Thursday, September 12, 2024

De Bait & Switch '24


It was Kamala Harris For the Oligarch People all the way on Tuesday night.  With taunt after taunt, platitude after platitude, she utterly destroyed Donald Trump's portrait of her as a Marxist Commie radical. Beyond any reasonable doubt, she established her right-wing cred as both a neoliberal and a neoconservative.

  It has taken gallons of the recombinant political DNA of Dick Cheney, Barack Obama and both Clintons to create the ultra-processed finished product known as Kamala Harris.

But even her skilled verbal waterboarding of Trump has left barely a dent in the admittedly unreliable national polls.

Here's a highly condensed analytic version of the official courtroom transcript:

ABC's David Muir(DM): Welcome to the high stakes showdown in the presidential sweepstakes horserace. As they face each other for the first time, they 're neck-and-neck, which makes actually facing each other physically impossible. But never mind all that. It's the foaming and the snorting and the frothing that count in these political spectacles.

ABC's Linsey Davis : And I am the token female sidekick.

Muir: Vice President Harris, do you believe Americans are better off than they were four years ago?

KH: So to avoid answering your question, I was raised as a middle class kid. And I am the only one on this stage who has a plan to lift up middle class people such as myself, unlike Doonald Trump who never talks about anyone but himself. So my plan is to build an Opportunity Economy which is simply a rehash of neoliberal bootstraps and ladders and stuff. So I want to help families buy a crib and a car seat, which are pathways to access to a house and a car. I will give a $5,000 tax deduction to small business start-ups.  Unlike Trump, who will impose a 20 percent sales tax on cribs and car seats And don't forget Project 2025.

Muir: Trump, you get two minutes to take the bait.

DT: Nah, it's not a sales tax, i's tariffs and they've kept them in place. It's me and me against the world. I am going to make other countries pay us back. They are sending us millions of people from their prisons and stealing jobs from Blacks and Hispanics and unions. They are taking over towns and buildings and stealing people's cats and dogs and eating them. They are destroying the pet population of the whole country.

DM: The fact checking machine in my ear has instantly checked  and reports that not one single cat or dog has been eaten. Now, Kamala, would you care to respond on the economy?

KH: Trump left us the worst economy since the Great Depression. Even though the unemployment was nowhere near the 25  percent it was then, this lie will pass right over your selective fact checkers who are still stuck on dead cats being stolen from single women.  Not only that, Trump's capitol riot was the worst attack on the country since the Civil War. Worse than even than 9/11 which viewers might remember used to be a holy day of obligation Now, Jan. 6th is. We must not lett our jingoistic holidays separate us.

DT: I have nothing to do with Project 25, I never even read it because I am not a reader and she knows it, okay? I am not going to read it because everybody knows I am an open book. The only jobs they got back were bounce-back jobs. Those are jobs that bounce. I threw them my balls and they grabbed them and then they took all the credit. 

DM: Kamala?

KH: He doesn't have a plan. I have a plan to create an Opportunity Economy which is the same thing as Obama's Ladders of Opportunity. You climb the ladders and you get to my land of opportunity. Goldman Sachs. which I won't mention  wrecked the economy before Obama rewarded them, says that Donald Trump will wreck the economy.

DT: I wemt to the Wharton School of Business. They say my plan is a brilliant plan. I am going to create a lot of good solid money for our comp - er, our country.  At least I will make them want to create jobs if not make actual jobs

Muir: Trump, I want to drill down and go to bat for Kamala and make her argument that your tariffs are really taxes. Your plan will make things costlier for average Americans. Do you believe Americans can afford your tariffs?

DT: I had no inflation. They have inflation.

Muir: Kamala, let's keep this debate focused on scaring people about Trump's evil tariffs.

:KH: Let's be clear. Since Joe Biden and I kept Trump's tax breaks for the rich in place, I will change the subject and mention that he sold chips to China that they're using for their military which will attack us because of him. Trump actually thanked Xi in a Tweet. This puts a real damper on our war plans. Plus China not transparent about being the origin of COVID!

Muir: The fact checker is taking a nap in my ear. Trump, you may respond.

DT: She's a Marxist. She is letting millions and millions of illegals into our country. They are criminals. They are bad for our country.

