Stallions v Rocks ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️

The Race: The enthusiasm for Kamala Harris’ run for the presidency continues to exceed expectations.  Last night she held a boisterous, standing room only rally in Atlanta, Georgia where, after a performance by Megan Thee Stallion rather than Trump’s fave Kid Rock, she delivered the high energy stump speech that voters needed to hear but that President Biden could no longer deliver.  Georgia, which Biden won in 2020 by the 11,780 votes that Trump infamously demanded Republican election official Brad Raffensperger “find,” had fallen off of the Democratic map but now appears to be back in play. A set of Morning Consult/Bloomberg polls released yesterday show Harris picking up points in all the key swing states.  She is in a dead heat with Trump in Georgia, leading him by 11 points in Michigan, by 2 points in Arizona, Wisconsin, and Nevada while trailing him by 4 points in Pennsylvania and 2 points in North Carolina.  With the exception of Michigan, all of these results are within the margin of error so it’s far too early to relax but Harris’ improving position provides evidence that enthusiasm for her candidacy may actually be translating into votes. Harris’ climb in the polls likely explains why Trump, never all that stable, has tossed his civility promise aside and is instead lashing out like crazy.  Yesterday, among other sinister, sexist and racist things he said that Harris, wouldn’t be able to stand up to world leaders due to her “appearance,” because “she’ll be like a play toy.” “They’ll look at her and say we can’t believe we got so lucky….they’ll walk all over her.”  He also slammed all Jews intending to vote for Harris calling them fools, while also calling Senate Leader Chuck Schumer “a Palestinian,” and Kamala’s husband Doug Emhoff a “crappy and horrible Jew,” presumably for sticking with his “Jew hating” wife.

Veep Sweeps: It looks like Harris will be announcing her VP partner in Philadelphia on Tuesday, in what will be the first stop of a campaign march through the swing states. Her campaign cautioned that no one should read too much into the location of the announcement, their way of saying that just because Josh Shapiro is the Governor of Pennsylvania doesn’t meant that he’s her pick though he could be.  In addition to Shapiro, Minnesota Governor Walz, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear and maybe Michigan Senator Gary Peters, a new possibility, are still among the possible choices with a number of pundits hoping that Pete Buttigieg is too because of his viral Trump and Vance takedowns.  However, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper is no longer in the mix . He withdrew because should he be selected his rightwing, Holocaust denying Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson could step into his shoes.  At least for now Trump appears to be sticking with his VP partner, JD Vance, because his cat women comments about those “psychopathic” childless single ladies shouldn’t be taken as insulting but rather just an indication of how much JD endorses parenthood and traditional family values.  Trump probably will stick with Vance but still it’s worth remembering that back in 1972 Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern dumped his VP partner Senator Thomas Eagleton after saying that he 1000% was going to stick with him despite his hospitalizations for depression, something that Eagleton conveniently failed to mention during his vetting process, so there is a precedent for candidates dumping their partners after their party convention.  While Trump may be sticking with JD, at least for now, he is trying to distance himself from Project 2025, the extreme rightwing blueprint for how dictator wannabees can reconfigure the government to facilitate their desired autocracies.  Yesterday in response to pressure from Trump, Paul Dans who authored the 2025 plan was forced to step down from the Federalist Society and Trump’s campaign issued a statement saying that they had no association with either Dan or “his” plan, never knew him and how dare you suggest he ever did, surprise to running mate JD who wrote the forward to Dans’ soon to be released book. For their part the Federalist Society said that Dans stepped away only because his plan was finished not because they didn’t want to see it fully implemented.      

The Supremes:  On Monday Biden announced his Supreme Court reform plan which calls for Congress to pass legislation that would impose term limits on Justices and an enforceable SCOTUS ethics code. He also called for a constitutional amendment limiting presidential immunity.  All of this falls into the category of wishful thinking because unless Democrats win control of both houses and dispense with the Senate filibuster no legislation will pass and the last time I checked the Equal Rights Amendment still hasn’t been voted in.  In other SCOTUS news, CNN reported on the internal machinations that led the Supreme Court to temporarily forestall the further limitations on abortions that Idaho wanted to impose on emergency room care. CNN reports that SCOTUS agreed to hear the Idaho case by a vote of 6 to 3, an indication that at first the Court’s conservative majority was lockstep in wanting to rule in Idaho’s favor but that after oral arguments three of the conservative justices, Amy Coney Barret, Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts, were convinced by the Court’s three liberal justices to send the case back to the appellate court for a hearing on its merits.  As a result, emergency room abortions, while still in jeopardy, can be performed in Idaho, at least for now. The CNN report is an indication that despite all the outrage about the early peek at the Dobbs opinion, the Supreme Court is still leaking.  To that end, CNN has published another article about the Court’s immunity decision which indicates that its outcome was never in doubt since from day one the six conservative Justices were pretty much all in protecting presidents who crime.

Fog:  Israel has retaliated for the murder of the Druse soccer playing children first with a strike on Beirut that killed Fu’ad Shukr, the top Hezbollah military commander responsible for the Druse murders and then by killing Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh who was in Tehran to attend the inauguration of Iran’s newest president.  To put it mildly Iran is not happy, the retaliatory cycle will most certainly continue and could get worse.       

#BringThemAllHomeNow             

           

98 Days ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️

More Than Weird:  Democrats are now referring to Trump and Vance as weird, in the hope that it is a relatable way to describe the pair.  While that may be true, weird understates the danger of another Trump administration as evidenced by Trump’s statement to a group of conservative Christian voters at this weekend’s Turning Point Action Believers Summit. Trump told them that if they turned out to vote for him in this most important of elections, he would fix things so that they’d would never need to vote again. Calling VP Kamala Harris, whose name he intentionally mispronounces, an extreme socialist, Trump bragged about repealing Roe, again lied about the outcome of the 2020 election, proposed cutting billions in education funding especially for schools that require vaccinations because why would we want to prevent polio epidemics, and promised to appoint more very rightwing judges, while also repeating his now standard incomprehensible drivel on sharks, electricity and Hanibal Lecter. Keeping up with the weirdness thing, running mate and Project 2025 advocate JD Vance doubled down on his cat comments, saying that he liked cats, it was just those single childless women he objected to.  He singled out Friends actress Jennifer Aniston, calling her disgusting for her clapback at his hurtful cat comments because insulting Aniston, who tried for years to conceive, is a vote winning proposition in what alternative universe?  Polls, for what they’re worth, show that Harris, even without having designated a running mate, has narrowed Trump’s lead and has blown past him in some of the states like Minnesota and Virginia that his team had hoped to make competitive. That’s good but it’s far too early to know if the enthusiasm for Harris has staying power or if it will grow and it remains depressingly unfathomable that so many voters remain in Trump’s camp.  That said Harris favorability ratings have improved while Trump’s which had benefited from his assassination attempt, where the FBI is now saying he really was injured by a bullet or a bullet shard, are decreasing, especially among those all-important independent voters. JD Vance’s are even worse which together with the release of more videos of him sharing his extreme positions has fueled more chatter about the possibility of him being replaced.  Democrats, including Senate Leader Chuck Schumer who suggested that could happen, should be careful what they wish for because if that’s even possible there’s a chance that Trump would then choose someone marginally more palatable.    

