Speaker Mike Johnson walks back comments that GOP would ‘probably’ try to repeal CHIPS Act Annie Grayer and Gregory Krieg, CNN Sat, November 2, 2024 at 12:03 AM EDT·3 min read 1.5k
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson talks to reporters following vote on a stopgap government funding bill at the Capitol on September 25, 2024, in Washington, DC. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images) House Speaker Mike Johnson might have put a significant dent in the reelection hopes of one of the GOP’s most vulnerable congressional incumbents on Friday and later backtracked comments where he said he would consider repealing the CHIPS Act.
Earlier in the day at a campaign stop in Syracuse, New York, Johnson had told reporters that Republicans “probably will” try to repeal the semiconductor chip manufacturing package if they control Congress and former President Donald Trump wins the White House. The legislation is poised to bring a $100 billion microchip manufacturing center to the area where Johnson was campaigning with GOP Rep. Brandon Williams.
“As I have further explained and clarified, I fully support Micron coming to Central NY, and the CHIPS Act is not on the agenda for repeal,” Johnson lat er said in a statement. “To the contrary, there could be legislation to further streamline and improve the primary purpose of the bill—to eliminate its costly regulations and Green New Deal requirements.”
At the campaign event, Williams – who is facing a tough challenge from Democratic state Sen. John Mannion – had stepped in to say he would “remind (Johnson) night and day how important the CHIPS Act is” as Micron prepares to break ground on a plant in New York.
Williams said in a statement later Friday that he “spoke privately with the Speaker immediately after the event. He apologized profusely, saying he misheard the question.”
The CHIPS and Science Act was passed in 2022 and will invest more than $200 billion over a five-year period to help the US regain a leading position in semiconductor chip manufacturing. The new funding was intended to help companies bring chip manufacturing back to the US and, as a result, help lower costs and prevent supply chain disruptions.
Earlier Friday, Johnson was asked by a reporter from Citrus TV News, “The former president has said that he doesn’t support the CHIPS and Sciences Act. You voted against it. If you have a Republican majority in Congress and Trump in the White House, will you guys try to repeal that law?”
“I expect that we probably will, but we haven’t developed that part of the agenda yet,” Johnson said. “We’ve got to get over the election first and that’s why we’re so happy to be in New York’s 22nd. Brandon Williams is one of the most important races in the country and that’s why Democrats are spending millions and millions and millions of dollars to try to unseat him.”
After Williams defended the CHIPS Act, which he described as “hugely impactful here,” Johnson then said, “When you have an issue where consensus is necessary to be built, ‘cause different states have different perspectives on these things, you have to have somebody who is a strong advocate for that legislation. People listen to Brandon Williams. If that is an important thing for your district, you need this guy there to make that case.”
Johnson later said his objection to the CHIPS Act was related to other programs that were included in the bill. “We’re going to support chip manufacturing, we do not support the Green New Deal. When you separate those two things, that makes it a whole lot simpler,” he said.
Democrats immediately pounced on the gaffe. The “Kamala HQ” account on X posted video of the exchange, and Mannion commented, “Trump wants to dismantle, Johnson is in lock-step, Williams calls it corporate welfare.”
“In Congress, I’ll defend CHIPS and Science and keep the investments coming home to (Central New York) and the Mohawk Valley,” Mannion wrote.
Williams was not yet in Congress when the bill passed but criticized it on the campaign trail in 2022.
For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
I might have the numbers a little skewed,, but if the Chips act is repelled, that would be about 112,000 jobs will be lost and the we won't manufacture chips in America.
#GMSTRONG
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” Daniel Patrick Moynahan
"Alternative facts hurt us all. Think before you blindly believe." Damanshot
Donald Trump Plans to Hire This Project 2025 Author to ‘Regain Control’ of Border BORDER CZAR The former president said Tom Homan, who was connected to the controversial family separation policy at the border, is all lined up if Trump wins another term.
Freelance writer
Published Oct. 9 2024 1:09PM EDT
GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump plans to recruit Project 2025 author Tom Homan if he wins a second term in the White House. Trump brought up Homan’s name when he was asked about his immigration plans during a Tuesday interview on California’s KFI radio station, reported Newsweek. “You’ve seen Tom,” Trump told host Josh Kobylt. “He’s coming on board.” Homan was previously Trump’s acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from 2017 to 2018–specifically connected to the family separation policy. Homan was also listed as an author on a Project 2025 policy document that proposes the mass detention and deportation of undocumented and illegal immigrants to “regain control of the border.” During a conversation with the Conservative Political Action Conference last year, Homan reportedly said he was “sick and tired” of hearing about family separation. “I’m still being sued over that.” He added, “I don’t give a s--t, right? Bottom line is, we enforced the law.” Trump’s camp told Newsweek that he has not endorsed Project 2025.
