and now it really begins ...

[drjohncarpenter]

Russia, once again working for Trump.

Russia propaganda group behind fake Kamala Harris hit-and-run story
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/18/kamala-harris-fake-hit-run-story-russia-propaganda-storm-1516

[drjohncarpenter]

[latebloomer]

The Real Reason Trump and Vance Are Spreading Lies About Haitians
Investing in Rust Belt communities would not fix what they see as the actual problem.

By Adam Serwer, The Atlantic, 18 Sep 2024

Six days into terrorizing the city of Springfield, Ohio, with baseless nonsense about Haitian immigrants kidnapping and eating people’s pets, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, J. D. Vance, admitted that the tales were intended to push a certain narrative.

“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do,” Vance told CNN on Sunday. Days earlier, Vance had acknowledged that “it’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false”—a confession that implies that he does not care whether they are true.

Since former President Donald Trump and Vance began centering their campaign on lies about Haitian immigrants being “dumped” on Springfield, municipal buildings, schools, and local festivals have had to be evacuated or canceled because of bomb threats. Asked whether he condemned the threats against Haitian immigrants, Trump couldn’t even bring himself to say that the threats were wrong, and instead simply spread misinformation about the migrants again: “I don’t know what happened with the bomb threats. I know that it’s been taken over by illegal migrants, and that’s a terrible thing that happened.” Besides failing to offer even a shred of concern for residents menaced by bomb threats, the statement was also false: The Haitians in Springfield are living and working there legally using green cards, humanitarian parole, and Temporary Protected Status, a legal immigration status for people who cannot return safely to their country of origin. Trump has vowed to deport them anyway.

The reward that the Haitian community in Springfield has received for doing exactly what Republicans demand of legal immigrants—work, provide for themselves, contribute to their community—is a campaign of slander and intimidation. Contrary to Vance’s insistence that he is creating “stories” about a community to alleviate the suffering of Ohioans, what the Trump campaign is actually doing is invoking that suffering as license to justify violence and harm. This is the most employed rhetorical device of the Trump campaign: point to someone’s suffering and then offer as a solution the application of state violence against a disfavored group, using Americans’ problems as a pretext to harm people they have chosen to hate.

Trump and Vance have said that the Haitians were “dumped” on Springfield, that they came illegally, that they’ve spread disease, that they’re eating people’s pets. These are all long-standing staples of anti-immigrant rhetoric regardless of the origin of the immigrants, attempts to use shocking, disgust-provoking anecdotes to overcome people’s ability to reason. Vance has now essentially admitted that he is weaving “stories” for a larger purpose, but it’s worth examining these allegations a little more closely to see what that purpose is.

“What we know is that the Haitians who are in Springfield are legal. They came to Springfield to work. Ohio is on the move, and Springfield has really made a great resurgence with a lot of companies coming in,” Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican, told ABC News this past weekend. “These Haitians came in to work for these companies. What the companies tell us is that they are very good workers. They’re very happy to have them there. And frankly, that’s helped the economy.”

There are a few things about DeWine’s comments that are worth noting. One is that the Haitian migrants came to work and have benefited the town’s economy; they were not “dumped” there. The Haitians’ arrival did not hurt Springfield; it helped revitalize the kind of town that Trump and Vance claim to want to help. The Republican ticket’s allegations about disease and pet-eating appear to be completely spurious—the author of the Facebook post from which those stories originated has publicly apologized for spreading them and acknowledged that they have no evidence to support them. As my colleague David Graham notes, the arrival of the Haitian workers helped spur an economic revival, exactly what Vance has said he wants for his home state of Ohio.

There are only two grains of truth in Vance’s complaints about the Haitian migrants. One is that last year, a local boy, Aiden Clark, was killed when a Haitian driver hit Clark’s school bus by accident—though Vance has falsely called his death an act of “murder.” Aiden’s father, Nathan Clark, has condemned “morally bankrupt” politicians and “hatred spewing people” for trying to exploit his son’s death to foment racism against Haitians. Another is that the influx of workers has strained local resources: The New York Times reported earlier this year that the new arrivals have put pressure on housing, medical facilities, and schools. Of course, this is how economic development works; people arrive, drawn by promises of gainful employment, and then services are expanded to meet demand. Those services in turn provide more jobs and opportunities, in a virtuous cycle.

To the extent that the arrival of the Haitian workers who have helped revive Springfield’s economic fortunes has caused problems, those problems have obvious solutions—investment in housing, schools, infrastructure, and so on—that would benefit everyone else in Springfield. Deporting the workers, in contrast, would harm the town, reverse its economic revival, and tear apart the community. And the town’s leadership is not asking for them to be deported. Springfield’s Republican mayor, Rob Rue, called the threats a “hateful response to immigration in our town.” He has been subjected to death threats for defending the Haitian community.

So the question is, why are Trump and Vance so fixated on deporting the Haitians?

