Donald Trump got his start in politics by infamously pushing the "birtherism" lie about Barack Obama. Now he's pushing what might be called a "burgerism" lie about Kamala Harris -- that she somehow just made up the fact that she worked at McDonald's back when she was a student. It's all a measure of the desperation Trump finds himself now wallowing in, since to date none of his attacks against Harris have even come close to landing.

If you are thinking to yourself how monumentally stupid this all is, you are not alone. It is so monumentally stupid that it's not even worth going down the twisted rabbit hole Trump and his minions followed to come up with the lie, in fact. Suffice it to say they are grasping at straws... milkshake straws, perhaps?

Harris tells her story of working a fast-food job for a reason, of course. It is a relatable experience for millions of Americans, but it's more than that as well. As Harris points out, when she worked there, she was a student just looking to make some spare cash to spend. But others working such menial jobs do so in order to provide for their families -- which is a much more serious thing, of course.

It's hard to even wrap your mind around what Trump thinks the point of all of this is. As a late-night comedian put it, does he think it is some sort of "stolen valor" which disrespects "our men and women in uniform"? Or what? Harris failed to list her McDonald's job on a professional résumé next to her work as a law clerk, working at the Federal Trade Commission, and an internship with Senator Alan Cranston, because (duh!) nobody who saw that résumé would have cared one way or the other if Harris had had a fast-food job as a student. So where's the big scandal?

It exists solely in Trump's mind, although he can't even get the details straight (he was trying to rip Harris about it this week but got the main part of it backwards, saying: "She never worked at McDonald's, but it was a big part of her résumé"). Trump is now promising that within the next week or so (real soon now, you bet!) he's going to go work the fry machine at some random McDonald's for half an hour. This would elevate his burgerist craziness in the media, no doubt, but other than that it's hard to imagine what it is supposed to prove. It seems somewhat doubtful that he'll follow through on this idea, but if he did it would probably be the first half-hour of honest work he's done in his entire life. Maybe that's the point? The whole thing is so ridiculously stupid it's hard to draw any conclusions other than how desperate Trump is to find a way to attack Harris that anyone will listen to (or care about). Everything else he's tried has fizzled, and this will almost certainly fizzle too.

Speaking of attacks on Harris fizzling, we came across the following today, which is the best example we've seen yet of contradicting the "Harris isn't being detailed enough" whining in the media:

Most prominently, [Vice President Kamala Harris] has been consistently criticized for failing to articulate her economic vision. However, in two speeches -- one in Raleigh, N.C., last month and one in Pittsburgh on Wednesday (where she identified herself as a capitalist seeking "bold, persistent experimentation") -- as well as numerous campaign events, she has delineated a set of serious, concrete policies. These include: restoring the child tax credit; creating a $6,000 credit for the parents of newborns in their baby's first year; stimulating the housing market; subsidizing first-time home buyers; eliminating unnecessary college degree requirements for federal jobs; subsidizing child care (thereby limiting child-care costs to 7 percent of lower-wage earners' income); raising the corporate tax rate to 28 percent; and expanding the tax credit for start-up businesses to $50,000 (with the goal of 25 million new business applications by the end of her first term). In Pittsburgh, she added new economic policy positions: become the global leader in everything from artificial intelligence to clean energy to aerospace to biomanufacturing; double the number of paid apprenticeships; reform tax laws to allow more employee profit-sharing; incentivize investment in factory towns; and cut red tape in permitting for construction.

This week, the White House announced that "the economy has grown by 3.2 percent per year during Biden-Harris administration -- even stronger than previously estimated -- and better than the first three years of the previous administration."

Detailed enough for you? We are still waiting for the pundits to make the same complaint about Trump, whose "policy positions" are often nothing more than him saying something off-the-cuff with no explanation and no plan to make real. So where is the media attention on Trump's lack of specifics?

Harris has indeed been speaking about her economic plans a lot, and while most of the media steadfastly refuses to notice, the public seems to be tuning in. Donald Trump used to enjoy a clear lead when pollsters asked people who they thought would be better for the country on the economy, Trump or Harris. Of course, that used to be "Trump or Biden," which is where Trump built up a huge advantage. But Harris has been making progress on the issue (which many voters identify as the most important issue for them in this election), to the point where the two are now just about tied on the question. That's an impressive amount of progress, you've got to admit.

