35 Days 🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴

Countdown:   The race between the raging lunatic and the woman he pathetically describes as mentally impaired, possibly the most accurate and revealing example of psychological projection ever, is in a statistical tie.  Over the weekend, the truly demented one ramped up his hate shpiel. Taking a page from the dystopian The Purge movies, he called for one really “rough,” nasty, “violent” day of rage to eradicate crime and its perpetrators.  By criminals, he naturally excludes himself, but does mean going after people of color, immigrants, and anyone who doesn’t support him especially all those election “cheaters” and Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, of course. To those who doubt he’s serious, consider what he fomented on January 6 then amp it with steroids and throw in guns because at least on January 6 the marauders, as dangerous as they were, had been screened by magnetometers.  Even the Wall Street Journal, or at least its news side, knows Trump’s plans aren’t kosher.  Over the weekend they wrote about his intent to remake the Department of Justice in his image because “nothing has motivated or infuriated” him more than how he’s treated by Justice, though he’s okay with how the Department has treated Democrats such as NJ’s Senator Menendez and Hunter Biden.  The WSJ says that he is “determined to remake it (DOJ) in ways that excite firebrands in his base—by replacing career employees with loyalists, by ordering investigations into those who have prosecuted him and by enlisting the Justice Department on the conservative side of the latest culture wars.”  Those are softer, all be it, very frightening words for what he plans to do. This time around his intent is to appoint people who will help him implement his avowed message of retribution.  Forget about Jeff Sessions, who despite his loyalty and racist views, recused himself from the Russia investigation or William Barr, who still believes in the supremacy of the presidency and acted deviously when he was AG but thought trying to override an election was a step too far, this time around Trump is looking at people like former Congressman John Ratcliffe, the fellow conspiracist, who he briefly appointed as director of national intelligence and Senators Mike Lee, Tom Cotton, and Eric Schmitt.  They like his environmental lawyer/toady Jeffrey Clark have demonstrated lots of loyalty and would follow his lead, but unlike Clark haven’t been indicted and by virtue of having been elected to office, have a patina of legitimacy and a higher likelihood of passing through a Senate confirmation process, particularly since the Senate will likely be run by their Republican colleagues after the election. It’s not just the WSJ, which is concerned and believes that Trump’s promises are more than the bluster his allies assert they are, Politico, also right leaning, points out that many including the “country’s most experienced federal law enforcement officials are taking the matter gravely seriously.”  

Endorsements:  Jeff Flake, the former Republican Senator from Arizona who was until September 1, the US Ambassador to Turkey, formally endorsed Kamala Harris’ run for the presidency.  Flake’s endorsement was expected, he had to wait until his official September 1 departure date from his ambassadorship to issue it.  Last week Scientific American endorsed Harris, this was only their second endorsement, they endorsed Joe Biden in 2020. Both times, they felt obligated to speak out because of Trump’s willful ignorance and dismissal of science, maybe something to do with his redrawing the lines of hurricanes to his liking, dismissing climate change as a good thing that makes for more beach front property, something that those suffering from Hurricane Helene might not appreciate, not that their current suffering will stop many of them from voting for him because they like a lot of others are influenced more by tribe than voting for their own self interests.  Worth pointing out that the government and thus FEMA is still open for business, not because of Trump or his Republican toadies, but because Democrats did the heavy lifting passing a continuing funding resolution that lasts until Christmas when the fight to keep the government open will rear its head again.  Over the weekend, The New Yorker also endorsed Kamala Harris, saying that “for nine years Donald Trump has represented an ongoing assault on the stability, the nerves, and the nature of the United States….he amplified some of the ugliest currents in our political culture: nativism, racism, misogyny, indifference to the disadvantaged, amoral isolationism…. narcissism and casual cruelty” while his contempt for the truth, have contaminated public life.”  In contrast, they say Kamala Harris “has displayed the basic values and political skills that would enable her to build on the successes of the Biden Administration and to help end, once and for all, a poisonous era defined by Trump. If only all these endorsements mattered. 

Fog:  Hezbollah is bad, they’ve killed hundreds of Americans, they were responsible for the suicide truck bombings in 1983 and 1984 in Beirut that targeted the Marine barracks and the U.S. embassy annex. The death toll of those attacks was more than 300 Americans and Lebanese.  Together with Iran they were responsible for the bombing of a Jewish Center in Argentina, the largest terrorist attack ever experienced in that country.  Eighty-five were killed and an additional 300 were wounded.  Again, that was in Argentina which should really have no bearing on what goes on in Lebanon or Israel but tell that to the victims’ families. Hezbollah has also been relentlessly bombing Israel’s north for years. The plans to diminish their power predate last October 7 because they’ve long been considered a bigly problem for Israel.  If anything, the plans were probably put off when all attention shifted to Gaza.  Will the current hostilities improve anyone’s lives? I have no idea, but they aren’t surprising. War and hate suck and killing terrorist leaders seems like a deadly game of whack a mole, there always seems to be another one ready and willing to assume power.   

Tick Tock:  If you are tired of your Apple watch and want to buy an overpriced replacement, Trump has a watch for you because, of course he does. Tomorrow’s another debate night, this time between VP candidates JD Vance and Tim Walz.  CBS, the hosting station, has no plans to fact check which means that the debate will likely be dumber and more frustrating than most because Vance, who has admitted that he knows that Ohio’s Haitian population doesn’t eat cats, is a prolific and sometimes convincing liar. At least, it will be the last one of this cycle, hopefully.     

#BringThemAllHomeNow

Something Smells 🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴

🦃 🦃 🦃: It’s hard to get into the head of politicians and it’s not clear we’d want to if we could but it’s particularly ironic that NYC voters who’ve had Trump’s number for years are now living with the consequences of having voted in Eric Adams as Mayor. For those unfamiliar with the vagaries of New York politics, Adams was selected as the Democratic candidate for mayor through ranked choice voting that resulted in him beating out a slew of other candidates, some competent, many less so. He then went on to win the general election garnering 67% of the vote against Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, who had promised to bring his fifteen cats with him to Gracie Mansion and who was the least serious and competent candidate that the Republicans could dredge up. At the time that Adams won the race a number of pundits, noting his predilection for rule breaking and living on the edge, predicted that he’d be indicted before the end of his term.  Sadly, even though he’s been okay as mayor, they were right.  Adams was indicted yesterday for accepting $100,000 in Turkish Air tickets, upgrades, and fancy hotel accommodations; advancing the approval of the Turkish Consulate’s new building despite its many concerning fire code violations; soliciting and accepting illegal foreign campaign contributions and then bundling them in a manner that allowed his campaign to receive $10 million in matching funds; and playing cute with his phones.  The NY Times and many, mostly Democratic, politicians have called for Adams to resign, Governor Hochul who has the power to remove him is giving him a few days to “think” about doing the right thing before she invokes her power.  The Trump universe, including the Murdoch owned NY Post, is defending Adams, asserting that he has been targeted by the “Biden” Justice Department for his Trump friendly comments on “illegal migrants.” Maybe that’s because of Trump’s strange history with Turkey, it’s alleged that he too engaged in some hinky business with Turkish types which resulted in him receiving about $10 million in illegal campaign donations.  He wasn’t prosecuted likely because his AG, William Barr, made the problem go away.  For the record, though I voted for Adams because Sliwa wasn’t a viable option, my first “ranked” choice had been Former NY Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia.  We really could use her now because something smells really bad.

