Tuesday News: “Trump and G.O.P. Candidates Escalate Race and Fear as Election Ploys”; Media Frenzy Over B.S. “Caravan” Story; Fiery Obama Speech in Vegas; World’s Worst “Economist” Dave Brat Also a Plagiarizer

by Lowell

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Tuesday, October 23.

• Turkish president says Jamal Khashoggi’s killing was a planned operation
• How the man behind Khashoggi murder ran the killing via Skype
• The Khashoggi Body Double—and Mounting Evidence of a Premeditated Murder
• Donald Trump Is Lyin’ Up a Storm (“Is there an election coming up, or something?”)
• Trump: US to ‘begin cutting off’ aid to countries associated with migrant caravan (That’s insane, of course, as it will only increase human suffering and lead to MORE desperate migrants fleeing north.)
• Donald Trump’s strategy as midterms approach: lies and fear-mongering
• Trump’s Evidence-Free Claims About the Migrant Caravan (“On Twitter on Monday, President Trump said that ‘unknown Middle Easterners’ had infiltrated the caravan. That and almost all of his other assertions were inaccurate, misleading or incomplete.”)
• The caravan is coming! And it’s high time to calm the rising media frenzy. (“Even those news organizations and journalists who brought factuality and skepticism to their coverage were inadvertently playing into Trump’s hands, merely by giving it such large doses of attention.” Agreed; as usual, the corporate media is failing.)
• Trump and Republicans settle on fear — and falsehoods — as a midterm strategy (The question is whether this despicable strategy will work…or hopefully backfire on the Republicans!)
• Trump and G.O.P. Candidates Escalate Race and Fear as Election Ploys (This is completely unhinged, racist crap, stoking fears of “Middle Easterners” and a “caravan” from Honduras. Disgusting.)
• At George Soros’s Westchester County Home, Explosive Device Found in Mailbox (Right wingers have demonized George Soros – for absolutely not good reason, I’d note – and this is what it leads to.)
• How Trump settled on the caravan as a midterm wedge issue
• Donald Trump And Ted Cruz Seal Alliance In Texas After ‘Little Difficulties’ (You can’t get more cynical than this.)
• Barack Obama Just Delivered the Greatest Imperative to Democrats Ahead of the November Elections (“The biggest threat to our democracy is indifference.”)
• The Republican tax cut is a big, fat failure (“President Trump is promising a tax cut for middle-income people — wait, wasn’t the first tax cut for them too?”)
• Trump runs with absurd right-wing media lie about terrorists infiltrating the migrant caravan (“How the baseless claim moved from fringe right websites to the president”)
• Republicans don’t act like they’re going to keep the House
• First Early Voting Numbers Are Big, But Inconclusive
• Trump: ‘You know what I am? I’m a nationalist’ (Translation: he’s a white nationalist.)
• Trump’s response to the migrant caravan will only make things worse (“Does Mr. Trump actually want to encourage new waves of undocumented immigrants?”)
• If there is a ‘blue wave,’ Democrats would have black women to thank (“Four hundred years of history have imbued African American women with steely determination.”)
• “A Mob of Humanity” (“The images of the Honduran caravan give Republicans what they need to further distort the immigration debate.”)
• The Crushing Dumbness of Donald Trump
• Pundits can’t quit their lazy, evidence-free talking points about Democrats and elections(“The October 22 broadcast of MSNBC’s Morning Joe devoted a lengthy segment to claims that the Democratic Party has no messaging or, if it does, the message is packaged incorrectly. This evaluation of Democratic Party election efforts is evidence-free — Democrats have largely coalesced around the issue of health care — and it is also a gift to the Republican Party, as it plays into the argument that Democrats have no principles or plan for governance.”)
• Trump’s Approval Rating Is Up. Republican House Chances Are Down. Does That Make Any Sense? (“Trump remains less popular than average. If it holds to Election Day, Trump’s current net approval rating, -8.9 percentage points, would be the fourth-worst out of 19 midterms since World War II, better only than Harry Truman’s in 1946, George W. Bush’s in 2006 and Barack Obama’s in 2014.”)
• 2 clips illustrate the rapid evolution of a brazen Trump lie (“Trump used Friday’s lie as evidence for a new lie on Saturday.”)
