#lies about haitian immigrants

[tomorrowusa]

Mover over Kristi Noem! It seems that Republicans enjoy killing dogs and even bragging about it.

Kevin Roberts heads the rightwing Heritage Foundation which is the home of Project 2025 – Trump's blueprint for imposing authoritarianism on the US.

At least GOP Gov. Kristi Noem assassinated her own dog. Project 2025's Kevin Roberts bludgeoned a neighbor's dog to death with a shovel.

The man behind Project 2025, the rightwing policy manifesto that includes calls for a sharp increase in immigrant deportations if Donald Trump is elected, told university colleagues about two decades ago that he had killed a neighborhood dog with a shovel because it was barking and disturbing his family, according toformer colleagues who spoke to the Guardian. Kevin Roberts, now the president of the Heritage Foundation, is alleged to have told colleagues and dinner guests that he killed a neighbor’s pit bull around 2004 while he was working as a still relatively unknown history professor at New Mexico State University. “My recollection of his account was that he was discussing in the hallway with various members of the faculty, including me, that a neighbor’s dog had been barking pretty relentlessly and was, you know, keeping the baby and probably the parents awake and that he kind of lost it and took a shovel and killed the dog. End of problem,” said Kenneth Hammond, who was chair of the university’s history department at the time. Two other people – a professor and her spouse - recall hearing a similar account directly from Roberts at a dinner at his home. Three other professors also said they heard the account at that time from the colleagues who said they had heard it directly from Roberts. None recall Roberts – who worked at the university as an assistant professor from 2003 to 2005 – ever saying that the dog he allegedly said he killed was actively threatening him or his family.

Roberts, a typical MAGA liar, denied the reports. But his comments to colleagues in New Mexico after the original incident left a lasting impression.

The people who say they heard Roberts talk about killing a dog at the time said they found the apparent admission to be unsettling and said they did not ask Roberts – who as a conservative Republican was already seen as something of an outsider among the university’s mostly liberal academic staff – to provide any more detail about the incident. “I think that probably people were not eager to engage with him over this. It sounded like a pretty crazy thing to do and people didn’t want to get into it at that point,” Hammond said.

We're all aware of how Donald Trump and his minion J.D. Vance are spreading lies about Haitian immigrants killing and eating pets. So far, there are no reports of Project 2025's Roberts eating the dog he killed.

[sapphic-saionji]

Sometimes I do think it's funny that despite being born a legal US Citizen, I am more pro-immigration than my grandparents are, both of whom immigrated here.

[wilwheaton]

The two programs under which Haitians fleeing some of the worst political chaos and gang violence in the Western Hemisphere have been OK’d by the Biden administration to remain in the United States as protected refugees are perfectly legal, and if Vance thinks otherwise he should challenge the rulings in court, not by demagoguing it on the campaign trail. There’s considerable evidence that the 20,000 figure that Vance and other right-wingers have claimed is the number of Haitians who’ve moved to Springfield during the President Joe Biden years is a big exaggeration. And even local Republican politicians are calling out Vance’s lies, including a heartfelt essay by GOP Gov. Mike DeWine, who’s from the Springfield area. [...] Three days after the debate, Vance tweeted: “In Springfield, Ohio, there has been a massive rise in communicable diseases, rent prices, car insurance rates, and crime." [...] The claim about a massive rise in communicable disease in Springfield or surrounding Clark County is just a flat-out lie. To the contrary, county officials say 2023 was actually the lowest overall for contagious illnesses in eight years. Vance’s false claim hinges on a yearly rise in two specific diseases — tuberculosis and HIV injections — yet local officials note these numbers are so small they tend to fluctuate from year to year, and there’s no evidence Haitian Americans played any role.

Will Bunch: JD Vance’s new lies about immigrants are worse than ‘eating dogs and cats’

Lies on top of lies, wrapped up in lies.

Because he has no record of his own, and Trump’s record is indefensible.

And they have no plan to help anyone but themselves and a handful of oligarchs. And, of course, Russia. 

We are not going back. Check your voter registration every week between now and your state’s deadline. Make a plan to vote, and vote as early as you can.

The sooner we don’t ever have to hear these clowns again, the better. Let’s do this.

[cleolinda]

Tuesday’s debate between Trump and his opponent Kamala Harris in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, had several eyebrow-raising moments but none moreso than when Trump, echoing his latest online-born conspiracy, baselessly accused thousands of legal migrants in Springfield, Ohio, of stealing, killing, and eating pet dogs off the street.

