OPINION AND NEWS: In my view, J.D. Vance has dreamt up, over the last few days, a way to row back from the absurd claim he made about Haitian migrants in Springfield Ohio eating pet dogs, cats and ducks. He was heavily criticised. There was an avalanche of Mickey taking and he got burnt as did Trump. So he is backtracking and is doing it by saying that what he said was all lies. Quite a neat idea but more gasoline on the dying embers.
Image: Wikipedia.
J.D. Vance has admitted that he "created" the story about Haitian migrants eating pets. Speaking to CNN yesterday, Vance, 40, said that he created the unsubstantiated claims about Springfield which have been dismissed by the local mayor. He did so he says to "draw attention to the Biden/Harris immigration policies".
He said that he had to do this to draw attention to what he argues is sloppy policies by the Biden and Harris administration on matters concerning immigration. He claimed that he has to "create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's what I'm going to do."
He added (emphasised) that "I say that we are creating a story, meaning we are creating the American media focusing on it. I don't create 20,000 illegal migrants coming into Springfield thanks to Kamala Harris's policies. Her policies did that."
Sidebar: I'm not sure that migrants in Springfield are actually illegal. In a previous post it was claimed that they were legal but that needs to be clarified.
And he further added: "But, yes, we created the actual focus that allowed the American media to talk about the story and the suffering caused by Kamala Harris's policies." The third time he said it.
So there you go, he is arguably backtracking and trying to brush over what I argue was a massive faux pas on his behalf and also by Donald Trump. And I've also argued in another post this morning that the recent attempted assassination of Donald Trump while he was playing golf just might (allegation) have been set up by Don Trump himself and his team in order to garner more support in a faltering campaign brought partly about by Trump and Vance's irresponsible statements about these Haitian immigrants.
My guess is that Vance's team dreamt up this latest idea. He probably had a fraught meeting about it and asked for ideas. They came up with this.
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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins. Also: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified. Also, I rely on scientific studies but they are not 100% reliable.
OPINION: This is a cross-post. In the other post [link] I explained that Donald Trump, in my view, is trying to defuse his near-fatal faux pas when he dived into making strong and unpleasant allegations about Haitian migrants in Springfield Ohio eating ducks, pet cats and pet dogs. He did this on mainstream television during the debate with Kamala Harris. He is a poor decision-maker and he knows he's made a big mistake and has been trying to roll back from that faux pas ever since to recover some losses to his campaign.
Image: DALLE as commissioned by Truth Social workers.
And with this goal in mind, he has, in my view, published some funny cat pictures which are decidedly unfunny on his Truth Social website, which, as you may know, is a substitute to X/Twitter from which he was banned at one time but he has now been reinstated by Elon Musk.
Image: DALLE as commissioned by Truth Social workers. This unfunny cat pic is a reference to Trump's allegation that he is strong on immigration while Harris is weak. And that migrants eat pet cats! Really, Trump is far to extreme and he is destabilising.
The pictures are, as you might imagine, generated by AI which cannot spell properly and often rights gobbledygook. But in the first picture it is claimed that Kamala Harris hates cats. It's actually the complete opposite. She has a very long and impressive track record both personally and professionally as a politician of supporting animal welfare both in respect of domestic and wild animals.
You can read about some of her actionsby clicking on this link. In contrast, Donald Trump has a sketchy or arguably a very poor record of animal welfare. He has undermined conservation efforts in America regarding wolves and bears for example. He never had a companion animal in the White House which is the first instance for a hundred years.
His sons like to sport hunt Africa. Although to be fair Donald Trump doesn't like trophy hunting. But he did nothing about it when president. In fact he undermined the conservation and protection of iconic animals in Africa because she allowed the importation of trophies into America.
It's quite clear to me and I suspect to others that Donald Trump is not really interested in animal welfare. He is far more interested in making money and he's good with the economy which is important but the American economy should be expanded while respecting animal welfare in terms of wild animal conservation and protections for domestic animals. You can achieve both at the same time but Donald Trump likes to ride roughshod over the landscape, nature, and while animal welfare in driving economic growth.
Kamala Harris has demonstrated the complete opposite it seems to me. She is a tender-hearted woman and has been described as an animal champion. Trump supporters would probably argue that she is not strong on immigration or the economy but I think you have to give her a chance to demonstrate her strengths in these areas.
If you are to deal with illegal immigration in America humanely it becomes very difficult to deal with illegal immigration! The same problems exist in the UK and in continental Europe, specifically Germany. It's a very difficult problem, dealing with illegal immigration but you have to deal with it humanely.
