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Showing posts from October, 2024

Report lays out list of contenders for second Trump administration’s  'most pivotal' role

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The person Donald Trump selects to step into the role of attorney general — if he wins the White House — will be crucial, considering the ex-president's vow to use the Department of Justice to get revenge on his enemies. Politico on Thursday laid out a list of potential pick s for the position, noting that "the vast majority of current senior DOJ officials would be nonstarters," as the GOP nominee and his allies "would not trust them to implement Trump’s radical vision for the department." However, the news outlet notes , "there are a few lesser-known officials throughout the government who might pass Trump’s loyalty test and could also qualify under federal law" to become the MAGA leader's AG. READ MORE: 'Silver surge': Report calls out 'warning sign' for GOP in major battleground state Politico notes : It’s no surprise that GOP Vice Presidential Nominee JD Vance recently declared that attorney general will be the most pivo...

'Silver surge': Report calls out 'warning sign' for GOP in major battleground state

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A new report flagged what it called a "red flag" for the Trump campaign in a key battleground state that could decide the presidential election. Donald Trump is trailing Kamala Harris in early voting among seniors in Pennsylvania, Politico reported, calling the finding a " warning sign " for him that mirrors data and polling across swing states. The report comes after Republicans won the constituency in each election since 2004. The report said adults over 65 account for nearly half of early voters in Pennsylvania. Registered Democrats account for about 58 percent of those votes, and about 35 percent are Republicans. While Republicans have noted that gap is smaller than it was when Joe Biden won in 2020, Politico noted those votes are "in the bank" for Democrats. Republicans are betting that seniors will hit the polls on Election Day. Democratic strategist Tom Bonier told the outlet it represents a “silver surge." “Our expectation going into...

'Doesn’t mean it has any merit': Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against CBS News slammed

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Donald Trump sued CBS News for $10 billion in damages on Thursday, according to an exclusive Fox News report, claiming that the network exercised "deceptive conduct" in its 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris earlier this month. Per the report, the GOP nominee's lawyers "said the complaint comes due to "CBS’ partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference through malicious, deceptive, and substantial news distortion calculated to confuse, deceive, and mislead the public." Reuters reports , "The complaint, filed in federal court in the Northern District of Texas, alleges the network aired two different responses from Harris responding to a question about the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza." READ MORE: 'Try to crap on this endorsement': Experts respond to LeBron James’ 'vote Kamala Harris' post Semafor politics reporter David Weigel commented: "The most important part of this is where the candida...

'Embarrassing': JD Vance’s story about how he responded to Trump Shooting

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U.S. Senator JD Vance’s story about how he says he responded when news broke of an assassination attempt against Donald Trump is spurring questions about his ability to handle stress in a crisis. In an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan (video below), Vance, describing the assassination attempt, says, “when you first see the video, [Trump] grabs his ear, and then he goes down. And I’m like, ‘oh my God, they just killed him.’ And I was so, I mean, … I was so pissed. But then I go into like a fight or flight mode with my kids.” “I’m like, you know, ‘alright kids,’ you know, we were at a, we were at a mini golf place in Cincinnati, Ohio. I grabbed my kids up, throw them in the car, go home and load all my guns, and basically stand like a sentry in our front door. And that was my, that was sort of my reaction to it.” On July 13, the day of the assassination attempt during which a bullet bloodied Donald Trump’s ear , Vance was still just on the short list for vice-presidential running ...

'I don’t know anything about the comedian': Trump pleads ignorance as backlash grows

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Facing mounting backlash, Donald Trump on Wednesday again sought to distance himself from the racist “jokes” made by a comedian at his Madison Square Garden rally Sunday. Tony Hinchcliffe, who has a history of racist remarks, called Puerto Rico a “ floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean ,” and said , “these Latinos, they love making babies, too, just know that. They do, they do. There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that. They come inside, just like they did to our country,” before talking about Black people carving watermelons . Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., retweeted a post of Hinchcliffe defending his remarks despite the Trump campaign issuing a statement distancing it from the Hinchcliffe. RELATED: ‘We Know How to Take the Trash Out’: Influential Latino Stars Blast Trump’s Racist Rally Sitting in a garbage truck with the “Trump” logo emblazoned on the side, that he said was “ in honor ” of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Donald Tru...

