If a corporation puts out an advertisement with a blatantly false claim, they get sued, or fined by the government, and they mostly lose. True, the penalties they have to pay often don’t amount to much when stacked against their corporate profits, but, the point is, action can be taken. If a candidat
The number of completely ridiculous lies that Republicans are spewing about Democratic candidates is reaching fever pitch right now, and the complete lack of consequences is starting to boggle my mind. From the pointless (“Talarico is a vegan!”) to the absurd (“Ossoff supports abortion after birth!”) and everything in between, the blatantness and shamelessness is practically dizzying. But surely there is a special place in hell reserved for the racist ones.
Look, I’m not saying I believe in God, Christian or otherwise. But a hell of a lot of the racists claim to. I assume they don’t, really, because otherwise they’d be terrified to openly shit on 85% of the humans that their God created and then expect to get rewarded for it in some afterlife. It might be one thing if they had a holy book to point to to say that they were the chosen people. But, in reality, their holy book says that the chosen people are the Jews, and they hate them just as much as any of the non-white people. So it’s always felt a bit weird to me.
So the blatantly racist claims are both the hardest for me to comprehend, but also the easiest, because I grew up in a racist family in a racist community, surrounded by racists. So, while I don’t really understand them, I know there’s a fuck of a lot of them out there, so it isn’t surprising that some of the biggest lies about candidates are reserved for the Muslim-American ones. Such as Abdul El-Sayed, who is obviously a terroris
The truth, of course, is that the Democratic candidate for Michigan Senator was born and raised in Michigan, just outside Detroit; in high school, he played lacrosse, was on the wrestling team, and was captain of the football team; and, as he points out in his interview with Jon Stewart on this week’s Weekly Show, his little brother is, through his stepmother, a direct descendant of Abigail Adams. He got a PhD from Oxford and an MD from Columbia, and he’s worked as a professor of epidemiology and the director of the Detroit Health Department. But none of that makes him sound like a terrorist, so his opponents would rather focus on the fact that he is a Muslim, his father is an imam, and that his half-sister once tweeted, in 2012, that their mother had worked with the Muslim Brotherhood in the 70s (which is, as it happens, a decade where the Brotherhood was renouncing violence and concentrating on charitable works). Oh, and also his middle name is Mohammed. So, obviously a terrorist. Duh.
So, the Republicans sent a guy named Tommy, former aide to Josh Hawley, son of Bobby Jindal’s campaign manager, to a town hall El-Sayed was conducting, and had him stand up to ask if El-Sayed would renounce the Muslim Brotherhood. The resulting back-and-forth is ... well, “chef’s kiss” is honestly a bit of an understatement. I encourage you to watch the full exchange, but here’s the gist of it:
Abdul: Do you know what the Constitution of the United States is?
Tommy: I have one simple question: will you disavow the Muslim Brotherhood?
Abdul: Sure. Yeah, absolutely. But I want to— I want to answer the question that you’re asking. Why are you asking the question?
Tommy: Well, because they’re a terrorist group.
Abdul: Okay. No, no, but what are you implying? Do you assume that I wouldn’t?
Tommy: Yes.
Abdul: Why not?
Tommy: Because I have not heard you disavow them yet.
Abdul: Have you disavowed them? I haven’t heard you disavow them yet.
Tommy: I disavow them.
Abdul: Do you? great. But here’s the thing about it. You’re asking the question because, implicitly, you assume that I’ll have dual loyalties, right? You assume that somehow I wouldn’t disavow or that I’ll have some higher order allegiance than to the Constitution. Correct? Tommy, is that what you imply?
Tommy: Yes.
Abdul: Why would you think that about me?
Tommy: Because I have not heard you dis—
Abdul: No, no, no, no. Why would you actually think that about me?
Tommy: Because I have not heard you dis—
Abdul: But I just did. But why would you actually think that? Why would you— have you asked everybody in your life if they disavow them?
Tommy: I have not.
Abdul: So why are you asking me?
Tommy: Because I have not heard you dis—
Abdul: No, no, no. Answer the question, Tommy. Everybody knows the answer to it: answer the question.