Trump does not really want to deal with it humanely. I think we have to ask ourselves whether we would do the same thing as illegal immigrants if we were in their position. I certainly would. I would look for a better life. And if you can make it work by simply walking into America then you do it. It's one world. We are all in it together.
To return to the pictures. The picture of the ginger tabby holding up the Kamala Harris placard is misleading. It's entirely misleading. It's a lie! But then, Donald Trump is very good at lying isn't he?
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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins. Also: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified. Also, I rely on scientific studies but they are not 100% reliable.
I think these three are a huge danger to the world. We are stuck with Xi Jinping and Putin of which Putin is the worst by far as he is a mass murder and inveterate liar of gargantuan proportions. Putin is a stain on the history of humanity. But Americans can stop adding Trump to this toxic mix. Vote for Kamala instead please. Trump is an aberration. I believe that he became popular because he is anti-politician. People became disenchanted with politicians for good reason and wanted something different and got it. But there is a strong argument for a 'normal' person in the White House and someone younger with a balanced and sensible approach to the presidency. Also Trump is now officially in the early stages of dementia 😱😎. That's what I say based in X reports!
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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins. Also: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified. Also, I rely on scientific studies but they are not 100% reliable.
On many occasions, Donald Trump has said that he admired the late Queen Elizabeth II. He considered her a great lady. I think at one time he said that she was the greatest lady on the planet or something as effusive as that. And Trump likes to have a connection with the UK. He likes Great Britain which is why he operates some golf courses in the country (charging £1000 for a round of golf). I think this goes back to his historical origins.
Trump walks in front of the late Queen. Embarrassing. Media frenzy. Image: Richard Pohle of The Times. Problem with publishing photo here? Please tell me in a comment and I will respond promptly.
We need someone in the White House who sensitive towards equality. Equality between men and women. Trump is a misogynistic alpha male with an ego as big as the White House itself. I don't think he believes in equality. He doesn't believe in climate change. He doesn't believe in the sentience of animals it seems to me. His sons shoot animals for fun. It's all horrible.
That's why I am pleased The Times has reported that the late Queen found Donald Trump very rude. The information comes from a new biography of Queen Elizabeth which claims that she found Donald Trump to be very rude.
Great Britain's late sovereign hosted the former president twice during her longest of all British reigns. She is said to have "particularly disliked" the way that he looked over her shoulder as if "in search of others more interesting".
It would seem that Donald Trump was bored when he spoke to the late Queen. Perhaps this reflects his very short attention span. Or he was just plain rude towards her. And others?
The biography also suggests that she believed his relationship with his wife Melania must've been "some sort of arrangement". The Queen was a smart woman. She had lots of experience in government and in life generally and she is correct in this instance. It has to be an arrangement between Donald Trump and his wife. Trump praises his wife but it seems to me and perhaps the rest of the world that he doesn't treat her with the greatest of respect.
The claims are made by Craig Brown in a new book, A Voyage Around The Queen, which is being serialised in the Daily Mail.
He writes: "Over the course of her reign, Her Majesty entertained many controversial foreign leaders, including Bashar Al Assad (a murdering dictator from Syria) Robert Mugabe (the man who destroyed Zimbabwe through corrupt and rotten government) Idi Amin (we all know about him), Donald Trump, Emperor Hirohito and Vladimir Putin (and we all know about him being the modern Stalin and a mass murderer)." I have added my comments in brackets to the quote. 😎😃
The writer adds that:
"A few weeks after President Trump's visit, for instance, she confided in one lunch guest that she found him very rude: she particularly disliked the way he couldn't stop looking over her shoulder, as though in search of others more interesting. She also believed President Trump must have some sort of arrangement with his wife Melania, or else why would she have remained married?"
The author adds, "For his part, Donald Trump was confident he had been her favourite guest ever. 'There are those that say they have never seen the Queen have a better time, a more animated time'". He later told Fox News. His ego speaking again.
As mentioned, the claims will probably come as a big blow to Donald Trump both personally and in terms of his campaign to be the next president. He is seeking to win a second term in the White House. He first met the Queen in 2018.
There were protests in London about the meeting. A giant balloon portraying Trump as a baby was hoisted aloft. It was controversial but permission had been given.
The meeting took place over tea at Windsor Castle. No other senior Royals were present. It is said that Trump kept the 92-year-old monarch waiting for 10 minutes in 27°C heat and walked in front of her as they inspected the guard of honour. She was left trailing behind him. Disrespectful?
When the late Queen died on September 8, 2022, Donald Trump issued a statement saying that he and Melania would "always cherish our time together with the Queen, and never forget Her Majesty's generous friendship, great wisdom and wonderful sense of humour."
