Football Jeff’s photo gallery from Saturday night (Arizona)
- By Ryan Young
- Trojan Talk
- 0 Replies
TrojanSports - PHOTOS: Our best shots from USC’s 3OT win over Arizona
Photo gallery from USC’s 43-41 win over Arizona.
usc.rivals.com
The problem(s) with the GOP blaming Biden for the crisis in Israel
- By PanamaSteve
- OT Talk
- 3 Replies
The problem(s) with the GOP blaming Biden for the crisis in Israel
As Republicans scramble to blame the White House for Hamas' attack on Israel, there are all kinds of errors of fact and judgment to keep in mind.
Oct. 9, 2023, 7:00 AM CDT
By Steve Benen
Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel appeared on Fox News midday Saturday to comment on Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel. That, in and of itself, might not seem especially notable, though the RNC chair described the crisis as “a great opportunity“ for her party’s presidential candidates to draw contrasts with President Joe Biden.
Evidently, McDaniel’s fellow partisans were thinking very much along the same lines. NBC News reported on Saturday afternoon:
It was difficult to keep up with the prominent GOP voices scurrying to blame their own country’s leadership for Hamas’ attack. For example, Sen. Tim Scott, who somehow cultivated a reputation for being the nice guy in his party's 2024 field, insisted that “the truth” is that the Democratic president “funded these attacks on Israel.”
That wasn’t even close to being “the truth,” as the South Carolinian — a former member of the Senate Armed Services Committee — really ought to know, but Scott was hardly alone. Donald Trump spent much of the weekend lashing out wildly at his presidential successor, at one point even issuing a clumsily worded statement that suggested the Biden administration attacked Israel: “Sadly, American taxpayer dollars helped fund these attacks, which many reports are saying came from the Biden Administration.”
On Capitol Hill, the rhetorical offensive was just as aggressive. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, a leading contender for House speaker, also blamed Biden for the crisis in Israel, as did Republican Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, who falsely claimed that American tax dollars “funded” Hamas’ attack, adding that the militants bought weapons with “our money.”
Not to be outdone, Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida also falsely argued that the incumbent American president “funded this attack.” Media outlets aligned with the party followed suit.
Part of the problem with all of this is that the Republican line is rooted in misinformation. While it’s true that the United States recently reached an agreement with Iran over the release of several hostages, and as part of the deal Iran gained access to oil revenue that had been frozen, the details matter.
“All of the money held in restricted accounts in Doha as part of the arrangement to secure the release of 5 Americans in September remains in Doha. Not a penny has been spent,” Treasury Undersecretary Brian Nelson tweeted. “These restricted funds cannot go to Iran — it can only be used for future humanitarian-related purposes. Any suggestion to the contrary is false and misleading.”
National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson added, “I can’t comment on 2024 because of the Hatch Act.
But I can clarify the facts: Not a single cent from these funds has been spent, and when it is spent, it can only be spent on things like food and medicine for the Iranian people. These funds have absolutely nothing to do with the horrific attacks.”
As for Vance’s assertion that American tax dollars were somehow involved, that’s plainly not a claim to be taken seriously, since it doesn’t even make sense within the GOP’s own framework, which is itself misleading.
But as important as the factual details are, there’s also a broader problem with the Republicans’ rhetorical tack.
In 1984, during the Republican National Convention, Jeane Kirkpatrick delivered a speech that included a catchphrase that she repeated five times during her remarks: “They always blame America first.” In reference to Democrats, she went on to condemn the “blame America first crowd.”
It was an ugly line of attack, but it caught on and became a favorite of the right, and it’s still embraced by prominent Republicans a generation later. In Nikki Haley’s 2020 remarks at the Republican National Convention, for example, the former ambassador quoted Kirkpatrick and again accused Democrats of “blaming America first.” Last year, Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas pushed the same line, declaring on Fox News, “[Biden] and other Democrats like him always blame America first.”
There’s never been any real value in casually throwing around such obnoxious attacks on other Americans’ patriotism, though the line of rhetorical attack has certainly taken on a greater hypocritical dimension as Republicans rush — yet again — to blame their own country’s leadership for deadly violence for which the United States is obviously not responsible.
GOP Rep, Nancy Mace, keeps getting tripped up by details she ought to know
- By PanamaSteve
- OT Talk
- 0 Replies
Nancy Mace keeps getting tripped up by details she ought to know
Donald Trump has referred to Nancy Mace as a “grandstanding loser.” The congresswoman's latest on-air interviews probably won’t help in this regard.Oct. 9, 2023, 8:34 AM CDT
By Steve Benen
As Rep. Nancy Mace continues to overhaul her political reputation on Capitol Hill, making the transition from a perceived “moderate” to a more reliably conservative partisan, the South Carolina Republican has been especially eager to target President Joe Biden with unfounded corruption allegations.