Peeps and Veeps:  The clock is ticking on Harris’ VP selection process.  A lot of pundits, and mudslingers from both sides have focused in on Arizona’s Senator/Astronaut Mark Kelly and Pennsylvania’s Governor Josh Shapiro but others such as Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and the reliably articulate, Fox killing Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg continue to attract attention. Additionally, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear appear to also remain under consideration and since little about this election is normal, maybe everyone’s wrong and someone, even a non-politician, someone like Mark Cuban, could be in the pack. As to those still wanting Harris to choose a Republican, that remains highly unlikely because all of the energized voters lining up to support her would probably be more than a bit upset if she chose an anti-abortion running mate so give it up already.  Not that I haven’t been wrong in the past.  Given Trump’s increasingly unpopular choice, Harris’ team would be wise to dig deep, scrutinizing everything about everyone under consideration before making a final decision because women,  🐱s and 🐶s matter. Though a number of prominent politicians from across the aisle still haven’t issued Harris endorsements, Georgia’s former Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan, a Republican who had previously endorsed President Biden has endorsed Harris.  Additionally, Andrew Yang who most recently had aligned himself with the centrist Forward Party and who had expressed concerns about Biden’s reelection, has endorsed Harris saying that Trump “doesn’t have the character to serve.” Sadly, prominent Texas Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee passed away last week.  Both President Biden and VP Harris will be heading to Houston this week to pay their respects. In other people news, President Biden has nominated former Florida Congresswoman/Senate candidate Val Demmings to serve on the US Postal Service board.  Assuming Demmings’ nomination makes it through the Senate confirmation process and that Biden’s other nominee is also confirmed, Trump appointee Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s days will finally be numbered.   

Fog:  With all the focus on Gaza, it’s important not to ignore that Hezbollah, another Iranian surrogate, has been regularly bombing and disrupting life in Northern Israel.  Over the weekend one of Hezbollah’s rockets struck a soccer field in Majdal Shams, a Druze village in the Golan Heights, killing 12 Arab children, and wounding 44 others. An incredibly sad tragedy that will further feed regional hostilities, likely Iran’s intent.  Turning to South America, though opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez may have won this weekend’s disputed presidential election, Venezuela’s election authorities have declared current president, socialist Nicolas Maduro the winner.  In a really ironic post on X, Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee, an outspoken Trumpist, who still questions the outcome of the 2020 US election, expressed outrage at Maduro’s manipulation of the election results. Senator Lee is right; Maduro’s actions are autocratic and anti-democratic but maybe not so much when Trump tried to do the same?     

#BringThemAllHomeNow

 
Thanks for Everything Julie Newmar ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️

Cat Women:  Kamala Harris is still on a roll, or as one of Trump’s pollsters put it, she’s in her “honeymoon” period.  To that end, at five this morning, the Harris campaign released a video of Barack and Michele Obama’s much anticipated endorsement of her presidential run. Additionally, following in the footsteps of Sunday’s Black women for Kamala zoom call, a number of other groups have held similar virtual rallies/fundraisers.  Last night’s record setting zoom, organized by gun control activist Shannon Watts, included 136,000 white women, and raised in excess of $2 million.  Not a bad take for a “bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made,” the words that Republican VP candidate JD Vance used to describe women like Kamala Harris during a now 2021 infamous interview with Tucker Carlson.  Not satisfied with only insulting childless women and Swifties, Vance also name checked Pete Buttigieg who unbeknownst to him was in the midst of his adoption journey at the time of the Carlson interview, not that Vance or his followers are okay with nuclear families headed by people like Pete and his husband Chastain. Vance believes that all women should be in “traditional” marriages and have lots of children.  Despite his wife’s impressive legal career, his preference would be for women to be stay at home mothers whether they can afford to or not. He’s also on record suggesting that large families be awarded extra votes, controlled of course by the fathers, so that they can wrest political control away from all those miserable cat women and their LBGTQ friends. Vance who is heard on another video calling for pregnant women to be barred from crossing state lines to obtain abortions also wrote the forward to a forthcoming book by the head of Project 2025, the authoritarian, crypto fascist endorsed rightwing plan that is thought to be the blueprint for Trump’s next administration something that Trump keeps trying to disavow.  Trump is likely having buyer’s remorse about appointing Vance as his running mate, not because he disagrees with his views or doesn’t want to eliminate the “deep state,” the Department of Education and the EPA and take over full control of the courts and Justice Department, but because of all the attention those views are receiving right now.  Given the unprecedented nature of this election, he might actually act on that remorse because if Democrats can replace Biden why can’t he replace Vance?  Yesterday while repeating her view that old politicians should take mental acuity tests, Nikki Haley reupped her Trump endorsement.  Maybe she and a number of others, including even RFK Jr, are hanging by their phones?

What Me Worry?  Last night Trump whose rally speeches repeatedly include riffs on sharks, batteries, windmills, and Hannibal Lecter, as well as a new line claiming that Kamala Harris endorses post birth abortions, hates all Jews (news to her husband) and wants to ban cows and hamburgers, issued a statement saying that given the “chaos surrounding Mr. Biden and the Democrats” and their “nominee” who even Obama is skeptical of, it would be “inappropriate to schedule things” like a debate with Harris at this time “because Democrats very well could change their minds.”  His way of saying hell no, I am not going to debate that articulate Black cat women who keeps calling me a predator and a criminal.  Trump has also had it with Christopher Wray, the FBI director who he appointed after he fired former Director James Comey who in an earlier episode of the Trump chronicles paved the way to Trump’s 2016 victory.  His current beef with Wray has to do with his ear. On Wednesday while testifying before the House Committee looking into the assassination attempt,  Wray had the audacity to suggest that Trump’s ear injury may have been caused by flying shattered glass rather than a bullet. While having any projectile whiz by your head is very bad, bragging about surviving a bullet is so much more macho than living through a glass shard attack and Trump’s a macho, macho man.    

Fog: Following his speech to a joint session of Congress, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met separately with President Biden and VP Harris. After her meeting with Bibi, Harris spoke to the eagerly waiting press. Her remarks got full on Rorschach Test treatment. Depending on who was listening, she either fully endorsed Biden’s Israel policy or, because she showed empathy for the suffering of the Gazans, is ready to dump Israel.  In other words, she’s a politically shrewd politician who chose her words carefully because her first priority right now is winning in November and her hope is that Biden’s team will achieve that much desired ceasefire and return of hostages before the Middle East becomes her problem, assuming it becomes her problem rather than Trump’s. And remember when Elon Musk said that he would be contributing $45 million per month to a PAC to help fund Trump’s campaign, apparently that was just another Rorschach Test that everyone failed because now he says that he didn’t really say he was throwing all that money at Trump. To be clear,  Musk is still all in on Trump, he’s just not feeling as generous, maybe something to do with Tesla’s earnings’ dive or maybe he’s just trolling.   

#BringThemAllHomeNow

      

Prosecutor v Persecutor ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️

Democrats in Array:  Democrats are no longer in disarray.  With President Biden, who will be speaking tonight about his decision, no longer running, without chaos but with lots of enthusiasm they have lined up behind Vice President Kamala Harris.  Although a few holdouts remain, including Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib who rarely throws her support to anything not related to Palestinians, and a very small group of vulnerable red district or state Democrats such as Alaska’s Mary Peltola, Washington’s Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Maine’s Jared Golden who is generally an outlier, and embattled Montana Senator Jon Tester, almost all Democratic House and Senate members have endorsed her or at the very least said that they will support her run.  Harris also has more than enough delegate votes to become the official nominee. Despite preferences by some donors and pundits for a more robust selection process, perhaps a series of debates or even a primary of some sort, the reality is that given campaign finance laws that made it difficult for Biden’s campaign funds to go to anyone else, Biden’s late withdrawal, his endorsement, and the tight calendar a “process” was never in the cards. As to the calendar squeeze, the Democratic convention is late this cycle because of the Olympics and because Republicans got the earlier calendar slot. To ensure that their presidential and VP candidates are on the ballot everywhere, including in states with early ballot deadlines and uncooperative Republican election officials, Democrats had already decided to hold a virtual delegate roll call to appoint and qualify Biden and Harris.  Now that roll call, scheduled to take place in early August,  will be used to appoint Harris and her VP pick which also explains why Harris needs to vet and select her running mate well before the convention.  That vetting process is underway now, being undertaken by Eric Holder, former President Obama’s Attorney General.

