“You called yourself the candidate of ‘law and order,’” Scott said. “When Time magazine asked you if you would consider pardoning all the rioters, you said, ‘Yes, absolutely.’ You called them ‘patriots.’ One hundred and forty police officers were assaulted that day. Their injuries included broken bones, at least one officer lost an eye, one had two cracked ribs, two smashed spinal discs, another had a stroke. Were the people who assaulted those 140 officers, including those I just mentioned, ‘patriots’ who deserved pardons?”
Donald Trump's audacious lie about Vice President Kamala Harris' race confirmed what many had long suspected: running against a Black woman could summon the former president's worst impulses.
Why it matters: Amid outrage from Democrats and discomfort from Republicans, Trump is doubling down on his incendiary claim that Harris recently "became a Black person" for political convenience.
- In one fell swoop, Trump hijacked a news cycle dominated by the enthusiasm surrounding Harris' campaign — and redirected attention to his long and controversial record on race.
- It's a nightmare for Republicans already reeling from the tightening race: They know Trump has a strong chance of beating Harris on the issues, but fear he could alienate swing voters with attacks on her identity.
Catch up quick: In a chaotic and combative interview at the National Association of Black Journalists convention, Trump falsely claimed that Harris "happened to turn Black" after years of promoting her Indian heritage.
- "So I don't know, is she Indian or is she Black?" the former president asked, drawing pushback from ABC News moderator Rachel Scott.
- "I respect either one, but she obviously doesn't, because she was Indian all the way, and then all of a sudden she made a turn and she went — she became a Black person."
- Trump concluded, as he often does, with a conspiratorial flourish: "I think somebody should look into that too."
The big picture: Trump's political rise began with a yearslong crusade to delegitimize the nation's first Black president, Barack Obama.
- Much has changed since 2011, but Trump has never strayed far from the conspiratorial and racist roots of the birther movement.
- In 2020, Trump said he had "heard" that Harris was not born in the U.S. and thus "doesn't meet the requirements" to be vice president. Harris was born in California.
- Even during the GOP primary earlier this year, Trump falsely claimed that rival Nikki Haley was ineligible to be president because her parents weren't U.S. citizens when she was born.
Reality check: Harris is the first Black, South Asian and woman vice president.
- She's the daughter of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father, and was a member of a historically Black sorority at a historically Black college.
- Like millions of mixed-race Americans, who represent one of the fastest-growing demographics in the country, the vice president identifies with both of her cultures.
“And it was the same old show: the divisiveness and the disrespect. And let me just say, the American people deserve better. The American people deserve a leader who tells the truth. A leader who does not respond with hostility and anger when confronted with the facts. We deserve a leader who understands that our differences do not divide us – they are an essential source of our strength.”
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee was speaking at the Sigma Gamma Rho’s 60th International Biennial Boulé, the Black sorority’s gathering of its entire membership in Houston, Texas. Harris said she was there “as a proud member of the Divine Nine” – a group of the most historically powerful Black fraternities and sororities in the US. Harris is an alumna of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.
The Harris campaign said in a statement: “The Donald Trump America saw at NABJ is the one Black voters have known for years.”
Tubby little Skidmarks Vance wanted to get on it by calling Kamala "phoney."
This would be the same Skidmarks who tries to silence his critics by bringing up his [cough cough] military record. As Elaine noted on Monday:
Yeah. He's the phony. Maybe he should just focus his stupidity on comments about "cat ladies"?
Matt Gertz (MEDIA MATTERS) notes Skidmarks' long record of attacks on childless people including:
On Fox’s The Next Revolution that Sunday, Vance told host Steve Hilton that he supported giving parents extra votes to represent their children. He explained that this would counterbalance “the left,” which he said “has effectively been taken over by a lot of childless people, by the AOCs of the world, the Kamala Harrises of the world. Those people now run the agenda of the Democratic Party, and we’ve got to push back against that.”
Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "JD Vance Doesn't Understand The Church" went up last night.
This goes to the hate and stupidity that Skidmarks Vance wallows in. He's attacking nuns, grasp that. And he doesn't grasp it because he wasn't a Catholic until 2019. Doesn't look like he learned enough to be welcomed into that religion. It's amazing how this attack from Vance on Catholic nuns has not been presented as the attack on religion that it actually is.
For centuries, nuns have contributed to society. Centuries.
