October 17, 2024

The Stuttering Lede, Oct. 17th, 2024

19 days until we learn if we can stop fascism

“It is very simple to be happy, but it is very difficult to be simple.” Rabindranath Tagore

On this day in 1946 ten of the Nuremberg Trial defendants were executed by hanging. Hermann Goering, of course, cheekily beat the hangman’s noose the night before.

Election 2024

• If you're planning to vote by mail this fall, election and Postal Service officials are urging you to return your ballot AT LEAST ONE WEEK BEFORE your state’s deadline.

• Jimmy Carter’s first vote for president was for Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

• If Trump wins, he will have unified GOP control.

• Two days in a row now, VP Kamala Harris has used or agreed with the use of the word "fascist" to describe Trump's words and deeds. (Of course, what he has been saying has kind of been the dictionary definition of fascism, so there is that.)

• On little known podcast, RNC "election integrity" lawyer Christina Bobb says the US needs a "cleansing" to "clean out the filth."

• The virtues of showing up for voters. In this context seems worth mentioning that after the interview, Fox News hosts were eager to praise Harris for coming on the show.

• Kamala Wrecks Fox and Trump.

• Erin Reed points out that Kamala did push back against anti trans talking points.

• Crucial point from David Austin Walsh: “Trump is running on an *open* vow of "state violence against domestic political opponents," something that has little precedent.”

• More than a dozen Republicans who served as “fake electors” in 2020, including several now facing criminal charges, are currently serving as official Trump electors in key battleground states, a CNN survey finds. Another 16 GOP electors are election deniers who claim Biden’s 2020 win was fraudulent. Together, these groups make up over a third of the 82 electors chosen to support Trump in the seven states where he tried to overturn the 2020 results.

• MeidasTouch has discovered that questioners at Donald Trump's bizarre town hall in Pennsylvania were not ordinary attendees, but rather MAGA and GOP operatives posing as regular voters.

• I’ve only seen three clips but the Univision town hall with Trump will be important tonight. Watch this entire four minutes. And your reminder he doesn’t know or at least care he confuses the two definitions of “asylum.”

• Question: Do you really believe that these people are eating people’s pets? Trump: I was just saying what was reported. And eating other things too that they’re not supposed to.

• Trump called Jan 6 a "day of love." Once again, just like Mussolini, who promised, the day he declared dictatorship, to give Italy peace "through love, if possible, and through force, if necessary.” Trump: "There were no guns down there. We didn't have guns. The others had guns, but we didn't have guns." Quick reminder: "We" here is the insurrectionists. "The others" is Capitol police.

• “Not by the words that I would use.”

• Vance explicitly says "no," he does not believe Trump lost the 2020 election: "I’ve answered this question directly a million times: no. I think there are serious problems in 2020. So, did Donald Trump lose the election? Not by the words that I would use."

• Donald Trump had something to say about women's sports, talking about a spike in SJSU volleyball. But if you thought it was about last week's match vs. San Diego State, there's a problem with that: The Aztecs say it didn't happen.

• Fact check: Trump makes at least 19 false claims in one-hour Fox town hall with women: John Deere says Trump’s story about how he saved US jobs with a tariff threat is fictional.

• Faulkner plays Trump the clip of him calling Adam Schiff "the enemy within." Trump says "I think it was a nice presentation. I wasn't unhinged ... it is the enemy from within. And they're very dangerous. They're marxists and communists and fascists."

• Report details how the town hall "was populated by only GOP backers hand-selected by Fox News."

• Donald Trump clarified at a Fox town hall that he includes normal Democrats like the Pelosi’s as America's "enemy within." Some had tried to rewrite the remarks to make them seem more palatable.

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• Reporter: Should Google be broken up?  Trump: Virginia cleaned up its voter rolls and got rid of thousands and thousands of bad votes Reporter: The question was about Google.

• Trump’s New North Carolina Bus Tour Snubs Mark Robinson …Again …but Trump’s bus has room for Project 2025, affair rumors, pro-lynching comments, FEMA defunders, an IVF blocker, and a puppy killer.