In late August, for example, Mace told Fox Business that she considers the Democratic incumbent “the most corrupt president in U.S. history,” adding that journalists are involved in an elaborate conspiracy to sweep damaging details “under the rug.” A month later, the congresswoman appeared on ABC News and insisted that she was aware of incriminating evidence against Biden, though she didn’t share any.
It was against this backdrop that Mace sat down with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo last weekend. The host asked, “Have you been able to identify specific policy decisions that Joe Biden made that he was paid for?” The South Carolina Republican responded, “I have not had the, uh, the ability to research that.”
Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman of New York added soon after that at a recent House Oversight Committee hearing, Mace “accused Joe Biden of bribery, money laundering, and orchestrating a prostitution ring. Now she says she hasn’t ‘researched’ the evidence that would support these claims.”
This wasn’t a great moment for the GOP congresswoman, but she was nevertheless invited onto CBS News’ “Face the Nation” a week later, sharing her perspective on why she voted to oust former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and throwing her support behind far-right Rep. Jim Jordan as McCarthy’s possible successor.
Host Margaret Brennan reminded her guest, “I know you’ve been outspoken about defending victims of sexual assault. Do the past allegations against Jim Jordan that he turned a blind eye to sexual abuse give you any reservations? How do you square that?” According to the network transcript, Mace responded:
Brennan was, of course, referring to allegations that Jordan turned a blind eye to sexual abuses at Ohio State during his tenure as a coach at the university. The accusations include claims from former student-athletes who were at the university during Jordan’s tenure. (Jordan has denied the allegations.)
This wasn’t an obscure controversy from the distant past: The allegations were a national news story in 2018 and 2019. To hear Mace tell it, however, she’s never even heard of the story.
Meanwhile, in the same “Face the Nation” interview, the CBS host reminded her guest that McCarthy has said his ouster was a retaliatory scheme, launched by Rep. Matt Gaetz, because McCarthy supported an Ethics Committee investigation into the Florida Republican. Asked whether she has any concerns about this, Mace added, “Well, I don’t, again, he’s not indicted for anything. I don’t really, I don’t know much about it.”
The South Carolinian’s critics have suggested Mace cares more about being on camera than doing the real work of being a member of Congress. Even Donald Trump has called her a “grandstanding loser.”
Her latest on-air interviews probably won’t help in this regard
Pence slams Trump, GOP ‘voices of appeasement’ as Israel comes under attack
- By PanamaSteve
- OT Talk
- 1 Replies
Pence slams Trump, GOP ‘voices of appeasement’ as Israel comes under attack
The former vice president called out Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy by name.Mike Pence’s comments represented the first ripple in the Republican primary from the violence that erupted on Saturday. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
By ADAM WREN, OLIVIA ALAFRIZ and NATALIE ALLISON
10/07/2023 10:44 AM EDT
Updated: 10/07/2023 01:13 PM EDT
GLENWOOD, I.A. — Former Vice President Mike Pence tore into Donald Trump and pointed to isolationism in the Republican Party as complicit in the sweeping Hamas attack on Israel, decrying American “retreat on the world stage.”
In a scathing rebuke, Pence faulted “voices of appeasement like Donald Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis that I believe have run contrary to the tradition in our party that America is the leader of the free world.”
Pence’s comments in Iowa represented the first ripple in the Republican primary from the violence that erupted on Saturday — and effectively threw down a challenge to Republicans he said have “embraced the language of isolationism and appeasement.”
The role of the United States in maintaining global security is one of the most important points of friction between the Republican presidential candidates — one that could now erupt in a new way because of the violence in Israel.
Pence’s criticism of Trump was uncharacteristically pointed. But it was even more remarkable for the break it represented in their previously lockstep approach to Israel. Once a signature priority of the Trump-Pence administration, the U.S.-Israel relationship Saturday was suddenly becoming a wedge issue between them.
Faulting President Joe Biden for “projecting weakness on the world stage,” Pence also pointed an accusatory finger rightward at an event here near the Nebraska border.
“This is also what happens when you have leaders in the Republican Party signaling retreat on the world stage,” Pence said.
When he added the Reaganesque line that “it’s time to get back to peace through strength,” the candidate polling in single digits nationally received an uncharacteristically sustained round of applause.
“Backing our allies and doing things in their neighborhood so it doesn’t come to the United States is important,” Larry Winum, a 59-year-old banker who had come to hear Pence at a local senior center, said.
