American Basket Case

The Gullibles, Israel Strikes Again

Hillary Clinton famously called some Trump supporters The Deplorables. "You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?” Clinton said. "The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic—you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up." While the claim may not have been politically helpful, it's hard to argue (especially now) that such a basket exists. But there could be another even larger basket, one shamelessly exploited by Trump and Vance: The Gullibles. The WSJ (of all sources) reports (Gift Article): How the Trump Campaign Ran With Rumors About Pet-Eating Migrants—After Being Told They Weren’t True. "City Manager Bryan Heck fielded an unusual question at City Hall on the morning of Sept. 9, from a staff member of Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance. The staffer called to ask if there was any truth to bizarre rumors about Haitian immigrants and pets in Springfield. 'He asked point-blank, ‘Are the rumors true of pets being taken and eaten?’' recalled Heck. 'I told him no. There was no verifiable evidence or reports to show this was true. I told them these claims were baseless.' By then, Vance had already posted about the rumors to his 1.9 million followers on X. Yet he kept the post up, and repeated an even more insistent version of the claim the next morning. That night, former President Donald Trump stood on a Philadelphia debate stage and shot the rumor into the stratosphere. 'In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,' he said to 67 million viewers. 'The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating, they’re eating, the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in this country.'" (What's really happening in this country is that they're eating the truth.)

You knew the pet-eating story was nonsense from the beginning. I burst out laughing when Trump actually repeated the claim during the debate and muttered to myself, "That's it. This election is over." Whether that brief, uncharacteristic, and possibly illicit substance-aided detour into optimism proves accurate depends in part on how many Americans actually believe a laughably, repeatedly disproven, sick lie uttered by a guy who has lied more than any public figure in history. If you are still capable of being surprised, then these numbers about the pet-eating and other outlandish lies may surprise you. WaPo (Gift Article): The staggering reach of Trump’s misinformation. "A majority (52 percent) of Trump supporters say they believe the claim about Haitian migrants 'abducting and eating pet dogs and cats.' Excluding those who are 'not sure,' twice as many say it’s at least 'probably true' as say it’s at least 'probably false.' ... 43 percent of Trump supporters say they believe that 'in some states it is legal to kill a baby after birth.' ... 28 percent of Trump supporters say they believe that 'public schools are providing students with sex-change operations' ... And 81 percent of Trump supporters say they believe Venezuela is 'deliberately sending people from prisons and mental institutions' to the United States." (A falsehood likely related to the fact that Trump is mistaking political asylum for insane asylums.) I wish I could put a positive spin on how disturbing these numbers are. But I don't even have a concept of a plan for how to do that.

So we know these lies work with a significant portion of Trump's base. And we know they work at grabbing the headlines away from Kamala Harris. The question that will decide this election is what the undecideds and independents in the swing states think about all this nonsense. That offers little comfort to discerning voters. And it offers no comfort to the citizens of Springfield, Ohio who are paying the highest price for the sick lies. ABC: Ohio Haitian immigrants say they are afraid to leave home after recent backlash.

++ Scheduling Note: NextDraft will be off on Thursday and Friday.

2

The Ring of Fire

A day after a shocking attack that caused thousands of Hezbollah pagers to explode, a similar attack targeted walkie-talkies used by the group in Lebanon. Here's the latest from CNN.

+ "It was a use it or lose it moment." According to some reporting, Israel conducted Lebanon pager attack when they did fearing Hezbollah was onto the operation.

+ "A certain type of spy operation is known as a 'hand of God,' because to its victims it seems to come with such sudden and precise violence that it may as well have been a thunderbolt ... It is unsettling enough to know that your enemy found his way into the front pocket of your skinny jeans. It is even worse to know that he has been there for five months." Graeme Wood in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Israel’s ‘Hand of God’ Operation.

+ NY Mag: What experts say about the unprecedented strike.

