Republican vice-presidential candidate Senator JD Vance continues to stoke outrage against foreign-born members of his own constituency, sharing video footage with his 1.9 million social media followers that he claimed showed African migrants in Dayton, Ohio “eating cats” — but instead appears to show nothing more than poultry cooking on an outdoor grill.

“Kamala Harris and her media apparatchiks should be ashamed of themselves,” Vance posted Saturday on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter. “Another ‘debunked’ story that turned out to have merit.”

Vance has claimed, falsely, in recent days that Haitians — who are not Africans — living in Springfield — a town of 58,000 which is not Dayton — were stealing, killing, and consuming their neighbors’ pets.

  • Tikiporch@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Offering a $5000 bounty for video proof is the same as paying $5000 for someone to manufacture the proof. This is like a Cobra bounty in India only results in Cobra farms.

  • twistypencil@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    People, remember how Trump presidency went! Bad news for Trump? Float a batshiit crazy thing to get the media to play with that shiny ball instead. This is a fucking distraction, Trump lost the debate, he is courting fascists, he is old and weird and people leave his rallys bored, he had to throw a stink bomb

  • RattlerSix@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    JFC, the person who started all this on Facebook says it’s false and these freaks are like “NOPE, THIS IS ALL WE CARE ABOUT NOW”

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Wow. They are really going over the deep end on this. How could this possibly help them win votes?

    • themadcodger@kbin.earth
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      2 months ago

      Backtracking equals flip-flopping, and then it’s a slippery slope to learning and growing and admitting you were wrong.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        You’re probably right. And if they’re going to keep swimming towards the bottom of the pool, I really want journalists to start asking them why Haitians are eating pets. Because that’s the part that they haven’t actually made clear.

        Haitians don’t eat dogs and cats in Haiti. The Haitians in Springfield aren’t starving, most of them have jobs. So why are they eating them, JD?

        • futatorius@lemm.ee
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          2 months ago

          His dithering, weak, incoherent performance in the debate? Or is that already forgotten?

        • barsquid@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Overt, disgusting racism is what his voters support, so it is a good distraction if there was news about something they don’t support. They support everything, as long as it is evil, though, so do not ask me what that could be.

        • catloaf@lemm.ee
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          2 months ago

          It gets them angry and supporting Republican anti-immigrant positions, instead of thinking about the issues that actually affect them, like why Steward Health Care was allowed to buy hospitals, squeeze as much money out of them as possible, give the CEO $250m, and then go bankrupt, leaving hundreds of people without healthcare.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            You think people don’t think about the dire financial straits they are in because Trump and Vance are being racists? And somehow that helps Trump get elected?

            None of that makes any sense.

            • catloaf@lemm.ee
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              2 months ago

              When someone is out of work, and the media tells them it’s because of immigrants stealing their jobs, and not because of private equity squeezing companies to death for profit, yes, it helps Trump and the Republicans get elected.

        • twistypencil@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          The topic does not matter.

          The assertion at hand does not matter.

          Whether anyone believes the assertion does not matter.

          The only thing that matters is: Are you playing offense or defense?

          Cuz attacking looks like winning. And explaining looks like losing.

          https://youtu.be/wmVkJvieaOA

            • twistypencil@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              Who is defending? Not them, they are doubling down. Everyone else is calling the mayor and asking for a statement, or doing some vox pop with Haitians on the ground.

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                Yes, and all of those statements essentially are “Donald Trump and JD Vance are racist liars.”

                Which you seem to think people shouldn’t say.

    • ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      They are too used to the typical news cycle where they bombard the public with lies to the point where everyone starts believing those are real. They’ve grown complacent.

  • NegativeLookBehind@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    JDV is like a toddler trying to trick you by hiding behind the curtains, but you can still see his Scooby Doo Velcro shoes and he’s back there giggling.

    • ClanOfTheOcho@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I was thinking more like an Ivy League graduate from a Lawyering the Dark Arts School of Deceptive Loopholes and Twisting, but I see your point.

      Edit: added a word

  • rsuri@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    “Another ‘debunked’ story that turned out to have merit.”

    This is the most infuriating thing they do. They assume that any developing story is actually the most extreme version that favors their side. Then they ignore all evidence to the contrary and fish for any evidence that they can claim as confirmation, even if it doesn’t pass the laugh test. But they assert “It was confirmed!” with such confidence and shamelessness that it becomes easier for people to believe them, and eventually the media stops trying to debunk them.