I'm pleased that Donald Trump is going to be embarrassed by this. His ego needs to be chipped away but that of course won't happen.
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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins. Also: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified. Also, I rely on scientific studies but they are not 100% reliable.
This, for me, is an interesting piece of research and I immediately thought of Donald Trump and his army of supporters. We see them being very vociferous at rallies. We see them wearing T-shirts emblazoned with praises for their great demagogue of a leader and we see stickers on their car bumpers praising Trump. We also see T-shirts and car bumpers criticising and even insulting Kamala Harris, Donald Trump's competitor in the race to the White House.
And of course Donald Trump is very prone to using nicknames for Kamala Harris which I argue are a form of insult. They are belittling and deliberately so in my opinion. He likes to belittle his opponents which is a cheap and nasty thing to do and it is very reflective, I would argue, of his character.
And today, in The Times, we have a report on this study and the article is entitled: "Steer clear of drivers with bumper stickers-they could be psychopaths."
And they ask whether your T-shirt informs people about your political affiliations or whether you have a bumper sticker which announces to the world your political affiliations.
And I'll quote the author here: "Well, then you are letting people know about two things: your politics, and, quite possibly, your tendency to psychopathy."
This study conducted in the US found that people who engage in ideological poking which means displaying political symbols designed to mock their opponents are more likely to score highly for psychopathic traits.
The study was led by Matejas Mackin from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. He carried out the study because he saw the bumper stickers of post-Trump America and it felt like something had changed.
He said that, "When I was a little younger, I would typically see campaigns with signs that would say something like "Hope" or "Vote Obama" or "Vote McCain". Then from 2016 onwards, you start to see more and more people expressing their beliefs by insulting the other side. I was interested in understanding this phenomenon. Why do people do it?"
His study is published in the Journal of Research in Personality. It involved almost 500 US residents all of whom completed a questionnaire to assess their tendency towards 'dark personality traits'.
The conclusion was that there was a link between "ideological poking" and psychopathy. It wasn't a big effect but it was certainly there but it doesn't mean that people who did it were clinically psychopathic but there was a link.
He said this might explain some of the toxicity that we had seen in the past decade. He added, "It does seem to be the case that the contemporary polarised political climate might give individuals with slightly darker dispositions more of a channel to speak."
"Studies have suggested that the display of political apparel, including t-shirts supporting particular candidates or causes, is more common among supporters of conservative or Republican politicians compared to liberal or Democratic supporters. This trend has been observed with Trump supporters as well. Surveys and analyses have found that Trump supporters are more likely to wear apparel with pro-Trump messages, slogans, or imagery compared to non-Trump supporters. This could include t-shirts, hats, buttons, and other items expressing support for the former president." - Google Gemini.
In a recent bizarre attempt to insult Kamala Harris again he said: “She sounds more like Trump than Trump, copying almost everything. She is conning the American public, and will flip right back. I will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! There will be no flipping!!!”
His rallies are becoming less and less populated and the MAGA mantra sounds tired. ---------
P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins. Also: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified. Also, I rely on scientific studies but they are not 100% reliable.
See the updates at the base of the page too please. Basically, there is almost no injury at all. It is hard to see one now that he has removed the oversized bandage. It was a very cynical action to stick a huge bandage over pretty well no injury.
Donald Trump appears today for the first time since assassination attempt without a bandage on his right ear, seemingly fully recovered. pic.twitter.com/P3H8I6aN1n
I am guessing (hopefully intelligently) but it occurs to me that Donald Trump is making 'political capital' as it is called by ensuring that the bandage covering his right ear wound from the rifle bullet almost covers his entire ear and looks very visible when the injury (which is hard to see) appears to have been a small nick in the top of the ear.
The nurse could have used a plaster over that area but that would have been almost invisible and I am arguing that Trump - ever the political mastermind - is milking the attempted assassination to the maximum.
He is ensuring that his followers see that he was injured and is a miraculous survivor by the Grace of God. God saved him. It is a God-given opportunity to get the most out of this. To become the hero and saviour of America. To Make America Great Again. He is the chosen one.
And he has to make sure that the world and his followers see the bloody injury to get that message across. The oversized bandage achieves that purpose.
What do you think?
Update: his followers are showing their support! Like lemmings. The Messiah. Trump knew the power of this bandage. He knew it would be a visual signal of success. Of surviving.
UPDATE: He removed it for last Saturday's rally, instead a smaller, beige-coloured plaster covered the top of his ear which basically proves my point. He took advantage of the shooting and having done so and made his point he has a normal plaster on now which is the way it should have been in the first place.
