Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

This blog will pay for itself.

Also, are you sure you want people to rate your comments?

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / Republican Venality Open Thread: Trump & the Generals

Republican Venality Open Thread: Trump & the Generals

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A soldier, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, was murdered at Ford Hood. Trump had the family to the White House, and offered to cover the costs of the funeral.
When he got the bill, he refused to pay:
“It doesn’t cost $60,000 to bury a fucking Mexican!”
www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc…

[image or embed]

— Don Moynihan (@donmoyn.bsky.social) October 22, 2024 at 9:38 PM

Gen. Kelly’s statements about Trump should be a campaign ender, but (predictably!) it’s being hand-waved as a hypothetical, just TFG being himself, probably a gross exaggeration from someone with a book to sell, and besides was Hitler really that bad, given what we know now.

But this anecdote about Vanessa Guillen… rushing to grab some publicity when an American-born soldier is murdered, and later dismissing her & her grieving family this way? I hope the Harris/Walz campaign *and* Colin Allred share TFG’s comments widely.


The usual suspects, running clean-up today:

there’s one candidate who had two hitler-related stories drop today and the other is kamala harris.

[image or embed]

— Marisa Kabas (@marisakabas.bsky.social) October 22, 2024 at 8:15 PM

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Reader Interactions

184Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    People are complaining that MAGA don’t care, but if it were just the MAGA who didn’t care, we’d win in a landslide.

  2. 2.

    ArchTeryx

    @Baud: Right as rain. His cultists are a minority everywhere but in small rural states. It’s all the fellow travelers that keep threatening to put him over the top. They did in 2016, and came within a few 10s of thousands of votes of doing it in 2020. And here we are.

  3. 3.

    KatKapCC

    just TFG being himself

    I do love (meaning: hate) the ouroboros of it all. “It’s okay that he’s a bigoted fascist asshole because he’s a bigoted fascist asshole.”

  6. 6.

    ArchTeryx

    @schrodingers_cat: Don’t have to give him a tongue bath. Just stick him in our trenches with everyone else, put him behind an artillery piece, and tell him to start firing. When the other side surrenders, we can kick him out. If they overrun us, it won’t matter anyway.

    Welcome back, schrodingers_cat!

  9. 9.

    Baud

    @ArchTeryx:

    It’s easy to stand up to the MAGA yokel with a billion Trump signs on his pickup. Harder to stand up to the friends and colleagues you socialize with.

  12. 12.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud: Yeah, I’m faced with this right now. This person has never told me he was going to vote for Trump, but I heard from someone that he did tell someone else that. I don’t want to ever speak to him again.

  13. 13.

    Harrison Wesley

    “Rommel?  Great guy, fabulous guy, getting better known every day.  He came up to me back in 2016 – came up to me with tears in his eyes – and said ‘Sir, mein fuhrer, sir, it’s such an honor to meet you.  What can I do to serve you?'”

  15. 15.

    Xantar

    Steven Cheung responded to John Kelly by saying that he had “beclowned” himself. Remember, Kelly is a four star general and that his son died in Afghanistan.

    People should showing that quote to every military person they know. I think even for lifelong Republicans that should shock the conscience (whether it works on MAGAts is another matter).

  16. 16.

    Gloria DryGarden

    Yeah he loves women. Yeah he’s into protecting women.

    /S

    Appalling what he said then and now, about Vanessa Guillén, and helping pay for her funeral.

    I remember when she was missing, and it wasn’t known yet what happened, and then her being discovered. Very distressing

  18. 18.

    hells littlest angel

    If Kelly were to go out every single day between now and election day and knock on doors and make phone calls and make speeches in support of Harris, he might make up for the hateful “empty barrels’ remarks he made when in thrall to Trump.

  20. 20.

    Chet Murthy

    @Baud: She (that is to say, David Zaslav, CNN’s boss) let this bastard Sununu filibuster on, not actually answer the question and instead shift the ground.  If Bolduan (and Zaslav) actually wanted to get an ANSWER to the question, she’d have cut off his mic, wanted for him to STFU, and asked the question again, followed by “yes or no”.

    But Bolduan (and more importantly Zaslav) don’t want the answer to that question.

    I don’t blame Bolduan as much as I do Zaslav.  He needs to be strung up.

  22. 22.

    cmorenc

    Where the Hell did JD Vance go?  He has pulled a disappearing act the past week or two – not that we really miss him any more than a herpes outbreak, but why is he keeping such a low profile over the final 2-3 weeks pre-election?

  23. 23.

    Mousebumples

    https://bsky.app/profile/taniel.bsky.social/post/3l77ngrhsw42x

    Big: Pennsylvania supreme court issues a ruling that’ll make it easier for people to vote if their mail ballot has been tossed for a technical error.

    https://votebeat.org/pennsylvania/2024/10/23/state-supreme-court-ruling-provisional-ballots-rejected-mail-voters-butler-county/

    Ruling was 4-3.

