"Folks ike Ruth Ben-Ghiat and Anne Applebaum, who study and write about authoritarianism, are trying to warn us:"

And Heather Cox Richardson as well:

Trump's behavior is Authoritarianism 101. In a 1951 book called The True Believer, political philosopher Eric Hoffer noted that demagogues appeal to a disaffected population whose members feel they have lost the power they previously held, that they have been displaced either religiously, economically, culturally, or politically. Such people are willing to follow a leader who promises to return them to their former positions of prominence and thus to make the nation great again.

But to cement their loyalty, the leader has to give them someone to hate. Who that is doesn't really matter: the group simply has to be blamed for all the troubles the leader's supporters are suffering. Trump has kept his base firmly behind him by demonizing immigrants, the media, and, increasingly, Democrats, deflecting his own shortcomings by blaming these groups for undermining him.

Folks ike Ruth Ben-Ghiat and Anne Applebaum, who study and write about authoritarianism, are trying to warn us:

'Totally illegal': Trump escalates rhetoric on outlawing political dissent and criticism

"This is out of the autocratic playbook. As autocrats consolidate their power once they're in office, anything that threatens their power ... becomes illegal," historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat said.

Donald Trump is ramping up his rhetoric depicting his political rivals and critics as criminals, while dropping a long trail of suggestions that he favors outlawing political speech that he deems misleading or challenges his claims to power.

In a speech Friday in Aurora, Colorado, the Republican presidential nominee blasted the immigration system and lobbed a rhetorical grenade at his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.

"She's a criminal. She's a criminal," said Trump, who was found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in his New York hush money trial. "She really is, if you think about it."

Trump has also labeld Walz as a dangerous, radical liberal:

Trump and allies attack Walz as 'dangerously liberal'

The Trump campaign and leading Republicans have launched their first attacks on Tim Walz, labelling him as "far left", "dangerously liberal" and a "radical".

Kamala Harris said she chose the Minnesota governor as her running-mate for "his convictions on fighting for middle class families".

Donald Trump wrote on social media that Mr Walz would "unleash HELL ON EARTH and open our borders to the worst criminals".

JD Vance, Trump's choice for vice-president, said that Mr Walz was on the "far left" of the Democratic party, and chosen because Ms Harris was a "radical herself".

FTA:

Fox News host Maria Bartiromo set Trump up to expound on his campaign's ongoing smearing of immigrants. Trump didn't take her up on the offer, instead choosing to focus on American citizens who disagree with his platform.

Echoing rhetoric he shared at his outwardly racist rally in Aurora, Colorado earlier this week, Trump called left-wing dissenters "the enemy within" and said that any uproar over his potential second-term could be put down by the military.

"I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within, not even the people who have come in [and destroyed] our country," he said. "We have some very bad people, sick people, radical left lunatics. And it should be easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military."

Trump Calls Kamala Harris 'Lunatic' In First Rally Since Biden Exit

Donald Trump launched a volley of attacks against US Vice President Kamala Harris Wednesday, calling her a "radical left lunatic" in his first rally since she became the de facto Democratic Party nominee for November's election.

In a speech where he also claimed that Harris was in favor of the "execution" of babies due to her position on abortions, the former president and Republican nominee said: "She is a radical left lunatic who will destroy our country."

If you are wondering why some of the people in the Lake Lurie/Chimney Rock area are reacting this way, take a look at this video of the sheriffs in the area and wonder no more:

Sara A. Carter
@SaraCarterDC
A message from the Sheriff Wright and Sheriff Ellenburg in North Carolina regarding FEMA and the aftermath Hurricane Helen- we spent the day in Chimney Rock and Lake Lure and the devastation is unbelievable--but the people of NC have pulled together--truly amazing mountain people.