CNN’s Tapper slams Trump and RFK Jr’s plan: 'There aren’t even words to describe what hackery that is'

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CNN host Jake Tapper on Wednesday blasted Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s plan to join forces to take over medical government agencies. "I'm gonna let him go wild on health," Trump said this week, referring to Kennedy. "I'm gonna let him go wild on the food. I'm going to let him go wild on medicines." Tapper told viewers, "So that's Donald Trump describing a role for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — if he were to win a second term — RFK Jr. seemingly affirmed the former president's words." READ MORE: 'Spreading like wildfire': Puerto Rico scandal may doom Trump in crucial swing state The CNN host rolled a clip of Kennedy saying, "Earlier this week President Trump promised me as control of the public health agencies which are HHS, and it's agencies, CDC FDA, NIH, which is key to making America healthy." Tapper then said, "Just a reminder, RFK Jr has no medical license, and has made wildly inaccurate...

News24 | Soweto children's deaths: UCT prof calls for immediate ban on killer pesticide

The head of the University of Cape Town's environmental health division, Professor Andrea Rother, says the pesticide that was responsible for the deaths of six children in Naledi, Soweto, earlier this month needs to be banned in South Africa. And now. from News24 news24/topstories/rss https://ift.tt/aPsz6NW via sinceretalk

Allentown, PA mayor thinks Trump will 'push people to vote for Vice President Harris'

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More than 90,000 Puerto Ricans live in the northern Philadelphia neighborhood of Fairhill, according to BBC News. "Many locals were left seething at a joke made at Donald Trump's rally the night before in New York, in which comic Tony Hinchcliffe described Puerto Rico as an "island of garbage," the news outlet reported. That's not the only city with a large Puerto Rican population. Donald Trump made an appearance in Allentown, Pennsylvania Tuesday, where he disregarded Hinchcliffe's comments and called his Madison Square Garden rally a "love fest." READ MORE: Republicans worry 'the latest outrage du jour will hurt Trump': report The MAGA hopeful's opponent, Kamala Harris' campaign posted an interview from Allentown, Pennsylvania Mayor Matthew Tuerk via X, writing, "Pennsylvania Mayor to Fox: We are a majority Latino city, largely Puerto Ricans. People heard the Trump team call Puerto Rico an ‘island of garbage’ and I thin...

Donald Trump believes he’s going to lose

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We have a week to go before Election Day, and like many of my comrades in the pundit corps, I’m being asked what I think is going to happen. Here are some thoughts, with others on the side. Donald Trump believes he’s going to lose That’s what he’s telling us when he complains about cheating. Yes, he’s eroding public trust in the institutions of government, but first and foremost, he’s saying that he believes Kamala Harris will beat him. No one in his right mind would triple down on his base of support, knowing such a strategy is not enough to win a presidential contest. But that’s what Trump has done. His campaign looks like he’s talking to the same people, over and over, because he is. He makes no effort to broaden his appeal outside the bubble of white-power politics. This is lazy and breathtakingly obtuse. And it forces him to do two things. One is complain about cheating in advance. The other is lie. His rally at Madison Square Garden was widely panned by neutral observers f...

'Unforced error': CNN’s Tapper presses GOP senator who won’t condemn comedian’s racist remarks

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Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD) on Tuesday suggested that comedian Tony Hinchcliffe's offensive and racist remark about Puerto Rico during Donald Trump's Madison Square Garden rally Sunday was nothing more than an "unforced error." CNN's Jake Tapper rolled a clip of the former president at his Mar-a-Lago estate today, completely disregarding the fact that Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico "a floating island of garbage." The MAGA leader said, "I don't think anybody has ever seen anything like what happened the other night at Madison Square Garden," Trump said. "The love in that room." READ MORE: 'So high stakes': Experts share what’s 'causing the anxiety' about the election Speaking to Rounds, Tapper commented, "We heard some really rough and offensive things from some of the speakers, including, of course the comedian who called Puerto Rico 'a floating island of garbage' there are a number of Republican...

