#Republican Convention

[ivovynckier]

Melania paid a surprise visit in Milwaukee.

Sugar daddy's check cleared?

[thefrankshow]

Republican Convention

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

GOP Convention:: Mike Luckovich

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 16, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUL 17, 2024

The Republican National Convention is a moment to reintroduce Trump and MAGA Republicans to voters who have not seen them up close since at least 2021. So far, the convention has proved that the Republican Party is now the MAGA Party. It has not been a smooth unveiling. 

Yesterday, just after House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) announced that delegates were formally nominating Trump as the Republican Party’s presidential candidate, the teleprompter failed. Unable to continue without it, Johnson quickly left the stage. This was awkward, since two weeks ago, Johnson said on the Fox News Channel of President Joe Biden: “Unless the president is reading off the teleprompter, I don’t think he’s capable of making these big decisions and that is something that should alarm all of us….” 

The teleprompter having been fixed, Johnson returned forty-five minutes later to introduce Iowa’s attorney general, Brenna Bird, who in turn began the process of nominating Ohio senator J. D. Vance for vice president. The last time a Republican vice presidential nominee has been named so late was 1988, and while announcing at the convention has the benefit of generating enthusiasm for the novel story, it has the downside of bringing an avalanche of opposition. Vance brought the latter.

He is very young—just 39—and has held an elected office for just 18 months, making him notably inexperienced for someone in contention for the vice presidential slot, especially behind a 78-year-old presidential nominee. In the past, he was a never-Trumper, saying that Trump “might be America’s Hitler,” “might be a cynical a**hole,” and is “cultural heroin,” “noxious,” and “reprehensible,” but he came around to embrace the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen and to say that if he had been vice president on January 6, 2021, he would have done what former vice president Mike Pence would not: he would have refused to count the certified electoral ballots for President Joe Biden. 

Former Wyoming representative Liz Cheney, who was drummed out of the party for standing against Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, wrote: “JD Vance has pledged he would do what Mike Pence wouldn’t—overturn an election and illegally seize power. He says the president can ignore the rulings of our courts. He would capitulate to Russia and sacrifice the freedom of our allies in Ukraine. The Trump GOP is no longer the party of Lincoln, Reagan or the Constitution.”

Both ends of the Republican spectrum have also expressed concerns about Vance. The far right has been vocal today about their disdain for Vance’s wife, who is the American-born daughter of Indian immigrants. “Do we really expect that the guy who has an Indian wife and named their kid Vivek is going to support white identity?” Nick Fuentes asked. 

On the other side of the Republican spectrum, those who opposed Trump because of his extremism, especially on abortion, are unlikely to have their fears relieved by Vance, who has advocated no-exceptions abortion bans, that people stay in violent marriages, and said: “We are effectively run in this country…by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made. And so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.”

But for all the talk of unifying the country since last weekend’s shooting, Trump did not pick Vance to bring Republicans together. His selection of Vance reinforces that the MAGAs have taken over the Republican Party with an ideology that rejects democracy in favor of Christian nationalism. Vance has repeatedly elevated Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán’s destruction of democracy in favor of a strong leader imposing Christian family structures, ending abortion rights, enforcing anti-LGBTQ+ policies and encouraging attacks on immigrants, and seizing universities. Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts, who is also aligned with Orbán and was key to the production of Project 2025, which echoes Orbán’s co-called “illiberal democracy,” cheered Vance’s selection. 

On Monday the convention approved a platform, the document that outlines the party’s position for the administration they hope to put into power. The evolution of Republican platforms since 2016 shows the evolution of the Republican Party. The 2016 platform fell pretty much within the norms of the genre, celebrating the nation and attacking the opposition before calling first for tax cuts—standard fare for Republicans since 1980—open markets, and deregulation of business and finance, as well as a smaller government. It called as well for an end to gay marriage, protection of gun ownership, and opposition to abortion. 

In 2020 the Republican Party did not write a platform, simply saying “[t]hat the Republican Party has and will continue to enthusiastically support the President's America-first agenda.”