Harris has also been speaking out about abortion rights of late, which is a subject the public clearly trusts her on more than Trump. This week, she came out in favor of jettisoning the filibuster to pass a nationwide abortion-rights law (which would likely be necessary, to get it passed in the Senate). And her new stump speech on the issue is pretty powerful to watch. She really hits her stride, since the issue is so personal to her:

This is a health-care crisis. And Donald Trump is the architect of this crisis. He brags about overturning Roe v. Wade -- in his own words, quote, "I did it and I'm proud to have done it." He says he is proud. Proud that women are dying, proud that doctors and nurses could be thrown in prison for administering care and proud that young women today have fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers?

No wonder Harris has built up a huge edge among younger voters and continues to widen the gap among women voters as well. This has all caused Team Trump to freak out a bit, so he tried his own peculiar way of "appealing to women voters" this week. He started off by shouting at everyone on his pet social media site (whose stock continues to plummet, by the way -- down by over 80 percent from its high), in an all-caps screed:

WOMEN ARE POORER THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO, ARE LESS HEALTHY THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO, ARE LESS SAFE ON THE STREETS THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO, ARE MORE DEPRESSED AND UNHAPPY THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO, AND ARE LESS OPTIMISTIC AND CONFIDENT IN THE FUTURE THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO! I WILL FIX ALL OF THAT, AND FAST, AND AT LONG LAST THIS NATIONAL NIGHTMARE WILL BE OVER. WOMEN WILL BE HAPPY, HEALTHY, CONFIDENT AND FREE! YOU WILL NO LONGER BE THINKING ABOUT ABORTION, BECAUSE IT IS NOW WHERE IT ALWAYS HAD TO BE, WITH THE STATES, AND A VOTE OF THE PEOPLE -- AND WITH POWERFUL EXCEPTIONS, LIKE THOSE THAT RONALD REAGAN INSISTED ON, FOR RAPE, INCEST, AND THE LIFE OF THE MOTHER -- BUT NOT ALLOWING FOR DEMOCRAT DEMANDED LATE TERM ABORTION IN THE 7TH, 8TH, OR 9TH MONTH, OR EVEN EXECUTION OF THE BABY AFTER BIRTH. I WILL PROTECT WOMEN AT A LEVEL NEVER SEEN BEFORE. THEY WILL FINALLY BE HEALTHY, HOPEFUL, SAFE, AND SECURE. THEIR LIVES WILL BE HAPPY, BEAUTIFUL, AND GREAT AGAIN!

Hoo boy. This is a textbook example of what the Dear Leader of a personality cult would say: "I alone can fix everything, and everything will be wonderful when I do, so just give me all the power (and all your money) and things will be wonderful very soon now." As we wrote earlier this week, Trump is insultingly reviving the "Don't worry your pretty little head about it" misogyny from the 1950s, because to his twisted way of thinking, that's what modern American women want to hear from a presidential candidate right now.

Meanwhile, a George Conway PAC is running an ad pointing out the real truth of the situation, which features two women who have accused Trump of sexual assault. Here's an example:

"Donald Trump is an adjudicated sexual assaulter," one of the women, Natasha Stoynoff, proclaims in an ad. "We cannot elect this man as president."

Stoynoff, who in 2005 was a reporter on assignment for People, said Trump pinned her to the wall at Mar-a-Lago and forcefully kissed her repeatedly when Melania Trump left the room. Only a butler charging in stopped the attack, she said.

"I realized I was not to blame, that he was just a predator of women," Stoynoff says in the ad.

This gets it exactly right -- Donald Trump is in no way a protector of women, he is instead a predator of women.

Other campaign news: Harris has accepted an invitation from CNN to debate on October 23rd, but Trump is too chicken to take her up on it. Team Harris continues to raise tons of money and has a whole lot more than Team Trump. Harris sat down for a friendly interview on MSNBC this week, and Tim Walz will be attending the University of Michigan football game against the University of Minnesota tomorrow, in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Trump has been holding rallies in North Carolina which are notable for the absence of the state's Republican nominee for governor, Mark Robinson. Robinson's campaign is in a death spiral, as more and more of his top staff resign. Trump now apparently wants to be able to throw people in jail for criticizing judges, which is supremely odd since he'd be the biggest offender around. Trump is making all kinds of claims of achievements for things that Joe Biden actually got done, and the Washington Post put together two helpful lists for voters -- the first of all the promises Trump has made so far about what he's going to do on "Day One," and the second of what all the people who know Trump (and have worked for him) now have to say about him.