But Her Laugh: The good news is that Kamala Harris’ candidacy is generating a huge amount of enthusiasm.  Endorsements and cash are rolling in, with the first day haul from small donors now estimated at $100 million. Even George Clooney is back on board and those big donor cash infusions that he helped hold up they are expected to be incoming shortly. The concern, and it’s a big one, is whether all the enthusiasm will translate into votes, especially in the critical swing states. For what it’s worth, the first post Biden poll completed by Reuters/Ipsos shows Harris slightly ahead of Trump in a two-person race and even more ahead when RFK Jr is added to the mix.  That’s an improvement over where Biden stood but it’s a national poll and what matters are the swing state polls.  It’s also worth noting that Trump did not get a post-convention/post assassination attempt bump even in the polls that paired him against Biden.  Though it’s likely that Harris will pull in more of the young voters who wanted little to do with either of the two old guys and that she has energized the Black and maybe even the Hispanic communities, she may not hold on to the all the older white voters who made up Biden’s coalition and those voters are key in the whiter swing states.  The bottom line is that while enthusiasm is great it’s way too early to tell if she’ll rack up more votes than Biden.  That said, judging by her appearance at what is now her campaign headquarters in Delaware as well as her speech at her first official campaign stop in Wisconsin, Kamala has upped her game significantly since 2020. Naturally, that’s freaking Republicans who have already started attacking her and they’re not even bothering to dog whistle, they’re going full on racist and sexist, calling her a DEI candidate, attacking her for being childless, and suggesting that she slept her way to the top. That last one is both particularly disgusting and ironic given that her opponent is an overgrown nepo baby who’s been married three times, engaged in multiple “affairs” while his current wife was home with their newborn son, and that his current wife, as opposed to Kamala’s husband Doug Emhoff, appears to only show up when contractually obligated to do so. 

Memes and Fog:  When her daughters complained about their troubles, Kamala’s mother would say “I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree.”  That explains the current fascination with coconut themed drinks. You may also have heard Kamala referred to as Brat. That comes from British pop singer Charli xcx who tweeted “kamala IS brat” right after she received Biden’s endorsement. I am too old to know for certain, but I think that means Kamala is effortlessly super cool.  And the lime green thing is from Charli’s Brat album cover.  Whatever.   Bibi Netanyahu is in Washington today where he’ll be speaking in front of Congress.  It’s going to be very, very messy, possibly even violent in DC today and not all Democrats will be in attendance.  Republicans are making hay out of that as well as the fact that Kamala won’t be there, she’ll be at a previously scheduled event in Indiana and is scheduled to meet with Bibi later in the week.  But JD Vance won’t be there either because he is also on the road.  As to JD Vance who’s all in on Diet Mountain Dew which is apparently the drink of his people whoever those people are, if you think that’s racist according to JD that’s on you, reports are that Trump is having second thoughts about picking him as his running mate because Vance is falling flat on the road where his speaking style is somewhere between boring and pathetic. Is there a Mountain Dew meme yet? Maybe Mike Pence, the guy Trump tried to hang, is still available?  Shifting back to Israel and Gaza, the thorn in the Democrat’s side, per the NY Times, though Kamala has expressed more sympathy for the Gazans than Biden there’s no reason to think that her policies with regard to Israel are much different than Biden’s though, in addition to painting her as an extreme socialist left winger, Republicans also want everyone to believe that she’s wears a Kaffiyeh under her suit. 

And:  Convicted New Jersey Senator Bob Menedez has notified Senate Leader Chuck Schumer that he will be leaving the Senate on August 20 right after his last paycheck clears.  New Jersey’s Democratic Governor Murphy is expected to appoint an as yet unnamed Democrat to temporarily fill Menendez’s seat until next January.  That person will not be Murphy’s wife who at one time sought the seat nor will it be Representative Andy Kim, the Democrat who is running to replace Menendez. Secret Service head Kimberly Cheatle is no longer the head of the Secret Service.  While Trump survived the attempt on his life and ear, she did not in part because both Democrats and Republicans found her performance at this week’s Congressional hearings to be rather dismal but mostly because the Secret Service appears to have messed up bigly.  Last night Lawrence O’Donnell listed all of the times presidents have been shot at, it’s a fairly long list that in addition to JFK’s assassination, includes two attempts in 17 days on Gerald Ford and the shooting of Ronald Reagan.  It took much longer for the heads in charge at the times of those attacks to be fired but things happen faster these days, so Cheatle is out.  Good luck to the next guy, running the Secret Service is not easy particularly given the proliferation of guns.  

#BringThemAllHomeNow      

 
Kamala Harris ?! ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️

Polls and Money:  As my Spectrum app was the first of many to alert me, President Biden announced yesterday afternoon that he is no longer running for reelection. He made that decision after a Saturday night meeting with two of his aides who showed him their latest set of truly dreadful polls.  Not only was he behind Trump nationwide and in the key swing states but the polls revealed that he was dragging down House and Senate candidates and might even lose in one or more reliably blue states like Virginia.  Then there’s the money, with big money donors closing their wallets and some really big ones announcing huge contributions to Trump, the funding advantage that Democrats had enjoyed earlier in the year had fizzled.  Biden, who still wanted to stay in the race, finally couldn’t ignore the writing on the wall and made the decision to step away, throwing his support to Vice President Kamala Harris. Despite calls from the Republican echo chamber, including Speaker Mike Johnson and NY’s increasingly despicable Elise Stefanik, who insist that if he’s too “feeble” to run he shouldn’t stay in office, Biden’s not stepping down he’s just not running for reelection. After all, since the Supreme Court said president’s are almost always immune from prosecution, he’s got lots to do before departing. Though VP Harris isn’t the official candidate yet, absent another earthquake, meteor, or whatever else is waiting in the wings, she will be.  She’s already been endorsed by Bill and Hillary Clinton, 10 Governors, 32 Senators, 153 House members, including South Carolina’s Jim Clyburn, the king maker who anointed Joe Biden in 2020, and the Congressional Black and Asian caucuses. Though former President Obama,  Democratic leaders Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi haven’t endorsed Kamala yet, they’re expected to do so once the formal process, whatever that turns out to be, plays itself out.  Significantly, California Congressman/Senate candidate Adam Schiff, a Pelosi surrogate, has endorsed Kamala and he wouldn’t have done that without a Nancy nod. Yesterday, all of the state Democratic party chairs endorsed Kamala and the Democratic delegates from Tennessee, Florida, New Hampshire, Louisiana, South Carolina, and North Carolina announced they were committing to her with many more states expected to follow shortly.  Because the Democratic convention is late this cycle, Democrats had already been planning to hold their delegate vote virtually to ensure qualification for their ticket on all state ballots, so it’s likely that Harris will be voted in before the physical convention’s August 19 start date.  On the financial front, because Kamala’s name was on the Biden ticket, most, if not all of the money that the Biden campaign has raised to date flows to Kamala.  In addition, yesterday a number of PACs indicated that they’re redirecting their funds to her campaign, with more expected to follow. Small donors hit ActBlue yesterday, contributing close to $60 million to the Kamala campaign yesterday. No word yet from George Clooney.

