Oct 3, 2024
By Design
- Fuck something up
- Wait
- Point at it and say, "Oh look - it's fucked up - lemme fix that for ya."
Among my favorite examples is when Manuel Noriega needed to do an election, and he knew it wouldn't go well for him, and he knew one of the consequences was that he'd be in prison for a good long time.
So he sent his goons out on election day to steal &/or stuff ballot boxes, and harass voters, etc. When all this was reported, he claimed the election was bad and the outcome couldn't be trusted, and that he, being all patriotic and very interested in justice and blah blah blah - he would stay on as president to get the whole thing straightened out, and maybe we can do another election sometime down the road.
With Trump, I think I see the same kind of game being played in his Election Interference (Jan6) case before Tanya Chutkan in DC.
He petitions the court for various things in order to delay the trial. Now that certain issues have been resolved, and Smith has filed a superseding indictment, and the thing seems to be back on track, Trump is beefing about how it's too close to election day, and going forward with it would be - say it with me now - Election Interference.
I truly hope all of that is as obvious - and as boring - to everybody as it seems to me.
Further, on a slightly different note, there are at least 77 witnesses referenced in Smith's new filing, along with 6 co-conspirators.
That's a whole big bunch of witnesses.
Donald Trump laid the groundwork to try to overturn the 2020 election even before he lost, knowingly pushed false claims of voter fraud and “resorted to crimes” in his failed bid to cling to power, according to a newly unsealed court filing from prosecutors that offers new evidence from the landmark criminal case against the former president.
The filing from special counsel Jack Smith’s team offers the most comprehensive view to date of what prosecutors intend to prove if the case charging Trump with conspiring to overturn the election reaches trial.
Though a months-long congressional investigation and the indictment itself have chronicled in stark detail Trump’s efforts to undo the election, the filing cites previously unknown accounts offered by Trump’s closest aides to paint a portrait of an “increasingly desperate” president who while losing his grip on the White House “used deceit to target every stage of the electoral process.”
“So what?” the filing quotes Trump as telling an aide after being advised that his vice president, Mike Pence, had been rushed to a secure location after a crowd of violent Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 to try to prevent the counting of electoral votes.
“The details don’t matter,” Trump said, when told by an adviser that a lawyer who was mounting his legal challenges wouldn’t be able to prove the false allegations in court, the filing states.
The brief was made public over the Trump legal team’s objections in the final month of a closely contested presidential race in which Democrats have sought to make Trump’s refusal to accept the election results four years ago central to their claims that he is unfit for office.
The issue surfaced as recently as Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate when Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, lamented the violence at the Capitol while a Republican opponent, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, refused to directly answer when asked whether Trump had lost the 2020 race.
The filing was submitted, initially under seal, following a Supreme Court opinion that conferred broad immunity on former presidents for official acts they take in office, a decision that narrowed the scope of the prosecution and eliminated the possibility of a trial before next month’s election.
The purpose of the brief is to persuade U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan that the offenses charged in the indictment were undertaken in Trump’s private, rather than presidential capacity, and can therefore remain part of the case as it moves forward. Chutkan permitted a redacted version to be made public even though Trump’s lawyers argued that it was unfair to unseal it so close to the election.
Though the prospects of a trial are uncertain, particularly in the event that Trump wins the presidency and a new attorney general seeks the dismissal of the case, the brief nonetheless functions as a roadmap for the testimony and evidence prosecutors would elicit before a jury.
“Although the defendant was the incumbent President during the charged conspiracies, his scheme was fundamentally a private one,” Smith’s team wrote, adding, “When the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election, he resorted to crimes to try to stay in office.”
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung called the brief “falsehood-ridden” and “unconstitutional” and repeated oft-stated allegations that Smith and Democrats were “hell-bent on weaponizing the Justice Department in an attempt to cling to power.” Trump, in a separate post on his Truth Social platform, said the case would end with his “complete victory.”
The filing alleges that Trump “laid the groundwork” for rejecting the election results before the contest was over, telling advisers that in the event he held an early lead he would “declare victory before the ballots were counted and any winner was projected.”
Immediately after the election, prosecutors say, his advisers sought to sow chaos in the counting of votes. In one instance, a campaign employee, who is also described as a Trump co-conspirator, was told that results favoring Democrat Joe Biden at a Michigan polling center appeared accurate. The person is alleged to have replied: “find a reason it isnt” and “give me options to file litigation.”
Prosecutors also alleged that Trump advanced claims of fraud despite knowing they were false, describing how he told others that allegations of election regularity made by attorney Sidney Powell were “crazy” and referenced the science fiction series “Star Trek.” Even so, days later, he promoted on the platform then known as Twitter a lawsuit she was about to file.
In demonstrating his apparent indifference to the accuracy of the election fraud claims, prosecutors also cite an account of a White House staffer who after the election overheard Trump telling his wife, daughter and son-in-law on Marine One: “It doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell.”