    Remember I told you last year this would matter? The justice who won that day was in majority today:

  24. 24.

    Jackie

    @Gloria DryGarden:

    Appalling what he said then and now, about Vanessa Guillén, and helping pay for her funeral.

    Her sister? made a statement today that TCFG was there for her family and she voted for him this election. I think it was an X shown on TV. If so, she’ll be on FAUX News by tomorrow, defending TCFG against the “vicious lies.”🤦🏼‍♀️

  25. 25.

    Sure Lurkalot

    Struggling to find it but Vanessa Guillen’s sister posted that Vanessa was being used as a political pawn, that Trump was kind and respectful to her family and that she had just voted for Trump.

    It doesn’t surprise anymore.

  28. 28.

    Dangerman

    Maybe he’s going for a diminished capacity in his trials. Get him on the stand, ask him about how many Donnie’s make an Arnie, the Judge might say incapable.

  32. 32.

    HeleninEire

    Watching CNN. David Alexrod needs to STFU. I am not even sure what he said but I am TIRED of the old timers. MOVE out of the way, bitch.

  36. 36.

    rk

    Trump is a political zombie. It’s such a hopeless exercise to think that “this is the thing which will finally do him in”. We’ll only be free of him when he croaks and then we’ll have to salt the earth just to make sure he doesn’t come back from the dead and haunt us again.

  38. 38.

    rk

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I think it’s an all hands on deck moment. You take help from where you can get it. I doubt Harris is going to hire Kelly for anything. She’ll say thanks and move on.

  39. 39.

    randy khan

    In case you’re interested in the party line on the burial costs story, it’s that it’s been “refuted.”  I pointed out to the person who said that to me that it had been denied, not refuted, and that since there seem to be multiple sources and documentary evidence supporting them, I was going to go with the story, not the denials.  This seems to have shut him up.  (Also, the Trump spokesperson who denied it almost certainly did not even bother asking Trump about it, because it was going to be denied anyway.

  40. 40.

    Harrison Wesley

    I thought Vance was scheduled for a bear hunt with RFK Jr in Central Park.  Or maybe it was an appearance at Four Seasons Total Landscaping where he was going to evaluate the state of the campaign as ‘sofa, so good.’  Something like that.

  43. 43.

    Scout211

    Mark Halperin told Newsweek that there is a story being pitched to many news sources that if true, “could end Trump’s campaign.”  Halperin doesn’t think the story is true, but speculates that if it is true, it would be the October surprise we are hoping for.

    As much as I would like someone to “pull a Comey” (Halperin’s words), I don’t have any faith in either Halperin or Newsweek to be accurate investigative journalists.

    But wouldn’t it be nice?

  44. 44.

    Chet Murthy

    @Scout211: Over at LG&M the persistent rumor is that this consists in video of TCFG sexually assaulting the young daughter of a big-ass donor.  But I have difficulty seeing how this hurts him at all.  For his Base, it probably helps.  For the rest, they’re already willing to over look [list of the shit he’s pulled elided b/c don’t wanna crash the server w/out-of-disk-space] so why would this one thing more be a deal-breaker?

  45. 45.

    Nix Besser

    Madame VP is so disciplined on messaging. I’ve watched a number of rallies and listened to Charlamagne and now this town hall, etc. etc. etc. She keeps to the message and hits the high points every time.

  46. 46.

    Leto

    Conspiracy hat: none of these people are undecided voters. Including this political science professor. Kind of agree with Cole’s post below.

  49. 49.

    Nix Besser

    @Leto: Agree. I don’t think any of these people are truly undecided. No matter. I haven’t heard a fully hostile question yet.

  53. 53.

    Tony G

    @ArchTeryx: There are an awful lot of people who don’t wear red hats and go to Trump’s rallies, but they essentially agree with Trump and will vote for him for the third time in November.

  54. 54.

    dm

    @Chet Murthy: how do the Republicans keep harping on their fauxtrage day after day, keeping it in the news, getting reporters to ask random Democrats to comment, etc., etc.,

    But when it’s our turn, we just say, “It won’t change any Trumpsters’ minds.”

    Is not Trumpsters’ minds we need to change as much as motivate folks to get to the polls and reject the bastard.

    I’ll bet Tim Walz will have something to say. Something that will rattle around TikTok and the memeosphere for a week, sheet it seems most people we’re trying to reach get their news.

  60. 60.

    Nix Besser

    @Leto: It was a chance to point out the immigration bill that Trump killed. I don’t give a shit whether she answered the question in the question’s level of detail. That is never the point. So fuck him, but he asked for it.

  62. 62.

