capitol that left numerous people dead, and which he tried to justify by saying: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”
• Defending his supporters’ decision to chant, “hang Mike Pence”
• Calling for alleged shoplifters to be “shot” as they leave the store

So yeah, maybe believe him when he says these things.

Edited October 1, 2024 by Vesper