RFK Jr. says a Trump White House would immediately push to remove fluoride from water Megan Lebowitz and Erika Edwards and Jason Kane and Erin McLaughlin Updated Sun, November 3, 2024 at 8:27 AM EST·4 min read 3.8k
WASHINGTON — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Saturday that a Trump administration would, on its first day, “advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water.”
Kennedy linked fluoride to various illnesses, despite major medical associations supporting water fluoridation, which they say is safe and a benefit to public health.
“President @realDonaldTrump and First Lady @MELANIATRUMP want to Make America Healthy Again,” the former Democratic presidential hopeful wrote in a post to X, tagging Michael Connett, an attorney who has led litigation that opposes the fluoridation of public drinking water.
Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic who has a history of pushing conspiracy theories, is primed to play a key role in a future Trump administration’s health policy. Since dropping out of the presidential race and endorsing Trump, Kennedy has frequently appeared on the campaign stumping for the former president, and Trump said at a rally this week that if he is elected, Kennedy is “going to work on health and women’s health.”
Trump has embraced Kennedy. At an event in Arizona earlier this week, the former president said that Kennedy “can do anything he wants” in a potential Trump administration.
“He really wants to with the pesticides and the, you know, all the different things. I said, ‘He can do it. He can do anything he wants.’ He wants to look at the vaccines. He wants — everything. I think it’s great. I think it’s great,” Trump said.
In late October, Trump said that having Kennedy as an ally “is such a great honor.”
“I’m going to let him go wild on health. I'm going to let him go wild on the food. I'm going to let him go wild on medicines,” Trump said at that event.
Kennedy, a former independent presidential candidate, has touted widely debunked theories linking vaccines and autism. He also previously said that he would support a national ban on abortion after three months of pregnancy, before quickly walking back his comments.
When reached for comment on Kennedy’s proposal, Trump campaign senior adviser Danielle Alvarez did not commit to backing the plan.
“While President Trump has received a variety of policy ideas, he is focused on Tuesday’s election,” Alvarez said in a statement.
Major public health groups such as the American Dental Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention support water fluoridation, citing studies showing that the mineral helps fight cavities. Health groups also emphasize that the practice is safe.
“Water fluoridation is an equitable and inexpensive way to ensure that prevention of dental disease reaches everyone in a community,” the American Academy of Pediatrics’ website says.
The academy’s Campaign for Dental Health also says on its website that “there is no scientifically valid evidence to show that fluoride causes cancer, kidney disease, or other disorders.”
Fluoride helps make teeth “stronger and more resistant to decay,” according to the CDC’s website, and drinking fluoridated water “reduces cavities by about 25% in children and adults.”
“Documented risks of community water fluoridation are limited to dental fluorosis, a change in dental enamel that is cosmetic in its most common form. Changes range from barely visible lacy white markings in milder cases to pitting of the teeth in the rare, severe form,” the CDC’s website says, noting that most dental fluorosis seen in the U.S. today is “of the mildest form.”
Similarly, the American Dental Association says on its website that water fluoridation is “safe and effective.”
“Throughout more than 70 years of research and practical experience, the overwhelming weight of credible scientific evidence has consistently indicated that fluoridation of community water supplies is safe,” says a fact sheet on the association’s website.
Water fluoridation is not ubiquitous, and the CDC does not mandate fluoridation programs. Some cities have worked to end public water fluoridation programs as groups argue that it should be up to them to decide whether they want fluoride in public water supplies.
I might have the numbers a little skewed,, but if the Chips act is repelled, that would be about 112,000 jobs will be lost and the we won't manufacture chips in America.
Does that include construction jobs or just the permanent jobs. I have been in construction for a long time and I never seen the need for workers like I see now between the area of New Albany and Dayton-There is so much work going on-And we are just getting started building plants in this country again.
And the 100 billion chip plant that Micron is going to build in Clay, New York is going to need 50,000 workers.