    JoyceH

    @Xantar: Cheung – sheesh. The thing about Trump is that everyone around him is also crazy. The usual case is that even the most “colorful” candidate has a professional comms shop. They’re the guys stepping up to the podium to make some version of the “what the candidate MEANT to say…” statement. (“Mister Candidate has utterly no bias toward any race, religion, ethnicity, gender, or disability, and if his inartfully worded statement offended anyone that was not his intention,” etc etc) But Trump’s spokesfolk respond to the latest Trump-caused ruckus with a statement every bit as hysterical and spittle-flecked as Trump’s original offense.

  63. 63.

    Tony G

    @Chet Murthy: For the “men” in the Trump cult, a sexual assault of a teenage girl would be a feature, not a bug.  The women in the cult will just politely ignore it.

  64. 64.

    Steve LaBonne

    @JoyceH: Assmouth learned his lesson from 2017-21. He will not tolerate anyone around him who will even think about contradicting him.

  65. 65.

    Citizen Dave

    Anderson Cooper doing some “gotcha” journalism.  Why didn’t you do X 2 or 3 years ago instead of this year if it was the right thing to do?  Reality is there are 500 problems and they can’t all be fixed all at the same time

    Cooper now: Are you more pro-Israel that Trump?  Such BS.

  66. 66.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Jackie: Yeah, I saw Vanessa Guillen’s sister’s comment on Nitter, just not sure whose feed.

    There’s nothing he can say or do, nothing we can say or do, that will shake his hold on his die hard supporters. He’s an old man though and I’m not sure there’s a replacement for him. Vance? Tucker? Cotton? Junior? I don’t see it but I should bookmark this comment so I can eat my words once the fucker croaks.

  70. 70.

    ArchTeryx

    @zhena gogolia: I hate to say this, but I cut ties with two such people after 2016. I didn’t hesitate a moment. Maybe I’m just more ruthless after what happened that and the next year, but I just have zero room for fascists in my life. Once the mask comes off, they’re fucking gone.

  72. 72.

    Gin & Tonic

    @JoyceH: ​
    Because that’s what their audience wants. His ugliness is the key to his appeal – they *want* him to be an asshole.

  73. 73.

    Citizen Dave

    @Scout211: No one will care if it’s vintage Trump.  If it’s recent Old Man Trump groping it might make an impact.  And be super gross.

  75. 75.

    ArchTeryx

    @Tony G: And that’s why all his elections are so close, at least when he is on the ballot. When he’s not, a lot of his cultists don’t bother to show up, which at least partially explains the wipeouts in the 2018 and 2022 midterms and in the Georgia Senate races. Just like our irregular voters, they don’t care about no stinkin’ midterms or downballot races. They want to see that big beautiful “TRUMP” on a ballot.

    The question that will decide the future of this country, and tens of millions of our lives, is “Who shows up when he’s on the ballot for the third time?”

  76. 76.

    BR

    Doing some phone banking into Arizona. Seems mostly like I’m cleaning up the data, which is fine — no real productive conversations yet, just moved / wrong number / do not call / etc., but that’s how it goes sometimes.

    Hope you all are dialing and door knocking.

  77. 77.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Because that’s what their audience wants. His ugliness is the key to his appeal – they *want* him to be an asshole.

    THEY want to be assholes, without constraint of work, society, civility. When they dream of hitting it big and achieving great wealth, it’s so they can be assholes with no repercussions.

  79. 79.

    Leto

    Is this a 1990’s job interview? “What’s your greatest weakness?” Like… I appreciate that she did the Hollywood script, “My weakness is actually my strength” but ffs…

  80. 80.

    Leto

    @Citizen Dave: agree with your assessment of Anderson. He’s good exactly 1 day out of the year, and that’s when he’s with Andy Cohen doing shots on New Years. Past that, keep him sealed in the plastic wrapper.

    THE RICH AREN’T… you know what, just gonna breathe. Fucking idiots, breathe…

  81. 81.

    Betty

    @Leto: I had to stop watching because I can’t believe these people are undecided. I demand to know if they seriously think Trump would be better. Also too, what is the point of this dumb question about what she would do differently than Biden. She isn’t running against Biden.  What would she do differently than Trump. That’s the question.

  84. 84.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @Baud:

    People are complaining that MAGA don’t care, but if it were just the MAGA who didn’t care, we’d win in a landslide.

    A critical and often overlooked fact.

  87. 87.

    mrmoshpotato

    @schrodingers_cat:

    And we are giving the first chief of Homeland Security under Trump a tongue bath now? Fuck Kelly 

    Agreed.  And love how all of these idiots are just now realizing the orange shitstain is a fascist.

  88. 88.

    Richard Fox

    @Old Dan and Little Ann: Vice President Harris has been very nimble at this town hall, adding information while critiquing the orange fellow whose name escapes me. The questions are more often than not idiotic but she is fielding them to her advantage. And not defensively. A real pro.

