Goblins at the Gate 🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴 🧙 👻 🎃 😈

Death in Texas:  I don’t usually write on Thursdays but then I read ProPublica’s article about Josseli Barnica dying from a raging bacterial infection after she was denied proper medical care while suffering a miscarriage during the 17^th week of her much-wanted pregnancy. Barnica was 29 years-old, her husband is now a widower raising their other child alone because doctors feared that providing her with the medically necessary abortion she needed when her body stared ejecting her fetus would be a violation of Texas’ onerous abortion laws. More than twenty percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage, the actual number is likely closer to 30%, because many end before women even know they’re pregnant.  A number of those miscarriages require medical intervention, sometimes a D & C procedure, sometimes mifepristone, to make sure that the affected woman’s body is cleared of any remaining tissue that could serve as a breeding ground for the type of deadly infection that killed Josseli. It’s getting to the point that becoming pregnant in Texas, where infant and maternal mortality are now rising, isn’t worth the risk.  Think about that, the so-called pro-life party that wants women, or at least white women, to be fruitful and multiply, is now making it too dangerous for all women to do so in Texas and in a growing number of states and, if they get their way, everywhere in America.  For those rich folks, we all know a few, who think that none of those restrictions matter for them because they or their wives or daughters can afford to hop on a plane to seek care in a “lenient” state or country, while that might work for an elective abortion, money does nothing for you when you’re facing an emergency and miscarriages aren’t planned, they just happen. A lot of people have voted but many still haven’t.  Share this story with your Trumpy friends because maybe, just maybe the possibility of one of their loved ones suffering or even dying will hit home even if all those apt Hitler comparisons and the rational fear of impending fascism don’t.  While you’re at it, share Elon Musk’s quote about trashing the economy for “just” a while, because a concern about a hit to their pocketbook might work too. One more thing about abortion laws, there’s been a lot of focus on “fixing” bans that don’t include exceptions for abortions in the case of rape or incest or to protect the life of the mother.  While those laws are horrific, even those laws that do include exceptions aren’t adequate because once a state bans or puts extreme limits on abortions, they lose the medical infrastructure, both in terms of doctors and facilities, to provide medically necessary abortion care. The bottom line, restrictive abortion laws, put women’s lives at risk.  Period.

Garbage In, Garbage Out:  The garbage candidate who calls his opponents scum and the enemies from within, rode a garbage truck in swing state Wisconsin, purportedly to amplify focus on Biden calling Trump supporters garbage.  Putting aside that Biden didn’t call all of those who support Trump garbage, Trump’s escapade got tons of media coverage, which was the whole point of it, although the elderly, physically impaired Trump probably would have preferred that the videos of him having a really hard time climbing into the truck hadn’t gone viral on social media. The focus on what Biden might have said is ridiculous on so many fronts, but what it reveals is just how much the press is failing us, not just Fox and the rest of the right-wing echo chamber, as horrible as they are, they’re bias is expected.  I am referring to the so-called mainstream press because while Tom Homan, a former Trump immigration official who’d be happy to deport and cage kids again was on 60 Minutes Sunday night saying that separating kids from their parents and even deporting American born children who are citizens but whose parents are undocumented migrants would be a feature of Trump’s mass deportation plans and while Elon Musk was admitting that the economy would tank and people would necessarily suffer if Trump’s economic plans are implemented, the press was all bent out of shape about a few garbled words from a well-meaning lame duck president, the one who goes to church every Sunday while Trump sells $60 Chinese made bibles. Include among those complicit papers, both the LA Times and the Washington Post both of which have spent the last few days trying to justify both siding the candidates to appear “neutral” and/or out of fear of what a dictatorial/fascist Trump would do to their other businesses.    

Endorsements:  While the LA Times, whose owner also squelched a series of articles entitled the case against Trump that were to run alongside the Kamala endorsement that he killed, was focused on garbage news, the Las Vegas Sun went ahead with their endorsement of Kamala Harris.  In addition to pointing out her merits, they called Trump a “cognitively impaired” “womanizing narcissist” who aspires to be a dictator.  They went on to say that he and his supporters believe in “trampling the rights of women, providing greater protection to guns than schoolchildren and …… silencing history.”   Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former Republican Governor of California, also announced that he voted for Harris as did Gerald Ford’s daughter Susan and George W Bush’s daughter, Barbara who knocked doors for Kamala last weekend.  Also, add Reggaeton singer Nicky Jam to the list of those jumping the Trump ship.  In response to last weekend’s Puerto Rico slur, he retracted his earlier endorsement of the hopefully forever ex-president.  I have to admit none of these Reggaeton singers have ever made it on to my mostly classic rock/Taylor Swift running playlist, but they matter because they appeal to a crucial and apparently much more with it group of voters. Moreover, we need all of their votes because the Supreme Court has already tipped its hand and it appears that this time around, they will be a lot more sympathetic to Republican efforts to overturn a close election.  Yesterday, with the three liberal Justices in dissent, SCOTUS cleared the way for Virginia to remove about 1600 people from the state’s voter registration rolls despite precedent of the courts typically opposing that type of change within 30 days of an election.  Republican Governor Youngkin, who is termed out and is likely auditioning for a role in a Trump administration (ugh), asserts that those 1600 need to be removed because they might, emphasis on might, not be citizens despite the fact that non-citizen voting is extremely rare and it’s likely that all of the 1600 are citizens.