Linsey: Let's talk about abortion .Trump, Kamala says you keep flip flopping

DT: The previous governor of West Virginia said we can execute babies after they're born. And I say that is not OK.

Muir: My fact checker just woke up and tells me there is no state where it is legal to kill a newborn. Kamala, please respond.

KH: I am not surprised that that is a fact. Donald Trump is telling a woman what to do with her body. He will sign a national abortion ban. He will monitor your pregnancies, your marriages.

DT: There will no national abortion ban. It would never pass Coongress. And abortion reminds me of student loans. 

Muir: We might as well get back to immigration. Kamala?

KH: We were ready to sign the cruelest border law in history. But Donald Trump killed the bill. You should go to his rallies. He talks about fictional characters, whereas I have prosecuted human traffickers and drug dealers who actually exist. You will not hear him talk about your desires. I, on the other hand, will pledge to put your first, before his windmills that cause cancer.

DT: Sure, I'll take your bait. People don't go to her rallies. And the ones that do go, she's busing them and paying them. I have the most incredible rallies in the history of rallies. We are a failing nation, people want their country back. Look at the towns. They're eating our cats.

Muir: There are no dead cats.

DT: But people on television say there are dead cats beiing used for food.

KH: Talk about extreme! So I will. More than 200 Republicans including Dick Cheney say that America will never survive a Trump term.

DT: I fire bad people. You never fire bad people. Let me add I got more votes than anybody in history by far.

Muir: Will you go door to door rounding up deportees? What does this look like?

DT: Yeah, millions of terrorists, drug dealers. They have destroyed our fabric. All over the world crime is down except for here. And if the FBI says crime is down they're not looking at the worst cities.

KH: Well, I think this is so rich, coming from a criminal prosecuted for national security interference and found liable for rape with his next big court appearance in November. So let us move forward and address the housing crisis and support start-ups. Let us address groceries. The American people are tired of the same old playbook.

DT: You're weaponizing the court system against me. I will win on appeal. This is called lawfare. RussiaRussia Russia.

KH: No, Trump is the one who threatens to arrest political enemies. We must stop him.

Linsey: What about your flip flops, Kamala - on fracking, border decriminalization, buybacks of assault weapons. We will not mention your reversal on Medicare For All because our corporate sponsors in the insurance cartel forbid it.

KH: If we pollute our air and water here, we don't have to rely on foreign polluters over there. I was raised by a hard working mother and I wasn't handed $400 million on a silver platter. Didja really think I can't play shallow defense and lob non sequiturs as well as my opponent? Plus I am a gun owner, so there!

DT: She wants to win Pennsylvania where I almost got my head blown off thanks to democrats. If she wins., fossil fuel will be dead.

Muir: Let's rehash January Sixth.

(They proceed to sling the hash with abandon)

Muir: Madam Veep, Trump says he did not lose the last election.

KH: Let us be perfectly Nixonically clear. Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people. The whole world is laughing at Donald Trump;

Trump: I just cannot resist this delicious bait. Victor Orban doesn't laugh at me, so there! The whole world is afraid of me and they need me. We got 14 million votes. She got zero votes.

Muir: And now to Israel-Hamas

KH: Let me repeat my unwavering support for Israel. All those women who were so horribly raped, as opposed to being run of the mill raped. And even when I am here on this stage, I am there working around the clock for a two state solution knowing full well that the time for such a solution is long past.

Muir: Trump, would you negotiate with Hamas?

DT: She hates Israel. And if I were president, the Ukraine war would never have started.

KH: He talks to Putin! He talks to Kim Jong-un. He has no regard for our military, the most lethal greatest fighting force the world has ever known. The world must fear us, not laugh at us.

DT: We shouldn't be playing with World War III. But thanks to ABC for not asking me why I ripped up the nuclear weapons treaty back when I was such a global laughingstock.

(De Bait and Switch meanders along in much the same redundant way. I think you get the exhausting drift.)

To make it even sadder than it already was, Taylor Swift did not endorse Kamala until the show was over. She deprived the Veep of bragging about it the same way she keeps bragging about the Dick and Liz Cheney endorsements, as though they were worthy of bragging about.

The good news is that this supposedly will be the only "debate" between these two scary clowns.