In 2024 the Republican Party platform reiterates the points of a Trump rally. Its capitalization is erratic, as his is, and it is full of sweeping and often incorrect statements. Rather than celebrating the country, it warns that “we are a Nation in SERIOUS DECLINE. Our future, our identity, and our very way of life are under threat like never before.” It promises that, under Trump, “We will be a Nation based on Truth, Justice, and Common Sense.”

The only real sign of the old party is the platform’s promise to make the Trump tax cuts, which have already added $2.5 trillion to the national debt, permanent. Otherwise, the platform is a MAGA document. It portrays a world that reflects Trump’s dystopian vision rather than reality, then promises to fix that dystopia either with vague promises or with culture war victories. In odd passages, it promises to do what Biden has already done: conquer inflation, bring supply chains home, revive manufacturing, and save the auto industry. 

The speakers at the convention have largely been MAGA extremists, and the picture they painted of the United States echoed Trump’s. They portrayed a country in decline from the heady days of the Trump presidency, but their image was not based in reality. Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin, for example, claimed that “Women, Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans all saw record low employment under Donald J. Trump,” when in fact those record lows have come under Biden. Former CEO of Yammer, South African David Sacks, echoed Russian talking points when he blamed Biden for provoking Russia to invade Ukraine. Tennessee senator Marsha Blackburn attacked “racist DEI requirements.”

CNN fact checker Daniel Dale has been kept busy correcting the Republicans’ repeated lie that there is a violent crime wave in the U.S. under Biden; the opposite is true. Both violent crimes and property crimes have plummeted since the Trump administration. Republicans are also saying that Democrats “have eroded the American energy dominance that President Trump delivered.” In reality, while Biden is trying to shift the U.S. to renewables, Dale noted that “the U.S. under Biden is producing more crude oil than any country ever has… the U.S. is setting fossil fuel world records under this administration. The U.S. produced a global record 12.9 million barrels of crude oil per day in 2023, easily beating the Trump-era high of 12.3 million barrels.”  

Today’s speakers included Nikki Haley, a last-minute addition to the program after the events of the weekend in an apparent attempt to create a sense of unity. She made a good pitch but didn’t convince everyone: there were scattered boos at her appearance. Her speech was the high-water mark of the unity effort tonight; the rest of the speakers hammered the idea that the country is divided in two and that Trump’s opponents are persecuting him. They singled out the media as a key enemy.  

The bitter rift between establishment and MAGA Republicans has been evident in other ways, as well. Attendees booed Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) when he pledged Kentucky’s votes to Trump, from whom he has kept his distance. MAGA congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL) interrupted CNN journalist Kaitlan Collins when she was interviewing former House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to taunt McCarthy by pointing out that he had not been asked to speak, adding that if he had been, “You would get booed off the stage.” Gaetz was behind the move to throw McCarthy out of his office, and he resigned from Congress shortly thereafter. McCarthy reacted by noting that there is an ethics complaint against Gaetz for sleeping with a minor.   

Trump has appeared at the convention with a large bandage on the ear he says was pierced by a bullet on Saturday. Journalists have begun to note that there has been no medical report of Trump’s injuries, an odd omission after the intense recent scrutiny of President Biden’s health. 

Trump seemed oddly subdued on Monday and appeared to fall asleep during the proceedings. His wife Melania has not yet appeared at the convention. 

Today, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s son Bobby Kennedy III posted a video of a call Trump made to his father in which Trump appeared to try to win Kennedy’s support first by appearing to support Kennedy’s opposition to vaccines and then by suggesting that he could get Kennedy a job. “I would love you to do something,” Trump said. “And I think it’ll be so good for you and so big for you. And we’re going to win.” He also noted that Biden had called him after the shooting, saying “it was very nice, actually,” and that the cause of the injury he sustained on Saturday felt like “the world’s largest mosquito.” 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[shannendoherty-fans]

August 20, 1992 - Shannen reading the Pledge of Allegiance at the Republican National Convention in Houston, Texas.

Video from the90sDoherty on instagram.

Letter from then American president, Republican George Bush, thanking Shannen for leading the Pledge. From her book "Badass", my scan.

The Pledge of Allegiance is a patriotic recited verse that promises allegiance to the flag of the United States and the republic of the United States of America.

The Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag says: "I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all".