Here is a snippet from an article in The Economist
A baseline estimate from the Semiconductor Industry Association, a trade body, is that by 2030 America’s chip sector will face a shortage of 67,000 technicians, computer scientists and engineers, and about 1.4m such workers throughout the wider economy. Set this against the total of roughly 70,000 students who complete undergraduate degrees in engineering in America each year, and the scale of the deficit becomes apparent. Whatever the precise gap, it marks the difference between foundries running at full capacity with labour bills under control, or ending up mired in high costs and low productivity.
As a felon, Donald Trump can no longer travel to 38 countries
Citing the World Population Review, Newsweek reported that G7 nations Canada, the United Kingdom, and Japan have policies restricting entry to people with felony convictions.
Israel and China also enforced similar bans, and these rules can result in the denial of visas or entry permits to convicted felons, possibly impacting the Republican presidential frontrunner’s ability to travel internationally, according to Newsweek.
Based on data from the World Population Review, the following countries won’t allow convicted felons to enter. And there are some countries that don’t actively check criminal records at the border, but can deny entry if it’s determined that the individual is a convicted felon.
Here’s a full list of those countries with both criteria.
What countries don’t allow convicted felons to enter?
Argentina Australia Canada China Cuba India Iran Israel Japan Kenya Macau New Zealand South Africa Taiwan United Kingdom United States
Based on data from the World Population Review, the following countries won’t allow convicted felons to enter. And there are some countries that don’t actively check criminal records at the border, but can deny entry if it’s determined that the individual is a convicted felon.
Here’s a full list of those countries with both criteria.
What countries don’t allow convicted felons to enter?
Argentina Australia Canada China Cuba India Iran Israel Japan Kenya Macau New Zealand South Africa Taiwan United Kingdom United States
Trump was convicted of 34 felony charges in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex.
The hush money trial and subsequent conviction mark the first time a former U.S. president has ever been tried or convicted in a criminal cases.
He still faces three other felony indictments, but the New York case was the first to reach trial and likely the only one ahead of the November election.
It's not clear if his diplomatic status as president, should he be re-elected, would supersede the laws of any of the nations listed above.
How Donald Trump is laying the groundwork to dispute the election results – again
Donald Trump is re-using his 2020 playbook to baselessly claim the 2024 election is being stolen from him and is being joined by allies with big megaphones amplifying his falsehoods ahead of Election Day.
Trump has made repeated false claims that Democrats are cheating in the election, and he’s twisted isolated problems with voting leading up to Election Day, all in an effort to prime his supporters to falsely believe the election is not legitimate if he loses.
This includes saying voting by noncitizens is a widespread problem. He’s claimed there’s no verification for overseas or military ballots. He’s claimed election officials are using early voting to commit fraud. He’s claimed that massive swaths of mail-in ballots are illegitimate, even as he’s encouraged his supporters to use mail voting this time around.
Most importantly, Trump has claimed that the only way Vice President Kamala Harris can win the election is by cheating.
The claims are baseless.
“It’s unfortunate that he sees his path back to the White House as denigrating a basic American institution like elections,” said Ben Ginsberg, a CNN contributor and Republican campaign attorney who has served as general counsel for several previous GOP nominees. “If you’re just starting to pay attention to this, the claims that you’re hearing in 2024 about the election system not being reliable is extraordinarily similar to what he and his supporters were saying in 2020.”
In 2020, Trump lost a close election, and then spent two months trying to overturn the result. In 2024, with polls signaling a razor-thin election in seven battleground states, election officials are bracing for another firehose of misinformation about the result – especially if the election hinges on the results of hundreds of ballots in one or two states.
Election experts say that despite the viral and hyperbolic claims, the vast majority of voters will almost assuredly experience a swift and uneventful experience whenever they vote, whether it’s through early voting, vote-by-mail or on Election Day.
As early voting has gotten underway, many local and state officials are showing they intend to proactively knock down falsehoods about the election that spread like wildfire on social media.
Voter fraud is rare, but when it does happen, it is usually caught thanks to the layers of safeguards built into voting processes, according to nonpartisan election experts.
“It’s really useful to remind people in this time of heightened anxiety, all the way around, that they’re still in charge (to decide the election outcome),” said Justin Levitt, a CNN contributor and election law expert at Loyola Law School who served as a voting rights adviser in the Biden White House.
“There’s a ton of noise out there right now. If this election is more than a 537-vote margin in any of the swing states, none of the noise will matter,” Levitt added, referencing the margin in Florida during the disputed 2000 presidential election.
