#trump arlington statement

[aanews69]

物語をお届けします。 また、独自の作成方法に関するガイド、ヒント、コツも提供します。このチャンネルは、私たちの机に出くわすランダムなものに専念しています。

[mugiwara-lucy]

Side note; this is going to be an ANGRY rant.

So if you all didn’t know; Trump and his campaign went to Arlington Park to honor the fallen soldiers. That sounds okay in hindsight, right?

Well this picture made headlines and was met with REASONABLE backlash:

This is a CEMETERY yet he has his dumbass thumbs up gesture??

I recently found out this NOT violated a FEDERAL CRIME and they were told NOT to film there:

And there was an altercation where Trump’s squad attacked the people there and they’re not pressing charges out of fear of retaliation….

And it’s so bad even the US ARMY issued a statement of disgust towards Trump’s actions:

My point in this?

I am SO SICK of this piece of shit CONSTANTLY getting off and let’s NOT forget him calling our fellow soldiers who fight and die for the freedoms we can enjoy as “suckers and losers”:

Yet he’s gonna try and act like he cares for brownie points.

FUCK OFF.

And IF he gets back in office he will NEVER see accountability for ANYTHING. Need I bring up the UNEARTHED January 6th footage?

But yeah LET’S VOTE BLUE so he can go to prison since that is the ONLY reason why he’s even running.

FUCK this piece of shit 🖕

[posttexasstressdisorder]

Why Trump’s Arlington controversy is actually a crime

John Stoehr

August 30, 2024 5:49AM ET

Sgt. Phillip J. Reddick plays taps in honor of Staff Sgt. Darryl D. Booker and Col. Paul M. Kelly Nov. 16, 2013, at their Arlington National Cemetery grave sites (Photo by Virginia Guard Public Affairs)

It’s not a controversy. It’s a crime.

If we don’t say so, we’re complicit.

National Public Radio reported Tuesday that two officials from the Donald Trump campaign assaulted a staff member at Arlington National Cemetery. The staffer tried stopping the former president from filming a campaign advertisment in Section 60. That section is reserved for the men and women who died fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s considered by many Americans to be sacred ground.

Trump was at Arlington Monday for an event marking the third anniversary of an attack on US military forces as they withdrew from Afghanistan. An emerging theme of his presidential campaign is blaming Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for the 13 Marines who were killed that day by an ISIS suicide bomber outside Kabul Airport.

Later, at the behest of two Gold Star families, Trump attended a separate, private ceremony in Section 60 at the headstones of Marine Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover and Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee. That’s when the “altercation” occurred. “When entering Section 60, campaign staff verbally abused and pushed the official aside,” according to NPR.

Assault is a crime, but the criming didn’t stop there.

ALSO READ: Trump campaign targets secretary of the Army in its latest attack over Arlington scandal

According to Arlington National Cemetery, it’s against federal law to make campaign advertisements in Section 60. In other words, it’s illegal to turn the honored war dead into disposable partisan props. Put another way, profaning their memory and sacrifice is punishable by law. In a statement to NPR, Arlington National Cemetery said:

“Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate's campaign.”

In the same statement, Arlington National Cemetery said it “reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants.”

Compounding the offense is the Trump campaign’s reaction.

Spokesman Stephen Cheung accused the cemetery staffer who was trying to uphold federal law of physically blocking “members of President Trump's team during a very solemn ceremony,” even saying the staffer was “clearly suffering from a mental health episode.” Another campaign official called the staffer “a despicable individual.”

Compounding matters more is the treatment of the Gold Star families.

They chose to invite Trump to the memorial, but did they also choose to be complicit in a federal crime? Did the Trump campaign inform them of the law, as Arlington had informed the Trump campaign?

According to Arlington National Cemetery, it informed “all participants.” Were the families led to believe they were merely helping a candidate whom they clearly support? Or were they led to believe law-breaking was fine and dandy as long as they were with Trump?

It gets worse.

The Trump campaign appears to have induced these Gold Star families into issuing a press release in which they thanked Trump and said they authorized his videographer to take photos and video at the ceremony.

There are two problems: One is that permission wasn’t theirs to give. Two is that there’s another headstone in the campaign photo (above). Army Master Sgt. Andrew Marckesano, a Green Beret and a Silver Star recipient who served six tours in Afghanistan, is buried next to Hoover. According to reports, his family wasn’t asked for permission.

So not only do these Gold Star families appear complicit in breaking federal law, they appear complicit in gravely offending another Gold Star family whose child loved his country as much as theirs did.

