I expect we'll all hear a lot of stupid, weird, and godawful things in the upcoming days as details of the Trump shooting and GOP convention unfold, and we might as well gird ourselves for it and pray for an extra dose of strength.
As Stanley noted:
Trump was shot and it happened the way I always imagined it. He gets a superficial wound, other people get wounded and killed. He comes out of it with more votes. As if this presidential campaign season can't get any weirder. The best comment came from previously shot Rep. Scalise, "Violence doesn't belong in politics." I guess that means it's ok everywhere else.
Can't get any weirder? Oh, but it can, Stan!
In texting with friends yesterday, before the extent of the incident was known, one of the more bizarre notions that kept coming up was that Trump orchestrated the shooting himself. The idea was that Trump got somebody to shoot him with a low-caliber weapon so he could whip up more frenzy for Second Amendment freedoms. Plus the idea of the wounded warhorse striding victorious into the convention would make for great TV and underscore Trump's vitality against Biden's doddering.
Perhaps Never-Trumpers can be cut a little slack for such a nutty idea given that Trump popped up within seconds of being grazed, struggled to raise his fist and cried "fight, fight, fight" at supporters as his security detail sought to trundle him off to a van. He certainly seemed alive to the PR value of the moment.
And it didn't take many moments before rally-goers realized Trump had been hit and turned to the television cameras to hurl insults and blame at reporters.
Speaker Mike Johnson has called for everybody to tone down their rhetoric. I think that's good advice. And I'm going to take it as a good sign that some Trumpers understand that violent language breeds violent acts.
But I doubt Trump's Truth Social posts are going to follow Johnson's suggestion. Trump posted on Truth Social: "In this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand United, and show our True Character as Americans, remaining Strong and Determined and not allowing Evil to Win." Is that a call to stand firm against retaliatory violence? Or coded language to gun up and stand by? Time will tell.
I don't expect that Trump's operatives are going to miss a chance to wave the bloody shirt--possibly literally--to further their agenda. And if you want to know what that agenda is, here's the new party platform: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/2024-republican-party-platform
... And the Wa Po this morning has this round-up of remarks from various Republicans who didn't get Speaker Johnson's memo:
ReplyDelete“The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.” --J.D. Vance, Trump VP hopeful
“Let’s be clear: This was an assassination attempt aided and abetted by the radical Left and corporate media incessantly calling Trump a threat to democracy, fascists, or worse." --Sen. Tim Scott, R-SC
“[W]ell of course they tried to keep him off the ballot, they tried to put him in jail and now you see this …” Chris LaCivita, Trump advisor in now-deleted post on X.
“Joe Biden sent the orders. The Republican District Attorney in Butler County, Pa., should immediately file charges against Joe Biden for inciting an assassination.” Rep Mike Collins, R-Ga., referring to Biden remark to "put Trump in the bulls-eye" in the election
“The Democrats and the media are to blame for every drop of blood spilled today. For years and years, they’ve demonized him and his supporters.” Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga
Yes, predictably, the Stupid Wing of the GOP reacted in character. Sorry to see Tim Scott hanging out with them.
DeleteBut it should also be noted that most GOP institutional leaders seem to have reacted responsibly.
Who are the GOP "institutional leaders"? As opposed to the Trumpers? How can you tell the difference? They've all endorsed him.
DeleteMike Johnson, Mitch McConnell, others from the leadership conferences of both houses of Congress, various governors, state elected officials and representatives, party officials at many levels. Yes, all of them, to one extent or another, have gotten behind Trump, or made their peace with him, or are trying to live with him. Or, in quite a few cases, back him enthusiastically.
DeleteBut the point here is that they are saying the right thing - as, so far, is Trump himself.
I agree that Johnson's comments were measured. I don't know what McConnell said, but he's on his way out.
DeleteAs far as I can see, there isn't a distinction between Trumpers and what I used to call "mainstream Republicans." The mainstream has either declined to run, resigned, or knuckled under to the Trump wing.
Yes - it's the Trump Party. The defiant Mitt Romneys of the world have already run away or have been forced out.
DeleteAnd who was responsible for inciting violence on Jan 6?
ReplyDeleteRep Scalise (R) was shot in 2017 and immediately reiterated his opposition to any kind of gun control reforms, Yesterday he commented that “ There is no place for violence in politics”.
But it’s ok everywhere else I suppose.
As Jean pointed out, the stupid and weird stuff about s already being said.
ReplyDeleteI think there is one thing we can be thankful for, and that is that the bullet that struck the edge of Trump's ear wasn't one inch closer. It could very easily have been fatal. The ripples from that could have been a tsunami of chaos.
Yes. I am thankful Trump wasn't badly hurt or killed, if only because I want to see his ideas rejected by logic and moral argument. That's the only way to effectively defeat him. Make him a laughing stock of ridiculousness. Don't make him a martyr.
DeleteAgree
DeleteI called up my friend and former colleague this morning We figured that the shooter had to be pretty unskilled and inexperienced to NOT seriously wound or kill Trump at a distance of 140 meters. He probably flinched. I think, at that distance, any experienced shooter could have done the job. And I don't think it was the deep state because Trump would be dead. Witness the Secret Service snipers and their equipment and how quickly they dispatched the assassin. I think it'll turn out he was a mentally disturbed individual. If he didn't shoot at Trump, he would have hit a school or a concert. Already I'm hearing reports he was bullied in school. Trump may have saved children's lives by being a lightning rod.
ReplyDeleteI don't know anything about weapons and ballistics. The shooter was just 20, comfortable suburb, good student in high school, worked in a nursing home as a food service aide, lived with his parents, had registered as a Republican, and used his dad's legally purchased gun to commit the crime. It just breaks my heart to look at his picture.
DeleteThis could be the case of a disturbed person committing suicide by police. He probably knew that he had zero chances of coming out of this alive.
DeleteJack, you could be right.