Tommy: Because I have not heard you dis—
Abdul: All right. So, let me just tell you. Let me just tell you. I’m going to swear an oath to the Constitution of the United States. And that Constitution guarantees us all the right to practice whatever faith we want, or no faith at all. And now you assume, Tommy, that because I am Muslim that somehow I would have some allegiance to something that is not our Constitution. That’s your assumption; that’s implicit in the question. And what’s interesting to me is that this is not the first time people have asked those kinds of questions, because— do you know who John F. Kennedy is? Do you know who that is, Tommy?
Tommy: I do.
Abdul: All right. Do you know what he was asked as the first possible Catholic president of the United States? What did they ask him?
Tommy: [indistinct]
Abdul: You don’t remember? You should read history. Tommy, when he ran for president, he was asked whether or not he was going to have allegiance to the Pope at the Vatican because, of course, he’s Catholic. And his answer, famously, was that he was not running to be a Catholic president; he was running to be President and happened to be Catholic. I’m not running to be a Muslim Senator. I’m running for the US Senate, and happen to be Muslim.
...
Abdul: Now Tommy, I’m going to ask you about your faith. Are you a man of faith?
Tommy: I am.
Abdul: And what faith do you practice?
Tommy: I am a Christian.
Abdul: You’re a Christian? ... Do you live by Christian doctrine?
Tommy: I would say so, yes.
Abdul: Good. And you try as hard as you can to live by Christian doctrine, right?
Tommy: Yes.
Abdul: Do you think I have to live by Christian doctrine? Do you?
Tommy: Up to you.
Abdul: It’s up to me, right? Why? Why is it up to me?
Tommy: Because we have free will.
Abdul: Right. Free will. And also in this country, what else do we have?
Crowd: Freedom of religion.
Abdul: What else do we have, Tom?
Tommy: [indistinct]
Abdul: No, I mean, you’re asking me about my allegiance to the Constitution. It’s the Constitution, my guy. We have a Constitution and that Constitution guarantees you the right to live by your faith and guarantees me the right to do the same. And the reality of it is this: I’m never going to tell you what faith you can or couldn’t practice. I want to protect your right to practice your faith as you choose as a Christian man. The only question though is that it seems like you don’t want to protect my right to practice as I choose to. So I’m going to ask you: do you disavow any attempt to read any religious doctrine into the laws of our country?
Tommy: I do not.
Abdul: You don’t disavow that? So I think it’s you who needs to understand the Constitution, not me. Best of luck to you.
As you can imagine for such a viral moment, a lot of great coverage on this: from Jamelle Bouie, who titled his video “Abdul El-Sayed Gives a Masterclass in Answering Bad Faith Questions”; from Brian Tyler Cohen, on Wednesday’s “Another Day” segment; and from Tuesday’s episode of Even More News, whose video also takes time to poke some fun at JD Vance’s pretty awful town hall.
Somehow I think Tommy’s daddy and his former bosses are not going to be too happy with him. Hey, Tommy: just tell them that they asked for a “gotcha” clip, and you delivered them a “gotcha” clip ... it’s not your fault you were the one that got got. In the battle of wits, you can’t help it if you were unarmed.
Other things you need to know this week:
- Have I Got News For You had a magnificent time poking fun at all the botched Republican campaign ads, plus a nice roundup of the previous week’s news (HIGNFY airs on Saturday, just a bit too late to make it into this report until the following Sunday).
- If you haven’t heard about the disgusting ad Vivek Ramaswamy put out, here’s the best coverage:
- Seth Meyers covers the basics in Thursday’s “A Closer Look” segment.
- Brian Tyler Cohen gives even more background, plus covers Vivek getting lambasted during a campaign event by a random member of the public.
- The Even More News crew is joined by Jason Pargin (author of the excellent John Dies at the End and their former executive editor when they were all at Cracked.com) to discuss the reactions of disgust from everyone ... except the president and vice-president. Because of course they liked it.
- Another good week for “Kinzinger Report"s:
- On Monday, Adam wonders why JD Vance can’t figure out where all this corruption is coming from, the beginning of the golf course debacle (see also the LegalEagle video below), and more.
- On Tuesday, Adam examines the continuing saga of the Habba-Grenell catfight, the Trump regime getting caught trying to hack voting machines, and more.