    Definitely not the first time this happened. If you wanna find other examples, look at anything where experts on the topic believe one thing but a majority of the American people believe the other. It’s pretty much guaranteed that the thing the American people believe originated as GOP propaganda.

    • Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      I wish I had told myself that from 25 years ago before I went online and was exposed to these people with all the naivety of the socially underdeveloped autistic 17 year old that I was at the time. I often have to learn things in the hardest way imaginable.

    • barsquid@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      A nutjob conservative on Lemmy has been telling me that babies are being executed in post-birth abortions using these same tactics.

  • 9point6@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Given most of the stuff right wingers complain about is projection, maybe we need to check this guy’s myfitnesspal

  • twistypencil@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Swift, the crazy cat lady, gives endorsement, distract with crazy cat news. This is a distraction, Trump does this

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Being super racist as a distraction is not a very good distraction. It also doesn’t distract from the Swift endorsement at all.

      • twistypencil@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Nobody is talking about anything right now except the memes around cats and dogs. You and I, we agree it’s racist, but independents may buy this hook without thinking it’s racist. We agree that everything coming out of his mouth is lies and garbage, but independents are much more neutral and are willing to give him, the former president, the benefit of the doubt. They probably are thinking, wow, things have gotten bad in Springfield, instead of haha what a crazy old man who lost the debate. They aren’t thinking about swift because this cat thing has completely flooded the zone. This is what Trump did all for years

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          That “may” is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

          They “may” see it as the extremely racist thing that is so racist that even Republicans are saying “stop with the racism.”

          • twistypencil@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Or they may like the little tickle of racism,or any number of other explanations… The point is we are in a bubble and have no freaking idea what they actually think, so plausible statements aren’t that heavy of a lift. They may do as you say as well, but your may is no lighter of a lift

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      That, at least, had a vague air of plausibility. People do come to the U.S. illegally and people do have faked identification documents. It also only attacked one person. This is attacking a whole group of people with a ludicrous (and very obviously racist) charge. I realize there are a lot of idiots in this country, but I have a feeling this is going beyond the pale for some people who were going to vote for Trump. I don’t know that they’ll vote for Harris, but they might sit this one out.

  • the post of tom joad@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    it would be so much work to stalk, kill, prep and eat someone’s dog or cat. people don’t even keep their pets outside much anymore. If people had pigs or some larger, meatier pets kept outside all hours at least it’d be a more realistic lie but like c’mon… who’s out there with fuggen ninja cat hunting skills? What are they using to quietly and efficiently kill these pets? Who even got that kinda time?

    If this dumb cluck had any sense he’d say they were buying pups from PetSmart or breeding them themselves to eat or something. That lie would at least be in the realm of possibility! Nobody’s pets would have to disappear before an idiot believed it!

    Fucking loser can’t even stoke hate properly

    • Revan343@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      Stalking a cat would be hard, but trapping one is easy.

      The reason people don’t eat their neighbors’ cats isn’t because it’d be difficult, it’s because most people aren’t absolute psychopaths like JD Vance

    • Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      They don’t CARE about the facts or how absurd their claims are. Also pet eating is something that, in times past, was a racist slur foisted onto Asians, like Chinese restaurants who cooked cat instead of beef or chicken, and more specifically Koreans, who did consume dog meat sparingly, but that was something that happened historically it was never common and dog meat consumption is actually illegal now in South Korea, and eating dog meat has been in rapid decline for decades anyway.

      Seeing Haitians get called pet eaters is actually a very new thing.

    • SilverCode@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      Eating a dog or cat you have bred yourself would make PETA angry. Eating a beloved family pet of a true blooded hard working American would make a lot more people angry.

    • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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      Uhm, a raccoon trap is also a cat trap. Easy enough to setup. Hell even the wile-e-coyote style trap with a stick and a rope will work if you use proper bait.

      Edit: Haitians don’t eat pets people! I was just responding to the guy with his cat hunt.

  • BigMacHole@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    JD Vance said he was Making the Story up so as a Free Thinking Republican I need to wait until Fox News tells me what to think!

  • ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Grilling chicken in Ohio, eh? Hmm, I hear there’s a huge orange chicken who is scared to have a second debate because he got so badly humiliated in the first one. He might want to stay away from Ohio since they are grilling his kind.