Win, lose or draw: Trump versus Harris

After what has seemed an eternity, the 2024 presidential election is here. In the closely held contest between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, it’s game on, and the stakes are high for Trump is seeking not only to regain the Oval Office, but a return to the tenets of his previous term:  anti immigration, anti trans rights, anti civil rights for Black Americans and name calling plus shaming and profaning all who oppose him.

Harris is looking for a restoration, of sorts, of the ideals last espoused by former President Barack Obama, taking a humanist stance that serves the public with an enhancement of American values: equality for all, immigration reform, common sense gun reform laws, economic justice and reproductive rights to name but a few.

In the aftermath of the candidate’s televised debate, it would be hard to imagine that the American electorate is still undecided on who to vote for; yet, there are those independent voters estimated to be about 5 percent who are the target of Trump and Harris.

For the last week both candidates have been crisscrossing the battle states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Nevada, and Arizona, to name a few, to persuade  those that might give them the winning edge.

Any presidential election is ultimately a numbers game, with 270 electoral votes needed to secure the White House, and these last few weeks polls have prompted intensive actions, but 

while polls have attempted to outdo each other with predictions on the winner, they are not, in fact, predictors.

A look back in history shows a poll that became the infamous headline of the Chicago Daily Tribune which blared, “Dewey defeats Truman” and the photo of a grinning Harry Truman after he won the presidency; all polls are, in and of themselves, a snapshot at a given time of what a slice of the electorate is thinking, not a predictor of outcomes. 

While a liberal, even progressive, ideology has held sway for the Harris camp, it’s the same old playbook for Trump as he brandishes his strongman authoritarian style blaming migrants for every social ill in the United States, accusing them of polluting the bloodlines of Americans, and in an egregious example is the case of Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, which he accuses of abducting and eating pet animals, and ducks, from local waters. 

This is an absolutely false assertion, but it lives large in the playbook, as Trump’s base eats it up; despite his running mate JD Vance admitting in a  CNN interview that it was false, but needed to alert the media of the crisis of illegal immigration, even though the Haitians are legal immigrants under the federal TPS program.

All of thich is a continuation of the politics of fear, as we noted in 2016 when Trump won the presidency:

“His clarion call to a base of angry and older white men - who made up over 60% of his vote, gave credence to the cultural, racial and educational divide that has marked the United States for over two decades. As they watched the progressive and liberal legislators, and legislation, give power to women, blacks, and gays, to their consternation, they voted with near religious fervor on Tuesday. This was indeed, some felt, their last stand to stop the final anathema: a female president, especially, the spouse of the often despised Bill Clinton.”

Harris and the Democrats have tried to counter these lies with factual refutations, yet oftentimes it seems that Trump supporters are willing to ignore the facts. Some wags have called Trump “Teflon Don” for the way these refutations and criticisms have rolled off his back.

The recent hurricanes in Florida and nearby southeastern states have even prompted the lie that the Democrats deliberately caused the hurricane through some type of scientific hocus pocus to prevent Trump supporters in those areas from voting for him, an idea propagated by Georgia lawmaker, Marjorie Taylor Greene,

Immigration Denigration

Trump recently held a rally In New York at Madison Square Garden where he garnered even more negative blowbacks, but this time in response to featured Texas based stand-up comedian Tony Hinchcliffe who made a series of racist statements about Harris, and referred to Puerto Rico, a US possession as a “a floating island of garbage,”and according to The Hill,  “prompting some members of the GOP, like Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-N.Y.), who is Puerto Rican, to come out against the remarks.”

To add insult to injury, “the comedian also made a crude joke about Latinos in which he said “they love making babies too. Just know that. They do. They do. There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that. They come inside. Just like they did to our country.”

It seems self defeating If Trump wants to capture the votes of 36 million Hispanci votes, and the Trump campaign might have just realized that since they have pushed back on Hinchcliffe remarks, and some GOP lawmakers have gone on record, as reported, in protest:

“I’m proud to be Puerto Rican. My mom was born and raised in Puerto Rico,” D’Esposito wrote on the social platform X. “It’s a beautiful island with a rich culture and an integral part of the USA. The only thing that’s ‘garbage’ was a bad comedy set. Stay on message.”

Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.), who was born in Cuba but raised in part in Puerto Rico, said on X that she was “disgusted” by Hinchcliffe’s remarks. “This rhetoric does not reflect GOP values,” she said to the media.

Also, reported by The Hill: “The Trump campaign, too, has distanced itself from the comedian’s rhetoric. Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign, said on “Fox & Friends” on Monday that “it was a comedian who made a joke in poor taste.”

“Obviously, that joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or our campaign, and I think it is sad that the media will pick up on one joke that was made by a comedian, rather than the truths that were shared by the phenomenal list of speakers that we had,” she said.

After publicly condemning the remarks, Harris’s running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, Hinchcliffe replied to Walz with the following statement:

“These people have no sense of humor,” he wrote. “Wild that a vice presidential candidate would take time out of his ‘busy schedule’ to analyze a joke taken out of context to make it seem racist. I love Puerto Rico and vacation there. I made fun of everyone … watch the whole set. I’m a comedian Tim … might be time to change your tampon.”

That’s scant consolation for the voters that the campaign wants to court, and a deflection from insulting a major voting bloc, but one in keeping with how Trump’s people respond to negative press.

Reuters reported that, “Still, some Trump allies were less concerned. The former president and his allies have leaned into personal insults and racist rhetoric in the campaign's final months, but his standing in the polls has not deteriorated.”

Voter Disenfranchisement

Hovering in the background is the specter of voter disenfranchisement that has been a legacy of the pre civil rights area in America with echoes of voter registration drives, the death of three of the “Freedom Riders” and countless civil and federal lawsuits and legislation, that has unfortunately devolved into the US Supreme Court repeal of the preclearance act in 2013, in Shelby County v. Holder, which opened the doors to weakening the Voting rights act of 1965.

Ominously, there have been threats against poll workers, demands for ballot boxes to be broken open and hand counted to “prevent” errors,which would result in more errors, including worker fatigue after a long day.

In a previous post we quoted:  “Aided by technology, conservative groups are pumping out mass challenges to plant falsehoods, and in another battleground state, Michigan”, in random lawsuits.

David Becker, founder and executive director of the center for Election Innovation & Research, a nonpartisan organization that advises local election officials nationwide, told The Reflector, “When you see efforts to do mass challenges in the midst of the presidential primaries and months before a major election, i've got to wonder whether the intent is to create chaos and confusion amongst voters rather than legitimate list maintenance.”

Recent moves by the Georgia election Board to do hand counts, and other measures designed to slow the certification process, disenfranchise voters, and other last minute maneuvers have been blocked by Georgia judges.

With the close election Republicans are desperate to win and have said that foreign nationals will vote in the election with coordination by the Democratic party, and while such falsehoods are being spread, there is no evidence of that; and, the likelihood of a foreign national voting in any election and exposing themselves to fines, and arrest, is a definite barrier, especially to those that might be in the country illegally.

“After the 2016 election, the Brennan Center for Justice, which advocates for voting rights, surveyed local election officials in 42 jurisdictions with high immigrant populations and found just 30 cases of suspected noncitizens voting out of 23.5 million votes cast, or 0.0001%,” reported NPR in late October.

Topping the list of lies that the Trump campaign has promoted is the continuation of the BIG lie that the 2020 election was rigged to put Joe Biden in the White House. 

It’s so pervasive that millions of supporters believe it, and their numbers seem to increase exponentially each week; and  Vance has refused to, even when asked point blank, to tell the truth. In fact, it has become a politically useful falsehood.

Migrants as political tools

Immigration, both legal and illegal has become, over the years, a useful tactic used by the GOP to appeal to its base, and the fear stoked in Trump’s campaign in 2016 that Mexico was sending rapists to the United States has stuck, and has been extended to those seeking asylum from Honduras, El Saalvador and Venezuela has now become the top issue for Republicans.

Notably, it was Texas Gov. Gregg Abbot who sent 102,000 migrants to so-called “sanctuary cities” across the country, and spent $148 million to do so. Using people fleeing from poverty, violence and political instability as pawns increased his profile, but was condemned by many humanitarians, and the governments of those jurisdictions that received them, some of whom, like Chicago, spent $1.5 million each day for their care.

Race had a great deal to do with it, and as one person told us, “You wouldn’t see this as problematic if they had been Swedish,” and noted that Chicago, who struggled to find housing and food for thousands of Venezeuelans and their children, easily accommodated Ukranians, but then they were white not brown.

