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'Boot-Licking Trump Sycophant' Youngkin Dodges Question on National Guard Threat
"This is the textbook definition of 'gaslighting' by Glenn Youngkin," said a progressive Virginia organization.
Oct 15, 2024
The Virginia Democratic Party said Tuesday that Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin—long promoted in the political press as a "moderate" alternative to the far-right MAGA movement—had made clear he was a "disgrace to our commonwealth" in an interview regarding GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump's recent threat to deploy the U.S. military against his political opponents.
CNN anchor Jake Tapper on Monday evening confronted the governor with Trump's comments in an interview broadcast on Sunday in which the former president toldFox News' Maria Bartiromo that he was concerned about violence from "the enemy within" on Election Day.
"We have some very bad people, we have some sick people, radical left lunatics," Trump said in a clip played by Tapper on CNN. "And it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military."
He later pointed to U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who helped lead the prosecution during Trump's first impeachment trial, as one of the "lunatics that we have inside."
"Is that something that you support?" Tapper asked Youngkin.
Youngkin repeatedly dodged Tapper's direct question, instead focusing on immigration and claiming the CNN anchor was "misinterpreting and misrepresenting" Trump's words, which he said were related to the former president's views on undocumented immigrants.
"I'm literally reading his quotes," said Tapper. "I'm literally reading his quotes to you and I played them earlier so you could hear that they were not made up by me."
The governor didn't budge from his message, repeatedly claiming that Tapper had taken "little snippets" from what Trump had said and created "a big narrative" out of the comments. He did not answer Tapper's question about whether he would support deploying the National Guard on Election Day.
"This is the textbook definition of 'gaslighting' by Glenn Youngkin... Insane. And EVIL," said progressive Virginia-based news outlet Blue Virginia. "Youngkin is an eternal disgrace to Virginia—worst governor ever, betrayer of our democracy, boot-licking Trump sycophant."
Independent journalist Eric Michael Garcia said the interview presented the latest evidence that Youngkin—who rose to his state's highest office after campaigning against the teaching of accurate U.S. history, including the history of racial injustice, in public schools—is not the "upbeat Post-Trump alternative" his supporters claim he is.
The interview aired around the time that Mark Esper, Trump's former defense secretary, urged CNN viewers to take seriously the GOP presidential nominee's threat to deploy the military on Election Day.
"I saw over the summer of 2020 where President Trump and those around him wanted to use the National Guard in various capacities in cities such as Chicago and Portland and Seattle," Esper toldCNN's Kaitlan Collins, referring to Trump's response when the police killing of George Floyd sparked racial justice protests. "So that's what equally concerns me about his comment would be the use of the military in these types of things."
At a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin on Monday, Democratic vice presidential nominee Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota also addressed Trump's threat, telling the audience, "He's talking about you."
"We'll let the lawyers decide if what he said was treason, but what I know is it's a call for violence, plain and simple," said Walz. "If anyone wants to pretend that this is a normal conversation that Donald Trump is having, just dispel that."
After Youngkin refused to say that as a governor, he would oppose mobilizing the military against Trump opponents, progressive strategist Murshed Zaheed said that "every reporter should be asking every Republican governor whether they will call the National Guard to help Trump target his enemies."
"Would love to get answers to this question from governors of Georgia, Nevada, Ohio, etc.," he said, referring to several battleground states.
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Election 2024 Could Stir Up Another Witch’s Brew of Frights for US Democracy
Demented Donald would turn America into His Own Special Hell (HOSH, not MAGA). Harris would not lead us to heaven, but she’d take us to a better place and spare us from any of Trump’s shenanigans.
Oct 15, 2024
Eight years ago, Hillary R. Clinton seemed certain to derail Donald J. Trump’s barely begun political career. Instead, a witch’s brew of misogyny, mistakes, and the Electoral College gave us our second minority-vote president of the early 21st century.
Eight years later, here we are in the final weeks of a second presidential matchup with an equally possible stark and dark outcome, Trump versus Kamala Harris.
Demented Donald would turn America into His Own Special Hell (HOSH, not MAGA). Harris would not lead us to heaven, but she’d take us to a better place and spare us from any of Trump’s shenanigans. If she wins, she’d also finally add the United States to the list of nations together enough to elect a woman to the highest office in the land.
America’s Founding Fathers left us so much to be proud of. The Electoral College, on the other hand, is nothing to be proud of.
Now let’s examine some aspects of Election 2024, starting with the one that tops all the others: the almost laughable axiom that character counts in the race to the White House. This year, in the large, character counts for approximately zero.
The Republican candidate is a convicted felon, a sexual predator, a serial liar, a grifter, a racist, a poster boy for moral bankruptcy (and financial bankruptcy as well). None of which matters: Unfathomably, unbelievably, tens of millions of Americans will vote to put him back in the Oval Office for another four years.
Underlining the point—the irrelevance of character in Election 2024—the best comes last. A 449-page book by Vincent L. Sterling, published this June, argues (seriously) that Donald J. Trump has been chosen by God. Of course, of course; how could any character-conscious voter miss the divine clues that Sterling spies?
The Democrats pulled off a surprise by nominating little-known Tim Walz for vice president, and he returned the favor with a surprise of his own. The headline of one news report summed it up: “Tim Walz’s simple takedown of Republicans goes viral.”
Walz’s plain words, stingingly sharply, gave the Harris-Walz ticket an exhilarating liftoff: “These guys are creepy and yes, just weird as hell.”