DeleteNo disrespect to men, but I wonder why these shooters are almost always male. Girls also experience bullying in school, and have mental health issues. Women can buy guns and shoot them if they want to. But if they're suicidal they're more likely to overdose.
Saw an item today that he was tried out for his high school's shooting team(!) but didn't make the team because he was a 'comically bad shot'. (I think that was the quote, don't have it in front of me at the moment.) AN AP profile of him in today's local newspaper, piecing together the scant info known about him, referenced a high school classmate who apparently new him slightly. From the article: "Crooks was bullied at school and sat alone at lunchtime. Other students mocked him for the way he dressed, such as hunting outfits."
DeleteCrooks' father isn't talking to media so far, but the FBI reports that Crooks' family is cooperating with investigators.
A couple of July 4ths ago, we had a shooter in Highland Park, IL who committed horrific carnage by shooting from a window in an upper story of a downtown building into a crowd of parade watchers. That shooter is roughly Crooks' age, also a loner who was able to get hold of a gun via his parents. That particular young man is pretty clearly mentally ill. Unless/until we learn more, I'm pigeonholing this case in that same sort of category - except that this case also appears to be an assassination attempt.
Hmm. We've got this handy press narrative of shooters as loner, skinny, neurodivergent STEM nerds hassled at school who play video games in their parents' basement. Anyone else wonder if news stories about Thomas Crooks are crafted to fit the narrative?
DeleteAnd, given that the Crumbleys are sitting in jail for failing to keep guns away from their son Ethan, who shot up Oxford High in SE Michigan, I'm not surprised the parents are lawyering up and keeping their mouths shut.
Katherine, the only female assassin I can offer up is Squeeky Fromme who tried to kill poor President Ford. But I guess you could say she was under Manson's mind control. Women do kill and attack but usually not to gain fame directly by it. They'll do it to get someone out of THEIR way or to get something they want, like top cheerleader position for their daughter or a specific man. Sometimes, I think these guys just want to go from being nobody to being somebody but I'm no psychologist. They all seem nuts to me.
Delete"I'm not surprised the parents are lawyering up and keeping their mouths shut."
DeleteI was thinking the same thing - I'm surprised Crooks' family are cooperating with authorities. One way or another, the gun liability is going to boomerang on the parents.
Jack, "suicide by cop" is definitely a worthy hypothesis. I think most mass shooters expect to be killed unless they can't think that far ahead.
DeleteStanley - don't forget Sarah Jane Moore, just a couple of weeks after Squeaky.
Deletehttps://thedispatch.com/article/radical-kooks/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Wanderland&utm_campaign=Wanderland
John Hinckley, Jr, who shot Reagan back in, I think, '81, had the delusional notion that somehow he was going to impress Jodie ,Foster, whom he apparently had an obsession with.
DeleteI don't think we ever did figure out why Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy. Or for that matter why John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln.
The Booth family was pretty nutty, according to the novel "Booth" by Karen Joy Fowler. Abject poverty, family instability, inherited tendency to booze. Interesting read.
DeleteYes, Jim. I forgot all about Sarah Jane Moore. Poor Ford couldn't catch a break. But these people, when successful and even unsuccessful, change history. Would Reagan have had so much Teflon if he hadn't been almost killed? I remember when the 300 Marines were killed in Lebanon. Not a peep from anyone. Imagine if it happened under Carter or Clinton. By killing Lincoln, Booth paved the way for a weakened and foreshortened Reconstruction and the suppression of the black people. He succeeded and eventually made the sacrifice of the Union soldiers for naught or next-to-naught. This (thus far I believe) disturbed shooter may have similarly changed history and even world/ human species history. If Trump wins based on false sympathy and the Heritage Foundation rules, then the brakes are full on for climate change mitigation and its worldwide effects will be unstoppable and millennia long lasting.
DeleteAnother one I forgot was George Wallace, shot and crippled. He was probably never a serious candidate anyway but it still counted.
DeleteI'm reading a biography of US Grant, whose post-war career, including two terms as president, was interwoven with the Reconstruction history. This author's thesis seems to be that white Southern hatred and fear of Black citizens and voters eventually wore down Northern idealism. By the 1870s, the abolitionists who fought for decades to make abolitionism respectable in the North, created the GOP and got Lincoln elected, were starting to die off. The succeeding generation wasn't as committed. Those post-Civil War years led to the Gilded Age in the North, and the GOP transformed from an abolitionist party to a business-friendly party. Grant himself came from an abolitionist family and as president fought credibly and hard for Reconstruction, but was also susceptible to the lure of wealthy friends and benefactors.
DeleteApparently the early report that he had given money to a liberal PAC although registered Republican confused him with a different man, 69 years old, with the same name. It seems to me that all shooters are mentally disturbed. Many crave attention. Trying to kill a presidential candidate is a good way to get attention.
ReplyDeleteAnne, re: the 69-year-old: according to one of the many enewsletters that come into my box, the WaPo had found that whoever gave the $15 donation to the liberal PAC had the same name and lived at the same address as Crooks. Is it his dad or grandfather or something?
DeleteI see that Thomas Matthew Crooks' father is named Matthew Crooks. So maybe there is a possibility of a name mix-up?
DeleteRemember that Reagan was almost killed:
ReplyDeleteIt was just 70 days into Reagan’s first term when he left the Washington Hilton on March 30 after a speech to a trade union and approached his waiting limousine at 2:27 p.m. Hinckley couldn't believe his luck. A troubled 25-year-old, Hinckley had been hoping to kill the president to impress actress Jodie Foster. He had now somehow found himself standing behind a rope line in a crowd of spectators and journalists — all unscreened by the Secret Service — just 15 feet from the president. He pulled out his revolver and opened fire.
His first bullet struck White House Press Secretary James Brady in the head, and his second hit D.C. Police Officer Thomas Delahanty in the back.
At the sound of the shots, Secret Service Agent Jerry Parr grabbed Reagan and shoved him toward the open door of the armored limousine. Hinckley’s third bullet flew high. The fourth hit Secret Service Agent Tim McCarthy in the chest as he stood between the president and the gunman.