Presidential Politics:  Meantime, back on the campaign trail, Kamala Harris has added details to her economic plan, one that focuses on building up the middle class. During a presentation to the Economic Club of Pittsburgh, “Komrade” Kamala sounded an awful lot like a reasonable middle of the road capitalist who actually understood her subject matter especially in comparison to Trump whose answer to everything is more and higher tariffs, whose solution to the lack of affordable housing is to deport ten million “illegal” migrants, whose speeches are dominated by xenophobic rants and who keeps on promising whack a mole tax cuts targeted to lure swing state union workers, cuts that he has no intention of delivering.  He also never mentions that his tax giveaways will be funded through drastic cuts in government programs including health care along the lines of those called for in the extreme Project 25 plan that he keeps trying to distance himself from.  As to racist rants, Louisiana Congressman Clay Higgins gets this week’s Razzie for a social media post that slimed Haitians calling them all “vudu “practicing, pet eating thugs” who “better get their ass out of our country.”  Facing boatloads of criticism Higgins took his post down but then promised to post even worse slurs because he can.  Fellow Louisianian, Speaker Mike Johnson defended Higgins, calling him a dear, principled friend, adding that they’d prayed together so now everything is okay. Higgins counts the KKK’s David Duke among his besties, was forced to resign from his police job for publicly calling Black suspects animals and is a supporter of the Three Percenters white supremacist militia group, but all’s good because he's Speaker Johnson’s “dear, principled friend” and they pray. 

Endorsements:  After Kamala delivered her Pittsburgh economic speech, Mark Cuban formally endorsed her, joining 88 other business leaders including James Murdoch, not to be confused with his father or brother Lachlan who remain firmly in Trump’s camp. Yesterday, retired US Army General Stanley McChrystal said that he’d already cast his vote for Harris, because to him despite his more conservative views, what matters is character and Kamala Harris has the “strength, temperament and the values to serve as Commander in Chief.’’  He noted that when she sits down with leaders like Ukraine’s Zelenskyy and expresses her support for NATO she is working in our national interest, unlike the other guy running.  Though he didn’t explicitly mention Trump’s affinity for Russia and all things Vlad it was clear he had that in mind.  Yesterday, Trump whose plans to meet with Zelenskyy are back on, he’d canceled them to express  faux outrage over Zelenskyy’s trip to a Pennsylvania munitions factory where the Ukrainian leader had thanked workers, repeated that the war wouldn’t have happened if he’d been in charge and would end immediately because he’ll find a solution satisfactory to Vlad, one that likely would involve Russia keeping all the land it has grabbed plus a little more for good measure. Earlier this week Trump, repeating a version of history that Vlad must have fed him during one of what Trump called their “many” calls, pointed out, erroneously, that Russia has never lost a war so won’t lose the one with Ukraine. Russia has lost wars against Poland, Japan, and Afghanistan to name a few but as former chief of staff John Kelly once said, Trump isn’t even clear about who was on which side during the World Wars, so his knowledge of history is sketchy and that’s probably being kind.      

🎻 🎻 🎻:  Right wing media outlet Newsmax has settled with election machine company Smartmatic over the lies they pushed about the company’s machines flipping votes blue after the 2020 election meaning that they’ve handed over lots of money to avoid a public defamation trial.  The amount has not been disclosed but Fox is next in the hopper so there could be another settlement unless Fox decides to go to trial.  Rudy Giuliani who earlier lost his New York legal license has been officially disbarred in Washington DC. And lastly, Wired reports that John McEntee has being accused of sending a series of teen girls, all 18-years-old, creepy messages through the Peter Thiel funded, for Republicans only, dating site “The Right Stuff,” offering to pay for them to “visit” him in California.  McEntee who founded the site, was Trump’s body man before he was fired by then Chief of Staff Kelly, something to do with failing his security review due to his gambling debts.  After Trump axed Kelly, he rehired McEntee, putting him in charge of White House personnel, a post that he is expected to have again if Trump returns to the White House because only the best?      

#BringThemAllHomeAliveNow

Don't Worry, Be Happy?  🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴

Pearls of Idiocy:  If Trump is elected, women will be “happy, healthy, confident and free and no longer thinking about abortion” because the country is thrilled about “his” Justices overturning Roe because no one cares about abortion any more as “everyone” wanted abortion out of the federal government and into the hands of the states.  Also, California will no longer have to worry about droughts or threatening fires because “you have millions of gallons of water pouring down from the north, with the snow caps in Canada and all pouring down, and they have essentially a very large faucet,” and Trump will stop that water from going “aimlessly” into the Pacific Ocean, turning it back so that “all of that water would come right down” into Los Angeles. Moreover, there is no need to be concerned about global warming because those scientists expecting sea levels to rise by ten to twelve inches over the next thirty years, they’re all wrong.  Levels will only be rising “one-eighth of an inch over the next 400 years,” and anyway higher levels are good because doesn’t everyone want more oceanfront property?  Trump’s scientific acumen is awesome because his uncle was the “longest serving” professor at MIT so obviously that makes him an expert because genetics? Crime is up even though the FBI says that with the exception of car thefts it’s down.  No one has a job even though unemployment is at 4.2%, lower than the long-term average of 5.7%, inflation is still raging even though it’s down to 2.5%. The stock market is crashing even though the indices are at record levels.  And of course, only Trump can fix that economic hellscape by unilaterally imposing “substantial” tariffs which will also solve the trouble of childcare.  Then there are his promises of retribution, which judging by the NY Time’s report of how he targeted his “enemies” including Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Andrew McCabe,  Pete Strzok, and Lisa Page among others last time he was president should be taken very seriously. This nonsense and the threats go on and on yet Trump lags Kamala Harris by the thinnest of margins with 47% of likely voters ready to vote for him, and worse yet, if the NY Times- Siena poll is right, he’s leading in the key swing states of Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina. How’s your week going?   

Only the Best:  Trump isn’t the only politician who thinks concerns about abortion access are overstated.  Bernie Moreno, the Republican who is running against Ohio’s incumbent Democratic Senator Sherod Brown, told a group of voters at an Ohio townhall that “older” women, which he defined as women over 50, shouldn’t care about abortion because they’re too old to have children anyway.  Apparently, Republicans, or at least their candidates, don’t get that people, including “older” women and men could possibly care about their daughters, granddaughters, nieces, and friends losing their body autonomy, bleeding out in hospital parking lots, or being forced to continue unviable pregnancies and so on.  That makes sense when you consider that Mark Robinson, North Carolina’s Republican gubernatorial candidate who, in addition to be a self-proclaimed Black Nazi, doesn’t believe that women should have the right to vote.  Robinson still has Trump’s endorsement and is being given the benefit of the doubt by VP candidate JD Vance but he’s lost the support of Georgia’s Republican Governor Brian Kemp and will no longer be given any more campaign money by the Republican Governors group though both Kemp and the Governors group had no problem supporting him when they “just” knew he was a Holocaust-denier who thought giving women the right to vote was a bad thing.  Remember George Santos, the Long Island Congressmen of many names and fabrications, it turns out that he was serving as an effective heat shield for Anthony D’Esposito, another Republican Long Island Congressman.  D’Esposito, who like Santos was elected in a Biden plus district in 2022, is now under fire for putting his fiancée’s daughter and his girlfriend (someone other than his fiancée) on his payroll.  The local Republican machine knew about D’Esposito’s questionable behavior but with Santos sucking up so much press attention they must have thought no one would care. Well, apparently via the NY Times everyone now knows, and some people care about what are likely House ethics rule violations.  D’Esposito is being challenged by Democrat Laura Gillen who according to Siena, is polling a few points ahead of him. By the way, ethical lapses aren’t unique to Republican, but they do appear to be rampant in the New York metropolitan area where just about everyone in Mayor Eric Adams’ administration has announced early retirement and/or is being investigated by the FBI.