When was the last time that major members of a political party openly opposed their chosen presidential nominee? Good for you for remembering it was only four years ago, and the candidate they couldn’t and wouldn’t vote for was Donald Trump. Among the non-Trumpers were marquee names by the scores, headed by former president George W. Bush. The nays also included three former secretaries of defense (William H. Cohen, Chuck Hagel and James Mattis) and Colin Powell, the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff who went on serve as Bush’s secretary of state.
The number of Republicans repelled by Trump is only half the story in 2024, and it’s the other half that’s rocked and shocked both parties. In addition to opposing The Donald, droves of GOPers have also publicly declared they’ll be voting for Harris. Once again there’s a glittering roster of Republican turncoats, topped off this time by one of the most committed right-wingers ever to occupy the ranks of the right. That would be former Vice President Dick Cheney, who finally showed just a touch of the spine of his daughter Liz.
Cheney not only matched his daughter, he outmatched the man he served as vice president. Former President George W. Bush has no plans to endorse anybody in 2024. According to his office, “President Bush retired from presidential politics years ago.” (Note: Bush the retiree personally revealed that his vote in 2020 went not to Trump but to Condoleeza Rice.)
National security officials normally keep their presidential politics to themselves; not so, though, in the abnormal year of 2024.
Hundreds of high-ranking security personnel have not only thrown their support behind Harris, they’ve described Trump as “impulsive and ill-informed.” They see him as lacking in leadership and subject to a “scary authoritarian streak.” There were 741 signers to the letter that lays out their views, including U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Michael Smith, the president of National Security Leaders for America.
Come November 5, none of these ingredients will decide Election 2024; that power lies solely with the Electoral College.
America’s Founding Fathers left us so much to be proud of. The Electoral College, on the other hand, is nothing to be proud of. It’s been with us for our entire history, ever since the country was formed in Philadelphia in 1787. It was a compromise, inserted into the Constitution essentially to appease slaveholders in the colonial South.
Constitutional law expert Wilfred U. Codrington III describes it as a lasting stain: “More than two centuries after it was designed to empower southern white voters, the system continues to do just that.”
Stay tuned for November 5 (or the next day, or the next…)
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Gwen Walz Shares Her Fertility Journey Ahead of US Election
"Thank you Gwen Walz for powerfully sharing your fertility journey and committing to protecting fertility treatments for all Americans."
Oct 14, 2024
Minnesota First Lady Gwen Walz—whose husband, Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, is U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate—shared her full fertility journey in an essay published by Women's Health on Monday, just weeks away from the November 5 election.
The Democrats are set to face Republican former President Donald Trump—who is voting to uphold Florida's six-week abortion ban and brags about having appointed three of the U.S. Supreme Court justices who reversedRoe v. Wade—and Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), whose selection was seen as further proof that their administration would "stop at nothing to ban all abortion" at the federal level.
Since Harris took the torch from President Joe Biden this past summer, she has had widespread support from reproductive freedom advocates. They celebrated her choosing the Minnesota governor, who signed bills strengthening abortion protections and shielding people who seek or provide abortions or gender-affirming care from legal action by conservative states.
"Donald Trump is the one who took down Roe. I don't trust him. And frankly, I'm not willing to put my daughter's reproductive health in his hands."
Throughout the campaign, Tim and Gwen Walz have shared their difficult journey to conceiving their two children: 23-year-old Hope, and Gus, who turned 18 on Sunday. As the Minnesota first lady detailed in Women's Health, she had "felt pangs of frustration and anger since Roe was overturned" but was ultimately pushed to speak out by an Alabama Supreme Court ruling.
In February, Alabama's high court recognized frozen embryos as children who must be protected by the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, halting in vitro fertilization (IVF) in the state and elevating fears of what Republican control of Congress and the White House would mean for the future of fertility treatments and reproductive freedom more broadly.
"I don't think anyone should be telling us when, if, or how to start families. But when the Alabama Supreme Court ruling came down, that was a moment when it was just like, okay, now we're here," Gwen Walz wrote. "We went through this difficult time for a purpose—to have our children—but there's another purpose now. We have an opportunity, in leadership roles as governor and first lady, and now on the campaign trail for Kamala Harris, to tell our story. So, we told it all across the country."
She recalled taking Clomid, "a medication that increases the hormones that stimulate egg production in your ovaries and can help you get pregnant," and coordinating her schedule with their "wonderful neighbor Mary," a nurse and mother of three who helped administer shots to boost her chances of pregnancy and successful fertilization.
"When we finally conceived Hope using intrauterine insemination (IUI), it was right before Easter. We'd been struggling with infertility for years by that point," Walz wrote. "You never imagine that your daughter is going to have fewer rights than you do. And in 21 states that have abortion bans or gestational limits right now, that is the case."
"Donald Trump is the one who took down Roe. I don't trust him. And frankly, I'm not willing to put my daughter's reproductive health in his hands. If he's elected, I think there will be a nationwide abortion ban," she continued. "But I plan on making my voice heard at the ballot box. There's a clear choice between Kamala Harris and my husband, Tim—who trust women—and Trump and JD Vance, who do not. Everyone has to understand that you have the power to make this choice, and the power to respect reproductive freedom for every single woman in every single family—so that if, when, or how you want to have a family is up to you."
Welcoming the essay on social media, Reproductive Freedom for All said, "Thank you Gwen Walz for powerfully sharing your fertility journey and committing to protecting fertility treatments for all Americans."
Reproductive Freedom for All has endorsed the Harris-Walz ticket and has been working to reach voters in key states. The group's president and CEO, Mini Timmaraju, said earlier this month that "one of the most powerful ways we can mobilize voters is by speaking to the people we know in our own communities."
"Voters have never been so fired up about abortion," she added. "Our reproductive freedom is at stake and we can't afford to do anything less than leave it all on the field."
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