The filing also includes details of conversations between Trump and Pence, including a private lunch the two had on Nov. 12, 2020, in which Pence “reiterated a face-saving option” for Trump, telling him, “Don’t concede but recognize the process is over.”
In another private lunch days later, Pence urged Trump to accept the results of the election and run again in 2024.
“I don’t know, 2024 is so far off,” Trump told him, the filing states.
Prosecutors say that by Dec. 5, the defendant was starting to think about Congress’ role in the process.
“For the first time, he mentioned to Pence the possibility of challenging the election results in the House of Representatives,” it says, citing a phone call.
But Trump “disregarded” Pence “in the same way he disregarded dozens of court decisions that unanimously rejected his and his allies’ legal claims, and that he disregarded officials in the targeted states — including those in his own party — who stated publicly that he had lost and that his specific fraud allegations were false,” prosecutors wrote.
Pence chronicled some of his interactions with Trump, and his eventual split with him, in a 2022 book he wrote called “So Help Me God.” He also was ordered to appear before the grand jury investigating Trump after courts rejected claims of executive privilege.
Prosecutors also argue Trump used his Twitter account to further his illegal scheme by spreading false claims of election fraud, attacking “those speaking the truth” about his election loss and exhorting his supporters to travel to Washington for the Jan. 6, 2021, certification.
They intend to use “forensic evidence” from Trump’s iPhone to provide insight into Trump’s actions after the attack at the Capitol.
Of the more than 1,200 Tweets Trump sent during the weeks detailed in the indictment, prosecutors say, the vast majority were about the 2020 election, including those falsely claiming Pence could reject electors even though the vice president had told Trump that he had no such power.
That “steady stream of disinformation” in the weeks after the election culminated in his speech at the Ellipse on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, in which Trump “used these lies to inflame and motivate the large and angry crowd of his supporters to march to the Capitol and disrupt the certification proceeding,” prosecutors wrote.
His “personal desperation was at its zenith” that morning as he was “only hours from the certification proceeding that spelled the end,” prosecutors wrote.
At some point, Trump will be gone - but once he's gone, this shit ain't over.
Vance was picked for a reason. Stay sharp.
Oct 2, 2024
Dads
Overheard:
Tim Walz is the dad so many of us lost to Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and Donald Trump.
“Nothing I have experienced prepared me for the very public and relentless implosion of my father’s life,” writes Caroline Giuliani, announcing her support for Kamala Harris.
Iam constantly asking myself how America is back here, even considering the possibility of electing Donald Trump again, after all of the damage he has caused, both in office and since. While Kamala Harris has gained extraordinary momentum by infusing this election with vitality and hope, I worry that too many Americans remain disconnected from the visceral, psychologically draining memory of Trump’s deeply destabilizing presidency. If enough people truly remembered what that chaos felt like, another Trump term wouldn’t even be on the table. But for those open to seeing the bare and unvarnished truth, there are unmistakable reminders of Trump’s destructive trail all around us, and it has broken my heart to watch my dad become one of them.
As Rudy Giuliani’s daughter, I’m unfortunately well-suited to remind Americans of just how calamitous being associated with Trump can be, even for those who are convinced he’s on their side. Watching my dad’s life crumble since he joined forces with Trump has been extraordinarily painful, both on a personal level and because his demise feels linked to a dark force that threatens to once again consume America. Not to disregard individual accountability in the slightest, but it would be naive for us to ignore the fact that many of those closest to Trump have descended into catastrophic downward spirals. If we let Trump back into the driver’s seat this fall, our country will be no exception.
My dad and I have a cartoonishly complicated relationship. But he is still my father, and despite his faults, I love him. I’ve seen him experience surreal heights, and, now, unfathomable lows. The last thing I want to do is hurt him, especially when he’s already down. Plus we never know how much time we have left with our parents. The totality of that makes this the most difficult piece I’ve ever written. Yet this moment and this election are so much bigger than any of us.
From reproductive rights and the economy, to foreign and environmental policy, we need experienced, sane, and fundamentally decent leaders who will fight for us instead of against us—who will safeguard our democracy rather than dismantle it. And as a recently engaged-to-be-married, 35-year-old who hopes to feel more joyous than fearful about the potential of becoming a parent myself, I need to advocate for a future worth bringing children into, which is why I am voicing my adamant support for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.
I’ll never forget the night my dad told me he was considering becoming Trump’s lawyer. I was with him at the Grand Havana Room, a cigar bar at the top of 666 Fifth Avenue, an address too fitting given the unholy alliance my father was about to enter into.
Surrounded by thick smoke and powerful men, I ugly-cried for a few minutes, then spent the next three hours making my vehement case to my father that he not go down this morally perilous path.
