He has no mechanism for filtering out controversial statements. That’s one of the things that makes him such a shitty politician.
I’m out and about on my phone so don’t have time to link a cite, but this is the same sort of crap that went around in the UK about Polish immigrants stealing and eating swans back in the early 2000s. No evidence, so far as I know, of that being true came forward. Same ol’ story, different place and different group to hate.
Even if true, so what? I mean, I get that eating geese from parks is illegal, but they’re neither endangered nor beloved, and goose is not a particularly weird thing to eat. It seems about as ho-hum as someone eating a fish they caught without a license.
Somebody actually was arrested for eating a cat? Anybody got a cite for that?
The “so what” is that they are grasping at straws, as they furiously try to somehow justify the whole “Haitians eating your dogs and your cats” statement that Trump made in the debate, in an effort to make him not look crazy.
Previous politicians tried to benefit from positive patriotic associations with Arlington. But most apologized when criticized for disobeying rules. Most did not lie, claim to be assaulted, or demand dismissals after being challenged by employees seemingly doing their job.
Backing down from any preposterous statement is weakness? Sure, this is absolutely who you want in charge of your sensitive diplomatic efforts.
I found a local story from Canton. This is a month old and looks to predate this becoming a national story at the debate. The cat story is real, but didn’t happen in Springfield and the woman in question is not a Haitian immigrant. She’s an American citizen.
Here’s a more recent fact check of the claims.
Never mind, I found it (it was linked to in another thread on these boards.) Canton arrested for allegedly killing, eating cat
whoops, ninja’d!
Vance was called out today in an interview by Dana Bash.
Jeff Tiedrich’s transcription and comment:
The Republicans have nothing else to drum up outrage against Kamala Harris, so they’re doubling down on this bullshit.
I wonder if Doug Burgum would have spent a week on TV claiming this racist nonsense bullshit. People complain (rightfully) about Vance but Trump loves this sort of clown show. Probably feeling better about Vance than ever.
Vance knows he must, MUST defend every single crazy twisted thing that pops out of Trump’s lie-hole.
That’s his only job. That’s why he’s doubling down on the Springfield nonsense, even though it makes him look mentally deranged, and even the Republican governor of Ohio knows this is bullshit and says this forcefully on news shows.
Defend Trump’s mentally unstable nonsense. That’s his role and he knows it.
If Trump started wearing his underpants on his head, Vance would immediately copy him.
Oh, I’m not saying “so what” about the rhetoric or what it shows about them; just saying that if they’re trying to gin up outrage about … someone somewhere killing and eating a goose in a park, it’s probably not going to work as well as they seem to think it will.
I’m shocked, even though I shouldn’t be anymore, that Vance’s wife, whose parents immigrated here in the 1980s, hasn’t thrown him out of the house yet.
Yeah, now he’s just a fucker.
For most spouses of politicians, just follow the money trail. That’s likely the main attraction towards weirdos like Vance.
I admit I didn’t check every post–just the more recent ones, but I didn’t see mention of the fact that Vance basically admitted the cat-eating thing was a story he created.
Here’s a Twitter post with the video:
And here’s a NYT article on it.
Direct quote from Vance (via the NYT article):
The American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes. If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.
Not that I would ever defend this reprehensible excuse for a human being, but to be fair, Vance just made a poor choice of words in that statement. The story didn’t originate with him; I’m pretty sure it originated with right-wing propagandists who grossly distorted a story about a mentally ill woman in Canton (not Springfield, and who was American-born, not an immigrant) who killed a cat by stomping on it and then allegedly ate it. She’s been charged with animal cruelty and other things and is in jail with bond set at $100,000, and is pleading insanity.
Vance should be properly vilified not for his poor choice of words, but for what he really did and was really saying between the lines, which was that he popularized (not created) the story in order to drum up anti-immigrant hate.
IIRC, it was the lunatic Laura Loomer who planted the “Haitians in Springfield eating cats and dogs” in Trump’s tiny brain. The Harris campaign got wind of it and Harris was half-expecting Trump to blurt it out at some point, and I’m sure was utterly delighted when she successfully baited him into an unhinged rant where he did just that. At this point Vance is doubling down on defending his orange master and promoting anti-immigrant hate – win-win! 
There’s a longer version of that interview about 7 posts up. Vance is just an incredible hateful opportunistic tool, and obviously not very bright.
I know it’s an extreme long shot, for lots of reasons, but this would be a delicious October surprise.
That’s reprehensible.
It’s like if you were having a dispute with your next door neighbor over the height of his fence and were frustrated because your other neighbors weren’t outraged and didn’t give a fuck……so then you started telling your other neighbors that your next door neighbor abused your child, then claimed you were in the right because suddenly every one was as outraged against your neighbor as you thought they should be.
Close to 20 years ago, Stephen Colbert coined the word “truthiness” – something that isn’t actually true, but that fits with the “truth” that a group wants to exists. A lot of Trump’s recent BS things, like this, are clear examples of truthiness.