FTA:

Around 1 p.m. Saturday, an official with the U.S. Forest Service, which is supporting recovery efforts after Hurricane Helene along with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, sent an urgent message to numerous federal agencies warning that "FEMA has advised all federal responders Rutherford County, NC, to stand down and evacuate the county immediately. The message stated that National Guard troops had come across x2 trucks of armed militia saying there were out hunting FEMA.'" "The IMTs [incident management teams] have been notified and are coordinating the evacuation of all assigned personnel in that county," the email added. Two federal officials confirmed the authenticity of the email, though it was unclear whether the quoted threat was seen as credible. The National Guard referred questions to FEMA when asked about the incident. One Forest Service official coordinating the Helene recovery said responders moved to a "safe area" and at least some work in that area--which included clearing trees off dozens of damaged and blocked roads to help search-and-rescue crews, as well as groups delivering supplies--was paused.

If the media really covered Trump's health, it would seriously hurt his chances of winning the election, that's why they don't cover it:

Asha Rangappa
@AshaRangappa_

When George W. [sic] had the flu and barfed on the Japanese Prime Minister in 1992, the media covered it. When Hillary Clinton had the flu and *stumbled* from dehydration during a campaign event in 2016, the media covered it. (For DAYS.) When President Biden so much as stumbled a few *words* the media endlessly pounded on about his health. I would REALLY like to know why Trump's health--mental and physical--is seemingly off limits. For real, why

How many "real people" have the problems being described Tony? I know of no one having this issue. More people will be affected by car loan interest deductions than at home caregiving.

How many people have elderly parents and/or grandparents who can no longer live alone and who don't have the means to pay a home health care worker?

You still openly support a person who interfered in a federal election - trying to manipulate the outcome with false documentation provided by a foreign spy.
You have no credibility.
#15 | Posted by lfthndthrd

Trump interfered with the election as I have shown above, and you still openly support him. You have no credibility.

In summary, Trump participated in election interference during the 2016 election with his catch and kill schemes, which coming after the "grab 'em by the -----" video could certainly have cost him the election if those stories had gotten out.

The above info had to do with the Stormy Daniels case. Here's the info on the Karen McDougal case, and interestingly enough although the Republicans on the committe once again blocked an investigation into Trump, the committee did fine AMI (owners of the National Inquirer) $187,5000 for its part in the catch and kill scheme:

In addition to Michael Cohen's payment to Stephanie Clifford, the statement of facts supporting District Attorney Bragg's indictment of Trump describes another hush money scheme involving American Media, Inc. (AMI), the publisher of the National Enquirer, and a $150,000 "catch and kill" payment for the rights to former Playboy model Karen McDougal's story about her alleged affair with Trump. The FEC also received complaints about the AMI payment and, as in the Cohen case, the agency's nonpartisan attorneys recommended finding reason to believe that Trump and others violated campaign finance law. But the Republican commissioners again blocked an investigation into Trump, citing prosecutorial discretion because, among other things, the FEC's attorneys conducted "extensive outside research into news reports, published books, and social media posts" that the Republicans claimed to be unreliable. Their own effort to dismiss the allegations against Trump also failed to gain the four necessary votes to succeed.

In the AMI case, all six commissioners did, however, agree to find reason to believe, based on the non-prosecution agreement AMI previously signed with the Justice Department, that AMI had made a prohibited in-kind corporate contribution with its payment to McDougal. AMI subsequently agreed to a conciliation agreement supported by every FEC commissioner that stated the "payment to Karen McDougal to purchase a limited life story right combined with its decision not to publish the story, in consultation with an agent of Donald J. Trump and for the purpose of influencing the election, constituted a prohibited corporate in-kind contribution." AMI paid a $187,500 fine in June 2021.