It was extremely rare for my dad to tell me he was going to do anything before actually doing it, so this moment of connection with him also felt like a cosmic opportunity to do my part to limit the spread of Trump’s sinister shadow. I held nothing back. I voiced all of my concerns about Trump’s open racism, rampant misogyny, and total lack of empathy. I even told my dad that I already felt ashamed of my last name whenever I saw headlines connecting him with Trump, and that this escalation would only deepen that feeling. For the rest of that night, I held onto hope that a daughter’s emotional entreaty might actually sway a father.
That fantasy was dispelled the next morning when a news story popped onto my feed: Rudy Giuliani was going to work for Donald Trump. The pit I felt in my stomach then was a warning, but I had no idea how much destruction my father would come to face due to his one-sided fealty to a con-man. Growing up in Gracie Mansion, I always knew I had a privileged life. But a particular set of challenges came along with being Rudy Giuliani’s daughter, and by that point in my life, I had mostly learned how to navigate them.
But nothing I have experienced prepared me for the very public and relentless implosion of my father’s life.
As someone who overcame a deeply ingrained eating disorder and has worked through various other manifestations of anxiety and depression, I’m no stranger to processing complicated feelings. But this new albatross left me floored by a potent mix of fear, anger, confusion, and sadness that often had me crying over my dad, and for him, at the same time. I always saw flaws in my dad that people blinded by his celebrity couldn’t see, but on some level, the absurd scale of his success and notoriety also made it hard to believe that anything could actually take him down. I spent a lot of my life wishing my father had less power. But I never wanted it to happen like this. And selfishly, the deeper my dad gets stuck in the quicksand of his problems, the more fleeting our opportunities to connect as father and daughter become. After months of feeling the type of sorrow that comes from the death of a loved one, it dawned on me that I’ve been grieving the loss of my dad to Trump. I cannot bear to lose our country to him too.
I know that some people may question whether I truly care about my father, since another Trump presidency could theoretically mitigate some of the problems he’s facing. It distresses me to think that my dad might even wonder this. But if you zoom out, Trump being the president was the worst thing that ever happened to my dad, to my family, and to our nation’s modern history. The consequences will only be more severe—and irreversible— a second time around. Thanks to the extremist Supreme Court he stacked, Trump would take office with full immunity: no checks on his power whatsoever. If the president isn’t going to be subject to the law like every other citizen, which remains incomprehensible to me, then our president had better have a moral compass. A 34-time convicted felon who’s been found liable for sexual abuse, tries to steal elections, and demeans people based on their race, sexuality, disability status, and gender falls remarkably short of the bar we must set for ourselves as a country. Fortunately, we have another choice in this election: a life-long public servant who has spent her career upholding justice and fighting for those who cannot fight for themselves.
The Supreme Court’s immunity ruling was a huge blow to the structure of our democracy, and Trump has made it clear that he intends to continue ravaging our noble experiment until there is nothing left of it. The aspiring autocrat has told his supporters that this is the last time they’ll ever have to vote because “it’ll be fixed after that.” There’s no good way to spin that. Whether he means that elections will be fixed, elections will be eradicated, or that the country will be permanently “fixed” due to the demolition of institutions and policies that ensure checks and balances on power, it’s clear that he’s a narcissist in pursuit of authoritarian rule. A democracy by definition cannot be fixed or calcified. It must have the flexibility to change according to the wishes of its people, not the despotic dreams of one. Listening to those wishes, even when it seemed inconceivably late for President Joe Biden to pull out, is exactly what led to Kamala Harris being on the top of the ticket. Her rapid rise is a literal manifestation of citizens’ voices being heard, which is exactly the type of consideration and respect all Americans will get if she is elected.
Beyond the existential importance of this election, I am also voting for Harris because she is the only candidate who cares about my rights as a woman. The reversal of Roe v Wade was a shocking and horrifying “accomplishment” of Trump’s that has already resulted in the unforgivable and unnecessary deaths of innocent women like Amber Nicole Thurman. Seeing Republican state officials enact draconian abortion bans and threaten fertility care is incredibly personal for me. As a woman in my 30s struggling with long-covid-related health issues, there’s a possibility that my soon-to-be husband and I will need to rely on surrogacy or fertility treatments if we want to have children of our own. Having the means to even consider surrogacy is a tremendous privilege that I do not take lightly, but it also stirs up many complex and challenging emotions. So I’ve spent the last couple of years talking to countless women about their fertility journeys. Witnessing their strength has been inspiring, and it has also made it clear that fertility struggles necessitate tremendous courage and grace. So the fact the Roe reversal has given states the leeway to make the IVF process even more uncertain is a disgrace. And hearing Trump flip-flop on the issues of abortion and IVF only makes me trust him less – if that’s even possible – because his lies are so clearly politically motivated. He’s already caused irreparable damage, and I don’t believe for a second that he won’t cause more.
Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, which would “explicitly reject the notion that abortion is health care” and require the Department of Health and Human Services Department to preclude doctors and nurses from being trained to perform abortions, but his insincere denial so clearly stems from his growing political insecurity. Project 2025’s contributors include several high-ranking officials from Trump’s first administration, and one of Project 2025’s authors, Russell Vought, was secretly recorded acknowledging that Trump is in fact “very supportive” of what they do. I believe it, because everything in Project 2025, from eradicating the Department of Education and FEMA, to decimating unions and reinstating schedule F so that the administration can hire and fire government employees for political reasons, is woefully in line with the malfeasance and backsliding that Trump has already proven he stands for. It is a dictator’s playbook—one he didn’t have before. Trump will be much more effective a second time around, and I don’t see how our world can survive it.
We live at a crossroads in history, where the future of not only our democracy but our planet is at stake. Trump’s first-term position on the Climate Crisis was to call it a hoax while stripping away climate regulations and giving the fossil fuel industry everything they wanted and more. His second-term agenda, which we can foresee through his grotesque Project 2025 playbook, will only accelerate the damage he’s already done. My dream of becoming a mom, coupled with the difficult health journey I’ve been on over the last few years, has me constantly grappling with our increasingly toxic and dangerous environment. But I do feel hope. Because Kamala Harris understands the grave danger of climate change. As only the second presidential candidate in history to be endorsed by Scientific American, she’ll be a champion for our children’s futures by reinstating the United States as a member of the Paris Agreement and continuing to fight for renewable energy policy. We’ve seen remarkable progress on this issue under the Biden/Harris Inflation Reduction Act. Trump would roll it all back. Kamala Harris is our only chance for a better future.
Even though the last few years have been some of the most difficult of my life on a personal level, I’m grateful to live in a country that came together once before to fire a burgeoning tyrant. Watching Harris reignite the torch that Biden selflessly passed to her has filled me with optimism and pride. She has the experience, intelligence, and fortitude to lead us to a brighter future, and seeing her hold Trump accountable in the debate only further confirms her ability to defend us from our most dangerous enemies, domestic and foreign. But even with all the incredible momentum the Harris/Walz ticket has generated, we still have to work hard to ensure a victory for our future. We live in a two-party system, and no candidate will appeal to every voter on every issue.
If for whatever reason you choose to sit this election out or lodge a protest-vote for a third-party candidate, make no mistake: you are voting for Donald Trump.
Take it from me, Trump destroys everything he touches. I saw it happen to my family. Don’t let it happen to yours, or to our country. Kamala Harris will guide us into a brighter future, but only if we unite behind her. On November 5th, I’ll be voting for that future. For justice, stability, and democracy. And I sincerely hope you’ll cast your ballot for Kamala Harris, too.
A Question
When you pray for something to be other than it is,
aren't you questioning god's perfect plan?
Aren't you saying god fucked up,
and he shouldn't have done what he did?
Sons Of Liberty
But imagine being such a triggered snowflake IN THIS BAD ECONOMY THAT JOE BIDEN GAVE US that you spend $4,000 ($3200 of which goes to charity), to buy a guitar from a billionaire and then smash it with a hammer to show your contempt for said billionaire, because you want to own the libz that she supports.
"Conservatives" are a buncha whiny-butt pussies.
About Last Night
The hallmark of that thing I watched last night was Vance complaining:
“... the rules were that you guys weren’t going to fact-check!”
Vance dominated on the falsehood meter, with faulty claims on lost children, the environment, inflation, immigration and the Jan. 6 attack.
Here is a roundup of 21 claims that caught our attention, the majority by Vance. As is our practice, we do not award Pinocchios when we do a roundup of facts in debates.
“Iran, which launched this attack, has received over $100 billion in unfrozen assets, thanks to the Kamala Harris administration.”
— Vance
This is false. Vance appears to be conflating two things as he answered a question on Iran’s attack on Israel.
President Joe Biden released $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds that had been held by South Korea (payment for previous oil deliveries) — as part of a deal to win the freedom of five American detainees — but that money has not been received by Iran. The money was transferred to Qatar in September 2023 and was to be paid to humanitarian providers. But after the Hamas attack in Israel last October, the administration said it had prevented Iran from tapping the money.
Separately, Republicans have claimed that Iran received as much as $100 billion because oil sanctions have not been effectively managed by the Biden administration — a charge the administration denies. That number appears too high.
According to the International Monetary Fund, Iran’s foreign currency reserves have risen from $13.8 billion in 2020 to an estimated $24.3 in 2024. An Iranian central bank official attributed the increase to the growth of oil and non-oil exports. Iran’s reserves were $122.5 billion in 2018, according to the IMF, before new sanctions were imposed after Donald Trump, in 2018, pulled out of an international agreement brokered during the Obama administration to restrain Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Check out how Harris and Trump stack up according to The Washington Post’s presidential polling averages of seven battleground states. We’ve identified eight possible paths to victory based on the candidates’ current standing in the polls.
