"If Somebody Breaks Into My House, They're Getting Shot": Kamala Harris

09/20/24 9:58 AM

Kamala Harris' remarks came during a star-studded rally hosted by talk show legend Oprah Winfrey.

'Come on!' CNN host leaves Trump ally speechless after fact-checking his lies in real time

09/19/24 2:58 PM

A Donald Trump surrogate was briefly left speechless after his claims about immigrant takeovers in Colorado and Ohio were fact-checked by CNN's Kate Bolduan.Mark Lotter, the communications director for the right-wing America First Policy Institute and a former aide to vice president Mike Pence, appeared on the network Thursday morning to discuss the 2024 election, and Bolduan asked him about polling that suggests Republican messaging on immigration and the economy may be losing its appeal."Talking about immigration, now you have this added fact that Donald Trump now promises that he's going to be going to Springfield, Ohio, in the next two weeks to continue to lean on what the Republican governor has said is a bunch of garbage, in terms of these conspiracy theories about about immigrants eating pets," Bolduan said. "Why would you advise him to go and do that?"ALSO READ: Let's call Springfield what it is: Republican-made terrorismLotter insisted the Republican nominee's plans to visit the beleaguered city over its mayor's objections were wise, saying that amplifying knowingly false claims about Haitian immigrants living there and debunked allegations that Venezuelan gang members had taken over an apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado, helped draw attention to genuine problems."I would advise him to go because what's going on in Springfield, Ohio, what's going on in Aurora, Colorado, it's not just about a specific incident, it's about what we see these unchecked immigration doing to these communities," Lotter said."It definitely has to do with specific things, Mark," Bolduan interrupted. "Come on! It has officially entered the realm of gaslighting. I have good friends and analysts now coming out over the past two days telling me what is reality is not reality. Mark, the governor [Mike DeWine] says it's garbage. They say what happened there – there are no pets being eaten in Springfield, so it is an embodiment or a representation of absolutely zero."Lotter was knocked off course for a moment and then drastically scaled back the allegations that Trump and running mate J.D. Vance have been making about the community's recent arrivals."You do have a community of 60,000 people that have had 15,000 to 20,000 Haitian immigrants dumped into that community," Lotter said, "and you have residents there who are worried they are they're facing reduced services. They are seeing their parks overrun. You do have there's discussions about people who are squatting on people's yards – there's a lot of problems there. Look at what's going on in Aurora, Colorado, where you have Venezuelan gang taking over apartment complexes. These are very real consequences in a lot of very small middle-sized communities are struggling under it."Political commentator Karen Finney shook her head and pushed back on Lotter's claims as he spoke, and she forcefully denounced him and the GOP ticket when her turn came to speak."No, it's disgusting and shameful and it is endangering the lives of children and families," Finney said. "Shame on him, and shame on J.D. Vance, because here's the truth. Nobody dumped people on Springfield, Ohio. Businesses in Ohio had jobs shortages. They were recruiting Haitian migrants who are here in this country legally to come to help fill... menial labor jobs that people who live there didn't want to do – that's what happened. What they need, as the mayor himself said, is help, not hate, not the KKK showing up, not the Proud Boys showing up, and let's be very clear about what Trump is doing. This actually has nothing to do with a conversation about immigration reform. This is a political tactic. We seen it cycle after cycle, leading up to an election where you demonize, dehumanized and lied about migrants to scare people. But the thing is, if you stop, what you realize is you're not hearing real solutions from Donald Trump. What you're hearing again is lies and hate." Lotter again insisted that immigrants were bringing crime into communities and inconveniencing residents who already live there."Look, there are so many communities out there that are struggling to keep up with services, whether it's New York Chicago, Los Angeles, wherever," he said. "Now we're seeing it going into smaller communities. People are worried, they're seeing their tax dollars being going to support illegal immigrants or immigrant communities that are in their communities while their services are being reduced, their schools are being filled with folks, their students aren't able to learn. They can't go to parks, they do see an increase in criminal activity in their homes, traffic problems in Springfield, Ohio. All of these things are documented in real time by Donald Trump is highlighting the problems that we're talking about here. Kamala Harris wants to let more in."Bolduan stopped Lotter again for another fact check."Just on a factual basis, it's not highlighting a problem," Bolduan said. "It's not, because factually it's not happening in Springfield. Go find your problem elsewhere then if you want to have the factoid. That's my that's my point– it's not that there isn't problems with immigration in this country right now, Democrats or Republicans agree with that, but it's finding examples that don't exist that is the problem here."Watch below or click here. - YouTube youtu.be