Now that he has taken off the bandage and we can all see the ear, there is hardly any evidence that he was hit by a bullet. We don't see any scarring or stitching. There's nothing there almost. It's almost as if he wasn't hit by a bullet. It's been suggested that he was hit by a piece of a bullet, a piece of shrapnel. But there's almost no evidence that he was hit and therefore this very dramatically supports my assertion that his bandage was deliberately oversized for political advantage. It was a cynical ploy.
Didn't Ronny Jackson claim the bullet removed 2 cm of Trump's ear? Where are the stitches? Where are the scars? pic.twitter.com/3ZW0IjLSyf
— Christopher Bouzy (spoutible.com/cbouzy) (@cbouzy) July 27, 2024
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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.
American society has become more polarised. Discourse is more black-and-white. I am not referring to black people and white people. I'm referring to strong views at either end of the political spectrum. People are less inclined to have thoughts in the middle ground. The grey area. The area of compromised solutions.
In general there are more extreme thoughts and that kind of issue is occurring across the Western world I would argue. It's why we have far right groups doing so well in France, Germany and the UK for example.
Photo-edited version by MikeB
And there are more stresses in society I feel. The world has become more stressed. People have become more anxious and fearful. That's partly because the background tension in the world has increased. This is due to various factors such as climate change and Putin's invasion of Ukraine. And we are still post-Covid which caused a lot of financial stresses, still felt today.
And then in America they have more guns than there are people (433 million guns and 341 million citizens). No country has so many guns available. And if you combine these polarised viewpoints as I've called them plus aggressive rhetoric with the easy access of guns which are not, some may argue, regulated as well as they should be in America, you end up with the Trump attempted assassination.
Of course, he is a divisive character. You either love them or loathe them. And I'm sure a lot of people are unsurprised that he was shot. He was shot in the right ear so the shooter was targeting his head apparently with a rifle from a roof from which he had visual access to the rally which apparently (ironically) was supported by a gun lobby.
But underpinning this attempted assassination of Donald Trump is the black-and-white nature of American politics and society being somewhat split down the middle between Republicans and Democrats. Some might argue that there will be a civil war as this split is so severe.
The argument now is that Trump's attempted assassination will boost his campaign to be the next president. A strong survivor compared to Biden, the weak and rapidly declining geriatric.
One remarkable aspect of this assassination attempt is that Trump immediately knew that he should use it to his advantage because we see some amazing photographs of him with his fist raised showing a very strong, dominant character and behind him is the American flag.
Surrounding him are Secret Service personnel trying to recover him and take him to a safe place. It's an amazing photograph which he will no doubt use from now until he becomes the next president.
Update a few hours later:
There's a lot of talk about the aggressive rhetoric, which I mention. The general consensus now is that it should be dialled down in order to stop provoking these sorts of incidents. Freedom of speech is important but it can cross the line to inciting violence and there needs to be a fresh look at that. This would apply not only to the United States but the UK as well because there has been violence and intimidation in the UK during the latest general election.
And there are ructions in France with their recent elections and extremist views coming out.
The shooter is Thomas Crooks. He lived at Bethel Park and his home is being searched by the FBI as I dictate this.
He was seen on the roof opposite the stadium where former president Trump was speaking by a bystander and a Trump supporter. This man saw the shooter very clearly and he pointed it out to law enforcement but apparently they took no action. There was confusion before the actual shooting.
There are concerns about the lack of efficiency of law enforcement and Trump's security team in allowing this to happen. The man who saw the shooter before he was actually shot by security staff said he was up there for about three or four minutes and he shot five bullets one of which grazed Trump's head and took a nick out of his ear. That bullet went on and killed a man behind him it seems.
Two other people behind Trump were injured. They are hospitalised.
Trump immediately after being shot in the ear apparently shouted "Fight, fight, fight!". This further incited violence. It's understandable he said this but the argument is that the shooter was incited to violence and now we have former president Trump responding by also inciting violence. It is a very unhealthy situation. Trump's post on his Truth Social website is far more conciliatory however.
Trump says in Truth Social post that he was shot in the ear
Some Democrats have stated that the shooter was working on behalf of the Democrat party. They blame the Democrats for organising this attempted assassination. This will further polarise the Democrats and Republicans.
Incidentally, Thomas Crooks was a registered Republican interestingly. We don't know his motivation for the shooting. But a large segment of Democrats appear to have assumed that his motivation was to shoot the leading Republican, the Republican candidate for the presidency to knock him out of the race. But that's an assumption which has not been verified as yet with evidence.