One reason is Trump has a particular, well-documented hatred toward Haitians. The former president infamously referred to Haiti as one of the “shithole countries” that the United States should reject immigrants from, in favor of those from countries “like Norway.” Trump had also previously complained that Haitians “all have AIDS.” Trump’s hostility to Haitians extends to other Black immigrants—he also reportedly complained that if Nigerian immigrants were allowed to stay, they would “never go back to their huts.” Nigerian Americans are the most highly educated immigrant subgroup in America, and Haitians, as the Cato Institute’s David Bier has documented, have a higher rate of employment than native-born Americans and are much more likely than other immigrants or native-born Americans to join the U.S. military. Trump apologists have repeatedly insisted that Trump simply wants immigrants who can contribute to American society, but Trump himself ignores Black immigrants’ contributions in favor of his own ingrained stereotypes about Black people.

Another reason is Trump and Vance appear not to be interested in helping anyone in Springfield, or anywhere else for that matter. Their actions point to a political theory of the election, which is that fearmongering about immigrants, especially Black immigrants, will scare white people into voting for Trump. They also point to an ideological theory of the nation, which is that America belongs to white people, and that the country would be better if it were poorer and weaker, as long as it were also whiter. Trump and Vance have a specific policy agenda for socially engineering the nation through state force to be whiter than it is now: mass deportation, repealing birthright citizenship, and denaturalization of American citizens. This agenda, in addition to being immoral, would wreck the American economy. Republican elected officials in Ohio are defending the Haitians in Springfield because they understand that removing them would have a terrible effect on their town and state—the same terrible effect that Trump’s agenda would have on the country.

Trump’s and Vance’s statements reveal a belief that it would be better to leave dying towns in the Midwest to wither away than revive them and have to share that prosperity with people who are Black, and they seem to be betting that enough American voters in enough swing states agree that it would be better to be broke than integrated. In exchange for these fearful votes, a second Trump administration would proceed to shower tax cuts on the wealthy, raise them on everyone else, slash regulations on big business, and further undermine unions, while towns like Springfield would be left to tumble further into decline.

That message, spoken plainly, is not as appealing as they wish it were. So to justify hatred toward the Haitian migrants, Trump and Vance chose to smear them as pet-eating savages. Saying “we will invest more in these communities to ensure that they continue to prosper” would not have been good enough. It would not have removed what Trump and Vance see as the actual problem, which is not poverty, addiction, lack of affordable housing, or job loss, but the mere presence of Haitians on American soil.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/09/trumps-campaign-immigrants-springfield-ohio-haiti/679913/

[drjohncarpenter]

Too old to remember a debate from one week ago.

VOTE BLUE.

[drjohncarpenter]

Today, CURRENT vice-president.











Teamsters are voting blue.

[drjohncarpenter]

Legend.

[drjohncarpenter]

Lying liar lies again and again and again.

Fact check: 12 completely fictional stories Trump has told in the last month

By Daniel Dale, CNN
Thu September 19, 2024

Washington (CNN) — Former President Donald Trump is littering his public remarks with fictional stories.

This isn’t run-of-the-mill political spin, the kind of statistic-twisting and accomplishment-exaggerating that political candidates of all stripes engage in. Rather, the Republican presidential nominee is telling colorful lies that are completely untethered to reality.

Trump’s inflammatory assertion about immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, whom he baselessly accused at the September presidential debate of eating people’s dogs and cats, has received the most attention. But Trump’s lower-profile recent public appearances, like rallies and interviews, have also featured wholly imaginary tales.

Here are 11 additional examples from the past month alone.

Harris and the military draft

At a rally in Las Vegas last week, Trump claimed his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, is talking about forcing Americans to serve in the military: “She’s already talking about bringing back the draft. She wants to bring back the draft, and draft your child, and put them in a war that should never have happened.”

That’s absolute bunk. Harris is not talking at all about bringing back the draft.

Harris’ CNN interview

Trump claimed during a Fox News event in Pennsylvania in early September that Harris “had notes” to assist her during the television interview she did with CNN in late August. He even performed an impression in which he portrayed Harris supposedly looking down at these notes.

She didn’t actually have any notes.

Transgender children and schools

At an event held by a conservative group in late August, Trump claimed that schools are sending children for gender-affirming surgeries without their parents’ knowledge. He said, “The transgender thing is incredible. Think of it. Your kid goes to school and comes home a few days later with an operation. The school decides what’s going to happen with your child.”

Trump’s campaign subsequently made clear to CNN that it could not find a single example of such a thing having happened anywhere in the United States. Parental consent is required for gender-affirming operations; schools have not performed or approved these surgeries for minors behind their parents’ backs.

Even after Trump’s campaign demonstrated that it couldn’t substantiate the story, he repeated it days later at a Wisconsin rally in early September.

Harris and the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Trump told a vivid story on Fox News in late August about how President Joe Biden supposedly sent Harris to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2022 in an effort to prevent an invasion of Ukraine. Trump claimed Harris was sent “to see Putin in Russia three days before the attack. She went. She said – she gave her case. He attacked three days later. He attacked three days later. He laughed at her. He thought she was a joke.” Trump also told a version of the story at the September debate.

