90 corporate executives sign letter endorsing Harris

Corporate Bigwigs join Cheneys in endorsing Kamala over 'Comrade Donald'

By Charles Jay

Community 

Daily Kos

Friday, September 06, 2024 at 10:56:04a MDT

 

REPUBLISHED BY:

Blue Country Gazette Blog

Rim Country Gazette Blog

It appears that lots of current and former top executives from across corporate America are not buying Don-old Trump’s attempts to denigrate his Democratic opponent as “Comrade Kamala” — a radical Marxist.

Actually, Trump is far more deserving of being called “Comrade Donald” because of his efforts to Make Russia Great Again. It’s no wonder that  ex-KGB agent Vladimir Putin’s operatives allegedly secretly funded pro-Trump influencers to the tune of  $10 million.

So it’s noteworthy that CNBC, a cable TV business channel, was the first to report Monday that 88 corporate leaders have signed a letter endorsing Kamala Harris’ election as president of the United States. CNBC published the full text of the letter along with the list of its signatories.

The letter itself is relatively short. After endorsing Harris, it reads: 

Her election is the best way to support the continued strength, security, and reliability of our democracy and economy. With Kamala Harris in the White House, the business community can be confident that it will have a President who wants American industries to thrive. As a partner to President Biden, Vice President Harris has a strong record of advancing actions to spur business investment in the United States and ensure American businesses can compete and win in the global market. She will continue to advance fair and predictable policies that support the rule of law, stability, and a sound business environment, and she will strive to give every American the opportunity to pursue the American dream.

The CNBC report discussed the strategic importance of the letter, particularly its timing just days before the first scheduled debate between Harris and Trump on ABC. It is intended to showcases business support for the Harris-Walz ticket.

CNBC wrote:

The reason for the long list and the short letter is because the letter itself was not written to convince the general public to vote for Harris.

Instead, its purpose is to serve as a well-timed political show of force for Harris, who is locked in a very tight race, with the first presidential debate just four days away.

Both Harris and Trump have spent the past week rolling out their dueling economic visions, ahead of the Sept. 10 debate, hosted by ABC.

Reuters reported that the signers included the chief executives of Yelp and Chobani as well as the former CEOs of PepsiCo, Ford Motor Co and Yahoo!.

The signatories also included James Murdoch, one of Fox Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch’s sons. who is he former CEO of 21st Century Fox. James Murdoch departed from the family business in 2019 because was uncomfortable with “disinformation” spread by Fox News and founded a private equity firm Lupa Systems that invests in technology and media industries, and companies focused on environmental sustainability, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region

Deadline wrote that James Murdoch hosted President Joe Biden at his home in 2022 for a fundraiser for midterm candidates, and backed Biden’s campaign in 2020.

Among the others backing Harris in the letter were billionaire Mark Cuban; NBA legend-turned-business entrepreneur   Earvin "Magic" Johnson; Laurene Powell Jobs, head of the Emerson Collective and widow of former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, and former American Express CEO Ken Chenault, who spoke at the Democratic National Convention.

CNBC reported that Harris recently outlined proposals to support small businesses that feature a plan to increase a tax deduction for startup expenses by 10 times, up to $50,000. She also has proposed lifting the top capital gains tax rate to 28% for people making more than $1 million a year. That is higher than the  current 20% rate, but lower than the 39.6% level that President Joe Biden has proposed, with Harris declaring that her goal is to encourage more private sector investment.

Trump has proposed cutting the corporate tax rate even further from 21% to 15% for companies that make their products in the United States.

Unlike Trump, Harris has also been endorsed by most major labor unions because her economic plain would aim to cut taxes for most Americans, fight “price gouging” by food producers and supermarket chains, increase affordable housing, and raise child tax credits.

And significantly, Goldman Sachs said in a note last week that U.S. economic growth would likely be higher under a Harris administration that if Trump regains the White House.

Reuters reported:

U.S. economic growth would likely get the biggest boost in the coming two years from the Democrats, headed by Kamala Harris, winning the White House and Congress in this November's elections, according to Goldman Sachs.

