- Trump is ready to use the military against his “enemies from within”;
- What one immigrant thinks when he hears Trump speak;
- How Republicans are sure there will be cheating, and migrants will vote. Counter: why not let the whole world vote on the US presidential election?
- Gateway Pundit admits lying; a MAGA woman explains how Alexa is part of the government’s control of hurricanes; how Fox knows it’s lying about immigrants and disaster aid.
Anything genuinely new today?
Well, yes. Trump is ready to call out the military against his enemies, such as “radical left lunatics,” presumably meaning anyone who doesn’t vote for him.
CNN, 13 Oct 2024: Trump suggests using military against ‘enemy from within’ on Election Day
Former President Donald Trump suggested using the military to handle what he called “the enemy from within” on Election Day, saying that he isn’t worried about chaos from his supporters or foreign actors, but instead from “radical left lunatics.”
“I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people. Radical left lunatics,” Trump said told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo in an interview on “Sunday Morning Futures.”
“I think it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen,” he added.
The former president, whose supporters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in an attempt to thwart Congress’ certification of his 2020 election loss, downplayed any threat from his voters.
Sure he can’t mean actual Democratic voters? What can he mean? Anything more here?
Salon, Alex Galbraith, 13 Oct 2024: “Easily handled by the military”: Trump reveals plans to squash dissent, subtitled “Trump referred to left-wing Americans as ‘the enemy within’ in a frightening new interview”
No; more of the same set of quotes.
“I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within, not even the people who have come in [and destroyed] our country,” he said. “We have some very bad people, sick people, radical left lunatics. And it should be easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.”
Who exactly are these radical left lunatics whom the military should “handle”? He’ll never say. He’s all bluster. But you can see how he thinks. MAGA vs everyone else in the world.
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Shorter items.
- NY Times, Opinion by Carlos Lozada, 13 Oct 2024: When Trump Rants, This Is What I Hear. Long personal story about a man who arrived in Northern California in the mid-1970s as a 3-year-old. What he hears when Trump says “They’re not sending their best” (the assumption of criminality, and nobody “sent” him), “Go back”, “Sh*thole countries”, “They can’t even speak English”, “Poisoning the blood”, and, when he swore the oath of U.S. Citizenship, “We welcome you.”
- JMG, from Face the Nation, 13 Oct 2024: Johnson: There Will Be Cheating, Migrants Will Vote.
I think there is going to be some cheating in this election. I think non-citizens are going to vote. It’s the actions of the Biden-Harris administration and some of these states.
The same tired, paranoid demonization of Democrats, and outsiders. The presumption is that immigrants will vote Democratic, because, well… Republicans demonize immigrants! Maybe Republicans should take a broader view, understand that the US has always been a nation of immigrants and has benefited from them, and change their tune.
Or here’s an idea: let the entire world vote in the US Presidential election. After all, the US is the most influential nation on the planet, or likes to think that it is, and so directly or indirectly its policies affect millions of people in other nations. Why shouldn’t those millions have a say in what kind of nation the US is? And it’s not as if they would *not* vote for Trump; there are plenty of nationalists in other countries, especially in Europe, who demonize immigrants just as the MAGA crowd does.
But if that seems absurd, why isn’t it absurd that, via our electoral college, states with small populations have a disproportionate influence over the US presidential election?
- JMG, from Guardian, 12 Oct 2024: Homocon Site Admits Lying About Georgia Election
The far-right website The Gateway Pundit acknowledged for the first time on Saturday that there was not any fraud during ballot counting in Atlanta in 2020 when Donald Trump lost the presidency, a significant concession from one of the most influential conservative sites that plays a key role in spreading election misinformation.
Well of course there wasn’t, and they were lying. Curious they bothered to admit this after all this time.
- People like this vote too. Boing Boing, Carla Sinclair, 10 Oct 2024: MAGA woman explains how U.S. government controls hurricanes — and Alexa is in on it (video)
- Media Matters, Matt Gertz, 10 Oct 2024: Fox knows it’s lying about immigrants and disaster aid
Fox News hosts and anchors have in hand evidence that their network obtained from a Republican source debunking a falsehood the network has repeatedly promoted about the Hurricane Helene response. They do not care — and are in many cases continuing to push the same lie — because they work for a propaganda outlet whose primary objective is helping former President Donald Trump return to the White House.