And by inducing these families into issuing their press release, he involved them indirectly in a cover-up of the original crime.

It gets even worse.

The Timesreported that the cemetery staffer who was assaulted for trying, under law, to stop the Trump campaign has decided not to press charges. Why? According to military authorities, the Timessaid, it’s because “she feared Mr. Trump’s supporters pursuing retaliation.”

In other words, she feared political violence.

So, thanks to Trump’s corruption, these Gold Star families now appear complicit in: breaking federal law; gravely offending another Gold Star family; covering up the original crime; and demonstrating the role of political violence in the wholesale degradation of individual liberty and the rule of law.

Their kids died fighting terrorism and terrorism won.

But they are not the only ones complicit.

So are we – if we don’t stand by what we say.

Arlington National Cemetery is operated by the United States Army. It is not a civilian bureaucracy run by a partisan appointee. There’s no “deep state” here. These are people with the deepest feeling imaginable for fidelity and respect. If anything, they’re Trumpsupporters. Yet loyalty to him didn’t override loyalty to the fallen. The obligation to their memory compelled them to oppose Trump’s desecration of it.

If we believe what we say about Arlington National Cemetery, and I think most of us do, there should be no debate over Monday’s events. There should not be “both sides.” This should not be a story about what Trump said versus what Arlington National Cemetery said. The question: shouldn’t be what happened? It should be: who do we believe?

Do we believe Trump, a draftdodger who thinks volunteers for military service are “suckers” and “losers”; who thinks soldiers maimed in combat are embarrassing; who said prisoners of war are unworthy of reverence; who insulted recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor; and who, just yesterday, released an ad using the honored war dead as a disposable campaign prop to attack his opponent?

Or do we believe those trying to keep sacred ground sacred?

As I’m writing, the Post reported that the Army stands by the cemetery staffer who tried stopping the Trump campaign’s criming. The rest of us should stand by her, too. If we believe what we say about Arlington — and our values – there’s no question about what happened.

It’s not a controversy. It’s a crime.

We should say so.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

deAdder

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 28, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Aug 29, 2024

Former president Trump appears to have slid further since last night’s news about a new grand jury’s superseding indictment of him on charges of trying to overthrow the 2020 presidential election. Over the course of about four hours this morning, Trump posted 50 times on his social media platform, mostly reposting material that was associated with QAnon, violent, authoritarian, or conspiratorial. 

He suggested he is “100% INNOCENT,” and that the indictment is a “Witch Hunt.” He called for trials and jail for special counsel Jack Smith, former president Barack Obama, and the members of Congress who investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. And he reposted a sexual insult about the political careers of both Vice President Kamala Harris and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign has today escalated the fight about Trump’s photo op Monday at Arlington National Cemetery, where campaign staff took photos and videos in Section 60, the burial ground of recent veterans, apparently over the strong objections of cemetery officials. Then the campaign released photos and a video from the visit attacking Harris. 

Arlington National Cemetery was established on the former property of General Robert E. Lee in 1864, after the Lee family did not pay their property taxes. At the time, Lee was leading Confederate forces against the United States government, and those buried in the cemetery in its early years were those killed in the Civil War. The cemetery is one of two in the United States that is under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army, and it is widely considered hallowed ground.  

A statement from the Arlington National Cemetery reiterated: “Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate's campaign. Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants. We can confirm there was an incident, and a report was filed.”

Republican vice presidential candidate Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio first said there was a “little disagreement” at the cemetery, but in Erie, Pennsylvania, today he tried to turn the incident into an attack on Harris. “She wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up?” Vance said. “She can go to hell.” Harris has not, in fact, commented on the controversy. 

VoteVets, a progressive organization that works to elect veterans to office, called the Arlington episode “sickening.”

In an interview with television personality Dr. Phil that aired last night, Trump suggested that Democrats in California each got seven ballots and that he would win in the state if Jesus Christ counted the votes. As Philip Bump of the Washington Post pointed out today, Trump has always said he could not lose elections unless there was fraud; last night he suggested repeatedly that God wants him to win the 2024 election.  

When asked his opinion of Vice President Harris, Trump once again called her “a Marxist,” a reference that would normally be used to refer to someone who agrees with the basic principles outlined by nineteenth-century philosopher Karl Marx in his theory of how society works. In Marx’s era, people in the U.S. and Europe were grappling with what industrialization would mean for the relationship between individual workers, employers, resources, and society. Marx believed that there was a growing conflict between workers and capitalists that would eventually lead to a revolution in which workers would take over the means of production—factories, farms, and so on—and end economic inequality.