The Alta Kocker Brigade:  Naturally, 76-year-old West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin who left the Democratic Party to become an Independent earlier this year, is now attempting to throw a wrench into the process. He’s considering reregistering as a Democrat to challenge Kamala’s anointment.  Worth noting, Manchin isn’t running for reelection to the Senate because he can’t win in his home state. Marianne Williamson, 72, is another one who wants a “process.”  She’s now running again and insists that she can win.  Spoiler alert, she can’t.  Not to be outdone, RFK Jr, 70,  another one who dropped his Democratic affiliation insists that the Democrats should hold an “open process.”  He added that it’s now a two-man race, emphasis on man, between him and Trump. That may have been the brain worm, age unknown, speaking, we’ll never know for sure. Trump weighed in too, taking some time out from one of his soliloquys about sharks and his newest bestie Hannibal Lecter, the fictitious cannibal who he apparently thinks is real, to slam Biden once again.  Apparently having called for Biden to pull from the race, Trump, at 78 now the glitchy old man in the race, is upset that Biden has stepped down and is demanding a refund for the money he has already spent campaigning against him.  Trump is also calling for the planned September presidential debate to be reassigned from ABC to Fox and has accused Biden of faking his current case of COVID.  Trump’s medical accusation is particularly adorable given that the medical report that he had released about his ear injury was from Texas Congressman Ronny Jackson, the former White House doctor who is no longer a rear admiral because of his bad behavior and is also no longer licensed to practice medicine.

Running Partner:  With Kamala the likely Democratic candidate, the question now turns to her running partner. The top of the list candidates are North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, and Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear.  Other possibilities being bandied about are Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer, California’s Gavin Newsom, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and Illinois Governor Pritzker.  Notably Cooper, Shapiro, and Kelly all quickly endorsed Kamala yesterday. Given that electing a woman president has proven to be a stretch in this country, it’s highly unlikely that a two women ticket would work so Whitmer is probably out.  It’s also not clear that the country is ready for a mensch or at least a Jewish one yet either so that could knock both Shapiro and Pritzker off the list. And despite his obvious capabilities Buttigieg probably isn’t on that list either because gay bashing is still a thing.  Newsom is likely off the list too because Kamala is from California and Democrats can’t afford to put California’s huge number of delegates at risk.  That leaves Cooper, Beshear, and Kelly, assuming that giving up an Arizona Senate seat is okay, as the likely picks. 

Fog: Somehow, despite his conviction and a lot of pressure to resign Bob Menendez is still the Senator from New Jersey.  The hostages are still hostages, including WSJ journalist Evan Gershkovich who was found “guilty” of bogus espionage charges and has been sentenced to 16 years in a Russian prison. That prison sentence is horrendous but since real hostage negotiations with Russia often don’t bear fruit until after sentencing takes place maybe, just maybe there’s a glimmer of hope there.  Or not. Israel has retaliated against Yemen for the Houthis drone attack on Tel Aviv, because of course, and Bibi Netanyahu is visiting the US, presumably still meeting with Biden who may or may not still be shedding COVID virus.   

#BringThemAllHomeNow

 

Crunch Time  ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️

Outage and Outage:  If you are traveling today, check in with your airline before going to the airport. Major airlines have grounded all their planes because of a worldwide Microsoft cloud service outage.  Health systems and some banks and brokerage firms are affected as well so don’t have a coronary when you check your balances and see that they’ve been temporarily zeroed out because there will be no place to go for anywhere near the level of emergency care that Trump got for his injured ear last weekend.  Still donning a mini sanitary pad on that ear, not that any of his cult members would question him if he moved it to the other ear, Trump delivered his convention speech last night and despite its somewhat muted tone it was littered with the usual outrage.  He droned on for ninety minutes.  He milked the ear and his “heroic” survival for all its worth, starting off subdued, before launching into his usual lie ridden claims and insults.  He once again called Nancy Pelosi crazy, bemoaned the state of the country, trashed migrants and failed to stick to the “unite” the country scrip which shouldn’t surprise anyone because he is who he is and anyone who thinks otherwise has eaten too much of his Jello.

The Clock is Ticking:  Beating the twice impeached, multiply indicted adjudicated sex offender Trump in November should be possible but right now seems like a stretch because of the concerns about President Biden’s age and capability.  At this point it almost doesn’t matter if those concerns are valid, what matters is that the Democratic party is having a very public battle with an increasing number of prominent party members calling for him to bow out.  California Congressman/Senate candidate Adam Schiff has joined the chorus of Democrats calling publicly for Joe to step aside. Schiff matters because he is close to Nancy Pelosi and though she’s no longer the titular leader of House Democrats, she continues to call the shots behind the scenes and reportedly Senate leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries share her view. Their inside polls indicate that Biden is behind Trump and is dragging down a number of pivotal House and Senate races which also explains why Montana’s Senator Jon Tester who is facing a tough reelection fight in his home state joined the “Joe step aside” chorus last night.  It’s not just them, a number of high dollar donors are also holding back their contributions and with Trump’s donor base growing that’s a huge problem. The pundits report that Biden who is in COVID isolation in Delaware is seriously considering withdrawing though their reports may be based on their preferences so its hard to tell what’s really happening.  In any case, Biden needs to do something soon because time is running out.  There are many questions about what changing horses at this point in the election cycle will entail including, who will replace Biden;  will that person get the support of Biden loyalists including influential Black voters, especially high turnout Black women;  how does the “replacement” process even work; and, most importantly can a replacement, probably but not definitely VP Kamala Harris together with an unnamed VP partner rally Democrats to show up and vote in November?  It’s jumping the gun to predict a ticket, but one possible VP name floating on social media is Arizona Senator/Astronaut Mark Kelly because as a few have noted he really is an American hero, and Democrats need a hero right now. Thoughts?

Fog:  A tall building in Tel Aviv was struck by a drone overnight. Iran’s Houthi rebel surrogates have taken credit for the attack. Though it appears that only one person was killed, the drone did considerable damage and the fact that it made it all the way to Tel Aviv is, to put it mildly, not a good thing and is likely to further fuel an already out of control retaliatory cycle.  Adidas has gone ahead and shot themselves in one of their sneakered feet, not with a bullet or drone but with a tone-deaf advertising campaign.  The company that spent years overlooking Kanye West’s anti-Semitism because his Yeezy sneakers were profitable was, at least until yesterday, promoting a retro 1972 Olympic sneaker first launched during the infamous Munich Olympics where eleven Israeli athletes were abducted from the Olympic village and then killed by Palestinians terrorists.  And because celebrating the Munich Olympics on the anniversary of that horrifying massacre isn’t bad enough, their featured model is Bela Hadid, whose vocal support for Palestinian causes has been tainted by lots of anti-Israel rhetoric and whose father is known for his anti-Semitic rants and homophobic attacks of Congressman Richie Torres for his support for Israel.  Adidas says they are “rethinking” the campaign.  Rethinking seems an odd word to use since it doesn’t appear that they gave it any thought in the first place, either that or Adidas’ marketing people are woefully ignorant or all in on celebrating their Nazi roots. 