We’ve collected Harris’s and Trump’s stances on the most important issues including abortion, economic policy, immigration and more.
Senate Democrats are at risk of losing their 51-49 majority this fall. The Post breaks down the eight races and three long shots that could determine Senate control.
Iran’s crude oil production rose to 3.3 million barrels a day as of August, which is an increase since the end of the Trump administration but still lower than in 2018. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Iran’s oil production in 2020 was just under 2 million barrels a day. The pandemic sent oil production and sales plummeting around the globe. Iran’s production in 2020 was the lowest in almost 40 years, the EIA said.
But experts say that even if Trump had been reelected, he would have had trouble keeping sanctions from eroding. In particular, China has become adept at evading U.S. sanctions by arranging for many buyers of Iranian oil to be small, semi-independent refineries known as “teapots.” Such entities accounted for about one-fifth of China’s worldwide oil imports, according to Reuters. “With their small size and limited business operations, teapots are hard to uncover and not exposed to the U.S. financial system,” according to a report by the advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran.
“When Iran shot down an American aircraft in international airspace, Donald Trump tweeted, because that’s the standard diplomacy of Donald Trump. And when Iranian missiles did fall near U.S. troops and they received traumatic brain injuries, Donald Trump wrote it off as headaches.”— Walz
This is largely accurate. Iran attacked a U.S. drone in 2019, but Trump did not hit back. He lost his nerve at the last minute, according to various news accounts. Then Iran attacked a U.S. military base in 2020 after Trump ordered the drone killing of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani on Jan. 3, 2020. No one was killed, though more than 100 service members suffered from traumatic brain injuries.
During the Oct. 1 vice-presidential debate, Gov. Tim Walz (D) reminded Americans that former president Donald Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal. (Video: CBS News)
Trump initially bragged about the fact that no one was killed, but it emerged that a U.S. contractor suffered a serious eye injury and 110 troops had traumatic brain injuries while sheltering in place, with 35 being sent to Germany and the United States for treatment. Yet Trump has continued to say they suffered only from headaches — as he did again just hours before the debate.
“When was the last time that an American president didn’t have a major conflict break out? The only answer is during the four years that Donald Trump was president.”— Vance
Vance could have given a shout-out to Jimmy Carter, who turned 100 on Tuesday.
Jimmy Carter, president from 1977 to 1981, not only never formally declared war or sought authorization to use force from Congress during his presidency, but military records show not a single soldier died in hostile action during his presidency. Eight military personnel died during the 1980 Iranian hostage rescue mission, but the military deems those as nonhostile deaths. (A helicopter collided with an aircraft.) A marine and an Army soldier were also killed when a mob burned the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad.
At least 65 active-duty troops died in hostile action during Trump’s presidency, the records show, as he ramped up commitments in Iraq and Syria to fight the Islamic State terrorist group while also launching airstrikes on Syria as punishment for a chemical weapons attack. Trump also escalated hostilities with Iran, including the killing of Soleimani. Trump said at the time the strike was carried out in accordance with the Authorization for Use of Military Force resolution of 2001.
“We’re the cleanest economy in the entire world.”— Vance
This is false. The United States in 2024 ranked 17th in the world for environmental health, according to the authoritative Environmental Performance Index, a project of Yale and Columbia Universities. It ranked 27th for air quality and 9th for water and sanitation.
“What have Kamala Harris policies actually led to? More energy production in China, more manufacturing overseas, more doing business in some of the dirtiest parts of the entire world.”— Vance
This is false. Vance has previously earned Four Pinocchios for this claim, but he keeps saying it. Harris cast the deciding vote for the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which was designed to foster green manufacturing jobs in the United States. The evidence shows that it’s working.
Vance’s theory, once expressed in an opinion article, is that by shifting the auto industry toward electric vehicles, the United States is going to send significant amounts of money and jobs to China. But this claim ignores what is actually in the IRA. The law was intended to help the United States catch up with China before Beijing completely takes over the EV market. The Chinese government has given huge subsidies to the EV industry in a quest to dominate it.
So the law included provisions to make sure more of the supply chain is produced in the United States, such as a consumer tax credit for EVs. The Treasury Department wrote regulations that make it harder for vehicles to qualify for the full federal EV tax credit of $7,500 if key components are sourced from China, with a grace period for some rare materials like graphite. As part of the IRA, final assembly of EV models must occur in North America to be eligible. In May, the administration also imposed a 100 percent tariff on Chinese EVs.
Vance also ignores that many provisions in the IRA have sparked a manufacturing boom in the United States — designed to counter China’s dominance in the green-energy arena. Besides EVs, the bill included tax incentives intended to spur manufacturing of solar modules, wind turbines, inverters, EV batteries and power storage, and the extraction and refining of critical minerals.