Still, that hasn’t always stopped conspiracy theories from spreading on social media – including from Elon Musk, the CEO of X, who has poured tens of millions of dollars into boosting Trump’s campaign. Election officials warn they’re outmatched and struggling to combat the wave of falsehoods coming from Musk and his platform.
An intense focus on Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania could be the state where the 2024 campaign is decided, and it’s become ground zero for both legal fights over voting rules – and the spread of misinformation.
Trump has already claimed without evidence that his opponents are cheating in the state, both on his social media and at campaign rallies. At a Tuesday rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Trump claimed that the discovery of hundreds of suspected fraudulent voter registration applications in Lancaster County was evidence of cheating.
Lancaster election officials and the county district attorney announced last week they received a batch of suspected fraudulent voter registration applications, which had similar handwriting, incorrect information and other problems.
But that is hardly evidence of cheating – and in fact it shows the system worked to flag the applications, thanks to the checks in place to verify voters’ personal information and signatures before any ballots are cast, said Kathy Boockvar, a former Pennsylvania secretary of state.
“All these safeguards make sure that this doesn’t impact voting,” said Boockvar, a Democrat who is now president of Athena Strategies. “What it doesn’t do is it doesn’t actually make it any more likely that there’s going to be any more improper votes, thanks to all those guardrails in place.”
Because the state’s presidential election is so contested, it’s become a tinderbox for claims of fraud to spread like wildfire.
Last month, a conservative activist claimed voter fraud on X, in a post that quickly went viral, because 53 voters were registered at the same address, a Catholic church in Erie County. But it wasn’t voter fraud at all – there are 55 nuns of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie who live there.
Pennsylvania has also been the site of furious pre-election litigation, including over the rules about what mail-in ballots can be counted and how early voting is administered. Trump’s campaign and Republicans successfully sued to have Bucks County extend on-demand mail over complaints that voters had been turned away.
Elon Musk’s misinformation machine
Election experts say that misinformation surrounding a presidential election is nothing new. But what’s changed is the volume of viral claims that they’re trying desperately to keep up with.
Musk’s 2022 acquisition of X, formerly known as Twitter, has only added fuel to the fire, as he has pushed out numerous conspiracies to his 200 million followers on the site, as well as at town halls to support Trump’s candidacy.
Social media has been used in past elections to fuel conspiracies, including by foreign actors in 2016. But X and other social media companies have pivoted away from efforts to combat falsehoods spread on their sites.
Musk’s tactics have pushed election officials to go so far as to try – unsuccessfully – to personally convince him to stop spreading baseless claims that could mislead voters.
In Michigan this past week, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson tried to push back on a claim Musk shared about registered voters in Michigan, accusing him of “spreading dangerous disinformation.” Musk responded that Benson was “blatantly lying to the public.”
Musk was latching onto claims alleging there were more ballots cast in Michigan’s early voters than there were identified voters, which the secretary of state’s office said was due to a data “formatting error” that was corrected.
While Lara Trump, the co-chair of the Republican National Committee, posted on X that her team had confirmed this issue was due to a glitch, that didn’t stop others in the conservative media ecosystem from continuing to amplify claims of fraud – refusing to back down from claims of a larger conspiracy.
CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, after spending 24 hours consuming pro-Trump media, reported the pro-Trump outlets are telling their viewers there’s no way the former president can lose, if the election is fair.
Election officials are trying to take a more proactive approach to false claims in their states and municipalities to knock them down quickly – like a false claim in Texas of a man claiming a voting machine had switched his vote.
But that’s often an uphill battle.
“The effect of all this election mis- and dis-information is when you survey people, they don’t believe anything they read online about elections, and that’s a problem when there are really great election officials trying to get information into the hands of voters,” said Ruth Greenwood, director of the election law clinic at Harvard Law School.
Manipulating early voting numbers
In 2020, Trump attacked early voting and mail-in voting, claiming they were used to cheat. His supporters, in response, largely voted on Election Day.
This time, Trump and the RNC have made a big push to use early and mail voting, even as Trump has continued to attack them.
As of five days before Election Day, more than 61 million Americans have already cast their ballots through either mail or early in-person voting. Both Democrats and Republicans have looked for positive signs for their side based on publicly available analysis of data that states report – and partisans have made sweeping predictions from the totals.