Endorsements:  To the extent that any “swing” voters care, and to be clear, they should it’s just not clear that that they do, on Sunday, in a letter organized by the National Securities Leaders of America over 700 national security and military officials endorsed Kamala Harris for president saying that she "defends America's democratic ideals" while Trump "endangers" them. In addition, three former chairs of the Maine Republican Party “enthusiastically endorsed” Harris saying they opposed Trump’s proposed tax and trade policies, his divisive rhetoric, and his failure to say that Ukraine should prevail against Russia. Last week the International Brotherhood of Teamsters decided not to endorse a candidate, a disappointment for Kamala Harris but since then regional Teamsters councils, representing hundreds of thousands of members and retirees in 14 states including swingy Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, and western Pennsylvania have endorsed Kamala as has the Teamsters National Black Caucus.  Then there’s Joe Manchin, he’s now angry with Kamala for saying that she would push for the Senate to dispense with the filibuster to codify abortion rights, so he won’t be formally endorsing her. He previously hinted he would.  So very Manchin of him especially when you consider that the Democrats have a slim chance of even holding the Senate and neither he nor Kamala will be in the Senate next term regardless of the outcome of the election.  As to the Senate, Republican leader Mitch McConnell told a group of big-ticket donors that he’s certain that they will be winning the Senate seat held by Democrat Jon Tester and that he is also very optimistic about winning Sherrod Brown’s Ohio seat but that he needs more money from them to stand a chance to win elsewhere.  Sadly, he’s likely right about Montana but it’s not clear that he’s right about Ohio though with Trump on the ticket, Brown is facing a tough battle.  For their part Democrats are upping their spend in the Florida and Texas Senate races.  And lastly, though he didn’t endorse Kamala, Republican State Senator Mike McConnell (not to be confused with Mitch) announced that he opposes changing Nebraska’s electoral college vote allocation process.  As a result, Nebraska will continue to allocate one of its electoral college votes to the winner of the congressional district that includes Omaha, an area that is likely to vote for Kamala Harris. That’s a disappointment for Trump who has already started attacking Nebraska’s McConnell on social media and also for South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham who expended some personal capital trying to change Nebraska’s process on behalf of Trump.  If Kamala loses all of the swingy southern states, that one vote could be pivotal.    

#BringThemAllHomeAliveNow   

 
42 Days 🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴

State of Play:  The good news is that Kamala Harris continues to lead in most national polls and her net favorability rating has increased dramatically. The less good news is that virtually all of those polls, especially the ones in the swing states, are well within the margin of error and a disturbingly high number of poll respondents continue to view Trump favorably. Moreover, despite Trump’s cockamamie economic plans, including his stated intention to impose high tariffs combined with his total misunderstanding of how they work, voters continue to give view him higher marks on his ability to handle the economy, a top concern of the electorate.  Also, the polls don’t take into consideration the Republican party’s voter suppression efforts which have grown increasingly nefarious. For example, last week, the Republican dominated Georgia State Election Board, voted in favor of hand counting all ballots in the November election, an unreliable, time-consuming process that will most certainly slow down the counting of ballots, and could cause Georgia to miss the deadline to report its official results for Electoral College purposes.  Brad Raffensperger, the Republican Georgia Election official who refused to find Trump the 11,000 or so votes he asked for in 2020 is very concerned that the new rules will jeopardize the state’s counting of votes, he also thinks that the new procedures are illegal, and they may be but that also means more court battles. Throughout the country, Republican election officials have been finding reasons to kick certain “types” of voters off the voting roles and make voting more difficult.  Additionally, there are concerns that Speaker Mike Johnson who, even if the Republicans lose the House in November will be Speaker until January 3, will find ways to throw additional wrenches into state vote confirmations. That’s not an unreasonable concern given that Johnson has been an ardent supporter of Trump’s assertion that the 2020 election was stolen. Republican officials in Nebraska are working hard to change the rules that govern the allocation of their electoral college votes. Though 48 states allocate all their electoral college voters to the winner of their popular votes, both Nebraska and Maine allocate theirs differently, giving two votes to the state popular vote winner and one to the popular vote winner in each congressional district.  There are two districts in Maine and three in Nebraska.  This process could and frequently does lead to a split electoral college vote.  Concerned that the Omaha district vote will go to Kamala and expecting a close election where just one electoral college vote could be the decider, Republicans are trying to change Nebraska’s allocation process to winner takes all before the November election.  If you are having trouble sleeping at night, you are not alone.  

The Nepo Vote:  It’s still not clear if RFK Jr’s endorsement of Trump has much, if any value, but he too is all in on voter shenanigans. The mailing of absentee ballots in North Carolina was held up while state courts considered his request to have his name removed from the presidential ballot even though he missed the official deadline.  After the courts ruled in his favor, ballots which had already been printed had to be reprinted causing a delay as well as costing affected counties in excess of $100,000. RFK is still litigating to get his name removed from the ballots in swingy Michigan and Wisconsin, but curiously he’s appealing to keep his name on New York’s ballot. By the way, RFK is also claiming that the sexts between him and New York Magazine writer Olivia Nuzzi which became known in part because he shared them with some friends, were her fault. It’s worth noting that the sexting took place for about nine months and during that time, Nuzzi also wrote articles about his then opponents, Biden and Trump. In any case Trump’s team doesn’t seem to care about RFK’s questionable behavior and for the moment still plans to give him health policy responsibilities should he make it back to the White House.  MAVA Make America Viral Again! On the subject of health, JD Vance is talking about replacing Obamacare with a plan that separates the healthy from those with preexisting conditions proving that he doesn’t understand how insurance works and also that some battles never die.  Vance is scheduled to debate Tim Walz on October 1.  Kamala has challenged Trump to debate her again on CNN on October 23.  So far, he’s not interested, for obvious reasons. 

Tar Heels:  Trump is still polling ahead of Kamala in North Carolina, no thanks to gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson whose noxious views and heinous old social media posts continue to reverberate at least with those who aren’t claiming that they were manufactured by AI, the excuse de jure when past posts come back to haunt. Trump campaigned in the state this weekend but disinvited Robinson. To be clear, he hasn’t “unendorsed” Robinson, at least so far, but he doesn’t want to be seen with the guy he previously characterized as MLK on steroids. Although Robinson remains North Carolina’s gubernatorial candidate, he now has almost no staff as the majority of them, including his campaign manager, deputy campaign manager, finance director and senior political consultant have resigned because though they always knew he was a hateful bigot they just didn’t realize that so much of his hate was documented.  Robinson isn’t the only one who’s being kept away from Trump, his handlers are now also keeping, or at least trying to keep Laura Loomer off his plane. Melania has had little to say about Trump’s Loomer obsession, she’s marketing her soon to be released book and defending her nude pictures, equating their artistic value to Michelangelo’s David. Not to be outdone, Trump and his sons are working on a crypto scheme targeting those who missed out or didn’t lose enough on his Truth Social grift.       

