DL Open Thread: Thursday, August 8, 2024

Vance Tries To Swift-Boat Walz.  Could work. Nobody thought it would work against John Kerry either:

Speaking in Michigan, Donald Trump’s Republican running mate said: “You know what really bothers me about Tim Walz? When the United States Marine Corps … asked me to go to Iraq to serve my country, I did it. I did what they asked me to do and I did it honorably, and I’m very proud of that service.

When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, you know what he did? He dropped out of the army and allowed his unit to go without him.”

Now a US senator from Ohio, Vance, 40, deployed to Iraq in 2005, as a military journalist. Despite his title – combat correspondent – he did not experience combat.

Walz, 60, was in the army national guard for 24 years, in infantry and artillery, deploying in response to natural disasters on US soil and to Europe in support of operations in Afghanistan. He retired in 2005, to run for Congress, shortly before his unit deployed to Iraq.

A soldier who served under Walz, Al Bonnifield, said: “Would the soldier look down on him because he didn’t go with us? Would the common soldier say, ‘Hey, he didn’t go with us, he’s trying to skip out on a deployment?’ And he wasn’t.

“… He weighed that decision to run for Congress very heavy. He loved the military, he loved the guard, he loved the soldiers he worked with.”

Calling Walz “very caring” and a “very good leader”, Bonnifield said Walz helped him and other soldiers when they returned from Iraq.

Not Vance’s first attempt at swiftboating.  The first one didn’t go so well:

During his candidacy for the Senate in 2022, the Ohio lawmaker appeared on the right-wing Real America’s Voice Network, where he discussed his stance on Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression. He said: “I think it’s ridiculous that we are focused on this border in Ukraine. I got to be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other.”

At the time, former NBC News commentator and retired Army General Barry McCaffrey replied to a clip of Vance’s interview via X (formerly Twitter), writing: “JD Vance is a shameful person unsuitable for public office. His comments are those of a stooge for Russian aggression.”

Vance shot back at McCaffrey, saying: “Your entire time in military leadership we won zero wars. You drank fine wine at bulls—t security conferences while thousands of working class kids died on the battlefield. Oh, by the way, how much do you stand to gain financially from a war with Russia, Barry?”

Like McCaffrey, New York Times columnist David French also slammed Vance, writing: “He’s talking about a guy with three Purple Hearts, two silver stars, and who commanded 24th ID in Desert Storm, leading the attack that led to one of the most decisive military victories in American history. This is such a sad and shameful attack on an honorable man.”

I don’t even need to go into Vance’s pathetic Stalking Tour of the Harris/Walz Campaign.  You know, because Trump isn’t available.  OK, I will–because the Meidas Touch is so damn quotable:

Vance singled Harris out by name in a clip I unearthed last month as his Poster Lady for bitter, miserable women who fail to procreate. JD Eugenics, like prolific procreator Elon Musk, thinks that women in America aren’t breeding enough (the quiet part is they really mean WHITE women) and is determined to do something about it. But, where Elon sought to remedy the problem personally with each woman who entered his orbit, Vance seeks to do it with shaming women who fail to comply with his plan for their lives.

But Vance wasn’t done with his creepy weirdo obsession with Harris.

He recently decided that his campaign for VP would consist of following the VP all around the country, everywhere she goes like a weirdo stalker who can’t take a hint until he gets served with a restraining order. After getting humiliated with VERY sparse attendance at his attempts to upstage Harris in PA and WI, the Fake Hillbilly decided he had enough loneliness on the road and needed to get a little closer to the woman who simply didn’t understand how much she needed him in her life.

Since Vance is unable to get anyone to turn out to see him, he decided to walk over to Air Force Two to try and steal some of Kamala’s vibe. Although Vance never got close to the woman whose attention he demands, he attempted to commiserate with the press covering her campaign to complain that she also ignores them.

Harris seems content to focus her campaign on talking to voters, not Vance or the press, but Vance isn’t the kind of guy that takes “no” for an answer from childless cat ladies who don’t realize how much they need an Alpha Male like JD in their lives.

Weirdest Veep Candidate ever.

Jee-zus, over 800 words in and I’ve only talked about J. D. Vance…

Can’t stop now.  Remember that foreword he wrote for the Project 2025 Masterplan?  Well, they’ve decided that said plan can’t withstand public scrutiny before the election.  So…:

Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts’ book will be published after the November elections, according to a report from Real Clear Politics.

The effort to hide the ball is futile, as Media Matters has obtained a galley copy of the book.

A review found Roberts rails against birth control, in vitro fertilization, abortion, and dog parks. He says that having children should not be considered an “optional individual choice” but “a social expectation or a transcendent gift,” and describes “contraceptive technologies” as “revolutionary inventions that shape American culture away from abundance, marriage, and family.” He labels reproductive choice methods as a “snake strangling the American family.”

Against dog parks and cat ladies.  Are gerbils next?

Speaking of Vance and literary blurbs–he has praised to high heaven this release from–wait for it–the Pizzzagate Conspiracy Guy.

The book, Unhumans: The Secret History of Communist Revolutions (and How to Crush Them), was written by Jack Posobiec and Joshua Lisec. Posobiec is a well-known alt-right agitator and conservative media personality who promoted the bonkers Pizzagate conspiracy theory. Lisec is a professional ghostwriter. And their book professes to be a history of communist and leftist revolutionary abuses over the decades—but with a twist. They claim, “For as long as there have been beauty and truth, love and life, there have also been the ugly liars who hate and kill.” And these “people of anti-civilization” have always gone by different names: communists, socialists, leftists, and progressives. The pair contend these folks—be they the Bolsheviks of Russia or the BLM activists of this decade—are better called “unhumans.”

“With power, unhumans undo civilization itself,” Posobiec and Lisec write. “They undo order. They undo the basic bonds of society that make communities and nations possible. They destroy the human rights of life, liberty, and property—and undo their own humanity in the process by fully embracing nihilism, cynicism, and envy.”

Here is Vance’s blurb:

In the past, communists marched in the streets waving red flags. Today, they march through HR [Human Resources], college campuses, and courtrooms to wage lawfare against good, honest people. In Unhumans, Jack Posobiec and Joshua Lisec reveal their plans and show us what to do to fight back.

The foreword is written by Steve Bannon.  Presumably before he went to jail.

Vance and his–wait for it–ilk are weird and scary.

In other news…too late!

What do you want to talk about?