The fifth shot hit the armored window of the limousine. Hinckley's final bullet ricocheted off the side of the limousine, flattening into the shape of a dime and striking Reagan five inches below his left armpit. Parr dove in behind the president, and the door slammed shut.
The report continues:
As laid out in my book, Rawhide Down: The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan, the shooting generated massive sympathy from the American public for Reagan, who spent 13 days in the hospital before returning to the White House. But it did something else -- it built a bond between the president and the public. They had seen a president who acted with grace and courage. They would hear that he had cracked jokes with his doctors and nurses as they fought to save his life and sought to ease the anxiety of loved ones.
Lying on a gurney in the trauma bay, a chest tube draining blood from his side, Reagan sought to calm down his wife, Nancy, with a quip.
“Honey, I forgot to duck,” he told her, borrowing a line that boxer Jack Dempsey delivered to his own wife after losing the 1926 heavyweight championship.
He joked with advisers as he was being wheeled into the operating room. And just before he was put under for surgery, he cracked to his surgeons: “I hope you are all Republicans.”
Dr. Joseph Giordano, a liberal Democrat, replied: “Today, Mr. President, we are all Republicans.”
The White House wasted little time in ensuring those lines were delivered to the press. As David Broder, a Washington Post political journalist, would write two days later: “What happened to Reagan on Monday is the stuff of which legends are made.”
Three decades later, Broder stood by that assessment. “He was politically untouchable from that point on,” Broder said in an interview. “He became a mythic figure.”
Unlike Reagan, I doubt Trump will benefit much with the general public since it is unlikely that he will be humbled by the event.
;
...and to add a further twist to this suddenly-eventful election season, it seems the judge has thrown out Trump's classified-documents case on a legal technicality - the special prosecutor's appointment had problems. That case, of course, has been widely thought to be the one which seemed most likely to be a slam-dunk against Trump.
ReplyDeleteMy wife believes, with varying levels of seriousness, that Trump has made a deal with the devil.
The judge in the classified-document's case, Aileen Cannon, had already been savaged repeatedly in liberal media because seemingly every ruling so far had been favorable to Trump. Of course, this is the most favorable ruling possible. I understand she is a Trump appointee. This ruling is going to put to a severe test Democrats' newly-vowed commitment to ratchet down the rhetoric.
Back to the original topic: Axios reported that Trump - so far - sees this assassination attempt as an opportunity to turn over a new leaf. Apparently he told a reporter that he has ripped up his convention speech, which was going to be full of Trump's copyrighted brand of invective, and will replace it with a call for national unity and responsibility.
ReplyDeleteAs a Catholic, I believe all of us are capable of change. But I'll be pleased if this new resolution survives GOP Convention week. I hope I'm wrong.
Remember that time Tony Soprano got shot and he was going to turn over a new leaf? How many episodes did that last? Just sayin' ...
DeleteYes - I actually watched that season, not too long ago. It's a good comparison, because our resolutions to change run into the reality of all the social and relationship forces that drag us back to where we were before. I understand people coming out of prison experience this. As do people coming out of rehab. (And people coming out of the confessional!)
DeletePeople coming out of rehab have a 50-50 chance of staying sober for a year only if they have a support system. If we're going to use that analogy, does Trump have that support? Does Steve Bannon want to hear about unity and responsibility? Does Stephen Miller? Michael Flynn? The Jan6 perps? The coal and petroleum CEOs he's promised tax breaks and deregulation? CatholicVote is still making excuses for him because of the anti-gay and -trans language in his platform. But the culture warriors are not happy with his back pedalling on abortion, and they're watching him.
DeleteNo - Trump doesn't have a supportive network. He has sycophants and attack dogs.
DeleteAnti-gay and anti-trans have replaced abortion? Wow. They don't have anything of the moral gravity of abortion. It's just a surrogate. Take them away and these folks or some of them would stick with Trump. They like the whole enchilada.
DeleteCatholicVote is a whole other post. I have tried researching them a bit. I would also give anything to know who paid for their open letter supporting Trump as a culture warrior in our weekly newspaper. My goal is to get that issue of the paper into the bottom of the recycling bin before Raber sees it and blows another clot.
DeleteIf getting shot and surviving qualifies one to be president, then I'm sure that among those tens of thousands of shooting victims in the US, we can find two people who are more qualified than either Trump or Biden. Sorry, but after watching videos of children live and dismembered extracted from rubble every day, killed and maimed with US ordnance, I have nothing much left for old white men that could be somewhere else enjoying their retirement and staying out of the limelight. Intellectually, I agree that there should not be violence in our politics, but we are a very violent country, always have been and I've never been shocked by these things. As far as the shooting is concerned, I am waiting for the news frenzy to die down. It is especially important to find out about the shooter. He could have been another "Taxi Driver" trying to impress Jodie Foster, the lesbian actress.
ReplyDeleteYes, we have always been a violence-loving nation of pinheads, easily brought to tears by the cheap sentiment of Forrest Gump, and quick to mistake slogans for reasoned insight. We love underdogs only when they succeed. And heroic sacrifice is great as long as it doesn't inconvenience us.
DeleteMy sense is that we're watching the last gasp of the Republican and Democratic parties. I think the notion that any political party can be a "big tent" is a fiction. We're either going to see the rise of a multiparty system. Or apathy and cynicism has grown to the point where subsequent generations just capitulate to somebody like Putin with big guns to keep everybody in line.
I'd bet on the latter.
Oh, yes. Forrest Gump. Never watched the movie. Something about the trailers just told me to stay away. Was the message that you can transcend your limitations? I guess you can, if the Israelis don't drop two tons of made-in-the USA high explosive on or near you.
DeleteForrest is a slightly low-IQ man whom fate blows into the significant cultural and political situations of the later 20th century (symbolized by a little feather on the wind), but is saved by so much deus ex machina you can hear the gears grind. By the end, you realize Forrest should have been maimed, killed, starved, sickened with AIDS, or living on the streets several times over. But the message is that Forrest is saved by optimism and humility so no need to worry about vulnerable people because God won't let anything happen to them.