'Corruption case is real!' Trump calls on Harris and campaign to 'go before a grand jury'

09/19/24 4:09 PM

Former President Donald Trump accused Vice President Kamala Harris of corruptly accepting campaign help from Iran in an all-caps message that included no evidence to back a questionable claim that the FBI rejects. The Republican presidential nominee took to his social media site Truth Social Thursday morning to rant against the Democratic presidential nominee he claimed should face prosecution. "WHEN DOES KAMALA AND HER CAMPAIGN GO BEFORE A GRAND JURY ON IRAN, IRAN, IRAN?" Trump wrote. "MY CAMPAIGN WHEN THROUGH HELL ON THE RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA HOAX. THE BIG DIFFERENCE IS THAT THE IRAN/KAMALA CAMPAIGN CORRUPTION CASE IS REAL!"Trump referred to news that an Iranian group hacked his campaign in June and attempted to access Democrats' in an attempt to influence the U.S. election, as was confirmed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in August.On Wednesday, NBC News reported new evidence that Iranians sent stolen Trump campaign materials to people associated with President Joe Biden's campaign, but there was not evidence Biden's campaign responded.A Harris spokesperson told NBC the campaign was unaware of receiving material but some people had received what looked like a phishing attempt on their person emails.ALSO READ: Notorious conspiracy theorist rolled out by RNC to train election overseers in MichiganThree federal law enforcement sources confirmed to NBC the recipients never responded and may not have even opened them.This reporting did not stop Trump Wednesday night from accusing Harris of spying illegally on his campaign. The Republican nominee responded to the news in a decidedly Trumpian way.“TO BE KNOWN AS THE IRAN, IRAN, IRAN CASE!" Trump wrote. "WILL KAMALA RESIGN IN DISGRACE FROM POLITICS? WILL THE COMMUNIST LEFT PICK A NEW CANDIDATE TO REPLACE HER?”ALSO READ: 'Not what happened': Journalist fact-checks Trump's claim Harris 'illegally' spied on him This take earned Trump an eye-roll from MSNBC analyst Steven Benen Thursday morning who noted — as the former president did not — that Iran targeted both campaigns. "While Russia continues to target American elections in the hopes of putting Trump back in power, Tehran was an equal-opportunity hacker," Benen wrote. "Trump sees this as an example of the Harris campaign 'illegally spying on' him, which is so utterly bonkers that it’s hard not to wonder whether the Republican understands what 'spying' means in English."Benen also rejected the comparison to one of the several scandals that rocked Trump's 2016 presidential election. "Team Trump welcomed, received, benefited from, and lied about Russian assistance," Benen wrote. "Team Harris didn’t welcome, receive, benefit from, or lie about Iranian offers of assistance, so the idea that the two are similar is absurd."

'I don't happen to agree': Trump White House aide opposes ex-president's latest move