Senate Races: Though its not a given that Democrats will retake the House, they stand a chance if they retake a view of those California and New York seats they lost in 2022.  However, holding the Senate remains a stretch given Democrat retirements and the number of vulnerable Democrats up for reelection this cycle.  While most eyes are on Montana and Ohio, the races in Michigan and Maryland though currently polling blue aren’t a given: Ohio because though Sherrod Brown is relatively popular, the state was Trump plus eight in 2020; Michigan because Democratic Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin who is running for the seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Senator Stabenow is facing Mike Rogers a relatively popular former Republican Congressman; and Maryland because Democrat Angela Alsobrooks who is running for the seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Senator Ben Cardin is facing popular former Republican Governor Larry Hogan.  Three other states are worth watching: Texas where Democratic Congressman/Veteran/ex-football player Colin Allred is challenging Republican Ted Cruz; Florida where Democrat Debbie Murcarsel-Powell is challenging Republican Rick Scott; and Nebraska where Independent candidate Dan Osborn is challenging Republican Senator Deb Fischer.  Neither Cruz nor Scott is particularly popular in their states, but Scott is hugely wealthy and is spending boatloads of his own money to defend his seat and Cruz, despite all this disdain he engenders, always seems to manage to win.  Moreover, though we keep on hearing that Texas is becoming a purple state it’s remains red.  Nebraska is the outlier here, much to everyone’s surprise Dan Osborn, who is running as an independent, there is no Democratic candidate, is a Veteran, steamfitter, industrial mechanic, and labor union leader.  He is making life difficult for Senator Deb Fischer, even polling one point ahead of her in some polls.  Osborn has avoided saying which party he’ll caucus with if he wins but though he skews Republican on immigration, he’s much more Democrat-like on others, he supports reproductive rights and the legalization of cannabis among other things so it fair to assume he’ll join with Chuck Schumer’s team should he manage to eke out a victory.       

#BringThemAllHomeNOW

Black Nazi  🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴

A Trifecta:  Midnight came and went last night without North Carolina’s Republican gubernatorial candidate/ current Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson withdrawing from his race. That’s significant because midnight was the deadline for him to be replaced and due to a well-documented CNN story published yesterday a number of frantic Republicans want him out.  They already were well aware that Robinson is a Holocaust denier who believes that women shouldn’t have been granted the right to vote and shouldn’t have access to birth control and were okay with that, but the additional factoids included in the CNN story, have them twisted in knots.  In particular the CNN story reveals some of Robinson’s old social media posts where he admitted to being a “Black Nazi” who, despite his current anti-trans stance, enjoys watching transgender porn and believes that slavery isn’t a bad thing because some people need to be slaves and given his druthers, he’d own a few if he could. To be clear, the problem isn’t that Robinson who Trump enthusiastically endorsed and refers to as Martin Luther King, Jr.  on steroids, is a horrible person, it’s that he’s way down in the polls, trailing Democratic challenger/Attorney General Josh Stein by 14 points, and appears to be dragging Trump down with him, putting the states’ 16 electoral college votes at risk of falling into Kamala Harris’ column.  Robinson isn’t the only one facing heat, late last night New York Magazine announced that it had suspended political reporter Olivia Nuzzi. Apparently, Nuzzi who earlier got heat for defending her search for Trump’s humanity as a “worthwhile exercise” also interviewed and wrote about RFK Jr.  Apparently, she found him so irresistible that the two have been engaged in a sexting relationship since that interview. Maybe it’s the steroids that RFK says he takes to maintain his physique?  No comment yet from Mrs. RFK AKA Cheryl Hines but it’s early hours.  And because crazy comes in threes, very late last night newly released court documents include eyewitness testimony and some NSFW details about that sex and drug fueled party that Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz allegedly attended with his now jailed former bestie Joel Greenberg and a high school coed in 2017 when he was 35 and she was 17.  Gaetz who is running for reelection in his very red Panhandle district is thought to be considering running for Governor in Florida possibly against Casey DeSantis when her husband Ron’s term ends. Casey is probably enjoying this news cycle.

45 Days: Though the trend line leans in Kamala Harris’ direction, the polls are all over the place and remain mostly within that truly scary margin of error.  Trump who stands virtually no chance of winning New York State’s 28 electoral college votes but wants to see another Government shutdown wasn’t in one of the swingy states yesterday but instead campaigned on Long Island where he asserted that he would win the state. Even he knows he won’t, but a number of New York’s Republican Congressmen including Nick LaLota, Anthony D’Esposito, Mike Lawler and Brandon Williams are at risk of losing their seats putting Republican control of the House at risk so Trump’s visit to Nassau County was really about bolstering their chances and trying to get Speaker for now Mike Johnson’s whose job hinges on Republican’s holding the House help him close the government.  Spoiler alert, Republicans might lose the House, and the government will likely be funded before the current September 30 deadline. After visiting Long Island, Trump flew to Washington to attend the Israeli- American Council Summit where he told attendees that Kamala’s border policies were bad for Israel because all the migrants crossing into the US are Middle East terrorists.  He repeated his assertion that without him Israel would cease to exist and said that if he doesn’t win it will be the fault of the Jews, the type of scapegoating that keeps a lot of Jews, including me, up at night. As to migrants, Trump’s partner in hate, JD Vance refuses to acknowledge that many Haitians, including those in Springfield, Ohio, are here legally because he doesn’t believe in the legitimacy of the very legal Temporary Protected Status program.  By the way, the Wall Street Journal, hardly the home of leftists, did its own research on Trump and Vance’s “eating cats” assertion revealing that they both knew that the Haitian’s eating pets allegations were false but went with them anyway because instigating fear and loathing is so productive.  Trump who repeatedly promises to release things like his health plan, taxes and Melania’s immigration papers in two weeks now says that he’ll be traveling to Springfield, Ohio in two weeks despite the Mayor of Springfield’s preference that he stay away. By the way, would it surprise you to learn that JD Vance hasn’t released his tax returns yet? Both Kamala, who last night participated in an Oprah Winfrey townhall, and Tim Walz have.    

Fog:  In a truth is stranger than fiction story, according to a number of news outlets including the New York Times, the beepers that exploded in Lebanon and likely the walkie talkies that followed one day later were manufactured by a Mossad owned company which then sold them to Hezbollah in an effort to disrupt the terrorist group’s analog based communication network.  Per the Washington Post, the Mossad’s exploding device operation effectively targeted “Hezbollah’s vast network of reservists and logistical operatives.” To make the manufacturing operation appear legitimate, the Mossad owned company also sold some devices to other clients, but the devices that they bought were kosher, as in they didn’t include explosives. It’s likely that the beeper and walkie talkie move is just an opening salvo, in an Israeli military action intended to try to eliminate the Lebanon based Hezbollah rocket launching pads that have been targeting and making parts of northern Israel uninhabitable. Before the October 7 Hamas attack, a war in the north had appeared on the horizon but Gaza quickly became the focus of Israel’s military. Unfortunately, the problem in the north has deteriorated with Hezbollah increasing its missile barrage in solidarity with Hamas.  With Israel refocused on the north,  it appears that things are going to get worse before they get better, assuming they ever get better. Peace is not at hand.

#BringThemAllHomeNow

 

Beep, Beep 🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴

The Blame Game: Forget about ratcheting down the rhetoric.  Trump, JD Vance. and their red echo chamber are all in on blaming Democrats for last weekend’s assassination attempt by Ryan Wesley Routh.  Vance, like Trump fan Elon Musk, isn’t hiding his disappointment that Kamala Harris and President Biden haven’t been similarly targeted, ignoring of course that they are routinely threatened.  Vance blames “the Democrats” for “whipping supporters into a violent frenzy,” while Musk actually questioned on X why “no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala,” emphasizing his post with a thinking face emoji/nudge.  Despite receiving significant backlash for that tweet, he left it in place for nine hours before finally taking it down, perhaps only because it was publicly noted by the FBI.  As to Routh, though he’s reported to have made $140 in ActBlue donations since 2019, he is far from a left-wing radical.  In fact, having grown disillusioned with Trump over his pro-Russian stance, the pro-Ukraine Routh’s 2024 dream ticket included Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy rather than Biden or Harris though he also liked Tulsi Gabbard, odd because like Trump, Tulsi and Vivek are Team Vlad rather than Team Zelenskyy. Worth noting, despite his support, Ukrainian officials early on realized that Routh was a delusional and dangerous kook and wanted him to stay as far away as possible. As to Trump’s vulnerability, apparently, for years he’s been told that providing adequate protection while he’s puttering around on his golf courses, most of which are too close to public roads and all of which are open to other players, is near impossible. Congress is now considering increasing Secret Service funding in order to provide Trump with more security, and while it’s fair to believe that former presidents and current candidates should be well protected, particularly while campaigning, it shouldn’t be a stretch to say that they should act responsibly.  Trump should cut back on the golfing because maybe our tax-payer dollars could be better spent elsewhere?  As to those tax dollars, concerned about “Komrade” Kamala’s rise in the polls, Trump who’s already promised Nevada’s casino workers that he’ll end taxing tips, now claims that he’ll also end taxing overtime pay and that he’ll restore the State and Local Tax deduction that he capped when he was president.  Forget about the burgeoning deficit, that only matters when Democrats are in office or when they are trying to provide child tax credits.