The conspiracy was fact-checked in real time by ABC’s David Muir, who noted that city officials had looked into the claim and found it to be baseless. But the damage was already done.

Nearly a week later, Vance found himself once again answering for his running mate’s actions after days of shocking fallout in Springfield, where residents have reported fliers dropped by the Ku Klux Klan as well as several threats of bombings or mass shootings — the latest of which, at Wittenberg University, occurred Saturday night just hours before Vance would go on the air.

[…] On CNN, he seemingly admitted that his claims were lies, then continued by saying that he would keep spreading such tales, even knowing them to be untrue, if they resulted in the media talking about issues he claimed were still just as real despite the deception.

“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's what I'm going to do,” said the senator.

This is DANGEROUS shit aimed at the Haitian immigrant community for political gain

that is going to get people hurt if not outright killed, and this motherfucker just admitted it’s not true. Which is maybe the most important thing you will read about the whole ordeal.

“But I saw pictures!!!”

Spoiler: the geese were roadkill.

The woman behind an early Facebook post spreading a harmful and baseless claim about Haitian immigrants eating local pets that helped thrust a small Ohio city into the national spotlight says she had no firsthand knowledge of any such incident and is now filled with regret and fear as a result of the ensuing fallout.

Backlash was swift, with replies ranging from, “I find it strange that a self-professed ‘hillbilly’ doesn’t know what whole chickens look like,” to, “HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW WHAT CHICKENS LOOK LIKE WITH THEIR LEGS ATTACHED YOU F****ING DIPSHIT.” Oliver Alexander, an open-source intelligence analyst, weighed in, sharing images of plucked chickens looking remarkably similar to whatever was being grilled in the video. “Clearly chicken you weirdo. Dude’s never seen chicken that wasn’t dino-nugget shaped,” he wrote.

[the-gone-ton]

I interrupt your regularly scheduled malls.

I haven't been posting as much the past week or two, at least in part because I've been thinking less about malls and more about the election.

This isn't usual for me. It's not what this account is about. I didn't do it in 2020, but this time I have to speak up.

What's happening in the United States today is not normal. One of our two parties simply no longer cares about what is true and what is false. Led by their charismatic cult leader, the Republican Party and their allies in the media have lied brazenly to the American people for four straight years.

They lied about a supposed "crime wave" when in fact, crime has gone down every year since Biden took office. They lied about gangs of Venezuelan immigrants taking over apartment buildings in Colorado. They lied about Haitian immigrants abducting & eating people's pets. They lied about an Olympic athlete being transgender just so they could politicize her victory. They knowingly told these lies because they want to profit politically from making you hate people who are different from you. And it goes without saying, they lied about the last election because they want to take power regardless of if they win or lose.

But it is possible that they're telling the truth about some things. Maybe they're telling the truth when they threaten to silence critical news coverage of them. Maybe they're telling the truth when they vow to deport 25 million people, including legal immigrants and college student protestors. Maybe they're telling the truth when they signal that they will once again try to undermine the legitimacy of an election if they need to in order to take power.

The authoritarianism & lies must be rejected. Period.

Election day is one week out. Make a plan to vote for Kamala Harris & Democrats down ballot.

[rederiswrites]

Look, I think if you're a US citizen you should go on Youtube and watch the debate, or at least some of the chunks of it where the topic matters most to you. You can't counter the arguments if you don't know what arguments they're making. And no, I don't mean arguing with your aunt that drank the conspiracy koolaid. I mean that there are genuinely a lot of people out there hearing what Trump is saying and thinking, "I don't know. That sounds really scary."

So know what he said, and know not just THAT he lied, but HOW he lied.

Sometimes, it's easy. There are no "abortions" after a baby is born. That would be uhhh let's see MURDER and it's already pretty illegal everywhere and absolutely no one is trying to change that. The comment Trump attributed to former VA governor Ralph Northam is completely misrepresented. Northam (whom I am not defending as a person, by the way) was commenting on the subject of *non-viable* pregnancies that represented a health risk to the mother. Nobody was talking about killing babies. Nobody. Not even Mr. Blackface.

Sometimes it's so addled that I'll leave someone else to unpack, for example, what the FUCK he was on about with the giving illegal aliens in prison forced "trangender surgery". Personally I'm assuming he just used the random word generator in his head to say something that sounded scary to him.