Boo!   🧙 👻 🎃 😈

#BringThemAllHomeNow     

 

See You Next Tuesday 🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴

Sorpresa de Octubre:  The population of Puerto Rico is 3.2 million, at 5.8 million, the number of people of Puerto Rican descent living in the US mainland is far greater.  If Kamala Harris wins next week’s election, she may owe her victory to mainland Puerto Ricans’ outrage at having their home of origin referred to as an “island of garbage” because the repercussions from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s offensive warm-up speech at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally continue to reverberate.  Yesterday, Don Omar, another popular Puerto Rican musician, producer and actor who is known as the King of Reggaeton, endorsed Harris in a lengthy thoughtful statement in which he noted that 'Trump has shown us, time and again, what the thinks of us, and the thought of him and his administration back in power is deeply concerning.” El Nuevo Dia, Puerto Rico’s biggest paper weighed in with a Harris endorsement, saying that “The hearts of all of us who love this beautiful Garden of America, and of the world, clench with rage and pain. Puerto Ricans are a noble and peaceful people, who deeply love their island…. Is that what Trump and the Republican Party think about Puerto Ricans?” Jennifer Lopez who has got to be relieved to be getting press for something other than her most recent divorce, is now scheduled to appear with Harris at a rally in Las Vegas. Also, it turns out that the content of Hinchcliffe’s routine wasn’t a surprise to the Trump team, they prescreened it, and while they had him remove the part where he used the “C” word to refer to Harris before loading it on to their teleprompter, they left in the garbage smear. As to that “C” word, had it been left in, Hinchcliffe would have been in good company, assuming Elon Musk is still considered good company.  Musk’s pro-Trump super PAC posted a video, now taken down, that said “Kamala Harris is a C word…You heard that right.  A big ole C word.” To be clear the “C” word is just what you think it is, and was not, as Musk later tried to assert, a reference to Communism.  VP candidate JD Vance wants us to just get over the insults because of course he does.  Trump who can’t believe that insulting Puerto Ricans isn’t okay and probably still thinks that Puerto Ricans are deportable illegal migrants, brought his own token Puerto Rican supporters and one of his other broken toys, Cuban American Senator Marco Rubio, to an Allentown, Pennsylvania stage to prove that he really is an all-inclusive kind of guy and that the MSG rally, like the January 6 insurrection was all about love. While Trump was in Pennsylvania, Kamala Harris was in Washington DC on the Ellipse delivering a widely aired, well received campaign speech to at least 75,000 supporters.  She combined her joy message with a warning about Trump’s plans, saying that while on day one he’ll be going after the people on his enemies list, she’ll be starting in on her to-do list.  The contrast between the two candidates couldn’t be greater yet the polls, at least the rather meaningless polling averages remain close. And of course, Trump and his acolytes are now claiming that Biden called the MSG rally attendees garbage, he didn’t, they misquoted his somewhat garbled Bidenesque statement but the “you are paper, I am glue taunt” works for children so why shouldn’t it work for Trump.  See you next Tuesday at the polls.

Admissions Against Interest: Mostly, Musk uses his money losing X social media platform to spew misogynistic slime and push election lies but yesterday in a moment of candor he agreed that Trump’s plans would cause a major disruption in the economy and “temporary” hardship to most Americans, or at least those who aren’t billionaires.  That’s an admission that Trump’s plan to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, extend and add to his 2017 tax cuts, his promise to impose tariffs on almost all imported goods, and all of his budget slashing would be beyond disruptive, something that most economists have been saying for some time. Naturally, Musk thinks that Trump’s plans and the widespread pain they cause will be worth it, or at least worth it to him, assuming that Trump’s budget cuts don’t impact the billions in government subsidies he receives for his SpaceX and Tesla businesses or that he craves for Starlink.  Musk isn’t the only one making frank comments.  Though he didn’t broadcast his promises on X, Speaker Mike Johnson who has been hinting at his secret plan to overturn the election if Trump doesn’t win, told attendees at a GOP campaign event in Pennsylvania that if Trump wins or if he manages to steal him a win, his plans include massively overhauling health insurance, slashing and burning Obamacare because, really, who needs health insurance and why would anyone want to protect people with pre-existing conditions anyway? Remember when we thought that issue had been put to rest alongside John McCain’s thumbs up, forget about it.  Then there’s RFK Jr, he bragged in a Facebook post that Trump  who has said that he is going to let RFK “go wild on health” has promised him that he’ll be put “in control of the public health agencies, which are HHS and its sub-agencies, CDC, FDA, NIH and a few others, and then also the USDA, which is – which, you know, is key to making America healthy.” We should take all that seriously, Endpoints, a pharma newsletter, reported yesterday that Trump’s embrace of RFK is raising major concerns in the industry because of his criticism of vaccines, his embrace of conspiracy theories and his threats to force out most of the FDA’s staff. To be clear, brain worms, excessive steroid use, dead bears, and whale heads are good, preventing communicable diseases not so much. Though he hasn’t weighed in on health care, Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos did pen a justification of sorts for the paper’s decision not to publish its already written endorsement of Kamala Harris saying that though he never read the endorsement he believes that endorsements aren’t a good thing, or at least endorsements that might result in Trump taking a knife to his other companies’ government contracts are a bad thing.  Thus far more than 250,000 subscribers have cancelled their WashPo subscriptions, 50,000 of those cancellations came after Musk’s statement.

Shenanigans:  Apparently burning ballot boxes is now a thing or at least some people, mostly MAGAs, think so.  Two boxes, one in Washinton state and another in Oregon have been set on fire with hundreds of ballots damaged so much that they are no longer readable.  Election officials in many states are now equipping boxes with fire protective gear.  An unrepentant Steve Bannon whose acne appears to have been cleared up by his prison stay,  is now out of jail and has learned nothing from his time in the slammer.  He wants Trump to declare victory as soon as the polls close on Tuesday because why wait for all those absentee and mail-in ballots to be counted anyway. That’s not all that surprising given who he is and given that North Carolina Republican Congressman Andy Harris, wants his state legislature to just go ahead and award North Carolina’s electoral college votes to Trump now because who needs elections anyway?   