DeleteOne of my brothers, 16 months older than I, suffered a loss of oxygen during his birth and suffered permanent brain damage. He appeared “ normal” , was tall and reasonably good looking., and in our small town public school he was essentially mainstreamed. However when given exams in high school they were oral exams because he could barely read, although he was motivated to work hard at that so that he could read and pass the driver’s license test at 16. He was quite smart and had a great memory and did reasonable well in history and lit classes and any other required course that allowed them to examine him orally. I don’t know how he was graded in math in elementary school be cause he couldn’t do basic arithmetic beyond about second grade level.He had a cheerful, optimistic personality, and was a good basketball player. He was well liked. He was a champion water skier until he broke a leg going over a jump in a competition, and was an excellent golfer, which he loved. At age 47 he was golfing and was hit in the head with a ball from somebody on a different hole. He played through the end, and two days later died in his sleep of a brain hemorrhage - since he never lost consciousness he didn’t go to an ER. He had been active with the The Southern California KofC Golf Association and every year organized a celebrity golf tournament to raise money for The Little People - research into dwarfism. He managed to get a lot of famous celebrities to participate. He organized busses to go to multiple parishes in LA to take people to the Coliseum when JPII was in LA. He was behind the scenes working when Michael Jackson did the Super Bowl show. He was always where the action was.The fundraiser annual golf tournament was a huge tournament and raised a lot of money. Other members of the KofC worked with him for years, never knowing until he died, at the funeral, that he could barely read and write. He and I were in the same grade because at one point the PTB in my public, K-8 elementary school decided that I should skip a grade, so I was moved into my brothers class. When I went to one of our class reunions after his death, former classmates kept telling me how much Forrest Gump reminded them of my brother. I never saw the movie. I was afraid it would be too painful.
DeleteAs played by Hanks, Forrest is a very winning and sweet character. It sounds like your brother was, too. What I object to about the movie is how pat it all is and the way characters are pulled in and out of danger to manipulate pathos. Like those damn Disney movies about dogs.
DeleteAnne, your brother sounds remarkable.
DeleteI liked the movie the first time I saw it, but it sort of grated on me every time I glanced at it on television afterward.
Anne, your brother sounds like a very kind and remarkable person.
DeleteYeehaw! It's J.D. Vance for VP. What happened to that guy? I'm happy to give props to anybody raised by addicts who pulled themselves out of that quagmire. But I don't see anything to admire about Vance's conversion to Trumpism.
ReplyDeleteI was afraid that would happen. He's pretty much the definition of an opportunist. My sister and I were talking yesterday. We both said we want our money back for reading his book. Then we said, "Oh wait a minute. It was a library copy."
DeleteI was impressed that he bootstrapped himself into a law degree from Yale. But he never practiced law. So what was the point? He went to work as a hedge fund manager. There's been plenty of drama and job loss due to corporate raider vulture capitalism in our state, so I have a poor opinion of that.
I think JD is smarter than Trump. Not sure that's a good thing.
I think Vance increases Trump's chance of winning especially if he keeps his mouth shut about abortion at the federal level. However, if women including Republican women think that Vance has a chance of promoting that, then the choice could backfire on Trump.
DeleteI think Vance is the most logical successor to Trump. He is good friends with Trump, Jr. I think the Donald knows that he cannot have his son or daughter succeed him, but an eight-year Vance presidency could lead to either of them as possibilities.
We could be seeing the remaking of the Republican Party into a permanent Trump-Vance party.
Katherine, I actually did buy Vance’s book. Hardcover . Once he revealed his true colors I threw it in the trash rather than donate it to the used book sale at our local library. I didn’t want anyone else to read it. BTW, my husband the aerospace engineer also has a degree in patent law from Georgetown ( he worked full time during the day and did law school at night) However he liked engineering better than law so we decided he should stick with what he loved even though patent law would have paid multiples more than engineering did. He used his law a couple of times for special projects but they were expert witness analyses for litigation related to military aircraft project contracts - he was hired by the companies that didn’t receive the award.
DeleteAnne, I think being an aerospace engineer sounds way more interesting than being a patent lawyer, even if the law knowledge was occasionally useful.
DeleteVance's job during the campaign will be to appear young and energetic, make Trump's platform sound intelligent, and be a Doberman going after Biden and Harris. After the election it will be to not hog the spotlight and be unquestioningly loyal.
DeleteVance's job will be to do what Mike Pence would not: throw an election result that Trump doesn't like.
DeleteI understand why Trump's fans like JD Vance a lot. Because he's like their fearless leader only younger. But I don't see how he's going to get Trump any votes he didn't already have. Because his ideas are the same as Trump's. And they align pretty closely with the Project 2025 playbook.
DeleteThe Biden Harris campaign has observed their respectful moment of silence. But they're going to have to keep countering that playbook.
One part of Vance's biography often rushed past to get to his book and his Senate run: he worked as a Silicon Valley investment banker. Those connections are said to be of great interest to GOP fundraising officials.
DeleteAnother nugget I didn't know until yesterday: Vance converted to the Catholic church in 2019. It is said to account for some of his unorthodox (by conservative standards) policy preferences. He is a workers-rights guy, said to be closer to Elizabeth Warren than the Paul Ryan school of austerity.
DeleteWorkers rights guy how? Would be interested in reading more.
DeleteCheck out this article: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/jd-vance-pick-unnerves-gop-s-business-elite-thrills-populists/ar-BB1q2nS6?ocid=BingNewsSerp
DeleteIt appears that he may be an actual populist, as opposed to Trump, who is a faux one. That is something that actually did come across in his book. According to the article, this is alarming some of the corporation bros a bit. Not sure how this squares with his hedge fund history.
Some of the worker's rights and "tax the corporations" views may attract some swing voters. But it also may turn off some of the supply side, trickle down economy people. So he may not cause much of a net change. I think it won't move the needle for the people who have already decided.