Paul Krugman: 'Trump’s biggest con' of all

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Economist Paul Krugman argues in a Monday, October 28 New York Times column that Donald Trump's "biggest, potentially most consequential con has been political: portraying himself as a different kind of Republican, an ally of working Americans." Krugman submits that "Americans correctly remember Trump’s prepandemic economy as an era of strong job growth and rising wages — largely, I’d argue, because Republicans in Congress opened the fiscal spigots after austerity during the Obama years slowed recovery from the 2008 financial crisis." However, "Many also implicitly discount or memory-hole the high unemployment of Trump’s final year in office. And they’re still frustrated about higher prices, the consequence of the inflation surge of 2021-22 — even though this surge was a global pandemic phenomenon , and wages adjusted for inflation are now higher than they were right before the Covid-19 pandemic." READ MORE: Damning study warns Trump’s proposa...

GOP steps up effort to block battle ground state voters who botch mail-in ballots: report

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Republicans are urging the Supreme Court to block a Pennsylvania ruling that allowed voters whose mail ballots were rejected due to a technicality to cast provisional ballots on Election Day. The request filed Monday by the Republican National Committee and Pennsylvania GOP for the high court to step in came after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled in a 4-3 opinion that the critical battleground state must allow voters “who make mistakes when returning their ballots – errors that would require the votes to be thrown out” – to cast provisional ballots on Nov. 5, Politico reported. The American Civil Liberties Union said at the time that the Oct. 23 ruling was “a win for voting rights.” "Provisional ballots provide a failsafe to ensure that eligible voters are not disenfranchised for unforeseen circumstances at the ballot box," the organization posted on X after the ruling. The Republicans say in their stay application Monday that the “sharply divided” ruling “depa...

Ex-GOP leaders slam Republican rep up for reelection in urgent letter

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In a letter published on Monday, five former Republican leaders called on Pennsylvania voters to oust Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) by voting for his Democratic opponent, Janelle Stelson. "As current and former leaders from the Republican Party, it is rare for us to endorse a Democrat running for Congress," former US Reps. Barbara Comstock (R-VA), Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), Denver Riggleman (R-VA), Dave Trott (R-MI), and Joe Walsh (R-IL) — who all signed the letter — wrote, according to Mediaite . The letter continued: Where Stelson will work with Republicans and Democrats to find common ground, Scott Perry is consistently rated as one of the least bipartisan members of Congress. He is routinely the only member of the Pennsylvania delegation – Republican or Democrat – to oppose common sense measures that would improve the lives of his constituents, including legislation to protect firefighters and crack down on human trafficking. Scott Perry also turned his back on our brave vete...

Puerto Rican swing state radio host 'flooded with calls' after racist Trump rally remarks

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Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley radio host Victor — a Kamala Harris supporter — during a Monday interview with Politico "suggested that there might be an 11th-hour shift in this swing region of the most important Electoral College battleground." Politico reports , "On Monday morning, Martinez, who is of Puerto Rican descent, was flooded with calls , including one from an undecided voter who’d been lukewarm about both presidential candidates until finding out about Sunday’s Trump rally: 'They said, 'I’m voting for Kamala Harris.' That call, he said, was representative of the broader response." Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, during Trump Madison Square Garden rally appearance Sunday, described Puerto Rico as "a floating island of garbage." READ MORE: 'All you can eat': NY lawmaker slams Trump rally 'buffet of bigotry' The morning show host told Politico, "For Puerto Ricans, this is our October surprise. This is a gift w...

News24 | 24 years of empty promises: Another blow for East London land claimants as contractor 'abandons' site

West Bank claimants were forcefully removed from their homes in the early 1960s by the apartheid government, and taken to areas like Mdantsane and Parkside. from News24 News24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/eJIgRiZ via sinceretalk

News24 | WASTE LAND | Dead fish and dashed dreams in Mogale City sewage disaster

The failure of Mogale City’s sewage treatment infrastructure – despite a R300 million cash injection – has had disastrous consequences for those who depend on the river for life. Businesses have shuttered and illness flourishes as thousands of litres of effluent is deliberately pumped into rivers. from News24 News24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/OVcBwLT via sinceretalk

News24 | Mondli Makhanya | National dialogue may devolve into no more than a cacophony?