  89. 89.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Betty: “Undecided” voters are too chickenshit to say they’ll vote for the orange fascist, or they’re braindead – or both.

  91. 91.

    rk

    @schrodingers_cat:

    America how I love thee

    Let me count the ways..

    I get weirdly protective of the US when I go abroad. Of course Trump is a swine, but the British have completely gone to hell with Brexit, the Germans gifted the world Hitler and we’re living with the consequences till date.The Italians have had their share of clowns etc etc. People shouldn’t ever ask how we got Trump, becasue I’m sure most countries have had awful leaders at one point or another. It’s the fucking human condition! Americans are not unique morons!

  94. 94.

    RaflW

    How the sister of the slain soldier responded with that statement praising Trump freaked me out. It feels like she got leaned on by mafia types. It didn’t, to me at least, sound like it was gratitude that they privately fixed her financial situation, but was the note sent out by a captive.

  97. 97.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @schrodingers_cat:

    And we are giving the first chief of Homeland Security under Trump a tongue bath now? Fuck Kelly

    While I agree, a recent test of effective campaign messages revealed that criticisms from Trump’s former administration officials was the one that moved the needle the most.

    We are at the stage of the campaign where the messages and narratives we see and hear the most are not intended for us.

  99. 99.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @RaflW: that seems more likely.

    A sister, aware of what happened, (keeping this PG here) and also aware that Trump, renegging on his offer of help, called them “fucking Mexicans ”

    It just…

  100. 100.

    Gloria DryGarden

    Reminding myself, the very maga folks aren’t worth our efforts.

    It’s the middle 50%, the unaffiliated, the nominal republicans, the “undecided” who are gettable votes.

  101. 101.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @Gloria DryGarden: Yes.  I often remind myself we’re talking about millions of people.  They are not all devoted cultists.  Some are, of course, but [being an optimistic person myself] I believe there are more who are “gettable.”

  104. 104.

    TBone

    Holy shit, Tuckums just broke the Weird Meter.

    “There has to be a point at which dad comes home,” Carlson told a cheering crowd during a speech in Duluth, Georgia. “Yeah, that’s right, dad comes home and he’s p—ed. Dad is p—ed. He’s not vengeful, he loves his children, disobedient as they may be.”

    He continued: “And when dad gets home, you know what he says? You’ve been a bad girl. You’ve been a bad little girl and you’re getting a vigorous spanking right now. And no, it’s not going to hurt me more than it hurts you, not it’s not. I’m not going to lie. It’s going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me.”

  106. 106.

    Lyrebird

    @Leto: Thanks, that was fun.  I’m glad I saw the real video also.  Massive props to Tim Walz for making the point of how deeply insulting the Mickey D’s cosplay was to anyone who has to work for a living & doesn’t have millions from a racist realistate mogul father to run through.

    I’m glad the DelCo event went pretty well for MVP.  I am embarrassed to have ties to Feasterville, home of the orange-stained McDonald’s … our relatives who were there have moved on or passed on FWIW

  109. 109.

    Harrison Wesley

    @TBone: WTF?  This wasn’t in some after-hours members-only club? Weird, creepy – definitely a contender for this week’s Vance Award.

  110. 110.

    Chet Murthy

    @Lyrebird: i spent 2 and 1/2 years working full-time+overtime at a Jack In The Box during and after high school, All for minimum wage.  What TCFG said was an insult to me and the people I worked with.  Food service, especially fast food, is hot greasy dirty unpleasant exhausting and dangerous work.  It’s a Damn sight harder than anything tcfg has ever had to do in his goddamn life.

  113. 113.

    jonas

    @zhena gogolia: Shorter Sununu: “Yeah, a plurality of Americans are more or less comfortable with Nazism at this point. Whaddya gonna do? I for one don’t give a shit.”

  117. 117.

    sdhays

    @Chet Murthy: For his Base, it probably helps.

    I disagree. People who would be energized by video of Trump sexually assaulting a supporter’s daughter were already going crawl through glass for to vote for Derp Fuhrer. It won’t light a fire under the asses of people who usually don’t vote, but would vote for him if they bother, and it won’t be especially compelling to the undecided morons.

    If this does surface and it’s pretty gratuitous, it could be a reverse Comey. Not campaign ending, but extra juice for getting undecideds to break more for Harris and dampening Trump’s softer support. It’s getting late enough in October for the story to still leave a bad impression, at least a “losing” impression in the minds of a critical slice of the electorate that could either make the difference in the outcome, or juice Harris’ victory into landslide territory.

    If Trump’s people thought this kind of thing was really “good for him”, they would have already released it.

