Monday, August 12, 2024

Trump Rolls Out Bonkers Harris Plane Conspiracy—but Photographer Disproves It

 https://www.thedailybeast.com/photographer-andrew-harnik-shoots-down-trumps-kamala-harris-plane-crowd-conspiracy?ref=home?ref=home

“Has anyone noticed that Kamala CHEATED at the airport?” Trump posted on Truth Social on Sunday. “There was nobody at the plane, and she ‘A.I.’d’ it, and showed a massive ‘crowd’ of so-called followers, BUT THEY DIDN’T EXIST! She was turned in by a maintenance worker at the airport when he noticed the fake crowd picture, but there was nobody there, later confirmed by the reflection of the mirror like finish on the Vice Presidential Plane. She’s a CHEATER. She had NOBODY waiting, and the ‘crowd’ looked like 10,000 people! Same thing is happening with her fake ‘crowds’ at her speeches.”

Trump falsely accuses Harris campaign of fabricated AI crowd photos

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/08/11/trump-falsely-accuses-harris-campaign-fabricated-ai-crowd-photos/

The event last week at an airport hangar in Detroit was live-streamed, widely attended by the media including The Washington Post, and many attendees posted their own pictures and video showing a packed venue. Local news outlet MLive estimated that 15,000 people filled the hangar and that attendees spilled out into the tarmac.

Trump spreads false conspiracy theory about Harris’ Detroit crowd size

 https://www.wfft.com/news/politics/trump-spreads-false-conspiracy-theory-about-harris-detroit-crowd-size/article_9e23e48d-5acf-510b-9f65-5acc886fe63a.html

 Donald Trump falsely claimed in a series of social media posts Sunday that “nobody” attended Vice President Kamala Harris’ Michigan rally last week — and said his Democratic rival should be “disqualified” over a “fake crowd picture.”

The former president appeared to have fallen for a far-right conspiracy theory — one easily disproved by photos and videos captured by attendees and media showing thousands of supporters at the event at an airport hangar near Detroit.

'He Failed': Woodward Reveals Trump's 'Danger' In Newly Released Tapes - Trump's biggest problem is incompetence

Trump spreads false conspiracy theory about Harris’ Detroit crowd size

 https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/11/politics/trump-harris-crowd-size-conspiracy-theory/index.html

Hany Farid, a digital forensics expert and professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said on LinkedIn that he analyzed the photo with two models designed to detect patterns associated with AI-generated images. Both models found no evidence of AI generation, he said, adding that “the text on the signs and plane [showed] none of the usual signs of generative AI.”

“While the lack of evidence of manipulation is not evidence the image is real,” he said, “we find no evidence that this image is AI-generated or digitally altered.”

JD Vance’s ‘Constitutional Crisis’ in the Making Deep State (Swamp) is only good if loyal to Trump

 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/08/12/what-jd-vance-gets-wrong-about-the-supreme-court-00173445

Currently, the vast majority of federal employees who keep the government running are career civil servants with employment protections and who serve from one administration to the next regardless of party. This is a key part of the “deep state” that Trump and Vance want to eradicate; Schedule F would convert these workers into political appointees who could then be summarily fired by the president and replaced with partisans loyal only to Trump.

Insurance vs Bitachon

 Igros Moshe (OH 2:111): Concerning whether buying life insurance is prohibited as a lack of bitachon that G d has the ability to make a person wealthy so that he will be able to leave to his heirs a large amount of money? In my humble opinion buying life insurance is absolutely not an indication of lack of bitachon in G d. It is exactly like any commercial activity that a person is not only allowed but is in fact obligated to do for his livelihood. In fact it is prohibited for him to say that even if he doesn’t do anything that G d will provide a livelihood at the appropriate level. 

Behind the Curtain: Inside Trump's slump

 https://www.axios.com/2024/08/11/trump-slump-assassination-attempt-2024-election

Don't buy the public bravado. Former President Trump's advisers are deeply rattled by his meandering, mean and often middling public performances since the failed assassination attempt.

They're pleading with him to adopt a new "hard-hitting" stump speech to define Vice President Harris as liberal and weak, advisers tell us. And praying he'll stop the recidivistic pull to simply improvise haphazardly.

Why it matters: Trump, who looked and felt like a clear front-runner heading into last month's Republican convention, has fumed, stewed and stumbled in private and public ever since.