Pence has made engagement with the world and backing Ukraine in the nation’s conflict with Russia a hallmark of his campaign, earlier this year becoming the first GOP presidential candidate to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. It’s a message that’s not universally embraced in his own party: Even his own brother, Rep. Greg Pence of Indiana, voted recently against an appropriations bill aimed at providing further aid to Ukraine.
Several underdog candidates, including Pence and Nikki Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations, have castigated factions on the right that want to pull back American involvement in overseas conflicts like the war in Ukraine.
Those more isolationist constituencies have found vocal champions in Trump and other candidates like the biotech entrepreneur Ramaswamy, who has taken a dismissive view of Ukraine and other traditional American priorities like the security of Taiwan.
Most Republican candidates, however, stuck to a narrow message on Saturday of support for Israel and criticism of the Biden administration. Trump, the dominant frontrunner in the race, spent part of the morning posting social-media messages on an entirely unrelated matter — his legal battle with New York Attorney General Tish James.
There is a history of foreign security crises shaping American presidential primaries. In 2007, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan helped refocus the Republican nominating contest on security issues in a way that helped John McCain resurrect his candidacy. Four years ago, the killing of the Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani by the Trump administration pushed Democratic candidates to address national security concerns in a campaign largely focused on domestic economic and cultural debates.
On Saturday, Trump praised his previous administration’s policies on Israel while bashing the current White House.
“These Hamas attacks are a disgrace and Israel has every right to defend itself with overwhelming force,” Trump said in a statement released by his campaign. “Sadly, American taxpayer dollars helped fund these attacks, which many reports are saying came from the Biden Administration. We brought so much peace to the Middle East through the Abraham Accords, only to see Biden whittle it away at a far more rapid pace than anyone thought possible. Here we go again.”
Haley said that Hamas had “declared war on Israel” on the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, calling the group a “bloodthirsty terrorist organization backed by Iran and determined to kill as many innocent lives as possible.”
DeSantis, the Florida governor, called for “a swift and lethal response” and said that “America must stand with Israel.”
“The dastardly terrorist attacks perpetrated against innocent Israeli civilians by Iran-backed terror group Hamas deserve a swift and lethal response,” the GOP presidential candidate — and longtime ally to Israel — said in a social media post, followed by a video of him speaking directly to camera.
A spokesperson for Ramaswamy’s campaign, Tricia McLaughlin, issued a statement on his behalf.
“We stand with Israel and are appalled by these attacks,” McLaughlin said. “Shooting civilians and kidnapping children are war crimes. Israel’s right to exist and defend itself must never be doubted. Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists cannot be allowed to prevail.”
Chris Christie wrote in a social media post: “Biden’s appeasement of Israel’s enemies has invited this war against Israel. ... This terrorism is funded by Biden’s idiotic release of $6 billion to the Iranians.”
South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott also blamed the Biden administration. “The truth is though, Joe Biden funded these attacks on Israel,” he said.
But NSC spokesperson Adrienne Watson disputed those assertions in a social media post.
“I can’t comment on 2024 because of the Hatch Act. But I can clarify the facts: Not a single cent from these funds has been spent, and when it is spent, it can only be spent on things like food and medicine for the Iranian people,” she wrote.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates further called the allegations “a shameful lie” in a post on X.
And State Dept. spokesperson Matthew Miller also hit back, writing: “Let’s be clear: the deal to bring U.S. citizens home from Iran has nothing to do with the horrific attack on Israel. Not a penny has been spent, and when it is, it can only go for humanitarian needs like food and medicine. Anything to the contrary is false.”
Chris Christie wrote in a social media post: “Biden’s appeasement of Israel’s enemies has invited this war against Israel. ... This terrorism is funded by Biden’s idiotic release of $6 billion to the Iranians.”
South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott also blamed the Biden administration. “The truth is though, Joe Biden funded these attacks on Israel,” he said.
But NSC spokesperson Adrienne Watson disputed those assertions in a social media post.
“I can’t comment on 2024 because of the Hatch Act. But I can clarify the facts: Not a single cent from these funds has been spent, and when it is spent, it can only be spent on things like food and medicine for the Iranian people,” she wrote.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates further called the allegations “a shameful lie” in a post on X.
And State Dept. spokesperson Matthew Miller also hit back, writing: “Let’s be clear: the deal to bring U.S. citizens home from Iran has nothing to do with the horrific attack on Israel. Not a penny has been spent, and when it is, it can only go for humanitarian needs like food and medicine. Anything to the contrary is false.”
Football A bunch of notes from the win over Arizona ...
- By Ryan Young
- Trojan Talk
- 8 Replies
TrojanSports - USC Football Notes: Jacobe Covington's breakthrough, Mason Cobb's toughness
Notes from USC's win over Arizona.
USC.rivals.com
