The Philly Inquirer proposed a set of questions for Donald Trump tomorrow night that would be fantastic: I wish I had confidence that this is the caliber of questions we can expect but I don’t. Get ready for more questions like “how do you answer Vice President Harris’ accusation that you are anti-democratic?”
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Good. There’s no need to rattle him during the debate because he’ll do that to himself. Rattle him before the debate.
“People need to know what they’re up against” Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick spoke with Ari Berman of Mother Jones, author of “Minority Rule: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People―and the Fight to Resist It.” He warns that anti-democracy forces inside this country are doing what the far right always does: doubling down. Republicans love few things more than a twofer. They have one in spreading a new conspiracy theory that noncitizens are voting in numbers and tipping elections away from decent, All-American white people. Berman says, “[I]t’s the newest version of the Big Lie, and it’s really a twofer for them because they are fusing voter fraud paranoia with anti-immigrant hysteria. And in doing so, they’re building support both for new restrictions on voting, but also for new restrictions on immigration. So it’s basically taking two of the most important planks of the MAGA agenda and putting them together.” But that’s just filigree.
Mark Cuban tweeted this and I thought it was useful: I think one major point the discussion of tariffs is missing is the time and cost to businesses, even the smallest single person company. It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of bureaucracy. It almost always required hiring a broker to deal with all of it. And of course there is the ongoing record keeping that each business is responsible for. Here is what @grok had to say (really growing attached to @grok @elonmusk) When importing products that are subject to tariffs, here’s what you generally need to do: 1. **Determine the Tariff Rate**: Use the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS) to classify your product and find out the applicable tariff rate. This classification involves determining the correct HTS code for your product, which can be complex and might require consulting with a customs broker or trade specialist. 2. **Calculate the Duty**: Once you know the tariff rate, calculate the duty you’ll owe. This duty is based on the customs value of the goods, which includes the cost, insurance, and freight (CIF) value.
Why? You have probably heard about Tucker Carlson’s interview with a pro-Hitler, Holocaust revisionist whom he called “the most important popular historian working in the United States today.” a few days back. Yeah. This article in Vox wonders if the GOP is going to go along with him on this. Guess what? The Trump camp — which sets the tone for the entire party — has so far done nothing to distance itself from the increasingly toxic Carlson. [JD] Vance, who has pre-taped a Carlson interview and is scheduled to speak with him at a live event in two weeks, refused to denounce Carlson after the Cooper fiasco — with a spokesperson saying in a statement that “Senator Vance doesn’t believe in guilt-by-association cancel culture.” A Trump campaign source told the Bulwark that while it’s “not ideal timing” for Vance to appear twice with Carlson before Election Day, “it is what it is.” (Donald Trump Jr. is also scheduled to attend.) It is what it is.
Asked of a panel of likely voters in swing states what they thought Harris and Trump most wanted to achieve from a term in office: Harris: Trump: Sounds about right. I would just ask you to contemplate what it means that nearly half the country says they plan to vote for the second one.
Five years ago today He had been very pleased that they called him “your excellency” which he insists they never called any other president because they respected him so much you’ve never seen anything like it. I still remember the shock at learning that Trump had secretly invited the leaders of the Taliban to Camp David on the anniversary of 9/11. It boggled the mind that he could even contemplate such a thing, although he’d been inviting Kim Jong Un and Rodrigo Duterte to the White House for years so why not? But to imagine the Taliban at Camp David on 9/11 was beyond imagination even for him. It turned out that there had been ongoing peace talks that were designed to lead to the American withdrawal but Trump wanted the credit for “making the deal” so he came up with the Camp David proposition. In the end all it did was help destabilize the already fragile Afghan government (a major factor in the chaotic withdrawal in 2021) and Trump ended up releasing 5,000 Taliban fighters and agreeing to a timetable for US withdrawal with only a promise that the Taliban would be good boys in the future.
Reports from the field “The Trump campaign is tasking the far-right Turning Point network with spearheading its ground game despite having no track record of success,” Bill Scher noticed back in June: CNN reported that “Donald Trump’s campaign is taking a vastly different approach to 2024 compared with 2020, with plans for fewer staff and expenses [and instead] relying on wealthy conservative groups for data, infrastructure, and significant bank accounts.” It further noted that one of the most important of these groups is Turning Point Action, part of the Turning Point network that began with Turning Point USA. Turning Point USA is a right-wing student group founded in 2012 by Charlie Kirk, an 18-year-old soon-to-be college dropout, and Bill Montgomery, an elderly Tea Party activist. None of Turning Point’s 2022 efforts in Arizona “had any discernible impact” on Republicans’ fortunes there, Scher wrote.
From polling expert Larry Sabatp: The oracle of Delphi NY Times poll dropped today and that is what it showed. Ok. That’s that. The race, as I’ve been saying all year, is about two coalitions: the fascists vs the anti-fascists. And it’s a shockingly, disturbingly tight race.
Not that it matters. The “vibe” remains horrifically negative and the economy is what people point to to explain it. The reality is that for half of America, the world is going to shit because Donald Trump is telling them to believe his lies instead of their lyin’ eyes, and they love him so much that they’re happy to do it. For the rest of us, the world is going to shit because the other half worships that orange imbecile and it simply defies all sense and logic leading to a sense of dread about the future that is beyond disorienting. How can it be that half the country has succumbed to this addled demagogue? I don’t know, but it does help explain how some very bad things happened in the 20th century. It’s got something to do with mass communications, propaganda and groupthink and it’s terrifying.