Reproductive Politics: Apparently, Senate Republicans missed it when Trump said that he would not only protect access to IVF but would also have either the government or insurance companies cover the cost of IVF and other fertility treatments. Yesterday, with the exception of Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, they all voted against advancing an IVF protection bill.  JD Vance was not present for the vote, he was too busy campaigning and doubling down on Haitian hate because apparently 30 bomb threats aren’t enough.  When asked about the IVF vote, he said that there was no need to protect IVF because why bother. Meantime, back in the real-world women are dying as a result of the Supreme Court’s Roe overturning Dobbs decision.  And we’re not just talking about nameless statistics but real people, like 28-year-old, mother of one, Amber Nicole Thurman who died of sepsis related complications after being deprived of an emergency D & C by a suburban Atlanta hospital where doctors were so afraid that providing her with what was previously routine care would be a violation of Georgia’s new six week abortion ban, a violation that could land them in jail for up to ten years. There will be many more Ambers and there will be many more maternity care deserts as trained Ob-Gyn’s flee states where laws restrict their ability to provide medically necessary care.  When the Dobbs decision was announced, there was some suggestion that Chief Justice Roberts was really just a right leaning moderate being pushed to the dark side by forces out of his control.  Forget about that, the NY Times reports that he’s actually quite happy with the Court’s recent right-wing decisions, particularly the one that protects Trump from suffering consequences for most, if not all, of his actions. That could be a bigly problem for the country if November’s election ends up in the courts.

Endorsements:  Add, Martha Stewart, Billie Eilish, her brother Finneas O’Connell and a slew of military and former Bush, Reagan, and Romney related officials to the list of people who’ve endorsed Kamala over Trump.  It’s not clear that those endorsements will really matter but maybe they will on the edges.  The Teamsters union which met with Kamala Harris earlier this week but whose leader also spoke at the Republican convention may or may not be issuing an endorsement of one of the candidates today.  And then there’s the Pope who did a both sides thing last week, saying it’s up to his flock to determine who is the lesser of two evils, the woman who supports reproductive freedom and IVF or the one who treats living migrants like dirt.

Fog:  In case you missed it, a whole bunch of beepers exploded in Lebanon yesterday. It turns out that beepers are the communication device of choice for members of Hezbollah who eschew cell phones over concerns that using them makes them easy targets for Israel’s military.  Well, it looks like beepers aren’t safe either. Maybe relentlessly launching missiles into Israel and making northern parts of the country unlivable has consequences. In any case, one thing is clear: peace is not around the corner and also beepers aren’t safe. 

#BringThemAllHomeNow

Squeaky, Sarah, and Ryan  🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴

Yet Again:    Another crazy who despite his lengthy criminal record possessed an AK 47 style rifle attempted to assassinate Trump yesterday as he played still another round of golf in Florida.  Assasination attempts are always bad, but still it’s worth putting this second attempt to take out Trump in historical perspective since it turns out that he’s not the first president, or in this case former president, to be targeted twice in one summer.  A Charlie Manson cult member named Lynette Alice ”Squeaky” Fromme and another woman named Sarah Jane Moore each tried to kill Gerald Ford within 17 days of each other in September 1975.  With AK 47s not yet in vogue, their attempts both involved somewhat less lethal pistols.  Ryan Wesley Routh, the 58-year-old man who tried to shoot Trump this weekend, was captured not long after he was spotted hiding in some golf course bushes with his rifle point at Trump. Routh voted for Trump in 2016 but appears to have grown disillusioned with him over his pro-Russia/anti-Ukraine position thus his twisted rationale for attempting an assassination. By the way, after the attempts on his life, President Ford was persuaded to wear a special bullet proof trench coat.  Somehow, I doubt that Trump will follow suit. He also probably won’t give up playing golf despite the challenges and costs of protecting him in such wide-open spaces.  

Memes: We shouldn’t let the assassination attempt divert from all the other crazy things that Trump and his team said last week and continued to say over the weekend because those utterances are bad too, and they have the potential to be responsible for the loss of life among people who don’t have Secret Service protection teams or bullet proof trench coats.  In particular, there’s that whole “Haitians are eating pets” bull sh-t, sure the memes are funny but the hate part not so much.  VP candidate/Ohio Senator JD Vance admitted to CNN’s Dana Bash that he happily spreads and amplifies the lies despite knowing they’re fabricated because he just has to get Americans focused on the ills of illegal immigration. That is evil because those lies have already led to bomb threats, school closings and hospital lockdowns in Springfield and in some neighboring communities in Ohio including Dayton.  It’s also a misrepresentation of the status of the Haitians living in Springfield, they’re in the US legally having been granted temporary immigration status and permission to work due to the upheavals in their home country.  We shouldn’t be fooled by any of this, Taking a page from Goebbels and company, Trump and Vance are targeting Haitians to foment racial hatred, to freak out marginalized white voters to get them to show up and vote for him on election day.  Keeping with the theme of hate and division Trump’s Republican Party abettors are also running ads in Michigan’s Arab communities that highlight that Kamala Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff is Jewish because while Trump has been telling Jewish Americans that they’d be idiots to vote for “anti-Israel” Kamala, his team wants Arab Americans to believe that voting for “pro-Israel” Kamala would be equally idiotic.  To put the icing on the hate cake, before the assassination attempt sucked the oxygen out of the news cycle, Trump posted “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT” on Truth Social yesterday. Though it would be easy to slough off his post as more kindergarten level sour grapes, there are Trump idolizers out there who will interpret it as a permission slip to hurt Swift who cancelled three Vienna performances in August in response to very real threats. After all, Trump’s all in on Laura Loomer, the right wing conspiracist who routinely spreads hatred across social media and asserts that Kamala who is either too pro-Israel or very anti-Israel is going to set up a caliphate.  Trump says he keeps Loomer around because despite her evil lies, she’s a “free spirit” who really likes him.  Isn’t that the only thing that matters?     

Polling:  For whatever it’s worth the national polls mostly show Kamala up a few more points. Nice but it’s winning the Electoral College vote that matters, and the important swing state polls remain too close for comfort, mostly within the margin of error. Curiously or, dare I optimistically say, an indication of things to come, some polls in states that don’t really matter are also moving in Kamala’s direction. According to the respected Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll Kamala is now down by only 4 points in Iowa where Biden was down 18 points in the Spring.  Similarly, Kamala is now down by only 5 points in Alaska, a state where Trump beat Biden by 10 points in 2020.  These trends which need to spill into the swing states to influence the outcome of the election, likely explain why the Republican machine is hyper focused on voter suppression because preventing blue votes from counting is just as effective as getting red voters to vote.    