DeleteThanks, Katherine. I don't see a workingman's friend there. It's unclear from the story at what point he supported a raise in the minimum wage. Before he accepted Donald Trump as his personal Lord And savior?
DeleteAnd it's vague on what his support for unions amounts to.
Jim's claim that he is aligned with Eliz Warren on labor issues seems an exaggeration.
The fact that he's Catholic now cuts no ice with me. They'll take anybody. Hell, they took me! But perhaps it makes a diff to those of you still in the fold.
For more on JD Vance's economic populism (including alignment with Elizabeth Warren), and how there may be a Catholic angle to it, check out this America article from Dec. 2023:
Deletehttps://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2023/12/04/jd-vance-ohio-catholic-values-246559?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2928&pnespid=sbZoEnsYMvsX06fBoW3pHIKcoknxTIUvcbas2e5woAZm1hvkrX0HOucSwIwNrLCxDBa7ANkd
One possible takeaway is that young people don't conform to the old identities and alignments.
It is interesting that JD's wife is a practicing Hindu. She is the daughter of Indian immigrants. In his book she sounded like a really sweet person who helped him stay grounded. They were married in an interfaith ceremony and have three kids.
DeleteOver the last couple of days, I've seen several people who have known Vance - former professors and the like - describe him as brilliant, but I think the consensus is his wife is more brilliant. She clerked for Chief Justice Roberts, which I am given to understand is about as stellar as it gets among the fledgling-lawyer set. Yesterday I spent a few minutes watching him make the glad-handing rounds on the convention floor.
DeleteIn that situation, she seemed to see her role as arm candy: smile nicely and walk wherever he walked. I think she really was clutching his arm. I hope we get to know her better in the coming days - she sounds more interesting than him.
Thanks, Jim. Seems like a fairly balanced look at Vance. Remains to be seen to what extent he grows in the faith and its social teaching ... or capitulates to Trump's indifference to wealth inequality, and pushes for privileges for the rich, and deregulation that affects air and water quality in poor areas.
DeleteFor converts, especially us late comers, accepting Church teaching is a gradual process and requires a lot of listening and soul-searching.
I'd say that the Church has influenced my views on abortion, IVF, end-of-life care, and family stability over the years. These have stuck with me despite having left the pews.
Vance has said, regarding climate change, "the climate has always changed over the millennia." That is one of the dumbest things any human being can say. His sloppy thinking makes him perfectly qualified to drive the Lemming Express Bus on which we are all passengers whether we like it or not.
DeleteHe is also pro-genocide which makes him a moral failure.
I can't vote for any of these punklets.
Vance, God gave you a brain. Read the user manual. Vance, God gave you a heart, get a defibrillator.
In support of Stanley's observations, here is a NY Times article / fact check on Vance, climate change and energy policy. One needs to have the chiropractor on speed dial to keep up with his whiplash-inducing changes in policy positions.
Deletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/15/climate/jd-vance-climate-change.html
Here's more Catholic media on Vance. Sounds like he's a rootin-tootin two-fisted culture warrior for Jeebus and the True Church, and that Trump is surrounding himself with Catholics. https://catholicherald.co.uk/trump-appoints-firebrand-pro-life-catholic-as-vp-running-mate-and-political-heir/
DeleteMaybe some wishful thinking in there.
He apparently wants to be a two -fisted culture warrior, but his personal life has some contradictions. Such as being married to a non- Christian. He is pretty anti-immigrant (I'm sure he would make the distinction that he's against illegal immigration) but his in-laws are immigrants. Of course they're well educated immigrants who taught in a university, and apparently had a little money. But he's pretty much in favor of booting the other kind of immigrants out. He seems to be anti a lot of things that are part of the social safety net. I don't know, does he think it enables dysfunction? It just seems that a lot of his ideas aren't very coherent.
DeleteI don't want to identify too closely with Vance, but my take is that a lot of people from dysfunctional families reinvent themselves constantly. Every kid who grows up with addicts learns to handle the unpredictability by being somewhat chameleon-like. To an outsider it looks inconsistent, opportunistic, even two-faced. Vance was the darling writer of the white working class, then a Silicon Valley mover and shaker, then a never-Trumper, now a Trump lap dog. Trump, with a volcanic temper, ability to twist the truth, and demand for unquestioned loyalty probably feels quite familiar to Vance. So look for him to "handle" Trump though praise, appeasement, and doing the dirty work. Until Trump is out of the picture and Vance can slough off the VP role and morph into something else.
DeleteInteresting observation. I’ll have to think about it. I’m not sure that I’m ready to let him off the hook. I think he’s just as out for himself as Trump and has no real principles - also like trump.
DeleteJean, I think that's a good insight. It would explain some things.
DeleteI'm not letting Vance off the hook. He's 40 years old and has responsibility for himself. But, if I'm right, as a child of addicts, he should have some insights into his own motivations and m.o. and have them under governance.
DeleteJean, thanks for the link to that Catholic Herald article on Vance. Interesting to see how he's perceived, and it had some good reporting on aspects of his background that I hadn't seen before. I didn't realize he adopted the surname "Vance" only six years ago.
DeleteHe seems a bundle of contradictions: he claims various philosophical/theological influences, but he comes across politically - and to some extent in his life story - as a chameleon and opportunist. Maybe he's living with contradictions. Or maybe the claim of influences is so much BS.
I have not made any kind of study of this, but my sense is that the independent Catholic press is no more monolithic than the mainstream press--there's a left or right political slant and analysis on Catholic teachings of most import to orthodoxy on to readership. Does Vance care about abortion? The poor? The sick? Etc.
DeleteI wonder. Will Vance's wife's complexion lose Trump his racist cohort? I've heard there's been rumblings. What about her being a practicing Hindu? That can't sit well with the Evangelicals. We'll see how well the cult hangs together. It could, because Trumpers seem to be able to hold a dozen contradictory viewpoints at one time. Trump loves division and conflict and confusion, and it seems to work for him if not for the common good. Of course, Trump could jettison Vance in a moment if it suits him. It would be ironic if racism and religious bigotry led to his defeat.
