When two generals, John Kelly and Mark Milley, who worked for Dear Leader call him a dangerous fascist, shouldn't that be enough for all of us to make the right choice for president? Listen to the felon's own words:
As president, you have tremendous — it's called extreme power. You have extreme power. You can, just by the fact, you say, "Close the border," and the border's closed. That's it. Very, very simple. You don't need all of this nonsense that they talk about.
I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within, not even the people that have come in — and destroying our country and, by the way, totally destroying our country. The towns and villages, they're being inundated. But I don't think they have the problem in terms of Election Day. I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think. And it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or if really necessary by the military, because they can't let that happen.
The Harris campaign condemned the remark.
[Von Clownstick] is suggesting that his fellow Americans are worse "enemies" than foreign adversaries, and he is saying he would use the military against them.
Ian Bassin adds:
There is not a case in American history where a presidential candidate has run for office on a promise that they would exact retribution against anyone they perceive as not supporting them in the campaign. It's so fundamentally, outrageously beyond the pale of how this country has worked that it's hard to articulate how insane it is.
The issue came up during Harris' interview on Fox during which Bret Baier showed a clip of the Orange Turd that conveniently left out a crucial part of his response. Harris pointed that out and Baier later said he made a "mistake".
Brian Karem praises Harris' effort on Fox and characterizes this election as "Democracy vs. new-age nazis".
That [Fuckface] is still in this race is a testament to the poisonous nature of American politics, the gullibility of the American electorate, the greed of those in power and the influence that the rich and informed have over the poor and misinformed. And it shows just how badly the media is doing its job.
This motion provides a comprehensive account of the defendant's private criminal conduct; sets forth the legal framework created by [the former guy] for resolving immunity claims; applies that framework to establish that none of the defendant’s charged conduct is immunized because it either was unofficial or any presumptive immunity is rebutted; and requests the relief the government seeks, which is, at bottom, this: that the court determine that the defendant must stand trial for his private crimes as would any other citizen.
Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein highlight eleven details from the document.
Much of Smith's brief focused on [Fuckface's] state of mind in the weeks leading up to the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021. Smith described a slew of conversations suggesting that the then-president knew his claims of election fraud were spurious. And Smith laid out evidence that [the] sole objective was to stay in power — not, as he and his lawyers have claimed, to exercise legitimate authority over election integrity.
Alone with his phone
[Dear Leader] asked: "So what?"
Disregarding the results
Inventing statistics
Broken promises of evidence
Mocking Sidney Powell
[The] January 5 call to Steve Bannon
A preview of forensic evidence
"Make them riot"
Rudy's rise
Rudy's follies
Tim, I’m focused on the future.
Vance is pretty slick. I found a comment immediately after the debate from NBC telling--it was described as a good, old-fashioned policy debate and nothing weird happened. Vance lied his ass off, but made the Orange Turd look like a lunatic in comparsion.
Four more observations:
Vance Made The Case For Himself As [the felon's] Heir
Minnesota Nice
Walz Found His Footing On Abortion
Vance's Too-Slick Answer on Health Care
Harris had [the felon] shake her hand during their first-ever meeting.
Harris effectively baited the former president on crowd sizes and his 2020 election loss.
[He] went on wild tangents focused on false claims.
The moderators fact-checked some of [Fuckface's] wildest claims.
Conservative pundits were not happy with [Dear Leader's] performance.
Harris wants a second debate. [He] hasn't committed.
Update (September 11): Heather Digby Parton sums up the debacle.
[Von Clownstick] relentlessly hammered on migrants which will probably play well with his base, along with all the other lies and conspiracy theories, but to anyone else he sounded like a lunatic, surly, rude and out of his depth. His laziness and inability/unwillingness to learn anything new caught up with him last night. He lost this debate, as he would say, bigly.
And Amanda Marcotte says there's no way to "sanewash" this performance.
After last night's debate performance, hopefully, the questions about [his] basic brain functionality will grow even louder.
These are just two recent examples of crazy shit the Republican presidential nominee says:
Whoever heard you get indicted for interfering with a presidential election, where you have every right to do it.
The transgender thing is incredible. Think of it. Your kid goes to school and comes home a few days later with an operation. The school decides what’s going to happen with your child.
