Politics Without Trolls

The choices continued a pattern of Trump stocking his Cabinet with those he believes he can trust to execute his agenda rather than longtime officials with experience in their fields. Gaetz’s selection, in particular, was seen as a shock. The Florida lawmaker was not among the more established attorneys who had been mentioned as contenders for the job, and even his colleagues in Congress appeared stunned by the news.

“Everybody was saying, ‘Oh my God,’” said Republican Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho. “That was about as big a surprise as I’ve had in a long time.”

Kamala Harris said Thursday that Donald Trump’s comment that he would protect women whether they “like it or not” shows that the Republican presidential nominee does not understand women’s rights “to make decisions about their own lives, including their own bodies.”

“I think it’s offensive to everybody, by the way,” Harris said before she set out to spend the day campaigning in the Western battleground states of Arizona and Nevada.

The remarks by Trump come as he has struggled to connect with women voters and as Harris courts women in both parties with a message centered on freedom. She’s making the pitch that women should be free to make their own decisions about their bodies and that if Trump is elected, more restrictions will follow.

Trump appointed three of the justices to the U.S. Supreme Court who formed the conservative majority that overturned federal abortion rights. As the fallout from the 2022 decision spreads, he has taken to claiming at public events and in social media posts that he would “protect women” and make sure they wouldn’t be “thinking about abortion.”

At a rally Wednesday evening near Green Bay, Wisconsin, Trump told his supporters that aides had urged him to stop using the phrase because it was “inappropriate.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21488000

Last time Donald Trump was president, Israel’s prime minister was so pleased, he named a community after him.

Trump Heights is an isolated cluster of pre-fabricated houses in the rocky, mine-strewn landscape of the Golan Heights, a soaring eagle-and-menorah statue guarding the entrance gate. Mauve mountain peaks jut into the azure sky at the horizon. This was Trump’s reward for upending half a century of US policy – and wide international consensus – by recognising Israel’s territorial claims to the Golan, captured from Syria in the 1967 war, and later unilaterally annexed.

The question for residents there – two dozen families and a few billeted soldiers – is what impact Republican candidate Trump or his Democratic rival Kamala Harris might have on Israel’s interests in the region now.

As America prepares to vote, the Israeli leader has not hidden his appreciation for the Republican candidate - and polls suggest he’s not alone. Around two-thirds of Israelis would prefer to see Trump back in the White House, according to recent surveys. Less than 20% appear to want Kamala Harris to win. According to one poll, that drops to just 1% among Mr Netanyahu’s own supporters.

Former President Donald Trump and his allies are seizing on routine election processes as signs of fraud in the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania, amplifying allegations, videos and litigation around purported voting irregularities even as local election officials push back.

The playbook is familiar: Like in 2020, Trump's campaign is spreading viral videos of supposed wrongdoing and promising its eager supporters a legal showdown, which experts fear could be used to contest the results of the election if he loses.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21462148

Kamala Harris called Wednesday for Americans to “stop pointing fingers at each other” as she tried to push past comments made by President Joe Biden about Donald Trump’s supporters and “garbage " and keep the focus on her Republican opponent in the closing days of the race.

“We know we have an opportunity in this election to turn the page on a decade of Donald Trump, who has been trying to keep us divided and afraid of each other,” the Democratic nominee said.

Harris was holding rallies in a trio of battleground states as part of a blitz in the closing week of the election, with stops Wednesday in Raleigh, North Carolina; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; and Madison, Wisconsin.

She stressed unity and common ground, expanding on her capstone speech Tuesday in Washington, where she laid out what her team called the “closing argument” of her campaign.

An actor known for his roles in the television comedies “Bob’s Burgers” and “Arrested Development” was sentenced on Monday to one year in prison for his part in a mob’s attack on the U.S. Capitol nearly four years ago.

Jay Johnston, 56, of Los Angeles, joined other rioters in a “heave ho” push against police officers guarding a tunnel entrance to the Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot. Johnston also cracked jokes and interacted with other rioters as he used a cellphone to record the violence around him, prosecutors said.

Johnston expressed regret that he “made it more difficult for the police to do their job” on Jan. 6. He said he never would have guessed that a riot would erupt that day.

“That was because of my own ignorance, I believe,” he told U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols. “If I had been more political, I could have seen that coming, perhaps.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21388144

Republican and Democratic leaders alike and Puerto Rican celebrities bashed comments made at a major Donald Trump event in New York by a comedian who called Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage."

Speaking before the Republican presidential candidate at a rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday night, comedian and podcast host Tony Hinchcliffe added that Latinos "love making babies" and that they do not "pull out," comments that leaned into a racist trope that Latinos are preoccupied with childbearing and averse to birth control.

"There's literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now," Hinchcliffe said. "I think it's called Puerto Rico."

The presidential campaign of Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, Democrats, several prominent Puerto Rican celebrities and some congressional Republicans denounced the comments, which were widely panned as racist.

Inside a small community theater in suburban Detroit, Vice President Kamala Harris was asked at a recent forum to talk about her life for the benefit of voters who are still getting to know her.