  118. 118.

    jonas

    @Chet Murthy: If E. Jean Carroll and 25 other women failed to break through with their allegations, this isn’t going to move the needle either. Even if there’s hi-def video, it will just be dismissed as a deepfake or something.

  121. 121.

    jonas

    @RaflW: Relatives of a child orphaned by a MAGA murderer in El Paso a few years ago willingly posed for a photo-op with that demonic fuckwit giving a thumbs up.

    You just can’t even with these people. As ever, it’s a cult, not a political movement.

  122. 122.

    lamh47

    this CNN townhall of “undecided” voters…such crap…there are no true undecided voters at this point. Anyone who claims to be is lying and just looking for a reason NOT to vote for one or the other. I promise you undecided voters are either folks who don’t vote or won’t vote…

  124. 124.

    jonas

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Even so, a number of them did conspire to assassinate him in 1944. Unfortunately, they fucked up, but the ensuing purge of his top brass and subsequent paranoia about everything more or less ensured that he was going to lose the war (cue bunker scene from “Downfall”).

  126. 126.

    Chet Murthy

    @jonas: Yes, this!  I thought it was a 30 women who’d come forward publicly, but even 27 is so many that adding another, even a child, can’t change anything in the minds of people who are already ready to vote for the bastard.  This reminds me of David Cross’ bit “I am starting to regret my vote for Trump”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1wkqZIJOAQ esp. the part that start at 2m10sec

  128. 128.

    Chet Murthy

    @Chet Murthy: “… I was with you when you cheated on your wife with that pornstar, the one you compared favorably to your daughter, you cheated on your wife, not the wife you raped, but the current wife who had just given birth to your son, and of course I was with you when we found out you cheated with a Playboy Playmate, the one you compared favorably to your daughter, not with the wife you have now, but the second wife whose kid you ignore, and of course I was with you President Trump when you took the babies away, you took infants breastfeeding, literally breastfeeding from their mothers and fathers, the families who had made this arduous trek to come here and seek asylum, the just wanted to seek asylum, and you took them and you deported the parents and sent them hundreds of miles away, separated them, sent the kids hundreds of miles away in a disused Wal-mart inside of a cage with armed guards pointing guns at them and then .…. as those toddlers sob and whimper in absolute terror traumatized for life of course I was with you with that, but this omibus spending bill is where I draw the line!“

  129. 129.

    gene108

    I watched the Fox clip. The black dude says the generals, Secretary Mattis and Kelly were insubordinate in not carrying out Trump’s orders, and the government shouldn’t have unelected bureaucrats deciding things. They should do whatever the president tells them.

    Anyway, I think with right-wing media going fully to embrace fascism, I think this will be the Republican attitude for a long time, even after Trump.

    Republican politicians are very dependent on right-wing media to polish their unpopular and destructive policies, and cover for their corruption. If right-wing media goes all in on federal employees from generals on down serve at the whim of the president that’s the position Republican politicians will adopt.

  130. 130.

    prostratedragon

    @Jackie:  Yeah, somewhere in comments on this it’s noted that the joint-smoking boys don’t get this treatment. Of course in addition to everything else, a boy might be willing to see if he can kick Dad’s ass.

  131. 131.

    gene108

    @Jackie:

     

    @Sure Lurkalot:

    Trump did meet the family and the White House and promised to help beyond what was standard Army procedure for a deceased soldier.

    That’s the family’s first hand experience with Trump.

    The story is second hand information.

    I can’t blame people for using their first hand experience to make a decision over second hand accounts.

  132. 132.

    Chet Murthy

    @gene108: the report from the Guillen family’s lawyer is not second-hand reporting: it’s first-hand directly from that lawyer, that TCFG paid nothing.

  133. 133.

    Quinerly

    I haven’t read comments for 4 days. Maybe this has been mentioned. I was shocked when I just read it. Vanessa Guillén’s sister (and family, it seems) are Trump supporters.

    In the sister’s statement, Mayra added: “President Donald Trump did nothing but show respect to my family & Vanessa. In fact, I voted for President Trump today.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/23/trump-vanessa-guillen-funera

    https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4948869-trump-vanessa-guillen-report-denied/

  134. 134.

    Chet Murthy

    @Quinerly: If my family included several immigrants from a place that a powerful politician had regularly demonized, would I want to draw his ire upon us?  She [Vanessa Guillen]’s dead, one way or another, nothing we do or say can bring her back.

    ETA: I don’t have to agree with it, to understand it.  Esp. when so many highly-placed officials and elites have done pretty much the same thing, with far less at stake.

  135. 135.

    Quinerly

    @Chet Murthy:

    I get what you are saying. Certainly not siding with Trump and Mark Meadows.

    With that said, I assume you read the piece. The parts about the lawyer saying her conversation with The Atlantic (Goldberg) were misrepresented. There are also pieces up in The Hill and Newsweek.