There is NO credible evidence that anyone, much less Haitian immigrants, is eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. Both government officials and the police say there's nothing to it. Springfield has had a huge influx of Haitian immigrants, and this is causing infrastructure strain and racial tensions. But again, people who would rather believe that a) legal immigrants are okay with *stealing your pets and eating them* and b) the entire police and gov't infrastructure of a town and the surrounding county want to cover this up, are not worth our energy. It's the people who don't know the truth and are worried that we want to reach.

And my guy, my man, Cheeto Benito, that is not how tariffs work. Tariffs are not magical free money that other countries just HAVE to give you. They're...they're not that at all. Look, I'm lazy so I'm just gonna quote CNN:

Here’s how tariffs work: When the US puts a tariff on an imported good, the cost of the tariff usually comes directly out of the bank account of an American buyer. “It’s fair to call a tariff a tax because that’s exactly what it is,” said Erica York, a senior economist at the right-leaning Tax Foundation. “There’s no way around it. It is a tax on people who buy things from foreign businesses,” she added. Trump has said that if elected, he would impose tariffs of up to 20% on every foreign import coming into the US, as well as another tariff upward of 60% on all Chinese imports. He also said he would impose a “100% tariff” on countries that shift away from using the US dollar. These duties would add to the tariffs he put on foreign steel and aluminum, washing machines, and many Chinese-made goods including baseball hats, luggage, bicycles, TVs and sneakers. President Joe Biden has left many of the Trump-era tariffs in place. It’s possible that a foreign company chooses to pay the tariff or to lower its prices to stay competitive with US-made goods that aren’t impacted by the duty. But study after study, including one from the federal government’s bipartisan US International Trade Commission, have found that Americans have borne almost the entire cost of Trump’s tariffs on Chinese products. To date, Americans have paid more than $242 billion to the US Treasury for tariffs that Trump imposed on imported solar panels, steel and aluminum, and Chinese-made goods, according to US Customs and Border Protection. [link]

Also though you should watch the debate because Harris was an absolute savage and it was genuinely HUGELY entertaining to watch her mercilessly bait Trump in every answer she gave, and watch him take the bait every. fucking. time.

[socialistexan]

The current moment of fear mongering around Haitian immigrants with blatantly false stories meant rile up violent bigotries has me thinking more and more about events like the Dreyfus Affair or the killing of Emmett Till or any number of political calculated lies whose purpose was enciting mass hysteria against a certain group.

We have so many historical examples of this working all too well, and it scares the shit out of me.

[thingstrumperssay]

People from Haiti immigrated to Ohio and made Ohio's economy better but they're brown so republicans are complaining about how they're "using up resources" (like groceries) and making strange lies about them.

They're claiming that Haitians are murdering children because one guy got into a car accident that involved the death of a child. They're acting like the person deliberately murdered the child.

And some dumbasses are letting their cats roam outside where they were (hopefully) picked up by people who aren't dumbasses and they're blaming the Haitian immigrants, claiming that they're fucking eating the cats. And Trump brought that lie over to the fucking debate. (Which Kamala rightfully laughed at him for.)

And the mayor of Ohio is talking about them like they're "ruining" the "small community" of Ohio. I am convinced that these racists will have a panic attack big enough to need to "use resources" (the hospital) the second they step into a city.

This is all because they're racist, in case you needed the reminder that republicans are racist.

As a slightly related side note, some dumbass left their cat outside without a collar on over ten years ago and my brother-in-law took her in. We don't know who that dumbass is, but the cat's still alive and doing well for her age. So it's completely possible that that's what happened to those cats.

[beauty-funny-trippy]

JD Vance told a crowd that he will continue to describe Haitian residents in Springfield, Ohio, as “illegal aliens” even though they are in the country legally. The Republican audience gave him a round of applause for telling them lies. Why? Because even racists don't want to think of themselves as racist, so they search for any sort of justification (even a lie) for hating a group of people whose skin is a different color than their own. Which is why, even when immigrants are here legally, they still vilify them. So we know it's not about illegal immigration. It's about racism. Racism is what's driving the Republican Party right now. Don't believe me? Well, just imagine what would happen if none of the racists in America voted this November. Harris would win in a landslide.

[tomorrowusa]

Trump doesn't want voters to be reminded of his disastrous responses to hurricanes. Trumpnesia may have caused many to forget how he threw paper towels at Puerto Rican victims of Hurricane Maria or how he used a Sharpie marker to try to change the path of Hurricane Dorian.

So to muddy the waters, Trump has been spewing a firehose of falsehoods about Hurricane Helene.

A few of Trump's lies fact checked.