In the first year after passage of the IRA, according to an analysis by Goldman Sachs, 280 clean-energy projects were announced across 44 states, representing $282 billion of investment that would create 175,000 jobs. “What we found was that — so far at least — the reality is living up to or even exceeding expectations,” the report said.
“As you ask about family separation right now in this country, Margaret, we have 320,000 children that the Department of Homeland Security has effectively lost. Some of them have been sex trafficked. Some of them hopefully are at homes with their families. Some of them have been used as drug-trafficking mules.”— Vance
This is false. Vance is referencing a number that applies to unaccompanied children who crossed the border and were placed with a sponsor, including during the last two years of Trump’s administration. An August Homeland Security inspector general report, which tracked data from October 2018 to September 2023, said 320,000 children were never given a date to appear in immigration court or missed an appearance, providing “no assurance” that the children were not vulnerable to trafficking. About one-quarter of the cases took place under Trump. The report recommended creating an automated system, rather than a manual one, which Homeland Security said it would implement.
Until this report was issued, Trump had been using a much lower figure of 88,000 “lost children,” but this was a different metric. As part of Health and Human Services Department protocol, case managers are supposed to try three times to check on the status of a child between 30 and 37 days after release to a sponsor, preferably by having a conversation with the child in addition to the sponsor. In 2023, the New York Times calculated that in 2020-2021, 85,000 children could not be reached.
But it’s not a legal requirement for HHS to make the calls — and it’s not required that children or the sponsor answer. Trump administration officials made that point when they came under fire from Democrats for supposedly losing track of children.
Applying the same metrics to the first three years of Trump’s term, when about 160,000 unaccompanied children were referred to HHS, we estimated that 54,000 children could not be reached. Comparable figures for the Biden-Harris administration, through last month, would be 400,000 referred and 135,000 not reached.
“Donald Trump had four years. He had four years to do this. And he promised you, America, how easy it would be. ‘I’ll build you a big, beautiful wall, and Mexico will pay for it.’ Less than 2 percent of that wall got built, and Mexico didn’t pay a dime.”— Walz
The percentage is exaggerated. About 458 miles of a border barrier was built during Trump’s presidency, but most of it (373 miles) was replacement for existing primary or secondary barriers that were dilapidated or outdated, according to a Jan. 22, 2021, report by Customs and Border Protection. About 52 miles was new primary wall, and 33 miles was new secondary wall. Trump had promised to build 1,000 miles of barrier, so even taking the lower numbers gets Trump 8.5 percent.
Mexico did not pay for the barrier Trump erected along the southern border; American taxpayers did. The Trump administration directed $16.4 billion in funding to barrier construction along the southern border. About $10 billion was repurposed from Defense Department projects over the objections of Congress.
“We had a record number of fentanyl coming into our country.”— Vance
This claim lacks context. Under Biden, according to Customs and Border Protection statistics, overall drug seizures have dropped, especially for marijuana, but until this year increased substantially for fentanyl — the drug most responsible for overdose deaths. Both the decrease in marijuana seizures and the increase in fentanyl seizures reflect trends that started under Trump.
As president, Trump often touted how much seizures of drugs at the southern border had increased on his watch. This is an imperfect metric. It could mean that law enforcement is doing a better job. But more seizures also might indicate that the drug flow has increased and that law enforcement is missing even more.
The amount of fentanyl seized at the border increased under Biden and Trump, though so far, the amount jumped by a larger percentage under Trump, CBP statistics show. In Trump’s four fiscal years, the number of pounds increased 586 percent, compared with 462 percent in the first three fiscal years under Biden.
The amount of fentanyl seized by border officials increased from almost 4,800 pounds in fiscal 2020 to roughly 27,000 pounds in fiscal 2023. There were about 700 pounds of fentanyl seized in fiscal 2016, the last full fiscal cycle before Trump took office.
“Look, in Springfield, Ohio, and in communities all across this country, you’ve got schools that are overwhelmed. You’ve got hospitals that are overwhelmed. You’ve got housing that is totally unaffordable because we brought in millions of illegal immigrants to compete with Americans for scarce homes.”— Vance
It’s false to say “illegal immigrants.” In Springfield, where the city’s website says there are “12,000 to 15,000” immigrants, most of the new arrivals are from Haiti. But Vance is wrong to call them “illegal.” They are in the U.S. legally under temporary protected status (TPS), a program created in 1990 that provides deportation relief and work permits.
Conservatives argue that Biden has expanded TPS and thus is providing a legal pathway for people who otherwise would be undocumented. But there is no question the Haitians are in the United States legally.
The New York Times reported that “Michelle Lee-Hall, executive director of Springfield’s housing authority, said that the affordability problem in Springfield had been aggravated by landlords pivoting to Haitians who were willing to pay higher rent.”