  136. 136.

    Chet Murthy

    @Quinerly: what the attorney did NOT say in their tweet ( https://x.com/WhistleblowerLF/status/1848865275955056983 ) was that Trump DID PAY.  Instead, the attorney went to “oh, Trump support the military, he does! ”  This is a classic trick: take umbrage at some misrepresentation, and then don’t address the misrepresentation, but go to another point entirely.

    Yeah, I’m believing the attorney the first time when they spoke with The Atlantic.

  137. 137.

    Quinerly

    “After having dealt with hundreds of reporters in my legal career, this is unfortunately the first time I have to go on record and call out Jeffrey Goldberg@the Atlantic: not only did he misrepresent our conversation but he outright LIED in HIS sensational story. More importantly, he used and exploited my clients, and Vanessa Guillen’s murder… for cheap political gain. I would like to also point out that the timing of this “story” is quite suspicious, as this supposed conversation that Trump had would have occurred over 4 years ago! Why a story about it now?! As everyone knows, not only did Trump support our military, he also invited my clients to the Oval Office and supported the I Am Vanessa Guillen bill too. I’m grateful we were successful in getting bipartisan support of the I Am Vanessa Guillen Act, and because of everyone’s hard work and efforts our service members now have more protections and rights while serving our country.”

    Attorney Natalie Khawam

  138. 138.

    Chet Murthy

    @Quinerly: She does not say the obvious thing which would disprove Goldberg, which is “in fact, Trump did send payments.”

    ETA: every conversation has many, many bits.  If I claim that a conversation was misrepresented, which bits am I referring to?  The way to refute the -substantive- citation is to directly attack that citation, -directly-.  If I just say “oh, it was misrepresented” and then move on to something completely different, it doesn’t actually refute jack-shit.

  140. 140.

    Quinerly

    @Chet Murthy:

    I don’t care about the payment. I care that the atty for the family is saying Goldberg lied.

    Best for everyone to just move on from this.

    YMMV. I’m off  this thread.

  141. 141.

    Chet Murthy

    @Quinerly: You don’t know that.  You don’t know what -precisely- Khawam is claiming was misrepresented, and because she’s a lawyer, you can’t assume that she’s speaking plainly: the job lawyers are -paid for- is to wordsmith.  She’s representing her client in this: that’s all.

    I repeat: she didn’t deny the central accusation, that TCFG did not pay a thin dime, and it would have been straightforward for her to do so.

  143. 143.

    Quinerly

    @Chet Murthy:

    I practiced law over 35 years.

    It’s a powerful statement.

    Maybe someone should spend some time checking what Goldberg has said in response.

  144. 144.

    Chet Murthy

    @Quinerly: What does he have to refute? She didn’t specify -how- he lied.  What should he do?  Release the tapes/transcripts of their interviews?

  145. 145.

    Nettoyeur

    @Salty Sam:  He was in sexual assault purgatory. Now he works for (snort) Newsweek which was once a well know news magazine one of DC MAGA rags.

  146. 146.

    Another Scott

    @Quinerly:

    Just seeing this, I think:

    As everyone knows, not only did Trump support our military, […]

    is a tell. It’s self-refuting, because 1) everyone doesn’t “know” that – she’s gaslighting us, and 2) there are many, many pieces in the record showing that he had almost no regard for the military unless they did what he wanted (no matter the rules or the law).

    I’m more inclined to be on Chet’s side here.

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  147. 147.

    gene108

    @Chet Murthy:

    the report from the Guillen family’s lawyer is not second-hand reporting: it’s first-hand directly from that lawyer, that TCFG paid nothing.

    He met with them, and I guess, managed to not be a racist asshole for however long their meeting was.

    The army paid funeral expenses, which I guess was enough for them.

    There’s also the possibility that her family was not financially dependent on a 20 year old private’s pay, so they were not losing a bread winner.

  148. 148.

    Quinerly

    @Another Scott:

    There really are no “sides.”

    To me it seems very obvious that this is not a good look for Goldberg…..a family is accusing him of exploiting the sister’s death and lying. No one wins in this. Certainly not the Harris campaign if they want to push it.

    The entire thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth…. I can see why most of the news outlets seem to have dropped it.

  149. 149.

    Chet Murthy

    @Quinerly: “I can see why most of the news outlets seem to have dropped it.”

    The gaslighting has had its intended effect.

    ETA: by which I do not mean you (of course) but TCFG’s rapid-response operation.

  150. 150.

    kwAwk

    I’ve been debating whether to post this here because you guys will probably light me up like an xmas tree, but here goes I think it needs saying.

    I think it’s entirely possible that we on the left have such a hard time handling Trump because we’ve boxed ourselves in so much with niceness and being politically correct that we can’t bring ourselves to have the discussion about how gender queer Donald Trump really is.