"Federal election regulators fined Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee earlier this month for not properly disclosing the money they spent on controversial opposition research that led to the infamous Trump-Russia dossier.
The DNC was fined $105,000 and the Clinton campaign was fined $8,000, according to a letter sent by the Federal Election Commission to a conservative group that requested an inquiry.
Political candidates and groups are required to publicly disclose their spending to the FEC, and they must explain the purpose of any specific expenditure more than $200. The FEC concluded that the Clinton campaign and DNC misreported the money that funded the dossier, masking it as "legal services" and "legal and compliance consulting" instead of opposition research.
The dossier was compiled by retired British spy Christopher Steele. It contained unverified and salacious allegations about Donald Trump, including claims that his campaign colluded with the Kremlin to win the 2016 election. Trump's campaign had numerous contacts with Russian agents, and embraced Russian help, but no one was ever formally accused of conspiring with Russia"
www.cnn.com
You have zero credibility. STFU
#4 | Posted by lfthndthrds

Say, did the FEC ever fine Trump for the money he paid to catch and kill the Karen McDougal and Stormy Dainiels stories? No, because there the Republican appointees on the commission voted against opening an investigation:

[A]fter assessing the merits of three complaints related to former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen's $130,000 payment to buy the silence of porn star Stephanie Clifford (a.k.a. Stormy Daniels) ahead of the 2016 election, the agency's nonpartisan lawyers recommended that the FEC find reason to believe that Trump and others violated several campaign finance laws and proposed an investigation "to determine the extent to which Trump coordinated with, or otherwise directed, Cohen to make the Clifford payment to help his presidential campaign during the 2016 election."

But the six-person bipartisan agency, which requires four affirmative votes to take most official actions, including launching an investigation, deadlocked on the recommendation, as it frequently does. By voting against the recommendation, Republican Commissioners Sean Cooksey and James "Trey" Trainor effectively killed any further inquiry into Trump's actions, despite the fact that the agency's professional staff believed the available evidence was at least sufficient to conduct a formal investigation.

"Even if what you listed above happened, it wasn't Trump personally"

Sure it was, at least according to Trump's Secretary of State at the time:

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the Washington Examiner over the weekend that U.S. President Donald J. Trump decided to provide "significant assistance" to Russia and said that the U.S. equipment is already on its way there. Pompeo said, "We're excited about our ability to try and help them work their way through this virus," and added: "I have been working with Russia since I was Director of the CIA," citing mutual cooperation in the fight against terrorism.

Catherine Rampell
@crampell

As president, Trump withheld Covid supplies from US states, but sent Covid tests to Putin.
Hard to believe this guy is still a coin flip away from a second term.

Trump has always been a Putin lover/lackey and no amount of profanity is going to change that fact.

Grant Stern
@grantstern
That time Trump shipped $4.7 million in COVID aid to Putin and bought a bunch of fire prone Russian ventilators for FEMA that never got used at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Now that is a disaster.

Lots of working poor in TN:

Report: nearly half of Tennessee households don't earn enough to meet basic expenses

Nearly half of all Tennessee working families cannot afford the basic cost of living in their counties, according to new analyses of Census and federal economic data by the United Way of Tennessee.

The report examined the challenges facing households that earned more than the federal poverty level but, nevertheless, struggle to make ends meet.

While wages have increased in that time period, the 20 most common occupations in Tennessee still pay less than $20 per hour, the report found. These include jobs like sales, truck driving, administrative assistants and elementary school teachers.

Although poverty levels for Tennessee kids have shrunk, the report found that 38% of working Tennessee families with children at home did not earn enough to keep up with basic expenses.

Q. What can Dems do to regain the hearts and minds of folks like the Tennessee woman whose working hard just to keep up with her rent and monthly expenses even when the economy for the cosmopolitan class is booming?
#9 | Posted by Augustine

That's a good question, and I don't have the answer. I would like to point out that Tennessee is one of those states that did not expand Medicaid. Getting the Republican state government to do that would definitley help some of the working poor in TN:

"When told that the economy was great, she had only disdain."

You told her the economy was great? As in the US economy was great vs the economy in Appalachia where she lives?

If I was the mayor I'd lie too.
#2 | Posted by oneironaut

How about if you were Trump? It takes a computer to keep track of all the lies he has told over the last 9 years since he first started running for president in 2015.