09/19/24 12:28 PM

Donald Trump insists he'll go forward with a visit to Springfield, Ohio, despite its mayor's plea to stay away after he put the city at the center of the presidential campaign with false claims about Haitian immigrants stealing and eating pets.The former president and Republican nominee told rally goers Wednesday in New York that he intends to hold an event in the city that has been besieged by bomb threats since he and running mate J.D. Vance spread knowingly false allegations against legal immigrants living there, and Trump continued to malign Springfield in his pledge to visit. “I’m going to go there in the next two weeks, I’m going to Springfield,” Trump told supporters in Uniondale, New York. “You may never see me again, but that’s okay – got to do what I got to do. ‘Whatever happened to Trump?’ ‘Well, he never got out of Springfield.’”ALSO READ: Something broke Trump’s brainMike Dubke, who served as White House communications director in the first months of Trump's presidency, questioned his intent to visit the city over the mayor's objections."If I had to put my campaign hat on and look at why the Trump campaign is doing this," Dubke told CNN, "to your point about voters in different areas of the country, if your goal is to turn out low-propensity Trump voters and create an atmosphere where you can have something to talk about, because now we're how many days into this story? We are 10 days into the story. This is a perfect, this is a made-for-TV, made-for-social media story that goes back-and-forth. If that is your goal, rather than to convince undecided voters to come to your side, you want to turn out low-propensity base voters, that makes sense.""I understand what they're trying to do here," he added. "I don't happen to agree with it because I think they've got a target-rich environment in the seven states that we care about talking about the economy, talking about immigration, talking about international crises." Dubke questioned why Trump was even considering a campaign stop in Ohio, which he won in the last two elections and is expected to win again, instead of swing states he needs to be re-elected."I think it's in the president's DNA, president Trump's DNA to quadruple, quintuple down on things," Dubke said. "I think if they said, 'Please come to Springfield,' he would then go to Wisconsin or Pennsylvania or Michigan, where I think the campaign would be better served, frankly. This reminds me of 2016 when you had Hillary Clinton at the end when she thought she was going to win the election, she didn't go to Wisconsin. You just had the former lieutenant governor [of Wisconsin] on talking about the fact that she lost the vote in Milwaukee and Trump won that, and won the White House. So campaigns, it is valuable to have their time there. He shouldn't be going to Ohio, but i think it's in his DNA."Watch below or click here. - YouTube youtu.be

'Nonsense': J.D. Vance's new claim ripped apart by Ohio county public health commissioner

09/19/24 2:34 PM

Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) hasn't just been making demonstrably false claims about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating local residents' pets -- he's also falsely accused the immigrants of spreading diseases.The New Republic's Greg Sargent this week spoke with Clark County Health Commissioner Chris Cook, who walked through the ways that Vance's claims are, as Sargent describes them, "nonsense."First, Sargent takes apart Vance's claims that cases of HIV and tuberculosis have been skyrocketing since Haitian immigrants began moving into Springfield.While it's true that cases have technically been rising, the numbers of total cases are so small as to be a numerical blip.In total, there was one case of tuberculosis in 2021, three cases in 2022, and four in 2023.ALSO READ: 'Vile and juvenile rhetoric' condemned at event billed as 'roast' of Kamala HarrisCases of HIV, meanwhile, rose from five per 100,000 people in 2020 to nine per 100,000 people in 2022, which Sargent notes is barely higher than the average of seven cases per 100,000 in the rest of Ohio.And that's not all, as Cook says that cases of TB and HIV are only a small section of the full public health picture in Clark County.“If you look at all reportable diseases as a whole, they’re actually going down,” he explained to Sargent.Cook also explained to Sargent that "as a measure of total health of a population,” you can make better determinations less by studying “individual diseases” and more by studying “trends of groups of diseases," which happen to be trending down in Clark County at the moment.Read the full analysis here.

'Not a slip of the tongue': MSNBC hosts laugh at Trump 'confusing Alaska and Afghanistan'

09/18/24 10:53 AM

Hosts of MSNBC's Morning Joe burst into laughter early Wednesday morning after replaying a video of Donald Trump "confusing Alaska and Afghanistan."Trump made the apparent gaffe at a town hall in Flint, Michigan, Tuesday."We were energy independent, we were soon going to be energy dominant, and we would've been now having so much money coming out of the energy," Trump said. "We have Bagram in Alaska. They say it might be as big, might be bigger than, all of Saudi Arabia. I got it approved. Ronald Reagan couldn't do it. Nobody could do it. I got it done." ALSO READ: Beyond the White House: These 10 down-ballot races could change everything Trump was mocked online for confusing the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska, for the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. MSNBC hosts doubled down the following day."Check it," Joe Scarborough said to laughter. "Go to your Google machine: Bagram, Alaska. I hear there is some of the best moose hunting in all of the world in Bagram."Mika Brzezinski said, "Imagine if Joe Biden" had made that mistake."I think he may have confused Alaska and Afghanistan," Scarborough added."Morning Joe" co-host Willie Geist added, "Not a slip of the tongue either. He said it five or six times and then closed it with check it, Google it, find it, look it up, take it to the bank.""One thing he is right about, though. Ronald Reagan did nothing about Bagram so that part of it is true." Watch below or click the link here.