#BringThemAllHomeNow

  

Meteors? ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️

Disastrous Trajectories:  A meteor soared thirty-nine miles over New York City yesterday before exploding with a loud boom.  Given the way this year is going it’s surprising that it didn’t take out the Statue of Liberty or sear a bunch of New Yorkers with burning shards. However, if you are worried about another one or any other flying debris consider stocking up on a few of those nifty Trump ear bandages that are being hawked at the Republican convention, facsimiles of the one that Trump has covering his weekend wound.  You won’t be alone in wearing yours as a number of the Republican delegates/cult members, are now sporting them in solidarity with their Teflon idol. Former NJ Governor Chris Christie hasn’t donned one yet, but it may be just a matter of time before he does. He seems to be suffering from FOMO about missing out on the hoopla at the Republican convention, after all that other normal adjacent for a minute Republican candidate Nikki Haley who knows better spoke in support of Trump last night. How else to explain Christie’s “Will Trump Meet the Moment” op-ed published in today’s NY Times in which the Bridgegate alum suggests that Trump could morph into a normal person tonight merely by delivering a “unite the country” speech. While there’s a chance that Trump will soften his tone just a bit for one night only, how delusional, or desperate for a membership in Mar a Lago do you have to be to believe that he’ll mean any of what he says or, more significantly, will alter his “dictator for a day” or more likely for as long as possible plans one iota? Afterall, Trump is still Trump which likely explains why he bypassed the more mainstream Senator Marco Rubio and the blander businessman/Governor Doug Burgum to instead select Don Jr and Tucker Carlson’s preferred choice, Senator JD Vance, the Hillbilly Elegy author, as his running mate.  To be frank, Vance is not a good guy and I say that as someone who unlike the shrewdest member of my book club who immediately saw right through his ”story” was for a short time taken in by the book.  Vance equates abortion, at any point in a pregnancy, with murder. He’s on record telling students at a Christian high school that women should stick with violent marriages rather seek divorce because what’s wrong with black eyes or broken bones anyway when the better choice is maintaining the sanctity of a tortured marriage? He is all in on American First, opposing aid to Ukraine, justifying that opposition using many of the talking point provided by Putin’s posse and has repeatedly expressed his admiration for Hungary’s autocratic press curbing leader Viktor Orban something that Orban obviously appreciates as he has endorsed both Trump and his selection of Vance as his running mate. In addition, Vance says that unlike Trump’s first VP Mike Pence, he wouldn’t have moved to certify the electoral college vote had he been VP in 2020 which hardly bodes well for what he would do in 2028.  The bottom line is that Vance is a shapeshifter with extreme views who is so smooth that he has managed to convince Trump that he really didn’t mean it when he called him out as a Hitler wannabe.  All politicians lie and a lot of them are inconsistent, but Vance does a lot and is scarily good at it.        

Justice for Some:  Earlier this week NJ Senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat, was found guilty of bribery, extortion, wire fraud, obstruction of justice and acting as a foreign agent.  This was Menendez’ second bite at the corruption apple, the last time he faced a jury he got off because one juror was a hold out. For fairly obvious reasons his Democratic colleagues, including Senate Leader Chuck Schumer, want him to resign ASAP.  Republicans have remained rather quiet about Menendez maybe because their presidential candidate is also a convicted felon not that consistency carries much weight in their party.  Menendez’ conviction, like that of Hunter Biden, also throws a wrench into the Republican party line that Biden’s Department of Justice targets only Republicans, but again facts don’t mean much with this Republican Party.  In other judicial news, Judge Eileen “loose” Cannon lived up to her name this week by dismissing Trump’s purloined classified documents case. Her decision had nothing to do with whether or not the documents were inappropriately taken, Trump’s obstruction of justice, or presidential immunity, rather she questioned the legitimacy of the appointment of Special Counsel Jack Smith.  Ironically, Cannon concluded that Smith wasn’t adequately under the thumb of Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland which flies in the face of Trump’s assertion that Smith was too much under Garland and Biden’s control.  Smith’s appointment as Special Counsel, like the appointment of Special Counsel Mueller before him, was legitimate and a number of courts have said as much but in his concurrence to the Supreme Court’s recent gut wrenching immunity decision, Justice Clarence Thomas suggested that the regulation providing for the appointment of special counsels wasn’t kosher even though it has been in effect for about forty years because precedent is so not cool anymore.  Cannon based her shocking opinion on that Thomas concurrence.  Jack Smith is appealing and may get the case reinstated but since this is mostly about stalling and currying favor with Trump it is a bigly win for Trump who is on a roll and may pave the path for bigger and better things for Cannon, at least that appears to be a large part of what drives her.    

Clear as Day:  Given recent events, RFK Jr is now receiving Secret Service protection. There’s no chance that he’ll be the next president but maybe he’ll be put in charge of something insignificant like the CDC or the FDA if Trump returns to the Oval Office because the two are sympatico with regard to their views on vaccine safety.  We know that because Trump is heard expressing his vaccine skepticism on a call with RFK Jr that was “mistakenly” caught on video and then posted by son Bobby (III not to be confused with Jr) on social media yesterday.  In the video, which RFK Jr acknowledges is genuine but has since been taken down, Trump endorses false theories about the safety of vaccines.  Maybe by Make America Great Again, Trump means make measles, mumps, rubella, and polio spread again?  Also, remember when Elon Musk said he wasn’t contributing to either candidate, well forget about that.  He now plans to contribute $45 million a month to a Trump supporting PAC along with a whole bunch of his Tech Bro buddies. That buys a lot of access, tax cuts and preferential treatment.  This is all so depressing.       

#BringThemAllHomeNow    

 
Dancing to the Oldies ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️

1968 Redux: It’s sad to say but the only thing surprising about this weekend’s shooting of one of the presidential candidates is that something like it didn’t happen sooner because when guns, divisiveness, hate, and disturbed disaffected young men are mixed together bad things happen. It’s hard to miss the irony that the target of the shooting this time around was the one who has repeatedly called for retribution against his opponents, who says that he’ll pardon those who attacked the Capitol and the Capitol police, who calls migrants vermin, who’s been known to encourage police to bash heads into squad car doors, who repeatedly demeaned Paul Pelosi after he was viciously attacked, and who called Kyle Rittenhouse who shot and killed two people a “nice young man” when he hosted him at his Florida home.  Moreover, because the times are truly nutzoid, Trump, the target of this weekend’s shooting is likely to rise in the polls because even though he was targeted by a young Republican with one of those fun semi-automatic weapons that his party is all in on, he pumped his fist so all’s good.  Biden and the Democratic down ballot candidates are likely to bear the brunt of heel spur Trump’s faux heroism even though Biden did what presidents are supposed to do this weekend, he used his bully pulpit to try to ratchet down the country’s temperature and unite the country as if that’s even possible. For his part, Trump, who beyond some mono syllabic social postings, hasn’t said much since the shooting, is reported to be having his Republican convention speech retooled, maybe lifting its expected dark tone while eliminating calls for retribution and the like, or then again maybe not because he still relies a lot on Stephen Miller whose speech writing skills are limited to doom and destruction.  And as Republicans and lots of Democrats have pointed out, Biden, while only three years older is old. Although this weekend’s events appear to have, at least for the moment, distracted attention from the age issue and Bernie Sanders, another old guy who’s had it with ageism weighed in on Biden’s behalf in a NY Times op-ed, the issue remains.  

