He’s In-SA-A-A-A-A-NE. Trump says portraying Obamas as monkeys wasn’t a mistake:
President Trump posted a blatantly racist video clip portraying former President Barack Obama and the former first lady Michelle Obama as apes, but he insisted he had nothing to apologize for even after he deleted the video following an outcry.
The clip, set to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” was spliced near the end of a 62-second video that promoted conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and was among a flurry of links posted by Mr. Trump late Thursday night. It was the latest in a pattern by Mr. Trump of promoting offensive imagery and slurs about Black Americans and others.
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Friday, Mr. Trump said he only saw the beginning of the video. “I just looked at the first part, it was about voter fraud in some place, Georgia,” Mr. Trump said. “I didn’t see the whole thing.”
He then tried to deflect blame, suggesting he had given the link to someone else to post. “I gave it to the people, generally they’d look at the whole thing but I guess somebody didn’t,” he told reporters.
Still, Mr. Trump offered no contrition when pressed. “No, I didn’t make a mistake,” he said.
Roy Cohn would be proud. 25th Amendment? Somebody, anybody?
The Most Transparent Administration In History? In a way, yes. Transparently lawless, always:
This week, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced that body cameras would be deployed for all federal agents operating in Minneapolis, effective immediately—with plans to expand the policy nationwide “as funding becomes available.”
Although Noem wrote that she is part of the “most transparent administration in American history,” getting footage from the Department of Homeland Security has proven difficult. In October, Mother Jones reporter Samantha Michaels and I set out to get records from the infamous South Shore raid in Chicago, when nearly 300 federal agents swept into an apartment complex in a massive show of force. I filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking paper records (like warrants) and video files. Witnesses described a chaotic scene of agents breaking down doors as terrified residents, including mothers with partially clothed children, hid or fled in panic. Several of those detained were US citizens.
In stark contrast, DHS released a highly produced social media video of the operation on its official channels, showing agents leading men out of the complex. Set to swelling orchestral music and edited in slow motion, it presented a calm, controlled version of events.
As a videographer myself, I know that a one-minute video from an unscripted, chaotic event means there is likely hours of footage on the cutting room floor. And in that unedited material, there might be images or audio that corroborate eyewitness accounts. This footage should be public record. We shouldn’t have to settle for heavily curated and tightly trimmed clips, which is largely what DHS provided, for instance, when Stanford and Immigrant Legal Defense sued for raid footage from 2020.
Federal immigration officers have shot 13 people since President Donald Trump took office last year. But the incidents that galvanized the widest public response were the ones captured on video. Allegations that agents used unnecessary force and violated the rights of members of the public demand scrutiny. That’s why the Center for Investigative Reporting has filed a complaint in federal court calling for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and US Customs and Border Protection to produce videos and other records from the South Shore raid and Los Angeles operations that were filmed by videographers likely contracted by DHS, the parent agency to ICE and CBP. CIR’s in-house legal team Victoria Baranetsky and Brooke Henderson, alongside outside counsel Matthew Cate, make a case that for at least 15 years, DHS has operated a film and TV program that “feature[s the] gripping, action-packed work that ICE does to protect the public and national security,” quoting from its own website.
A once-great newspaper once had as its motto: Democracy Dies In Darkness. The propagandists have the evidence. Make them share it so we can bring it into the light.
Mamdani’s My Guy:
Man, This NJ Special Election Is Absolutely Fascinating. It looks like progressive Analilia Mejia has won, although there are more votes to be counted:
The crowded special Democratic primary election to fill Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s old U.S. House seat turned into a stunning nail-biter. As of Friday evening, the race remained too close to call, with progressive advocate Analilia Mejia leading former U.S. Rep. Tom Malinowski by a few hundred votes.
Mejia, a grassroots organizer who helped run Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential bid in the state, was tagged coming in as a fourth top contender. But with less funding and name ID and a more left-leaning platform, Mejia winning would be a major upset in the largely suburban district. The 11th is spread across parts of Essex, Morris, and Passaic counties — a once-red area that’s gotten gradually bluer in recent years.
“The insiders got smoked,” said Matt Hale, a political science professor at Seton Hall University in South Orange, which is part of the district. “Tom Malinowski is an outsider to the district and Analilia Mejia is on the outside left wing of the party. The insiders, Tahesha Way and Brendan Gill, just seemed to fall flat.
“It was a tough day for establishment Democrats.”
My favorite twist in the plot? AIPAC inadvertently may have given Mejia the edge she needed to win. Check this out:
Then there’s the effect of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which poured about $2 million into the race to attack Malinowski through its super PAC, United Democracy Project. Although it appears AIPAC was trying to boost Way, it may have unintentionally lifted Mejia, despite her being more to the left than Malinowski.
AIPAC’s effect has drawn the ire of of centrist Democrats. And Mejia on Friday accused the group of “frankly disgusting tactics” in terms of “misinformation and flooding the zone“ to attack Malinowski.
Oh, and here’s something that inveterate door-knockers right here in Delaware know to be true:
Patrick Murray, a veteran pollster who runs StimSight Research, said there was “an underestimation of Mejia, driven largely by the misunderstanding of the Democratic primary electorate in the special election.”
”There’s the sense that Dems who live in Republican areas are more moderate, when it’s actually the opposite,” he added. “They tend to be more progressives, because they live in Republican areas.”And he emphasized that Democratic voters might have seen Mejia as more of a “Trump fighter,” even though Malinowski also campaigned as one.
One last note: The likelihood that the so-called Democratic ‘machine’ in New Jersey has calcified can only be good news for progressive candidates.
What do you want to talk about?