• The thing is, Cruz has no friends. The time has come he needs friends. He doesn't have any. I'd still be shocked if he loses, but this is going to keep happening.

• Polymarket, a new online “prediction market,” appears to be manipulating election narratives by pushing skewed “odds,” with paid influencers amplifying the site without proper disclosures to create the illusion of momentum for Trump where none exists.

• Jonathan Turley is a hack: “column on the Harris plagiarism controversy. Like virtually everything else, plagiarism has become politics by another means. The seriousness of the allegation often depends on how sympathetic the media is toward the author...”

• No matter who wins the country is moving to the right.

• Harris gains in 2 new polls, early vote is encouraging.

• Bernie Sanders: “In three months, three billionaires donated $220 million to Donald Trump. Democracy is not billionaires buying elections. That’s Oligarchy.”

• Less than 100,000 anti-Trump Republican voters in battleground states could make a significant difference this election. If they decide to sit out, they would be aiding Trump.

• The ‘ABC Whistleblower’ Story Unsurprisingly Fell Apart. Those Who Promoted It Don’t Care.

• Meet Gloria Johnson, Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Tennessee.

• Nebraska's supreme court stepped in to enable as many as *105,000* people to vote in November. Two GOP state officials had unilaterally said in July that they'd just stop enforcing two rights restoration laws. Court stopped them.

• In Arizona, a pro-Trump PAC funded by billionaires sent out a mailer to seniors that looks like a Medicare cancellation notice. On the back it falsely claims Kamala Harris would "liquidate" Medicare. Rather odious for oligarchs to be scaring folks.

• Trump Escalates Threats to Political Opponents He Deems the ‘Enemy.’

• A judge who is a Trump appointee in Birmingham ruled that Alabama must stop removing voters from the rolls based on its belief they are non citizens (which has been shown to be largely incorrect) because it's happening too close to the election.

• Suddenly, the Electoral College Is Posing a Problem for Trump.

Politics

• An AP investigation finds nearly 100 people were killed or injured since 2017 in plots that included US military or veterans, most of them in service of a far-right agenda.

• ‘We stopped the slave trade!’Jacob Rees Mogg on Britain’s history of colonialism amid renewed calls for reparations to former British territories involved in slavery. He doubles down later, “They ought to pay us for ending slavery, it is not something any other country had done and we were motivated by Christian charity.”

• The "opportunity agenda for Black men" is fine... but Elie Mystal does not give a shit. He is voting against a fascist soon and the overwhelming majority of Black men are too. It's the white guys who stay being the problem.

• Marijuana legalization is not a change in policy for Kamala’s campaign. The process was started in Oct 2022 to reschedule marijuana is now complete, it's no longer Schedule I.

• It's also funny that some people are complaining that Harris is dangling the possibility of legalizing pot to buy votes, while others (who are aware of the changes already in process) are saying the changes he has already made are an attempt to buy votes.

• The influence of Peter Thiel in our politics is extraordinary. His money elected J.D. Vance. He’s the lead investor in

  Polymarket, Polymarket hired Nate Silver.

• Pope Francis makes big move against Opus Dei, taking control of a vast mountain complex in northern Spain The site, which was built on the orders of its founder, is an important pilgrimage site for its 90,000 members.

• Judge Chutkan has issued a 50-page ruling that largely rejects Trump's demands for more discovery from the federal government. She notes that Trump could bear responsibility for the Jan. 6 attack even if he didn't explicitly instruct people to attack the Capitol.

• Chris Brunet wanted to cover Neri Oxman's plagiarism during the Harvard saga last year, but Chris Rufo shut it down. Why? Because he was in the middle of asking Bill Ackman for funding.

• The way Leader Hakeem Jeffries sees it, House Democrats haven’t held the majority this Congress— but they’ve governed as if they did. Now, he wants the gavel to go with it.

• A lawsuit alleges that Chuck Johnson and a business partner “falsely present themselves as intelligence agents or assets of U.S. government agencies” to pressure companies including Clearview AI into doing business with them.

• Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill has a plan for what she’ll say about Louisiana’s religious classroom posters “when I’m standing in the United States Supreme Court."