Under a Republican sweep, or even with a divided government led by Donald Trump, economic output would take a hit next year, mostly from increased tariffs on imports and tighter immigration policies, Goldman said in a note late on Tuesday.

Job growth under a Democrat government would also likely be stronger than under the Republicans, Goldman said.

"Actually, Trump is far more deserving of being called 'Comrade Donald' because of his efforts to Make Russia Great Again. It’s no wonder that  ex-KGB agent Vladimir Putin’s operatives allegedly secretly funded pro-Trump influencers to the tune of  $10 million."

Trump Ridiculed After Accusing Kamala Harris of Mistreating Mike Pence

   

Donald Trump. (photo: Erin Schaff/NYT/Redux)

 

Robert Tait / Guardian UK 

06 September 24

Harris supporters respond: ‘In a stunning senile moment Trump suggested it was Harris who treated Pence poorly’

Donald Trump has drawn ridicule and accusations of hypocrisy after accusing Kamala Harris of mistreating Mike Pence, the former vice-president who his supporters said should be hanged during the January 6 insurrection that he incited.

The Republican’s nominee’s comments came in an interview with Fox News, when he also singled out Harris’s 2018 cross-examination of Brett Kavanaugh during Senate confirmation hearings after Trump, then president, nominated him as a justice on the US supreme court.

“They say she has many deficiencies, but she’s a nasty person,” Trump told the interviewer, Mark Levin. “The way she treated Mike Pence was horrible. The way she treats people is horrible. The way she treated Justice Kavanaugh in that hearing – in the history of Congress, nobody’s been treated that way.”

Trump’s comments prompted a response from some Harris supporters, who appeared to interpret it as an example of age-related confusion and evidence that the former president, who is 78 and now the oldest presidential candidate in US history following Joe Biden’s withdrawal, is in mental decline.

“In a stunning senile moment, Donald Trump just suggested it was Kamala Harris who treated Mike Pence poorly,” Harris supporters posted on X, linking to video footage of Trump’s comments.

“Donald Trump clearly cannot remember anything. Retweet to make sure all Americans see this hypocritical and senile moment.”

In fact, Trump may have been referring to a 2020 vice-presidential debate between Harris and Pence, when the now Democratic nominee twice told her opponent “I’m speaking” when he tried to interrupt her as she articulated an argument.

However, the comments evoked social media references to Trump’s notorious treatment of Pence after his presidential election defeat to Biden, when he tried to pressure the vice-president into refusing to certify the results in Congress, as dictated by the US constitution, and then egged on a mob to attack the US Capitol while Pence was inside.

Posting on social media, David Corn, a journalist with Mother Jones, wrote: “What? Did she call him the p-word and incite the violent mob that chanted ‘Hang Mike Pence’? Because if she did, she probably should drop out of the race.”

On the morning of the 6 January 2021 Capitol attack, Trump reportedly told Pence: “You can either go down in history as a patriot, or you can go down in history as a pussy.”

Later, with the crowd baying for the vice-president’s blood, Trump allegedly told aides that “Mike Pence deserves it”.

Last year, Trump renewed his assault against Pence at a time when the former vice-president – who has refused to endorse his current presidential bid – was running for the Republican nomination, calling him “delusional” and “not a very good person”.

Speaking to CNN last week along with her running mate, Tim Walz, Harris – who Trump has called “nasty” several times – confirmed to interviewers Dana Bash that she and and the former president have never met.

His allusion to her treatment of Kavanaugh – one of three conservative justices Trump appointed to America’s highest court – referred to Harris’s question to him over abortion at the 2018 confirmation hearing, which took place when she was a senator.

“Can you think of any laws that give government the power to make decisions about the male body?” Harris asked Kavanaugh, who parried by asking for “a more specific question”.

When Harris persisted, Kavanaugh – one of six supreme court justices to vote in favour of a landmark ruling striking down a woman’s legal right to abortion in 2022 – haltingly acknowledged that he could not think of any “right now”.