Red v Blue:  To a large extent reactions to the shooting fall along party lines with far too many Republicans quick to blame Democrats for all the times they called Trump out as an evil opponent of democracy despite the fact that the description fits and still fits.  To that end VP wannabe JD Vance tied Democratic “rhetoric” directly to the “attempted assassination.” Tim Scott, who is probably no longer on the VP list but who is still trying to curry favor, weighed in saying it was Democrats “inflammatory rhetoric” putting Republicans “lives at risk.” House nut Margie Q called the Democratic party “flat out evil” claiming that “they tried to murder” Trump.  Mike Collins, another charming Republican Congressman, ramped the hate up further, alleging that it was “Biden who sent the orders to kill Trump, he also called for the Butler County, Pennsylvania District Attorney to “immediately file charges against Joseph R Biden for inciting an assassination.” Notably and not surprisingly, the party that advocates for gun ownership and sends holiday cards of their kids carrying military grade weaponry didn’t mention that the shooter, who did very sadly kill one rally attendee, Corey Comperatore, while seriously wounding two others, used an AR 15 legally purchased by his father who thought his socially backward son was just out playing with the gun. Though most of the most outrageous public comments  came from the right of the aisle, a few Democrats said some stupid things too, with a staffer to Mississippi’s Bennie Thompson getting quickly fired for posting on Facebook “better luck next time” which to be fair may be a thought that a lot of people are harboring within the recesses of their brains but that most, especially staff members of Democratic politicians, know not to publish all over social websites.  Finally, there’s the media which went all in on the shooting, running endless “special” programming all weekend because nothing rachets down hysteria better than hysterical reporting. CNN which should know better proved once again that they don’t or that they are still trying to outfox Fox by giving airtime to Republican commentator Scott Jennings who before the powder was even dry blamed Democrats for the shooting and then doubled down saying that while “Biden got the platitudes right he failed to take responsibility for the overheated condition he now says we are in.” Naturally, the Murdoch owned NY Post has a picture of a fist pumping Trump on it’s cover, that’s Trump who was heard on the open mic right after the shooting telling his Secret Service Agent to “let me get my shoes” as they whisked him off the podium.  Because doesn’t everyone take off their elevator pumps when speaking at rallies?             

May the memories of Dr. Ruth, Richard Simmons, and Shannen Dougherty be a blessing. Corey Comperatore, too.   

#BringThemAllHomeNow

 

Dancing to Disaster  ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️

One Step Forward: Last night Joe Biden held a news conference where he demonstrated once again his substantial knowledge and expertise and talked about the significant accomplishments of his administration. He had some notable gaffes, but there’s nothing new about that as he’s long been gaffe prone and his stumbles pale in comparison to those of his vindictive opponent who’s obsessed with sharks and windmills, running on a retribution platform, routinely lies and misidentifies international leaders, and who is so enamored of dictators and autocrats that he spent part of yesterday with one of them, Hungary’s Viktor Orban who probably hand delivered messages from their mutual friend Putin. There’s no question that the orange autocrat wannabee who counts Xi, Kim, and Vlad as his besties, is dangerous and ill-suited to be president, so much so that yesterday the Editorial Board of the NY Times, which has spent the better part of the past few weeks twisting a knife in Biden’s back called Trump “unfit to lead.” Maybe they should have thought about the consequences of their relentless attack on Biden before they spent so much time harping on his age?  Or maybe they’re just enjoying the consequences of their actions because Trump while awful for the country is good for their bottom line?   

Two Steps Back: We’re living through bizarre times when the loss of support from an A list actor who lives mostly in Europe and who in June lobbied the White House on behalf of his wife who maybe not so coincidentally has been advocating against Israel at the International Criminal Court is likely to be the final straw that ends Biden’s run for reelection because despite his rather strong performance last night, the lead-ins to today’s stories are all about Biden’s gaffes and the George Clooney led stampede out the door with the strength of Biden’s press conference performance and his mastery of international policy mentioned only as an afterthought. We know life is unfair. Ginger Rogers danced backwards in high heels, yet it was Fred Astaire who got most of the accolades but at least Fred really was a spectacular dancer.  Though he’s the son of a Fred, Trump is no Astaire, he can’t dance, he is also old and dangerous, his policies are awful, he spews venomous vitriol, lies endlessly, and yet with the help of the pundit class and a slew of skittish Democratic politicians, many of whom are expected to try to try to push Biden off the ticket as early as today, Trump is on a glide path to victory.  When all the attention should be on his meanness and incompetence it’s instead on Biden’s age.  I get it Biden is old, has lost some steps, and is not ideal, but an old Biden with a very competent Vice President Kamala Harris in the wings, is far better than a vile Trump and whichever toady he selects for his running mate.  Moreover, it would be crazy to believe that the messiness of replacing Biden with a consensus candidate, if that’s even possible, won’t further distract from the disaster that is Trump. Maybe not but the fact that Trump and his rightwing media echo chamber are emboldened and thrilled should scare us very much.  😱 🤯 

#BringThemAllHomeNow

      

Poop Scoops ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️

Twisties:  Back in those halcyon days of 2016, during a campaign stop in Iowa, Trump said that he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and wouldn’t lose any voters.  With an assist from the Supreme Court, we now know that he was right.  It looks like the 2024 corollary to that is that Joe Biden could do Simon Biles worthy aerial cartwheels with triple twists down Broadway while quoting the Constitution and the NYTimes and the rest of the pundit class would still call for him to step aside.  Yesterday, Biden gave a forceful speech at the Washington DC NATO summit, awarding NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg the Medal of Freedom, while dexterously securing that medal around his neck. Ignoring that, today the NY Times Editorial Board called for him to step aside. All of this while Donald Trump, the real elephant in the room whose days are mostly spent playing golf with an occasional lie filled, incoherent rally and a few radio call-in interviews tossed in, spent his day telling voters that despite all his bragging about being the one who got Roe overturned, he’s not really all that opposed to abortion so he’ll leave it up to the states and the Supreme Court to continue stripping away women’s rights but won’t push for a federal ban.  Like we’re to believe that he wouldn’t sign legislation doing just that?  Also, though Trump remains at the beck and call of the righter than rightwing Federalist Society, those self-righteous folks who pre-selected all the judges and justices he appointed and will appoint, he wants us all to believe he doesn’t endorse their Project 2025 Plan. That’s the transition plan written by former members of his last administration that would consolidate executive power in Trump’s hands, replace a large swath of the civil service with his loyalists, a list that has already been vetted by his former body man/hiring honcho Johnny McIntee, eliminate reproductive rights, withdraw Mifepristone’s FDA approval, and conduct mass deportations, among other equally frightening things. All the attention spent on Biden age’s is taking attention away from the specter of another Trump administration. Trump is loving that, and when he’s happy we’re doomed.  Don’t get caught up in the distraction.  Trump is the problem, what happens with Biden is out of our hands, but voting and supporting down ballot candidates isn’t so stay focused.   

To Beard or Not to Beard:  Trump is teasing that he’ll announce his VP selection shortly.  The current scuttlebutt and it’s just scuttlebutt, is that Florida Senator Marco Rubio is no longer in contention and that the list has been whittled down to North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum and Ohio Senator JD Vance.  For what it’s worth, my guess is that Burgum has an edge mostly because he’s less of an attention seeker and doesn’t have a beard and Trump hates when someone else steals his spotlight and isn’t fond of facial hair.  On the legal front, the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that Trump’s lawyers plan to litigate like crazy to make it virtually impossible for Washington Judge Chutkan to hold any hearings on the evidence that Special Counsel Jack Smith wants to include in any future trial about Trump’s responsibility for the January 6^th insurrection.  Lowell’s story was reported as a “scoop,” odd because given their history who among us really thinks that Trump’s lawyers won’t impede Chutkan and Smith and who among thinks that there ever will be a Trump insurrection trial?         

Another Scoop that Wasn’t:  Early this week the NY Times breathlessly 💩 💩 scooped that a Parkinson’s disease expert had visited the White House eight times intentionally leading readers to believe that Biden suffers from Parkinson’s.  It turns out that the doctor in question is Kevin Cannard, a neurologist who provides ongoing care to the more than 1000 people who are serviced by the White House Medical Unit. A significant number of those individuals are military personnel who are being treated for head related injuries suffered during their active military service.  Cannard has seen Biden only three times over three years, and then only because he routinely participates in the presidents’ annual physicals.  His observations about Biden’s health have been included in the reports released to the public at the time of each of Biden’s physicals, the NY Times has those reports but apparently reporting that Biden doesn’t have Parkinsons doesn’t provide the clicks that reporting on all those unrelated visits provides.  Also worth mentioning,  Dr. Cannard has been part of the White House Medical Unit for ten years and also participated in Trump’s annual exams but since the Trump White House stopped the usual practice of reporting out visitor logs, those visits were never reported by the NY Times’ pooper 💩 💩 scooper squad.  And remember Trump’s mysterious visit to Walter Reed, we still don’t know what that was about.  Maybe it’s the “Grey Lady” who’s aging badly?