#BringThemAllHomeNow     

 

Another Broken Toy 🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴

Cats and Dogs:  Ohio’s Haitians aren’t dining on household pets but the racist conspiracy theory that they are being eaten has legs in part because the state’s junior Senator who also happens to be the Republican’s candidate for Vice President is still pushing it, telling CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that just because no one’s been able to document the story’s validity doesn’t mean that it’s not true. Naturally, given the country’s temperature, Vance’s comments, like those of his mango buddy have consequences so in an abundance of caution some of Springfield, Ohio’s Haitian parents kept their children home from school yesterday over fears that delusional MAGA maniacs would do something criminally stupid. It’s hard to question their concern given that Springfield’s town hall and multiple other of the town’s government related buildings were evacuated yesterday, the result of emailed bomb threats.  While Trump and Vance are still pushing the hate filled pet trope, yesterday one former Springfield, Ohio resident used his social media presence to try to defuse the anti-Haitian, anti-immigrant frenzy they’ve triggered. John Legend who was raised in Springfield posted a thoughtful message noting that Springfield’s Haitian population had been encouraged to move to the town to fill open manufacturing jobs and that they’ve reinvigorated what had been a shrinking metropolis. He encouraged people to see each other’s humanity and to remember the Golden Rule to “love thy neighbor as thyself.”  We need more John Legends.

Loomer Looms:  Citing X (Twitter) polls even his surrogate RFK Jr acknowledges are highly suspect, Trump insists that he resoundingly won Tuesday night’s debate even though everyone with half a brain or a worm hole in their brain knows he lost bigly.  That said, he has no interest in being trounced again by Kamala so yesterday he posted that he won’t be participating in any more debates.  He probably won’t but then again, it’s not like Trump sticks to his plans so don’t be surprised if he changes his mind but at least for now we only have the October 1 debate between Tim Walz and JD Vance to endure.  Future debates or not Trump is keeping his newest comfort blanket, racist conspiracist Laura Loomer, by his side. Loomer seems to be filling the travel companion spot previously occupied by Hope Hicks. Even though she is a known 9.11 skeptic who asserts that the day’s heinous attacks were an “inside job,” Trump brought her along to Wednesday’s memorial service.  Loomer who with Trump’s endorsement once ran for Congress in his Palm Beach area district, routinely expresses her hate for all things Muslim, she’s called for Kellyanne Conway’s daughter Claudia to hang herself, and now, in response to comments from Senator Lindsey Graham and Margie Q that Trump should find himself a new less broken comfort toy, she’s publicly questioning Graham’s sexuality and calling Margie Q a hooker. Those attacks are totally in character for Loomer, she’s previously asserted that Kamala Harris is childless because of her “many abortions” and more recently warned that should Harris win, the White House will smell of curry and that calls to the government will be answered by an incomprehensible call center.  It’s not surprising that Trump has no problem with anything that Loomer says but he’s not alone in tolerating her bigotry and conspiracy mongering, the National Republican Senate Committee (NRSC) uses videos that she produces for their campaigns.  

Red Endorsements:  Alberto Gonzales who served as Attorney General during George W Bush’s administration has joined Bush’s VP Dick Cheney in endorsing Kamala Harris.  Yesterday he said that he “can’t sit quietly as Donald Trump – perhaps the most serious threat to the rule of law in a generation – eyes a return to the White House.”  Their one-time boss, George W,  who doesn’t seem to care about the future of the country, remains silent, hanging out in Texas with his easel and paint brushes.  Also yesterday, current Attorney General Merrick Garland publicly denounced “dangerous and outrageous attacks on Department of Justice prosecutors and personnel.” He didn’t specifically name Trump as one of those attackers, but he clearly had him in mind.  For what it is worth, though Trump still has far too much support to fathom, Harris’ poll numbers, including in North Carolina which hasn’t gone blue since Obama’s first election,  appear to be improving and we still haven’t seen post-debate polls yet. Unfortunately, Montana Democrat Jon Tester remains seriously underwater, a problem because if he falls, it’s likely that the Senate will go red, which isn’t good for future Supreme Court confirmations.

#BringThemAllHomeNow       

      

Running Fast as She Can🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴

Fearless Leader, Alpha Type:  Maybe doing debate prep with the dubious duo of Matt Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard wasn’t such a good idea? Maybe traveling to Philadelphia with far-right activist Laura Loomer, who Margie Q of all people calls a mentally unstable, documented liar, wasn’t a brilliant decision? Maybe, my favorite online comment, men are just too emotional to be president?  Or maybe it’s just that Trump got tripped up by a really prepared Kamala Harris who stayed on script, pivoted whenever she could to her clearly practiced lines while using all of her prosecutorial skills to push his buttons and goad him into spouting all the inane things his handlers begged him to avoid.  Sure, I expected Trump to shout about the millions upon millions of violent migrants crossing the border straight from Latin American asylums, to celebrate his good friends Viktor Orban, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jung un, and to claim that Kamala was all in on post term abortions, but the assertion that Haitian immigrants are eating petnapped kittens and puppies, I thought that one was too loony even for him.  But was I ever wrong about that, With his nose dripping, Trump was so rattled that he went with it and then pushed back at ABC moderator David Muir after he said he’d actually checked and that no cats 🐱 🐱 or dogs 🐶 🐶 were showing up on dinner plates in Springfield, Ohio despite VP candidate JD Vance’s assertion and Trump’s concurrence that they were.  Dogs and cats aside, Trump was incapable of voicing any support for Ukraine, perhaps his handler in Moscow warned him not to, but Kamala was quick to warn that if Putin’s Ukraine land grab succeeds, historical precedent indicates that he’ll target Poland next, shrewdly slipping in that swingy Pennsylvania has 800,000 residents of Polish descent. Trump also got tripped up on the politics of abortion even though he had to know that Kamala who spent the two years since the overturning of Roe v Wade honing her abortion speech all over the country would be very prepared on the subject and that the ABC moderators, this time Linsey Davis, would push him on whether or not he’d sign a national abortion ban if it got to his desk.  He twisted himself into knots not answering that question, knowing that one response would offend most women, while the other would enrage his evangelical base. Though he had a really bad night and still doesn’t have a health plan, Trump insisted that he won the evening, and naturally his surrogates blamed ABC and its “biased” moderators for having the temerity to call out some, though not all of his outright lies. To cap the evening, one particularly prominent debate watcher issued a surprise endorsement at the end of the debate.  Calling Vice President Harris a “steady-handed” and “gifted leader,” who will lead with “calm, not chaos” and signing her message Childless Cat Lady while including a picture of her with her cat Benjamin Button, the insanely popular Taylor Swift said that she was all in on the Harris-Walz ticket.  Surprised or not, Harris’ campaign was ready.  To the joy of many Swifties new and old, the campaign team immediately started playing “The Man.”  And how could they resist?  Will Harris’ great night and that Swift endorsement swing voters? Who knows, but last night certainly won’t hurt.  54 Days.