But many of these kinds of statements aren't adequately covered in the press. Parker Molloy argues that media "sanewashing" is a form of misinformation.
By continually reframing [the felon's] incoherent and often dangerous rhetoric as conventional political discourse, major news outlets are failing in their duty to inform the public and are instead providing cover for increasingly erratic behavior from a former — and potentially future — president.
The consequences of this journalistic malpractice extend far beyond misleading headlines. By laundering [the orange turd's] words in this fashion, the media is actively participating in the erosion of our shared reality.
Update (September 5): Greg Sargent notes that news stories about President Biden's age were justified as relevant to his ability to do the job if re-elected.
But if so, then why don't things like [Dear Leader's] obvious cognitive impairment, his frequent inability to speak and think coherently, his resolute refusal to acquire minimal baseline knowledge on many consequential issues, his tendency to invent things on the fly that are wildly disconnected from reality, his intense narcissism, his deliberate lying and bigotry and misogyny—to name just a few traits—also go to his core mental and characterological capacity to do the job as president?
Sargent argues that reporting about the Republican candidate needs to "treat signs of the subject's questionable mental fitness for the presidency—and the politics surrounding them—as themselves being the real news".
Update (September 6): Chris Hayes on "the quality of brains we've got over there".
And Heather Digby Parton points out another Fuckface train wreck answer to a question about child care.
But the media covered for him as they so often do. He has the whole press corps acting as his ghostwriter, sanitizing his babble for the public. But Joe Biden and Kamala Harris aren't so lucky. They have to campaign and govern in a world where they are held to the standard that requires a president to be able to demonstrate his or her fitness for the presidency.
For the press to do otherwise
Why, they might even conclude that he doesn't have the mental capacity to be president. I guess that would be rude.
Update (September 7): Additional reactions:
SiriusXM host Dean Obeidallah likened [the felon's] comments on child care to a "dementia clinic." And political commentator Digby said the ex-president "sounds like a 4th grader who didn't read the book." And Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell noted that she "can't even find a complete sentence" when reading the transcript of his comments.
Update (September 9): Jennifer Rubin offers her take on the "sanewashing" phenomenon.
Imagine obsessing over polls in the 1933 German election without covering Mein Kampf. That is what is going on now.
It's utter journalistic malpractice if not outright bias to refuse to ask [Dear Leader] at the debate about his threats of bloody mass arrests. It's an easy call for ABC. I have no idea if they are up to it.
And again, Christians: Get out and vote! Just this time. You won't have to do it anymore! Four more years, you know what? It'll be fixed, it'll be fine. You won't have to vote anymore. In four years you don't have to vote again, we'll have it fixed so good you're not gonna have to vote.
Update (July 29): Heather Digby Parton offers her take.
If it weren't for his constant praise for dictators and tyrants and his repeated comments that he should be allowed to stay in office beyond two terms, I might be willing to believe some people's interpretations of this startling remark to mean that he will fix everything in four years so they will have no reason to be involved in politics after that. But that makes no sense since unless he means he's not leaving office, people will always have to vote lest their opponents reverse their gains as [Fuckface] himself is promising to do right now. No, he said what he said and we know what he means.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat warns of more "troubling rhetoric" to come.
[The felon] is really making very clear his intentions of telling people that they need to get him into office — and then, there will be no more need for elections. And the way he phrases it is as though it's a bother, it's a burden to have to vote. [T]his is obviously disturbing from so many points of view.
[T]he authoritarian, from Mussolini onward, has always presented himself as not just the savior of the nation, but the person who will take care of things and lighten the burden of the people.
Update (July 30): Yeah, this clears it up.
Don't worry about the future, you have to vote on November 5. After that you don't have to worry about voting anymore, I don't care. The country will be fixed and we won't even need your vote anymore.
Even worse, a Rolling Stone investigation finds that about 70 election officials in swing states are willing to block election certification.
Certification of election results is what legal experts consider a "ministerial task," and one required by state and local law. But as [the felon's] lies about the 2020 election have taken hold, Republicans nationwide have decided that certification provides them an opportunity to hear fraud allegations — and refuse to officially count their local votes. Republicans have refused to certify election results at least 25 times since [Fuckface] lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden.