In a piece of related news (pun definitely intended, there), Jared Kushner is raking in millions for doing absolutely nothing with all that Saudi money he was given. From an article titled: "Kushner's Fund Has Reaped Millions In Fees, But So Far Returned No Profits," here's the story:

The private equity firm run by Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of former President Donald J. Trump, has been paid at least $112 million in fees since 2021 by Saudi Arabia and other foreign investors, even though as of July it had not yet returned any profits to the governments largely bankrolling the firm.

Those are among the findings of a Senate Finance Committee inquiry into the operations of Affinity Partners, the Miami-based firm Mr. Kushner set up.

With the stock market hitting record high after record high, you have to be a complete moron not to have made any money over the past few years. But of course, the point of this "investment fund" isn't to make money for the investors, it is to funnel foreign money to the family of Donald Trump, plain and simple. On that level, it's been a huge success!

Let's see, what else? The Republican candidate for Senate in Ohio is working hard to be even more offensive to women than Trump on the abortion issue, in case you haven't heard. And Representative Clay Higgins is a stone-cold racist, but the rest of the Republicans in Congress aren't going to denounce him for it or anything (because racism is A-OK in today's MAGAfied Republican Party).

Trump tried mightily to change the election rules in Nebraska (to avoid Kamala Harris winning one Electoral College vote in the state), but was thwarted by one Democrat-turned-Republican who stood firmly against the idea.

And to end on a few positive notes: there won't be a government shutdown next week, as the House Republicans finally passed a clean continuing resolution to fund the government until December (after the election). The F.B.I. reports that murder rates in America "dropped in 2023 at the fastest rate on record."

A celebration was held in Georgia for Jimmy Carter's 100th birthday, which is actually not until October 1st, but was a star-studded event for the best ex-president America has ever had.

And finally, just to put a smile on everyone's faces: Rudy Giuliani has now been disbarred in the District of Columbia.

 

We have to hand the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week this week to Senator Bernie Sanders.

Sanders first caught our eye in a committee hearing, as he lambasted the head of the company that makes the weight-loss (and diabetes) drugs Ozempic and Wegovy. Bernie had charts behind him showing that Ozempic costs $155 in Canada, $71 in France, and (a bargain) only $59 in Germany -- but the same dosage of the same drug costs a whopping $969 in America.

Sanders told the C.E.O. right to his face: "Treat the American people the same way that you treat people all over the world. Stop ripping us off."

No other politician alive has done more to expose this massive ripoff than Sanders, of course. He has had only limited success at reforming the way the drug-delivery system in this country works, but he is still fighting hard to end this insanity.

It's not just greedy drug companies who are to blame, of course. The Senate has slowly been working to bring the world of "pharmacy benefit managers" under some sort of control, since (as the C.E.O. pointed out) 75 percent of that price actually goes to the P.B.M.s, not his company. The whole P.B.M. system is a Byzantine thicket of kickbacks and middlemen, and it is absolutely unnecessary. So kudos to Bernie for continuing to fight this good fight, and hopefully sooner or later some legislation will emerge to reform the way that prescription drugs are paid for in this country.

But that's not the only thing which put Bernie in the news this week. Sanders, together with Senators Jeff Merkley and Peter Welch, has introduced a resolution which would force a vote in Congress to block weapons sales to Israel.

Sanders put out a statement and a fact sheet to explain his reasoning for introducing the resolution, which he will be able to force a vote on when Congress returns in November.

This effort will likely fail, we should mention. But it will put every senator on the record with their support or disapproval of the way Israel is prosecuting their wars, which is a valuable thing in its own right. No matter which side of the issue you happen to be on, it will be instructive to see how your own senators vote on it.

Bernie Sanders isn't afraid of tackling tough (and seemingly intractable) issues. For his efforts to do so this week, we thought he deserved the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award.

[Congratulate Senator Bernie Sanders on his Senate contact page, to let him know you appreciate his efforts.]

 

Last week, we worried that we might have been premature in awarding the Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week to New York City Mayor Eric Adams. This week, it just looks prophetic.

Adams has been the center of multiple criminal investigations for quite some time now and has seen multiple high-ranking members of his administration either resign or plan their early retirement as they faced indictment for their participation in these various alleged crimes.

This week, the final shoe dropped. Adams himself was indicted on five federal charges ranging from bribery to wire fraud. It seems he wasn't just overseeing corrupt individuals, he was the center of the corruption himself.

The cries from his fellow Democrats for him to resign his office are only going to grow louder, that's our prediction for this week, as we hand Eric Adams his second Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week in a row.

[Contact New York City Mayor Eric Adams on his official contact page, to let him know what you think of his actions.]