#BringThemAllHomeNow

Garbage In Garbage Out 🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴

Somos Todos Puerto Rico:  A few days ago, at a rally in Arizona, Trump called the US “a garbage can for the world.”  Keeping with the 💩 theme, yesterday at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally, on the anniversary of the Tree of Life Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, in an event reminiscent of the Nazi rally that was held at the Garden on 1939, Tony Hinchcliffe, an opening act for Trump went all in on hate.  He called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage,” mocked Hispanics for failing to use birth control, called Jews cheap, Palestinians rock throwers, and made a joke about a Black man and watermelons. That disgusting string of racial slurs as well as some additional slime including one speaker calling Harris an “anti-Christ” and another saying that she and her “pimp handlers will ruin the country” didn’t take place during tryout night at a third string comedy club but as part of the closing campaign message for the Republican candidate for president who once he took the stage, doubled down on his message of retribution and hate. While Trump was celebrating with a crowd of 20,000, many like-minded incels, the Democrat’s candidate, Kamala Harris, who nativist, misogynist Tucker Carlson bizarrely called a Samoan Malaysia of low IQ presumably because in his addled mind all women, particularly non-white ones are stupid and all Jamaicans and Indians are easily mistaken for Samoans (WTF), was in Philadelphia at a Puerto Rican restaurant talking about her plans to help the island recover from the storms that have ravaged its infrastructure. The contrast in candidates couldn’t be more obvious but not enough for Lindsey Graham who until he was challenged with proof to the contrary insisted that it’s the Democrats rather than the Republicans who use harsh language and anyway Kamala is a far left communist, unlike his man Trump who assisted by Elon Musk plans to fire 70% of government employees and trash the economy with tariffs, and not JD Vance who tried to lie through an interview with Jake Tapper who clearly couldn’t take that hateful drivel anymore, and also not RFK Jr who will do wonderful things for US healthcare while eliminating all lifesaving vaccines.

Vote Ahora!  Though it’s not clear if Trump knows it, Puerto Ricans are US citizens and while Puerto Rico does not have any electoral college votes, 5.8 million Puerto Ricans live on the mainland. There are just over 1 million Puerto Ricans in NYS where a number of Republican Congressman are facing challenging reelection races and slightly more in Florida where the Senate race between Republican Rick Scott and his Democratic challenger Debbie Murcarsel-Powell is close enough to be worth watching.  More importantly, 472,000 people of Puerto Rican descent live in swingy Pennsylvania, Philadelphia’s population is 14% Puerto Rican, putting the city second to only NYC in the number of people of Puerto Rican ancestry.  Another 90,000 people of Puerto Rican descent live in Georgia, 50,000 in Arizona, 100,000 in North Carolina, 65,000 in Wisconsin, 50,000 in Michigan and 27,000 in Nevada, states where the election is likely to be decided by the narrowest of margins. Sure, a lot of those people were already in Kamala’s camp but some of those are likely now more motivated to vote while some of those who were leaning Trump may have just changed their minds, or might change their minds, because the political ads write themselves.  Last night Trump’s team made a feeble effort to walk back the Puerto Rico dis but they were drowned out by superstar rapper and singer Bad Bunny who has 45 million Instagram followers and whose music is second in Spotify downloads only to Taylor Swift’s.  He posted a video endorsing Kamala Harris.  Ricky Martin with 19 million Instagram followers, Jennifer Lopez with 250 million, and Mark Antony with 14 million, who had all previously endorsed Harris reupped their support as did Ariana Grande, not of Puerto Rican ethnicity but an influencer nevertheless, who posted to her 500 million followers that she’d just cast her vote for Kamala. So maybe insulting Puerto Rico un muy estupido move to make eight days before election day when Puerto Rican and other Latino voters could swing the election?  We’ll know soon enough, or maybe not because Trump and his echo chamber are already claiming the election is rigged and we know what they plan to do if they don’t win.    

Estupido Tambien:  As had been leaked early on Friday, The Washington Post formally announced that it would no longer be issuing endorsements of presidential candidates even though the paper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris had already been written and was just awaiting what the editorial board thought was a routine final signoff.   New Publisher William Lewis, who earlier in his career was implicated in Britain’s infamous newspaper phone hacking scandal, insists that the decision to no longer issue endorsements was his but it’s widely believed that it was made by billionaire owner Jeff Bezos who fears that a Trump administration would cancel Amazon’s lucrative web service business if the paper he owns endorses a member of the “enemy from within” and who can blame him because yachts and private planes are so expensive, not to mention plastic surgery and all that other cool stuff.  Two prominent Washington Post journalists, Robert Kagan and Michele Norris, have resigned in protest, Alexandra Petri, the paper’s humor writer wrote a Kamala endorsement of her own, and a number of other Post writers are all over social media condemning the decision but begging subscribers to stay on board. Unfortunately for them, thousands, including me, have cancelled their subscriptions, not as hard a decision as it might have been just a few years ago given that the paper’s content and its readership have been going downhill for a while now partially because of management neglect but also because its business model hasn’t kept up with the times or even the NYTimes.  It may be time for the Post to change its motto to Democracy Died in Broad Daylight.  The LA Times, not as influential as the Washington Post, is also sticking by its decision to sit on its endorsement.  Over the weekend there were suggestions that billionaire donor Patrick Soon-Shiong had squelched the paper’s Kamala endorsement because his daughter was upset about endorsing Harris due to events in Gaza, because blaming the Jews is so au courant again but then issued a denial that their decision had anything to do with Gaza or the owner’s daughter.  Most likely he too kowtowed to Trump because nothing says autocracy like media companies giving up their independence and morals in obeyance to a dictator wannabe.  Not all papers have signed on to the cowardice.  The NY Times republished its Harris endorsement, and both the Philadelphi Inquirer and Houston Chronicle issued Harris endorsements two days ago.

Fog:  Over the weekend, Israel bombed Iranian missile sites as payback for Iran’s most recent massive missile attack on Israel.  Reports are that the Israel attack which was carried about by both female and male air force pilots was successful in that it took out some of Iran’s warning systems and has also set back its missile making capability about two years. The hope now is that some progress can be made on peace and hostage talks but we’ve heard that before.  Trump of course, egged Israel to do more because why not, he’s not president so escalation consequences won’t be his to suffer.  Biden and Harris who like many other world leaders were advised of the attack plans in advance, are now pushing for Netanyahu to use the opportunity to pivot to ceasefire talks and it appears that some of that might be happening, well maybe.

I voted! At the Metropolitan Museum of Art of all places. 