Harris has shown no signs of embracing this philosophy, and on August 15, when Trump talked at reporters for more than an hour at his Bedminster property in front of a table with coffee and breakfast cereal at what was supposed to be a press conference on the economy, he said of his campaign strategy: “All we have to do is define our opponent as being a communist or a socialist or somebody that’s going to destroy our country.” 

Trump uses “Marxist,” “communist,” and “socialist” interchangeably, and when he and his allies accuse Democrats of being one of those things, they are not talking about an economic system in which the people, represented by the government, take control of the means of production. They are using a peculiarly American adaptation of the term “socialist.”

True socialism has never been popular in America. The best it has ever done in a national election was in 1912, when labor organizer Eugene V. Debs, running for president as a Socialist, won 6% of the vote, coming in behind Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, and William Howard Taft. 

What Republicans mean by "socialism" in America is a product of the years immediately after the Civil War, when African American men first got the right to vote. Eager to join the economic system from which they had previously been excluded, these men voted for leaders who promised to rebuild the South, provide schools and hospitals (as well as prosthetics for veterans, a vital need in the post-war U.S.), and develop the economy with railroads to provide an equal opportunity for all men to rise to prosperity. 

Former Confederates loathed the idea of Black men voting almost as much as they hated the idea of equal rights. They insisted that the public programs poorer voters wanted were simply a redistribution of wealth from prosperous white men to undeserving Black Americans who wanted a handout, although white people would also benefit from such programs. Improvements could be paid for only with tax levies, and white men were the only ones with property in the Reconstruction South. Thus, public investments in roads and schools and hospitals would redistribute wealth from propertied men to poor people, from white men to Black people. It was, opponents said, “socialism.” Poor black voters were instituting, one popular magazine wrote, "Socialism in South Carolina" and should be kept from the polls.

This idea that it was dangerous for working people to participate in government caught on in the North as immigrants moved into growing cities to work in the developing factories. Like their counterparts in the South, they voted for roads and schools, and wealthy men insisted these programs meant a redistribution of wealth through tax dollars. They got more concerned still when a majority of Americans began to call for regulation to keep businessmen from gouging consumers, polluting the environment, and poisoning the food supply (the reason you needed to worry about strangers and candy in that era was that candy was often painted with lead paint).

Any attempt to regulate business would impinge on a man's liberty, wealthy men argued, and it would cost tax dollars to hire inspectors. Thus, they said, it was a redistribution of wealth. Long before the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia brought the fears of a workers' government to life, Americans argued that their economy was under siege by socialists. Their conviction did indeed lead to a redistribution of wealth, but as regular Americans were kept from voting, the wealth went dramatically upward, not down.

The powerful formula linking racism to the idea of an active government and arguing that a government that promotes infrastructure, provides a basic social safety net, and regulates business is socialism has shaped American history since Reconstruction. In the modern era the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision of 1954 enabled wealthy men to convince voters that their tax dollars were being taken from them to promote the interests of Black Americans. President Ronald Reagan made that formula central to the Republican Party, and it has lived there ever since, as Republicans call any policy designed to help ordinary Americans “socialism.”

Vice President Harris recently said she would continue the work of the Biden administration and crack down on the price-fixing, price gouging, and corporate mergers that drove high grocery prices in the wake of the pandemic. Such plans have been on the table for a while: Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) noted last year that from July 2020 through July 2022, inflation rose by 14% and corporate profits rose by 75%. He backed a measure introduced by Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)—who came up with the idea of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—that would set standards to prevent large corporations from price gouging during an “exceptional market shock” like a power grid failure, a public health emergency, a natural disaster, and so on. Harris’s proposal was met with pushback from opponents saying that such a law would do more harm than good and that post-pandemic high inflation was driven by the market.

Yesterday, during testimony for an antitrust case, an email from the senior director for pricing at the grocery giant Kroger, Andy Groff, to other Kroger executives seemed to prove that those calling out price gouging were at least in part right. In it, Groff wrote: “On milk and eggs, retail inflation has been significantly higher than cost inflation.” 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[mariacallous]

Ahead of the the 2024 US elections, the US intelligence community and law enforcement were on high alert and ready to share information—both among agencies and publicly—as foreign malign influence operations emerged. Tech giants like Microsoft similarly sprang into action, collaborating with government partners and publishing their own information about election-related disinformation campaigns. The speed and certainty with which authorities were able to pin these efforts on threat actors in Russia, China, and Iran was unprecedented. But researchers also caution that not all attributions are created equal.