 

Volume 768 (9/27/24)

We have to say we hadn't stumbled across anything from Robert Reich in quite a while, but when a friend sent us this video from him, we were impressed. He starts off with "the 10 worst things about the Trump presidency," but then (spoiler alert!) he thinks up a whole bunch more. The whole thing is worth watching, even if it is a bit long (18 minutes), just to hear all the talking points Reich comes up with.

As for us, we've got only the usual seven, although the last one is more of a joke than an actual talking point.

 

   Protector? Hardly...

Women voters could be the key to victory for Kamala Harris, and Trump just keeps digging the hole deeper. So point it out!

"I see that Donald Trump is now promising to be some sort of protector of women. He's telling them not to worry their pretty little heads about anything, as he will make them, quote, 'happy, healthy, confident, and free.' The only problem is, Trump is about as far from a 'protector' of women as you can get. He demeans them constantly, he insults any woman who has ever stood up to him, and he has been accused by over a dozen women of sexual assault or rape. Donald Trump is no protector of women, he is a serial abuser of women. He's not a protector -- he's nothing short of a predator. And that's why women are flocking to Kamala Harris in droves."

 

   Telling women what to think

This is just unbelievably offensive, and you don't even have to be a woman to know that.

"Excuse me? Donald Trump is saying 'women will no longer be thinking about abortion' if he becomes president again? Excuse me? He's now telling women what to think and not think? Why would a woman 'no longer be thinking' about a right that Donald Trump took away from them? Why wouldn't a woman be worried if she lives in a state with a Trump abortion ban? Why wouldn't we all be thinking about the needless pain, suffering, and death the Trump abortion bans have caused for so many women already? What about any of that is going to change if Trump becomes president? So please, Mr. Trump... don't insult women by telling them what to think, OK?"

 

   Chicken!

Hit him with his own style of playground insults, because he so rightfully deserves this one.

"Kamala Harris has agreed to debate Donald Trump for a second time, but Trump is too chicken to do so. He got beaten so badly in his first debate with Harris that he's still licking his wounds. He is absolutely terrified of what would happen in a second debate with her, in fact. He knows full well that Harris would humiliate him a second time, which is why he's so afraid to debate. Trump likes to present himself as some big tough-guy, but as you can see he's nothing more than a yellow-bellied chicken."

 

   As long as you are not named "Hunter"...

It is surprising that Democrats haven't made more political hay out of this one, but there's still time to do so.

"Remember how upset all the Republicans were about Hunter Biden cashing in on his last name? They pointed the finger and accused him of pocketing a few million dollars just because he is Joe Biden's son. So why aren't they just as upset with Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared, who was given billions of dollars by Saudi Arabia and other foreign countries, supposedly so he could invest their money for them (despite Jared having zero experience in the field). Well, it seems he hasn't even bothered to make them any money at all, but he has managed to pay himself over one hundred million dollars in 'fees.' Just imagine how upset the Republicans would be over this... if his name was 'Hunter Biden,' that is."

 

   Low, low price!

There's one born every minute, as P.T. Barnum reportedly used to say.

"Hoo boy... Donald Trump is a neverending fount of ways to rip his own followers off. He's selling so many products with his name and/or face on them it's really hard to keep track of them all. None of these produces any money for his campaign, it is worth mentioning -- all the money goes straight into Trump's pocket. His most recent offering is a Trump watch, which you can have for the low, low price of only $100,000. Step right up, folks! By this snazzy watch and you will be the envy of all, and women will be eager to jump into bed with you! For a mere hundred grand you can make your wrist as gaudy as Trump himself! (Because, y'know... grifters gotta grift!)"

 

   Heck, who knows, maybe he'll win?

This was pretty revealing. In an article that attempted to explain why Trump's campaign is flailing so badly and lacks any semblance of discipline, a "Trump confidant" explained what is going on behind the scenes:

It's not even "Let Trump be Trump." It's "Let Trump be unsupervised at all times." They just feel like, "We can't control him, so let's hope he wins anyways."

 

   Yeah, like he's really going to do it...

If you should happen to walk into your local McDonald's and see a swarm of Secret Service agents and cops all over the place, you may be in luck. Because working the fry machine will be none other than Donald Trump himself, for some unfathomable reason. So be sure to step up to the counter, order a burger, and then ask them:

"Can I get fries with that? Or are you having problems with your new trainee? Hmmm... maybe I should just skip the fries this time...."

-- Chris Weigant

 

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Cross-posted at: Democratic Underground