#BringThemAllHomeNow    

 
Free Press?🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴

Fascists-R-US: Former Chief of Staff/Retired General John Kelly said that Trump will rule like a fascist, a sentiment that Kamala Harris doubled down on during her CNN townhall.  Kelly also said that Trump had praised Hitler for the “good” things he did and ironically JD Vance, when he was just the Hillbilly guy, called Trump a modern- day Hitler.  Trump, who appointed Kelly to two important positions in his administration and who used to tout him as one of “his” great generals, responded to Kelly’s scathing critique by calling him a degenerate and a lowlife.  Trump’s reaction is predictable, like a grade school bully, he always lashes out at anyone who criticizes him, especially former allies and appointees.  He routinely besmirches two of “his” other Generals, Milley and Mattis calling them dopes and threatening to have them prosecuted but continues to lavish praise on the increasingly insane Mike Flynn.  What’s more concerning right now is how the fitting fascist label is falling flat with so much of the electorate, especially so many Republican officials when it should be causing them to flee his train especially since, with the exception of the Lauren Boebert high school drop-out crowd, most Republican politicians, particularly those in the Senate and House, know or should know what fascism is and, unlike Trump, could probably identify who were our enemies during World War II.  Unfortunately, it’s increasingly obvious that many others, including vast swaths of the Republican base have no idea what fascism is and why supporting someone who aspires to be an unchecked dictator is a really bad thing. Aided by his creepy moustache, they probably could pick Hitler out of a line-up but would be hard pressed to recognize Benito Mussolini and might even admire Joseph Stalin, not for being a communist, but for his Hitler-level purges. We’re supposed to find some comfort in the belief that US military leadership wouldn’t follow clearly immoral or illegal orders even from a Commander in Chief but that’s naïve at best. Yesterday it was reported that in response to push back from the right-wing Heritage Society, the folks who brought us Justices Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Coney-Barret and Project 2025, historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s invitation to speak at the US Naval Academy was rescinded by the Pentagon.  Professor Ben-Ghiat is an expert in global authoritarianism and the future of democracy.  How can we believe that our military leaders will serve as a bulwark against fascism and Trump’s plans to use them to implement his retribution plan and roundups of opponents and “illegals” if they aren’t allowed to be educated about the consequences of blindly following the orders of tyrants?

Musk Madness:  Elon Musk who is trying to buy the election for Trump or really for JD Vance and his Peter Theil puppet master is a bigly problem. At least for now, after receiving a warning from the Department of Justice, he’s no longer raffling off $1 million daily awards to voters willing to hand over their personal data to his political organization.  That’s a good thing but trying to buy the election is only the tip of the Musk iceberg.  Last night the Wall Street Journal, possibly the most schizophrenic newspaper ever given the divergence between its Murdoch dominated editorial board and it’s still respected investigative reporters, posted an article detailing how Musk routinely holds secretive conversations with Vladimir Putin.  Those conversations likely explain why Musk who was initially supportive of Ukraine has grown increasingly pro-Russian.  It’s not just Musk’s shifting position on Ukraine that’s concerning, the WSJ reports that at the request of China’s Xi,  Putin asked Musk to avoid activating crucial Starlink satellite service over Taiwan, the nation that China would like to give Ukraine treatment to someday soon. Through Starlink and SpaceX, Musk “has forged deep business ties with US military and intelligence agencies” as well.  Because of those ties he has a security clearance that provides him with access to lots of classified information which makes his conversations with Putin that much more concerning.  Ironically, Trump doesn’t have that kind of access right now partly because, for obvious reasons, he hasn’t been granted the usual courtesy access given to former presidents and also because his team has refused to sign the usual transition documents that candidates’ teams sign at this point in the election cycle. That’s a different subject but is also concerning because while the specter of Trump’s team having access to security information is alarming, it also means that the odds of a smooth transition should they win decreases daily. Getting back to Musk and Trump’s good friend Vlad, yesterday the WSJ also reported that Russia has been helping the Houthis’ access satellite data so that they can target vessels, including some US ones, in the Red Sea. Also, Trump’s other BFF North Korea’s Kim Jong un has sent troops to help Vlad with his war against Ukraine.  

Free Press?  It should surprise no one that Murdoch’s other paper, the NY Post endorsed Trump today because the NY Post has long been totally enamored of all things Trump. More concerning is what is happening at both the LA Times and The Washington Post.  The Los Angeles Times’ current owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, who bought the paper in 2018 has blocked the paper’s editorial board from publishing its planned endorsement of Kamala Harris.  In response the paper’s editorial chief Mariel Garza resigned saying she wanted “to make it clear” that she “is not okay with us being silent…in dangerous times, honest people need to stand-up.” Last night it was reported that the Washington Post which has recently acquired new right leaning Murdoch style leadership may sit on its endorsement as well. Makes you wonder if the paper’s current leadership would have greenlighted the Watergate investigation or instead sent Woodward and Bernstein packing.  Ruth Ben-Ghiat notes that a free press is one of the first things to go during the march towards autocracy and fascism. It does seem like some of ours is starting to hedge its bets given that Trump keeps referring to it as the enemy of the state. 

Born in the USA:  Unfortunately, elections aren’t typically won by who has the best concerts and celebrity endorsements, but wouldn’t it be nice if they were because Kamala and Tim have the support of Taylor Swift and concerts featuring Bruce Springsteen, Eminem, James Taylor (!), and Beyonce who will be performing at a Harris rally in Houston. While the swing states get the A listers, we New Yorkers are getting a neo-Nazi rally in the Garden. Rudy Giuliani may or may not be at that MSG rally, but if he’s in town, he won’t be staying at his penthouse.  His upper east side coop now belongs to Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.  Not a lot to say about this week’s polls, they’ve been all over the place, so if you feel like you are on a rollercoaster, you are not alone. It’s totally frustrating that Kamala is expected to be perfect while so many politicians and pundits make excuses for the increasingly demented orange 🤡 who by the way has another sexual assault accuser, this one a former model who was introduced to him by his friend Jeffrey Epstein, not that any of his supporters or even much of the press will care.

Early voting starts tomorrow in NY!