Voting and election modeling experts say that trying to game out election results based on early voting data is not statistically sound, because there are gaps in the data and the data only describes people who vote ahead of Election Day, not who they voted for or the intentions of tens of millions who will go to the polls on Tuesday.
The questionable claims about early voting data have stoked fears that the early voting numbers will be one thing that Trump and his allies use to question the election results should Harris prevail. There are also concerns that Trump is preparing to declare victory prematurely – just as he did early in the early morning hours after Election Day in 2020, before anyone had called the race.
Trump claimed he had won because he was ahead, ignoring the fact that the in-person votes, which tended to be more Republican-leaning, had been counted ahead of mail-in ballots, which leaned more Democratic.
While Republicans have embraced mail voting this year and there’s no pandemic pushing millions to vote that way, a similar phenomenon could still happen this election.
“If the trend from recent past elections continues, if Democrats are more likely to use vote-by-mail or absentee ballots and those ballots take longer to cast, then you’re going to see results shifting from Republican candidates being ahead to Democratic candidates pulling closer to them and potentially even surpassing them,” said Michael Morley, an election law professor at Florida State University College of Law. “Not because of fraud or something underhanded or nefarious going on, but because more ballots are being counted.”
Baseless claims of rampant non-citizen voting
Trump and his Republican allies have ramped up litigation as well as their rhetoric ahead of Election Day over the threat of noncitizens voting – and Trump in particular has claimed without evidence that Democrats are trying to allow non-citizens to vote.
“Our elections are bad, and a lot of these illegal immigrants coming in, they’re trying to get them to vote,” Trump said at the September presidential debate. “They can’t even speak English. They don’t even know what country they’re in practically. And these people are trying to get them to vote.”
Republicans have sought ahead of the election to purge voter rolls of suspected noncitizens. The Supreme Court sided with Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin on Wednesday, allowing the state to continue with a program that state officials say is aimed at removing suspected noncitizens from the voter rolls.
Voting rights groups have pointed to evidence that Virginia’s voter purge effort also caught up citizens who are eligible to vote.
The Justice Department also sued Alabama this fall over the state’s effort to remove more than 3,000 names from its voter rolls, arguing it violated federal law against such an action taking place too close to an election.
Experts say illegal voting by non-citizens is extremely rare, and when it does happen, it is usually caught quickly. A recent Georgia audit of the 8.2 million people on its rolls found just 20 registered noncitizens – only nine of whom had voted.
And Michigan earlier this week charged a Chinese citizen with voter fraud and perjury after he allegedly cast a ballot for the 2024 election, which experts say shows how rare instances of illicit voting are uncovered.
The focus on noncitizen voting has led to false allegations against Americans, too. In Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County, election officials issued a statement Wednesday debunking a viral video alleging non-citizens cut the line and were allowed to vote at an early voting site. In fact, the video showed a group of registered voters who needed the assistance of translators, according to a county spokesperson.
Republican litigation has also targeted overseas ballots cast by Americans living abroad and military service members. Trump falsely claimed that Democrats were trying to cheat with overseas ballots.
“The Democrats are talking about how they’re working so hard to get millions of votes from Americans living overseas. Actually, they are getting ready to CHEAT!” he wrote on Truth Social in September.
But courts in multiple jurisdictions have rejected Republican challenges to the procedures for vetting overseas ballots and to set aside ballots for additional checks of voters’ eligibility.
Fears of another attempt to challenge the result
Since the chaos in the aftermath of the 2020 election, officials have spent the past four years preparing both for increased threats of violence and efforts to block the certification of a legitimate election result.
Election officials have been inundated with threats of violence since the 2020 election. They’ve responded in 2024 by stepping up efforts to protect polling places and their workers on Election Day, including with bulletproof glass, wearable panic buttons and open lines of communication with local law enforcement.
Last month, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security warned that “election-related grievances” could motivate domestic extremists to engage in violence before and after the November election.
Ballots and drop boxes have been targeted already. Authorities are investigating fires at ballot boxes in Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington, where hundreds of ballots were destroyed or damaged.
Once all the votes are cast, election officials and experts are preparing to try to stop a repeat of the 2020 election, where Trump sought out multiple avenues to try to overturn his election loss, culminating in his supporters rioting at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Election officials and experts say they hope to avoid a repeat of 2020, where if Trump loses the election, he and his allies make baseless claims that the other side cheated and the result is illegitimate.
