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Tag: barack obama
Whose Votes Does Biden Need To Win -- Hard Left Or Haley Republicans?

Whose Votes Does Biden Need To Win -- Hard Left Or Haley Republicans?

Barack Obama got it right. He refused to be held captive to his party's left wing. He adopted a strenuous policy of border enforcement, even as some Latino activists threatened to withhold their support for him. He had tense relations with Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu, but when anti-Israel protesters interrupted a Biden fundraiser over the Gaza conflict, Obama reprimanded them: "Here's the thing, you can't just talk and not listen." And the hall broke into applause.

Should Biden worry about keeping members of the Democrats' perpetually unhappy left on his team come November? Not to the extent that it costs broader public support — or goes against U.S. interests. The far left's power comes not in its big numbers but in its members' ability to bully Democrats into taking positions that cost them elections.

It's happened time and again. During the 2000 presidential campaign, prominent leftists urged followers to vote for spoiler Ralph Nader instead of the moderate Democrat Al Gore. A handful of Nader votes in Florida delivered the presidency to George W. Bush. In 2016, Bernie Sanders and many followers slashed the tires under Hillary Clinton's campaign, thus helping elect Donald Trump, who had cleverly egged them on.

Many of the disrupters waving Palestinian flags feel genuine despair at the Gaza horror. They have much company in this. But a lot of what they're after is attention. Getting pats on the head on social media is more important than helping defeat Donald Trump.

Exactly what was the point of pro-Palestinian demonstrators' disrupting an Easter Vigil mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral other than to get on the news? They know where the cameras are.

Come November, the hard left may deprive Biden of some needed votes. How much wiser to concentrate on Nikki Haley Republicans in the battlegrounds where moderate Republicans reside. And the Biden campaign is reportedly doing that.

According to a February Quinnipiac poll, 37% of Republican-leaning voters who supported Haley said they'd vote for Biden. That doesn't include the percentage of Republicans who would simply sit out an election that has Trump on the ballot.

Biden can't emphasize enough his support for the border enforcement bill that Trump had killed precisely because it would have worked, thus depriving him of a potent campaign issue. Any notion that this stance would turn off Latino voters is belied by polls showing Trump actually gaining some support among them as well as Blacks. And that's despite Trump's talking about mass deportations.

Perhaps Blacks and Latinos want different things from their political leaders than having their identities massaged. Other polls show illegal immigration — as well as crime — rank high on the list of these voters' concerns.

No surprise there. Poorly controlled borders intensify competition for workers without college degrees. These jobs are in construction, manufacturing, restaurants and hotels, retail — positions that are heavily occupied by people of color.

Contained in Obama's message to the anti-Israel left was the reality that the conflict in Gaza is complicated. But when you get down to the Squad level on the left, the problem isn't so much what many believe as their lack of depth in understanding the issues.

Trump Republicans can't help but love them. Here are would-be Democrats helping a candidate who, as president, introduced a ban on Muslims even entering the country — and says he would restore it in a second term.

Haley voters could well be the key to a Biden victory, especially if the president doesn't torment them with woke nonsense. Biden needs to keep Democrats united as is politically doable while getting the never-Trump Republicans to actually cast a vote — if not whole-heartedly for him, at least for the democracy.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Donald Trump

Trump Tries To Claim His Own Shaky Performance Is Faked By AI (VIDEO)

The latest ad from The Lincoln Project is titled “Feeble,” and it strings together a collection of Donald Trump’s “greatest hits” when it comes to stumbling over words, lurching around the podium, and repeatedly forgetting that Barack Obama is no longer president. While showcasing Trump’s two-handed efforts to sip from a water bottle and his running into the backdrop of a rally stage, the narrator asks questions like “Are you sure you don’t have dementia?” She also whispers that “[i]t runs in the family.”

The anti-Trump group’s newest ad follows another one named “Impaired” showing a different series of Trump misstatements—including the threat of the U.S. being sucked into “World War Two.” Both are themed around the idea that it’s Trump, not President Joe Biden, who shows the signs of advanced age. Even for those who don’t like Trump, it would be easy to see the ads as being mean or taking some cheap shots. But when Trump spoke out about them on Monday night, it wasn’t to address any of the content or complain about the snarky voice-over.