6 comments:


  1. September 11, 2024
    Will Harris Take on Corporate Greed? Ralph Nader & Joe Stiglitz on Debate, Trump’s Tariffs & More —
    https://www.democracynow.org/2024/9/11/debate_economy
    We speak with consumer advocate Ralph Nader and Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz about Tuesday’s debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. Stiglitz says Trump’s policies, including a plan for major new tariffs, would result in “more inflation and slower growth” and wreak havoc on the U.S. economy. Nader says that while “it’s easy to look good against Trump,” Harris is not fundamentally challenging corporate greed, the military-industrial complex, environmental destruction and more.

    Ralph Nader & Joseph Stiglitz on Kamala Harris’s Economic Plans & Confronting Corporate Power —
    https://www.democracynow.org/2024/9/11/harris_trump_debate_stiglitz_nader_pt2
    We continue our post-presidential debate conversation with former presidential candidate and consumer advocate Ralph Nader and Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. Nader and Stiglitz analyze the forces driving the economic performances of the Trump and Biden administrations and share their respective forecasts for what could be Trump’s second term in the Oval Office or Kamala Harris’s first.

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  2. While the clown show of the upcoming "election" is riveting the American people's attention, the drumbeat of nuclear war is becoming a very real threat. As Lavrov stated, the people making decisions in the US State Dept are like "children playing with matches." I found an excellent site with very genuine, erudite former insiders who discuss this drumbeat toward a nuclear escalation. I hope some of the readership will at least have a look. These people are not alarmists - https://schillerinstitute.com All the speakers are good but I think the one with Larry Wilkerson is the best.

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  3. That was fun, Karen. Thanks, we need all the laughs we can get.

    Re: killing of cats and dogs/pets. Not related to migrants but I've long been thinking about how to get Americans to care about Joemala's genocide of Palestinians children by somehow equating those children to Americans' most cherished beings, their pets. I gave up but it made me realize what Trump is cynically doing while scapegoating migrants. "Won't someone please think of the pets?"

    BTW, video online does show 911 calls about Haitians grabbing geese at a park and carrying them off, not that they media would admit it exists, only that they called the city manager who denied it. But hey, geese and cats are free, eaten by lots of people around the world, and a lot cheaper than buying a hunting license and shooting deer like many Americans do for meat. Americans would shoot geese in parks if it was legal but no way would they chase and catch them to eat, at least not yet.

    Speaking of shooting animals, Joemala's genocidal trigger men are deliberately killing donkeys in Gaza so Palestinians can't use them for hauling carts and transport, or for eating due to Joemala's forced starvation. But I know Americans can't relate to donkeys any more than they can to Palestinian women and children.

    Re: nuclear war. People worried about climate change (mostly just Democrats) instead of worrying about imminent nuclear annihilation triggered by the dangerous Joemala regime (like no Democrats do) have their heads up their ass. No wonder they celebrate and welcome Dick Cheney.

    Holocaust Harris is the new, stupider Hillary Clinton. Remember when all the polls had Hillary winning and the media mocked and laughed off Trump's chances of winning and she had the open support of the Establishment? It's even worse this time except the public trusts them NOT AT ALL. Except Democrats of course.

    I mention this because the same effect as last time is at play, like the media never learns! There's scant recognition of Shy Trumpers but no connection with the sociology behind them. Back in the day I referred in a post here at Sardonicky to challenge the assumption of Hillary's inevitability by citing a non-racial variation of the Bradley Effect, based on the principle of Social Desirability Bias. In other words, they shame people into being politically correct by hiding their true feelings to avoid being labeled 'racist', 'weird', or 'deplorable'.

    The Bradley Effect, aka Social Desirability Bias:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_effect
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social-desirability_bias

    Conclusion: Don't believe the polls! And if you're wondering why AOC is now viciously attacking Jill Stein, calling her predatory, etc., well wonder no more. Harris is in big trouble.

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  4. Once there was three (including me), then there was two (minus me), and now there is but one comment left.
    I suspect nefarious machinations of "Big Brother" messing with us, including particularly Ms. Garcia.
    It's coincident with, as Matt Taibbi marks, the now-annual renewal of the National Emergency Act, established just a few days after America's 9/11.

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  5. thanks, Erik. I de-sammed all of them, including some from previous posts.

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  6. @Erik
    I've noticed that it happens only on weekends so it couldn't be a Gov't employee! ; - )

    ReplyDelete