There have been steps taken to blunt any attempt to of a 2020 repeat: Congress, for instance, updated the Electoral Count Act, the law that governs the January 6 congressional certification of the presidential election, in an attempt to make it harder to block certification.
But Trump and his allies have been laying the groundwork to try to dispute the election should he lose.
The “Stop the Steal” movement has already reemerged before Election Day, and many of those activists have been telling their supporters that the only way Trump can lose in 2024 is through fraud.
In Georgia, conservatives sought to allow county election officials to refuse to certify the election results, though the effort was blocked by a state judge.
Another Trump ally, Maryland GOP Rep. Andy Harris, suggested last week that North Carolina’s GOP-controlled state legislature could award the state’s electoral votes to Trump before votes are even counted, arguing there was possible disenfranchisement of voters in western North Carolina due to complications from Hurricane Helene.
If Trump believes there is systemic fraud in the election, he will have the opportunity to prove it in the courts, just as he did after the 2020 election.
Ginsberg, the GOP election attorney, noted that the Republican National Committee’s plans for 200,000 poll watchers means the Trump campaign should be able to provide evidence to back up any alleged fraud claims.
“That means they ought to have hard evidence of anything that’s amiss,” he said. “And if they can’t produce hard evidence, then that should be a pretty clear indication that it once again is rhetorical smoke and not evidence.”
If he wins he claims it must be fair. If he loses he claims the other side cheated. aka..... The "heads I win tails you lose" theory of trumpians everywhere.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
This is verbatim from trump's closing message yesterday in crucial North Carolina:
"When I say insane asylums, and then I say, Doctor Hannibal Lecter, does anybody know? They go crazy they say, oh, he brings up these names out of - well, that's genius, right, Doctor Hannibal Lecter. There's nobody worse than him. Silence of the Lambs. Who the hell else would even remember that? I have a great memory but they always hit me. I don't bring it up too much because they have to take such a - he brought up Hannibal Lecter. What does that have to do with this? What is it? It has everything to do with it, right? He was - that’s who we are allowing into our country and we can’t allow it in our country. So I've done something for you for you that I haven't done in 20 speeches, I brought up Doctor Hannibal Lecter and we're allowing him, you watch, you watch these fake people will say again, he brought up Hannibal Lecter has absolutely nothing to do. You know I do the weave, right, the weave it’s genius. You bring up Hannibal Lecter, you mention insane asylum. Hannibal Lecter. You go out, now there'll be a time in life where the weave won't finish properly at the bottom and then we can talk. But right now it's pure genius hey, I have an uncle, my uncle, Uncle John, my father's brother, 41 years at MIT longest serving professor has so many degrees he didn't know what the hell to do with them all in the most complicated, I understand a lot of this stuff, you know, I believe in that. Like, I mean, Jack Nicklaus is not gonna produce a bad golfer. Right you know, that's the way it works it's just one of those things and it's in the family and it's whatever.”
Freedumb!
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
The disinformation and deflection from some of the Trump supporters is getting hard to wade through.
Instead - factually here's a list of just some of the former Trump asociates, his government, and people who have worked closest with him who have either said they can't/won't be voting for Trump or in some/many cases have stated he's unfit for office and a danger to the US - I guess I should Vance to this list since Vance who called him reprehensible and compared him to Hitler (in 2016):
Alyssa Farah Griffin Bill Barr Anthony Scaramucci Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster John Kelley Sarah Matthews Mick Mulvaney Vice President Mike Pence former Defense Secretary Mark Esper General Miller Cassidy Hutchinson John Bolton Jenna Ellis Joe Walsh Chris Christie Nick Hailey (like Vance she has since come back into the fold for self interest reasons - but her criticism of Trump was real) Rex Tillerson
Guess we can add Michael Cohen to the list too.
And here with a verbatum quote - is what Defense Secretary Jim Mattis wrote about Trump:
Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.
We can come through this trying time stronger, and with a renewed sense of purpose and respect for one another. The pandemic has shown us that it is not only our troops who are willing to offer the ultimate sacrifice for the safety of the community. Americans in hospitals, grocery stores, post offices, and elsewhere have put their lives on the line in order to serve their fellow citizens and their country. We know that we are better than the abuse of executive authority that we witnessed in Lafayette Square. We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution. At the same time, we must remember Lincoln's "better angels," and listen to them, as we work to unite.
Only by adopting a new path — which means, in truth, returning to the original path of our founding ideals — will we again be a country admired and respected at home and abroad.