A month and a half from the first gathering and already the national dialogue is mired in discord. from News24 News24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/n4OYjtm via sinceretalk

News24 | 'Unwavering' ANC punts BELA Bill days after party leaders met with DA counterparts in clearing house

The ANC has continued to punt the contentious Basic Education Laws Amendment Bill, which is one of several issues that the party cannot come to an agreement on with its government of national unity partners, the DA and the IFP. from News24 News24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/q2OBKiz via sinceretalk

'Unconscionably sloppy': Swing district GOP rep spent donor money on lavish meals and liquor

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Control the House of Representatives in the next Congress will likely to come down to just a handful of races. And one incumbent Republican is now in hot water over his campaign expenditures. CNN reported Friday that Rep. Anthony D'Esposito (R-New York) — a freshman lawmaker who barely won his 2022 race — has multiple items on his latest campaign finance report that have "raised red flags" and "could lead to an ethics probe. The biggest questionable item is D'Esposito's food and beverage expenditures, which exceed $102,000 since 2022. His campaign also spent $43,000 on ride-sharing app Uber since August of 2022, including one $12,000 transaction in July. Roughly $23,000 of D'Esposito's food and beverage expenditures were at steakhouses ($13,400), bars ($7,700) and liquor stores ($2,000). The New York Republican's federal campaign expenditure report has several line items that simply read "steak," in which D'Esposito's campa...

'Outside organization' investigated over 'fraudulent' voter registrations in red PA county

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Pennsylvania is considered one of the biggest prizes of the 2024 Electoral College. Now, local officials are investigating what may be an underhanded effort to steal it. NBC News reported Friday that police in Lancaster County have launched an investigation into an "outside organization" that submitted roughly 2,500 voter registrations just before the Keystone State's October 21 deadline. The outlet reported that approximately 60% of those registrations appear to be "fraudulent," with many of them purportedly being filled out by the same person. "We have confirmed violation of our crimes code as well as our elections code," District Attorney Heather Adams told NBC. "We have all available detectives working on this. We are all hands on deck so that we can properly assess the validity of these applications in a timely manner." READ MORE: Report brutally shatters Trump's bogus illegal voting claims Adams said that the forms appear t...

'Ten-cent dictator’: Trump threatens mass arrests of opponents in 'cease and desist' post

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One of Donald Trump’s latest tweets is being roundly mocked, but some are warning the Republican presidential nominee is threatening mass arrests for his political opponents, and that it represents an America that will emerge if he is elected president again. In his social media missive, Trump threatens to incarcerate anyone who cheats in the election, but given his long history of false allegations and accusations, some say they believe he is targeting anyone who opposes him. Trump writes , “those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again.” “Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country,” Trump alleges. READ MORE: ‘Co...

Obama offers Trump 'a good rule of thumb'

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Former President Barack Obama has made appearances at a number of Kamala Harris' campaign events in the final stretch before Election Day, and he has consistently taken aim at his successor — Donald Trump — in the process. During the 2024 Democratic nominee's Atlanta rally Thursday night, the 44th president, according to Politico , offered the MAGA hopeful some advice: "A good rule of thumb is — don’t say you want to do anything like Hitler." Obama then pointed out Trump's former chief of staff John Kelly's bombshell revelation reported by The New York Times earlier this week. READ MORE: Report reveals some MAGA fans 'ready to take on a civil war' if Trump loses "He said that, in his opinion, Mr. Trump met the definition of a fascist, would govern like a dictator if allowed, and had no understanding of the Constitution or the concept of rule of law," the Times reported. Politico reports : Obama told the crowd that he’d served with Ke...