In other news of crazy, a small group (six) of Democrats in Congress came out yesterday willing to be used to trash Kamala Harris. The leader of the six tells you the story of the six and of their nonsense attack. US House Rep Henry Cuellar. Now Shady Menendez -- as Ann calls Senator Bob Menendez -- has taken up a lot of press with his crimes -- he was convicted last month on all counts. But we shouldn't forget Henry. The Justice Department hasn't as noted by this press release from May:
Congressman Allegedly Accepted Approximately $600,000 from Azerbaijan’s State-Owned Oil Company and a Mexican Bank in Exchange for Official Acts as a Member of Congress
An indictment was unsealed today in the Southern District of Texas charging U.S. Congressman Enrique Roberto “Henry” Cuellar, 68, and his wife, Imelda Cuellar, 67, both of Laredo, Texas, with participating in two schemes involving bribery, unlawful foreign influence, and money laundering. Congressman Cuellar and Imelda Cuellar made their initial court appearance today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Dena Palermo in Houston.
According to court documents, beginning in at least December 2014 and continuing through at least November 2021, Congressman Cuellar and Imelda Cuellar allegedly accepted approximately $600,000 in bribes from two foreign entities: an oil and gas company wholly owned and controlled by the Government of Azerbaijan, and a bank headquartered in Mexico City. The bribe payments were allegedly laundered, pursuant to sham consulting contracts, through a series of front companies and middlemen into shell companies owned by Imelda Cuellar, who performed little to no legitimate work under the contracts. In exchange for the bribes paid by the Azerbaijani oil and gas company, Congressman Cuellar allegedly agreed to use his office to influence U.S. foreign policy in favor of Azerbaijan. In exchange for the bribes paid by the Mexican bank, Congressman Cuellar allegedly agreed to influence legislative activity and to advise and pressure high-ranking U.S. Executive Branch officials regarding measures beneficial to the bank.
Congressman Cuellar and Imelda Cuellar are each charged with the following offenses, and if convicted, face maximum penalties as indicated: two counts of conspiracy to commit bribery of a federal official and to have a public official act as an agent of a foreign principal required to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), five years imprisonment on each count; two counts of bribery of a federal official, 15 years imprisonment on each count; two counts of conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud, 20 years imprisonment on each count; two counts of violating the ban on public officials acting as agents of a foreign principal required to register under FARA, two years imprisonment on each count; one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, 20 years imprisonment; and five counts of money laundering, 20 years imprisonment on each count.
Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen, head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division; Assistant Director Michael D. Nordwall of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division; and Deputy Assistant Inspector General Jason Loeffler and Special Agent in Charge Chris Hileman of the Department of State Office of Inspector General (DOS-OIG) made the announcement.
The FBI and DOS-OIG investigated the case.
Acting Deputy Chief Marco A. Palmieri, Acting Deputy Chief Rosaleen O’Gara, and Trial Attorney Celia Choy of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section and Trial Attorney Garrett Coyle of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section are prosecuting the case.
An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
This week, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump continued his racist attacks on the Democratic presidential candidate, Kamala Harris. Here’s Trump on Fox News Monday night, interviewed by Laura Ingraham.
DONALD TRUMP: Number one, they had an incompetent man as president, OK? Now they have somebody who’s worse. She’s sort of incompetent. She’s not very smart, but she’s very radical. Very radical. She will try and defund the police.
LAURA INGRAHAM: How would they consider a Harris presidency, just in — geopolitically?
DONALD TRUMP: I think they’ll walk all over her. I think —
LAURA INGRAHAM: How so?
DONALD TRUMP: — they’ll look at her. I think they’ll walk all over her. She’ll be so easy for them. She’ll be like a play toy. They look at her, and they say, “We can’t believe we got so lucky.” They’re going to walk all over her. And I don’t want to say as to why, but a lot of people understand it.
AMY GOODMAN: During a campaign event in Atlanta Tuesday evening, Vice President Kamala Harris challenged Trump to meet her on the debate stage so she could address his criticisms directly.
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Well, Donald, I do hope you’ll reconsider to meet me on the debate stage, because as the saying goes, if you got something to say, say it to my face.
AMY GOODMAN: President Trump has called Kamala Harris “dumb,” “dumb as a rock,” a “bum,” and has called her “evil.”
To discuss Harris’s historic campaign and more, we’re joined by professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, professor of law at UCLA and Columbia University, executive director of the African American Policy Forum, which is hosting their annual Critical Race Theory Summer School in Nashville this week, where she is joining us from now. Speakers include Ben Crump, talking about the police killing of Sonya Massey. Their opening plenary was called “Tip of the Spear: Tennessee on the Frontlines of the War on Woke.”
Professor Crenshaw, thanks so much for being with us. Can you respond to what Kamala Harris said last night, her first big campaign rally? Thousands were there. And talk about what the Republicans are saying. Out of so many congressmembers’ mouths, ”DEI hire,” “mediocre,” “This is all about DEI,” they say.