All Good if You’re Bad? Elon Musk, the increasingly dangerous oligarch who gets Trumpier, emboldened, and more unacceptable every day, offered to impregnate Taylor Swift after her Harris endorsement last night in a bizarre and offensive X (Twitter) post   I kid you not. He should probably stay far away from Travis Kelce and the whole Kansas City Chief squad not to mention the world’s countless Swifties.  That was after he spent part of the week promoting Tucker Carlson’s interview of Holocaust denier Darryl Cooper who in addition to asserting that Winston Churchill, not Hitler, was the chief villain of WW II, claims that the murder of six million Jews and millions of others by the Nazis was just the inadvertent consequence of bad planning rather than evil intent.  JD Vance refused to condemn Tucker’s platforming of Cooper and still plans to be interviewed by Carlson on an upcoming broadcast. Because hate sells and Holocaust deniers vote?  Shifting to Congress, believe it or not another funding deadline looms. Speaker for now Mike Johnson is pushing for a stopgap funding measure that includes a requirement that all voters in federal elections show proof of citizenship before being allowed to cast their ballots, a controversial fix for a problem that doesn’t exist.  That requirement which sounds innocent, is not, rather it is a voter suppression measure intended to place impediments in front of qualified voters who don’t have copies of their birth certificates, driver’s licenses or passports, a group mostly made up of less advantaged people, frequently people of color, who tend to vote blue rather than red.  Again, countless election audits have shown that non-citizens don’t illegally vote.

#BringThemAllHomeNow 

  

Sane Washing 🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴

56 Days:  Happy Monday to all those who didn’t buy their disturbed children or any of their children an AK 47 like weapon for Christmas.  It’s mind blowing that the father of the Georgia school shooter thought, even after he was told that his son was posting threatening messages on social media, that such a “gift” was appropriate for his then 13-year- old, but then again it’s nuts that there are at least two members of Congress, Lauren Boebert and Thomas Massie, whose annual Christmas cards include pictures of their kids adorned with weaponry and that there are dozens more who routinely don NRA rifle pins as a sign of gun ownership solidarity.  Misinformed childcare strategies are the rage with Republican politicians which could explain why Trump’s answer to a question about childcare, an issue foreign to him, at the Economic Club of New York was that “childcare is childcare” and that his solution is tariffs, with some insane word salad about his billionaire daughter Ivanka and Marco Rubio. Putting aside that Trump has no idea how tariffs work, it should be obvious that he cares nothing about helping working parents meet their childcare needs, after all his Project 2025 manifesto defunds education and proven programs like Head Start. His partner in stupidity, JD Vance is all in on childcare but thinks that working mothers, a concept he doesn’t endorse, should forget about government assistance of any kind, and instead demand that their mothers babysit, and if those grandmothers are not available maybe get help from some of those cat lady aunts who he routinely disses.  Forget about compensation, the grandmothers and aunts should be more than willing to clear their schedules for free.  Circling back to the Economic Club, the attendees mostly greeted Trump’s misinformed and absurd remarks about tariffs being a cure-all with applause either because they’re equally ignorant about basic economics or more likely because they just want their income taxes lowered, no matter what the consequences, and likely also because the specter of a Black woman who is also a Democrat as president, the woman who Trump is now calling Komrad Kamala, is too much for them to take.  Sadly, the Economic Club attendees are not alone.  Despite Trump’s call for “bloody” mass deportations, an economic plan that will increase the deficit by way more than any of “Komrad” Harris’ plans,  his weekend threats to jail people “involved in unscrupulous behavior” related to voting in the upcoming election, his promise to pardon all the January 6 rioters, and all his other insane rants, polls indicate that the outcome of the November election remains too close to predict. All eyes and ears are now on Tuesday night’s debate.  Kamala’s team says she’s been preparing, Trump’s says he hasn’t been because he’s a superior being. They lie, he’s been practicing too with the help of his bombastic acolytes Matt Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard.  Get ready for the press to dissect and critique every word that comes out of Harris’ mouth while “sane washing” everything that Trump utters because that’s what they do.                 

Fog, Vaccines, Crazy:  The March of Dimes’ original mission was fighting polio, the sometimes-paralytic disease that disproportionately impacts children and young adults. They redefined their mission to preventing birth defects after polio vaccines dramatically lowered, almost eliminated the worldwide incidence of polio. Unfortunately, there’s been an uptick in polio mostly attributed to the World Health Organization’s well-intentioned but, as it turns out, bad decision to remove one of the three polio strains previously included in the vaccine used mostly in third world countries.  This brings me to Gaza and to the US.  Hamas is evil but they get the value of vaccines so even under their rule, Gazans have been good at getting their children vaccinated.  Before October 7 polio vaccination rates there were around 99%.  However, given the war, that polio vaccines are given in four doses starting at two months, and that the WHO’s new vaccine is inadequate, there have been cases of polio in Gaza.  The good news is that Israel has provided WHO with polio vaccines and those vaccines are being administered. The war is still raging, the process is fraught, but Gazans are lining up for vaccines.  Contrast their eagerness to get their children vaccinated despite the dangers of war with the current situation in the US where polio and also MMR vaccine rates are dropping, now down to the low 90s which is below the ideal threshold for disease prevention, not because of war but because of our lunatic anti-vaccine movement.  Then consider that Trump, the presidential candidate of one of the two major parties has aligned himself with RFK Jr, a charismatic anti-vaxxer who is on record saying that he’s never met a vaccine he likes, not just COVID vaccines, but all the childhood vaccines. Worse yet, Trump has announced that RFK Jr will be on his transition team where he will focus on health issues, not just on vaccines but also on women’s health. Make America Sick Again?   

Legalities:  Juan Merchan, Trump’s New York hush money case judge, has pushed off sentencing him until after the election.  That’s disappointing but not all that surprising because while Trump shouldn’t be treated differently than any other defendant, it’s hard to not treat him differently and sentencing him now could energize his voters even more than they already are.  There is some activity however in the January 6 case being overseen by Judge Tanya Chutkan who has chosen to ignore as irrelevant Florida Judge Eileen “loose” Cannon’s ruling that Special Counsel Jack Smith was illegally appointed largely because he wasn’t. There will be no trial in DC until long after the election, if ever, but there could be some releases of incriminating evidentiary documents in the coming weeks.  In other legal news, Hunter Biden has plead guilty to the tax charges that he’s been fighting.  Nothing about Hunter’s case makes a lot of sense since usually people who, like Hunter, pay what they should have paid in the first place are treated less harshly prosecutors so it’s hard not to see his case as politically motivated. Hunter said he changed his plea so that his family wouldn’t have to go through the pain and expense of a trial.  Joe Biden previously said he wouldn’t pardon Hunter but then again that was before he pulled out of the race.  

#BringThemAllHomeNow

  

 

Borscht 🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴

Guns, Guns, Schools:  School is back in session and since guns remain easily accessible even to a fourteen-year-old with a known history of making online threats, yesterday two teachers and two students were shot to death by that student with an AR-platform style weapon at Winder, Georgia’s Apalachee High School. Nine additional victims were hospitalized. The state of Georgia is in the upper third for firearm mortality in the US.  Adults there don’t need a permit to buy rifles, shotguns, or handguns, don’t need to register their guns, don’t need a permit to carry rifles and shotguns and don’t need to do anything special to keep their guns away from their children, even those with a history of making gun related threats.  In 2022, Georgia repealed provisions requiring people to obtain a license and be subject to background checks before carrying concealed weapons in public spaces.  After the shooting, Georgia’s Governor Kemp who oversaw the elimination of his state’s concealed carry law refused to answer any questions about how to make Georgia’s schools safer from gun violence saying instead that “this is not the day to talk about safety or policy.  We need thoughts and prayers.”  So, although the shooting was tragic, nothing about it is all that surprising.  Just another day in America when a politician like Kemp who is popular enough to deal with pushback from the gun lobby is unwilling to talk about or do anything constructive about guns beyond those thoughts and prayers. 