“So there’s an application called the CBP One app where you can go on as an illegal migrant, apply for asylum or apply for parole and be granted legal status at the wave of a Kamala Harris open border wand that is not a person coming in, applying for a green card and waiting for 10 years.”— Vance
This is wrong. Vance suggested that the Springfield Haitians used an app for new arrivals at the border to claim asylum. As noted, the Haitians arrived through the TPS program.
Separately, there is a humanitarian parole program for citizens of four countries in the hemisphere — Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela — which requires a passport and a link with a U.S.-based sponsor. But that also does not involve the app.
“He [Trump] gave the tax cuts that predominantly went to the top guys.”— Walz
This is exaggerated. When both the Joint Tax Committee and the Tax Policy Center looked at the impact of the 2017 tax bill, they concluded that most people would experience an overall reduction in taxes. The Tax Policy Center found that 80.4 percent of all taxpayers would have a tax cut, compared with about 5 percent experiencing a tax increase. In the middle quintile, 91 percent would get a tax cut, averaging about $1,090, with 7.3 percent facing a tax increase averaging about $910.
In fact, Harris has pledged to keep intact tax cuts for people making less than $400,000 when the tax cut expires in 2026. That would reduce revenue by $1.35 trillion, further confirming that not just the “top guys” got a tax cut.
“And what she’s actually done instead is drive the cost of food higher by 25 percent, drive the cost of housing higher by about 60 percent.”— Vance
The housing figure is mostly false. Median sale prices of homes have risen from $355,000 in the first quarter of 2021 to $412,300 in the second quarter of 2024. That’s a gain of 16 percent. It’s also a decline of about 2 percent from a high reached the fourth quarter of 2022.
Another measure — the consumer price index for housing — shows an increase of about 22 percent since January 2021.
It’s also a bit much to say Harris is responsible. The Federal Reserve Bank pinned much of the blame for the rise in home prices on the pandemic. But there are other factors, such as seniors staying in their homes, reducing supply, and real estate investors snapping up fixer-uppers for rental and resale.
The consumer price index for food shows an increase of 22 percent since January 2021. But, again, the pandemic played a role — as did factors beyond an administration’s control. In 48 states, nearly 101 million “wild aquatic birds, commercial poultry and backyard or hobbyist flocks” have been infected with bird flu since January 2022, according to the CDC. That has sent the price of eggs soaring.
“It [the tax bill] was passed in 2017, and you saw an American economic boom unlike we’ve seen in a generation in this country.”— Vance
This is false. The tax cut was not responsible for a once-in-a-generation “American economic boom.” Trump inherited a growing economy from Barack Obama, which the tax cut may have extended a bit, but it was already running out of steam when the pandemic struck in 2020. In 2019, the year before the pandemic, manufacturing went into a mild recession.
Bill Clinton was president only 16 years before Trump. The gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of 2.3 percent in 2019, slipping from 2.9 percent in 2018 and 2.4 percent in 2017. But in 1997, 1998 and 1999, under Clinton, GDP grew 4.5 percent, 4.5 percent and 4.7 percent, respectively.
“Donald Trump was the guy who created the largest trade deficit in American history with China.”— Walz
This is true. The U.S. trade deficit with China hit a peak 0f $377.7 billion in 2018, when Trump was president. In 2023, it was $252 billion, the lowest in 14 years, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
“All I said on this is, I got there this summer and misspoke on this. So I will just — that’s what I’ve said. So I was in Hong Kong and China, during the democracy protests, went in. And from that, I learned a lot of what needed to be in governance.”— Walz
Walz repeats the misstatement. After saying he misspoke about when he arrived in China in 1989 on a teaching assignment, Walz says it again. Minnesota Public Radio reported this week that Walz did not arrive in China until August. But the protests in Tiananmen Square were ended by the Chinese military on June 3-4, making it impossible for him to be there “during the democracy protests.”
“Their Project 2025 is going to have a registry of pregnancies. It’s going to make it more difficult, if not impossible, to get contraception and limit access, if not eliminate access, to infertility treatments.”— Walz
This is false. Project 2025 does not say this. (Project 2025 is not an official campaign document. It’s a Heritage Foundation report called “Mandate for Leadership,” a 922-page manifesto filled with detailed conservative proposals that is popularly labeled Project 2025. But there are definitely Trump connections.)
Instead the document calls for better statistical tracking of abortions across the country. Claiming that liberal states have become “sanctuaries for abortion tourism,” the report says the Department of Health and Human Services “should use every available tool, including the cutting of funds, to ensure that every state reports exactly how many abortions take place within its borders, at what gestational age of the child, for what reason, the mother’s state of residence, and by what method. It should also ensure that statistics are separated by category: spontaneous miscarriage; treatments that incidentally result in the death of a child (such as chemotherapy); stillbirths; and induced abortion. In addition, CDC should require monitoring and reporting for complications due to abortion and every instance of children being born alive after an abortion.”