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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.
In so many words, Kristi Noem who is the Republican governor of South Dakota and a VP contender for Donald Trump if and when he becomes the next president, suggested that Biden, the current President, should have had his German Shepherd dog "Commander" shot rather than removed from the White House where records tell us that he bit Secret Service agents on at least 24 occasions and on one occasion the individual had to attend hospital as I recall.
Trump with Noem. This is a screenshot from a CBS video.
So how did Noem make this suggestion? Well, she does it in her book and in a statement she made on an interview on CBC.
In her book, No Going Back, she writes: "What would I do on the first day in office in 2025? Thanks for asking. I happen to have a list. The first thing I'd do is make sure Joe Biden's dog was nowhere on the grounds ('Commander, say hello to Cricket for me')." This means Commander meeting Cricket over the Rainbow Bridge in dog heaven.
You may remember that Cricket was the young dog that Kristi Noem shot in a gravel pit because he annoyed her in attacking chickens belonging to a local person with whom she was talking and because he was a 'useless' hunting dog in her words. She adopted the dog for hunting purposes. She likes to hunt which, for me, is another black mark against her.
She apparently didn't consider rehoming Cricket or retraining him. She just decided that she had to take tough measures and euthanise him. Well, shooting a dog is not euthanasia. It's plain killing. And it's painful. It is inflicting of a lot of pain on a dog albeit hopefully temporarily. So her method of dealing with troublesome dogs that she owns is to shoot them.
She also shot a goat who was troublesome to her and she had to do it twice because the first shot didn't kill the goat. And, further, she had to return to some stockpiled ammunition to reload her gun while the goat was in horrendous pain waiting for the coup de grace.
That's the kind of person she is. Secondly, she defended her comments in her book about Commander in an interview on CBS's Face the Nation programme yesterday. On that programme she said: "Joe Biden's dog has attacked 24 Secret Service people. So, how many people is enough people to be attacked and dangerously hurt before you make a decision on a dog and what to do with it?"
To that statement, the host of the show, Margaret Brennan, asked: "You're saying he should be shot?" In response Noem said: "That's what the President should be accountable to."
There you are. She didn't stated it in black-and-white on both occasions but on both occasions she strongly hinted that Biden should have shot his dog rather than do the more humane, more sensible and more decent thing which is to remove the dog from the White House where he was stressed because German shepherds are particularly defensive of their owner and Cricket was surrounded by a lot of people milling around the White House and so instinctively the dog protected the president by biting people invading on the president's territory. Entirely normal behaviour for which Kristi Noem would have shot the dog.
The chances of becoming vice president to trump are now pretty slim because of this story and because the world can see what kind of person she truly is. She is not a decent person that must be clear to everybody unless you think like her: that animals are second class citizens to be dealt with as possessions which is why she referred to the dog as "it".
One last point is worth making. Donald Trump questioned why Kristi Noem announced to the world that she had shot her dog Cricket. He thought that she should have kept quiet about it. But Kristi Noem wanted to announce it in her book in order to take pre-emptive measures vis-Ã -vis the public so that she couldn't be criticised for hiding the story from the public when it finally came out in the news media.
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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.
Recently, Donald Trump gave a speech to religious conservatives as part of his campaign to take back the White House. He was delivering his speech to a conference full of evangelists in Washington. He sneaked in a subtle biblical reference reflecting his ego which is a big as the White House.
Donald Trump. Image: Bing.
In reference to the two criminal indictments against him; one for criminal charges over a hush money payment to conceal an alleged affair with a porn star and the other an indictment concerning the classified documents seized at his Florida home, the former president Donald Trump declared:
"I'm being indicted for you".
This has hints and the tone of John 3:17 which says:
“God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
The belief is that by sacrificing himself for us on the cross, he took the punishment for all of our sins at once.
Trump seems to be saying that he is - metaphorically speaking - being nailed to the cross to save Americans from the dastardly Democrats!
Donald Trump says that he has sacrificed himself for the benefit of his followers. That is what I take from that very strange statement.
What is highly ironic is that Trump played by James Austin Johnson likened himself to Jesus on Saturday Night Live. He is portrayed as Jesus at the Last Supper talking to his disciples. The argument is that he was arrested for no reason.
That he has been persecuted by the authorities just as Jesus was. But this show, as I understand it, took place before Trump himself made the statement above and therefore perhaps he took the idea from the show. I don't know.
But clearly, it is not only me who sees the parallel between Jesus Christ's persecution and the way that Donald Trump is selling to his followers his persecution by the evil authorities. It is a typical Trump manipulation of the masses to further his own ends.
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