Instead, Trump complained that, “The perverts and losers at the failed and once disbanded Lincoln Project, and others, are using A.I.(Artificial Intelligence) in their Fake television commercials…” But after reviewing the contents of these ads, it seems the only artificial thing in them is Trump’s skin color. These clips are certified natural Trump.

Trump’s complaint is that the Lincoln Project is using artificial intelligence to make him seem “as bad and pathetic” as President Biden.

But the truth is, no one had to shift so much as a pixel. The ads show nothing but authentic clips from Trump’s recent interviews and rally appearances, highlighting only a few of the ways in which he turns the simplest statement into word salad—along with that bizarre fixation on Obama.

Here’s “Feeble”:

And here’s “Impaired”:

Trump’s New York apartment may only be one-third the size he claims, but it’s certain the space Obama rents inside Trump’s skull is larger than anyone can measure. The ads also make clear that when it comes to making Donald Trump look bad, no one does that as well as Donald Trump.

Of course, it’s not as if no one is making ads featuring AI images. Earlier this week, we focused on how the Republican National Congressional Committee has created an old-timey propaganda newsreel featuring completely AI-generated images in which undocumented immigrants somehow overrun national parks.

That followed a much more elaborate ad created by the Republican National Committee in April where AI was used to generate images of the dystopian future that would result if Americans didn’t put Trump in charge of everything. That ad not only featured a Taiwan invasion and the border collapsing under a zombie horde, it also included scenes like the one below in which “officials close the city of San Francisco” because it’s been overrun by crime.

In response to this ad, Daily Kos put together our own AI-generated response—one which, unlike the RNC ad, is based entirely on things Trump has actually promised to do should he regain the White House.

In this election, AI-generated ads remain a threat to democracy. However, no one would say they represent as great a threat as the sadly real Trump.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Joe Biden

GOP Chaos Shouldn't Overshadow Biden's Powerful Speech (VIDEO)

On Thursday evening, President Joe Biden delivered an Oval Office address to the American people. In sharp contrast to the follies, fights, and clashing egos being demonstrated by Republicans in the House, Biden showed that his White House remains the calm, stable center of our government.

He spoke clearly, earnestly, and eloquently, drawing parallels between the fight going on between Israel and Hamas with that of Ukraine and Russia. He spoke about how those who renounce violence and hate are not excused from action in the face of the worst forms of injustice. And he did something extraordinarily brave in speaking to the mistakes that America made by acting out of rage in the wake of 9/11.

Some presidents, like Barack Obama, have been lauded for their soaring oratory. Others, like Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, have been described by the media as skilled in communicating, even when all these men were communicating was racism, fear, and prejudice. But President Biden has largely been dismissed as a second-tier speaker, that guy with the stutter who occasionally mangles a phrase. That verdict is completely wrong. Joe Biden may be the best speaker, the best communicator, and the best orator of America’s innate strength in this century.

What made this speech by Biden a genuinely great one was that it didn’t do the easy thing. It didn’t do any of the easy things. It didn’t call for blind support of our allies. It didn’t demand vengeance. It didn’t suggest standing aside, turning away, or hiding behind dishonest demands for perfection.

Instead, Biden acknowledged evil, recognized the difficulty of the situation as it exists for both Israel and Palestine, and warned against giving in to the demands of outrage and shock.

His speech pointed out the humanity of both Israelis and Palestinians. It promised assistance to both Israel and Palestine. It asked both Israel and Palestine to retain their humanity in the face of inhuman circumstances. It is a promise that America will do something it so rarely has: act according to its ideals, not just based on poll numbers.

Perhaps the biggest intention behind Biden’s speech was reminding the public that the world isn’t facing just one crisis. While searching for the path forward in the Middle East, we can’t afford to forget the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

The U.S. has a moral obligation to act in both locations. Citing past U.S. transgressions doesn’t absolve us of the responsibility, and refusing to act is merely another form of evil.

“Hamas and Putin represent different threats,” said Biden, “but they share this in common: They both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy—completely annihilate it.”