- And, on Wednesday, Trump says he’ll settle the claims of veterans made sick by contaminated water ... but only if Republicans get elected. After Adam gets done saying “WTF” over that one, he talks about a $50 million pardon, Steve Witkoff calling Putin a “humanitarian”, and, as always, more.
- Above and beyond the several other videos from Brian Tyler Cohen I’ve linked this week, here’s a couple more excellent BTC spots:
- Brian covers NC students marching 45 minutes to vote because Republicans eliminated their polling site on campus.
- And, on Friday’s “Another Day” segment, BTC tells us how Trump claims the election in Alaska can’t be certified ... unless the Republican wins.
- Jon Stewart’s Daily Show interview on Monday was with David Corn, who was there to talk about Trump’s man crush on Putin, which has apparently been going on for years.
- Two great videos from LegalEagle this week:
- Liz Dye points out that Trump’s “plan” to deport Omar Ilhan is legally dubious.
- New correspondent Mike Sacks talks about the judge who is the thorn in Trump’s side regarding his new golf course plans.
- A shorter Hasan Minhaj Doesn’t Know this week (due to lack of guest): “We Need to Talk About Zohran”. Mamdani, that is. Muslim socialist, beloved mayor, and the man that Trump goes starry-eyed over: Zohran does it all.
- Two excellent (and very short) explainers from Robert Reich and Inequality Media this week:
- What is the actual cost of all these ICE raids? You might be surprised.
- Elon Musk keeps pumping money into Republican campaigns. But why? Reich answers the question.
- More Perfect Union brings us a note of hope by describing how Hawaii and Montana are working to circumvent Citizens United and get money out of politics. There are still court challenges, but it actually looks optimistic.
And, if you need even more hope than that MPU video (and/or you haven’t gotten sick of Brian Tyler Cohen yet), BTC has yet another great video this week, this time excerpting some of Obama’s speech at an Ohio rally. And Obama is the “hope” guy, so I think it’s appropriate. I think it’s been long enough that I’d forgotten just how inspirational that guy can be. The whole thing is quite goo
And he’s right. They’re self-obsessed narcissists. Trump is a poor man’s idea of a rich man. Pete Hegseth is a weak man’s idea of a strong man. RFK is a dumb man’s idea of a smart man. Trump talks so much about central casting, but the subtext is that central casting is for actors: not the real thing. It’s not real life. When your principal asset is how you look as opposed to what you know, then you end up with this clown car of of an administration. This is a White House that is DEI for pretty people. And frankly, if the president of the United States has shown us anything, they’re not even pretty.
And my favorite Obama moment comes right at the end:
We need to remember the words of a 25 year old preacher who gave a sermon in 1954, where he said: “If we are to go forward today, we’ve got to go back and rediscover some mighty precious values that we’ve left behind.” That was Martin Luther King Jr. at 25 years old. He said, “We haven’t learned how to be just. We haven’t learned how to be honest and kind and true and loving. And that is the basis of our problem. The real problem,” he said, “is that through our scientific genius we have made a world of neighborhood, but through our moral and our spiritual genius we failed to make it a brotherhood.”Here’s hoping the hope guy is also a prophet.
And, Ohio, what was true then is true today: yes, we need to lower costs, we need to put money in people’s pockets; yes, we need to end this war, and the corruption in Washington. But we don’t do any of those things if we don’t fix our moral compass as a nation. If we don’t return to some of those old-fashioned virtues, if our fundamental attitude to each other is to try and hurt other people so they don’t hurt us first, if we’re we’re driven by fear instead of by hope, if we think it’s okay to snatch children from parents, or cut programs for the aged or the infirm so the powerful can get whatever they want, we will continue to fester in anger and division. And I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of being angry. And I’m tired of being divided. I want to reach out and shake my neighbor’s hand. I want to get to work doing something for somebody else. We didn’t get into this moment overnight. We won’t get out of it overnight. And none of us should pretend that any single person in any single office is somehow going to save the day for us and that the rest of us can just go back to acting the same way. We’re going to have to all make some changes. But, Ohio, here’s what I know: this election can be a start.