Walz’s state already does, leading a Heritage Foundation official to ask whether Walz is a “miscarriage monitor” after Harris made a similar claim in her debate with Trump.
“I never supported a national ban. I did during when I was running for Senate in 2020 to talk about setting some minimum national standard.”— Vance
Vance is being disingenuous here. He backed a law that would impose a nationwide limit of 15 weeks for when women could get an abortion — which would overturn the laws of many liberal states. In 2022, Vance said: “I certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally.” Moreover, last year, he urged the Justice Department to enforce the Comstock Act, a 151-year-old federal law that bans the mailing of abortion-related materials. The Biden administration has not invoked the law, but a more conservative one could, thus limiting abortion rights even without any new laws.
“The gross majority, close to 90 percent in some of the statistics I’ve seen, of the gun violence in this country is committed with illegally obtained firearms.”— Vance
This is wrong. Vance made this comment during a discussion on mass shootings at schools. In a 2022 study, the National Institute of Justice, a research unit of the Justice Department, found that of the known mass shooting cases, the vast majority of shooters — 77 percent — bought at least some of their weapons legally. Illegal purchases were made by 13 percent of those committing mass shootings.
“Prescription drugs fell in 2018 for the first time in a very long time.”— Vance
Vance overstates what happened to the consumer price index for prescription drugs. It fell by 0.6 percent for the 12 months ending in December 2018, the first time in 46 years. But there are other 12-month periods with index declines, including one as recently as 2013. Prices rose 3 percent in the 12-month period ending in December 2019 and then kept rising after that — until the pandemic. Then, the index fell almost every month of 2021, the first year of Biden’s presidency.
“But when Obamacare was crushing under the weight of its own regulatory burden and health-care costs, Donald Trump could have destroyed the program. Instead, he worked in a bipartisan way to ensure that Americans had access to affordable care.”— Vance
This is false. Trump consistently tried to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, either through legislation or regulation, and he acted in a highly partisan manner. In fact, when campaigning in 2020, he falsely bragged that he had in effect killed the ACA by eliminating, in his tax bill that passed with no Democratic votes, a mandate to purchase health insurance.
Then, with the mandate effectively gone, GOP state attorneys general argued that Congress meant to have an Affordable Care Act with an individual mandate or not at all. Trump’s Justice Department, in a brief signed by Solicitor General Noel J. Francisco, agreed that “the entire ACA … must fall.”
Nearly 100 million Americans with preexisting conditions could have been denied coverage by insurers or charged prohibitively high prices as a result, and Trump had no plan to replace ACA provisions such as coverage for preexisting conditions. Then Attorney General William P. Barr, according to CNN, tried to get the White House to back off from pursuing a full rollback of the Affordable Care Act but was unsuccessful. The Supreme Court, in 2021, dismissed the case.
The Trump administration also issued rules that promote the use of low-quality, short-term plans that were prohibited under Obamacare. These plans typically didn’t have the same protections for people with existing health conditions, allowing insurance companies to deny coverage or charge higher prices. (A number of states, mainly Democratic-leaning, acted to prohibit or limit these Trump plans.)
Finally, Trump threw his support behind House and Senate bills that would have allowed states to seek waivers and consider a person’s health status when writing policies in the individual market. The theory was that removing sicker people from the markets and allowing policies with skimpier options would result in lower overall premiums.
But the Congressional Budget Office concluded that states that took advantage of these provisions could, perversely, blow up their insurance markets, leaving people with preexisting conditions with spiraling costs. About one-sixth of the U.S. population was estimated to live in states that would face this problem.
“Look, what President Trump has said is that there were problems in 2020. And my own belief is that we should fight about those issues, debate those issues peacefully in the public square. And that’s all I’ve said, and that’s all that Donald Trump has said. Remember he said that on January the 6th, the protesters ought to protest peacefully and on January the 20th, what happened? Joe Biden became the president.”— Vance
This is a whitewash of Trump’s actions. Trump encouraged a crowd of supporters to appear on Jan. 6, 2021, and then condemned his vice president when Mike Pence refused to halt the ceremonial counting of electoral votes. When the crowd attacked the Capitol, as documented in the House select committee report on the Jan. 6 attack and other reporting, Trump was reluctant to take action to calm the situation, even as his staff pleaded with him to tell the rioters to leave the Capitol. Trump’s tweets were so inadequate, in the view of staff members, that many resolved to resign. Even his children Ivanka and Donald Jr. found the tweets to be inappropriate. Nearly three hours passed before Trump finally told the rioters to “go home.”
Vance did not mention that, in a break with tradition, Trump refused to attend Biden’s inauguration.
Oct 1, 2024
Today's WTF
Let's build 3 million new homes, and make them affordable for middle class Americans.
Trump:
Let's have a National Day Of Violence Against Brown People
Polls:
They're tied
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