***

Shannen was a Republican (registered once) but I am not. I do not like their values but admire her for always voicing her opinion, and she said she never had any problems for being a Republican even if most of her colleagues were not. Although she was Republican, she was feminist, fought for the animals' rights, was pro-abortion and was not racist.

Also, Democrats and all the other different political views can and have read the Pledge of Allegiance, is not a Republican exclusive thing.

[dylsexai]

Just imagining a control room of grindr employees similar to one you'd have for a first mission to Mars. The leader walks up like "alright everyone, we've drilled this a hundred times, and the big day is here. This is our superbowl, our black Friday, our world cup. In just a few hours the republican convention will start."

[spiderlegsmusic]

Fact Checking The RNC

Summary

On the first night of the 2024 Republican National Convention, some speakers offered false and misleading assessments of employment, tax cuts, inflation and more.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said that “hundreds of thousands of American-born workers lost their jobs these past few years” under Democrats, ignoring that, on net, employment of native-born workers increased under President Joe Biden.

Sen. Katie Britt said that under Biden, Americans have the “tough choice” of choosing “which second job to take just to pay the bills,” and she suggested that wasn’t the case under former President Donald Trump. As a share of the employed population, the percentage of people working multiple jobs under Biden is nearly identical to what it was under Trump.

A rule proposed by the Biden administration in 2023 would prohibit blanket bans on transgender athletes, but contrary to claims made by Sen. Ron Johnson and Rep. John James, the rule would allow exceptions for competitive fairness, particularly for high school and college sports teams.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn incorrectly claimed that the Trump-era tax cut was “the largest tax cut in American history.” She claimed Biden would “let them expire,” but the president has vowed not to raise taxes on those earning less than $400,000.

A few speakers wrongly said that the U.S. had the “greatest” or “strongest” economy under Trump, as the former president himself has often said.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Rep. Byron Donalds said inflation had been “unleashed” or “created” by the Biden administration. Economists say the fallout from the COVID-10 pandemic is the primary culprit for higher inflation.

Greene misleadingly claimed that the “establishment in Washington … gave us Transgender Visibility Day on Easter Sunday.��� For years, the day has been on March 31, which also happened to be Easter this year.

Blackburn misleadingly claimed that Democrats hired “85,000 new IRS agents to harass hard-working Americans.” Most of those hires would replace outgoing workers and be in customer service, government officials said.

The convention kicked off on July 15 and will wrap up on July 18 with Trump accepting his party’s nomination less than a week after an assassination attempt on his life. We’ll monitor the speeches each night.

Analysis

American-Born Workers

“The Democrats’ economy is of, by and for illegal aliens,” she said.

But, on net, employment of people born in the U.S has increased by more than 7.8 million since Biden took office — going up from 123.1 million in January 2021 to 130.9 million in June 2024, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employment for the U.S.-born population is 586,000 above the pre-pandemic peak in February 2020.

By comparison, employment of foreign-born workers, a category that includes anyone who wasn’t a U.S. citizen at birth, increased, on net, by 5.5 million under Biden and 3.2 million from the pre-pandemic high. But BLS says the foreign-born population includes “legally-admitted immigrants, refugees, temporary residents such as students and temporary workers, and undocumented immigrants.”

There is no employment breakdown for just people in the U.S. illegally.

Multiple Jobholders

After touting a strong economy under Trump, Alabama Sen. Katie Britt said: “With President Trump, the tough choice was which job offer to accept. Now, it’s which second job to take just to pay the bills. Your family can’t afford this costly and dangerous decline for four more years.”

But Britt’s comparison gives a false impression about the amount of people taking on more than one job under Biden and Trump.

As of June, there were about 8.3 million people in the U.S. who held multiple jobs, according to BLS data. That was up from about 6.6 million in January 2021 and roughly 8 million prior to the pandemic in February 2020. We also would note that there were three months under Trump when approximately 8.3 million people were working two or more jobs, as well.

Furthermore, as of last month, multiple jobholders accounted for 5.2% of the total employed population, which was nearly identical to the 5.1% share right before the pandemic four years ago. Over the most recent 12 months under Biden, the average has been 5.2%, which, again, is only 0.1 percentage points higher than the average of 5.1% in 2019 under Trump.

