"Garbage"

Plus, two football teams, one selfless act

October 31, 2024

The Flag

Good morning and Happy Thursday! Here are the Flag’s Top Five stories that should be on your radar to start the day:

  • US: Supreme Court allows Virginia to purge suspected noncitizens from voter registration rolls (CNN)

  • World: Israel wages deadly Gaza strikes as northern areas issue plea for help (Reuters)

  • Business: Amazon workers 'appalled' by AWS CEO’s return to office remarks, urge policy reversal (Reuters)

  • Technology: Apple updates the MacBook Pro with M4 Pro and M4 Max chips (The Verge)

  • Sports: Yankees fans who interfered with Mookie Betts banned from World Series Game 5 (ESPN)

BECOME A FLAG BEARER

🦃 Turkey with a side of presidential proclamations? Thanksgiving didn’t always have a seat at the national table. Get the scoop on how a few bold moves — and a few objections — made the holiday we know today. Want more? Click through and subscribe to get the full scoop!

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Discover These 10 Hidden Amazon Prime Perks

There was a time when we had to jot down our shopping lists with pens and brave the crowded malls. Then Amazon came along like a shopping superhero. You're probably enjoying free shipping and exclusive shows, but there's more benefits you might not know about. Make the most of your membership with these 10 hidden perks.

Left: My Reasons for Backing Harris Despite Her Gaza Stance, Sen. Bernie Sanders, The Guardian

Right: American Jews Must Rethink Their Ties to Dems Samuel J. Abrams, Washington Examiner

Right: I Saw Unity at Madison Square Garden, Anastasia Kaliabakos, The American Conservative.

BIDEN

“Garbage”

Today’s Top Story: On Tuesday, during a virtual campaign event for Kamala Harris, President Joe Biden called Trump supporters "garbage," igniting media backlash and split interpretations. Biden’s remark came in response to comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s joke at a Trump rally, where he referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.” In Biden’s words: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters… his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable and it’s un-American.”

Reporting from the Right: Biden calls Trump supporters 'garbage' during Harris campaign event as VP promises unity at Ellipse rally (Fox News)

Reporting from the Left: Biden seeks to clean up ‘garbage’ comment about Trump supporters denigrating Latinos (CNN)

RIGHT-LEANING SENTIMENT

The Left Scrambling to “Clean Up”

The Top Argument From The Right: Biden dumps his garbage and the media clean it up, Jeremiah Poff, Washington Examiner: “So, what did the White House staff do to cover up for the president’s gaffe? They added an apostrophe and claimed the garbage sentence was about Trump supporters demonizing Latinos. Here’s the White House transcript version: ‘The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.’ It’s an Orwellian edit that would make Joseph Stalin blush. If Biden meant to say Trump supporters were demonizing Latinos and that that was garbage, he would not have paused at the end of one sentence before starting another one. In fact, amid Biden’s very visible cognitive decline, it was among the more coherent sentences that he has uttered in public in recent memory. But the legacy media, eager to clean up a mess that could easily hurt Harris’s campaign in the last week before Election Day, bought the White House’s apostrophe trick hook, line, and sinker. … On CNN that same night, Democratic Party operative Franklin Leonard suggested that Biden made the comment because he has a stutter.”

Honorable Mention #1: Biden's 'Garbage' Slur Could Cost Harris the Presidency, Joe Concha, Fox News.

Honorable Mention #2: Media Conduct Damage Control after Biden’s ‘Garbage Gaffe’, Haley Strack, National Review.

LEFT-LEANING SENTIMENT

The Right’s Hypocritical, Disingenuous Criticism

The Top Argument From The Left: Republicans Collectively Lose Their Minds Over Biden “Garbage” Quote, Malcolm Ferguson, The New Republic: “The same Republicans who were just yesterday telling America to grow thicker skin are clutching their pearls over a comment from President Joe Biden on Donald Trump’s supporters. … Trump and his biggest fans quickly jumped on the remark, claiming that Biden meant ‘supporters’ plural, while the former president said that he was specifically referring to Hinchcliffe. … Senator John Cornyn—who remained suspiciously quiet as Trump and Vance spread made-up rumors about Haitian immigrants eating pets—called the comments ‘despicable.’ Wisconsin Senate candidate Eric Hovde even used it in a campaign ad equating it to Hillary Clinton’s ‘basket of deplorables’ comment in 2016. Even if Biden had meant ‘supporters’ plural, this kind of moral grandstanding is just disingenuous. This is a campaign that has referred to the vice president as a ‘devil,’ said she had ‘pimp handlers,’ made up pet-eating rumors that led to bomb threats shutting down Springfield, Ohio, and then still has the nerve to tell everyone to ‘stop getting so offended’ when people get appropriately offended. They don’t have much room to talk.”

FLAG THIS

Political Discourse Becoming Less Respectful

Polling from last year found that 84% of adults believe political discourse has grown less respectful over recent years, while only 4% feel it has become more respectful, and 12% think it has stayed the same (Pew Research Center).

Should all presidents and presidential candidates, regardless of their political affiliation, be held to the same standards of criticism and accountability for controversial comments?

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WATERCOOLER

George III, Candy Lifespan, Cat Faces

On This Day in 1776, in his first speech before the British Parliament since the leaders of the American Revolution came together to sign the Declaration of Independence that summer, King George III acknowledged that all was not going well for Britain in the war with the United States.

Smithsonian Magazine: 14 Fun Facts About Dragonflies

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There was a time when we had to jot down our shopping lists with pens and brave the crowded malls. Then Amazon came along like a shopping superhero. You're probably enjoying free shipping and exclusive shows, but there's more benefits you might not know about. Make the most of your membership with these 10 hidden perks.

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