It was the type of question typically asked of a new candidate. But here was Harris getting it less than two weeks before the Nov. 5 election and after millions of people already had voted. Her response underscored perhaps the defining challenge of her campaign for the White House.

“How much time do we have?” Harris quipped. 

The fact is, not much.

Any candidate’s most valuable resource is time, and from the start, Harris has been historically constrained. The Democratic nominee has been running for only three months after Democratic President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, and Harris still is confronting voters who say they want to learn more about who she is or how she will govern.

Her public events have tended toward large rallieswhere crowds ride high on vibes and Harris delivers variations on her standard stump speech. In the past week or so, though, she has added events in more intimate settings, lower-key church services and black box theater sit-downs where the conversations can be more revealing.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21348424

Donald Trump took the stage Sunday night at New York’s Madison Square Garden to deliver his campaign’s closing argument with the election nine days away after several of his allies used crude and racist insults toward Vice President Kamala Harris and other critics of the former president.

The Republican nominee began by asking the same questions he’s asked at the start of every recent rally: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” The crowd responded with a resounding “No!”

“This election is a choice between whether we’ll have four more years of gross incompetence and failure, or whether we’ll begin the greatest years in the history of our country,” he said after being introduced by his wife, Melania Trump, whose rare surprise appearance comes after she has been largely absent on the campaign trail.

Several speakers earlier on Sunday crudely insulted Harris, who is vying to become the first woman and Black woman to win the presidency. And a stand-up comedian made lewd and racist comments about Latinos, Jews and Black people, all key constituencies in the election just nine days away.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21340475

Donald Trump sat down Friday with prominent podcast host Joe Rogan for a conversational interview that ran for nearly three hours — and the former president delivered his standard bombardment of false claims, at least 32 in all.

Many of those false claims are lies that were debunked months or even years ago. The claims spanned a variety of topics, including immigration policy, environmental and energy policy, the legitimacy of the 2020 election, Trump’s record in office, Vice President Kamala Harris, crowd sizes, and how schools deal with transgender children.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21340458

The world’s richest man promises big spending cuts if Trump gives him a job, says people “taking advantage of government are going to be upset”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21334173

With his third straight U.S. presidential campaign coming down to the wire, Donald Trump mused at a rally about hydrogen-powered cars exploding, lamented how difficult it is to get spray paint off limestone and marveled at how billionaire backer Elon Musk’s rocket had returned to Earth in one piece.

He complained Democratic rival Kamala Harris wasn’t working as hard as he was, praised Chinese President Xi Jinping as "fierce" and called former President Barack Obama "a real jerk."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21334235

Sometimes Donald Trump really is a G.O.A.T. — the “greatest of all time” — among American presidents, at least. Of course, “greatest” in this instance refers to quantity or bulk, not quality.

Greatest liar, given media tracking of unparalleled numbers of repeated lies and gross exaggerations (upwards of 30,000 during his presidency — and 40 during just one recent campaign rally in Reading, Pa.)

Greatest flyer above the law — from his infamous declaration “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?” to the Jan. 6, 2021 incitement of an insurrection against the American government, and his ensuing denials of any wrongdoing.

Greatest narcissist — as in “I alone can fix it”, with “it” encompassing the economy, the border, the well-being of women (“I will protect you”), the supposed “poisoning” of American “blood,” the war in Ukraine, and so on and so forth.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21304978

"Every vote for Dr. Jill Stein or Cornel West instead of Kamala Harris makes it more likely that Donald Trump will win," wrote a coalition of leading environmental groups.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21305028

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump‘s three-hour interview with America’s number one podcaster, Joe Rogan, has been released.

In the wide-ranging sit-down, the former president discusses everything from the “biggest mistake” of his White House tenure, what he told North Korea’s leader and whether extraterrestrial life exists.

Two years ago Rogan described Trump as “an existential threat to democracy” and refused to have him on his show. But the pair seemed friendly on Friday as they chatted about their shared interest in Ultimate Fighting Championship and mutual friends like Elon Musk.

The Republican’s campaign hopes the interview will consolidate his influence with male voters, who make up the core of listeners to the Joe Rogan Experience, which has 14.5 million Spotify followers and 17.5 million YouTube subscribers.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21289000

In early September 2020, wildfires tore through eastern Washington state, obliterating tens of millions of dollars of property, displacing hundreds of rural residents and killing a 1-year-old boy.

But then-President Donald Trump refused to act on Gov. Jay Inslee’s request for $37 million in federal disaster aid because of a bitter personal dispute with the Democratic governor, an investigation by POLITICO’s E&E News shows.

Trump sat on Inslee’s request for the final four months of his presidency, delaying recovery and leaving communities unsure about rebuilding because nobody knew if they would get federal help.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21289050

An inconvenient truth for Jill Stein, the Green Party protest candidate for president, is that there are only two candidates who can win the presidency on Nov. 5, and she isn’t one of them.

The other inconvenient truth for her and her avowed progressive supporters is that every protest vote from the left against Vice President Kamala Harris is a vote for former President Donald Trump.