Monday: Trump falsely claims Biden hasn’t answered calls from Georgia’s governor It was immediately clear that Trump’s claim was false. Kemp, a Republican, told reporters earlier Monday that he had spoken with Biden the day prior — and that it was Kemp who had initially missed a call from Biden, not the other way around.

Trump himself has a record of problematic phone calls with Georgia state officials.

Monday: Trump cites baseless ‘reports’ about anti-Republican bias in the North Carolina response Republican South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said at a Tuesday press conference that federal assistance had “been superb,” noting that Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had both called and told him to let them know whatever the state needed. McMaster also said FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell had called.

The lies only get bigger...

Thursday: Trump falsely claims Harris spent ‘all her FEMA money’ on housing illegal migrants First, there is zero basis for Trump’s suggestion that the Biden administration is running some sort of scheme to get undocumented immigrants to vote illegally in the 2024 election. Voting by noncitizens is a felony. Second, there is zero basis for claiming that FEMA disaster assistance money was stolen — by anyone, let alone Harris personally — for the housing of migrants.

^^^ That one ranks with the lies Trump and Vance are spreading about Haitian Americans eating pets in Ohio.

Friday: Trump falsely claims $1 billion was ‘stolen’ from FEMA for migrants and has gone ‘missing’ Though Trump’s Thursday claim about FEMA money and migrants had already been debunked by Friday, Trump repeated the claim to reporters at least twice on Friday — and then said it again at a Friday night town hall event in North Carolina.

It's never necessary for Trump to have proof of something. He just makes shit up to further his orgies of disinformation.

Saturday: Trump falsely claims the federal government is only giving $750 to people who lost their homes Trump’s claim is wrong. As FEMA explained earlier in the week on social media andon a web page it created to combat misinformation about the response, $750 is merely the immediate, upfront aid survivors can get to cover basic, pressing needs like food, water, baby formula and emergency supplies. Survivors are also eligible to apply for additional forms of assistance, such as to pay for temporary housing and home repairs, that can be worth thousands of dollars; the current maximum amount for home repair assistance, for example, is $42,500.

For people poor at math, the difference between $750 and $42,500 is $41,750. And I don't think the $750 is deducted from the eventual $42,500.

Saturday: Trump falsely claims there are ‘no helicopters, no rescue’ in North Carolina  This claim about North Carolina is false. There have been numerous government and private helicopters and other aircraft involved in rescue and aid efforts in North Carolina, though some residents died before they could be rescued and a significant number of residents have remained missing or stranded for days. The North Carolina National Guard announced Thursday that its own air assets had “completed 146 flight missions, resulting in the rescue of 538 people and 150 pets.”  The Washington Post reported Friday [ ... ] CNN reported Saturday that air traffic over western North Carolina had increased 300% over the past seven days due to hurricane relief efforts, according to Becca Gallas, director of North Carolina’s Division of Aviation. The state said in an official update Saturday: “A total of 53 search and rescue teams from North Carolina and beyond, consisting of more than 1,600 personnel have conducted search and rescue operations during this event. Search and rescue teams have interacted with over 5,400 people, including assists, evacuations and rescues.”

If Trump says something, it is almost certainly untrue. He is hoping to be heard by low information voters who get news from social media and other unreliable sources. It is up to you to step up your interaction with any such people who you may know personally. Send them articles and vids from reputable sources. Elections are won or lost one voter at a time.

A reminder you can give people: Trump made over 30,000 lies during his four years in office. He is not a reliable source of information.

Washington Post counts 30,573 false or misleading claims in four years by Trump

Would you buy a used car or a second-hand presidency from Weird Donald? 🤨

[ridenwithbiden]

Thanks to #Musk X Twitter, and #Zuckerberg Face Fascist. 2 of the largest Social Media platforms, and sources of information and misinformation in human history. That are virtually unregulated, right leaning, and censor left of center opinion and news on a regular basis, all while claiming that they're in favor of free speech.

.

"Russia’s attempts to influence the 2024 election in favor of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump are accelerating, federal officials and researchers say, adding to a sea of misinformation about immigration and his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, despite U.S. efforts to blunt the onslaught with indictments, seizures and public warnings.

After a group of prominent far-right influencers was exposed last month for taking money provided by Russian state media figures, they continued to promote falsehoods to their large followings, including debunked claims about Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, eating pets...

...

The number of views by actual human beings is hard to discern, as is evaluating the posts’ impact on voters. But even when lies are obvious, their proliferation can make truths harder to believe, disinformation experts said.