The headline of the original article:

Mask mandates returning to several Bay Area counties

Gracie's headline here:

CA Brings back ineffective face mask mandate

See the difference?

New York now has a vote by mail option:

Apply for an Early Mail Ballot

Who May Apply for an Early Mail Ballot

Any registered voter may apply for an early mail ballot. Each person must apply for themselves. It is a felony to make a false statement in an application for an early mail ballot, to attempt to cast an illegal ballot, or to help anyone to cast an illegal ballot.

In conclusion:

tell me FEMA isn't giving tax payer money to illegals and you're a god damn liar.
#12 | Posted by shrimptacodan

FEMA isn't giving tax payer money to illegals. Through a program established during the Trump administration, FEMA gives money to state and local goverments as well as nonprofits to help pay for illegal immigrants who have been relseased by DHS at the border.

More background info:

Background info:

FEMA's Role in Migrant Assistance: Exploring the Shelter and Services Program

When local communities receive new immigrants who have been released at the border by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), they often provide necessary support to ensure that people have their immediate and short-term emergency needs (such as food and temporary shelter) met. Over the last decade, as large numbers of asylum seekers began arriving at the border and were released by DHS to await court hearings inside the country, local communities have stepped up to ensure that migrants are not forced to sleep on the streets after arriving.

Since 2019, Congress has provided a limited pool of funding that local and state governments, as well as nonprofits, can apply for to reimburse some costs of emergency sheltering needs. This funding is currently provided through the Shelter and Services Program, which is administered by the Federal Emergency Management Authority (FEMA). The Shelter and Services Program is one of many such programs administered by FEMA, which carries out numerous functions beyond its core mission of disaster relief. Throughout its existence, the program has received bipartisan support from members of Congress and from local leaders who have called on the federal government to provide more financial assistance to communities both at the border and around the country that receive new immigrants. . . .

In 2018 and 2019, migrants again began arriving at the border in very high numbers, with over 850,000 Border Patrol apprehensions recorded in Fiscal Year 2019. In many communities, city officials and migrant shelter operators worked with law enforcement partners at DHS to ensure that migrants would be released directly to shelters. These shelters served a vital role in limiting the impact on border communities and providing a better procedure for the federal government when releases occur. However, ensuring that ensuring that asylum seekers without support systems in the U.S. do not end up homeless in their first hours in the United States can come at significant costs to local governments and to the shelters themselves, a concern which Congress eventually sought to address.

In the July 2019 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Humanitarian Assistance and Security at the Southern Border Act, Congress first authorized the federal government to reimburse some of those costs. The initial funding was operated through FEMA's Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP), which has operated since 1983, to disburse funding to local communities responding to the shelter needs of homeless residents. The creation of reimbursement funding for border communities received bipartisan support, including by Texas Senator John Cornyn, who declared in August 2019 that "it's high time the federal government repays the Texas communities that have diverted their local taxpayers' funds to address this crisis."

tell me FEMA isn't giving tax payer money to illegals and you're a god damn liar.
#12 | Posted by shrimptacodan

FEMA has wasted what amounts to Billions of dollars on migrants. That's a fact.
The Democrats are the ones supporting influxes of migrants, always has been.
#15 | Posted by THEBULL

You gentlemen, and I use the term loosely, are partially correct. FEMA does have a program which funds illegal immigrants, but what you obvisouly don't know is that the fund was established by Republicans in 2019 during the Trump administration:

Congress also appropriated money for a different fund, the Shelter and Services Program (SSP), which is part of Customs and Border Protection but is administered by FEMA. Established under the Trump administration in 2019, SSP gives grants to states and local governments to provide shelter, food, and transportation to undocumented immigrants. After Trump's accusation, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement: "These claims are completely false. As Secretary Mayorkas said, FEMA has the necessary resources to meet the immediate needs associated with Hurricane Helene and other disasters. The Shelter and Services Program (SSP) is a completely separate, appropriated grant program that was authorized and funded by Congress and is not associated in any way with FEMA's disaster-related authorities or funding streams."