77 Days  ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️

Economics 101:  On Friday Kamala Harris announced her economic plan which includes a ban on price gouging for groceries and food, the cancellation of medical debt, a cap on prescription drug costs, a $25,000 subsidy for first-time home buyers, and a $6000 per child tax credit for the first year of a baby’s life.  Her aspirational populist plan was immediately slammed by Republicans especially Trump who claimed that her “communist” plan would ruin the economy, the one that he consistently describes as worse than Venezuela’s, the country he said he’ll go to if he loses the election.  Absent any offsetting revenues Harris’ plan would increase the debt but by much less than Trump’s plan to extend and increase the tax cuts he implemented during his administration.  It would also be less inflationary than Trump’s widely panned promise to impose across the board tariffs on foreign goods because despite Trump’s assertion that countries like China would “pay” for his planned hike in tariffs, they would largely be absorbed by US consumers.  In any case, Harris’ plan is just that, because for the most part nothing happens without legislative approval and though it’s considered more likely than not that the House will go blue in November, in order for the Democrats to retain control of the Senate, they’ll have to hold on to every one of their at risk seats including Jon Tester’s most at risk Montana seat, and even then they’ll be down a seat because Senator Joe Manchin’s West Virginia will definitely go red. The bottom line, we need more affordable housing, drug costs in the US are higher than elsewhere and pro-family politicians, regardless of their party, should be supportive of helping out parents but addressing problems and solving the housing crisis takes cooperation across the aisle and that’s unlikely to happen anytime soon so if you like Harris’ plans be prepared for some disappointment and if you hate them, don’t lose sleep because passing sweeping legislation isn’t easy and anything that passes is likely to be full of compromises. 

Dumb and Dumber: A lot of the rest of the weekend’s political news was chock full of stupid.  Republicans are attacking Harris as unpresidential because she said she stress ate a whole bag of Doritos when Trump became president. Doritos aren’t my chip of choice but really, who doesn’t think that downing a large bag of chips over Trump’s election isn’t entirely relatable? At a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, where he was particularly unhinged, Trump once again called Kamala, who is clearly living in his head rent free, beautiful, but then insisted that he was far “better looking.” That comment speaks for itself.  Continuing with his fascination with “beautiful” women, yesterday he reposted an AI generated image claiming that he had received and accepted Taylor Swift’s endorsement.  He most certainly has not been endorsed by Swift, though it’s fair to assume that her people, who as of this morning haven’t yet responded to his very false assertion, are looking into whether or not they can sue him for his lie. During a Fox interview,  JD Vance asserted that giving Kamala Harris control over inflation “is like giving Jeffrey Epstein control over human trafficking policy.”  Just a reminder Trump was friends with Epstein, rode on his plane several times and rented his plane last week for one of his campaign trips so maybe pulling out the Epstein card, is kind of counterproductive but then again, it’s Vance and he’s a bit tone deaf. Keeping with the Jeffrey Epstein theme, the Trump campaign newest campaign video shows Trump dancing to a sexually offensive rap song and then climbing on to the same leased Epstein jet.  The expected pro-Palestinian protesters a number of whom are also pro-Hamas and as evidenced by their Nazi salutes also anti-Semitic, are already doing their thing in Chicago because nothing helps their cause better than abetting a Trump victory?

People, Places and Things: Assuming courts on Long Island haven’t floated away, a possibility given the torrential downpours that fell across the New York area last night, George of many names Santos is expected to plead guilty today to a whole bunch of federal crimes, the fraud, not the absurd lies about his identity and athletic prowess.  On Friday New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy announced that he’s appointing George Helmy, his former chief of staff to temporarily replace outgoing felon/Senator Bob Menendez who will be stepping out of the Senate shortly. Unless something unexpected happens in November, it’s likely that Democratic Congressman Andy Kim who is running against Republican hotelier Curtis Bashaw will win that seat. Because they’ve gotten good at throwing shade, the DNC projected a “Project 2025 HQ” message onto Trump’s Chicago hotel tower.  The Democratic convention begins today, and former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger is now on the speakers list.  No word yet if Liz Cheney or Chris Christie will weigh in but lots of Republicans have crossed party lines to endorse the Harris ticket as evidenced by last week’s Republicans for Harris Zoom call, part of an expanding series that has included Dead Heads for Harris, Comics for Harris, and the Jewish Women for Harris one which featured Barbra Streisand. Polls are also looking up but not they’re only polls and we’ve been fooled before.

Fog:  Peace and a ceasefire remain distressingly elusive in the Middle East.  Think Lucy with a football, except the football is a live grenade and that’s not fair to Lucy.    

#BringThemAllHomeNow