 #BringThemAllHomeNow

 

120 Days ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️

Dems in Disarray:  So here we are, July Fourth is in the rearview window and the November elections are only 120 days away. Biden is still old, Trump is still evil, crazy, and dangerous.  The pundit class is so all in on the Biden infirmity issue that they are ignoring the evil, crazy, and dangerous one.  As noted by Guardian writer Rebecca Solnit, they are using the 2016 playbook that got us into this mess in the first place, “providing wildly asymmetrical and inflammatory coverage” of the candidates. Remember how Hillary Clinton who is still alive and kicking was supposedly on her death bed? Trump’s debate performance and daily utterances are so chock full of lies that it’s hard to recall if he ever says anything truthful or anything not chocked with bile and spite, but that part of the story is less mentioned these days because it’s old news and those stories don’t generate clicks.  While the specter of another Trump administration looms, the NY Times has run 50 editorials and 142 news stories about the “Biden problem.” Not to be outdone, The Washington Post which has been experiencing and possibly is trying to downplay its own inner turmoil, has gone for “saturation coverage,” going so far as to author and publish a resignation speech for Biden to deliver.  The New Yorker said that Biden staying “would be an act not only of self-delusion but of national endangerment” with one staff member suggesting that it was time to invoke the 25^th Amendment. Naturally, the Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal and NY Post have chimed in too, but that’s not surprising, they’re all in on Trump and are salivating at the liberal media and Democratic party eating its own while also reveling in all the recent Supreme Court decisions authored by Republican Court appointees. As to the liberal media, it’s hard not to think that some of its articles and calls for Biden to step down are fueled by their often-voiced anger with Biden over his handling of the Israel-Gaza situation.  Don’t get me wrong, Biden is old and struggling, not that he’s ever been gaffe free or all that articulate, but somehow or other mumbles and all he has been doing a pretty good job running the country.  Our economy has avoided the oft predicted recession, there’s been remarkable job growth and the passage of legislation that will have a positive long-term effect on infrastructure and American industry unless the former guy becomes the next guy and screws it all up with his tariffs and mass deportations and hands Ukraine and a number of its neighbors back to Russia while also dismantling NATO.  Of course, Democratic politicians are nervous with some, though not all, chiming in too, we know that because the media gives us a daily tally of those who insist that its time for Biden to step aside.  It amuses me, and not in a good way, that one of those is my Congressman Jerry Nadler, another one who jumbles his words and is hardly the picture of youth or robust health.  At the end of the day, I suspect that Biden’s path will be determined by the polls, not just how he’s doing but how his most likely replacement, VP Harris, or someone else, would do against Trump should Biden step aside. So far, the polls haven’t been definitive.  In fact, over the weekend the respected Bloomberg Morning Consult poll showed that despite his debate performance, Biden has gained in the key swing states, putting those races into statistical ties. What happens next, who knows?  Is it even possible to move on to another candidate without opening up a Democratic can of worms? As much as I respect legal pundit Andrew Weissmann, his recent tweet that the Democrats should go with a Kamala Harris/Liz Cheney ticket is indicative of how wild a new selection process would be. Sure, Liz deserves respect for standing up to Trump but she’s uber conservative, voted with Trump almost all the time and like him still talks about the “horror” of non-existent 10-month abortions.  Had she been in the Senate rather than the House, she would have voted for all of Trump’s judicial nominees.  At least for now, it appears that there are voters in swingy places that can distinguish between age and evil so let’s all take a deep breath while this plays out.

Fog:  Over the weekend the news out of the Middle East was that Israel and Hamas are closer than ever to a ceasefire, again. Lucy and her football would like to weigh in. The Brits have resoundingly thrown out the Tories, replacing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak with Labour’s Keir Starmer.  Liz Truss, the “lettuce” Prime Minister who briefly preceded Sunak and who recently endorsed Trump lost her seat altogether.  Proving that polls aren’t always right, Frances’ far right has lost out to an alliance of Emanuel Macron’s centrists and a leftist coalition meaning that Martine Le Pen, her anti-immigration party, and their neo-Nazi cohorts, won’t be taking over the French government, at least for now. That’s good but France’s left wants to undo the economic reforms that Macron put in place in an attempt to fix France’s stagnant economy, so the path forward won’t be easy.  And, because of course, Judge Eileen loose Cannon has frozen the already stagnant purloined document case, directing both sides to provide her with briefs on how the Supreme Court’s immunity decision impacts Trump’s post-presidential document theft crime spree.      

#BringThemAllHomeNow 

Nixon's Revenge ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️

Tricky Dick’s Ghost:  Over the weekend Trump whose bestie Roger Stone has a large tattoo of Richard Nixon on his back, circulated Truth Social posts calling for military tribunals to try his “enemies” and for the jailing of President Biden, VP Harris, Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney, Jamie Raskin, Adam Schiff, Adam Kinzinger, among others.  On Monday, in a 6 to 3 decision written by Chief Justice Roberts SCOTUS told him they were cool with that because as far as they’re concerned, contrary to our founders’ intent, presidents are mostly kings and therefore get to do just about everything they want, and the stuff that they’re not supposed to do, they probably get to do that too by merely saying that it’s part of their presidential duties. Up until Monday’s decision was released, the collective thought of the legal pundit community was that the immunity decision had been delayed so long because a few of the conservative Justices were stalling for time, wordsmithing dissents, to make it impossible for Trump’s trials to take place before the election.  The expectation had been that the majority’s opinion would grant presidents some immunity for official actions but only those actions that fell well within the scope of legitimate presidential duties. Turns out that the legal pundits were delusional.  This Court, which includes five Justices, Roberts, Alito, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch,  who honed their skills pushing the presidential power envelope for Republican presidents and one, Coney-Barrett who is mostly willing to go along for the ride, are the ones helming the ship. It’s the three liberal Justices and the remaining shreds of our democracy that are barely clinging to life preservers in a very turbulent sea.  In the minority’s dissent Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the majority’s opinion has “no basis in law” and “makes a mockery of the principle that no one is above the law.” She ended by saying that with “fear for our democracy” she dissents. Not willing to let those hysterical women have the last word, Chief Justice Roberts said that the girls were just overreacting, that anointing Trump was nothing to get so upset about because really, who thinks that Trump who is running on a platform of retribution, promising to be a dictator on day one, calling for military tribunals and the like really intends to do what he repeatedly says he plans to do.

