Category: News & Comment

Size of Crowd for Harris’ Eclipse Speech Tops Trump’s on January 6

Pensito Editors
Crowd at the Eclipse in Washintgton, D.C. on October 29, 2024, for final campaign address by Vice Pres. Kamala Harris (Source: Lincoln Project)

Newsweek: More than 75,000 spectators gathered in Washington, D.C., to hear Vice President Kamala Harris’ closing argument speech at the same site of former President Donald Trump’s infamous “Save America” rally that preceded the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol…

Trump held his January 6, 2021, rally at the Ellipse on the same day a mob of his supporters rioted at the U.S. Capitol while Congress was certifying the 2020 election in which Trump lost to President Joe Biden. According to the House Select Committee tasked with investigating January 6, around 53,000 people attended Trump’s speech before the attack.

At 100, Pres. Carter Casts His Vote against Fascism, for Kamala Harris

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Pres. Jimmy Carter

Meidas Touch Network: [The president’s grandson] Jason Carter told the Journal-Constitution in August that the former president is “more alert and interested in politics and the war in Gaza.” In June, Jason told reporters that Carter was no longer awake every day, and was “experiencing the world as best he can as he continues through this process.” The former president voted in the Georgia primary in May.

Carter has been in hospice care since February of 2023 after receiving treatment for metastatic brain cancer. Carter’s wife of 77 years, former First Lady Rosalynn Carter passed away in November.

Madison Square Garden to Host First Fascist Rally Since 1939

Trump will hold a MAGA rally in the arena on Oct. 27

Jon Ponder

On Oct. 9, 2024, Donald Trump announced that he had added a rally to his campaign schedule for Oct. 27. “We just rented Madison Square Garden,” Trump told the crowd at campaign rally stop in Scranton, Penn. “We’re gonna make a play for New York, it hasn’t been done in a long time. It hasn’t been done in many decades.”

It has been eight and a half decades in fact. From NPR:

On the evening of Feb. 20, 1939, the marquee of New York’s Madison Square Garden was lit up with the evening’s main event: a “Pro American Rally.” The organizers had chosen the date in celebration of George Washington’s birthday and had procured a 30-foot-tall banner of America’s first president for the stage. More than 20,000 men and women streamed inside and took their seats. The view they had was stunning: Washington was hung between American flags — and swastikas.

The rally was sponsored by the German American Bund, an organization with headquarters in Manhattan and thousands of members across the United States. In the 1930s, the Bund was one of several organizations in the United States that were openly supportive of Adolf Hitler and the rise of fascism in Europe. They had parades, bookstores and summer camps for youth. Their vision for America was a cocktail of white supremacy, fascist ideology and American patriotism.

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DeSantis Government Threatens to Imprison Tampa NBC Affiliate for Running Pro-Choice Ad

Another baby step on the march to the Handmaids' Republic of Giliead

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Popular Information: On October 3, the Florida Department of Health sent a letter to Mark Higgins, the General Manager of WFLA, Tampa’s NBC affiliate. The letter, sent by Florida Department of Health General Counsel John Wilson, claimed that airing the ad violates Florida law. Wilson cites Florida’s law against “sanitary nuisance,” which prohibits “the commission of any act… by which… the health and lives of individuals… may be endangered.” Wilson argues that WFLA’s decision to air the ad could “threaten or impair the health and lives of women.” Wilson advised Higgins that, now that he has been notified that the ad is creating a “sanitary nuisance,” WFLA must stop airing it within 24 hours. Failure to do so, Wilson writes, would be a crime punishable by up to 60 days in prison under Florida law. The letter was first reported by investigative reporter Jason Garcia.

New York Times Finally Reports on Trump’s Incoherence and Lack of Accuity

Jon Ponder

After months, even years, of sane-washing Donald Trump, the New York Times reported on Saturday that Donald Trump has been delivering “rambling” and “fantastical” speeches at campaign rallies this year. But with just a month to go before the 2024 general election when many Americans are voting early, it is may be too little and too late to make a difference.

New York Times: New York Times (Paywall): “He rambles, he repeats himself, he roams from thought to thought — some of them hard to understand, some of them unfinished, some of them factually fantastical. He voices outlandish claims that seem to be made up out of whole cloth. He digresses into bizarre tangents about golf, about sharks, about his own ‘beautiful’ body. He relishes ‘a great day in Louisiana’ after spending the day in Georgia.”

“He expresses fear that North Korea is ‘trying to kill me’ when he presumably means Iran. As late as last month, Mr. Trump was still speaking as if he were running against President Biden, five weeks after his withdrawal from the race.”

DeSantis Wields Extra-Legal Powers to Fight Florida Abortion, Pot Amendments

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis just can’t help himself: If there is a way to wield authoritarian power to advance his own political ends, he will do it and Florida law and Floridians be damned.

The Tampa Bay Times has reported on Puddin Fingers’ latest nefarious attempt to undermine Amendment 3, which would legalize recreational marijuana use. Herr Governor used the Florida Department of Transportation to issue a 30-second public service announcement paid with state funds asserting that “DUI crashes increase in states with legalized marijuana, putting everyone at risk.”

Except: The preliminary results of an Insurance Institute for Highway Safety study of injured drivers who visited emergency rooms in California, Colorado and Oregon showed that drivers who used marijuana alone were no more likely to be involved in crashes than drivers who hadn’t used the drug. That is consistent with a 2015 study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that found that a positive test for marijuana was not associated with increased risk of being involved in a police-reported crash.

But that’s not all. Not content to let the citizens of Florida make up their own minds about access to reproductive medical treatment, the failed presidential candidate and go-go boot–wearing governor also sent his private army of goons to the homes of people who had signed a petition to get Amendment 4 on the ballot to ostensibly corroborate that they actually signed the petition, which would overturn Florida’s Draconian six-week abortion law. This, after the deadline to challenge the petition had passed.That was a ham-handed and clearly illegal use of state resources to further MeatBall Ron’s personal agenda.
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