Russia is having at least some hits, such as a viral video that falsely accused Harris of a hit-and-run car accident. That got more than 7 million views."

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Nathalie Baptiste at HuffPost:

Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) on Wednesday unleashed a racist tirade against Haitian people.

“Lol. These Haitians are wild. Eating pets, vudu, nastiest country in the western hemisphere, cults, slapstick gangsters... but damned if they don’t feel all sophisticated now, filing charges against our President and VP,” Higgins wrote in a now-deleted tweet on X (formerly Twitter). “All these thugs better get their mind right and their ass out of our country before January 20th.” The post came in response to the news that the Haitian Bridge Alliance, a nonprofit organization that advocates for immigrants, is suing Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), for inciting violence with their lies about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. Higgins deleted the post late Wednesday afternoon after being confronted by colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, called for Higgins to be censured. Horsford told reporters that he had asked Higgins to delete the post and that he initially refused to do so. “He actually told me, no, he would not, and then that’s when we started the action on the floor,” Horsford said. “It’s vile. It’s the type of rhetoric that continues to divide people against each other. We have Haitians and Haitian Americans who are literally under threat.”

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) told reporters he had advised Higgins to remove the post. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Higgins had “prayed about” the post and then removed it. The underlying noxious claims about Haitians gained traction on Facebook earlier this month, and Trump and Vance spread it even more widely. Trump amplified the vile accusation on the debate stage against Vice President Kamala Harris earlier this month, and has made it a regular part of his stump speech. There is absolutely no truth to the claim, and members of the Haitian community in Springfield largely have legal status, hold jobs, and have bought homes and opened businesses.

Louisiana Rep. Clay Higgins (R) posted an inflammatory and racist accusation about Haitians on X that he later deleted.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Luckovich:: GOP strategy in its totality

* * * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

September 18, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Sep 19, 2024

Today, at a White House reception in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, President Joe Biden said: "We don't demonize immigrants. We don't single them out for attacks. We don't believe they're poisoning the blood of the country. We're a nation of immigrants, and that's why we're so damn strong."

Biden’s celebration of the country’s heritage might have doubled as a celebration of the success of his approach to piloting the economy out of the ravages of the pandemic. Today the Fed cut interest rates a half a point, a dramatic cut indicating that it considers inflation to be under control. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has maintained that it would be possible to slow inflation without causing a recession—a so-called soft landing—and she appears to have been vindicated.

Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell said: “The labor market is in solid condition, and our intention with our policy move today is to keep it there. You can say that about the whole economy: The US economy is in good shape. It’s growing at a solid pace, inflation is coming down. The labor market is at a strong pace. We want to keep it there. That’s what we’re doing.”

Powell, whom Trump first appointed to his position, said, “We do our work to serve all Americans. We’re not serving any politician, any political figure, any cause, any issue, nothing. It’s just maximum employment and price stability on behalf of all Americans.”

Powell was anticipating accusations from Trump that his cutting of rates was an attempt to benefit Harris before the election. Indeed, Jeff Stein of the Washington Post reported that Trump advisor Steven Moore called the move “jaw-dropping. There's no reason they couldn't do 25 now and 25 right after the election. Why not wait till then?” Moore added, "I'm not saying [the] reduction isn't justified—it may well be and they have more data than I do. But i just think, 'why now?’” Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville called the cut “shamelessly political.” 

The New Yorker’s Philip Gourevitch noted that “Trump has been begging officials worldwide not to do the right thing for years to help rig the election for him—no deal in Gaza, no defense of Ukraine, no Kremlin hostages release, no border deal, no continuing resolution, no interest rate cuts etc—just sabotage & subterfuge.”

That impulse to focus on regaining power rather than serving the country was at least part of what was behind Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance’s lie about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. That story has gotten even darker as it turns out Vance and Trump received definitive assurances on September 9 that the rumor was false, but Trump ran with it in the presidential debate of September 10 anyway. Now, although it has been made very clear—including by Republican Ohio governor Mike DeWine—that the Haitian immigrants in Springfield are there legally, Vance told a reporter today that he personally considers the programs under which they came illegal, so he is still “going to call [a Haitian migrant] an illegal alien.”

The lies about those immigrants have so derailed the Springfield community with bomb threats and public safety concerns that when the Trump campaign suggested Trump was planning a visit there, the city’s Republican mayor, Rob Rue, backed by DeWine, threw cold water on the idea. “It would be an extreme strain on our resources. So it’d be fine with me if they decided not to make that visit,” Rue said. Nonetheless, tonight, Trump told a crowd in Long Island, New York, that he will go to Springfield within the next two weeks. 