+ Eliot A. Cohen in The Atlantic (Gift Article): "The question, as always, is: To what strategic effect? How will this act of violence, however spectacular, shape the ongoing war between Israel, Hezbollah, and Iran? It might very well lead to the cataclysmic battle that many have warned against, as Hezbollah rains down tens of thousands of rockets on Israeli cities while Israeli armored divisions plunge into Lebanon, causing hundreds of thousands, or even millions, to flee northward. The ensuing destruction and the civilian death toll might be immense. Or it might not." (And there you have it.)

3

AI Drink Your Milkshake

It's unclear how exactly AI will change our lives in upcoming years. But some things are clear. It's going to use a hell of a lot of our water and energy. Here's an interesting at just how much from WaPo (Gift Article): A bottle of water per email: the hidden environmental costs of using AI chatbots. "A 100-word email generated by an AI chatbot using GPT-4. Once requires 519 milliliters of water, a little more than 1 bottle." (I can pump out a 3000 word email on a couple shots of espresso. Humans FTW.)

4

Read It and Weep

"The National Council of Teachers of English acknowledged the shift in a 2022 statement on media education, saying: 'The time has come to decenter book reading and essay-writing as the pinnacles of English language arts education.'" Not-so-great expectations: Students are reading fewer books in English classand on their own. (My kids didn't even read my book, though my son said he looked at the first page and, "It seemed pretty well written.")

5

Extra, Extra

FED: "The action marks the Fed’s first easing of monetary policy since 2020 and the termination of its most aggressive inflation-fighting campaign since the 1980s." The much (and long) awaited Fed rate cut is here. It's a half a point for now with more cuts to come.

+ Meatless By Products: "We can’t fix their cars if they ain’t got no money,' said Mike Wilkens, 63, an auto technician in Jarratt. 'We worked on them folks’ cars. Everybody’s got to get a job, otherwise it’ll be a ghost town with everybody riding a horse and buggy." WaPo: How the Boar’s Head plant closure could wreck this tiny Virginia town. The failure to require inspections at meat plants doesn't just harm the consumer. It harms workers and communities.

+ A Dose of Good News: "After years of wrenching drug deaths that seemed all but unstoppable, some researchers, front-line addiction workers, members of law enforcement, and people using street drugs voiced caution about the apparent trend." U.S. overdose deaths plummet, saving thousands of lives.

+ Bigger Lie: "Emails obtained by the Guardian reveal a behind-the-scenes network of county election officials throughout Georgia coordinating on policy and messaging to both call the results of November’s election into question before a single vote is cast, and push rules and procedures favored by the election denial movement." (It's the Big Lie with four years of planning.)

+ Emergency in the ER: "Thurman waited in pain in a hospital bed, worried about what would happen to her 6-year-old son, as doctors monitored her infection spreading, her blood pressure sinking and her organs beginning to fail. It took 20 hours for doctors to finally operate. By then, it was too late." Abortion Bans Have Delayed Emergency Medical Care. In Georgia, Experts Say This Mother’s Death Was Preventable.

+ Still Thrusting After All These Years: "Engineers at NASA have successfully fired up a set of thrusters Voyager 1 hasn’t used in decades to solve an issue that could keep the 47-year-old spacecraft from communicating with Earth from billions of miles away." 47-year-old Voyager 1 spacecraft just fired up thrusters it hasn’t used in decades. (This gives me extra motivation for my exercise plan.)

+ Tupper Downer: 'The party is over’ as Tupperware files for bankruptcy after years of troubles. According to the CEO, "Over the last several years, the company’s financial position has been severely impacted by the challenging macroeconomic environment." (Maybe that excuse should have been kept in Tupperware. It doesn't seem too fresh.)

+ Error Jordan: Jordan Chiles is still trying to get her bronze medal back. And video recorded for a Simone Biles doc could be a key piece of evidence. Footage for a Simone Biles' Netflix doc could be the smoking gun. (If the appeal is actually heard at all.)

6

Bottom of the News

This headline should go into a time capsule to show future generations the impact of reality TV on our culture: Anna Sorokin, convicted con artist, appears on "Dancing With the Stars" wearing glittery ankle monitor.

++ Scheduling Note: NextDraft will be off on Thursday and Friday.