Transgender Policy and Girls’ Athletics

Sen. Ron Johnson and Rep. John James talked about Democrats forcing girls to compete against transgender girls, whose sex assigned at birth was male. A rule proposed by the Biden administration in 2023 — which has not been finalized — would prohibit blanket bans on transgender athletes, but it includes exceptions for competitive fairness, particularly for high school and college sports teams.

Johnson said the Democrats’ “fringe agenda includes biological males competing against girls.” James said: “Our daughters were sold on hope [by Democrats] and now they’re being forced on the playing fields and changing rooms of biological males.”

The Department of Education proposed two sets of rules in April 2023 to expand the interpretation of Title IX to prohibit discrimination based not only on sex but also sexual orientation and gender identity.

In April, the department only moved forward with one of the rules, clarifying “that policies and practices that prevent a student from participating in a recipient’s education program or activity consistent with their gender identity impose more than de minimis harm on that student on the basis of sex, and therefore generally violate Title IX’s nondiscrimination mandate,” according to an overview of key provisions of the Department of Education’s 2024 Title IX final rule. That doesn’t include sports but does include any other program or activity that receives federal financial assistance.

The department put off a final determination on the rule related to application of transgender student participation on athletic teams.

“The Department’s rulemaking process is still ongoing for a Title IX regulation related to athletics,” a Department of Education spokesperson told us via email. “The Department proposed amendments to its athletics regulations in April 2023 and received over 150,000 public comments, which by law must be carefully considered. We do not have information to share today on a timeline.”

Although some argued the rule that was finalized would require schools to allow transgender students to participate on sex-specific teams consistent with their identity, the Department of Education made clear that the rule “does not apply to permissible sex separation of athletic teams.”

“The Department intends to issue a separate final rule to address Title IX’s application to sex-separate athletic teams,” the overview states.

“Until that rule is finalized and issued, the current regulations on athletics continue to apply,” the department wrote in its final rule.

The proposed athletics rule did call for establishing that “policies violate Title IX when they categorically ban transgender students from participating on sports teams consistent with their gender identity just because of who they are. The proposed rule also recognizes that in some instances, particularly in competitive high school and college athletic environments, some schools may adopt policies that limit transgender students’ participation,” according to a Department of Education fact sheet released on April 6, 2023.

The fact sheet says that “the Department’s approach would allow schools flexibility to develop team eligibility criteria that serve important educational objectives, such as ensuring fairness in competition or preventing sports-related injury. These criteria would have to account for the sport, level of competition, and grade or education level to which they apply.”

For example, the fact sheet states, “elementary school students would generally be able to participate on school sports teams consistent with their gender identity and that it would be particularly difficult for a school to justify excluding students immediately following elementary school from participating consistent with their gender identity.” Teams at those grade levels “often focus on building teamwork, fitness, and basic skills for students who are just learning about the sport,” the release states.

However, it states: “For older students, especially at the high school and college level, the Department expects that sex-related criteria that limit participation of some transgender students may be permitted, in some cases, when they enable the school to achieve an important educational objective, such as fairness in competition, and meet the proposed regulation’s other requirements.”

Trump Tax Cut

Sen. Marsha Blackburn incorrectly claimed that the Trump-era tax cut was “the largest tax cut in American history” and misleadingly added that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are “going to let them expire.”

As we’ve written before, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed by Trump was not the largest tax cut either as a percentage of gross domestic product (the measure preferred by economists) or in inflation-adjusted dollars.

A 2013 Treasury Department analysis on the revenue effects of major tax legislation said then-President Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts in 1981 were the largest as a percentage of GDP — 2.89% of GDP over a four-year average. In inflation-adjusted dollars, the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 was the largest, costing $320.6 billion over a four-year average, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

The 2017 tax law was initially projected to cost $1.49 trillion over 10 years, according to an estimate at the time by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation. 

“That would make [the Trump-era] tax cut the 8th largest as a percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) since 1918 and the 4th largest in inflation-adjusted dollars,” the CRFB wrote.

As for Blackburn’s claim that Biden and Harris will let the 2017 tax cuts “expire,” Biden has vowed not to increase taxes for taxpayers who earn less than $400,000. In order to keep his campaign promise, which he also made in 2020, Biden will have to extend the Trump-era tax cuts for those earning less than $400,000, which is what Biden has said he intends to do.