• The ability of the Biden Administration to get the Port of Baltimore fully open *within 3 months* of the complete collapse of a critical piece of infrastructure is truly a feat of public administration.

• The new storm in Western NC -- misinformation.

• Jack Smith’s New Filing Against Trump Is Proof of Process, Not Politics.

• This is a devastating account of Neil Gorsuch's book revealing him as a pure political hack.

• The cat grilling video posted by Chris Rufo, the right wing activist who failed to debunk my reporting that his email appeared in the Ashley Madison leak, has been debunked.

• House Ethics Committee has subpoenaed docs from lawsuit brought by Matt Gaetz's friend.

Russia/Ukraine

• A natural disaster hits then disinformation spreads like crazy, claiming officials are incompetent and money is going to the wrong people. The Kremlin did this after floods in Poland. Where else have we seen this?

• Russia suspected in planting a device on a plane that caused UK fire.

• North Korean troops deserting Ukraine frontline days after arrival.

• Unprecedented access to a strike drone mission deep into Russian territory with Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Agency GUR.

• “The Witches of Bucha, as they call themselves, are a volunteer air defence unit made up almost entirely of women, now helping to protect Ukraine’s skies as more and more men are sent to the frontlines.”

Middle East

• “According to senior defense officials, the Israeli government is not seeking to revive hostage talks and the political leadership is pushing for the gradual annexation of large parts of the Gaza Strip.” In case you thought there wasn’t a strategy.

• How Israel’s Army Uses Palestinians as Human Shields in Gaza.

Tech

• All Hail Lina Khan: “huge win for consumers: the FTC finalized a "Click-to-Cancel" rule to make it as easy to cancel a subscription as it is to sign up for one.”

• Wealthy tech guys are working so hard to relegitimize eugenics with a tech rebrand.

• Rep. Rashida Tlaib: “I sent a letter to Kroger about their decision to roll out surge pricing using facial recognition technology. Facial recognition technology is often discriminatory and shouldn't be used in grocery stores to price gouge residents.” Price surging…based upon facial recognition? Meaning if you look a certain way, Kroger will charge you more for groceries? And all Congress did was send them a strongly worded letter? Are you absolutely kidding me?

• Elon Musk and others invest staggering amounts into Trump campaign.

• Trump’s Scammy Crypto Company Is Already a Disaster.

• A court has ruled that a couple that was in a severe crash during an Uber ride can’t sue the company because they and their daughter agreed to arbitration when they accepted the terms of service for a separate Uber Eats order.

• How AI is accelerating the already serious issue of bias in software:

  • A new study that explores how users’ names can impact ChatGPT’s responses.

  • Turns out Zoom has a crappy face-detection algorithm that erases black faces...and determines that a nice pale globe in the background must be a better face than what should be obvious.

  • Guess what: AI enhancement tools of any kind will have a tendency to add things that weren't there to begin with... like unbuttoning women's shirts and showing their bras.

  

  • A conference presentation on racism in consumer culture that discusses this - & how it’s STILL an issue.

• Elon Musk’s X has reportedly worked with the Trump campaign to censor material that could be harmful to the former president’s White House chances as part of a pattern of election interference that is unprecedented in U.S. history.

• The desperation to help Trump win by Elon Musk makes more sense every day. Just like Trump, Musk is anticipating jail if Harris/Walz wins.

Women Rights

• James Surowiecki writes, “do not interview Vance if you're not prepared. When he says, "What did I say?" Say "You've said you would like abortion to be illegal nationally. And if you think abortion is murder - as you do - why would you be against banning it nationally?" So then Vance would say, "I agree with President Trump that it should be decided by the states." And you say, "But you want abortion banned in all 50 states, correct? So it's just a matter for you of who does it. The important thing is making abortion illegal across the country."

• An abortion fund took a stand against Israel’s war on Gaza. See what happened.

Misc.

• Kevin Smith has regained control of his 1999 film Dogma from Harvey Weinstein and will soon release it on streaming for the first time.

• There’s another massive meat recall.