At the Cyberwarcon security conference in Arlington, Virginia, today, researchers from the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab are presenting initial findings on the role of attribution in the 2024 US elections. Their research compares the impact of quickly naming and shaming foreign influence actors to other recent US elections in which government attribution was far less common.

“We’re building on a project that we did back in 2020 where there was a lot more context of concern that the Trump administration was not being forthcoming about foreign attacks,” says Emerson Brooking, director of strategy and resident senior fellow for DFRLab. “In contrast to 2020, now there was an abundance of claims by the US government of influence operations being conducted by different adversaries. So in thinking through the policy of attribution, we wanted to look at the question of overcorrection.”

In the lead-up to the 2016 US presidential election, Russia’s extensive influence operations—which included hack-and-leak campaigns as well as strategic disinformation—caught the US government by surprise. Law enforcement and the intelligence community were largely aware of Russia's digital probing, but they didn't have an extreme sense of urgency, and the big picture of how such activity could impact public discourse hadn't yet come into view. After Russia's hack of the Democratic National Committee in June that year, it took four months for the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security to publicly attribute the attack to the Kremlin. Some officials had said in the weeks following the incident that formal confirmation from the US government might never come.

Even in the highly politicized landscape that followed, federal, state, and local collaboration around election security expanded dramatically. By 2020, the researchers say, 33 of the 84 influence operation attributions they studied related to the 2020 US elections, or about 39 percent, came from US intelligence or federal sources. And this year, 40 of the 80 the group tracked came from the US government. DFRLabs resident fellow Dina Sadek notes, though, that one important factor in assessing the utility of US government attributions is the quality of the information provided. The substance and specificity of the information, she says, is important to how the public views the objectivity and credibility of the statement.

Specific information confirming that Russia had manufactured a video that purported to show ballots being destroyed in Bucks County, Pennsylvania was a high-quality, useful attribution, the researchers say, because it was direct, narrow in scope, and came very quickly to minimize speculation and doubt. Repeated statements from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence's Foreign Malign Influence Center warning very broadly and generally about Russian influence operations is an example of the type of attribution that can be less helpful, and even serve to amplify campaigns that otherwise might not register with the public at all.

Similarly, in the lead-up to the 2020 elections, the researchers point out, statements from the US government about Russia, China, and Iran playing a role in Black Lives Matter protests may have been mismatched to the moment because they didn't include details on the extent of the activity or the specific objectives of the actors.

Even with all of this in mind, though, the researchers note that there was valuable progress in the 2024 election cycle. But with a new Trump administration coming into the White House, such transparency could start to trend in a different direction.

“We don’t want to come across like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, because the state of affairs that was is not the state of affairs that will be,” Brooking says. “And from a public interest perspective I think we got a lot closer on disclosure in 2024.”

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Nick Visser at HuffPost:

Two members of former President Donald Trump’s campaign reportedly had a verbal and physical altercation on Monday with an official at Arlington National Cemetery who tried to stop them from filming in an area where recent U.S. military casualties are buried. NPR first reported details of the incident, which took place as Trump held a wreath-laying ceremony to mark the third anniversary of an attack on American troops as the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan. Thirteen service members were killed during the attack at Kabul airport, a tragedy the former president has blamed on President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. A source told NPR that staff at the 639-acre national cemetery in Virginia had let the Trump campaign know that only cemetery officials are allowed to take photos or video in Section 60, where recent casualties are buried. But Trump staffers reportedly attempted to do so anyway. When an Arlington National Cemetery official tried to stop them, the two campaign staffers “verbally abused and pushed the official aside,” NPR reported.

[...] “Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate’s campaign,” the cemetery, which is maintained by the U.S. Army, said in a statement. “Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants.” The Trump campaign, in remarks to NPR, maintained it did nothing wrong and had video footage to prove it. HuffPost has reached out to the campaign for further comment.

The Trump campaign caused an altercation with an Arlington National Cemetery official when they were told to stop filming. This is sacrilegious behavior by the Trump campaign who has no respect for our fallen soldiers.

See Also:

Daily Kos: Trump’s Arlington stunt should be a campaign-ending disgrace

The Guardian: Trump staffers reported over altercation at Arlington cemetery during photo op

[tomorrowusa]

Draft dodger Donald Trump, who considers US service members who died for their country to be "suckers" and "losers", desecrated Arlington National Cemetery by holding a political stunt there. Federal regulations do not allow military cemeteries to be used for such purposes.