Not the ‘Greatest Economy’ Under Trump

A few speakers echoed a frequent, inaccurate talking point of Trump’s: that during his presidency, the U.S. had the “greatest” or “strongest” economy.

As we’ve written, most recently after the presidential debate in late June, economists’ preferred measure of the economy’s health is real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product growth. GDP growth exceeded Trump’s peak year of 3% growth plenty of times before he took office.

Despite that, Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama said it was “the strongest economy in history” under Trump. Rep. Wesley Hunt of Texas called it “the greatest economy in our lifetime.”

Under Trump, real GDP grew annually by 2.5% in 2017, 3% in 2018 and 2.5% in 2019. It then declined by 2.2% during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Those figures comes from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The annual growth rate has been higher than 3% 48 times and under every president before and after Trump dating to 1930, except Barack Obama and Herbert Hoover.

Inflation

Inflation has gone up while Biden has been in office, but some speakers wrongly pinned all the blame on Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. The primary reason for higher inflation in the U.S. was the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, economists say. Those factors were then compounded by the Ukraine war, they said.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin referred to “the silent thief of inflation unleashed by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.” Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida talked about “the massive inflation created by” Biden and Harris. Other speakers referred generally to higher inflation, suggesting Biden was to blame.

When we wrote about this before, economists told us that the American Rescue Plan, a pandemic relief measure that Biden signed into law in March 2021, had contributed to inflation — though estimates varied on how much. Jason Furman, a former economic adviser to President Barack Obama and now a Harvard University professor, told us in the summer of 2022 that the ARP had contributed 1 to 4 percentage points to inflation and when “pressed for one number,” he said he used the midpoint of 2.5. Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s — whose work is often cited by the White House — said the impact of the stimulus measure by then had “largely faded.”

Economists we spoke to cited several reasons for inflation, with the pandemic being the root cause.

The year-over-year increase in inflation peaked under Biden at 9.1% in June 2022 (before seasonal adjustment), according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The 12-month percentage change had dropped to 3% in June 2023, and it was 3% again this June.

Transgender Day of Visibility

As she has done before, Greene made a misleading claim about Transgender Day of Visibility.

“For far too long, the establishment in Washington has sold us out,” she said. “They promised normalcy and gave us Transgender Visibility Day on Easter Sunday.”

The Biden administration issued a proclamation this year acknowledging March 31 as Transgender Day of Visibility — as it has done in 2021, 2022 and 2023. It just so happens that this year Easter also fell on March 31, leading some Republicans to claim Biden “mocked” Christians, as Greene wrote on X at the time, for issuing an annual proclamation to mark the occasion. “Biden and the Democrats decided Easter – the Holy Day of our Savior’s Resurrection – as transgender day of visibility,” she wrote.

Biden had nothing to do with the creation or timing of Transgender Day of Visibility. As we have written, Rachel Crandall Crocker, executive director and co-founder of Transgender Michigan, is credited with being the founder of International Transgender Day of Visibility in 2009. She set March 31 as the date.

IRS

Blackburn revived a misleading talking point when she claimed that Democrats hired “85,000 new IRS agents to harass hard-working Americans.” Most of the new IRS hires, funded by the Democratic-backed Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, were to be replacements for retiring or departing workers, and additional agents hired for tax enforcement were directed to target audits of high-income earners.

The Inflation Reduction Act — which passed in 2022 with only the support of Democrats and independents and was signed by Biden — was mainly a climate, health care and tax package. But it also included about $79.6 billion in additional IRS funding. IRS and Treasury Department officials said some of the money would go to hiring new employees, potentially as many as 87,000. While Republicans regularly claimed all of the new hires would target middle-class taxpayers with audits — Blackburn said “hard-working Americans” — government officials said most of the new hires would replace outgoing staff and would be on the customer service side of the IRS, doing tasks such as upgrading computer systems and answering phones.

Some of the new hires would be for tax enforcement, but administration officials said those employees would focus on auditing the tax filings of high-income individuals and businesses.