KIMBERLÉ CRENSHAW: Well, first of all, one has to respond with just applause. I think it was such a perfectly delivered challenge to Donald Trump.
But, look, here’s the reality. As much as Kamala Harris’s likely nomination is galvanizing people around the country, she’s also serving as an avatar for all the fears of people who fear the browning of America, those who fear the browning of America more than they fear the rise of fascism in the United States. So, the challenge is quite clearly that those who support Kamala Harris and those who support our democracy have to take back the ground that they have conceded to the war against woke. This attack on her as the DEI candidacy is a direct consequence of the fact that the attack on the entire infrastructure of racial justice the entire last half of the 20th century and the first half of the 21st century has largely been conceded by progressives, by liberals and by moderates, those who don’t want to talk about the attack on racial justice, those who think that we can just ignore the racism on the right and ignore the racism that is being played out in Project 2025.
So, this is a moment where there’s interest convergence between those of us who understand the relationship between racial justice and democracy and those who are deeply concerned about the descent of our country and what will happen under another Trump administration. We cannot defend democracy, we cannot defend Kamala Harris, without taking on directly the intersection of racism and sexism that we are seeing playing out across this campaign. And so, the summer school that we’ve been having and that we’re having is designed to provide precisely those tools, the literacy that’s necessary and the courage, frankly, to meet this battle where it actually is.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Kimberlé Crenshaw, also we’re witnessing the hypersexualization of Kamala Harris, including the circulation of derogatory slogans and rumors about her personal life, media figure Megyn Kelly even saying that Kamala Harris slept her way to the top. Can you talk about the significance of this targeting of Harris with these kinds of claims?
KIMBERLÉ CRENSHAW: Well, look, one of the insights of intersectionality is that racism and sexism are not simply additive. It’s almost like an algebra equation. She’s going to suffer both the misogyny that we saw play out with Hillary Clinton’s campaign, the racism that we saw playing out with Barack Obama, but also without a deep understanding about how misogynoir comes together to shape how African American women in particular are viewed, how they’ve been stereotyped over the course of history.
So, this is a moment where all those who support democracy and all those who support this candidacy have to quickly come together and learn how to read this attack on her, know how to respond to this attack on her and, quite frankly, connect it to the attacks on other Black women. We talked about Sonya Massey yesterday when Ben Crump was here, and he talked about how the autopsy reports actually support the video, that she was in a crouched position. She was shot from top to — from above her. This kind of degradation, dehumanization is deeply part of our history, and there’s a particular way that it plays out against women who are of African descent.
So, we are going to have to up our game. We’re going to have to not pivot away from these attacks. We’re going to have to meet them where they are. And we’re going to have to make it clear that Kamala Harris’s campaign offers much more to the white working class. And everybody wonders: Will she appeal to them? They’re not wondering why the white working class is not turned off by Donald Trump’s billionaire-focused agenda. We’ve got to talk about these things. And we’ve got to disarm the war on woke. It’s like a gun that’s been loaded, and it’s on the table, and it’s available to be targeted at things that people clearly care about, which is our democracy.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And do you have any concern on substantive issues, for instance, that the Harris campaign’s website, even after her endorsement by President Joe Biden and former President Obama, does not have a platform or policies on it that explain what her particular policies will be if elected in office?
KIMBERLÉ CRENSHAW: Well, you know, it is early in the campaign. So, one of the things that we know for certain is that this is a campaign that is about rescuing our democracy from the cliff that we are on. And, look, we got lucky that we were able to save the democracy when we did. But, look, we’re not talking about the real threat. The real threat to our democracy that marched through that Capitol was the threat that was symbolized by that Confederate flag. There are those who fear sharing this country with all of us who are in it. If you look at the basic argument about the stolen election, who stole it? It was voters in Philadelphia, in Detroit, in Milwaukee, in Phoenix. They are saying what the quiet part is out loud. So, we know, at minimum, that the Harris campaign is about addressing the threat to our democracy.
Now, of course, we’re going to have to push the Democrats. We’re going to have to push Kamala Harris to actually make good on the right to democracy, the freedom to learn, all the reproductive freedom. We know that the election is just the first part. The second part is maintaining the mobilization that put her there. That’s the mistake that we made earlier on, and we can’t make that mistake again. So, as we come together to save our democracy, we also have to come together to be a governing majority in that democracy. That’s what we’re here to celebrate. That’s what we’re here to commemorate. Freedom Summer 1964 is the precursor to Freedom Summer 2024. This is the tip of the spear. This is why we are here.