In a statement to NPR, Arlington National Cemetery said it "can confirm there was an incident, and a report was filed." "Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate's campaign," according to the statement. "Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants."

Donald Trump would never visit a military cemetery EXCEPT for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate's campaign.

That mystery bone spur still has lots of explaining to do.

[scottguy]

Article: Army says Arlington National Cemetery worker was 'pushed aside' by Trump staffers

Army says Arlington National Cemetery worker was 'pushed aside' by Trump staffers

[muddypolitics]

(via Trump Arlington National Cemetery "incident" report filed)

There "was an incident" when former President Trump attended an Arlington National Cemetery wreath-laying ceremony, a spokesperson for the cemetery in Virginia said Tuesday evening, without elaborating further.

The big picture: The Trump campaign denies claims made in an NPR report that two campaign members "had a verbal and physical altercation" with a cemetery official who tried to stop the GOP presidential nominee's staffers from "filming and photographing in a section where recent U.S. casualties are buried."

NPR reports that Arlington officials had "made clear that only cemetery staff members are authorized to take photographs or film" in the area where recent U.S. casualties are buried and that a cemetery official was "abused and pushed" aside when they tried to stop them from going to this area, known as "Section 60."

A cemetery spokesperson said federal law "prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate's campaign."

The cemetery "reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants" and "a report was filed" on the incident, added the spokesperson in the emailed statement.

tldr;

Total piece of shit asshole continues to disrespect service members and their families.

[dosesofcommonsense]

Gold Star families defend Trump and expose Harris’ next hoax that Trump got into an altercation with Arlington National Cemetery staff.

So…she invented a hoax to cover her not being there? Sounds like an egomaniacal narcissist continually making everything about herself.

[misfitwashere]

August 28, 2024 

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

AUG 29

Former president Trump appears to have slid further since last night’s news about a new grand jury’s superseding indictment of him on charges of trying to overthrow the 2020 presidential election. Over the course of about four hours this morning, Trump posted 50 times on his social media platform, mostly reposting material that was associated with QAnon, violent, authoritarian, or conspiratorial. 

He suggested he is “100% INNOCENT,” and that the indictment is a “Witch Hunt.” He called for trials and jail for special counsel Jack Smith, former president Barack Obama, and the members of Congress who investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. And he reposted a sexual insult about the political careers of both Vice President Kamala Harris and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign has today escalated the fight about Trump’s photo op Monday at Arlington National Cemetery, where campaign staff took photos and videos in Section 60, the burial ground of recent veterans, apparently over the strong objections of cemetery officials. Then the campaign released photos and a video from the visit attacking Harris. 

Arlington National Cemetery was established on the former property of General Robert E. Lee in 1864, after the Lee family did not pay their property taxes. At the time, Lee was leading Confederate forces against the United States government, and those buried in the cemetery in its early years were those killed in the Civil War. The cemetery is one of two in the United States that is under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army, and it is widely considered hallowed ground.  

A statement from the Arlington National Cemetery reiterated: “Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate's campaign. Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants. We can confirm there was an incident, and a report was filed.”

Republican vice presidential candidate Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio first said there was a “little disagreement” at the cemetery, but in Erie, Pennsylvania, today he tried to turn the incident into an attack on Harris. “She wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up?” Vance said. “She can go to hell.” Harris has not, in fact, commented on the controversy. 

VoteVets, a progressive organization that works to elect veterans to office, called the Arlington episode “sickening.”

In an interview with television personality Dr. Phil that aired last night, Trump suggested that Democrats in California each got seven ballots and that he would win in the state if Jesus Christ counted the votes. As Philip Bump of the Washington Post pointed out today, Trump has always said he could not lose elections unless there was fraud; last night he suggested repeatedly that God wants him to win the 2024 election.  

When asked his opinion of Vice President Harris, Trump once again called her “a Marxist,” a reference that would normally be used to refer to someone who agrees with the basic principles outlined by nineteenth-century philosopher Karl Marx in his theory of how society works. In Marx’s era, people in the U.S. and Europe were grappling with what industrialization would mean for the relationship between individual workers, employers, resources, and society. Marx believed that there was a growing conflict between workers and capitalists that would eventually lead to a revolution in which workers would take over the means of production—factories, farms, and so on—and end economic inequality.