#BringThemAllHomeNow  

Where's My Rommel? 🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴

Whiplash: As we barrel to election day, sleep is starting to elude me.  I suspect I am not alone.  My moods shift from optimism to pessimism about the outcome, hardly helped by the barrage of conflicting polls released daily.  On Monday, a Washington Post poll showed Harris up 6 points in Georgia, yesterday the Atlanta-Journal Constitution her down by 4.  David Plouffe, the long-time Barack Obama aide who ran his 2008 campaign and is now serving as a senior advisor to Kamala Harris says that most public polls are horseshxt 💩 and should be treated accordingly.  He stresses that the presidential race is close and any swing state poll showing either candidate winning by a significant margin should be dismissed. He says it’s a margin of error race and, though based on what he’s seeing in private polls, he’d rather be Harris than Trump, it remains very close.  That said, there is one poll that is making this New Yorker who admittedly spends too much time scrolling the doom and gloom, hellscape purveyor NY Post website.  According to a Siena College Poll released yesterday, Harris’ lead in New York State has increased to 19 points and though the race is closer in the traditionally more conservative suburbs including Long Island, Harris is also leading there by a narrower 5-point margin.  Siena may be off by the size of Harris’ NYS lead but that she’s leading NYS by a substantial amount is not surprising, and also may bode well for the Democrats hope of picking up some of those Biden district House seats that went red during the 2020 election.  It also makes Trump’s upcoming Madison Square Garden rally, which is being compared to the “Pro American” Nazi rally of 1939, that much more perplexing.  Punchbowl news reports that the rally, which is scheduled to take place on October 27, is sold out and that it will be attended by the hoi polloi of Republican leadership. Punchbowl is right about the leadership attendance, everyone from Speaker Mike Johnson to NY Representative Elise Stefanik, a big Republican money raiser, is planning to attend but it’s possible that some of those “sold out” 19,500 seats will be empty since a number of pundits, including never Trumper George Conway have posted social media messages encouraging Harris supporters to sign-up and no-show just for kicks.  We’ll know soon enough.

Late But Maybe Better than Never:  Retired Marine Corp General John Kelly, who first served as Trump’s Homeland Security Secretary and then as his Chief of Staff is finally speaking out about Trump, this time on the record rather than in secret conversations with authors like Bob Woodward. In a series of interviews published in today’s NY Times, he says that Trump “fits into the general definition of fascist.” that he admires and wants to be an authoritarian, and that he “wanted the kind of generals that Hitler had.” That last part is particularly ironic because Trump whose grasp of history is pathetically ignorant didn’t realize that Hitler’s generals tried to kill him three times and that ultimately one of his most storied ones, Erwin Rommel also known as the Desert Fox, committed suicide after one of the failed assassination attempts. In a fitting, albeit truly frightening companion piece to the NY Times’ Kelly interviews, The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg details Trump’s general disdain for members of the military and his misunderstanding of what they should and should not be ordered to do, not a surprise to anyone who remembers how Trump repeatedly disparaged wounded and/or captured soldiers and war heroes like former Senator John McCain or his most recent assertion that if reelected he’ll call upon the military to arrest his domestic adversaries, something he plans to do right about the same time that he closes down the NY Times and strips CBS and MSNBC of the their broadcast licenses. Goldberg cites how Trump failed to make good on a promise to pay the funeral expenses for US Army soldier Vanessa Guillen who was sexually harassed and then horrifically murdered by a fellow soldier in 2020.  Upon receiving the $60,000 bill for her funeral, an amount that reflected the size of the memorial service that took place in part as a result of all the attention that Trump helped feed by publicizing his faux outrage about her experience and murder, he told then Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to refuse the bill, saying “It doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a fxcking Mexican!” Trump doubled down, later saying those “fxcking people are trying to rip me off.”  That Hitler admiring, military disdaining, immigrant hating former president is running neck and neck with VP Kamala Harris and though it’s great to see these articles, and to finally hear directly from General Kelly, it may be a little late particularly since a lot of Trump’s voters don’t read either the NY Times or The Atlantic and it’s not like Fox is going to run with these stories. And I guess, this is as good a place to mention that Bret Stephens, one of the NY Times’ conservative pundits who earlier said that he wouldn’t vote for Trump now says that he’ll be voting for Kamala Harris but just reluctantly.  I want to say fxck him for his anemic support, but a vote is a vote, so I won’t.

It’s the Economy Stupid:  It turns out that the US economy which Trump and his Fox echo chamber repeatedly diss is, as reported by the Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal, “increasingly pulling ahead of the world’s advanced economies with a surge of investment paying off in higher productivity and wages.” The WSJ cites the International Monetary Fund which has upgraded its outlook for the US because our trends are better than most of the world’s other advanced economies.  That’s good news but the bad news is that the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget believes that a second Trump presidency threatens the financial stability of Social Security because the combination of his planned tax cuts, deportation of immigrants, and tariffs on imported goods would see it running out of cash in fiscal 2031, years earlier than now previously forecasted. So maybe Republicans, particularly those signing on to Trump’s tariff meshuggash (insanity) and its companion piece, the Project 2025 playbook aren’t good for the economy?

Fog:  There’s nothing good to report out of the Middle East, no peace, no ceasefire, and no hostage release.  And for those who think that Trump, who may be egging Netanyahu on in private to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities probably because a disastrous October surprise could help his election chances, is the solution, try listening to his interview with Saudi State TV.  That’s the interview where he once again professes his undying admiration for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, the bone saw prince. Echoing his assertion that Abraham Lincoln wasn’t such a good president because he should have avoided the Civil War by agreeing to keep some slavery, his promise to end the Ukraine war by letting Russia keep all the land it’s taken from Ukraine, and his invitation to the Taliban and his phantom friend Abdul to visit Camp David on September 11, he says that he could have prevented October 7 because he would have “negotiated” with Hamas, you know the guys whose mantra is “from the river to the sea.” To be fair, maybe he doesn’t really mean that part, or at least that’s what he’s been telling mega donor Miriam Adelson, but he’s hoping to lure in some pro-Palestinian voters in Michigan so there’s that.      

And:  The Georgia Supreme Court has rejected Republican Party’s efforts to reinstate their election suppression rules, at least for this election cycle.  Vote, Vote, Vote!

#BringThemAllHomeNow

                       

 Iced Team and Lemonade🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴

Weekend Snapshot:  The Yankees and Dodgers are going to the World Series, the Mets are not, and the NY Liberty are the WNBA champions, The Economist says that the US economy, the one that Trump continues to insist is in the gutter, is so good that it is the envy of the world. Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is dead, but peace does not appear to be at hand. Trump who is dangerous and increasingly unhinged is running neck and neck with Harris who is neither nuts nor evil.  And one more thing, Elon Musk is trying is trying to buy his buddy Trump the election.  How was your weekend?  