“These resources are absolutely not about increasing audit scrutiny on small businesses or middle-income Americans,” then IRS Commissioner Charles P. Rettig wrote in an Aug. 4, 2022, letter to congressional lawmakers. “As we’ve been planning, our investment of these enforcement resources is designed around the Department of the Treasury’s directive that audit rates will not rise relative to recent years for households making under $400,000.” 

As we wrote in 2023, Republicans have already clawed back some of the IRS funding included in the Inflation Reduction Act, in part from the debt limit deal reached between Democrats and Republicans in June 2023. Budget experts told us those cuts would result in larger long-term deficits because tighter enforcement against high-income earners is expected to bring in well more than the cost of enforcement.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104. 

Sources

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (Seas) Multiple Jobholders (LNS12026619). Accessed 15 Jul 2024.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (Seas) Multiple Jobholders as a Percent of Employed (LNS12026620). Accessed 15 Jul 2024.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employment Level – Native Born (LNU02073413). Retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. 15 Jul 2024.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employment Level – Foreign Born (LNU02073395). Retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. 15 Jul 2024.

Robertson, Lori et al. “GOP, Democrats Spin Tax Plan.” FactCheck.org. 3 Nov 2017.

White House. “A Proclamation on Transgender Day of Visibility, 2024.” 29 Mar 2024.

White House. “A Proclamation on Transgender Day of Visibility.” 30 Mar 2023.

White House. “A Proclamation on Transgender Day of Visibility, 2022” 30 Mar 2022.

White House. “A Proclamation on Transgender Day of Visibility, 2021” 31 Mar 2022.

Hale Spencer, Saranac. “Partisan Controversy Over Easter and Transgender Day of Visibility.” FactCheck.org. 2 Apr 2024.

Department of Treasury. “Revenue Effects of Major Tax Bills.” Feb 2013.

The Joint Committee on Taxation. “Estimated Revenue Effects Of H.R. 1, The “Tax Cuts And Jobs Act,” Scheduled For Markup By The Committee On Ways And Means On November 6, 2017.” 2 Nov 2017.

Biden for President. “TRUMP WANTS ANOTHER BILLIONAIRE TAX BREAK, WHILE JOE BIDEN WILL CUT TAXES FOR TENS OF MILLIONS OF HARDWORKING AMERICANS.” Undated. Accessed 15 Jul 2024.

U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Table 1.1.1. Percent Change From Preceding Period in Real Gross Domestic Product. latest revision 27 Jun 2024.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 12-month percentage change, Consumer Price Index, selected categories. updated Jun 2024.

Robertson, Lori. Stimulus Spending a Factor, But Far From Whole Story on Inflation. FactCheck.org. 30 Jun 2022.

[druggonaut]

If you have an hour and twenty minutes to kill, want to laugh at the hypocrisy of fascists at the fascist convention but also want to cry because these are real people that can vote then watch Walter Masterson's new video please.

It starts off with him asking a very rough looking Russell Brand to go mask off and just be full Nazi and you can see a lil piece of him shatter inside . It's like porn to me:

[cleoselene]

lol my mom when Marjorie Taylor Greene said "many Americans have lost their jobs": "Well how come no one will answer the fucking phone when you call customer service, then?" lsdkfjsdk

anyway this hosebat's speech is telling me she has only changed the first few sentences after Saturday because she went straight to hating the transgenders

[ivovynckier]

Is this the man who will finally listen to the American people? Ouch!

[wwwildandfreee]

Nekem csak most esett le, hogy

ezzel az egész Pride-dal kapcsolatos baszakodással csak le akarják másolni az ifjabb Bush legfőbb politikai tanácsadójának, Karl Rove-nak azt a 2004-es ötletét, hogy a Republikánus Konvenciót New Yorkba vitette, mert azt akarta elérni, hogy a választások előtt a Heartland America olyan képsorokat lásson tévéképernyőkön, ahol vannak egyfelől a 9/11-re emlékező, Saddam Husseint elsöprő decent patrióták és az ellenük káromkodva tüntető mindenféle riasztó külsejű és/vagy LMBTQ és/vagy bevándorló kinézetű peacenik söpredék. Mondanom se kell, hogy bejött neki.

lásd. pl. ezt

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Matt Davies

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 19, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUL 20, 2024

Today a Russian court sentenced 32-year-old Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich to 16 years in a high-security penal colony after convicting him of espionage in a secret three-day trial. The U.S. government considers Gershkovich “wrongly detained,” a rare designation signifying that he is being held as a political bargaining chip. 