    Obviously we start with the hair and makeup.  If a Democratic male candidate wore makeup and spent hours a day doing his hair and makeup it would have become an issue immediately.   Then we have the tea spilling.  Right, what self respecting cis gendered male goes in front of a crowd and speaks so sincerely and admirably of another man’s penis?  And then he says, “Arnold Palmer was all man!” so admirably.   This ties into his love of Putin, Hitler, Orban and Kim Jung Un.  He’s always wants to have a big strong man to cuddle up to.   He literally has daddy issues.

    Trump is so feminine and adept at playing the victim that he is triggering White Knight syndrome, where all of the White Knights feel compelled to come to his defense against those mean ole democrats!  All of his supporters squeal when he is criticized because the Donald is the best mommy ever!   Oops, I mean President.

    I know Bill Burr probably isn’t going to be a popular person to quote around here, but he makes some really good points in his “No Reason to Hit a Woman” routine.  This is the most salient part:

    “They never address how women argue, which I think is a core of a lot of that shit, you know? And I gotta tell you something, man. Like, I never knew how women argued, but after 20 years of losing every significant battle in a relationship, I finally figured out how they argued, and I’m gonna tell you something. I’m starting to turn this franchise around.
    I have begun a winning tradition. This is how they argue, as far as I can tell, all right? If they’re right, they argue the point, and they stay on point and make sure you stay on point until you’re down on your knees apologizing, begging for forgiveness, all right? No problem with that. Totally respect it. But here’s the thing… if they’re wrong, they go rogue. They go off-road. They start thinking of shit you’re sensitive about, maybe you don’t get along with your dad, and in their head, they just start concocting this evil statement… Totally designed. This desperate, hail-Mary attempt to make you so fucking mad you just call ’em a c*nt. It’s what it is. And cunt trumps all the bullshit they did to start the argument. Now it’s not about that… “Well, that’s no reason to call me a c*nt!” And then that’s it. You’re in this room now, right?”

     

    https://youtu.be/rksKvZoUCPQ?si=QUvlGdgWPT3Z9k4H

    Does that not sound just like Trump?   He’s right sometimes and when he’s right he hits hard.  But when he’s wrong, he just starts making up some crazy shit to get you so pissed off that you prosecute him for it.   Makes us look crazy!   It gives him the opportunity to then pivot and play the victim, which he’s incredibly good at.  It works, because when he wants to be, and when he thinks it is to his advantage he can be incredibly charismatic.

    You see, he’s turned us Democrats into the Daddy party.  We’re now the party of the FBI!  We’re the party of the CIA!  We’re the party of all things US Military, and of interventionalist foreign policy.  We’re the party of responsible government and character matters!  And we’re still confused about how we got here!

    Make no mistake, these people know damn well they fucked up with Bush/Cheney, Iraq, Afghanistan and the like.   The same people who were shouting everybody else down in the run up to the Iraq war, are the same people who are so adamant about how Trump didn’t start a single war when in office.  But they don’t openly admit that or blame themselves for it.  They don’t blame the likes of Limbaugh, Hannity, Ingram, AIles, Carlson and O’Reilley.  No, because all those people have told them it’s not their fault, it’s the mean ole government’s fault.  Don’t blame yourselves and surely don’t blame us.  And along come Trump like a big old coddling momma who says to them it’s not your fault..  Look at how the meal old people treated me!  Give mamma Trump a big hug.

  152. 152.

    Quinerly

    @Chet Murthy: nothing burger. The family doesn’t back up the reporting….actually, it appears no one is backing it up….at least that’s how the average person will see it.

    Trump is a POS. We know.

    The Kelly story is much more impt.

  153. 153.

    Quinerly

    @jonas:

    You nailed it. I don’t think anything can tarnish him with his supporters.  It really is a cult.

    I feel strongly that Harris will win. This is all about GOTV.

  155. 155.

    prostratedragon

    JDV’s catechists:

    JD Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, told the Napa Institute in 2021 that Dominic Legge was the first priest w/ whom he discussed converting. This matters bc Legge sits on the board of the Napa Legal Institute where Leonard Leo is a director! 1/

  156. 156.

    cain

    @Jackie: Maybe TCFG hasn’t paid her yet, and if she supports him that he will give her the rest of the money she is owed.

    Biden should have given her what she needed for the funeral.

  157. 157.

    wjca

    @cain: Biden should have given her what she needed for the funeral.

    Oh, good!  I just knew this had to be Biden’s fault somehow. /

  158. 158.

    cain

    @rk: We are kind of unique. I mean, school shootings are very unique to this country and the way we deal with it is outrage and then we shrug and move on. We have had 58 school shootings this year.