AMY GOODMAN: Kimberlé Crenshaw, we want to thank you for being with us, professor of law at UCLA and Columbia University and executive director of the African American Policy Forum, hosting the annual Critical Race Theory Summer School in Nashville. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
A new assassination campaign aimed at Israel’s opponents has erupted across the Middle East, imperiling already shaky Gaza ceasefire talks and threatening an even greater regional expansion of war. While Israel continues its genocidal attack on desperate Gazans, killing scores, perhaps hundreds just in the last several days, the latest moves were clearly designed to escalate Israel’s war in Gaza and expand the military tensions already simmering on its border with Lebanon, in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere into a full-scale war, potentially drawing in both Iran and the United States even more directly.
The lethal attacks on top military and political officials of Hezbollah and Hamas, in Beirut and Tehran respectively within 24 hours, demonstrates the centrality of assassination—and the irrelevance of diplomacy—in Tel Aviv’s strategic calculus.
Tuesday evening in the Lebanese capital, an Israeli airstrike hit the neighborhood of Dahiyeh, destroying a residential building very close to a major hospital, killing and injuring still-unconfirmed numbers of people. Israel claimed it killed Fuad Shukr, a top military official of Hezbollah, and a close adviser to Hassan Nasrallah, head of the political-military resistance organization in Lebanon. While Hezbollah has not confirmed Shukr’s death, it is clear that his assassination was the Israeli intent.
All the talk about Washington and Tel Aviv supporting a ceasefire or wanting the hostages returned means little when a top negotiator on the other side can be assassinated with impunity.
Just hours before that Israeli strike, U.S. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said that U.S. officials “do not believe that all-out war is inevitable and we still believe that it can be avoided.” That followed his statement that “our commitment to Israel's security is ironclad and unwavering against all Iran-backed threats, including Hezbollah, and we are working on a diplomatic solution.”
But the U.S. has made clear by its actions—regardless of some politicians’ rhetorical support for ending the war—that it is not prepared to do the one thing that would result in a permanent ceasefire: stop sending Israel the weapons that enable the war in Gaza.
To the contrary, the possibility of a diplomatic solution was grievously undermined again just hours after the Beirut attack when another airstrike, widely assumed to be Israeli, assassinated the political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, in a guest house in Tehran. He was visiting the Iranian capital for the inauguration of just-elected Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. Haniyeh, who had briefly served as prime minister of the Palestinian Authority after Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian elections that were initially welcomed by the United States, lived in exile in Qatar. In recent months he played a key role in the Qatar-sponsored and U.S.-backed Israeli-Hamas negotiations aimed at ending Israel’s assault on Gaza, ensuring access to humanitarian aid, and releasing illegally held Palestinian prisoners and Israeli hostages.
All the talk about Washington and Tel Aviv supporting a ceasefire or wanting the hostages returned means little when a top negotiator on the other side can be assassinated with impunity. Haniyeh was widely recognized as pragmatic and supportive of negotiations; in 2006, just three months after Hamas won the Palestinian election in both Gaza and the West Bank, Haniyeh wrote to then-President George W. Bush urging negotiations between the U.S. and Hamas, and offering acceptance of a two-state solution and a long-term truce with Israel. The current situation, he wrote, “will encourage violence and chaos in the whole region.” Bush never responded.
The negotiations the Hamas leader was participating in will almost certainly be stalled, if not derailed entirely, as a result of Haniyeh’s killing. The resulting continuation of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza matches the goal of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has resisted ceasefire efforts and pledged to keep fighting until Hamas is destroyed.
Al Jazeera Arabic journalist Ismail al-Ghoul and his cameraman Rami al-Rifi have been killed in an Israeli air attack on the Gaza Strip.
The reporters were killed when their car was hit on Wednesday in the Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City, according to initial information.
They were in the area to report from near the Gaza house of Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas who was assassinated in the early hours of Wednesday in Iran’s capital, Tehran, in an attack the group has blamed on Israel.
Al Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif, reporting from Gaza, was at the hospital where the bodies of his two colleagues were brought.
“Ismail was conveying the suffering of the displaced Palestinians and the suffering of the wounded and the massacres committed by the [Israeli] occupation against the innocent people in Gaza,” he said.
“The feeling – no words can describe what happened.”
Gaza remains under assault. Day 300 of the assault in the wave that began in October. Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction. But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence." CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund." ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them." NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza." The slaughter continues. It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service. Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide." The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher. United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse." THE NATIONAL notes, "Gaza death toll rises to 39,480 with 91,128 wounded." Months ago, AP noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home." February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:
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That disaster Skidmarks Vance10 hours ago
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Kamala's got a broad base of support10 hours ago
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Blondie10 hours ago
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