Today, President Joe Biden said that Gershkovich was “targeted by the Russian government because he is a journalist and an American. We are pushing hard for Evan’s release and will continue to do so.” He added: “Journalism is not a crime. We will continue to stand strong for press freedom in Russia and worldwide, and stand against all those who seek to attack the press or target journalists.”

Last night, a faulty update of software from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike crashed computer systems all over the world. Banks and hospitals were locked out of their own programs, and government services shut down. In the U.S., more than 2,600 flights were canceled and 9,000 were delayed. Bloomberg’s David Rovella quoted Australian security consultant Troy Hunt: “I don’t think it’s too early to call it,” Hunt said. “This will be the largest IT outage in history.”

Also making history last night was the final night of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the night on which former president Donald J. Trump accepted the party’s presidential nomination. Coming as it did just days after a would-be assassin took a shot at Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, killing one attendee and badly wounding two others, the convention was billed by Republican operatives as a way for Trump to rebrand himself as a candidate of “unity.” 

This was certainly the way many major newspapers billed Trump’s acceptance speech this morning, in stories that, as media journalist Parker Molloy noted, were probably based on prepared remarks delivered to news agencies in advance of the speech. But it was not how the evening played out.

Since Saturday’s shooting, it has been notable that there has not been a medical review of Trump’s injuries, although he has said he was injured by a bullet that ripped through his ear. This matters not only because of the extent of his injuries, but also because Trump has made the story part of his identity without any fact check, and the media appears simply to be letting it go on Trump’s say-so, something that adds to the sense that media outlets are treating Trump and Biden differently.

Last night, Trump perhaps tried to address this lack by recounting last Saturday’s shooting. Interestingly, he did not say he was hit by a bullet, but that when he felt the injury he thought, “it can only be a bullet.” Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo today noted a report from local Pennsylvania television station WPXI that four motorcycle officers standing within feet of Trump suffered minor injuries from flying debris. Trump has likely cut off further discussion of the topic by saying it is too painful to tell the story again. 

With that story behind him, Trump hit the theme of unity, saying he would bring the country together. “The discord and division in our society must be healed, we must heal it quickly. We are bound together by a single fate, a single destiny,” he said. “We rise together. Or we fall apart…. I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America, because there is no victory in winning for half of America. So tonight, with faith and devotion, I proudly accept your nomination for president of the United States.”

But that was just in the first ten minutes. Then Trump ignored the teleprompter and things veered far off course, reflecting the candidate that has stayed in the safe spaces of Mar-a-Lago and rallies of his loyalists for years. Trump rambled for more than 90 minutes, making it the longest acceptance speech in U.S. history and outlasting the interest of the audience, some of whom fell asleep. 

He went on to recite his usual litany of lies: that Democrats cheated in the 2020 presidential election (they did not), that crime is going up (it’s plummeting), that inflation is the worst we’ve ever had (it’s around 3%; the worst was around 23%), that Democrats want to quadruple people’s taxes (CNN fact checker Daniel Dale calls this “imaginary”), and so on. Dale called it “a remarkably dishonest acceptance speech.” 

Journalist James Fallows posted: “Of the maybe 10,000 political speeches I've heard over the years, this was overall the worst.” Statistician Nate Silver’s judgment was harsher, in a way: he began with “It’s a weird but a pretty good speech,” then posted “Semi-retract this tweet, this speech is boring AF, but there are worse things politically speaking than being boring.” Shortly after, came: “Fully RETRACT and RESCIND, sometimes it seems like both parties are trying to throw this election.” 

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes watched the unhinged speech and concluded: "This is not a colossus, this is not the big bad wolf, this is not a vigorous and incredibly deft political communicator. This is an old man in decline who's been doing the same schtick for a very long time and it's really wearing thin."