Harris has put restoring abortion rights at the centre of her presidential campaign.

Trump also suggested in the Fox News interview that he “had every right” to interfere in trying to annul the 2020 election results.

“Who ever heard you get indicted for interfering with a presidential election, where you have every right to do it,” he said.

Joyce Vance, a former federal prosecutor and US attorney during the Obama administration, posted on X: “There’s no right to ‘interfere’ with a presidential election. This is the banality of evil right here – Trump asserting he can override the will of the voters to claim victory in an election he lost.”

Since when did Trump give a damn about Mike Pence.  Could it be that he is just bent out of shape because this uppity woman is whooping his blubber ass coming and going and sideways.  Women can't be presidents.

Many Republicans dream of a post-Trump GOP

  

The Trump banner is becoming more tattered every day.

By Mark Sumner

Daily Kos Staff

Wednesday, September 04, 2024 at 11:00:06a MDT

 

REPUBLISHED BY:

Blue Country Gazette Blog

Rim Country Gazette Blog 

Donald Trump keeps telling his supporters to vote for him in 2024 and they “don’t have to vote again.” Some Republicans are growing increasingly worried this is true—but not in the bye-bye-democracy way that Trump seems to intend.

They’re worried that if Trump is defeated in 2024, he will leave behind a broken Republican Party that will have no path to power for generations. Or that even if Trump wins, he could drag his twisted cult of personality into a condition from which it can’t recover.

From the daily appearance of Republican speakers at the Democratic National Convention to a list of over 200 former Republican staffers and former Trump supporters, many Republicans are lining up behind the effort to defeat Trump. They’re not doing it just to help save American democracy, either. Many are doing it because they desperately want Trump to go away so that their party has a chance of surviving.

History may not repeat itself, but sometimes the rhyme is strong.

Less than a month before the election in 2016, and in response to a leaked video of Trump making vulgar remarks about women, a long list of Republicans issued statements begging Donald Trump to drop out and let his running mate, Mike Pence, carry the banner of the party into the election. In Congress, state houses, and right-wing media, Republicans were scrambling to talk about Trump’s “fitness” and “character.”

At the time, Republicans could see the danger. Then-Rep. Jeff Fortenberry wrote that Trump had “abused women.” Rep. Ann Wagner withdrew her endorsement, saying that she condemned “the predatory and reprehensible comments of Donald Trump.”

But mostly, Republicans were talking about how they didn’t think he would win. Here’s then-Sen. Ben Sasse on Oct. 8, 2016:

When Trump refused to step aside and won the election, many of the people on that list did what other Republican critics of Trump have done ever since: became fawning sycophants of Trump. A great many of those who refused to kowtow to Trump were shoved out of the party, often by the mere threat of a primary against a Trump-endorsed candidate.

Now, after eight years of Trump doing to the GOP what authoritarian Project 2025 wants to do to the government—purge it of everyone who doesn’t place Trump above the Constitution—it's hard to imagine the Republican Party without Trump ... but many Republicans are starting to realize they have to move on or die.

A recent NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll shows Democratic nominee Kamala Harris opening a massive advantage with young voters. Harris’ 16-percentage-point edge over Trump with voters ages 18 to 29 is even larger than the advantage she now holds among women. 

Republicans aren’t blind to this. This is the party that spent four decades carefully engineering a takeover of state legislatures and gaining control of downballot offices. What they see ahead is a wave of blue that could sweep a Trump-centered GOP out of power for decades. 

None of this means that Trump is certain to lose in 2024. This remains a perilously close race, and despite the momentum behind Harris and the Democratic Party, nothing is guaranteed. History’s rhymes can be epically awful.

But the chorus of Republicans who see Trump taking their party down the drain even if he wins is growing louder. As Jonathan Martin writes at Politico, the best thing Republicans can hope for isn’t just that Trump gets defeated; it’s that he gets defeated badly.

