Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Finally crawling out from under all of my work deadlines!
Subaru Diane send these great pics. Love love love the top one.
I would definitely watch that buddy movie!
Not sure what I think of this one. I mean, it’s terribly funny, but I worry that perhaps it will be taken out of context.
Saturday Night Dogs and Cats Open ThreadPost + Comments (189)
While the functionally useless political press was breathlessly repeating the pet-eating lie, and chin-scratching thoughtfully about whether it would alter the horserace, it took independent journalism site to track down the origin of that blood libel to a couple of Karens on Facebook in Springfield, Ohio: (via LGM)
NewsGuard identified and tracked down the two people central to the claim: Erika Lee, the Springfield resident who wrote the original Facebook post, and Kimberly Newton, the neighbor who had provided her with a third-hand account of the rumor, making Lee’s social media post a fourth-hand account: the alleged acquaintance/cat owner; Newton’s friend; Newton; and Lee, who posted it on Facebook.
In exclusive interviews, NewsGuard spoke both with Lee, a 35-year-old hardware store worker who has lived in Springfield for four years, and Newton, her neighbor and a 12-year resident of Springfield. The interviews reveal just how flimsy and unsubstantiated the rumor was from the beginning — based entirely on third hand hearsay. Yet it quickly gained traction and, remarkably, found its way to Trump’s lips on a national stage.
“I’m not sure I’m the most credible source because I don’t actually know the person who lost the cat,” Newton said about the rumor she had passed on to her neighbor, Lee, the Facebook poster. Newton explained to NewsGuard that the cat owner was “an acquaintance of a friend” and that she heard about the supposed incident from that friend, who, in turn, learned about it from “a source that she had.” Newton added: “I don’t have any proof.”
That adds up to three people with no firsthand knowledge of the allegedly victimized cat: Newton’s “friend,” Newton, and then her neighbor Lee. Or perhaps it’s four people if we count the “source” that Newton says her “friend” relied on.
Lee says she’s a “Democrat who voted for Trump”, because of course she is, and also shared this:
“I think it was two years ago now, I went to the [Bureau of Motor Vehicles] to renew my license or my tags. I can’t remember, but I was sitting in the BMV, and the only way I know to describe it is I felt like … I was transported, because all around me it was people talking a different language. … I felt like I was the minority,” she said.
There we have it. Anyway, why does Lee even have a job in a hardware store in Springfield? Because of Haitians. The town was in the post-industrial death spiral until immigrants showed up to do jobs that locals wouldn’t or couldn’t do:
When Haitian immigrants began trickling into Springfield to work in local produce packaging and machining factories in 2017, some thought the new residents could help the city regain its former vigor as a once-thriving manufacturing hub. Once home to major agricultural machinery companies in the mid-20th century, Springfield has lost a quarter of its population since the 1960s.
[…] Haitians and immigrants from Central American countries have been in high demand at Springfield’s Dole Fresh Vegetables – where they’ve been hired to clean and package produce – and at automotive machining plants whose owners were desperate for workers due to a labor shortage in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The vast majority of Haitians are legal immigrants because they’ve received a temporary, renewable 18-month permit to live in the US.
There are legitimate issues in a town of 60,000 when it tries to absorb 15,000 immigrants — schools and healthcare are stretched, and housing is scarce. Medicaid rolls, for example, have swelled, probably because the jobs the Haitians are taking don’t pay a living wage. But is it better to have a dying town full of desperation and sadness, or a growing town that’s struggling to incorporate hard-working immigrants trying to make a better life for themselves?
I really hope this issue comes up at the Vance/Walz debate, because the racism that Trump and JD are tapping ignores the fact that immigration has revitalized small towns across the midwest. Look at any town that has a plant with jobs no white person wants (like meat packing), and you’ll find immigrant communities. Here’s a great example in the tiny town of Worthington, MN, in Tim Walz’ district. And just look at this (via Jeff T.)
I don’t know how you do dozens of Cletus safaris and miss the biggest story of the last few decades in the small-town midwest: immigrants are saving those areas because they’re a great workforce that wants to share in American prosperity. I guess the intrepid DC reporters missed that fact because the immigrants are just quietly doing their jobs, while the Karens are making up stories on Facebook.
Entitled Idiots Who Should Be Thanking Immigrants Instead Spreading HorseshitPost + Comments (219)
172 raffle tickets were purchased by 77 people!
We raised over $5,000! $5,411, to be exact.
Each virtual raffle ticket has been assigned a number.
I need 7 people to supply a number in the comments – choose any number between 95 and 280, inclusive.
Open Thread (and Quilt Raffle At Last!) And the Winner is… Memory Pallas!Post + Comments (29)
Thanks to valued commenter BR for flagging this video in the last thread. If you check out his remarks, you’ll see that Doug Emhoff is an excellent surrogate for VP Harris:
Emhoff talks about the debate, and he hits on something I’ve seen other commenters note — how gratifying it was to see Harris call Trump a disgrace, a laughingstock and a liar who is unfit to be president. She said it right to his ugly orange face! And it was glorious!
I’m also grateful to the Harris-Walz campaign for showing up in Florida. The Villages, no less! I think we’re going to win this election.
Open thread!
These are the people who make my favorite Harris/Walz tagline, “Mind your own damn business,” resonate so deeply: (NYT)
As opposition to their social agenda grows, particularly on abortion, many conservative Christians are experiencing whiplash as they grapple with an uncertain future…
By all indications, conservative Christians are poised to vote again overwhelmingly for former President Donald J. Trump in November. But now, they are facing the reality that many of their views are not widely held, and that to advance their goals nationally they need power at the highest levels — power that Mr. Trump suddenly seems less inclined to give.