DeleteAlso, Doctor Ben Carson gave a speech at the convention and talked about how "they" tried to kill Trump. That's the product that sells. I have the feeling that, if Trump wins, "they" are going to pay. Why do I feel like I have "they" tattooed across my back?
An afterthought to our previous comments about previous assassinations and attempts, another assassination led to WWI, the killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife by Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip. We hope that the attempt on Trump's life won't lead to anything that dire.
ReplyDeleteIf I recall correctly, the horrible genocide of Tutsi some three decades ago began with an assassination: a plane carrying the Hutu president of Rwanda was shot down. Hutus then went on a killing spree that killed something like 800,000 Tutsi.
DeleteIs anyone else sick and tired of reading that Secret Service was lax in "letting" the attempt on Trump's life happen? Those officers put their own bodies in front of him to shield him. . It is wrong to blame those brave men and women (that's another dig, that women officers aren't as good and it happened because of diversity and inclusion policies) because a disturbed person found an interstice in the security wall. I'm sure surveillance peripheries and policies will be revised and updated. But there is really no such thing as absolutely assured security.
ReplyDeleteI think your last statement is right on: any security arrangement will look to balance security considerations with other considerations: candidate visibility, accessibility, etc. I'd imagine Trump is more difficult in this respect than most presidents/ex-presidents/candidates: the rallies are really the core of his campaigns and he (and probably his political team) would resist anything that would restrict the dynamics of those lovefests (/hatefests).
DeleteI don't think it's wrong to look critically at the Secret Service's performance (including its planning) for the event - and we should fervently hope that self-assessment and self-critique is a standard part of their operations.
I'm just an average citizen on these matters, but my guess is: they'll conclude that the coordination between the Secret Service and local law enforcement needs to be significantly improved; and they may also conclude that that particular site was problematic from a security standpoint; they may push the president and his team to select sites that are more open with fewer buildings within rifle-shot range. Those are just my amateur guesses.
That's a good point, Jim, that the location itself was somewhat problematic. I would think a site with fewer buildings with more open visibility would be a good thing. Or maybe even an indoor venue like a covered stadium.
DeleteDo they use drones? You can cover the entire area with a few of them. They're relatively cheap, hard to spot when at height. I have a small one. If I fly it 400 feet above my house, I can see everything going on around my house sent to my cell phone. I can check out my roof, gutters etc. If I thought someone was going to come after me in my house, I'd definitely use it. It could also be used to counter a threat drone. Tie it in with AI pattern recognition and it would be formidable. Get one with Far Infrared imaging and a guy on the roof lights up like ball lightning.
DeleteGood question! Seems like drones and open communication among branches of law enforcement working these events would help a lot.
DeleteMore news of the weird!
ReplyDeleteTrump calls RFK Jr to tell him all about getting shot by a "big, big" and "tough" gun while rambling on about the dangers of 38 horse-like vaccinations in 10 pound babies and how joining the Trump train "to do stuff" would be "so, so good" for him.
In the vid that RFK deleted but that lives on on YouTube, RFK, whose own father was shot in 1968, listens in stone-faced silence.
https://youtu.be/_jHLTgQ0VlQ?si=4rVwc2a6pdOyI-i7
Do you think there's any chance RFK would join him? I mean they both have an altered view of reality.
DeleteGod knows what those two could concoct if left too long in a room alone. What's clear is that Trump is running a fire sale on presidential appointments. The tone and content of his pitch made my flesh creep even worse than some of those calls Lyndon Johnson made to Jackie Kennedy when he was half snockered.
DeleteJean, that YouTube video: words fail.
DeleteI guess that's Trump in sales-pitch mode. My guess is, when asking hedge fund and venture capitalist types for money, he soft-pedals any suggestion of vaccine denial.
I've basically paid zero attention to Kennedy thus far - that's the first time I've seen him. He looks like a cranky old man.
RFK Jr is a nut, but I think I'd look cranky, too, listening to that blowhard ramble-bragging about getting shot if my dad died on a hotel kitchen floor of a bullet wound. As Bugs Bunny used to say, what a maroon.
DeleteRFK Jr is also looney. And. Like Trump, anti- vax of almost any kind. I suppose that trump was figuring he’d jump on the trump train because of their shared conviction that childhood vaccinations cause autism and other problems. The reports, vehemently denied by trump, have said that Baron is “ on the spectrum”. Given their choice of a school for him - very close to my home and very far from the WH, known for designing individual programs for kids with a range of learning problems, lighting up the WH with the colors of the autism flag(?), and his angry responses at the mere suggestion I would guess that Baron may exhibit mild autism symptoms.
ReplyDeleteCaused by childhood vaccines. Several studies have noted that the rate of autism is correlated with paternal age at conception. If Baron does exhibit some autism symptoms, trump does not want to be “ blamed” for it.
DeleteRemembering that correlation is not causation. My husband was 44 when our youngest was born. Our youngest son had a big reaction to his first DPT,. After that his pediatrician only gave the DT part. U fortunately a few kids do get bad reactions to vaccinations
DeleteYeah, when The Boy was diagnosed with a learning disability in third grade, sister in law said it was because it took us until our 40s to figure out how to make a baby and "everything got stale," hee hee. I hope I get some time off purgatory for refraining from pointing out that her kids were both dyslexic.
DeleteIf that Trump kid has a disability, I feel nothing but glad that he seems to have an attentive mother.
Yes, Melania does seem to be very protective of her son. According to the DC gossip mill, the reason she stayed in New York ( at huge cost to taxpayers) rather than move to the White House in Jan 2017 was because she was renegotiating her pre-nup with Donald to ensure a better deal for his youngest son ( as well as for herself) should they ever split. I suspect it’s also the reason she told the Florida GOP honchos that her son is “ too busy” to be a delegate at the convention. I think she wants her son to stay as far away from politics as she has tried to do.