For most Republicans who’ve not converted to the Church of MAGA, this scenario is barely even provocative. In fact, asking around with Republicans last week, the most fervent private debate I came across in the party was how best to accelerate Trump’s exit to the 19th Hole.

One high-level Republican, conceding it may only be “wishful thinking,” even floated the idea of a Harris victory followed by Biden pardons of both his son, Hunter, and Trump. That would take the issue of both cases off Harris’ plate and, more to the point, drain the energy behind Trump’s persecution complex so that Republicans can get on with the business of winning elections.

That’s definitely wishful thinking. But many Republicans see that a Trump victory and the GOP’s hold on political power is likely incompatible—at least, under anything that looks like a democracy.

But then, if it comes down to a choice between Trump and democracy, there’s little doubt about which way most Republicans go. Just look back at the opening part of this rhyme, following 2016.

It's not just the sharks anymore.  More and more Republican stalwarts want to see him swallowed up too.

Lament to the Lout Who Went to Arlington

 

A bugler plays "Taps" during the group funeral of 12 servicemen who were missing in action from the Vietnam War at Arlington National Cemetery. (photo: Charles Dharapak/AP)

 

 

John Cory / Reader Supported News 04 September 24

I would have told you to tread gently in these gardens of stone. This hallowed ground is not a stage for conduct unbecoming.

It was born in the grief and pain of a broken-hearted nation in Civil War. It’s origins, humble – a potters field – without ceremony or honors – but driven by the principle of “no one left behind,” it became a place for the fallen, no matter how near or far away, to be brought home and laid to rest. To be remembered and honored.

I would have told you that the only words that matter here, are: “On behalf of a grateful nation…” – nothing else. You have said enough already. Let silence be the tender cradle for memories of lives loved and lost.

I would have told you my best friend, and brother Medic, is buried here. Fifty-five years on, I still live that day, still feel the slick rain on my skin, and smell the wet sour tranh grass and brackish rice paddy water. It’s September – a Friday – rainy season – late afternoon – quiet – too quiet – even the birds hiding in jack fruit trees know that death is coming.

It’s real, and it’s a dream – and it never changes. Pat dies in my arms and I wear his blood on my hands and fatigues for days. I cannot escape the acrid smell and briny taste of his death – even now.

I would have told you that Arlington National Cemetery is America’s sacred garden of sorrows. It must be tended with care.

A jovial Trump gives the thumbs-up sign at a veteran's grave site in Arlington National Cemetery where photography for political purposes is strictly prohibited.  One more example of his disregard and disdain for those who sacrificed their lives fighting for our country.

Trump has a "brilliant" new dance called "The Weave" and it goes like this...

How stupid does he think we are?  Trump rebranding meandering rants as brilliant strategy

Story by James Liddell

The Independent

(The Independent is the world’s most free-thinking news brand, providing global news, commentary and analysis for the independently-minded. We have grown a huge, global readership of independently minded individuals, who value our trusted voice and commitment to positive change. Our mission, making change happen, has never been as important as it is today.)

Critics may be quick to write off Donald Trump’s meandering monologues and inability to succinctly articulate a party line as a major flaw.

But what is actually happening is the “most brilliant thing” academics have ever seen, the former president himself has claimed.

On Friday, while speaking at a rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, he divulged what he claims to be his newly-coined strategy for the first time: the weave.

“When I do the weave... you know what the weave is?” Trump asked the crowd.

“I’ll talk about nine different things and they all come back brilliantly together,” he continued, waving his arms and interlocking his fingers.

Trump has long had a knack of making simple phrases rambling or extraordinarily complicated.

In January, for example, he described using an iron dome missile defense system as “ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding… Boom. Okay. Missile launch. Whoosh. Boom.”

Now, he is trying to spin his wordy responses and long, disjointed speeches as an intentional tactic.

Trump’s advisors, senior Republicans and MAGA followers alike are pleading with the former president to peddle concise political messaging and stop rambling off script.

“Stop questioning the size of her crowds and start questioning her positions,” former speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy told Fox News last month.

While devout Trump supporter Frank Scavo told The Guardian: “Trump’s got to focus on the message and not get distracted by personal attacks.”

The Republican presidential nominee, however, believes that his dissenters are mistaken and insists that he’s “not rambling” at all.

“Friends of mine that are like English professors, they say: ‘It’s the most brilliant thing they’ve ever seen,’” he said of the weave on stage on Friday.

“But you know the fake news, you know what they say: ‘He rambles.’ It’s not rambling.”

While he didn’t disclose which English professors that complimented his linguistic abilities, Trump did reveal just how the weave works.

“What you do is you go off a subject, mention another little tidbit. And you get back onto the subject,” he explained. “You go for two hours, and you don’t even mispronounce one word.”

But not everyone is convinced by his claim.

On Tuesday morning, MSNBC’s Morning Joe hosts burst into fits of laughter while breaking down Trump’s “brilliant” political strategy.

“That’s Donald Trump telling a crowd in Pennsylvania the other day, rambling, when it was actually part of a brilliant strategy,” said Willie Geist as co-anchors Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski giggled.

“He lays it out like he’s from A Beautiful Mind; he’s seeing things the rest of us don’t see.”

Trump biographer Tim O’Brien also took to X last week to deliver his own breakdown.

“Translation: ‘I call it ‘The Weave.’ Everyone else calls it ‘Word Salad’ or ‘The Crazy,’” he wrote.

The Independent has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.

Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt brushed the comments aside telling The New York Times that Kamala Harris could never craft a political narrative or “impressive stories” like him: “Unlike Kamala Harris, who can’t put together a coherent sentence without a teleprompter, President Trump speaks for hours, telling multiple impressive stories at the same time.”

As a retired English professor, I gotta tell ya: Ain't no English professor calling this man's speaking abilities "the most brilliant thing they've ever seen."

Trump is lying as women lay dying

 

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. (photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

 

Their views on reproductive rights and cat ladies are unpopular, but they keep taking the bait 

  02 September 24

Amanda Marcotte / Salon  

Despite much of the press carrying Donald Trump’s water by accepting his feeble attempts to pretend to be “moderate” on abortion, he showed his true colors again last week.

In an interview with CBS News, the GOP candidate insisted he had “no regrets” about ending abortion rights by appointing three justices hand-picked by the Federalist Society to overturn Roe v. Wade. Vice President Kamala Harris immediately pounced. Trump declared this “without even a moment’s hesitation,” Harris told the crowd Tuesday night at her raucous Milwaukee rally, which was piped into the equally exuberant Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago. Harris continued the theme in her nomination acceptance speech Thursday night in Chicago.

"And get this. Get this. He plans to create a national anti-abortion coordinator, and force states to report on women’s miscarriages and abortions," Harris said of her GOP opponents. "Simply put, they are out of their minds."

It's not news that the Harris campaign is going hard on the reproductive rights issue this election, forefronting both the ongoing health crisis caused by abortion bans and warning the public the Republicans are just getting started. It's also not a mystery why — the issue is still at the forefront of voter minds, especially of those Democratic base voters Harris needs to energize. Even during the state roll call, delegation leaders spoke repeatedly about the need to protect women's rights. Texas brought forward Kate Cox, who was denied care for a failing pregnancy, to announce joyfully that she is expecting again. In Salon's conversations with delegates at the DNC, abortion and other reproductive rights were the issues people brought up more than any other. Multiple people cited the hostility Trump's running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, has expressed publicly over a dozen times towards childless women, who he's deemed "miserable cat ladies" and "sociopaths."

But it's also true that, as with the accusation that MAGA leaders are "weird," highlighting Republican extremism on reproductive rights works as excellent bait. Republicans keep trying to deny the accusation, whining and insisting that it's the Democrats who are "radical." But in the process, Republicans act so weird that it just underscores how obsessed they are with controlling women's bodies.

To highlight their efforts to extend reproductive health services even as Republicans criminalize such care, Planned Parenthood parked a mobile clinic outside the United Center in Chicago during the convention. It's part of a larger effort to relieve abortion access networks helping patients traveling from states where it's banned. The clinic provided eight abortions and nine vasectomies over the two days it was parked there. Unsurprisingly, Republicans reacted with levels of hysteria that evoked 17th-century Puritan witch-hunters.

"25 babies lost their lives so far this week thanks the DNC's sponsoring of a Planned Parenthood abortion van," lied Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA on Twitter. He accused Democrats of having a "depopulation agenda" that is "Sick. Cruel. Evil."

In reality, zero babies were killed, the DNC did not "sponsor" the clinic, and — as the many speeches exalting how reproductive health care helps people build happy families shows — Democrats love children. They just want babies born to parents who are prepared to care for them. But perhaps the biggest lie is the one implied: Patients were tricked by Democrats into abortion. In reality, of course, women make the decision on their own and then reach out to clinics. Kirk also ignored the nine vasectomies, as his "women are idiots" argument falls apart in the face of proof that men also make reproductive health care decisions.

Kirk's lies are just a hint of how much Republicans were melting down during the DNC over women asserting their rights. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., posted the lie that Harris "will make abortion up to the day of birth the law." (Medical experts say this is not a real procedure.) Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, denied that Republicans are out to restrict contraception or that abortion bans have hurt patients experiencing miscarriages. Both are true and well-documented. Women who have been denied emergency treatment of miscarriages told their stories from the DNC stage, which means that Lee was falsely accusing these innocent women of lying. Trump ally Laura Loomer tweeted that "Democrats are doing human sacrifice." All just proving, over and over, that Republican leaders are exactly the weird, obsessed liars that Harris and Walz say they are.

Trump's meltdown is perhaps the weirdest. He's been frantically posting, in his incoherent way, on Truth Social. During his extended tantrum, he wrote, falsely, "Everybody, Democrats, Republicans, Liberals, and Conservatives, wanted Roe v. Wade TERMINATED." He also wrote, "I TRUST WOMEN, ALSO, AND I WILL KEEP WOMEN SAFE!" (As a reminder, Trump was found liable in court for sexually assaulting journalist E. Jean Carroll. Two separate juries found he was lying when he denied his violent crime against a woman.)

When the fish are eager to bite, it's wise to keep re-baiting the hook. At the DNC, Democratic politicians spoke with Salon about efforts to protect contraception — and to create a record of Republicans voting against birth control access.

"We will not stand idly by as our fundamental rights are threatened," Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., explained to Salon that she continues to push the Right to Contraception Act. It's necessary because, as she pointed out, Justice Clarence Thomas openly invited far-right Christian groups to challenge legal birth control in court, hinting that the GOP-dominated Supreme Court is open to destroying that basic right as well. By bringing up this bill, Baldwin proved that a misogynist fringe controls Republicans. Given the chance to affirm that Americans have a right "to obtain contraceptives and to engage in contraception," all but two Republicans voted against it.

During the DNC, Democratic state senator Ghazala Hashimi recounted her battle to enshrine the basic right to prevent pregnancy Virginia. She introduced a state-level version of the Right to Contraception Act, only to see Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin — who often pretends to be a moderate — veto it in May.

"It really is very misogynistic," Hashimi told Salon. "They have a clear perception of women as second-class citizens" she added, saying the MAGA right is "taking us in a very extreme and very dangerous direction." Hashimi said she's spoken in private with Republican members of the state legislature who "want to support this bill," but "they are terrified at the prospect of being primaried from the right."

They should be worried. As much as Sen. Mike Lee may deny Republicans are coming after birth control, the pattern is clear. Democrats offer Republicans one chance after another to vote for birth control rights, and every time, Republicans vote against it. Increasingly, major MAGA leaders are admitting out loud that they are coming for birth control. Kirk, lying as usual, claimed the birth control pill "screws up female brains." Peter Thiel, the far-right billionaire who bankrolled Vance's political career, has been heavily funding propaganda networks to spread disinformation about contraception. Elon Musk has also been spreading lies meant to discourage women from using birth control — or at least justify the anger that his incel-tinged audience has towards women. Vance's comments about "cat ladies" must be understood through this anti-contraception lens. One in 4 women will have an abortion at some point in life, but contraception use is near-universal. Over 99% of sexually experienced women have used birth control.

This is why Republicans want to keep quiet about their war on birth control access. They're already getting hammered politically over the abortion bans, which are opposed by 85% of Americans. Contraception is even more popular, with only 6% of Americans saying it's morally wrong. Yet, as all these examples show, many of the most famous faces of MAGA can't help themselves. When provoked, they say what they think, which is that no method women use to control their childbearing is acceptable. It's smart that Harris is baiting them. She'll keep setting her trap until November. 

 

 Not to mention that whole "cat ladies without kids" thing...

This is SINCERITY pussonified.

WHEN PIGS FLY: Six Degrees of Trump and Bacon

Former President Donald Trump. (photo: Emily Elconin/Getty)

Following the former president’s thought process can be a challenge.

David A. Graham / The Atlantic 01 September 24

Donald Trump frequently warns that wind turbines are killing birds. Last night in Wisconsin, he raised a new and opposite concern: They’re leading to fewer hogs being killed.

At a town-hall event, a young man asked the former president about the cost of meat, and he replied with a meandering answer that somehow connected wind farms to a decrease in bacon consumption. As with a lot of Trump quotations, you have to read or watch it at full length to even attempt to follow it.

“Groceries, food has gone up at levels that nobody’s ever seen before. We’ve never seen anything like it—50, 60, 70 percent,” he said. “You take a look at bacon and some of these products and some people don’t eat bacon anymore. We are going to get the energy prices down. When we get energy down, you know, this was caused by their horrible energy—wind, they want wind all over the place. But when it doesn’t blow we have a little problem. This was caused by energy. This was really caused by energy, and also their unbelievable spending. They are spending us out of wealth, actually, they’re taking our wealth away, but it was caused by energy.”

Once you break it down into component parts, it’s not quite as erratic, but it’s still nonsensical. Trump is saying that the Biden administration has pushed for an expansion of wind power. That has, in his view, driven inflation, which has made grocery prices higher and forced cost-conscious shoppers to cut down on eating bacon.

That’s somewhat coherent, as a theory. The problem is that nearly none of it is true.

Here’s what’s right: Biden has pushed to expand wind power. In fact, U.S. production of every energy category except coal is at a record high. Bacon prices have also risen since the start of the Biden administration, part of broader inflation over the past few years.

But little evidence connects these things. Greater wind production should drive down overall energy costs—higher gasoline prices, which consumers track closely, notwithstanding. (Trump is right that turbines don’t turn when the wind doesn’t blow, though other energy sources continue to exist.) Biden’s big push for wind came in the Inflation Reduction Act, and although that law was improperly (and cynically) named, it also doesn’t seem to have produced inflation. In particular, bacon prices are lower than they were when it was passed.

Who knows where Trump came up with the bacon example, which he has mentioned in the context of inflation before. He offers no specifics, and it has the ring of his dubious “sir” stories. Economists have observed that bacon is sufficiently beloved that demand for it remains fairly stable, even when prices rise. Grocery prices have risen nowhere near 50 percent overall.

(One irony is that many environmentalists who back renewable energy might well cheer if wind power did produce a reduction in bacon consumption. Meat production, and especially the massive farms that produce much of the pork that Americans consume, is dirty and highly polluting.)

Trump’s riff is an example of the remarkably convoluted way that he phrases many statements. You can usually more or less follow where he’s going, but figuring out the details requires painstaking parsing—especially when the underlying claims are off base. For a man who hates wind power so much, Trump sure produces a lot of hot air.

Which blows more hot air, windmills or Trump?  If we could just harness the exhalations of the old blowhard, we might have another renewable source of wind energy.