The consequences of these calculated actions have also resulted in Ohio Haitians facing fear, and in response some schools were closed and some business owners, who hired them, were threatened.

While no one can say that racial prejudice has not been a part of American history, that same history has shown what is known as nativism, seen most prominently in the 1860s during the Draft Riots in New York City in 1863 where Irish immigrants were drafted to fight in the Civil War, rather than the wealthy (who used proxies), and the subsequent mele involved violence and extended to the death of many African Americans as well, identified as the cause for the war draft.

This same level of nativism has continued, not just with Trump and his “America First” platform, but was preceded by the legendary aviator Charles Lindbergh, who along with author Kathleen Norris, and others, first created the term, and the movement.

The politics of fear was writ large with chants  of “Build the Wall” that still resonates with many of the MAGA crowd.

Trump has said that he will use mass deportation to remove migrants and immigrants from the southern border and The Independent has reported that “Donald Trump is considering withholding federal police grants to local agencies that refuse to carry out his mass deportation plan, a report claims,” to skirt possible lawsuits based on their conversations with NBC News.

The Biden-Harris administration has faced enormous challenges in dealing with an increase in migration to the southern border, with some feeling that the new administration would be more tolerant of immigration, and especially those in an urgent need to escape, even crossing the dangerous Darien Gap.

Immigration, which has been noted many times, across several media platforms has been long need of reform and faced its last legislative effort in 1986, and titled, “the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, made it illegal to hire or recruit illegal immigrants, while also legalizing some 2.7 million undocumented residents who entered the United States before 1982.”

A recent bipartisan bill that would have helped start a new path for immigration was defeated by Republicans under Trump’s direct order.

It would have provided, as the Harris campaign has noted, “the strongest reform in decades. The legislation would have deployed more detection technology to intercept fentanyl and other drugs and added 1,500 border security agents to protect our border.”

To be fair, most of the fentanyl that comes to the United States comes through legal points of entry. And, the southern border has also seen not just people from Mexico, Honduras, and El Salvador, but also Southeast Asians, and others.

One aspect of immigration, often neglected by Republicans, was that in 1986, “The law did not provide a legal way for the great number of low-skilled workers wishing to enter the United States. Following this 1986 law, almost 12 million undocumented workers came illegally across the U.S. border. It was estimated that this illegal workforce made up about five percent of the U.S. workforce. It was also estimated that about 70 percent of those illegal workers were from Mexico.”

On the domestic front, many wealthy white households employ a variety of housekeepers, nannies and gardeners, all flying under the radar of local and federal officials. And, critics note that the creation of this shadow employment has also created a permanent underclass.

The social media platform X has been awash in labeling Harris as the “Border Czar,” a title that she never had and was tasked only by Biden to examine the root causes of southern migration, and of which she was filmed telling prospective immigrants, ‘Do not come.”

The Biden administration wrestled with how to stem the flow, and balance legitimate asylum claims, and created a smartphone app for prospective immigrants to apply for admission and asylum, but the program was so “buggy” that it often failed those who needed it the most.

It is stated, through her campaign website, that “As President, she will bring back the bipartisan border security bill and sign it into law. At the same time, she knows that our immigration system is broken and needs comprehensive reform that includes strong border security and an earned pathway to citizenship.”

Abortion

The next, and most salient, issue for the Democrats is abortion, or as properly labeled reproductive care, long an issue of division for the US, but also especially for women a tool of empowerment over their own bodies, especially for problem pregnancies, in which the life of the mother as well as her fetus are endangered.

Harris has been the White House’s public face for efforts to improve maternal health and ensure some abortion access, despite the Supreme Court ruling. Earlier this year, she became the highest-ranking U.S. official to make a public visit to an abortion clinic,” noted The Associated Press,

Trump placed three conservative judges on the Supreme Court, two conservative, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh, both Catholic, and while they faced intense scrutiny and in the case of Barrett, an irregular confirmation, shoehorned in by Trump, the first issue they faced headlong was the repeal of Roe V. Wade in 2022; and, since then over a dozen states have restricted abortion, and while making cases for exceptions, the details can easily cause doctors performing abortions, even to save the life of the mother in legal jeopardy, say those who study abortion. And, those medical emergencies are so narrow in many cases, as we see below, that the Biden administration fought against their definitions.

Harris in her debate with Trump put it succinctly when she said, ““You want to talk about this is what people wanted? Pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term, suffering from a miscarriage, being denied care in an emergency room because health care providers are afraid they might go to jail and she’s bleeding out in a car in the parking lot?”

The reality she stated has been faced by countless women and two died in Georgia because of this very same dilemma, and perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the state of Idaho where the 6 week ban, (when many women don’t even know that they are pregnant) has played out with anguish.

Trump, and the GOP playbook, Project 2025, has at its nadir, the use of the Comstock Law, an 1873 anti vice law that, if used, would outlaw not only the medication used for over two thirds of abortions in the country, Mifepristone, but also threaten the equipment used by clinics “that need to do their jobs,” reported The Guardian.

As a consequence 13 percent of infants die in their first year of life across the US, note researchers.

Of note, Trump has flip flopped on the issue of abortion, and while he has not stated that he would favor a national ban, and said he would veto a national ban, the use of the Comstock Act, he would not not need Congress to enact a national ban.

Joined by lawsuits across the country could use that act to do just that, a ban; and Justice Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, “both brought up the 151 year old law in recent arguments,” The Guardian also reported. 

American voters face a challenge on these issues, and more, and the crowds on both sides of the candidates face a certain level of anxiety on the outcome; but there are predictions and warnings that Trump won’t admit defeat, and instead declare victory even before the votes are counted, a calculated move to help foment violence in a reset of the attacks on the Capitol on January 6th, the day that lives in infamy for many Americans.

On Wednesday November 6th, Donald Trump was declared winner with 270 electoral votes

Updated November 6, 2024

US Jobs hit a snag for October

In a surprise to most, Friday’s Jobs report released by the US Bureau of Labor gave a shockingly low figure of 12,000 non farm jobs created, but the caveat was that the low figure was faulted by hurricanes Milton and Helene and the Boeing strike. Despite that most economists and government officials state that the American economy is still solid. A truer picture will come in December with the release of the November report.

While there are still complains about high prices, especially at the grocery store, inflation has actually come down by 2,4 a steady decrease from 2.5 in September, but public sentiment is that it is still too high, perhaps forgetting that those pre pandemic prices are unlikely to come back; and, that once retailers and suppliers, confounded three years ago, by supply chain issues, and higher overhead saw consumers continue to shop, so they were unlikely to decrease their profit margins, even if they could do so.

The good news is that wages for October increased to 0.4 percent, making them higher than inflation, and correspondingly consumer spending remained high, the driver of the US economy.

NPR reported this: "You’re still seeing wages and salaries running ahead of inflation," says economist Sarah House at Wells Fargo. "So that’s still really beneficial for overall consumer spending growth and keeping it in the black.”

With the presidential election just around the corner and former president Donald Trump saying that he heard Americans and that the US single handedly bringing inflation down and restoring manufacturing jobs, while proposing a tariff that would increase consumer goods prices, a political conundrum exists.

VIce President Kamala Harris seems on surer ground with proposed efforts to prevent price gouging, but that might be a heavy lift without congressional support.

The Household Survey Data continue to show steady news: an unemployment rate little changed at 4.1 and the number of unemployed people at 7.0 million, great but perhaps not spectacular news for Harris, but neverthel;ess a solid number that the country can take pride in, Trump excepted.

Labor Force Participation those aged from 25 to 54 years old held a slight decrease from 83.8 percent to 83.5 percent,

Longterm unemployment remained at 1.6 million, little changed from the prior month. So, on an optimistic side, nothing lost, nothing gained, due to the storms and the Boeing layoff, but room for improvement, if not markedly so.

Temporary employment  took dramatic losses, since March of 2022, and steadily decreased for a few months, now reaching 49,000 for October.

Second to that significance was manufacturing which lost 46,000 jobs due to the decline of 44,000 in the manufacturing of transportation equipment from the machinist strike at Boeing.

All eyes are on the Federal Reserve Bank at their meeting next week, and they are expecting, as planned, a quarter percentage point decrease in interest rates to keep the economy chugging.

USA Strong as September Jobs show strength

It’s been a gamut of reactions on the American economy over the last few years as the country faced down the realities of the COVID pandemic, and the September Jobs Report from the United States Labor Department has given a longer more nuanced look at the world’s first economy, and has shown what can only be seen as, dare we say it, resilient; but, perhaps the best evaluation is strong, as the US economy added 254,000 jobs, far exceeding the 150,000 expected, and it has also proved to be a pivotal move for future movements from the Federal Reserve Bank as it further calibrates interest rates.

The report also moves the idea of a recession further away from the naysayers who much like Cassandra of mythology, have erroneously predicted a pending recession, often told to us, as we have reported before, in hushed tones, often over fresh produce in the supermarket, or on the crosstown bus.

Those fears allayed, and hopefully put to rest, but this strength has given a push to the waning days of the Biden administration, and also a major push towards the candidacy of Kamala Harris, the Democratic contender for the presidency, and against her rival former President Donald Trump, who in a number of polls has held an edge in how potential voters feel about who has the economic strength in handling an economy once burdened by the pandemic and the subsequent supply chain bottleneck that kept supplies from everything from diapers to blenders on backorder. 

Nevermind the fact that presidents have little control over the economy as a free market economy like the US tends to self regulate, or as early undergraduates may remember: the legendary “unseen hand”; Adam Smith anyone?

President Biden in a statement from the White House said that, “with today’s report, we’ve created 16 million jobs, unemployment remains low, and wages are growing faster than prices,” but most importantly, “Under my Administration, unemployment has been the lowest in 50 years, a record 19 million new business have been created, and inflation and interest rates are falling.”.

An unemployment rate of 4.1 percent, underscores the historic record quoted by Biden, and with 7,000 jobs in September, but up from 137,000 since the pandemic.

“It’s an incredible number,” said Diane Swonk, the chief economist at KPMG humorously reported, and added, “The labor market is apparently not cooling as rapidly as we thought. It’s either the most magnificent soft landing we have ever achieved or there is going to be some further consternation about how sustained this can be.”

Another keypoint is that Black unemployment has decreased to 5.7 percent, considered as The New York Times reported, a bellwether for employment, since they are the last to be hired, and the first to be fired.

According to The New York Times, “By several measures, the job market is historically strong. People in their prime working years of 25 to 54 are employed at a rate previously seen only in the early 2000s. Average hourly earnings are strong — and climbing — even when adjusted for inflation. Women in their peak working ages are participating in the labor market at the highest levels on record.”

Wages are now up 4 percent from a year ago, now outpacing the rising prices, but as has been reported inflation has gone down, but there is some suspicion that larger grocers, in particular, have depended on consumers used to paying higher prices to continue to do so, now that the die has been cast.

Nevertheless, “That means buying power is slowly being restored,” said Mark Hanrick, Bankrate’s senior economic analyst. But, as the old adage states, perception is one tenth of the law, and , saying that 40% of Americans are dissatisfied with the economy.

Taking a stronger stance was Heather Boushey with the Council of Economic Advisers, who said, “This is the kind of strong, steady pace that is delivering for people all across the country., and added, “You continue to see evidence that this remains a strong and healthy but not too fast, not too hot economy.”

As seen in prior reports the heavy hitters are still restaurants and bars, as well as construction that has continued its upward climb, a move that Boushey attributes to the Biden administration's prioritization of infrastructure semi conductors and clean energy that has resulted in 25,000 new construction jobs.

Labor force participation has hit 62.7 percent for peak aged workers those aged 25 to 54 years old.

The numbers reflect this reality: Healthcare along with education at 81,000; Leisure and Hospitality at 78,000; at 31,000; and Construction at 25,000.

For the Federal Reserve, it's’ unlikely at its next meeting, in November, that we are going to see significant cuts as it has calibrated these in a series of long running data point decisions; and,earlier with former Chair Janet Yellen who told the Wall Street Journal in 2015, “My own preference would be able to proceed and tighten in a prudent and gradual manner,” and with the current Chair Jerome Powell, who told reporters last week, “Our design overall is to achieve disinflation down to 2 percent without other kinds of painful increase in unemployment that has often come with disinflation processes”, and emphasized, “We haven’t completed that task.”

Examining and fact checking the Vice Presidential debate

In the wake of Tuesday’s presidential debate between Sen. JD Vance and Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota all who viewed it agreed it was more civil than was expected, as many felt that it was going to be a "throw down” between the two very different candidates, especially since the many volatile, and even vile attacks by the former, and would probably include attacks on the military records of the latter in the National Guard, while some expected Walz to attack the more egregious attacks by Vance on Haitian immigrants living in Springfield Ohio that he accused of kidnapping and eating pets and ducks in local waters.

Walz was also expected to contest Vance’s statements of women without children as “childless cat ladies” who, bereft of being a mother, lacked the necessary intelligence to function in American life.

That would be a lot to unpack what has been expected to be a very close election between their bosses, former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Walz came out of the gate visibly nervous but soon relaxed and was able to gain hold on the debate stage, despite his earlier warnings to Harris that he was no debater. Vance, who has scored the lowest favorability of any vice presidential candidate,(a negative 11 according to a CNN poll) in recent history must have been keenly aware of the fact and decided to rival the fabled “Minnesota Nice” aspect of his Democratic rival.

Vance as is well known has given scores of interviews and comments on a variety of media platforms extolling the virtues of Trump and his record, albeit weak, and demonizing Harris as a “Flip Flopper” despite his own record of likening Trump to Hitler and some embarrassing gaffs, most recently, in a store, in front of a display of eggs with a sign stating $2.99 a dozen, while blaming Harris for increasing them to $4.00 a dozen while holding a carton of 24 eggs, while his 7 year old son tried to point out his mistake by pointing at the sign.

Walz, on the other hand has gained a plus four net favorability, due in no small measure to his “everyman” image, and what has seemed apparent, a genuinely nice guy persona, evident on the campaign trail.

The expectation that Vance would outshine Walz, and attack him. on his misstating his title and record in the Guard, and his recollection of when he was in China and if so, was it during the uprising in Tiananmen Square, was low hanging fruit that the senator did not pounce on.

Vance to his credit, often referring to the governor as Tim and expressed empathy when he learned that Walz’s son had witnessed a shooting and said, “Christ have mercy.” A penitential response from the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Mass, or a heartfelt response from the senator, We like to think of the latter.

He is also a chameleon to some, an opportunist to others, a scion of Silicon Valley under the tutelage and mentorship of billionaire Peter Thiel, and who when pressed upon learning of Walz as Harris’ running mate was asked if they had anything in common by reporters, stated, “Well, look, I mean, yeah, we’re white guys from the Midwest.” and “I guess there are similarities there.”

That aside what Vance excelled at on Tuesday, and was often overlooked by some observers was that he lied continuously for nearly 90 minutes on almost every topic, even with a glaring falsehood that Trump did all he could to save the Affordable Care Act, that he and other Republicans have given the derisive label of “Obamacare,” when in fact Trump did everything he could to weaken and destroy President Obama’s signature piece of legislation, and key to his legacy, and even filed a lawsuit, that was later thrown out.

Blaming the nation’s lack of affordable housing on immigration, all illegal, and overlooking the fact that Haitian immigrants, especially in Ohio, a state he represents, are legally in this country under the Temporary Protected Status program..

Migrants were in fact, in Vance’s opinion, responsible for all of the ills of American society, and Walz’s truth telling did no good, as Vance was playing to his base, or to use a church held term, “preaching to the choir.”

In the scheme of things, vice presidential debates don’t count for much, save some memorable lines between Dan Quayle and Lloyd Bentsen, when the former claimed that he had a much experience as Jack Kennedy, and Bentsen famously quipped that he knew “Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine and senator you're no Jack Kennedy.”

Walz, for the most part, was error free with the glaring exception of misrepresenting Trump’s stance on contraception, and one that he has changed his position over the decades, along with abortion and seeing that it is a winning issue for Democrats is now embracing contraception and IVF 

Of all the moments in the debate this showed Walz as his strongest and he categorically denied that doctors in Minnesota could end the life of a 9 month old baby after an abortion.

Before we cite the record from our friends at factcheck.org, let’s shake our collective heads in disbelief as Vance continuously pounded on Harris as if she was president, and ignoring the fact that vice presidents are not policy makers, don’t create executive actions, don’t create policy ,and don’t rule in a country where there is the rule of law, but that did not stop him from uttering such nonsensical lines as, “why didn’t Kamala Harris do. . . “ and :”Why not do them now?”

Of note, Harris never held the title of “Border Czar” and was only tasked by Biden to examine the root causes of immigration from the Southern Border; and, neither she, nor any president or vice president set grocery prices.

Was this another cudgel to beat the vice president, or was it a tactical admission that she might just win the presidency, and that he is rehearsing his stump speech in the future?

As promised, some fact checking of the debate from Factcheck.org:

“Vance claimed that housing “is totally unaffordable because we brought in millions of illegal immigrants to compete with Americans for scarce homes.” But economists and housing experts say that the primary reason for the tight housing market is the decline in new residential construction that followed the Great Recession.

Walz misleadingly linked former President Donald Trump’s tax cuts to “an $8 trillion increase in the national debt, the largest ever.” But trillions of that debt were due to bipartisan COVID-19 relief packages. And the debt increase so far under the Biden administration is nearly as high.

In describing an abortion law Walz signed in Minnesota, Vance said physicians were no longer required to provide life-saving care to infants “born alive.” But he neglected to say that the law still requires such infants to be given proper medical care and be “accorded immediate protection under the law.” Such cases pertain to situations involving induced labor for medical reasons such as fetal abnormalities.

Vance claimed that “we have 320,000 children that the Department of Homeland Security has effectively lost.” An August inspector general report said about that many unaccompanied minors who illegally entered the U.S. had not shown up for immigration court between fiscal years 2019 and 2023, or had not received a summons to appear in court. The report did not say they were “lost.”

Walz falsely claimed that “their” Project 2025 will establish a registry of pregnancies, referring to what might happen under a Trump-Vance administration. However, the Trump campaign has disavowed Project 2025. The conservative document advocates mandatory state reporting of abortions and miscarriages, but not the tracking of pregnancy in general.

Walz said that Project 2025 “is going to make it more difficult, if not impossible, to get contraception and limit access, if not eliminate access, to infertility treatments.” Some policies in the document could in effect limit contraception and infertility treatments, but Trump has said he does not want to restrict access to contraception and that he would expand access to in vitro fertilization.

Vance incorrectly claimed the U.S. has the “cleanest economy,” while falsely hinting that carbon emissions might not be driving climate change. 

Vance claimed that because of Vice President “Kamala Harris’ open border, we’ve seen a massive influx in the number of illegal guns run by the Mexican drug cartels.” But the concern of the U.S. and Mexican governments has been American-made guns trafficked from the U.S. to Mexico.

Walz said “less than 2%” of the border wall that Trump promised “got built.” That undersells the amount of wall built during the Trump administration relative to what was promised.

Vance blamed Harris for “letting in … 25 million illegal aliens.” That’s a grossly exaggerated figure.

Walz countered that illegal border “crossings are down compared to when Donald Trump left office,” which is true when comparing the last two months to the last two months under Trump. But looking at Harris’ entire time as vice president, illegal border crossings are up substantially.

Vance claimed that Harris “let fentanyl into our communities at record levels.” That’s not clear. The amount of fentanyl seized by border officials has increased during the Biden administration, which may indicate that more fentanyl is crossing the border undetected.

Walz said that the “last 12 months saw the largest decrease in opioid deaths in our nation’s history.” Provisional data show that reported opioid deaths have declined significantly in the 12 months ending in April. But the figure is still higher than it was at the start of the Biden-Harris administration.

Vance claimed that Trump “could have destroyed” the Affordable Care Act, but instead “worked in a bipartisan way to ensure that Americans had access to affordable care.” Trump did try to destroy the ACA, including by backing a lawsuit that would have nullified it.

Walz said that if Trump had repealed the ACA “you lose your preexisting conditions,” adding that if you’ve “got asthma, too bad.” Ending the law would significantly reduce protections for those with preexisting conditions, but before the ACA, employer-based plans couldn’t deny issuing a policy.

Vance slightly overstated the inflation rate for groceries under Biden and ignored macroeconomic causes for rising prices when blaming Biden and Harris for food inflation.

Walz claimed that “Donald Trump hasn’t paid any federal tax in the last 15 years,” but that’s not quite right. The former president didn’t pay federal income taxes in 2020, but he did pay various amounts between 2015 and 2018. Trump also did not pay taxes in 10 of the 15 years before he became president.”

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