#trump hates veterans

[izooks]

When McCain died, in August 2018, Trump told his senior staff, according to three sources with direct knowledge of this event, “We’re not going to support that loser’s funeral,” and he became furious, according to witnesses, when he saw flags lowered to half-staff. “What the fuck are we doing that for? Guy was a fucking loser,” the president told aides. Trump was not invited to McCain’s funeral.

[geezerwench]

trump's campaign is openly and publicly denigrating and dishonoring the military.

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

[socialjusticeinamerica]

Republicans are once again taking benefits away from veterans.

[vintageseawitch]

a pro-Palestine movement called "Abandon Harris" in order to "punish her & the party" is absolutely wild. what the US is doing is not okay; this kind of impassioned response now is a little weird mainly because it's during election season.

yes, absolutely criticize our political leaders as long as we're able to. pressure them for better things. emphasize that certain things need to stop. but this "movement"? where they offer no realistic alternatives & are working hard to attack a woman of color to "punish her"? it's a very fine line. i don't hear this rhetoric for the men let alone trump. why isn't HE getting "punished"??

i'm a white woman. it's not my place to be some kind of white "savior." i'm just pointing out it's strange. besides her being non-white, she's also a woman. another point (& i'm not saying they deserve to go through a genocide because of this... but honestly it's not great) is that Palestinians are also pro-women-are-second-class-citizens so anyone using the language of "punishing" a woman is absolutely gross.

like i said, they don't use that language to attack trump. they don't use that language to attack members of Congress who are also anti-Palestine. the only time i'm seeing this is them attacking the campaign of a presidential candidate who is a woman of color. yes, she's currently vp, but these same protestors also don't seem to know how the government works or just ignores reality.

am i splitting hairs? maybe. they're so passionate about this & it's admirable because of that, but i'm always questioning: does it seem like they're being particularly harsh to her due to misogynoir? it's a fine line that's for sure. i'm not saying to not protest but people also need to be realistic. between this & protestors lashing out at those who care about out domestic issues it doesn't feel too great.

a movement like this specific one feels sus, though. like they're trying too hard to divide us to make sure trump wins. i hope that's not the case bit so many leftists also love jill stein who is a putin puppet & doesn't care for us at all. y'all aren't the perfect individuals who never fall for propaganda you think you are. we all are susceptible. be pragmatic & reasonable. try not to let feelings & ego make such an important decision for you. this election is not a normal one.

[tomorrowusa]

« Yeah, I mean unless you're deep, deep marinated in the MAGA universe, just ask yourself who do you believe in that story? Donald Trump or Gen. John Kelly, who's given his life in service of the country. »

— MSNBC's Willie Geist on Donald Trump lying about calling fallen US service members "losers" and "suckers". Via Media Matters for America.

Those who support convicted felon and adjudicated sex offender Donald Trump are the true suckers and losers.

@mediamattersforamerica

[sher-ee]

D-Day 2024.

[thedepressedjuggalette]

As written in the Times article:

> Donald was still Donald, of course. He bounced from subject to subject—disability to the stock market and back to disability. But promisingly, Donald seemed genuinely curious regarding the depth of medical needs across the U.S. and the individual challenges these families faced. He told the secretary and the assistant secretary to stay in touch with our group and to be supportive.

> After I left the office, I was standing with the others near the side entrance to the West Wing when Donald’s assistant caught up with me. “Your uncle would like to see you,” she said.

> Azar was still in the Oval Office when I walked back in. “Hey, pal,” Donald said. “How’s everything going?”

> “Good,” I said. “I appreciate your meeting with us.”

> “Sure, happy to do it.”

> He sounded interested and even concerned. I thought he had been touched by what the doctor and advocates in the meeting had just shared about their journey with their patients and their own family members. But I was wrong.

> “Those people . . . ” Donald said, trailing off. “The shape they’re in, all the expenses, maybe those kinds of people should just die.”

> I truly did not know what to say. He was talking about expenses. We were talking about human lives. For Donald, I think it really was about the expenses, even though we were there to talk about efficiencies, smarter investments, and human dignity......

---

> At every opportunity, we let my aunts and uncles know how grateful we were for the medical fund for William’s care and recovery. We sent pictures and updates, as we had in the past. We got no personal responses, which was the norm. It was the dedicated support and genuine love of caregivers that helped us the most.

> Uncle Robert died in 2020, and the medical fund for William continued. It was enormously helpful with our home-care costs and medical expenses, and we were always grateful to my father’s siblings for contributing. But even before Robert’s death, their interest had seemed to begin waning. My cousin Eric, who was the administrator, called me to say the fund was running low. Donald was the only one contributing consistently. Eric said he’d been getting some resistance from Maryanne, Elizabeth, and Ann Marie, Robert’s widow. I really didn’t look forward to these calls.