Harris has shown no signs of embracing this philosophy, and on August 15, when Trump talked at reporters for more than an hour at his Bedminster property in front of a table with coffee and breakfast cereal at what was supposed to be a press conference on the economy, he said of his campaign strategy: “All we have to do is define our opponent as being a communist or a socialist or somebody that’s going to destroy our country.” 

Trump uses “Marxist,” “communist,” and “socialist” interchangeably, and when he and his allies accuse Democrats of being one of those things, they are not talking about an economic system in which the people, represented by the government, take control of the means of production. They are using a peculiarly American adaptation of the term “socialist.”

True socialism has never been popular in America. The best it has ever done in a national election was in 1912, when labor organizer Eugene V. Debs, running for president as a Socialist, won 6% of the vote, coming in behind Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, and William Howard Taft. 

What Republicans mean by "socialism" in America is a product of the years immediately after the Civil War, when African American men first got the right to vote. Eager to join the economic system from which they had previously been excluded, these men voted for leaders who promised to rebuild the South, provide schools and hospitals (as well as prosthetics for veterans, a vital need in the post-war U.S.), and develop the economy with railroads to provide an equal opportunity for all men to rise to prosperity. 

Former Confederates loathed the idea of Black men voting almost as much as they hated the idea of equal rights. They insisted that the public programs poorer voters wanted were simply a redistribution of wealth from prosperous white men to undeserving Black Americans who wanted a handout, although white people would also benefit from such programs. Improvements could be paid for only with tax levies, and white men were the only ones with property in the Reconstruction South. Thus, public investments in roads and schools and hospitals would redistribute wealth from propertied men to poor people, from white men to Black people. It was, opponents said, “socialism.” Poor black voters were instituting, one popular magazine wrote, "Socialism in South Carolina" and should be kept from the polls.

This idea that it was dangerous for working people to participate in government caught on in the North as immigrants moved into growing cities to work in the developing factories. Like their counterparts in the South, they voted for roads and schools, and wealthy men insisted these programs meant a redistribution of wealth through tax dollars. They got more concerned still when a majority of Americans began to call for regulation to keep businessmen from gouging consumers, polluting the environment, and poisoning the food supply (the reason you needed to worry about strangers and candy in that era was that candy was often painted with lead paint).

Any attempt to regulate business would impinge on a man's liberty, wealthy men argued, and it would cost tax dollars to hire inspectors. Thus, they said, it was a redistribution of wealth. Long before the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia brought the fears of a workers' government to life, Americans argued that their economy was under siege by socialists. Their conviction did indeed lead to a redistribution of wealth, but as regular Americans were kept from voting, the wealth went dramatically upward, not down.

The powerful formula linking racism to the idea of an active government and arguing that a government that promotes infrastructure, provides a basic social safety net, and regulates business is socialism has shaped American history since Reconstruction. In the modern era the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision of 1954 enabled wealthy men to convince voters that their tax dollars were being taken from them to promote the interests of Black Americans. President Ronald Reagan made that formula central to the Republican Party, and it has lived there ever since, as Republicans call any policy designed to help ordinary Americans “socialism.”

Vice President Harris recently said she would continue the work of the Biden administration and crack down on the price-fixing, price gouging, and corporate mergers that drove high grocery prices in the wake of the pandemic. Such plans have been on the table for a while: Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) noted last year that from July 2020 through July 2022, inflation rose by 14% and corporate profits rose by 75%. He backed a measure introduced by Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)—who came up with the idea of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—that would set standards to prevent large corporations from price gouging during an “exceptional market shock” like a power grid failure, a public health emergency, a natural disaster, and so on. Harris’s proposal was met with pushback from opponents saying that such a law would do more harm than good and that post-pandemic high inflation was driven by the market.

Yesterday, during testimony for an antitrust case, an email from the senior director for pricing at the grocery giant Kroger, Andy Groff, to other Kroger executives seemed to prove that those calling out price gouging were at least in part right. In it, Groff wrote: “On milk and eggs, retail inflation has been significantly higher than cost inflation.” 

—

[bighermie]

Abbey Gate Families Issue Statement on Trump Honoring the Fallen at Arlington Cemetery After Media Hit Job on Alleged "Physical Clash" With Cemetery Official Over Photographer | The Gateway Pundit | by Kristinn Taylor

AGAIN, the MSM lies about Trump. This is just sick in the head bullshit

[dertaglichedan]

Trump Honors Afghanistan Troops as ABC, CBS, NBC Morning Shows Ignore Anniversary

President Donald Trump paid his respects to the 13 U.S. troops who were killed three years ago during President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan — while the morning shows on the major networks ignored the anniversary.