Russia, Russia, Election:  We’re in the midst of another hotly contested election year where everything that matters is up for grabs so it’s also not all that surprising that Russia is once again engaging in election interference.  Yesterday the Department of Justice indicted, in absentia because they are in Russia, two employees of Russian government owned media company Russia Today (RT) for covertly providing $10 million in funding to Tenet Media, a Tennessee based US company that platforms right wing MAGA commentators including Tim Pool and Benny Johnson both of whom have many millions of followers on YouTube.  According to the DOJ indictment, the “commentators” were fed RT curated content through Tenet and were paid $400,000 per month to produce anti-woke, anti-Ukraine, pro-Trump videos.  Pool, Johnson, and the other so-called influencers who received the Russian payments claim that they didn’t know that they were Russians tools, but they had to know that something was full of borscht because the payments they received were above market. The RT folks were also involved with the bizarre video of former Fox star Tucker Carlson’s much mocked Russian supermarket shopping spree. In addition to the indictments, the DOJ seized more than 30 web domains that it said were part of a broad and ongoing effort by the Russian government to influence the 2024 election.  Trump who has appeared with Pool and who hosted him at Mar a Lago reacted to the DOJ’s action by saying it was just more evidence that he is being targeted because those Russian guys, like his good friend Hungary’s Viktor Orban are nice.

Campaign Trail:  Trump also suggested that the upcoming September 10 debate with Kamala Harris will be unfair, alleging that ABC news is providing Harris with an advance look at the questions they plan to ask.  He made that accusation yesterday at a Pennsylvania “townhall” where he was thrown softball questions by his Fox friend, sometime campaign advisor, Sean Hannity while answering a very limited number of pre-approved questions from the audience.  For her part Harris, who was endorsed yesterday by former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, once a member of House Republican leadership, was in New Hampshire where instead of embracing Hanibal Lecter or alleging that all recent migrants seeking asylum had recently been released from insane asylums, she talked economic policy. Harris’ plans include providing more tax incentives to small businesses and a significantly lower capital gains tax increase for high earners than the one previously proposed by President Biden. So maybe Elon Musk, the billionaire immigrant who hates immigrants, who has been reposting AI generated pictures of Harris dressed as a Communist apparatchik all over his X platform is wrong about her being a leftist stooge?  Or maybe he’s too busy auditioning for that promised position in Trump’s administration?     

Only the Best?  In other candidate news, Mark Robinson, the Holocaust denying evangelical Republican candidate for Governor in North Carolina reportedly has a serious and rather time-consuming porn addiction, he’s also on record saying that the US should go back to the days when women weren’t allowed to vote. Presumably, Robinson who is Black is okay with allowing Blacks to vote but then again, maybe not because consistency and logic aren’t his thing.   So, to clarify women making porn is okay, voting not so much, and definitely no single women with cats teaching kids. There’s a reasonable chance that the Trump endorsed Robinson, this election cycle’s equivalent to last cycle’s Republican Pennsylvania governor wannabee/wacko Doug Mastriano who lost resoundingly to Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro could help push North Carolina into Harris’s column.  Robinson isn’t the only Republican candidate who might help out the Democrats, Montana’s Trump endorsed Republican Senate candidate Tim Sheehy, who given Trump’s popularity in Montana stands a reasonable chance of toppling incumbent Democrat Jon Tester, was caught on tape making derogatory comments about the state’s Native Americans, about 6.5% of the state’s population. Something about the Tribe members all being drunk and tossing beer cans at 8 AM in the morning.  Sheehy who doesn’t really live in Montana might not realize just how much of a slur that was or more likely he’s just racist.      

#BringThemAllHomeNOW    

 
62 Days🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴

Crunch Time:  There are only 62 days left to what feels like the longest, most unpredictable election ever.  Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, spent their Labor Day weekend campaigning.  They focused on labor and on the swing states, including, with an assist from President Biden, the most important one, Pennsylvania.  Trump and his partner, JD Vance, spent part of their weekend campaigning, and the rest throwing mud, justifying what should be disqualifying indefensible actions, flip flopping, and questioning the integrity of the upcoming election.  And because Vance had a habit of appearing on what seems like countless podcasts before seeking public office, we also learned some more about his disdain for women, or at the very least for “professional” women who by refusing to adhere to his Handmaid vision have chosen a “path to misery.” He also claimed that men in America are “suppressed in their masculinity,” and to be fair, he does seem to be lacking on that front.  As to the flipflopping, Trump finally revealed how he plans to vote on Florida’s abortion referendum. He’ll be voting against the amendment to incorporate abortion rights into the state’s constitution, not because he really cares a hoot about who does and does not get an abortion but because he cares about maintaining the support of evangelicals and other right to lifers, who’ve grown frustrated with his attempts to straddle the abortion fence.  His abortion waffling, like his recent assertion that he’ll see to it that health insurance companies or the government cover the costs of IVF, is just campaign fodder intended to lure back those low information female voters who can be convinced by targeted clips of his utterances.  There’s no way that Trump who tried and insists he will still try to eliminate Obamacare will require insurance companies to cover IVF, neither is there any way that Republicans in the House and Senate will as every Republican Senator recently voted against Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth’s proposed legislation that would have established a nationwide right for patients to access IVF and other assisted reproductive services as well as a right for doctors to provide IVF treatment in accordance with medical standards and a right for insurance to cover those services.  As to the indefensible, having gotten caught and criticized for staging a campaign event at Arlington Cemetery, Trump and his team have come out swinging, gong so far as to slam Harris, Walz and Biden for not showing up at Arlington to “participate” in what they’re now mislabeling an official commemorative ceremony.

Polls? Sadly, doubling down and waffling works with too many voters.  How else to explain the tight polls?  Harris is up a bit but still mostly within the margin of error and given that only the Electoral College matters she needs to be up a lot to win.  Naturally, Trump is really mad about all those polls, especially angry with a daily tracking poll from reliably Republican friendly pollster Rasmussen which showed Harris up a smidge. Over the weekend, a Trump staffer was fired for revealing that Trump’s campaign is no longer focusing on New Hampshire, a state that with the support of popular Governor Chris Sununu, a future presidential wannabee who like Nikki Haley dissed Trump before then endorsing him, they no longer believe they can turn red. Also over the weekend, Trump said that he had “every right to interfere in the 2020 presidential election,” both an admission that he did and a warning that he plans to instruct his minions in the states that matter to do the same this time around.  

Horrific Fog:  Last week the good news was that one Hamas held hostage had been rescued from a Gaza terror tunnel, sadly this weekend’s news was devastating.  Six other hostages, including Ori Danino 25; Eden Yerushalmi, 24; Almog Sarusi, 27; Alexander Lobnov, 33; Carmel Gat, 40; and Israeli American Hersh Goldberg Polin, 23 whose parents spoke at the Democratic convention were brutally murdered by their Hamas captors. The press reported that they were “found” by Israeli forces, but to be clear, they didn’t die mysteriously or accidentally, they were shot dead, likely in front of each other, by their Hamas captors whose revised marching orders are to kill hostages whenever Israeli Defense Forces close in. As evidenced by the huge number of Israelis demonstrating over the weekend, as well as the national labor strike that closed down most of the country, Israelis are mourning and are furious with Prime Minister Netanyahu.  They’re not simply angry about his failure to negotiate a hostage release deal, a majority believe that he’s prioritizing his political career and personal freedom over the hostages. According to the Times of Israel daily podcast, the issue for many isn’t that Bibi’s demand that Israel be allowed to maintain control of the strategic Philadelphi corridor between Egypt and Gaza isn’t strategically rational, it’s that they don’t trust him, neither does Biden though both he and Harris have forcefully condemned Hamas while expressing their horror over the murder of the six hostages. Trump issued a “sympathy” statement too, but his quickly descended into a rant about how unfairly he’s being treated by the “weaponized” Department of Justice.  The similarities between him and Bibi are hard to miss.

#BringThemAllHomeNOW