> “Why don’t you call Donald?” Eric said. “Talk to him about it.”

> I thanked Eric for the heads-up and promised I would.

> Soon thereafter, I was up at Briarcliff Manor, home of the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester, N.Y. Donald happened to be there.

> He was talking with a group of people. I didn’t want to interrupt. I just said hi on my way through the clubhouse. I called him later that afternoon, and he answered.

> I got him up to speed on what Eric had told me. I said I’d heard the fund for William was running low, and unfortunately, the expenses certainly were not easing up as our son got older. In fact, with inflation and other pressures, the needs were greater than they’d been. “We’re getting some blowback from Maryanne and Elizabeth and Ann Marie. We may need your help with this. Eric wanted me to give you a call.”

> Donald took a second as if he was thinking about the whole situation.

> “I don’t know,” he finally said, letting out a sigh. “He doesn’t recognize you. Maybe you should just let him die and move down to Florida.”

> Wait! What did he just say? That my son doesn’t recognize me? That I should just let him die?

> Did he really just say that? That I should let my son die . . . so I could move down to Florida?

> Really?

> I’m usually pretty good at getting my head around things that other people say, even when I don’t agree with them. But this was a tough one. This was my son.

> Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised to hear Donald say that. It wasn’t far off from what he’d said that day in the Oval Office after our meeting with the advocates. Only that time, it was other people’s children who should die. This time, it was my son.

----

Donald Trump doesn't see people he sees money. Only money and nothing but money.

[dodelof]

Rebel HQ - YouTube - Lauren Boebert Faces FallOut after Veteran's brutal critique of her job

Oh. Der Army-Veteran hat mehr als recht. LB stimmt nie für die Veteranen. Sie stimmt gegen ALLES, was den Leuten helfen könnte. Menschen wie LB geht es auch nicht darum, anderen zu helfen. Es geht Menschen wir ihre nur darum, die andere Seite in Grund und Boden stampfen zu können. Es geht ihnen nur darum, ja gegen alles zu sein, wofür die andere Seite ist. Selbst wenn das heisst, Leute in den Tod zu schicken.

[izooks]

Let them all know what that POS hat stands for…HATE!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Joan McCarter at Daily Kos:

With all this attention on the dangerous, radical plan, more and more people are trying to find out what it’s all about. Navigator Research, a consortium of progressive polling firms, has the goods on how we should talk about it with friends and family, and what Democrats need to be saying about it on the stump as the election heats up. On Wednesday, Navigator released the third and final results from its latest survey about Project 2025. Conducted June 20-24, the survey found that the most salient and message about Project 2025 is that it “is an unprecedented, extreme Republican plan that will fundamentally alter the American government making Trump even more dangerous in a second term by granting him presidential powers like no president before him has ever had.” 

According to Navigator, the most effective messages focused on the impact rather than on political consequences. The message that worked best for Democrats and independents was that Project 2025 would "roll back and eliminate Americans’ constitutionally protected rights and freedoms," while the message that worked best for non-MAGA Republicans—i.e., Republican voters who did not self-identify as supporting the MAGA movement—was that it would "hurt hard-working American families and seniors." “Nearly 9 in 10 Democrats (87%), 7 in 10 independents (70%), and about half of non-MAGA Republicans (48%) believed it would have a negative impact on them and their families after exposure to Project 2025’s policies and messaging,” Navigator found.  There’s plenty in the authoritarian plan to worry Americans. It seeks to end no-fault divorce and  restrict access to birth control—even condoms! It demands cuts to Social Security—raising the retirement age from 67 to 70—and wants to privatize Medicare. Then there are the proposals to curtail food assistance, eliminate Head Start, restrict help to disabled veterans, and roll back overtime pay requirements for hourly workers.

A new poll from Navigator Research conducted between June 20th and 24th reveals that many parts of Project 2025 are very unpopular with the electorate.