Monday, August 26, 2024, marked three years since the day a suicide bomber affiliated with the local branch of the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS) killed 13 American service members and wounded dozens more at Kabul’s airport — while also murdering roughly 170 local civilians who were trying to flee the country.

Trump visited Arlington National Cemetery, laying a wreath alongside Marine Corporal Kelsee Lainhart, who was partially paralyzed by the blast.

NewsBusters.com noted that ABC, CBS, and NBC ignored the three-year anniversary on their Monday morning shows:

Monday marked three years since the deadly Islamic terror attack in Kabul, Afghanistan at Hamid Karzai International Airport that murdered 13 American soldiers, 170 Afghans, and left over 150 people wounded. Instead of even briefly acknowledging this painful day for American families in what became the symbol of the Biden-Harris’s administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, ABC, CBS, and NBC completely ignored it on their flagship morning news shows. To repeat: not a word from ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS Mornings, and NBC’s Today about the sacrifice of the brave Americans standing guard at Abbey Gate. The networks shamefully adopted the mold of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in being radio silent (aside from paper statements released from their handlers). In contrast, cable news shows that aired during that same block — Fox Business Network’s Mornings with Maria, Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends, Newsmax’s Wake Up America, NewsNation’s Morning in America, and even CNN News Central — all mentioned it multiple times.

Neither President Biden nor Vice President Kamala Harris visited Arlington, though both issued statements.

[meret118]

The political press’s efforts to rationalize Trump’s incoherent statements are eroding our shared reality and threatening informed democracy.

. . .

 As Trump’s statements grow increasingly unhinged in his old age, major news outlets continue to reframe his words, presenting a dangerously misleading picture to the public.

. . .

For instance, last week, Trump posted the following to his Truth Social account:

I have reached an agreement with the Radical Left Democrats for a Debate with Comrade Kamala Harris. It will be Broadcast Live on ABC FAKE NEWS, by far the nastiest and most unfair newscaster in the business, on Tuesday, September 10th, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Rules will be the same as the last CNN Debate, which seemed to work out well for everyone except, perhaps, Crooked Joe Biden. The Debate will be “stand up,” and Candidates cannot bring notes, or “cheat sheets.” We have also been given assurance by ABC that this will be a “fair and equitable” Debate, and that neither side will be given the questions in advance (No Donna Brazile!). Harris would not agree to the FoxNews Debate on September 4th, but that date will be held open in case she changes her mind or, Flip Flops, as she has done on every single one of her long held and cherished policy beliefs. A possible third Debate, which would go to NBC FAKE NEWS, has not been agreed to by the Radical Left. GOD BLESS AMERICA!

CNN described that rambling, insult-laden, conspiracy-riddled wall of text—itself a pretty good example of what he spends his time off the campaign trail doing—by writing, “Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced he has ‘reached an agreement’ to participate in a September 10 debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, noting that ‘the rules will be the same as the last CNN debate, which seemed to work out well for everyone.’”

Does that really capture what Trump posted?

. . .

While speaking at an event put on by the extremist group Moms for Liberty, Trump spread a baseless conspiracy theory that “your kid goes to school and comes home a few days later with an operation,” referring to transition-related surgeries for trans people. In their write-up of the event, a glowing piece about how Trump “charmed” this group of “conservative moms,” the Times didn’t even mention the moment where he blathered on and on about a crazy conspiracy that has and will never happen.

"The shocking statements come every day, and not surprising but still shocking what he says, and, you know, even Arlington [National Cemetery], it's seen major newspaper outlets talk about how will this impact Kamala Harris and the issue of Afghanistan after he goes and just acts like a brute and, you know, desecrates Arlington," Scarborough said. "We see it time and time again. For some reason the mainstream media, nine years into Donald Trump's era in American politics, still doesn't know how to cover Donald Trump. They still are engaging even at this late hour in moral relativism."

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

[Mike Luckovich]

* * * *

"An idea unlike any other."

May 28, 2024

ROBERT B. HUBBELL

On Memorial Day, President Biden hosted a breakfast for military leaders, veterans, and Gold Star family members. The event was closed to the press, so there are no photos or media reports of his remarks. Rather than turn a White House reception honoring fallen soldiers into a public event or campaign opportunity, the President met privately to express gratitude to soldiers and their families.

Later in the day, the President participated in the Wreath-Laying Ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery and then delivered the Memorial Day Address the Memorial Amphitheater.