Closing Messages:  With only 15 days to go the presidential candidates, aided by their surrogates, are delivering their closing messages. To that end, Trump who thinks that Abraham Lincoln would have been a better president if he had just agreed to “some” slavery in order to prevent the Civil War is all in on penises because nothing says “vote for me” to swing state soccer moms better than riffing on male anatomy. To that end, early in the weekend he told conservative podcast host Dan Bongino that he couldn’t believe that Harvey Weinstein, yes that Harvey Weinstein, had gotten schlonged.  Then, keeping with that theme in Latrobe, Pennsylvania where golf legend Arnold Palmer was born, he delivered a soliloquy about how all the other male golfers on the PGA tour were awed by the impressive size of the legend’s male anatomy.  Foolish me, all this time, I thought they were awed by Palmer’s golf game. Trump’s fascination with anatomy and biology were also on full display at the Al Smith Catholic charities dinner where, with Cardinal Dolan by his side, he made a crack about periods because who doesn’t discuss menstruation with celibate clergy? That’s the dinner where candidates are generally civilized and self-deprecating, a tradition that Trump ignored, instead opting to slam his opponents but dispensing with the self-deprecating part apparently because he’s both perfect and “unconventional.”  In another speech he called “stupid” Harris a lying sh-t 💩 VP and then to hammer home this election cycle’s fake Obama birth certificate conspiracy that she’d lied about working at a MacDonald during her student days, Trump finished his weekend by pretending to sling pretend hamburgers and fries at a closed MacDonalds to pre-selected pretend MAGA clients. Trump’s campaign team has cancelled several of his planned appearance telling Politico that the cancellations were because he’s too tired and maybe the 78-year-old is tired, but those interviews were just as likely cancelled because they fear what he might say next, perhaps because people suffering from dementia are unpredictable?  Apparently, they’re weak at math too which could explain why Trump insists that 78 is nowhere near 80.  Trump isn’t the only one with a closing argument.  Though Harris’ is mostly about change, reproductive rights, competence and equality, her campaign has also been using videos of Trump’s appearances to hammer home just how crazy and increasingly dangerous he is because nothing depicts Trump’s danger better than videos of Trump. That approach should be effective but, unfortunately, it’s not clear that any of Trump’s already locked-in voters care.  And why should they when Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell tells us to ignore the fact that he’s called Trump out as a despicable human being because others like JD Vance and Lindsey Graham have said far worse and they’re still aboard the Trump train.   

The X Man: We all need to focus more on what Elon Musk is doing and I don’t mean on the technical wonders of his Space X company or his overly ambitious promise to deliver a robo-taxi fleet by 2027.  We need to pay attention to his efforts to buy Trump the election. As if amplifying Trump friendly conspiracy theories and squelching Harris friendly messages on X isn’t bad enough, his newest scheme involves offering voters in Pennsylvania, the swing state with the most Electoral College votes, $100 to sign a petition supporting the First and Second Amendments to the Constitution, that document that Trump talks about suspending on day one.  By signing what looks like a benign petition, those voters are turning over personal details to Musk’s PAC to help him push Trump’s candidacy.  The $100 is only part of it, Elon is also raffling off a $1 million check daily in a drawing for those who sign his petition.  Given that the whole election could hinge on the narrowest of margins in Pennsylvania, Musk’s actions are particularly dangerous and because they look a lot like vote buying also might violate campaign finance laws and possibly even state gambling laws.  Unfortunately, as we’ve all learned by now, the legal system is so slow that the election will be in the rearview window way before any of the consequences, to the extent there are any, catch up with Musk, the oligarch who clearly expects something from Trump for all his support. A quid pro quo on steroids?  It’s not just Musk in Trump’s camp.  During a recent appearance on Fox, Trump made said that he’s got a call into his Murdoch buddies to let them know that he expects them to stop allowing anyone who has anything nice to say about Kamala Harris or has the chutzpah to criticize him on their network. As to Fox, Brett Baier admitted that despite his insistence otherwise Fox did misleadingly display the wrong video of Trump during his Kamala interview.  The video that should have been but wasn’t shown was the one where Trump said he’d call upon the military to squash his opponents.  Funny how Fox “accidently” left that one on the cutting room floor and Baier failed to notice?

Fog:  Sinwar, the architect of the October 7 massacre, is really dead, killed not in a targeted hit but instead by relatively junior Israeli soldiers out on a routine patrol.  Unfortunately, it’s not clear that Sinwar’s removal from the scene will lead to a ceasefire and the release of the remaining hostages because it’s not clear that either Netanyahu or whoever it is who is now calling the shots for Hamas is ready to end the hostilities despite increasing pressure from the US.  It’s also not clear if the Hermes Birkin bag that Sinwar’s wife was seen carrying as she scurried from one of her husband’s hiding places to another is authentic but it is clear that Sinwar had lots of cash, food supplies and other UNRWA labeled items in his secret lair.  How he managed that while so many Gazans are hungry should be further investigated but probably won’t be.

#BringThemAllHomeNow         

 