DeleteApparently he is going to go to college but they don’t say where. His dad could buy him a place at some prestige college as trumps father did for him at Penn and Jared’s father did at Harvard, so it will be interesting to see. If he has difficulties ( and the choice of school in the DC area indicates that he probably does) and he goes to an Ivy or other competitive school I suppose his father will pay someone to write his papers and sit for his exams. It worked for him, after all. (Or maybe AI will write the papers.)
My English teacher friends still in the biz say AI is writing everyone's papers now. It incorporates quotes, cites in APA or MLA style, and uses vocab the students don't even know. Bots can identify AI generated papers with some accuracy, but it's not proof enough for disciplinary action.
DeleteI wonder if writing will have to become relegated to an in-class, pen-and-paper exercise.
DeleteBall point pen and a blue book, no cell phones allowed.
DeleteAn in-class essay can't capture research or the kind of development you want to see in student writing. You are essentially looking at rough drafts with blue books. Some teachers are incorporating AI into assignments, to have students look at what AI generates as a rough draft. That means that organization and the first pass at content are done for them, but the students have to beef up and add to what's there. But as AI gets more sophisticated, students will likely be able to game that deal, too. In the U.S., we care more about the credential for job purposes than the education behind it. So there's no down side to letting AI earn your degree for you while you work or drink beer.
DeleteJean - “ Yeah, when The Boy was diagnosed with a learning disability in third grade, sister in law said it was because it took us until our 40s to figure out how to make a baby and "everything got stale," hee hee. I hope I get some time off purgatory for refraining from pointing out that her kids were both dyslexic.”
DeleteI suspect t that God would be far more pleased with your restraint than if you said some rote prayers in order to get ” an indulgence”.
Thought experiment: none of us here wants Trump to win the election. But if he does, would it be better for the country if it were by a decisive margin, rather than a victory by either candidate, by a razor thin margin? Because that would be contested and and disputed rancorously ad infinitum. Maybe we would be better able to put the election in the rear view mirror and move on if there were no question about who won.
ReplyDeleteI have no problem with elections being challenged if that's what it takes to restore confidence in the system. National elections standards? Nationwide voter registration base? All's I know from executing my mom's estate is that the Social Security Admin knows you're dead and whisks payment out of your checking acct before you're cold. A database that works that good should be able to handle voter rolls.
DeleteI think Trump knows his assemblage of clowns and crooks who challenged elections in battleground states was highly ineffective last time.
Going forward, maybe we have to accept that we have a high percentage of know-nothing voters who enjoy being angry and creating chaos. We've had groups of these people before who are all likkered up on stories about immigrants, perverts, drug running, dirty books in libraries, Jews, Catholics, and sex education in schools.
I fear they are just part of America, and they have to be endured.
If the margin is slim and the Republican is ahead, then the SC will declare that the Republican is the winner. And Democrats will accept. We have already been that in the Gore case.
DeleteIf the Democrat wins no matter by how much, the Republicans will be in denial, and we can expect all sorts of legal and illegal challenges. Certainly, the Republicans are now on a roll, thinking that they are all united behind Trump and that he is unbeatable.
However I point out the recent results from Britian, France and India where right-wing movements were defeated. And the more nearby results here in Ohio were voters approved abortion and marijuana.
The Republicans have long preached about getting the government out of people's lives. I suspect people around the world are getting that conservative idea that may apply to right wing governments, too.
I am going to wait calmly for the election trusting in God and even a little bit in my fellow voters here in Ohio. They may not throw the rascals out, but they may clip their wings so that they will do less harm.
"I have no problem with elections being challenged if that's what it takes to restore confidence in the system"
DeleteI agree; but recent history in this regard isn't reassuring. When Al Gore's campaign challenged the election results in 2000 (which, btw, was not a case of Democrats decorously accepting the election results; they sent flotillas of lawyers to Florida to try to overturn the results, which is why the SC had to settle the question), I don't think it restored confidence in the system. How to interpret hanging chads and similarly ambiguous votes on paper ballots has never been satisfactorily determined. Probably there are folks reading this comment right now who are still convinced that Gore won the election, but Katherine Harris and the Florida Republicans managed to steal it from him.
Much of the country has moved on to electronic voting systems, which (despite wacko-conservative claims to the contrary) seem to function fine, as far as we know, but they are inherently non-transparent. I have no specific reason to question the outputs they generate, but I'm not comfortable trusting a "black box". This may be a case of my having 'too much knowledge' because of my day job, but between the possibility of slipshod quality management on the part of the folks who create the systems, and the ingenuity of hackers, I see possibilities for those systems going badly awry. It's easy to see how the poisonous conspiracy theories from 2020 got spun up.
If anyone made me the King of Elections, I'd go with the old manual paper method, because at least there are human ballot-counting election judges who can be asked defend their work and be held accountable.
Trumpers are busy filing lawsuits in Michigan already, saying that Sec of State Jocelyn Benson and Evil Gov Gretchen Whitmer instituted voter registration at VA offices and another federal outlet without permission of the Michigan Legislature, as required by law. Assuming that Benson did overstep here, it paves the way for post-election fraud screaming. Last time I voted in some local millage thing, Trumpers were down there talking loud about whether poll workers were taking long enough to compare my signatures and look at my drivers license picture. I expect that was a practice run for November. I've never voted absentee, but considering it now.
DeleteJuly 17, 2024, 6:32 p.m. ET
ReplyDeletePresident Biden tested positive for Covid on Wednesday, according to the White House, forcing him to cancel an event in Las Vegas and likely sidelining him for days following the conclusion of former President Donald J. Trump’s nominating convention on Thursday.
Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said in a statement that “earlier today, following his first event in Las Vegas, President Biden tested positive for COVID-19.” She added that “he is vaccinated and boosted and he is experiencing mild symptoms.”
