Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Our Crooked Court

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Donald and His Bro Squad" went up tonight -- this is his third comic for the week at THE COMMON ILLS. 


donald and his bros



The Crooked Court continues to destroy our democracy and the rule of law.   Nicholas Liu (SALON) explains:


The Supreme Court's conservative majority, overriding the objections of the court's liberal members, allowed Virginia on Wednesday to continue its removal of over 1,600 voters from the rolls.


The state's Republican administration under Gov. Glenn Youngkin has said they are weeding out non-citizens who are not legally allowed to vote, but the U.S. Department of Justice and civil rights groups allege that the purge is also sweeping away actual U.S. citizens.

In a pair of lawsuits, the DOJ and civil rights groups accused Virginia of violating National Voter Registration Act, which prohibits states from "systematically" removing voters from the rolls 90 days or less before an election. A federal district judge ordered Virginia to restore the purged voters to the rolls last week, only for his directive to be reversed in turn by the Supreme Court, which did not explain its decision.

Not only does the decision appear to contradict federal law, but constitutes what former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance called a "disgraceful departure" from the federal courts' own jurisdictional principle to do no harm to the election process. The so-called Purcell principle, which takes its name from a Supreme Court election case in 2006, holds that courts should not change or approve of changes to election rules just prior to an election because it could confuse voters and disrupt election administration.


Of course, Supreme Court apologist Jonathan Turley can't call out the Court.  Instead, frog face blames Joe Biden.  Do you know how hated Jonathan Turley's become?  His students loathe him.  I try to remember that whenever I come across his writing -- try to remember that as annoying as that is, there are people who actually have to sit through his classes, enduring his non-stop and never-ending lies.  And that awful frog face.  Ugh.


"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Wednesday, October 30, 2024.  Kamala Harris makes the case for electing her our next president while it turns out Donald Trump, in addition to all his hateful plans, is also planning to wreck the US economy.


Kamala Harris is campaigning to be the next president of the United States -- an election that wraps up in five days.  She gave a speech last night.  Ahead of the speech, THE PBS NEWSHOUR spoke with voters waiting to hear her.



I think a lot of us are all waiting until after the election to take that deep breath.  And there's still so much work to be done before election day.

The speech? Pretty amazing. 



Matt Lasio (RAW STORY) reports:


Tens of thousands of Harris supporters came out to hear her Tuesday night address at the Ellipse, the exact spot where the former president famously held his "Stop the Steal" rally before supporters rioted at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

It’s a brilliant strategy, according to former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA) who served as a senior adviser on the Jan. 6 select committee.

“I think this is a master stroke,” Riggleman told Raw Story at the rally. “I think having this on the Ellipse right before the election, I think, it's the way to go.”

Harris’ Ellipse event comes on the heels of Trump’s racist, sexist and conspiracy-tinged Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday, which Riggleman said was perfect timing.

“The Madison Square Garden rally gave her the opportunity to provide a positive vision for America, where he tried to destroy America,” Riggleman said. “Madison Square Garden was the biggest October surprise self-own in political history.”

The former congressman said the Republican Party —a party he loves but felt forced to leave — is in shambles under Trump.

“It's a party for the unserious. I think that's the shame of it all, is that we have real issues globally, and these individuals are not prepared to deal with what America needs to deal with,” Riggleman said. “You gotta support sanity and rationality. Right now, the GOP is so infested with nativism and bad behavior, there's no way, I think, traditional center-right individuals would want to be a part of the party.” 


Today on MORNING JOE, they addressed and analyzed the speech.



Yesterday, others were speaking on Kamala's behalf including Senator Bernie Sanders, US House Rep AOC and our former First Lady Michelle Obama 



2024 is the year Michelle became the most effective speaker in the Democratic Party.  Over and over, she delivers and she connects.  A lot of things have taken place in Kamala's campaign over the last few months.  One of them is Michelle emerging as not just a good speaker married to a great one (Barack) but Michelle coming into her own and becoming our greatest speaker.  Marvel over that.  Think about the DNC convention and how Oprah gave an amazing speech but even there Michelle didn't just match Oprah, she surpassed Oprah and every other speaker that week.  