Report reveals some MAGA fans 'ready to take on a civil war' if Trump loses

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Atlantic reporter John Hendrickson set out on one mission during a Gwinnett County, Georgia event sponsored far-right MAGA ally Charlie Kirk earlier this week, by asking attendees one question: "What do you think will happen if [Donald] Trump loses?" Hendrickson reports that he "heard a range of answers," including "promises to accept the outcome," and even "predictions of a new Civil War." One MAGA fan, Joshua Barnes, told Hendrickson that if Kamala Harris defeats Trump, "as much as I would hate it, you kind of do have to accept it." READ MORE: 'Outrageous abuse of power': Trump withheld aid to Dem and GOP governors who criticized him Another attendee named Mark Williams — who says he runs "the biggest political printing business in" The Peach State — told The Atlantic reporter me that "there’s going to be some crazy people that do some crazy s—t; that just happens. But the actions of most of us, I mean,...

Why calling Trump 'fascist' closes the deal

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I think the clearest evidence that being called a fascist is hurting Donald Trump is the reaction by “independent” and GOP talking heads who foolishly defend him against the allegations or deflect them. Their thinking goes something like this: Yes, yes. It was bad when Trump said, as president, that he wanted “ Hitler’s generals .” It was also bad when his former chief of staff said he fits the profile of a fascist . And OK, it was really bad when the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said he’s “ a fascist to the core .” But we’re used to all that, they say. That’s just Trump being Trump. The real question is how will Kamala Harris appeal to undecided voters. I’ll tell you how she’s going to do that. By calling him a fascist. Among these talking heads, there is a working assumption – that undecided voters are not moved by politics but only by policy. If Harris hopes to win them over, they say, the question is what policies are they looking for and how is she goi...

'Outrageous abuse of power': Trump withheld aid to Dem and GOP governors who criticized him

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A new report describes how former President Donald Trump routinely denied federal disaster aid money to states whose governors either criticized him or declared President Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 election. And he didn't discriminate between Democratic and Republican critics. Politico's E&E News reported Thursday that when natural disasters hit states led by governors Trump disliked, he either withheld, delayed or outright denied aid for political reasons. In 2020, when Washington state was affected by wildfires, Democratic Governor Jay Inslee requested $37 million in aid for the affected areas. But even though the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) found that the Evergreen State's wildfires met the threshold for a federal disaster, Trump sat on the request for the final four months of presidency, only approving it just prior to leaving office. "It really was an outrageous abuse of power," Inslee told E&E. READ MORE: 'It is wrong ...

'Really disturbing': Blitzer clashes with GOP gov who downplayed Trump’s praise of Hitler

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CNN primetime host Wolf Blitzer recently had a testy exchange with New Hampshire Republican Governor Chris Sununu over former President Donald Trump's praise of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. On Wednesday night, Blitzer invited Sununu onto his show to ask him directly what he thought of the 45th president of the United States saying complimentary things about Hitler to Marine General John Kelly when he served as Trump's White House chief of staff. The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg wrote an article Tuesday describing conversations with Kelly, in which he confided that Trump longed to have the same kind of "totally loyal" generals "that Hitler had." He also said that Hitler "did some good things" with Germany's economy with Kelly reminding him that he can't "ever" say anything complimentary about the architect of the Holocaust. Throughout their exchange, Sununu downplayed and equivocated and attempted to pivot to criticism of V...

Man charged for shooting at Dem field office had 120 guns, 250K bullets and grenade launcher

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Police in Tempe, Arizona have arrested a man they believe is responsible for a spate of shootings at a Democratic field office in the pivotal battleground state. The alleged shooter's cache of weapons and ammunition suggests he may have been planning a politically motivated mass shooting. Phoenix-based ABC affiliate KNXV reported Wednesday that 60 year-old Jeffrey Michael Kelly has been arrested in connection with three different shootings reported at the campaign office since September. Democrats have since closed that office and moved operations to an undisclosed location out of concern for the safety of workers and volunteers. Kelly has since been charged with unlawful discharge, shooting at a non-residential structure, terrorism and criminal damage. He is also accused of "hanging suspicious bags of white powder from several political signs lined with razor blades," according to KVXN. READ MORE: Democrats close field office in swing state that's been shot a...