The Decision: In a nutshell, the Court’s majority ruled that immunity for former presidents including the Orange dictator wannabee, is absolute with respect to “core presidential powers” and that a former president has at least a presumptive immunity for “acts within the outer perimeter of his (or her if we ever get there) official responsibility.  The kicker is that SCOTUS considers that perimeter to be rather large and prosecutors like Jack Smith, who in an earlier chapter of the Trump chronicles was supposed to save us from Trump’s resurgence, have a high legal bar to overcome that presumption.  Former presidents have no immunity for their unofficial acts but with the exception of Justice Coney Barrett, the majority ruled that a president’s official acts can’t be presented to a jury as evidence of a crime even if that crime involved an unofficial act.  The Court opined that since talking with the Department of Justice was within Trump’s official acts, he was absolutely immune when he directed the Attorney General to say there had been lots of election fraud even though there wasn’t. They also said that he was “presumptively” immune with regard to his conversations with then VP Mike Pence, the ones where he pushed Pence to refuse to certify the electoral college vote. The Court said that it’s up to the lower courts to hear evidence and then rule on which bucket presidential acts fall into, leaving them to figure out, for example, whether pressuring Pence to upturn the election was beyond the presidential pale but while doing that the lower court is not to consider motives because why should it matter that Trump’s motive was to remain in office for at least another term if not for the rest of his life? Though the fake state elector scheme is likely still a prosecutable crime, proving Trump’s involvement will be difficult and even more time consuming as a result of the Court’s ruling.  Presumably, Trump’s Mar a Lago document-whack a mole case is still alive too except we all know that Judge Aileen loose Cannon, who has already moved that case well into snail territory will find more reasons to slow it down. Trump celebrated the Court’s decision by having his lawyers request that his New York hush money case sentencing be postponed while they argue that his conviction should be thrown out as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision perhaps because writing checks to reimburse Michael Cohen for his payments to Stormy Daniels while he was in the Oval office is evidence that shouldn’t have been used in New York because he wrote those checks while simultaneously doing presidential things?  For what it’s worth, the same pundits who said that SCOTUS would never grant Trump so much immunity now say that NY Judge Juan Merchan, who has agreed to delay sentencing until September 18, will not throw out the conviction. They may be right, but Trump will be able to argue that point when he appeals his hush money conviction to higher courts.  For his part President Biden took advantage of the moment by making some coherent televised remarks where he condemned the Court’s opinion and showed that he now understands the value of stage make-up.

Fog:  As part of his proof of life campaign Biden will be sitting down for a one-on-one interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.  Some of the interview will be broadcast on Friday during the ABC evening news, the extended interview will be shown on Stephanopoulos’ Sunday news show.  According to Vanity Fair, RFK Jr, the brainworm, anti-vaxx candidate ate a dog and sexually assaulted one of his children’s nannies.  He responded by denying the dog allegation while shrugging when asked about the nanny assault.  The article also details the origins of RFK anti-vaxx position, as well as how he used his fame to convince residents of Samoa not to get the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine.. More than 80 children whose parents took his advice, subsequently died during a measles epidemic. So maybe Trump, who during the debate once again denied having sex with Stormy Daniels, is still considering RFK to be his VP, or better yet, Secretary of Health or head of the CDC? Sadly, the mother of Noa Argamani, one of the Israeli hostages rescued last month, has died after suffering a long battle with brain cancer. Her dying wish had been to see her daughter again before her death. Thankfully, no thanks to Hamas, she did. 

#BringThemAllHomeNow         

Happy Fourth of July!

  

The Man Who Would be King  ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️

Look At It This Way:  Things could be worse, you could be Steve Bannon, on your way to prison for four months. On Friday, the Supreme Court rejected Bannon’s request for a stay out of jail card.  Assuming he didn’t flee the country over the weekend, Bannon is expected to turn himself in this morning.  Since he’s also been indicted in New York for a few fraud felonies for his “Build the Wall” charity scheme, Bannon won’t be going to one of the Fed’s cushiest prisons.  Hopefully, the image of Bannon in an orange jumpsuit helps with the extreme anxiety you are likely feeling about the presidential race.  At least so far, despite a lot of intense handwringing and calls from several pundits, donors, and papers for him to step aside, President Biden remains the presumptive Democratic nominee.  There’s no question that his performance in last week’s debate was problematic but let’s hear it for the Philadelphia Inquirer which, focusing on Trump’s utter disdain for Democracy and his stream of lies (tenth month abortions are not a thing), called for him to withdraw from the race. Certainly, Trump won’t, and since my crystal ball is foggy and cracked, I have no idea what will happen with Biden so, assuming you are as concerned about the Supreme Court as I am, instead of vomiting your kishkes out, be productive, focus on the vulnerable mostly swing state Senate races where your contributions can make a difference.  Specifically, Montana’s Jon Tester, Ohio’s Sherrod Brown, Pennsylvania’s Bob Casey, and Nevada’s Jackie Rosen are all facing tough challenges and could use a lift.  Also, though Maryland is generally reliably blue given that the Republican candidate is the relatively popular former Governor Larry Hogan, hardly a friend of reproductive choice, Democratic candidate Angela Alsobrooks could also use a hand.  Worth noting that a number of the Republican candidates including Pennsylvania’s David McCormick and Montana’s Tim Sheehy, neither of whom actually reside in the state where they’re running, are very rich guys who were chosen because they can self-fund their races.  Also, don’t forget Arizona where Democratic Representative Ruben Gallego is facing off against Republican nutjob Kari Lake.  Even though Gallego appears to be running ahead of Lake, a particularly poor performance at the top of the ticket could drag him, as well as other vulnerable or swingy state Democrats down, like Wisconsin incumbent Democrat Tammy Baldwin and Michigan Representative Elissa Slotkin who is seeking the seat being vacated by the retiring Debbie Stabenow.  And then there’s Texas and Florida, the two states that everyone hopes to turn blue someday but probably won’t now, don’t hesitate to do something for Debbie Mucarsel-Powell who is challenging the very rich Rick Scott or Colin Allred who is up against Ted Cruz.

The Supremes:  On Friday, the Supreme Court issued some disturbing opinions, but following their stall to the last-minute strategy,  left the big kahuna presidential immunity one for today.  Tune in at 10 AM EDT this morning to find out if presidents, mostly those named Trump, have the power of kings. As to Friday’s opinions, as they did with the Roe overturning Dobbs opinion, the Court’s conservative majority decided that stare decisis, the principle of adhering to previous judgements, is only a thing when they want it to be.  By a vote of 6 to 3 with all the conservative Justices in the majority, in an opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts, the Court dismissed the 40- year-old Chevron preference, sharply cutting back the power of federal agencies to interpret laws they administer, instead handing more decision- making power to the courts.  That means that interpreting ambiguous sections of laws won’t fall to agency experts but to federal judges who for the most part don’t have the expertise but unlike elected officials and politically appointed staff do have life tenures.  Killing off the Chevron preference has been a long-term goal of major conservative donors particularly those who made their billions in fossil fuels and other related industries.  Don’t get me wrong, a lot of them are thrilled that reproductive rights have been trashed by SCOTUS but their bread-and-butter issue has been eliminating the regulations that keep our air clean, our rivers free of pollutants and our drugs safe and effective and they have finally won bigly. As liberal Justice Elena Kagan put it in her scathing dissent, her conservative colleagues have overturned years of precedent to appoint themselves the “country’s administrative czar.”  In Fischer v US in another notable opinion, the Court struck down a key charge used to prosecute hundreds of defendants involved in the January 6 attacks on the US Capitol, ruling by a vote of 6 to 3 with Ketanji Brown Jackson joining the majority and Amy Coney Barrett joining the dissenters. In the opinion written by Justice Roberts, the Court decided that the law barring the obstruction of an official proceeding applies only to evidence tampering such as the destruction of records or documents.  Though the ruling is a setback for the Department of Justice, it doesn’t mean that all the affected defendants will get off scot-free because quite a few of them were also found guilty of other charges and some of them did tamper and/or destroy records so according to Just Security probably only 26 or so will get off as a result of the decision.  Also, though two of the charges against Trump involve the same law, since he’s also accused of involvement in the elector tampering scheme, those charges should remain applicable assuming his case ever makes it to trial.  The Court also ruled that cities can ban homeless encampment meaning it’s not okay for homeless people to sleep outside when the local law says they shouldn’t.  To be fair no one wants an encampment or a homeless person sleeping nearby, but how terribly sad that we can’t come up with adequate housing for our homeless.     

#BringThemAllHomeNow