It’s an important speech, one that doesn’t deserve to be lost in a day of massive events and angry politics. It’s that rarest of things: a speech that doesn’t just call on America to live up to its ideals, but also doesn’t pretend that those ideals are limited to saying the right words. It’s easy to create a city on a hill when all it has to do is shine. Joe Biden is demanding something more: a nation willing to stand on the ground and reach out its hand.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Tucker Carlson

Tucker Carlson Scrapes Bottom In The Conspiracy Barrel (VIDEO)

Tucker Carlson, who is scrounging for attention in an increasingly fractured and competitive right-wing media ecosystem while seeking funders for his new media venture, revived a convicted con man’s ridiculous allegation that he had crack-fueled gay sex with a young Barack Obama in a podcast interview. Carlson also revealed that he plans to interview the man for his show on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

“In 2008, it became really clear that Barack Obama had been having sex with men and smoking crack,” Carlson told host Adam Carolla. He cited the story of Larry Sinclair, who alleged during the 2008 presidential campaign that he “personally engaged in sexual activity and personally used illegal drugs in November 1999” with Obama in the back of Sinclair’s limousine and at a Chicago hotel. (Sinclair further alleged that Obama had been having a gay affair with the choir director at his church, who was subsequently murdered “to keep the media from believing the claims” Sinclair made.)

“A guy came forward, Larry Sinclair, and said, I'll sign an affidavit. And he did. I'll take a lie detector. And he did. ‘I smoked crack with Barack Obama and had sex with him,’” Carlson explained.

Carlson said Sinclair’s claims were “obviously true” but “nobody reported it … because the Obama campaign said anyone who reports on this gets no access to the Obama campaign.”

Sinclair’s story did receive little attention at the time from credible news outlets, even as it was widely covered on WorldNetDaily, a conspiracy theory website famous for promoting the lies that Obama was not born in the United States and is a Muslim. But while Carlson portrays this as a conspiracy in which journalists passed on Sinclair’s story to preserve access to the Obama campaign, Ben Smith noted in a 2008 article on the saga for Politico that the “story has generally been ignored by the mainstream media, because he’s been unable to substantiate his allegations.”

Carlson said he found Sinclair’s story compelling because he passed a lie detector test and signed an affidavit. But as Smith and even WorldNetDailyreported, Sinclair actually failed his polygraph (he later alleged Obama adviser David Axelrod had paid $750,000 to rig the polygraph). As Smith pointed out, Sinclair also claimed to be “terminally ill” in another affidavit he signed in 2004 (he is apparently still alive nearly 20 years later).

Asked by Carolla if he actually believed Sinclair’s story, Carlson replied, “That definitely happened. Oh, for sure. I mean, I've talked to Larry Sinclair about it and — oh, definitely it happened.” He went on to say that “40 years ago,” Sinclair had been “in and out of prison,” so “he’s got a criminal record by definition” and a “record of deception.”

“But this story, if you listen to it in detail, is clearly true,” he said, adding, “I'm going to do an interview with him and you can hear it.”

In fact, while Carlson suggested Sinclair’s criminal record occurred decades before his claims about Obama, Smith reported that “public records and court filings reveal that he has a 27-year criminal record, with a specialty in crimes involving deceit,” including “forgery charges in two states, one of which drew Sinclair a 16-year jail sentence.” At the time Sinclair made his allegations, there was “an outstanding warrant for Sinclair’s arrest for forging an acquaintance’s signature and stealing her tax refunds” in 2001, and he had been “arrested and charged with disorderly conduct in South Carolina” the previous year.

Elsewhere in the interview, Carlson told Carolla that Democrats plan to win the 2024 election by assassinating Donald Trump and initiating a “hot war” with Russia.

The former Fox host has been living his best life since the right-wing network dropped him from his prime-time post in April — moderating a GOP presidential forum, hobnobbing with Eastern European autocrats, and standing up for Vladimir Putin.

He’s also founded a new company that will be “anchored by longer versions of the free videos that Carlson has been posting regularly on Twitter” and is seeking “hundreds of millions of dollars” from right-wing billionaires like Peter Thiel and Rebekah Mercer. Unfortunately for Carlson, he’s just Alex Jones in suit-and-tie without Fox’s support, his viewership has been low, and he’s largely fallen out of the day-to-day conversation.

The Carolla interview provides insight into the niche Carlson’s new company will occupy — his investors will be funding WorldNetDaily 2.0, an outlet that dives deep into the right-wing internet fever swamps and credulously repeats absurdities as unvarnished truth.

Of course, Carlson is a notorious liar exposed by the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit for his willingness to tell his viewers the opposite of what he says privately, so we’ll never know whether he actually believes anything he publishes.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.