This is a slam dunk as far as I am concerned - or it should be. I do expect Trump to win tomorrow unless some of the data about the ratio of women among the early voters and other data that some on here hve shared turns out to mean something - and if he doesn't win I expect him not to accept the results of yet another fair election. Same old Don the Con.
** Feel free to add more names to this list !
Last edited by mgh888; 11/04/2402:17 PM.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
And then there is Marine General and former trump White House chief of Staff John Kelly. I know his anme was on your list but his comments are very telling......
“He commented more than once that, you know, that Hitler did some good things, too,” Kelly said. He also told the New York Times that Trump meets "the general definition of a fascist."
“Certainly the former president is in the far-right area, he’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators — he has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure,"
And then to support Kelly's statement......
Former Trump officials offer support for John Kelly after ‘fascist’ remark
More than a dozen former Trump administration officials signed on to an open letter backing comments from former White House chief of staff John Kelly in which he said former President Trump met the definition of a fascist and expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler.
“The revelations General Kelly brought forward are disturbing and shocking,” the officials wrote. “But because we know Trump and have worked for and alongside him, we were sadly not surprised by what General Kelly had to say. This is who Donald Trump is.”
The letter was signed by several prominent critics of Trump, including some who have publicly endorsed Vice President Harris in the 2024 election. It echoed many of the themes the Harris campaign has warned about in the closing stretch of the election, including that Trump wants “unchecked power” and that he would have fewer guardrails in a second term.
“Everyone should heed General Kelly’s warning. We have witnessed, up close and personal, how Donald Trump operates and what he is capable of,” the former officials wrote.
“The American people deserve a leader who won’t threaten to turn armed troops against them, won’t put his quest for power above their needs, and doesn’t idealize the likes of Adolf Hitler,” they continued. “Donald Trump demonstrates every day he is not capable of being commander in chief of this great nation.”
The signatories include former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, former White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin, former deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews, former communications director Anthony Scaramucci and former national security aide Olivia Troye.
Kelly, a retired four-star general, served as Trump’s chief of staff for roughly 16 months and has been quoted in previous stories about Trump disparaging military veterans. The New York Times on Tuesday published an interview in which Kelly said Trump met the definition of a fascist, preferred to rule like a dictator and recalled the former president expressing admiration for Hitler.
Harris said at a CNN town hall she agreed with Kelly’s assessment that Trump is a fascist.
Kelly’s comments came after Trump on multiple occasions described his critics as “the enemy within,” and suggested the military could be used to quell domestic unrest.
Trump has subsequently bashed Kelly as a “lowlife” and a “degenerate,” and his campaign has said the former top White House official “beclowned himself with these debunked stories.”
The former president has more broadly dismissed the criticism of numerous former staffers, including some Cabinet officials, arguing it is a case of disgruntled former employees.
You know how this all works. It's never trump's fault. He just lies about it. It's always somebody else. So now trump slams a four star marine general and claims it's he who is lying.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
Then there is this. So even though he lost the election he "never should have left" and then they claim that a political coup was not his objective. And you know, he was just joking about the fake news. I'm sure everyone can see the humor in it....
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
Former President Trump said he would “make a decision” regarding banning certain vaccines if he wins the White House on Tuesday and former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy is a part of his administration.
In an interview with NBC’s Dasha Burns on Sunday, Trump didn’t rule out the possibility of banning a vaccine, though he also provided no specifics in discussing Kennedy’s potential role on health policy matters in his administration.
Kennedy, a prominent skeptic of vaccines, has suggested in the past that some vaccines could be taken off the market.
“Well, I’m going to talk to him and talk to other people, and I’ll make a decision, but he’s a very talented guy and has strong views,” Trump said when asked whether banning certain vaccines could be a possibility under his administration.
Kennedy is the founder of an anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense and has argued the 13 separate agencies under HHS, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health, are in desperate need of reform.
Kennedy endorsed Trump in August after running as an independent candidate.
In a Saturday post on the social platform X, Kennedy wrote that if Trump wins the election, the first day in office his administration would “advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water.”
Then there is this. So even though he lost the election he "never should have left" and then they claim that a political coup was not his objective. And you know, he was just joking about the fake news. I'm sure everyone can see the humor in it....