Re: Trump's Betrayal of Profamily Agenda & Supporters

BSD

Aug. 11. '24


My point is that we DO ACTUALLY HAVE A choice - right now. We can still decide about whether or not we render Trump even worse than he'd be without his base enabling his leftward plunge.

By continuing to pledge Trump support, money and votes, and by confirming Trump's perception that his conservative base is a herd of useful idiots - who will encourage him as he continues to betray them - we ourselves thereby render Trump even worse - ie., we render the Lesser Evil even more "Evil" - and less of a "Lesser"...

Rational consideration would mandate that we ought to loudly protest his betrayals on morality issues -- and condition any assistance to Trump, while he still needs us, on meaningful shifts in his morality policy and personnel, specifically on LGB issues.

And, at best, his Ever-Trumper Amen-Chorus ought to just remain silent, if they can't bring themselves to actually do anything productive. Right now, their self-adulatory hot air isn't convincing many of the fence-sitters, but it is encouraging Trump to disregard fears from his right flank.

Most of the pro-Trump ululations by (formerly) rightwing desperates do nothing -- but egg Trump on - ever leftward.

When we collectively grasp that obvious fact, we'll have some hope of gaining traction.


Rabbi Leiter

Harris campaign fires back at Trump after he accuses her of faking ‘massive’ crowd sizes

 https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4823215-harris-campaign-fires-back-at-trump-after-he-accuses-her-of-faking-massive-crowd-sizes/

Vice President Harris’s campaign fired back at former President Trump after he accused her, without evidence, of using artificial intelligence to create false depictions of “massive” crowds at her rallies.

“1) This is an actual photo of a 15,000-person crowd for Harris-Walz in Michigan,” the KamalaHQ account wrote on the social platform X, responding to a screenshot of Trump’s post attacking Harris’s “fake” crowd. “2) Trump has still not campaigned in a swing state in over a week… Low energy?”

Israeli intel believes Iran will attack directly within days

 https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-814292

This represents a shift from recent assessments, which suggested that international pressure was restraining Iran from launching a direct attack against Israel.

Trump Falsely Claims Kamala Harris' Rally Crowd Was 'Fake' And AI-Generated - Delusional

 https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2024/08/11/trump-falsely-claims-kamala-harris-rally-crowd-was-fake-and-ai-generated/

Former President Donald Trump falsely claimed a crowd that gathered to see Vice President Kamala Harris arrive at a Michigan airport for a campaign rally was “fake,” insisting her campaign used artificial intelligence to mask the fact that “there was nobody there”—a claim refuted by images, videos and accounts of the event

Sunday, August 11, 2024

Killing the Iran nuclear deal was one of Trump's biggest failures

 https://responsiblestatecraft.org/iran-nuclear-deal/

To fully understand the enormity of Trump’s decision to leave the Iran deal, consider this: When the U.S. and Iran were complying with the deal, it was estimated that it would take Iran about one year to produce enough fissile material (in this case, weapons grade uranium) for a nuclear bomb (known as the “breakout” time). The states negotiating with Iran (the United States, Russia, China, Great Britain, France, and Germany) assessed that this would be enough time to respond to possible violations and prevent Iran from producing a bomb. Even if Iran were to acquire sufficient fissile material, it could still take another year for Iran to make a deliverable nuclear weapon. As of May, 2018, the deal was working and considered (by most) to be a great success.

Then President Trump unilaterally left the deal, calling it a “horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made.” And now we are in a much worse place. Iran says it has no intent to produce nuclear weapons and U.S. intelligence sees no current efforts by Tehran to weaponize, yet Tehran is believed to be not one year but just weeks from being able to produce enough fissile material for a bomb if it chooses to do so.


Trump doubles down on scary helicopter trip story

 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c985enjgdy9o

Mr Brown, 90, told US media he had never shared a helicopter with Trump, adding: "I don't think I'd want to ride on the same helicopter with him."

He also denied he said anything disparaging about Ms Harris.

"That's so far-fetched, it's unbelievable," he told local TV station KRON. "I could not envision thinking of Kamala Harris in any negative way.

"She's a good friend a long time ago, absolutely beautiful woman, smart as all hell, very successful, electorally speaking.

"He was doing what Donald does best, his creative fiction."