    Look at this pretty map of school shootings by country:

    https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/school-shootings-by-country

    87 school shootings on average year over year.

    https://www.cnn.com/us/school-shootings-fast-facts-dg/index.html

    The south seems to have it the worst.

  165. 165.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)

    @cmorenc: The number of people who are enthusiastic about the prospect of JD Vance having more access to power is greatly outweighed by the number who are appalled by the idea, I suspect.

    I also suspect the more people who interact with him or read and watch his interviews, the larger the latter number grows.

  167. 167.

    David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch

    He didn’t know who Bismarck was.

    Dump’s knowledge of WWII consists of reruns of Hogan’s Heroes where Burchalter was always subsequent to der Furher

  168. 168.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    I am continually gobsmacked by how many Republicans are willing to accept Trump at his worst. That’s the frightening part – that he has so many enablers, at so many levels of society.

    To distract myself, I think about what it would take to get me to vote for a Republican. At the moment, I’m at the point of zombify my corpse in a voodoo ritual and command it to arise and vote Republican, which would, of course, violate a number of federal, international, and canon laws.

    And because I wouldn’t put it past the 21st-century GOP to try that anyway, I’m planning to have my mortal remains cremated and the ashes interred at multiple sites on multiple continents.

  172. 172.

    Shalimar

    @HeleninEire: Axelrod and Plouffe deserve their share of the credit for 2008, but it turns out that Hillary wasn’t the only one who had assholes on her team that year.

  174. 174.

    Dave

    1. @gene108: Which isn’t surprising he has a history of seeking approval and avoiding conflict face to face. Not so much any other setting but face to face he does the glad handling please like me thing. He really is an approval seeking coward at heart.
  175. 175.

    Chris Johnson

    @cmorenc: Vance is basically not a real person. He’s a performance for making Peter Thiel effectively the president. It’s a tough gig, not for moral reasons as whatever Vance’s real name is he’s a spineless weasel (I’m strongly reminded of ‘George Santos’: there’s no reality there to criticize)… it’s a tough gig because the actual job is first to get Trump ‘elected’, and then to whack him and replace him, but as a puppet man who actually speaks for Peter Thiel.

    It looks to me like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel have come up with something to do that’s bigger than PayPal, which was the previous time they worked together on something. Their modus operandi seems to be having Musk be the public and noisy face of the operation, and Thiel the shadow guy you never hear about. And so, Trump in turn becomes the noisy puppet and Vance the shadow puppet: you’re not supposed to hear or know anything about him, and if the actual man thinks or believes anything it’s wholly a moot point.

    That’s why you don’t hear about Vance.

  176. 176.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Sure Lurkalot: ​
     

    There’s nothing he can say or do, nothing we can say or do, that will shake his hold on his die hard supporters. He’s an old man though and I’m not sure there’s a replacement for him. Vance? Tucker? Cotton? Junior? I don’t see it but I should bookmark this comment so I can eat my words once the fucker croaks.

    If he loses in 12 days, I think you’re right: if they’ve got a con man who’s anywhere near as good at the con as Trump has been, he’s someone we haven’t even heard of yet. But if he wins, then it doesn’t matter as long as SCOTUS lets them do whatever the hell they want with the country. (“Them” being whoever’s actually using Trump’s authority as he slides deeper into dementia, whether or not the 25th is invoked.)

  177. 177.

    The Audacity of Krope

    So, when I voted last night, the only contested election was for Register of Deeds. I looked up the two candidates.

    One had basically a simple resume and why she values public service. Fine. I find the other and all he had to say were various things about the former being a member of a crime family, no further detail.

    I assume I don’t have to say what I did there.

    Yes on all MA ballot questions and I was at the post box within 20 minutes.

  179. 179.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @cain: That guy could drag one of his fans onto the stage and shoot him in the face and they’d still support him.

    Not super far off what happened…

  180. 180.

    Geminid

    I saw a report in Oil Price that crude oil production set a new record last month, at 103.7 million barrels per day world wide. The US produces ~13 million barrels per day.

    Another Oil Price article reported that natural gas industry analysts predict a relatively warm winter for the US and Europe, which could help keep prices down.

  181. 181.

    Baud

    @Geminid:

    natural gas industry analysts predict a relatively warm winter for the US and Europe, which could help keep prices down.

     
    Irony!

  182. 182.

    Geminid

    @Chris Johnson: It could also be that Trump and his team are keeping Vance on a tight leash. They would remember how Sarah Palin used her running-mate status to build her own brand at John McCain’s expense. Trump’s not much of a strategist but he notices stuff like that.

  183. 183.

    unrelatedwaffle

    @dm: I agree. Also, I don’t care about changing their minds, but it means something to make them think about each incident and have to feel the cognitive dissonance, even if they resolve it stupidly every time. I have to believe they still have a conscience that makes them suffer subconsciously even if it doesn’t show.

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