IVF's Daddy? 🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴

The Dancing Clown:  With less than three weeks left until election day, the candidates are bouncing from so many interviews to town halls and back again that it’s hard to keep track of all of them.  On Tuesday, fresh off his Pennsylvania sway-a-thon, Trump was interviewed by Bloomberg’s Editor in Chief John Micklethwait at the Chicago Economic Forum.  As Esquire put it, Trump didn’t answer Micklethwait’s questions but instead answered the imaginary ones in his head.  An unamused Micklethwait kept pushing Trump to respond to his questions but instead Trump dissed all economists, especially the ones cited in the Wall Street Journal’s recent comparison of his and Kamala’s economic plans.  Those economists largely agreed that Trump’s plan especially his tariffs would raise inflation and grow the deficit substantially more than anything proposed by Harris.  Trump’s response to that was that he’s a whiz at math, those economists are all stupid, the WSJ is always wrong, and just to prove that he’s right, he’ll impose even higher tariffs so that no foreign goods make it into the US ever, US consumers be damned. Trump once again asserted that January 6^th was a nothing burger because at the end of the month, he and his trove of secret documents did decamp to Mar a Lago. Taking no prisoners, Micklethwait said that the transfer was only peaceful in comparison to Venezuela. Would it surprise you to learn Trump who had previously agreed to an interview with CNBC has now cancelled that appearance?  On Wednesday Trump participated in a Univision Town Hall, part of his outreach to the Hispanic community. In response to a question from a Spanish speaking attendee, Trump doubled down on his assertion that the Springfield, Ohio Haitians were eating pets “because that’s what he’s heard,” adding that those Haitians only speak foreign languages, probably not the best answer to someone who posed his question in Spanish but what do I know, because the pundits say that while Trump is behind Harris with the Latin American community he’s gained ground with them. To round things out Fox broadcasted a “women’s” townhall that he’d taped earlier.  During that session, hosted by Fox’s Harris Faulkner, he tried to soften his abortion position, again asserting that “everyone” wanted Roe overturned so he was a hero for that. He acknowledged that he didn’t really know what IVF was until Alabama Senator/Handmaiden Katie Britt told him about Alabama’s court banning the procedure but then said that he was the father of IVF. By IVF, maybe he thought they were talking about second son Eric? Doesn’t make sense, but that didn’t seem to be a problem for the handpicked MAGA women in the audience.  They didn’t seem all that concerned about his promise to order the military to go after his opponents either.  

Kamala Too:  Harris who was previously criticized for not participating in enough interviews has been just about everywhere.  On Tuesday, as part of her outreach to Black men she participated in a well-received interview with The Breakfast Club radio host Charlamagne Tha God where the two agreed that Mark Milley was spot on in calling Trump a fascist. Pulling no punches, she also called Trump weak and dangerous. On Wednesday she appeared in Bucks County, Pennsylvania with a bunch of now never Trumper Republican politicians by her side, that’s part of her effort to let wavering Republicans know that voting for her won’t get them kicked out of their country clubs especially if they’re discrete about their intentions.  Then yesterday, her Fox interview with Bret Baier was aired.  That interview was a wee bit contentious.  Baier who isn’t as wacky as Maria Bartiromo or as much of a Trump toady as Sean Hannity is hardly the middle of the road guy he pretends to be; last cycle after Fox’s respected election desk, all of whom have since been fired, called Arizona for Biden, he tried to get them to retract their call.  Harris wasn’t having any of Baier’s nonsense, she pushed back hard when he tried to portray Trump’s promise to call out the military as something other than what it was. Her intention was to tell Fox viewers those things that Fox generally fails to mention.  It’s not clear if anyone watching cared because after the interview Fox went with lots of Black women dog whistles 🐶 😗 but she gets credit for showing up in enemy territory and anyone who thinks that she’ll be intimidated by foreign leaders like Vlad Putin, is deceiving themselves. MSNBC’s hosts have all extended invitations to Trump but none of us should expect to see him on with Rachel Maddow anytime soon. As to Maddow, she usually doesn’t appear on Wednesday nights, but she showed up last night with a bigly scoop.  Specifically, she had written documentation and a tape, of Trump’s legal team, trying to get adult film star Stormy Daniels to agree to stop saying bad things about Trump in exchange for a reduction in the amount of legal fees she owes him for a defamation case she’d lost. To repeat, Trump who is due to be sentenced after the election for falsifying business documents to hide payments he made to keep their dalliance quiet before the 2016 election is still all in on election interference. If sentencing judge Juan Merchan didn’t know about this, it’s fair to assume that he does now.  By the way, Trump’s defense is that the documentary proof that Maddow presented is from the Iran hack, so it doesn’t count.  It wasn’t from the Iran hack; it was from information provided by his lawyers. It counts, not that any of his fans will care.

Lots and Lots of Trouble Ahead:  An increasing number of political pundits and legal experts are convinced that Trump and his congressional supporters, which these days include just about every Republican in the House and most of those in the Senate, plan to contest the results of the election if he loses, kind of January 6 only worse.  However, a few judges are trying to impede some of those efforts.  This week Georgia’s new election rules including the one that mandated the manually counting of all votes and another that allowed local officials to refuse to certify votes, just because they wanted to, were thrown out by the courts.  Also, an Alabama judge blocked the state’s efforts to systematically purge voter records, and a Nebraska court ruled that a state election official could not strip those with felony convictions of their voting rights.  The Nebraska ruling matters because the effort to ban felons from voting was intended to influence the outcome in the Omaha area district where Harris is expected to win what could be a pivotal Electoral College vote.

Just Weird:  JD Vance has finally come out and said that as far as he’s concerned, Trump did not lose in 2020. Apparently. Trump wasn’t satisfied with his hemming and hawing and needed him to be more definitive.  We’ve known for a long time that Trump has a bizarre toupee like weave, what we didn’t know is that his excuse for his meandering speeches, the ones where he talks about Hanibal Lecter and sharks while calling tariffs the solution for childcare and doubling down on retribution for his enemies is also a weave, only this weave which sounds a lot like early dementia is a “strategy.”  And lastly former KKK leader David Duke has endorsed third party candidate Jill Stein.  That matters because Stein is a spoiler, in fact that’s the whole point of her candidacy which is why its widely believed that one of her other key supporters is Putin.

#BringThemAllHomeNow

    