In his remarks, President Biden said,

America is the only country in the world founded on an idea — an idea that all people are created equal and deserve to be treated equally throughout their lives. We’ve never fully lived up to that, but we’ve never, ever, ever walked away from it. Every generation, our fallen heroes have brought us closer.

President Biden also issued a statement commemorating Memorial Day, writing (in part):

Since America's founding, our service members have laid down their lives for an idea unlike any other: the idea of the United States. Today, as generations of heroes lie in eternal peace, we live by the light of liberty they kept burning. May God bless them, always.

Joe Biden’s presence in the Oval Office elevates us as a nation. We are fortunate to have him as our president during this challenging time in our nation’s history.

Defendant Donald Trump issued his own statement commemorating Memorial Day. Trump posted a statement that began as follows:

Happy Memorial Day to All, including the Human Scum that is working so hard to destroy our Once Great Country, & to the Radical Left, Trump Hating Federal Judge in New York that presided over, get this, TWO separate trials, that awarded a woman, who I never met before (a quick handshake at a celebrity event, 25 years ago, doesn’t count!), 91 MILLION DOLLARS for “DEFAMATION” . . . .

What is notable about Trump's Memorial Day greeting is that it does not mention veterans—living or dead—but is instead devoted entirely to himself. In contrast, President Biden’s message mentions only those veterans who gave their lives for “the idea of America” and does not mention himself.

The same contrast is seen in President Biden’s private meeting with Gold Star families. Trump took a group photo with Gold Star family members at the Coca-Cola 600 while wearing a “MAGA” hat and giving a “thumbs up.” Photo Trump at NASCAR Event.

Trump also used Memorial Day Weekend to announce the creation of “Veterans and Military Families for Trump,” an announcement that included the following statement:

Unlike the weak Joe Biden, President Trump has consistently proven he cares deeply about the unbelievable sacrifices made by our nation’s Veterans and their wonderful families.

In short, Trump's relationship with veterans and Gold Star families is transactional, like everything else in his life: Fallen soldiers and veterans are props for his campaign. They matter only because they are part of a campaign organization supporting Trump.

The saddest part of that transaction is that the veterans’ sacrifices and their families’ grief are being exploited by a man who has called fallen veterans “suckers and losers.”

Rarely has our nation faced such a stark choice. On this Memorial Day, that choice is viewed through the lens of the sacrifice of more than a million Americans who died defending the “idea of America.” As President Biden said in his remarks today, we have “never fully lived up to the promise” of that idea. We cannot allow our past failures and present challenges to discourage us.

The question of whether a million Americans died in vain is for us to answer. They kept their oath; we must finish the story of their sacrifice. In 2024, we must honor America’s fallen veterans by ensuring that their sacrifice was not in vain by defending the democracy for which they gave their lives.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[tearsinthemist]

Today's politics story

Vance says Harris 'can go to hell' amid cemetery dispute

What happened Republican vice-presidential nominee J.D. Vance criticized the media Wednesday for making a "national news story" out of the Trump campaign's "little disagreement" with Arlington National Cemetery staff on Monday. Vance also said Vice President Kamala Harris "can go to hell" for criticizing "Donald Trump because he showed up" at the cemetery to commemorate the 2021 terrorist attack in Kabul that killed 13 U.S. service members as America withdrew from Afghanistan. Harris, campaigning in rural Georgia, had not mentioned the Arlington incident, though Trump faced ire from some veterans for campaigning among gravestones. Who said what Trump's team was told beforehand he could visit Section 60 of the cemetery, where Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans are buried, in a personal capacity but with no campaign aides, as federal law prohibits election-related activity military cemeteries, The Washington Post said. Trump's team said it would release footage to refute reports that campaign staff pushed aside an Arlington official who tried to enforce the rules. It hasn't done so, the Post said, but the campaign did "post a TikTok of the event on Wednesday — exactly what military officials tried to prevent." The family of a Green Beret whose gravestone is visible in the campaign video and a photo of a smiling Trump "giving a 'thumbs up'" to the camera "expressed concern" about Trump's lack of decorum at the "sacred site," The New York Times said. Trump released statements from a Gold Star family saying they had invited him to the grave and welcomed the photos. But it's hard to see Trump's visit as "anything but a campaign stop intended to court the military vote" and "clean up the mess he has created" by repeatedly "denigrating" military service, Charles Sykes said at The Atlantic.  What next? The unidentified Arlington official involved in the altercation filed an incident report with military authorities but "declined to press charges," the Times said.