• Shocking turnout for first day of early voting in Houston (“‘This is one of the most important elections of our lifetimes,’ said Cody Pogue, who arrived at 8:30 p.m. on Sunday to make sure he’d be one of the first people to cast a ballot for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke.”)
• This Combination of Ambition and Idiocy Has to Be John Bolton’s Work (“President Trump nixes a nuclear treaty with Russia, because America First.”)
• Is the media making American politics worse? (Obviously yes. And it has been for many years now.)
• Trump’s New Attack on Transgender People Is Another Sign It’s About the Cruelty Itself (“How is this in the national interest in any way?” It’s about appealing to all the bigots in his base.)
• Andrew Gillum and Abigail Spanberger Just Showed Democrats How to Debate a Trumpist (On Spanberger’s pummeling of Brat, Charles Pierce writes, “If that reminds you of nothing more than the Ali-Terrell fight—What’s my name, motherfcker?—you’re not wrong.”)
• ‘Ice water on the bonfire:’ Delegate bucks convention on economic development deal with $70 million from taxpayers (Lee Carter is absolutely right about taxpayer-funded corporate welfare, by the way, and “his disapproval is in line with many mainstream academics who have studied economic development subsidies and, to a point, mirrors concerns about a trend toward bigger and bigger corporate subsidies raised by Republicans, who rail against ‘crony capitalism.'” Except that on the latter point, Republicans might SAY they are against “crony capitalism” but in practice/reality they are VERY much for it!)
• Who’s financing Corey Stewart’s controversial campaign? A baseball team owner, an oil delivery company and a retired developer not sure what he’s running for (LOL)
• One Dem hopeful in Virginia won’t stop talking about Trump — another barely mentions him (“Democrat Jennifer Wexton can’t stop talking about Donald Trump…But while Wexton can’t stop talking about the president, Spanberger barely acknowledges him on the campaign trail.”)
• Kaine’s other campaign: to help Democrats flip VA House seats
• Rep. Dave Brat, an economist, borrowed heavily from Bernanke in academic paper (Brat has got to be THE world’s worst “economist.” The fact that this plagiarizing pathological liar and far-right ideologue was hired to teach reflects VERY poorly on the school that hired him. As does the fact that he was ever elected in the first place. VA-07 voters can, and should rectify that in 14 days!)
• Brat misstates Spanberger’s stance on ‘Medicare for All’ (Politifact gives pathological liar Dave Brat a “false” rating on this one. They could easily do it on many others as well – “Pants on Fire” would be more accurate for most of what Brat spews out.)
• GOP congressman lies, falsely claims Trump tax cuts were paid for (“They are not.”)
• Audio: Dave Brat Spews Out “Gish Gallop” Torrent of Demonstrably False Assertions, Wild Lies
• Ninth Congressional District candidates clash in Salem for final debate
• 5th, 6th District candidates meet in final debate in Lynchburg (This statement alone should eliminate Riggleman: “Tax cuts do not cause deficits, spending does”)
• VA-06 Democratic Nominee Jennifer Lewis Denounces Ben Cline’s Fallacious TV Attack Ads
• Video: Vangie Williams (D) vs. Rob Wittman (R) Debate in VA-01
• Rep. Rob Wittman debates Democratic opponent Vangie Williams in 1st District race
• Congressman Scott Taylor, Elaine Luria meet in debate for 2nd congressional seat
• Where’s the line between criticizing Israel and anti-Semitism and does a Virginia congressional candidate’s book cross it? (This article is infuriating – back and forth, both sides, on the one hand on the other hand, blah blah blah. Bottom line: the book is not in any way/shape/form anti-Semitic, despite Republicans’ ridiculous claims that it is. See here for David Jonas’ and my review)
• Multifaith group probes Va. Gov. Northam, AG Herring on cash bail reform
• Judge rules Virginia’s judiciary not subject to FOIA (Hmmmm.)
• 3rd water-crossing permit suspended on Mountain Valley Pipeline
• Gov. Ralph Northam speaks on rural needs as summit keynote speaker
• Jill Turgeon will not run for Chairman of the Board in Loudoun
• Virginia Beach’s first transgender City Council candidate wants to enlighten voters (“Allison White wants people to see there are people like her trying do something good for their communities.”)
• Williams: Richmond’s growth is not sustainable unless we cultivate food justice for all
• Awesome autumn day today, then cooler before a potentially stormy Saturday