The point, though, as Trump meandered through attacks on immigrants and a diatribe about the fictional character cannibal Hannibal Lecter—who he might think was real—as it always has been, was to present a picture of the U.S. under siege by enemies who are persecuting him because he represents true Americans and that he must be returned to office because only he can vanquish those enemies. Greg Sargent of The New Republic noted that Trump cannot offer a “unity” message because “Trump himself knows the MAGA masses will not be satiated without expansive displays of rage, cruelty and sadism directed at hated out groups and designated enemies of MAGA.”

For years, observers have noted that Trump’s approach to politics is patterned on the “kayfabe” at the heart of professional wrestling. Kayfabe is the performance aspect of professional wrestling, in which the actors play out relationships and scenes in which there are good and evil, love and hate, loyalty and betrayal. According to journalist Abraham Josephine Reisman, in old-school kayfabe the actors never let their masks slip, and while the audience knew what they were seeing must be fake, they played along with the illusion.

But in the 1990s, the barrier between reality and illusion blurred as wrestlers and promoters tried to increase the viability of the fading industry by tossing reality into the performances: real-life insults—the more outrageous the better—and real-life events. Decoding what was real and what was not drove engagement until in 1999, an estimated 18% of Americans, about 50 million people, called themselves fans. This “neokayfabe,” Reisman wrote in the New York Times in 2023, “rests on a slippery, ever-wobbling jumble of truths, half-truths, and outright falsehoods, all delivered with the utmost passion and commitment.” 

Neokayfabe, Reisman wrote, “turns the world into a hall of mirrors from which it is nearly impossible to escape. It rots the mind and eats the soul.”

Trump participated in a storyline in this neokayfabe with World Wrestling Entertainment owner Vince McMahon in 2007, in part billed as a battle over hair. Eventually he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, and many observers have made the link between neokayfabe and his approach to politics. Indeed, he even blended the two explicitly when he chose McMahon’s wife, Linda, to head the U.S. Small Business Administration during his presidency.  

Neokayfabe and politics came together again last night at the Republican National Convention, as Linda McMahon, wrestler Hulk Hogan, and musician Kid Rock, whose music has been featured at wrestling events and who is also a member of the WWE Hall of Fame, all participated. 

“So all you criminals, all you lowlifes, all you scumbags…. Whatcha gonna do when Donald Trump and all the Trumpamaniacs run wild on you, brother?!" Hogan yelled to wild applause after ripping off his shirt to show a Trump-Vance shirt. Like the other performers at the convention, he painted a portrait of Trump’s presidency, and of the United States since Trump left office, that was a fantasy of good and evil. Hogan reinforced that there was no way Trump was going to reach toward unity in Milwaukee. His approach to the world cannot be moderated. It depends on the idea that there are two teams in the performance and one must vanquish the other.

Part of that storyline requires rewriting not just the recent past, but our history. At the convention last night, Donald Trump Jr.’s fiancée, Kimberly Guilfoyle, said: “It is no wonder that the heroes who stormed the beaches of Normandy and faced down communism sadly say they don’t recognize our country anymore.” But the Allied soldiers in World War II were not fighting communism. They were fighting fascism. The three great Allied powers were Great Britain, the United States, and the communist Soviet Union. 

It might be that Guilfoyle misspoke, or that she doesn’t know even the most basic facts of our history. Or it might be that by rewriting that history to put America on the side of the fascists, people like Guilfoyle hope to make that alliance more palatable to MAGA followers today.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[bitchinyoga]

Melania's Pilgrim Hat

Dark Comedy My 93 year old mother tells me she’s having a bad day. She reads and watches breaking news, alert to signs of end days and her cup runneth over. So I tell her, don’t worry, Trump is creating a commission to ensure religious freedom. Being in California she missed that early morning speech at the National Prayer Breakfast where Trump announced plans to reclaim this nation as the WASP…

[creativemedianews]

Why do the US political parties hold presidential conventions?

Why do the US political parties hold presidential conventions? #2024election #Chicagoconvention #conventionhistory

[fahhhhq]

Dude… 😂

This republican convention is so EMBARRASSING. And SO YT.

No wonder we’re a laughing stock around the world🤦🏻‍♀️

(And the way those dumbasses just stood there when KidRock performed😂)

[dailyworldecho]