Thursday, August 1, 2024

Expected and Unexpected News

First off, what's expected: The TOFF is a racist old fuck:

During a contentious and chaotic panel hosted by the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) on Wednesday, Donald Trump parroted disinformation about immigration and abortion, questioned Kamala Harris’s race and accused a panel moderator, Rachel Scott – the senior congressional correspondent for ABC News – of being “rude” and presenting a “nasty question” when she asked him: “Why should Black voters trust you?”
...
On multiple occasions, audience members at the annual convention in Chicago attempted to factcheck Trump in real time, including when he falsely claimed that Harris did not pass her bar exam to be a lawyer, and when he defended pardoning people who were convicted for their actions on January 6.

Trump arrived more than an hour late to the panel, which was moderated by Scott; Harris Faulkner, the Fox News television host; and Kadia Goba, the Semafor politics reporter. According to HuffPost, Trump demanded that NABJ organizers not go through with live factchecking during the discussion, and was in a “standoff” with organizers before the event took place. A live factcheck of Trump’s comments was still featured as planned.

Scott then asked Trump about Republicans claiming that Harris is a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) replacement for Joe Biden.

In response, Trump claimed that Harris suddenly “became a Black woman” and had previously only been identifying with her Indian heritage. “Is she Indian or is she Black?” Trump said, as the audience audibly gasped. “I respect either one but she obviously doesn’t because she was Indian all the way and then all of sudden she became a Black woman.”

Scott replied that Trump’s assertion was untrue, that Harris has always identified as Black, and that she attended Howard University, a historically Black college in Washington DC.

The COFF hates being fact-checked, because he spews lies, he knows that he lies with every word he speaks, and that he, like the criminal that he is, seeks to get away with everything.

Though it probably does take some nerve to go in front of a roof of Black reporters and spout racist bullshit. Still, all that is expected. Trump is a liar and a racist, he always has been, and he's never going to change. Other than he is getting more delusional and demented as time goes on.

Now to the unexpected:

A massive prisoner swap involving the United States and Russia was underway Thursday, a person familiar with the matter said.

The person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because details had not been publicly disclosed, did not specify who is included in the deal. But Americans considered by the U.S. to be wrongfully detained in Russia include Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, a corporate security executive from Michigan. Both had been convicted of espionage charges that the U.S. government considered baseless.

Russia has long been interested in getting back Vadim Krasikov, who was convicted in Germany in 2021 of killing a former Chechen rebel in a Berlin park two years earlier, apparently on the orders of Moscow’s security services.

The timing of this deal is intriguing. Are the Russians figuring that Harris will will and that, as a long-term prosecutor, that she might has struck a harder deal? Or are they trying to get their guy back before the Asset wins, in the belief that that the Germans will be less interested in cooperating with him?

There has been speculation about a possible swap for awhile. Apparently, there are a lot of people being swapped today, including reporters, political prisoners and Russian thugs.

3 comments:

  1. I read that Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan and Vladimir Kara-Murza were all released in the swap. What was that thing Fergus said about Putin letting Gershkovich go as soon as he was elected because Putin would do that for him and only him? Seems like he was lying.

    -Doug in Sugar Pine

    ReplyDelete
  2. "Fergus lies" is pretty much SOP. But if he believed it, then he may not be terribly happy at the news.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The prisoner swap was a long time coming.
    Turkey says it coordinating an extensive prisoner swap on Thursday

    https://www.reuters.com/world/turkey-says-it-coordinating-an-extensive-prisoner-swap-thursday-2024-08-01/

    Took a bunch of diplomacy. The MLB and NBA do these kinds of multiple team deals all of the time.

    ReplyDelete

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