UAW's Shawn Fain spoke at the convention and has continued speaking out for Kamala.  Jake Johnson (COMMON DREAMS) reports:

United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain late Tuesday called for working class unity against Republican nominee Donald Trump in the final stretch of the 2024 race, warning that the former president would serve the interests of his own class and embolden the nation's executives to intensify their decades-long war on the labor movement.

Responding to members who question why the UAW is involved in the political process at all, Fain said during a video livestream that "we are up against a billionaire class that will not stop their attack on us at the bargaining table."

"They will not stop at the workplace, they will not stop at the border—they will take every inch we give them," said the president of the UAW, which has endorsed Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. "We don't engage in political activity because we like a candidate. We don't do it for ourselves, as your union leadership. We don't do it for the Democratic or Republican parties. We engage in politics as a union because it is core to our fight for economic and social justice."

Fain said that the United States is currently trapped in a "vicious cycle" in which the "ruling class has waged a one-sided class war on the working class, and they've been winning."

"We're in a vicious cycle where the billionaire and corporate class take more and more for themselves and rewrite the rules of the game to keep it that way," said Fain. "They use their insane wealth to buy off politicians and elections. The lap dogs of the billionaires then pass more laws that restrict unions and keep working-class people down. They consolidate the fruits of our labor into the hands of Wall Street and corporate America, and that cycle goes on and on."


This election matters.  Saturday, Rebecca explained:


it is telling and sad that racism exists at all but even more telling and sadder when we're looking at our left outlets like 'the nation' and 'democracy now' and seeing just how much racism still exists to this day.

and i know it's depressing.  it depresses me.  it makes me want to climb into bed and just pull the covers over my head.

but that doesn't make it go away.

so i do that for a moment or 2 and recharge and then get back out of bed and get ready to fight again.  and that's what we have to do.

vote.

vote like your life depends upon it because it does. all we have to do is vote.  if we vote, if all of us vote, we're done with trump.  we have the numbers on our side.

donald's cult has decreased since 2020.  

we have brave americans who are swing-voters, who are independents, who are democrats, who are greens, who are libertarians and who are republicans who get just how important this election is.  

we have the numbers on our side as long as we actually vote.  

we need to vote and we need to ask the people we know to vote for kamala as well. 

there's no secret math required.  there's no in depth strategy needed.  we have the numbers, we just have to turn out.

now i can't write constantly, i can' spend all day talking to 1 group after another.  i can't do that.  c.i. can and we're lucky to have people like that.  but just because i can't put hours and hours of time in on this doesn't mean i can't do anything.  

i can vote.  i can make sure my friends who are supporting kamala know how important this vote is and, say 1 of them needs me to watch their kids so that they can vote, or they need a ride to the polls so they can vote.  those are things i can do.  

and when it starts feeling overwhelming, just focus on what you can do and do that.  that's how we're going to win this election because we need president kamala harris.


I've already voted for Kamala.  Absentee because I knew I'd be speaking around the country.  And I mailed it long ago.  (In my state, it count if it arrives by November 12th.  I didn't chance it.  And if you have an absentee ballot to fill out, you might want to check about when it needs to arrive.  In California, it must be postmarked no later than November 5th  and it must arrive by November 12th.)  But that doesn't mean the job is done.  I'm still speaking to groups and I'm also calling friends and being a pest asking, "You did vote already, right?  No?  You're going to vote election day?"  We need to make sure that our friends and family members who need rides to the polls are getting them.  

This is an important election and I believe most of us realized that before Sunday when Donald Trump staged his hate rally in Madison Garden Stadium.  But that hate rally made it even more clear what's at stake.  At THE NEW REPUBLIC, Matt Ford explains:


Americans got a visceral taste of what a second Trump administration might look like on Sunday night, when Trump held a high-profile rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The event featured prominent guests like Hulk Hogan and Dr. Phil, as well as a rare appearance by former first lady Melania Trump. But it was the lower-billed speakers who seemed to seek, and subsequently received, the most attention.

Tony Hinchcliffe, who against all odds identifies as a comedian, delivered a litany of racist invective as part of a stand-up routine. He described Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage” and disparaged Latinos more broadly. “These Latinos, they love making babies too,” he told the audience. “Just know that. They do, they do. There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that. They come inside, just like they did to our country.”


Hinchcliffe also suggested in one bit that Israel and Palestine could settle their differences with a game of rock paper scissors. “You know Palestinians will throw rock every time, and also we know Jews have a hard time throwing that paper,” he said, referencing antisemitic tropes about Jewish people and money. In another quip, he claimed that Black Americans would be “carving watermelons” instead of pumpkins for Halloween.

Other guests also leaned into racist comments and tropes. Grant Cardone, an influencer and corporate speaker, said that Harris “and her pimp handlers will destroy the country.” Tucker Carlson, an ex-Fox News host, mocked Harris in racist terms while claiming that Democrats would have a hard time stealing the election because of her.

“It’s gonna be pretty hard [for them] to look at us and say, ‘You know what? Kamala Harris, she got 85 million votes because she’s just so impressive. As the first Samoan-Malaysian low-IQ former California prosecutor ever to be elected president. It was just a groundswell of popular support,’” he sarcastically told the crowd. Harris’s mother is a biomedical scientist who immigrated to the United States from India; her father is a Stanford University economics professor who originally hails from Jamaica.

[. . .]

The Madison Square Garden rally showed how much of Trumpism is about satisfying the basest, crudest, and most hateful impulses in American life—and how much his acolytes can’t wait to wield the federal government to do it.


Do you know who was at that hate rally?  You probably do.  You've probably been following it more closely than I have.  I was speaking over and over on Sunday.  It was near midnight when we made it back to the hotel.  Ava and I wrote our piece for THIRD and then I started working on the post here and that's when I found out about the hate rally.  I didn't register that Robert Kennedy Jr was present until I found this Tweet by David Corn.



And on the topic of Junior and also Elon Musk, let's note this video from Keith Edwards.



Junior being in charge of our federal health agencies?  That's offensive, outrages and outlandish.  Also noted in the video by Keith is Elon exposing the plan that's been hidden from the American people.   Elaine covered this yesterday in "Trump's plan is to wreck the economy:"


They want to destroy the economy.  That would tear apart America.  No wonder they want to keep this secret.  I doubt even 2% of registered voters would vote for Trump if they knew that was the plan.  Nikki McCann Ramirez (ROLLING STONE) notes:

On Tuesday, Elon Musk - the billionaire owner of X (formerly Twitter) and Tesla - agreed in a social media post that Donald Trump's return to office would likely crash the economy.  

"If Trump succeeds in forcing through mass deportations, combined with Elon hacking away at the government, firing people and reducing the deficit – there will be an initial severe overreaction in the economy," user @FischerKing64 wrote on X. "Markets will tumble. But when the storm passes and everyone realizes we are on sounder footing, there will be a rapid recovery to a healthier, sustainable economy," he added.  

"Sounds about right," Musk replied. 

The billionaire has been heavily campaigning for Trump in the final weeks of the campaign, including by hosting a potentially illegal cash-for-signatures scheme and million dollar raffle for registered voters in key swing states. The former president has, in turn, vowed that Musk will be appointed as the head of a "government efficiency commission" under his administration, and be tasked with slashing wasteful spending. 


They want to wreck the economy.  Now that's happened before.  Could it happen here?  Yeah, Donald gets back in the White House, then, yes, they will intentionally destroy the economy. 


Why?  Because it will panic the American people.  They hope it will subdue the American people.  That's what they did in Iraq.  That's what Naomi Klein's "Baghdad Year Zero" was all about.  

They want to wreck the economy.  And whether it's what was done in Iraq or what was done in Russia or anywhere, this destroys life for the average person.  And that's the plan -- it's intended to do that.  


He wants to be president in order to destroy our country.  We need to grasp that and grasp just how important this election is.









This is not minor and it's truly outrageous.  It goes to how deceptive liar Donald Trump truly is.  He's refused to make pubic this scheme because he knows voters would reject him -- even many of the MAGA faithful.  So he lies about it.  Sunday, at his hate rally, he teased a secret that he and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson planned to reveal after the election.  I bet Trump has a ton of secrets he plans to reveal after the election.  But in a democracy?  Those things are supposed to be made transparent ahead of the election.  


That's why your vote is so important and this election is so important.  Erich Pica (COMMON DREAMS) notes:


 Jill Stein and the Green Party may seem to be an obvious choice for environmental advocates, yet they have failed to demonstrate that they are a real national party or can build a real national party.

This election comes down to a choice between a catastrophic dictator and a livable future for our planet.

Out of more than 519,000 elected offices in the United States, the Green Party currently holds 142 offices, none of which are statewide or federal offices. Even in California and New York, where there is rank-choice balloting and fusion battling, the Green Party has failed to make headway in electing candidates. The mayor of Oakland, California remains the party’s greatest electoral victory. Clearly this is not a political party worthy of a national ballot.

In contrast, Vice President Kamala Harris is a strong candidate with a climate record. As California attorney general, Kamala Harris stood up to corporate polluters and worked to further environmental justice. In California she vigorously defended multiple state-level consumer, public health, and animal welfare laws. And as vice president, she cast the deciding vote to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, one of the most important federal climate actions to date.

This election comes down to a choice between a catastrophic dictator and a livable future for our planet. Trump did irreparable damage under his first administration, handing favors to Big Oil billionaires and rolling back over 100 environmental rules and protections. Trump has repeatedly proven his presidential bid is solely for selfish gain, and that he will always put his own interests and his rich buddies above the American people.

If you deeply care about the fight for a more healthy and just planet, and if you deeply care about building power, then I believe—regardless of our policy disagreements with Vice President Harris—that we must support her in this election. Third-party candidates threaten to take votes away from Harris by painting themselves as an alternative to Democrats, but they will only spoil votes in Trump’s favor. I urge those who care about climate, democracy, and social justice to reject the Stein smokescreen and instead support Vice President Harris for President of the United States. Vote like the future of our planet depends on it, because it does. 



Sunday's hate rally has been followed by more troubling issues for Trump.  James Bickerton (NEWSWEEK) reports that 



"Pockets" of the crowd who attended Donald Trump's rally at Georgia Tech's McCamish Pavilion on Monday left as the former president was delivering his address, according to a local journalist.

Footage posted on X (formerly Twitter) by Greg Bluestein, a reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, showed significant numbers of empty seats early in Trump's speech at the 8,600-capacity venue, with an entire top tier appearing nearly empty. Bluestein later posted a longer video at roughly the "hour-mark" of Trump's address, which showed the number of attendees in some seating sections had further thinned out.

Georgia, which Trump won in 2016 but lost to President Joe Biden in 2020, is one of the key swing states that may end up determining the 2024 presidential election. Recent polling indicates the race remains razor tight, with an analysis of recent surveys published on Monday by election website FiveThirtyEight giving Trump a 54 percent chance of victory, against 46 percent for Harris.

On Monday, around 40 minutes into Trump's Georgia address, Bluestein shared an 11-second video from the arena showing substantial clusters of empty seats. He wrote: "Pockets of the crowd at Georgia Tech's McCamish Pavilion start to leave as Donald Trump's speech continues."


Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Trick or Treason" went up last night.  The following sites updated:


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