You see this is where I think the message is lost - I don't care what Trump alludes to or says carelessly in his speech to a Trump loving crowd. Even the microphone gaff - who cares. Sure - it's one more nail in the "He's dispicable" coffin. But that's a known. It's a given. He says whack things all the time whether it's about Kim Jung Un - Bleach - Covid disappearing - microphones - hell even the sexual abuse and p***y grabbing.... it's all one and the same. In fact I believe it's something of a Trump tactic to spew garbage so the media spins it's wheels talking about one more new bit of crappolla ...
What I think are differentiators and worth paying attention to? A military General saying Trump is a danger to Democracy in the USA. Pence and Barr saying similar themed things - essentially he's not fit for office. That's worth paying attention to.
His mental health and ability to be coherent for more than a 20 second sound bite. That's worth paying attention to.
His convictions are worth paying attention to as is the evidence in the trials that have been delayed by his run for office.
Not having a go at you per-se ... just venting in general. We get the government we deserve because generally people are ignorant and lazy and apathetice when it comes to politics, policies, details and paying attention. (Both sides). But the MSM makes it worse - makes it easer for clown shows to deflect and start debating exact quotes and context and schtick .... What matters? Whether Trump actually said "inject bl;each" - or whether dozens of his closest former staff and government say he's unfit for office? And what gets all the attention?
The more things change the more they stay the same.
How can you "hire the BEST", then when they work with you/ see who you are, and state you're unfit to serve- how can things change so drastically and folks who support him don't care.
Lastly, he's just the answer to Presidential- fleeces the government- Secret Service HAD to stay at his golf resorts at inflated prices, and he hawks everything- his water, booze, sneakers, coins, bibles, steaks, casinos, fraudulent Trump University, action figures...on and on....and on.....WOW, what a con man. He could be President again.....ONLY in America.
"You've never lived till you've almost died, life has a flavor the protected will never know" A vet or cop
i swear to god, the lack of male turnout better change quick or people are gonna crash out on us. all this yapping guys do only for us not to show up at the polls.
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
Unless there is some kind of monkey business going on, all indications are Trump is going down. The right has been publishing phony polls for a while. phony polls can’t change real votes.
Florida Trump Supporter Arrested After Allegedly Punching Woman at Harris Rally
A 17-year-old supporter of former President Donald Trump has been charged with battery after a 70-year-old woman was allegedly punched to the ground Saturday during a rally for Vice President Kamala Harris in Florida.
The teenager, wearing a Trump T-shirt, allegedly hit Kathleen Tomasko in the stomach, knocking her to the floor and leaving her with hip pain.
Tomasko, a longtime participant in political events, recounted that the blow caught her entirely off guard, telling local news website TCPalm: "I'm standing there, and people are moving. This kid just turned around and punched me. I don't know where he came from."
The alleged attacker's T-shirt featured an image of Trump raising his middle finger in front of an American flag, said TCPalm, and the teenager had been antagonizing people at the Stuart County rally with some friends, according to Tomasko.
"There were these four boys that were, you know, Trumpers, and it's a Harris rally," she said. "They were going back and forth and antagonizing people."
Tomasko was attending the event, organized in conjunction with the nationwide Women's March, on the Roosevelt Bridge in Martin County, Florida, and the rally was backing both Harris and Amendment 4, a Florida ballot measure proposing abortion rights protections in the state constitution.
Stuart Police Department spokesperson Brian Bossio confirmed that the teen was charged with battery on a person aged 65 or older, a felony under Florida law.
"Several people pointed out a male who was walking away from the area as someone who battered or struck a woman," Bossio told TCPalm, adding that he had detained the teen on-site following the incident.
The impact left Tomasko on the ground, and though she initially declined medical treatment, she later considered seeking care due to hip pain from the fall. The confrontation reportedly stemmed from an earlier verbal exchange between the 17-year-old and other rally-goers.
Bossio told Newsweek that the 17-year-old was arrested, processed and turned over to his parents.
Tomasko said that, despite her years of activism, she had never experienced an incident like this. She said that a friend from Massachusetts expressed disbelief, saying, "We've done rallies like this for how many years, and nothing like this ever happens."
This was not the only instance last week involving a Trump-supporting teenage male being violent to an elderly woman supporting Harris in Florida.
Last Wednesday, 18-year-old Caleb James Williams was arrested and charged with aggravated assault for brandishing a machete at two women, aged 71 and 54, who were campaigning for Harris in Neptune Beach, Florida.
Police said Williams was antagonizing the women with seven other teenage males who were waving Trump flags.