The false allegation against Haitian immigrants has sparked outrage, but it has accomplished one thing for the campaign, anyway: it has gotten Trump at least to speak about immigration—which was the issue they planned to campaign on—rather than Hannibal Lecter, electric boats, and sharks, although he continues to insist that “everyone is agreeing that I won the Debate with Kamala.” Trump, Vance, and Republican lawmakers are now talking more about policies.

In the presidential debate of September 10, Trump admitted that after nine years of promising he would release a new and better healthcare plan than the Affordable Care Act in just a few weeks, all he really had were “concepts of a plan.” Vance has begun to explain to audiences that he intends to separate people into different insurance pools according to their health conditions and risk levels. That business model meant that insurers could refuse to insure people with pre-existing conditions, and overturning it was a key driver of the ACA.

Senate and House Republicans told Peter Sullivan of Axios that if they regain control of the government, they will work to get rid of the provision in the Inflation Reduction Act that permits the government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies over drug prices. Negotiations on the first ten drugs, completed in August, will lower the cost of those drugs enough to save taxpayers $6 billion a year, while those enrolled in Medicare will save $1.5 billion in out-of-pocket expenses. 

Yesterday Trump promised New Yorkers that he would restore the state and local tax deduction (SALT) that he himself capped at $10,000 in his 2017 tax cuts. In part, the cap was designed to punish Democratic states that had high taxes and higher government services, but now he wants to appeal to voters in those same states. On CNBC, host Joe Kernan pointed out that this would blow up the deficit, but House speaker Mike Johnson said that the party would nonetheless consider such a measure because it would continue to stand behind less regulation and lower taxes.

In a conversation with Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, his former press secretary, Trump delivered another stream of consciousness commentary in which he appeared to suggest that he would lower food prices by cutting imports. Economics professor Justin Wolfers noted: “I'm exhausted even saying it, but blocking supply won't reduce prices, and it's not even close.” Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark added, “Tell me more about why you have to vote for Trump because of his ‘policies.’”

Trump has said he supports in vitro fertilization, or IVF, as have a number of Republican lawmakers, but today, 44 Republican senators once again blocked the Senate from passing a measure protecting it. The procedure is in danger from state laws establishing “fetal personhood,” which give a fertilized egg all the rights of a human being as established by the Fourteenth Amendment. That concept is in the 2024 Republican Party platform.

Trump has also demanded that Republicans in Congress shut down the government unless a continuing resolution to fund the government contains the so-called SAVE Act requiring people to show proof of citizenship when registering to vote. Speaker Johnson continues to suggest that undocumented immigrants vote in elections, but it is illegal for even documented noncitizens to do so, and Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the nonprofit American Immigration Council notes that even the right-wing Heritage Foundation has found only 12 cases of such illegal voting in the past 40 years.

Johnson brought the continuing resolution bill with the SAVE Act up for a vote today. It failed by a vote of 202 to 220. If the House and then the Senate don’t pass a funding bill, the government will shut down on October 1.

Republican endorsements of the Harris-Walz ticket continue to pile up. On Monday, six-term representative Bob Inglis (R-SC) told the Charleston City Paper that “Donald Trump is a clear and present danger to the republic” and said he would vote for Harris. “If Donald Trump loses, that would be a good thing for the Republican Party,” Inglis said. “Because then we could have a Republican rethink and get a correction.” 

George W. Bush’s attorney general Alberto Gonzales, conservative columnist George Will, more than 230 former officials for presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, and 17 former staff members for Ronald Reagan have all recently added their names to the list of those supporting Harris. Today more than 100 Republican former members of Congress and national security officials who served in Republican administrations endorsed Harris, saying they “firmly oppose the election of Donald Trump.” They cited his chaotic governance, his praising of enemies and undermining allies, his politicizing the military and disparaging veterans, his susceptibility to manipulation by Russian president Vladimir Putin, and his attempt to overthrow democracy. They praised Harris for her consistent championing of “the rule of law, democracy, and our constitutional principles.” 

Yesterday, singer-songwriters Billie Eilish, who has 119 million followers on Instagram, and Finneas, who has 4.2 million, asked people to register and to vote for Harris and Walz. “Vote like your life depends on it,” Eilish said, “because it does.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[foreverlogical]

False rumors about Haitian immigrants eating pets that were boosed by Donald Trump and JD Vance are threatening to unravel Springfield, Ohio.