But this story, too, is wholly false.

Biden never sent Harris to negotiate with Putin – in fact, the Kremlin said in July that Harris and Putin have never spoken – and Harris did not travel to Russia just prior to the invasion. Rather, Harris traveled to a conference in Germany to meet with US allies, including Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky.

Harris’ identity

Trump claimed at a convention of Black journalists in late July that Harris used to “only” promote her Indian heritage, then “all of a sudden” made a “turn” and “became a Black person.” Defending the claim, Trump reiterated at the September debate that Harris had “put out” at some point that “she was not Black.”

None of that is true.

Harris – who was raised in a Black community and graduated from a historically Black university – has embraced her Black identity since her youth. While she has also fondly discussed her South Asian heritage, she never “put out” that she wasn’t Black.

Harris’ 2020 primary performance

Trump has repeatedly claimed during the last month that Harris was so unpopular when she previously ran for the presidency, in 2019, that she was the very first candidate to drop out of the crowded Democratic primary. “She was one of 22 people that ran. She was the first one to quit,” he said at a Pennsylvania rally in late August.

Not even close.

In fact, 13 other Democratic candidates dropped out of the race before Harris did – including the sitting or former governors of Washington, Montana and Colorado; the sitting mayor of New York City; and sitting or former members of the House of Representatives and Senate.

Opinions of Roe v. Wade

Facing heavy criticism from Harris and others for appointing three of the Supreme Court justices who overturned the Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision in 2022, Trump concocted a tale that this unpopular decision fulfilled the wishes of “everybody” – including “every Democrat.”

“Every Democrat, every Republican, everybody wanted Roe v. Wade terminated and brought back to the states,” Trump said on Fox News in late August.

This is not even remotely accurate.

Roe was consistently supported by a majority of the American public, and it was overwhelmingly popular among Democrats – with 80% support or better among Democrats in many polls.

Elections in California

At a September press conference in California, Trump claimed that “if I ran with an honest vote counter in California I would win California, but the votes are not counted honestly.” He had delivered an even more colorful version of the claim in an interview in late August, saying, “If Jesus came down and was the vote counter, I would win California, okay?”

More rubbish.

The votes are counted honestly in California, as they are in every other state; Trump loses California because it is an overwhelmingly Democratic state that has not chosen a Republican presidential candidate since 1988. He lost the state in 2020, fair and square, by more five million votes and more than 29 percentage points.

A ‘Man of the Year’ award in Michigan

Since 2016, Trump has told a lie that he was named “Man of the Year” in Michigan before he entered politics. Media outlets including CNN have repeatedly noted that Trump never got such an award and that the award doesn’t even appear to exist. But Trump claimed at a Michigan event on Tuesday that he has now been vindicated.

“The press said, ‘Oh, it never happened.’ Well, then it did happen. They found out where it was,” Trump said. “But it was like 15 years ago, a beautiful area, but nobody remembered it; nobody remembered it all. All of a sudden, like through a miracle, they found out it did exist.”

That’s a lie on top of a lie. The media has not discovered proof that Trump got a Michigan Man of the Year award.

His campaign didn’t respond Wednesday to a request to explain what he was talking about.

Migrants, prisons and ‘the Congo’

For months, Trump has told a story about how “the Congo” has deliberately emptied prisons to somehow get its criminals to come to the United States as migrants. “Many prisoners let go from the Congo in Africa, rough prisoners,” he said at an August event in Arizona. At an August rally in Pennsylvania the week after, he said, “In the Congo, in Africa: 22 people deposited into our country. ‘Where do you come from?’ ‘The Congo.’ ‘Where in the Congo?’ ‘Jail.’”

But Trump has presented zero evidence that “the Congo” has actually emptied any prisons for migration purposes. Representatives for the governments of both the Democratic Republic of Congo and the neighboring Republic of Congo have told CNN on the record that the claim is fiction, experts on the two countries say they have seen no evidence it is true, and Trump’s campaign has ignored requests to offer any substantiation.

The jobs revision

After the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics announced in August that its annual revision of jobs data found that the economy added about 818,000 fewer jobs than initially reported for the 12 months ending in March, Trump told a story about how the government had been planning to announce this downward revision “after November 5th,” Election Day, but was forced to do so before the election because of “a whistleblower” – “a patriot leaker.”

Another fabrication. The Bureau of Labor Statistics regularly releases the preliminary revised data in August, and it had disclosed the precise date of this particular data release – August 21 – weeks in advance.

William Beach, a conservative economist who was appointed by Trump to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics, wrote on social media: “For those who think the big revision to the BLS jobs numbers ‘leaked’ and was meant to come out after the election, remember that BLS always announces its draft revisions in August and announced this year’s date, August 21, many months ago. It is important to check your facts.”

https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/19/politics/fact-check-donald-trump-fictional-stories/index.html

"Were his lips moving?

His lips were moving, he is lying. And that's just the way it is."

- Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi