Springfield, OH And Gov DeWine

I was intrigued to read this piece:

The GOP governor of Ohio and many pro-migration media outlets insist the federal government’s huge Haitian migration into the city of Springfield is legal.

“They are there legally,” Gov. Mike DeWine wrote in a September 20, op-ed for the New York Times. “I am saddened by how they and others continue to repeat claims that lack evidence and disparage the legal migrants living in Springfield.”

Yesterday I linked to a story that refers to Haitians, Venezuelans, and others as "parole migrants". I've been calling them "quasi-legal". One of the programs by which they're in the country is Termporary Protected Status, which accordinbg to Wikipedia

is given by the United States government to eligible nationals of designated countries, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security, who are present in the United States. In general, the Secretary of Homeland Security may grant temporary protected status to people already present in the United States who are nationals of a country experiencing ongoing armed conflict, an environmental disaster, or any temporary or extraordinary conditions that would prevent the foreign national from returning safely and assimilating into their duty [sic]. Temporary protected status allows beneficiaries to live and, in some cases, work in the United States for a limited amount of time. As of March 2022, there are more than 400,000 foreign nationals in Temporary Protected Status.

The entry goes on to say,

The 2021 United States Supreme Court case Sanchez v. Mayorkas affirmed that temporary protected status only granted legal status to remain in the country and was not equivalent to lawful admission into the country. Thus, those immigrants that had entered the country unlawfully but had received temporarily protected status are ineligible to apply for permanent resident status simply through virtue of their temporary protected status.

Thus Gov DeWine's remarks are misleading -- the Haitians here under Temporary Protected Status aren't "legal migrants". They're here under a temporary provision that can be revoked any time, for instance, if a new administration declares that Haiti is not a country for which its migrants are eligible. This raises the puzzling question of why Gov DeWine, a Republican, supports the presence of so many Haitians in Springfield and appears to be so sensitive when the issue comes up in media.

Although there's less documentation for Haitians eating pets and protected waterfowl, troubling incidents have definitely come to light:

🚨🪿 Springfield, Ohio:

𝗜 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝗻 𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗰𝗸 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝗱 𝗺𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗿𝘂𝗻 𝗶𝗻𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗛𝗮𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘁𝘆 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗿𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 “𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁” 𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗺𝗮𝗹𝘀.

“We had a… pic.twitter.com/9hBfRealU6

— Tayler Hansen (@TaylerUSA) September 13, 2024

Haitians causing traffic accidents in Springfield have also been a widely reported problem, most recently here:

Springfield has attracted national media attention in recent weeks over reports that some of the Haitians were stealing and eating pets and waterfowl, but residents say a more pressing issue has been their reckless driving.

. . . One Springfield resident estimated that there are four to five accidents a day caused by the Haitian immigrants, who are somehow able to drive around town without understanding basic traffic laws.

. . . In December, Springfield grandmother Kathy Heaton was struck and killed by a Haitian immigrant driving with an expired license while she was collecting her garbage cans. Prosecutors declined to charge the 38-year-old driver, the Post reported.

. . . [Neighboring Tremont City, OH Police Chief Chad] Duncan told the Blaze that the immigrants are often not licensed to operate vehicles, but Springfield appears to be protecting them from facing any real consequences for their reckless driving.

. . . Duncan told Rosas about a recent traffic stop in Tremont City involving a Haitian national going 44 mph in a 25 mph zone.

“He didn’t even have a license,” he said, adding that it was the second time over a two-week period that he pulled the driver over so he had the individual’s car towed.

Duncan told Rosas that he didn’t think Springfield police would have towed the vehicle in that instance, and speculated why he thought that was the case.

“If you get two misdemeanors, you are subject to be deported,” he explained.

In this post, I covered how Springfield's Republican mayor and others in the city establishment are profiting from the Haitians by renting slum housing to them and employing them in sweatshops. Chief Duncan speculates here that the Springfield police have been told not to arrest the Haitians for traffic offenses, because it could get them deported, which would cut into the incomes of the mayor and his cronies. This would also explain why the Springfield police chief has been so quick to minimize the Haitian problem with the media.

On September 12, I noted that once Trump surfaced the Sprinfgfield Haitian problem at the debate, Gov DeWine suddenly sent the Ohio State Highway Patrol to Springfield to help solve the traffic problem -- but Chief Duncan of the neighboring town noted another part of the story:

Duncan also said that his access to Springfield’s police radio frequency was cut off after the city was thrust into the media spotlight over the Haitian influx.

“We were able to hear them on the radio. They have decided to go silent. We don’t know what’s going on in the city,” Duncan said. “That happened the day they brought the State Troopers in to help them out.”

When asked why he believes Springfield Police shut off communications, Duncan speculated that it was to avoid accountability for their actions.

“When no one can hear what you’re saying, they don’t know what you’re doing so they don’t have to answer for it,” he explained.

So what's up with Gov DeWine? A problem like the huge quantities of immigrants coming in under Temporary Protected Status wouldn't exist unless powerful people wanted it. In the case of Springfield, these powerful people are Republicans, and they have the Republican governor covering their backs.

"Trump Should Be Running Away With the Election. Why Isn’t He?"

An essay by Oiver Wiseman with the above title is at The Free Press, tellingly limked at Real Clear Politics:

A lot has changed since [July 15] —most importantly Trump’s opponent—and rather than holding an unassailable lead, he is in the middle of a dogfight for the White House. What happened? Part of the story is of a Democratic Party pulling itself together, ditching its senescent candidate, and falling into line behind Kamala Harris. But the other part concerns Donald Trump himself, and the campaign he has chosen to run.

I dom't think it's a coincidence at all that Real Clear Politics likes this essay -- it chraracterizes the current campaign as a "dogfight for the White House" almost entirely bsased on the RCP poll aggregates that mix garbage polls with a few respectaable ones and come up with averages that put Kamala slightly ahead, which justifies the "razor thin" conventional wisdom about the current state of the election. If anything, current reports show visible movement in Trump's direction, on top of the near-universal observation that Trump outperforms the polls on Election Day. For instance,

Former President Donald Trump has surged three points in Pennsylvania since July, while Vice President Kamala Harris has dropped one point, according to a poll.

. . . Trump registered at 43 percent in a July Susquehanna poll conducted from July 22-28, as the Hill noted. Harris, at 47 percent in July, had a four-point edge on Trump, while independent Robert F Kennedy had seven percent of the response.

However, the lead has vanished as Trump, who was endorsed by Kennedy following the independent’s departure from the race, surges heading into the home stretch of the election.

But Wiseman continues,

And yet the presidential race is a toss-up. . . . Is it because she is getting a very easy ride from the media? Okay, that may be part of it. With only a handful of interviews and some help from a sympathetic press corps, Harris has shed her image as the most unpopular vice president in recent history and rebranded as a viable candidate.

But more to the point, Trump has allowed her to rebrand, offering no consistent critique of the country’s eminently critique-able vice president. He flopped so badly in his first debate with her he is now running scared from a rematch.

Again, we're seeing the same imputation that Trump "flopped" the debate that we saw from Sean Trende and Karl Rove, and my answer continues to be that the single memorable line from the night was Trump's:

In Springfield, they are eating the dogs. The people that came in, they are eating the cats. They’re eating – they are eating the pets of the people that live there.

This claim was immediately denounced by the same media that gave Kamala her free ride as a "hoax", while it never took up the hoaxes that Kamala herself raised in the debate, such as the Charlottesville "very fine people" hoax. But as I've been saying, the eating-the-cats meme has gone viral, for a key reason: it calls out the actual damage the surge of quasi-legal immigrants with work permits has done. This is in fact a policy issue that Trump has continued to pursue:

“Get ready to leave,” Trump told Fox News when he was asked what message he would say to the more than 1 million parole migrants. “Especially quickly if they’re criminals, get ready to leave because you’re going to be going out real fast,” he added.

"Parole migrants" covers several categories of quasi-legals who are under various types of parole or protected status but are not formally "legal".

Many of the job-seeking parole migrants fly in from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Ukraine, and elsewhere via commercial flights. These “CHNV” parole migrants get two-year visas to take jobs in the United States while separated from their families at home — much like President George W. Bush’s failed 2001 “Any Willing Worker” plan.

Many other parole migrants and families cross the southern border after getting quasi-legal approval via the “CBP One” cellphone app.

The result is a flood of hard-working, compliant, wage-cutting, rent-spiking workers into Americans’ towns and cities, such as Springfield, Ohio, and New York City.

These parole migrants will work in sweatshop conditions, forced to kick back some of their low pay to "employment agencies" that sponsor them. They're compliant, because if they lose their jobs, they'll be sent back. It appears that the parole migrant policies stem from Biden executve orders that can be canceled as soon as Trump comes into office. It should be noted, though, that a debate-team style discussion of these policies will simply put people to sleep. Wiseman seems to miss this entirely:

Instead of working hard to convince voters Harris is unfit for the top job, the Trump campaign has wasted too much time on two things: stupid stuff and bad stuff.

. . . Second, the bad. . . . Indulging an unproven, sinister fantasy about pet-eating Haitian migrants in Ohio.

Wiseman concludes,

He had the chance to . . . rise above partisanship and lawfare and political violence and occupy the center ground of American politics with a pitch focused on the economy and immigration, all while hammering Harris for her radical past positions and the fact she was likely part of the Biden cover-up, pretending he was competent enough to run for reelection.

I don[t understand. Lawfare and political violence have been tools of the other side -- Fani Willis and Jack Smith on one hand; Thomas Crooks and Ryan Routh on the other. So far, it appears that Trump has defeated both the lawfare and political violence, and as far as I can tell, he's neither unleashed federal and state prosecutors against Kamala nor dispatched assassination squads. Why suggest he's doing these things?

But by the same token, he's been making just what Wiseman thinks he ought to be making, "a pitch focused on the economy and immigration, all while hammering Harris for her radical past positions". The eating the pets meme is, after all, focused on immigration, while he's been running ad after ad showing Kamala herself advocating her radical past positions. What else could he be doing?

What seems to be at the heart of the complaints I've seen recently from Karl Rove and now Oliver Wiseman is that Trump isn't turning into Mitt Romney, some sort of boring pretty-boy non-partisan centrist. He's doing just fine as Donald Trump.

Yet More Dribbles Out On The Rouths

Yesterday had two headlines, first, that Routh's son, Oran, was arrested on child pornography charges following an FBI search of his phone related to the investigation of his father. Second, via Politico, US officials looked at Americans traveling to Ukraine to fight. Ryan Routh fell through the cracks. Both raise separate sets of questions.

Regarding the child pornography arrest, leaving the specific charge aside, what we're being told in the corporate media narrative contradicts earlier parts of the media narrative -- for starters, just the puzzle of what Oran had been telling reporters about his father. For instance, as of September 15,

Routh's son, Oran Routh, reached by DailyMail.com shortly after Sunday's shooting, said this was the first he'd heard of the alleged assassination attempt.

'This was the first I heard about it,' the 35-year-old exclusively told DailyMail.com. 'Was my father shot or injured?'

. . . 'He's my dad and all he's had is couple traffic tickets, as far as I know,' the son said. 'That's crazy. I know my dad and love my dad, but that's nothing like him.'

. . . Routh moved to Hawaii a few years back and was living with his longtime girlfriend. He said he didn't know his father was even in Florida.

'He said he was at the beach, but I thought that meant the outer banks in Hawaii,' he said. 'I didn't ask him for more information because we've had a falling out. We've grown apart.'

He wouldn't explain the nature of their 'falling out,' but still spoke highly of his father.

'He's not a violent person,' he said. 'He's a hard worker and a great dad. He's a great dude, a nice guy and has worked his whole f**king life.'

This is at varianmce with the actual record:

Court records showed Routh has a long history of breaking traffic laws, not paying his taxes on time and writing bad checks. But it was in 2002 that he lost his right to own a gun when he pleaded guilty to a felony in North Carolina for possessing an illegal explosive device in April.

Months after his arrest in that case while released on a bond, Routh fled from a traffic stop by a police officer near his home in Greensboro, North Carolina, and barricaded himself inside his roofing business for several hours before police were able to arrest him for having a concealed handgun without a permit, according to court records and a 2002 news article by the Greensboro News & Record.

A few days later, Routh pleaded guilty to possession of what court records described as a "binary explosive with a 10-inch detonation cord and a blasting cap," which is defined in North Carolina law as a weapon of mass destruction and is a felony punishable by up to 59 months in prison, according to the county district attorney's office and the Guilford County Superior Court clerk's office. He was sentenced to probation.

Eight years later, he again pleaded guilty to felonies after he was charged with possession of stolen goods: a blowtorch, a pull-cart and a power cord, according to the district attorney's office. As the owner of several roofing companies, he has been repeatedly sued by people accusing him of not paying his bills.

Oran Routh has apparently been living in Greensboro, NC:

Oran Routh was arrested this week after authorities searched his Greensboro, North Carolina, home “in connection with an investigation unrelated to child exploitation,” an FBI official said in court papers.

Greensboro had also been the Routh family's home town, where Oran's father, Ryan, had been well known to police:

The man accused of pointing a rifle into the golf course where former President Donald Trump was playing last weekend was known in his hometown as something of a bad actor.

“Weird” is how one of Ryan Routh’s former neighbors in Greensboro described him. She told reporters he once had a horse in his house and that he also kept guns.

. . . But if Routh’s neighbors didn’t know him well, the police sure did.

“We were on a first-name basis,” said Eric Rasecke, a now-retired Greensboro police officer whose beat included the areas where Routh lived and worked.

Although on September 15, Oran told the Daily Mail he thought Ryan was back in Hawaii, federal prosecutors said in court Monday:

Routh’s cellphone data shows that he “traveled from the Greensboro, North Carolina, area, to West Palm Beach, Florida,” on Aug. 14, according to the filing in U.S. District Court in West Palm Beach.

It's hard not to think Oran knew his father was in town, despite what he'd been telling the press. Even before his child pornography arrest, I have a sense we can't trust a thing he says.

But let's look at the other issue: Ryan, who should have been on a watch list -- as various commentators have pointed out before now -- somehow "fell through a crack". At the Politico link above,

The Department of Homeland Security in 2022 launched an interagency effort to scrutinize Americans returning from Ukraine’s war zone. The previously unreported effort aimed to identify Americans who might turn violent upon their return, according to five people familiar with the plans. Officials worried the Russia-Ukraine war would attract American extremists who would learn combat skills on the battlefield and then attack their fellow Americans when they returned.

Given the mindset of "officials", it's hard to avoid thinking the likely "extremists" would be of the right-wing Trumpist variety, and as long as Routh was anti-Trump, he was fine. But even so, he'd been caught with a "binary explosive with a 10-inch detonation cord and a blasting cap", which you'd think would put him on some kind of list -- you sure you're OK with him getting on a plane? -- and then in 2019, the FBI decided not to follow up on a tip:

Jeffrey Veltri, special agent in charge of the Miami field office, said at a news conference Monday [September 16] that the bureau was tipped off that Routh was a "felon in possession of a firearm."

"In following up on the tip, the alleged complainant was interviewed and did not verify providing the initial information," Veltri said. "The FBI passed that information to local law enforcement in Honolulu."

The investigation was then closed due to lack of additional information.

Apparently the follow-up didn't include finding out about the possession of a weapon of mass destruction charge. Regarding the potential investigation as a returnee from Ukraine, the Politico piece continues,

The episode raises questions about whether the U.S. government is applying the right criteria to assess the risks of Americans who have tried to join the war. Experts say most of the Americans who have fought are U.S. veterans concerned about protecting the fledgling democracy from Russia’s invasion.

Routh, however, was a different story.

“He probably should have been subject, based on his behavior, to some type of threat assessment,” said John Cohen, a former top DHS official who described the effort to POLITICO.

But he was anti-Trump, so not a problem, huh? Sundance observes at The Last Refuge,

As you take off your shoes and undergo extensive scrutiny as a result of the Patriot Act, the subsequently formed DHS and the TSA, it’s worth remembering, as initially sold, the creation of the DHS was specifically intended to stop domestic terror threats, ie. EXACTLY the activity that Ryan Routh was engaged in.

The justification to create the DHS and subsequent intrusive activity of the United States security apparatus, was to stop unstable and sketchy people from carrying out violence internally within the homeland. However, as many voices warned at the time, the mission of the agencies created by The Patriot Act, actualized with DHS and FBI conducting surveillance of parents at school board meetings, monitoring white men in the U.S. military, tracking pastors, preachers and Christian congregations, and registering law-abiding gun owners while the sketchy and unstable simply run amok.

The whole record of Routh's adult life says he was precisely the kind of person who should have been on some kind of watch list.

More Dribbles Out About Ryan Routh

There's been a certain amount of anxiety over the US Justice Departmebnt's release of a handwritten letter from wannabe Trump assassin Ryan Routh offering $150,000 to anyone who can "complete the job" -- except that it was found in a box Routh left with an unnamed contact months before his September 15 arrest. In many ways, the letter raises the least of the new questions. Here is more of what came out in yesterdays bail hearing, via USA Today:

Routh allegedly left the handwritten letter in a metal box with someone, who wasn’t named in the court filing from prosecutors, months before the incident at the golf course. The witness opened the box after hearing about Routh's arrest, and law enforcement visited the person Sept. 18. The box also contained ammunition, a metal pipe, building materials, four phones and several letters, prosecutors said.

“This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you,” said the letter, a picture of which appears in the court filing. “I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster. It is up to you now to finish the job; and I will offer $150,000 to whomever can complete the job.”

. . . The FBI’s analysis of Routh’s phone showed that he traveled from the area around Greensboro, North Carolina, to West Palm Beach, Florida, on Aug.14. On multiple days and times from Aug. 18 to Sept. 15, Routh’s phone accessed cell towers near Trump International Golf Club and the former president’s residence at Mar-a-Lago.

After local authorities pulled Routh over in a black Nissan Xterra seen leaving the golf course, officers discovered license plates didn’t belong to the vehicle. FBI agents found two additional license plates inside, along with six cellphones, 12 pairs of gloves, a Hawaii driver’s license, a passport and a handwritten list of dates in August, September and October where the former president had been or was expected.

One of the cellphones contained a search query asking how to travel from Palm Beach County to Mexico.

Via NBC Los Angeles,

Cell site records from two of the phones indicated Routh had traveled from Greensboro, North Carolina, to West Palm Beach on Aug. 14.

Further, on “multiple days and times from Aug. 18, 2024, to Sept. 15, 2024, Routh’s cellphone accessed cell towers located near Trump International and the former president’s residence at Mar-a-Lago,” the filing said.

His defense attorney said Routh’s sister is a licensed attorney in North Carolina and was willing to house him if he was released on bail. Ultimately, U.S. Magistrate Judge Ryon M. McCabe ruled Routh would be held pending his trial.

A web search tells me the Nissan Xterra was discontinued in 2015, so this is probably not a rental. The fake license plates suggest it could be stolen, or it might belong to Routh's sister in North Carolina. A web searchfor "Routh sister" comes up empty. A search on the North Carolina bar site brings up a Ms Kelly R Routh in Charlotte. The Routh Law web site says it specializes in family law, but there is nothing to indicate any connection to a Ryan Routh. However, this same attorney Kelly R Routh is listed as receiving a 5-year disciplinary suspension in 2022 for mishandling entrusted funds. Her web site says nothing about her suspension.

If his sister is an attorney, this may help explain the apparently lenient treatment Ryan has previously received for his previous criminal convictions. Commentators have occasionally raised the question of how Routh could have been charged in 2002 with

possession of a fully automatic machine gun, referred to in court filings as a weapon of mass destruction[, a felony]. He was also charged with carrying a concealed weapon, as well as driving without a valid license and resisting, delaying, and obstructing law enforcement, according to Greensboro News and Record.

While the disposition of the case isn’t entirely clear, Routh did plead guilty to carrying a concealed gun.

Possession of a weapon of mass destruction in North Carolina is a Class F felony, which can result in up to 41 months in prison. Routh's prior criminal record should have resulted in a more severe penalty than what he eventually seems to have received. Another source says,

In exchange for pleading guilty, the state gave him 60 months of probation where his firearms and explosives were seized and destroyed by Greensboro police. He also had to have a mental evaluation. (Editor's note: we are working to see if Routh completed this requirement and how it went).

Records also show Routh's criminal background in North Carolina stretches back to 1984 when he had a failure to report an accident charge.

In 2010, Routh said he had never tried drugs or alcohol. That's the same year he was convicted of possession of stolen property. A judge wrote that Routh's stolen property conviction was the possession of three trailers of stolen tools and building materials (welding torches, tanks, carts, power cords, etc) from sites where he worked as a roofer. He also had a stolen pickup truck.

A police investigator found Routh kept the stolen property at his business and the property was a big mess. When a neighbor asked him to clean up the property "he pulled a knife on him and told him to leave the property."

The property owner said Routh was using the property with no lease and without her knowledge.

We're still left with the question of how Routh lived in Florida between August 14 and September 15, and the separate question for his sister as an attorney -- it's hard to avoid thinking that, given her brother's record, she knew, or should have known, he was up to no good. At least for now, she's starting to look like an enabler at best, leaving aside the possible suspension of the attorney Kelly Routh, which doesn't bode well for her own future.

But the most we can say for the time being is that the prosecutors seem to have a great deal more than they've made public.

Sen Fetterman On Eating The Cats

Welker: "Why should voters trust" Kamala wouldn't ban fracking?

Fetterman: "It's so strange why we keep talking about fracking"

Welker: You called fracking a "stain on Pennsylvania." What do you now like about fracking?"

Fetterman: "They're eating dogs. They're eating cats." pic.twitter.com/kkVkT13PU7

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) September 22, 2024

Sen Fetterman uttered a sphinx-like remark over the weekend that seems to have pundits confused. In the wake of the apparent non-sequitur in the clip above, Tim Haines said,

When repeatedly pressed about abandoning his opposition to fracking during a "Meet The Press" interview on Sunday, Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman said he doesn't have to answer that kind of specific policy question because "the other side" doesn't take policy seriously.

I don't think that was whnat the senator said, and I definitely don't think that was the subtext of what he said. Here are key excerpts from the transcript quoted in the story:

KRISTEN WELKER: . . . In 2018 you said you don't support fracking at all. But then in 2022 you said you absolutely support fracking. Senator, what exactly do you like about fracking now?

SENATOR JOHN FETTERMAN: . . . And you know, here I am now, I'm a United States Senator, and I won by five points, a record margin back in '22. And again, it might be an issue in fracking. And I totally support fracking. So does the Vice President Harris. And now if you want to have a serious conversation about policy, then I would challenge Trump and Vance to have one other than talking about eating pets.

KRISTEN WELKER: . . . But to the point, what do you now like about fracking? You say you're not going to ban it; you support it now.

SENATOR JOHN FETTERMAN: "They're eating dogs, they're eating cats." You know, again, so okay. Yes, any more on fracking?

His basic answer to Kristen Welker's question obout fracking was an appeal to realpolitik: he ran on fracking in 2022, he supported it in that election, and he won by five points. She continued to press him, and losing patience -- he's a surprisingly smart guy -- he answered with another appeal to realpolitik: Trump and Vance are running on Haitians eating pets, and it's winning, the same way he won by supporting fracking in 2022. That's his answer.

This is consistent with his earlier remarks on Trump:

“Trump has created a special kind of a hold” among voters in the Keystone State, said Fetterman, securing “a special kind of place in Pennsylvania.”

Fetterman said, “I want people to understand, it’s not science, but there is energy, and there is kinds of anger on the ground in Pennsylvania and people are very committed, and Trump is going to be strong.”

Earlier in Sunday's interview, he suggested fracking won't be the issue that decides this year's election in Pennsylvania:

While Fetterman suggested fracking is now a fringe issue among Pennsylvanians, a recent poll showed broad bipartisan support, with 68 percent of those polled supporting fracking and just 19 percent against the practice.

But what will be the issue that decides the election, then? I think he gave his answer -- "They're eating dogs, they're eating cats." There's anger on the ground in Pennsylvania.

This is where many republicans misread Trump's strategy. Karl Rove had this to say after the September 10 debate:

Rove, who is also a political contributor for Fox News, recalled Trump’s previous insult of Harris in July as “dumb as a rock” and wrote: “Which raises the question: What does that make him?”

The question concluded Rove’s withering critique of Trump’s debate performance, which he said was a “train wreck” for the former president and “far worse than anything Team Trump could have imagined.”

Trump “let his emotions get the better of him” and “did a terrible job at his most important task — tying her to President Biden’s failed policies,” said Rove.

Harris “came across as calm, confident, strong and focused on the future” while Trump was “hot, angry and fixated on the past, especially his own,” he added.

Except, as Sen Fetterman says, there's anger on the ground, something Trump sees, and he's reflecting it in his manner. Why was the one memorable line in the debate about eating dogs and cats? Why did that find its way into a viral video? Why is legacy media so intent on using it to call Trump supporters racist?

Sen. Marco Rubio responded to questions about what Donald Trump has said about the migrant crisis in Springfield, Ohio, during an interview with Margaret Brennan on CBS's "Face The Nation."

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, here in this country, in terms of people being inspired to take action, we have been looking, as you heard about, what the perception of the public is right now, particularly some of the things that Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance say. Our poll shows two thirds of Trump supporters believe those false and disparaging claims about Haitian migrants are true. . . . the verbal attacks dilute and cloud what should be a winning argument for Republicans about the border. Do you agree that this kind of thing is a distraction from the broader point and dangerous?

. . . SEN. RUBIO: That is a story here that everyday Americans are being made to feel like they're haters because they're complaining about something all- any of us would complain. If any of us, I don't care who we are, live in a city of 4,000 people, and you bring in 2,500 migrants overnight into one place, there are going to be problems there.

MARGARET BRENNAN: There are absolutely problems--

SEN. RUBIO: It doesn't make you a bigot there. That should be what we're focused on.

Margaret Brennan is simply supporting Sen Fetterman's insight: CBS's own polls show that Trump's remarks about eating the cats have had a powerful effect. These are the subliminal messages that Trump understands instinctively. and Sen Fetterman, a politician who seems to have been underrated, understands that Trump understands them.

A Harris-Trump Second Debate? Of Course Not.

A puzzling exchange between the Harris and Trump campaigns over a second Trump-Harris debate hasn't drawn much attention. Yesterday, on a Saturday. the New York Post reported,

Vice President Kamala Harris has accepted CNN’s invitation to debate Donald Trump for a second time ahead of the November election — despite the latter’s insistence that he doesn’t see a “need” to face-off again.

“The American people deserve another opportunity to see Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump debate before they cast their ballots,” Harris-Walz campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said Saturday.

“It would be unprecedented in modern history for there to just be one general election debate. Debates offer a unique chance for voters to see the candidates side by side and take stock of their competing visions for America.

“Vice President Harris is ready for another opportunity to share a stage with Donald Trump, and she has accepted CNN’s invitation to a debate on October 23.”

Well, for starters, weren't there actually two debates, scheduled when Joe was still in the race? The first was June 27, and we know what happened. Kamala appeared for the second one, in which Joe was originally scheduled to appear, on September 10. The background for that schedule is given in Wikipedia:

On May 15, 2024, the Biden campaign announced that it would not participate in the [Commission on Presidential Debates]-hosted debates and instead invited Trump to participate in two alternative debates to take place in June and September, each hosted in a TV news studio without an audience. Jen O'Malley Dillon, the Biden campaign manager, laid out three reasons for sidelining the CPD, indicating that the debates were not completed until early voting started, that the debates had become "a spectacle" and that the CPD could not "enforce its own rules". . . . Biden and Trump accepted an offer from CNN to hold the first of these debates on June 27 and from ABC to hold the second on September 10.

Trump indicated the same day that he had accepted a Fox News debate to be hosted on October 2, 2024, though the Biden campaign dismissed the prospect of a third debate.

In other words, Jen O'Malley Dillon, at the time the Biden campaign mabager, set the debate terms and schedule on May 15. Following Joe's withdrawal, she continues as Kamala's campaign manager, although the actual organization chart by this point is unclear. And as of May 15, she rejected the idea of a third debate.

Except that by September 21, the same Jen O’Malley Dillon, campaign manager, announced that the American people deserve the same third debate that she rejected on May 15 -- even though the date she proposed, October 23, is well after voting starts, one of her reasons for rejecting the original CPD schedule.

At a Wilmington, NC rally later in the day, Trump rejected the call:

Trump revealed that he would reject CNN’s invitation to face off against Harris. He cited multiple factors, including that she’s losing the election, he’s already done two debates, voting has begun, and CNN won’t be fair.

The last two are particularly critical because perhaps over half the country will have already voted by the time October 23 arrives, and CNN was scratched by their media peers for being too fair to Trump. Thus, there is no upside to a second showdown.

So Jen O'Malley Dillon has done a 180 on one of her reasons for not having an additional debate, that it would be held after voting starts. That says to me that she, at least, wants a do-over for the September 10 debate, even though the conventional wisdom (which I noted that Sean Trende signed off on) was that Kamala "won" it. How could this be?

Well, here's a headline in Rolling Stone: In Springfield, Trump and Vance's Campaign of Racist Terror and Panic Is Working:

It didn't have to be this way - but, former President Trump and his running mate, Ohio's junior senator, gave voice to a baseless, racist lie about the small city's growing Haitian immigrant community stealing and eating pet dogs and cats, and made it a centerpiece of their campaign during the final weeks of the 2024 presidential election.

A TikTok video of Trump chanting "Eat the cats! Eat, eat the cats!" went viral. Ir didn't help that the Sunday after the debate, Trump survived a second assassinationm attempt, and a few days after that, he went on Gutfeld to record ratings and cracked jokes about the episode. I've said already that Gutfeld's poopy-pants routines about Biden probably had more to do with driving him out of the race than the June 27 debate.

But then Kamala had a disastrous appearance at a rally with Oprah, which followed the refusal of the Teamsters to endorse her. But pay no mind! Nate Silver says,

Harris is pretty clearly getting a bounce in national polls. She’s now up by 2.9 points in our polling average, as compared with 2.2 points on the day of the debate (and 2.0 points on the day after the debate, when there wasn’t yet any post-debate polling included in the averages).

Among the most recent polls that conducted some interviewing on Sunday or Monday, Harris has a larger lead: 4.6 points. So it’s possible that Harris is benefiting not just from the debate but also from the favorable news coverage that it’s brought her.

So why would Jen O'Malley Dillon seem to want a do-over on this same debate that has Kamala soaring in "the polls"? Good question. In fact, I have other questions:

• Why did Jen O'Malley Dillon announce that she wanted a third debate on a Saturday morning, when nobody would be paying attention?
• Why did she choose October 23 for the proposed date, when half the country would already be voting, and less than two weeks before November 5, election day, so late that the debate probably wouldn't matter anyhow?

One possible answer to the first question is that Trump's rejection would also come on a Saturday, when nobody would be paying attention. An answer to the second question would be that not even a Hail Mary play of a second debate would help the campaign. Trump clearly sees a second debate as nothing but the same waste of time the first one was, and Jen O'Malley Dillon pretty clearly agrees.

The strategy all along has been the same, whether for Biden or for Harris: the less voters see of them, the better. They didn't want an extra debate in May, and they understand pretty clearly that another debate in October won't help now. All I can think is that Saturday's announcement was some sort of token gesture intended to keep someone happy -- possibly Kamala herself.

So the debate proposal was on its face a feckless token, made for reasons that aren't clear by someone whose position on the org chart isn't clear, either. I don't think this augurs well for the campaign, but this isn't the picture "the polls" are painting. I think this shows you still have to watch for other, more subliminal signs.

Springfield, OH Mayor Profits From Haitians

In this post a week ago, I suggested that municipalities like Springfield, OH, Aurora, CO, and Charleroi, PA have experienced particulary troublesome influxes of illegal or quasi-legal immigrants because local power players, abetted by politicians, have exploited government subsidies, routed via non-profits, to make money off them. It hasn't been hard for local investigative reporters to uncover these schemes, as I discussed at that link regarding the case in Aurora, CO.

Now it turns out that the mayor of Springfield, OH is in on the same sort of boodle. Via the Buckeye Reporter,

A Buckeye Reporter investigation has confirmed that Mayor Rob Rue of Springfield, Ohio, is renting out apartments in buildings that he owns to Haitian immigrants—a move that some local residents are calling a conflict of interest.

. . . A few blocks away from Little and Rue Funeral Home, also owned by Rue, a 37-year-old man who introduced himself as “Works” lives in an apartment on an estate worth an estimated $1.3 million.

Works told Buckeye Reporter that he and other Haitian immigrants reside in properties owned by Rue.

. . . According to public records, Rue owns several rental properties in Springfield through his company, Littleton Properties of Springfield LLC.

. . . Rue became the Mayor of Springfield in 2023 and previously served as City Commissioner and Assistant Mayor, and is actively involved in local community boards.

Several residents have expressed disappointment with Rue’s leadership, suspecting he may have ulterior motives as he has overseen a significant influx of Haitian immigrants over the past two years.

Approximately 20,000 immigrants from Haiti have been brought into the community, with rumors suggesting that another 10,000 may arrive.

. . . “If Mayor Rue is renting out his properties to illegals the public should know. He should recuse himself from any vote on the Commission because he directly benefits financially from any federal funds received to support the illegals,” the Futurist™ X account said last week.

Residents of Springfield have noted they have been kicked out of their apartments to make room for Haitian immigrants.

“They've been raising the rent a lot,” 16-year-old Saphire Flores told Buckeye Reporter.

Rentals and government-subsidized rents are just one way the local power players make money off the Haitians.

[Springfield activist Bill] Monaghan said the situation is being exploited by certain individuals who are turning a profit.

“You've got this George Ten guy from First Diversity who now, you live in his house, he drives you to work, he takes a cut of your pay. It's just like a modern day slave operation,” he said.

Next door to Ten's First Diversity offices are a general store geared towards the Haitian population as well as a Haitian religious and community center.

. . . Through Ten Enterprises, LLC he owns at least 42 buildings in Springfield.

“He runs these temp agencies, brings in migrant workers, recruits them at the border, or probably with that all of these Haitians,” Monaghan said. “They're probably flying in straight from Haiti with this TPS program (Temporary Protected Status). So, yeah, he's kind of one of the leading slumlords, slave masters or whatever you want to call the guys in his operation.”

Monaghan said the entire immigration operation in Springfield reeks of corruption.

Let's recall that the people who've been consulted by the media that's been "fact-checking" claims that Haitians are eating cats, dogs, ducks, and geese have been the Mayor of Springfield and other city officials like the city manager and police chief, who at best don't want to get crosswise with the mayor, or at worst may be in on the boodle themselves. Thus we heard last week,

Springfield city and Clark County officials sought to set the record straight Tuesday after Springfield became fodder for the broader immigration debate as misinformation about Haitian immigrants garnered national attention.

Springfield Mayor Rob Rue said at a press conference Tuesday that rumors of pets or wildlife being eaten by Haitian immigrants were absolutely false, with zero verified reports of specific claims. He said Haitian immigrants had also not been reported to police to be squatting or littering in front of people’s homes.

“Rumors like this are taking away from the real issues such as issues involving our housing or school resources and our overwhelmed healthcare system,” Rue said.

Except that Rue himself, a Republican, is making money off the Haitians and raising rents on everyone, profiting from the housing shortage he's caused by bringing in the Haitians. And he definitely doesn't like it that Trump is focusing attention on his city, and neither does Republican Gov DeWine, who seems to be allied with Rue on this:

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and Springfield Mayor Rob Rue said at a press conference Thursday that they would like former President Donald Trump to stop making false claims about Haitian immigrants in Springfield and added they had not been in direct contact with him about his upcoming visit to the city.

Asked during a Q&A session if they were directly asking Trump not to come to Springfield, neither would go that far, but Rue came close. “As a visit from the former president will undoubtedly place additional demands on our safety infrastructure, should he choose to change his plans, it would convey a significant message of peace to the city of Springfield,” Rue said.

. . . In response to a question about whether he is hopeful that Trump will stop making baseless claims about Springfield, DeWine said “Well, I hope he does.”

Baseless claims indeed. Eat the cats! Eat, eat the cats!