[heritageposts]

The Grayzone has obtained slides from a confidential Israel lobby presentation based on data from Republican pollster Frank Luntz. They contain talking points for politicians and public figures seeking to justify Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip. Two prominent pro-Israel lobby groups are holding private briefings in New York City to coach elected officials and well-known figures on how to influence public opinion in favor of the Israeli military’s rampage in Gaza, The Grayzone can reveal. These PR sessions, convened by the UJA-Federation and Jewish Community Relations Council, rely on data collected by Frank Luntz, a veteran Republican pollster and pundit. [...] The Luntz-tested presentations on the war in Gaza urge politicians to avoid trumpeting America’s supposedly shared democratic values with Israel, and focus instead on deploying “The Language of War with Hamas.” According to this framing, they must deploy incendiary language painting Hamas as a “brutal and savage…organization of hate” which has “raped women,” while insisting Israel is engaged in “a war for humanity.” [...] Luntz’s Gaza war presentation puts his poll-tested tactics back in the Israel lobby’s hands, urging pro-Israel public figures to stay on the attack with incendiary language and shocking allegations against their enemies. In one focus group, Luntz asked participants to state which alleged act by Hamas on October 7 “bothers you more.” After being presented with a laundry list of alleged atrocities, a majority declared that they were most upset by the claim that Hamas “raped civilians” – 19 percent more than those who expressed outrage that Hamas supposedly “exterminated civilians.” Data like this apparently influenced the Israeli government to launch an obsessive but still unsuccessful campaign to prove that Hamas carried out sexual assault on a systematic basis on October 7. Initiated at Israel’s United Nations mission in December 2023 with speeches by neoliberal tech oligarch Sheryl Sandberg and former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a recipient of hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations and speaking fees from Israel lobby organizations, Tel Aviv’s propaganda blitz has yet to produce a single self-identified victim of sexual assault by Hamas. A March 5 report by UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence Pramila Patten did not contain one direct testimony of sexual assault on October 7. What’s more, Patten’s team said they found “no digital evidence specifically depicting acts of sexual violence.”

They also advice to use different language for Democrat and Republican voters, which inadvertently provides one of the most succinct explanation of the difference between the two genocidal parties that I've ever come across:

To make their arguments stick, Luntz recommends pro-Israel forces avoid the exterminationist language favored by Israeli officials who have called, for example, to “erase” the population of Gaza, and to instead advocate for “an efficient, effective approach” to eliminating Hamas. At the same time, veteran pollster acknowledges that Republican voters prefer phrases which imply maximalist violence, like “eradicate” and “obliterate,” while sanitized terms like “neutralize” appeal more to Democrats. Republican presidential candidates Nikki Haley and Donald Trump have showcased similar focus-grouped rhetoric with their calls to “finish them” and “finish the problem” in Gaza.

One of the slides, illustrating what language to use:

There are several more slides in the article. I recommend reading the whole thing, start to finish. One more thing I'd like to highlight though:

Luntz acknowledges Israel’s mounting PR problems in a slide identifying the most powerful tactics employed by Palestine solidarity activists. “Israelis attacking Israel is the second most potent weapon against Israel,” the visual display reads beside a photo of a protest by Jewish Voices for Peace, a US-based Jewish organization dedicated to ending Israel’s occupation of Palestine. “The most potent” tactic in mobilizing opposition to Israel’s assault on Gaza, according to Luntz, “is the visual destruction of Gaza and the human toll.” The slide inadvertently acknowledges the cruelty of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, displaying a bombed out apartment building with clearly anguished women and children fleeing in the foreground. But Luntz assures his audience, “It ‘looks like a genocide’ even though the damage has nothing to do with the definition.” According to this logic, the American public can become more tolerant of copiously documented crimes against humanity if they are simply told not to believe their lying eyes.

. . . full article on GZ (6 Mar 2024)

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

[socialjusticeinamerica]

[lafemmemacabre]

Americans who at least nominally want to be progressives (let alone actual leftists) need to come to terms with the fact that:

The American military is known anywhere outside the US, especially anywhere outside the imperial core of the global north, as the current most brutal terrorist organization, active as such since at least the cold war. Your military is profoundly hated in our countries, not due to some Us vs Them sentiment, but because your military has done nothing but genocide us, maim us, torture us, bring famine, bring disease, poison us, rape us, steal our children, destroy our lands, steal from us, and more. So much more. Richard Ramírez was inspired by his Vietnam veteran relative to commit the atrocities he committed, and honestly his serial killing was nothing compared to what the regular combatant US soldier did in Vietnam. Horrendous crimes against humanity en masse is the only way to describe it, and you all keep celebrating those veterans when THEY DIDN'T EVEN WIN THAT WAR. And the US military wasn't abnormally monstrous in Vietnam. Ask Iraq. Ask Afghanistan.

The defenses you all constantly come up with for the people who volunteer to the biggest and possibly most brutal terrorist organization the world has ever seen are no different than the excuses used by the nazis as to why they just had to do to their Jewish victims what they did. "They were following orders" "They didn't shoot or kill anyone directly (they just signed the papers that allowed for it to happen)" etc etc.

You all will never be any better than your average Trump supporting nutjob neighbor until you all internalize those facts and act accordingly.