In that way, the coming election feels like a referendum on the role of conservative Christianity in American public life. And some conservative Christians worry that it is a race that is harder and harder to win.
Forcing women who are miscarrying to bleed out in hospital parking lots until local theocrats are satisfied patients are close enough to death to warrant medical attention isn’t broadly popular! Nor is using the apparatus of the state to harass queer people, whitewash history and ban books.
It’s not surprising that social conservatives are whining about their dwindling cultural relevance even as they hatch anti-democratic plots to impose their views on people who don’t share them. That’s who they are. It’s always been who they are.
But their access to power is more durable than they let on in that article, unfortunately. The SCOTUS majority’s whiny, entitled and thoroughly corrupt justices (most notably Alito and Thomas) perfectly embody the larger SoCon movement. They will be a millstone around America’s neck until they die off during a Democratic administration (with a trifecta) and/or are diminished by an expanded court.
In a sense, this makes their whining and aggrievement even more insufferable. It would be lovely to see voters resoundingly reject the radical clerics who have a growing portion of the country under their thumbs, so here’s hoping their worst nightmares come true with regard to their cultural influence. May the “everything Trump touches dies” axiom apply to this group.
That is necessary, but it’s not sufficient. We’ll be battling the already embedded SoCons’ pernicious authority for the rest of our lives, in the courts and in antimajoritarian institutions like the U.S. Senate. And our children after us. Maybe this resentful group’s fears about the future are justified because more people see that now? November will provide important clues on that.
Open thread.
Here’s the real reason Trump wants us to spend the week chasing rumors about people eating cats. pic.twitter.com/XAbYpT3Wgo
— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) September 13, 2024
Good. Good in it's own right to do local media, and good separately that @AlexThomp is having a tantrum about it. https://t.co/7Cx4Fod87a
— DCCyclone (@DCCyclone) September 13, 2024
#ACTUALNEWS: #Harris Campaign Launches New Spanish Ad With Trusted Community Figure to Share Harris’ Message with Pennsylvania Latinos
Local PA Radio Host Victor Martinez: “I’ve interviewed many candidates. They all talk, the difference is Kamala Harris listens.” pic.twitter.com/He6gIaeh1N
— Olga Nesterova (@onestpress) September 13, 2024
Our nation would not exist without the blood, sweat, and tears, and without the determination, dreams, and contributions of Black Americans.
As we host the first-ever White House Brunch in Celebration of Black Excellence, we honor this simple truth:
Black history is American… pic.twitter.com/5YFva71eIJ
— President Biden (@POTUS) September 13, 2024
We’re 3 hours from opening doors for the @SecondGentleman’s rally at The Villages and we’ve got a line out the door. When I tell you something is brewing in Florida, I mean it! pic.twitter.com/SNLiqwNZOg
— Karol Molinares (@KarolMolinares) September 13, 2024
Saturday Morning Open Thread: The GOP Is ScramblingPost + Comments (177)
Starting to think Laura Loomer will be the instrument that causes Trumpism to finally implode.
— Ragnarok Lobster ?? (@eclecticbrotha) September 13, 2024
Yep, Drudge is going there. pic.twitter.com/vbfrs2yjL6
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) September 13, 2024
I hope she becomes his top adviser. | Republicans fear Laura Loomer is influencing Donald Trump https://t.co/pS0V5pNSEI
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) September 13, 2024
When someone’s too sketchy for Project Veritas and too racist for MTG… Per the Washington Post, “Trump’s time with Loomer, a far-right activist, upsets his GOP allies” [gift link]:
Former president Donald Trump has traveled the country this week accompanied by far-right activist Laura Loomer, unnerving some GOP allies with his increasing embrace of a provocateur with a history of espousing conspiracy theories and incendiary rhetoric…
On Friday, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) posted on X that Loomer is “a crazy conspiracy theorist who regularly utters disgusting garbage intended to divide Republicans. A DNC plant couldn’t do a better job than she is doing to hurt President Trump’s chances of winning re-election. Enough.”
Loomer most notably joined Trump as he made multiple stops Wednesday to mark the 23rd anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, standing nearby as Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), met with firefighters in New York City. Just last year, Loomer posted a video on X that called the 9/11 assault on the United States an “inside job.”…
In addition to joining Trump in New York, Loomer was seen getting off his plane the day before in Philadelphia before his debate with Harris there. And after she visited New York with Trump, Loomer headed with him to Shanksville, Pa., for ceremonies commemorating 9/11.
Loomer emphasized this week that she does “not work” for Trump, but the campaign has declined to say why she has been traveling with him amid increasingly harsh scrutiny from Democrats and some Republicans…
Loomer first gained national notoriety as an undercover agent for Project Veritas, focusing her efforts on infiltrating Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. She left the group in 2017 to do stunts under her own name, such as chaining herself to Twitter’s New York headquarters and leading a group of undocumented immigrants to hop the fence at a Napa, Calif., home owned by former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
Loomer ran for Congress in Florida twice, in 2020 and 2022, and lost both times. Her anti-Muslim rhetoric, among other alleged terms-of-use violations, have led Facebook, Instagram, Lyft, Uber, Venmo, PayPal, GoFundMe and Cash App to ban her, Loomer claims.