'Not what happened': Journalist fact-checks Trump's claim Harris 'illegally' spied on him

09/19/24 10:47 AM

Donald Trump was fact-checked after claiming Vice President Kamala Harris "illegally" spied on his campaign. Trump Wednesday night responded to news that Iranian hackers sent unsolicited data they took from Trump's presidential campaign to people who are associated with President Joe Biden’s ill-fated presidential campaign over the summer. On Truth Social, the former president said, "WOW, JUST OUT! THE FBI CAUGHT IRAN SPYING ON MY CAMPAIGN, AND GIVING ALL OF THE INFORMATION TO THE KAMALA HARRIS CAMPAIGN." ALSO READ: Let's call Springfield what it is: Republican-made terrorism "THEREFORE SHE AND HER CAMPAIGN WERE ILLEGALLY SPYING ON ME," the ex-president then claimed. "TO BE KNOWN AS THE IRAN, IRAN, IRAN CASE! WILL KAMALA RESIGN IN DISGRACE FROM POLITICS? WILL THE COMMUNIST LEFT PICK A NEW CANDIDATE TO REPLACE HER?" HuffPost reporter Yashar Ali fact-checked the ex-president. "This is NOT what happened," the reporter wrote Wednesday. "In a joint statement, the ODNI and FBI confirmed that Islamic Republic of Iran hackers stole non-public material from Trump’s campaign as part of an effort to sow chaos in the political system and impact its outcome." He continued: "In that statement, they noted that these hackers sent this non-public material to people associated with President Biden’s campaign (this is when he was still in the race). The statement says that the material was sent to these folks unsolicited and that they did not reply. The statement also confirmed that these hackers continued to send this material to other reporters." Finally, according to Ali's report, "So far, this material hasn’t been shared publicly by any of these parties. The Harris campaign says they have no record of these materials being sent to the campaign."

'Wow': MSNBC host stunned as WSJ reporter brutally dissects Trump's pet-eating lie

09/19/24 12:01 PM

During an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Wall Street Journal reported Valerie Bauerlein ripped apart Donald Trump and J.D. Vance's continued spreading of lies that Haitians in Ohio are kidnapping pets and eating them. Delving deeper into her bombshell reporting with colleagues Kris Maher and Tawnell D. Hobbs that made the front page of the Journal and completely debunked the story, Bauerlein's recitation of the facts on the ground in Springfield, Ohio, had "Morning Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski gasping "wow." As the WSJ reported, GOP vice presidential nominee Vance submitted a police report of a missing cat as evidence of pet-poaching which fell completely apart when the owner was contacted and subsequently admitted the cat, Miss Sassy, was actually hiding and then confessed she was ashamed she caused so much grief for the Haitian community. ALSO READ: Let's call Springfield what it is: Republican-made terrorism As Bauerlien noted, the Trump campaign knows the pet-eating story is false but that hasn't stopped the presidential nominee and his running mate from still pushing it — including at a rally in New York on Wednesday night. "Yesterday morning, after the story appeared, J.D. Vance, who had originally tweeted about this issue, said, 'Well, I choose to believe the stories are true,'" she told the hosts. "You know, we went there, we talked to people, we asked the police department for all of their records. The sheriff's office, the state wildlife division. There were no reports this was happening." "You know, in journalism, it is discouraging that we are trying to vet these claims in good faith and they don't matter," she lamented. "I'm sure your inbox is interesting. My inbox says, 'You're all not doing your job.' I don't know if our reporting just doesn't break through sometimes. " "You know, we live in a world where they call it viral for a reason. Once the things start spreading, it is like a virus. It is hard to find the origin or also to tamp it down," she added, to which Brzezinski blurted, "Wow." Watch below or at the link here.

10-Year-Old Japanese Schoolboy Stabbed To Death In China

09/19/24 11:55 PM

A child enrolled in a Japanese school in the Chinese city of Shenzhen has died after being stabbed on Wednesday, officials confirmed on Thursday, the second such attack near Japanese educational centres in China in recent months.

11 Of The Best Things To Do In London This Mother's Day And Paddy's Day Weekend

03/17/23 5:02 PM

It's a Mother's Day *and* Paddy's Day double whammy, people.View Entire Post ›