She said Mr. Biden would travel from Las Vegas to Delaware, where he will “self-isolate and will continue to carry out all of his duties fully during that time. The White House will provide regular updates on the president’s status as he continues to carry out the full duties of the office while in isolation.”
The illness — Mr. Biden’s third bout with Covid, including one rebound case — comes as some of his allies and supporters are continuing to press for him to drop out of the race, citing concerns about his ability to defeat Mr. Trump in November.
Could God have been present in the bullet that bit off Trump's ear, and in the Covid that has isolated Biden? Could God be saying: "Time to pack it up guys and have a good long talk with Me?
I dunno. If you've got inside dope on divine communications, please let me know why I had addicts for parents, three high-risk pregnancies, severe scoliosis, a bad heart valve, cancer, and a tree that fell on my house last year. All I can come up with is that God has been trying to take me out since age 10.
DeleteI dunno, either.
DeleteBut theology has to deal with random events and the chaos of the universe, but without stupidities like "God writes straight with crooked lines." or anything else that justifies bad events.
I was just speculating about God's view of several current events.
Sometimes your body tries to tell you something. Which I guess is an indirect message from God since he created our bodies. When I had Covid my body told .me I was going to lay low and take it easy for awhile. I think the antiviral I was prescribed shortened the duration. And I was vaxxed and boosted, so didn't have severe symptoms. But it takes its toll. Biden would do well to do some serious thinking. And praying for discernment.
DeleteSure, pain and illness are signs to pay attention, something's wrong. I find it hard to believe, though, that God sacrificed the shooter and a rally attendee just to graze Trump's ear in hopes he'd have a little think about his future.
DeleteI find it hard to believe that God controls the random events of the universe, specifically that the shooter would decide to attempt to shoot Trump, nor the course of the bullet once fired. God might have been present in the policeman who tried to scale the building to investigate the report of the shooter. When confronted by the shooter, he fell to the ground because he was unable to use his weapon. That just might have disrupted the shooter sufficiently to have saved Trump.
DeleteI do not think that God intended Trump or any others to conclude that God did any favors for Trump. That is close to superstition, e.g. when people see anything as a sign from God or adopt any ritual behavior in the belief that it somehow controls God.
Similarly, if Trump had been killed, it would not have been a sign of God's judgment, anymore than getting a disease is a sign of God's judgment.
It is far more likely that God intends any event as a reminder that evil is a corollary of human freedom. Neither we nor God can control the randomness and chaos of the universe, but we (and God) can do something with our human freedom.
"It is far more likely that God intends any event as a reminder that evil is a corollary of human freedom....., but we (and God) can do something with our human freedom." Jack, yes, that is what I believe, too.
DeleteMy mom had a saying, "All things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose"
(I believe that is a paraphrase from Romans, will have to look up the chapter and verse). Meaning, I think, that with God's grace we can choose how we react to events.
Yes, God offers the ability to repent, grow, and persevere if we try to follow Jesus's example. In that way, God can bring good out of bad. But you have to be open to that example in the first place. I suppose organized religion helps some people open up. But that's for people better than I am at ignoring the ego of the clergy, the Church Ladies ordering everybody around, and the smugness of most believers in their own salvation.
DeleteFWIW, there are members of my extended family who would have no qualms about stating that God is punishing Biden for being pro-abortion. They don't think these things up all by themselves; there are clergy and other "influencers" out there mouthing and writing such things.
DeleteFor myself, I think God is looking to us the people of the United States to determine the destiny of our country. We have the freedom and the responsibility to choose our leaders prudently.
Btw, back to Vance for a moment: I watched some of his speech last night on the RNC telecast. My visceral reaction is: he's a hustler and a grifter. If happenstance or fate or sheer talent hadn't taken him to the Ivy League, he could easily have ended up selling aluminum siding or used cars, or perhaps running hookers. As it is, he's landed in investment banking and then politics, two professions which have an outsized tolerance for hustlers and grifters. Even his shout-out to the Marines last night (he's an ex-Marine) didn't feel like the way one expects ex-Marines to acknowledge their membership in that particular brotherhood.
ReplyDeleteThat's just my initial, gut take. I could be wrong.
A bullsh*tter who believes his own bullsh*t.
DeleteI'll leave everyone with Rod Dreher's thoughts about the Trump shooting. Living over there with Victor Orban has not had a salubrious effect on his ravings:
ReplyDeletehttps://europeanconservative.com/articles/commentary/american-caesar-pennsylvania-rubicon/
Yikes! I had not thought about Rod Dreher in a long time. It was almost a right wing 95 thesis. He's a long way down the rabbit hole. Believe I'll leave him to it.
DeleteThanks Jean and everyone for a fine discussion especially for all the information and thoughts on Vance. I am still in the process of discussing some of the articles with Betty.
ReplyDeleteFor right now, I prefer to give Vance the benefit of the doubt, and hope that if he becomes VP he will take Trump in some constructive directions, e.g. on foreign trade and tariffs. Right now, I don't see much else constructive going on in the Republican party. The Democrats do need some competition and an incentive to turn to younger leaders.
Jack, thanks for the reminder to give people the benefit of the doubt. We're all children of God, even people we strongly disagree with. We have to believe that grace is at work in all of our souls, if we are open to it.
DeleteLOL, just as I say that, my husband walked in the door. He has been to daily Mass and checked his parish office mailbox. There was a "complementary copy" of "The Breached Dam: the Fiducia Supplicans Surrender to the Homosexual Movement". Authors were Jose Antonio Ureta and Julio Loredo. Same guys that mass mailed a similar publication to all the clergy in the US a while back. Their organization is The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property. Even though the authors are from Peru and Chile, and the booklet is translated from Italian.
DeleteI should note that neither the archdiocese or the pastor approved this stuff, it just shows up. Sometimes it is harder than others to give people the benefit of the doubt!
I'll bet Jim will receive a similar treat in his parish mailbox.
Hi Katherine, I haven't checked my parish mailbox in some days, but if I come across it, I will treat it with all the respect due it!
Delete