The Enemy From Within  🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴

Twenty Days:  Over the weekend, Kamala Harris released her medical report. In summary, she has seasonal allergies, wears contact lenses, and unlike her opponent is mentally and physically resilient. Nevertheless, Trump, who is rumored to have an incontinence or worse problem insists that Harris is mentally deficient and a “retard,” his word, not mine.  He has not and will not release a real medical report, continues to insist that he’s mentally competent and a genius because he once distinguished a rhinoceros from an elephant and had an uncle who taught at MIT.  He has once again shut down participating in another debate and has also turned down an offer from CNN to appear in a townhall. Harris, who Trump insists is afraid of interviews has been participating in a slew of them, has accepted CNN’s offer and has also agreed to a one-on-one interview with Fox’s Bret Baier to take place tomorrow night.  The self-described healthiest and most mentally fit presidential candidate who only appears with the friendliest of hosts like Fox’s Maria Bartiromo and who treats fact checking as if it’s kryptonite instead held a town hall last night in Oaks, Pennsylvania moderated by another one of his acolytes, South Dakota’s Kristi Noem.  He quickly dispensed with questions and instead swayed to his favorite music for thirty-nine minutes.  The Pennsylvania sway-a-thon followed a rally in Arizona where he welcomed the Aseurasians in the audience.  Aseruasian, Arizonans close enough? That rally followed the one he held in Coachella where many attendees were left stranded because his campaign failed to pay the bus company that was supposed to transport them out which could explain why Trump’s been busy launching more quick-pay fraudulent business ventures  As to his most recent interview with Maria Bartiromo, it made a few headlines, but not enough, because that’s when Trump said that rather than Russia, China, North Korea or Iran, the real problem facing the country is the “enemy from within” and he’s prepared to call out the National Guard and the military to deal with those “sick lunatics” as in the “lunatic left” but really everyone willing to speak out against him including Biden, Harris, Clinton. Pelosi, Kinzinger and many of us.  That threat of violence against those who disagree with him is just one of the of the reasons that his former Chief of Staff Mark Milley, who has grown increasingly concerned about Trump’s descent, reached out to author Bob Woodward to tell him that he believes that Trump is “fascist to the core” and even worse is increasingly surrounded by only like-minded people.  It’s also why Milley, who fears that Trump will exert retribution against him by having him court martialed and who has also received many credible threats from Trump’s fans, has installed bullet proof windows at his personal residence. He may need a moat too. The fascist guy also wants to invoke the 1798 Alien and Sedition Act to deport aliens including immigrants who are here legally and some who are naturalized citizens but of course the conveniently pro-choice genius model visa lady Melania and South African born Elon Musk can stay. The fascist to the core candidate who’s been telling audiences that their choice is simple, either vote for the white guy or end up with another one of those Black presidents, because who needs a dog whistle 🐶😗 anymore, remains in a neck and neck, too close to call race to become the country’s next president.  

More Insanity: While parts of the south continue what is likely to be a long recovery from the dual effects of Helene and Milton, some militia types, as in lunatics with guns, have been threatening the FEMA teams working on the recovery, just another consequence of demonizing government employees for doing their jobs, a situation familiar to the health experts who were forced out of their jobs when they tried to combat the spread of COVID and the election workers who were attacked for working at the polls.  On the subject of guns, a Trump fan with a few tried to get into Trump’s Coachella event but was stopped.  Though initial reports suggested that he was there to try to assassinate Trump, he wasn’t, he just thought that carrying his arsenal was okay because doesn’t everyone?  In Florida where abortion is on the ballot, Governor DeSantis has had his recently created Office of Election Crimes and Security scrutinize signatures on the petition responsible for the abortion amendment.  He is now claiming that at least 16% of those signatures were fraudulent.  They’re not. He’s also been using state funds to campaign against the amendment.  Such a good use of time and money in a state where home insurance, when available, has grown increasingly unaffordable because why tackle a real problem when you can instead stoke a culture war. According to a poll published Sunday by Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy the abortion rights amendment is supported by 61% of Florida voters which makes its passage too close to call since in Florida amendments must be backed by at least 60% of voters to become law and anyway, even if it reaches the 60% hurdle DeSantis will try to sabotage it before letting it go into effect.  On the endorsement front, Geraldo Rivera, the former Fox commentator who, despite his later career trajectory, will always hold a soft spot in my heart because of his groundbreaking exposé of the horrors that took place at NY’s Willowbrook State institution has endorsed Kamala Harris.  He called Trump who he’s known for years “unfit to serve.”       

Vote, Vote, Vote: Early and absentee ballot voting has begun in lots of states.  In New York early voting begins on October 26.  Former President Jimmy Carter who has been in hospice care for more than one year and who says that his wish is to hold on to cast his vote for Kamala Harris in the election has probably achieved his goal since his Georgia absentee ballot, likely mailed in already, will count even if he doesn’t make it all the way to November 5.  Not that we should count him out since he’s a bit like that iconic Energizer Bunny.   

#BringThemAllHomeNow

 

Space Lasers, Again 🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴

Storm Clouds:  Neither Helene nor Milton was man made nor geoengineered to seize lithium, but thanks to the likes of Margie Q a number of Trumpatistas believe that the hurricanes were created by “those” people (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) with the space lasers to intentionally target Republican dominated enclaves. How is it that despite attending after school Hebrew School classes three times a week through high school I missed the space laser lessons?  Despite barely recognizing federal aid, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis appears to be doing a reasonable job marshalling clean-up and relief resources but still refuses to acknowledge that climate change, a term he’s actually had deleted from state laws, is real. He insists that he’s got statistics to prove that there’s nothing unusual about the increasingly deadly storms or the unprecedented number of tornados that accompanied Milton.  Spoiler alert: there are no such statistics.  Naturally, master of deception Trump who once moved a hurricane with a Sharpie, is fully on board the disinformation train.  He and his echo chamber are sticking with and amplifying the theme that the “incompetent” Biden/Harris administration is diverting hurricane aid from Republican areas to illegal migrants and that the piddling amount of aid actually making it to the deserving victims is being limited to a measly $750, another lie as that is just the amount provided as a emergency bridge to help fund the most immediate needs like food and medicine, and is by no means the only amount that the affected are eligible to receive.  As noted in today’s NY Times, the “bizarre” falsehoods that President Biden called out during his press conference and that even a number of Republican politicians in affected areas have bemoaned, are making the dissemination of aid more difficult but then again, that’s the point.

Panic Time:  We’re being inundated with polls, some showing Kamala Harris with the narrowest of leads, others showing Trump winning in the all-important swing states. It’s hard to know which ones are from credible pollsters because the right and sometimes even the left frequently flood the zone with their preferred polls to influence polling averages, a strategy geared towards influencing voter turnout. What is clear is that despite his lies, threats, and increasingly incoherent speeches, Trump who is whipping up fears about the migrant “invasion” and working to convince parents that their precious kids are being forced to change their sex at schools while also promising a new tax cut, tailor made to whatever audience he is speaking to at the time, could win the election.  Sorry to have to say that but it’s true and judging by the concerns expressed by former Republican now a never Trumper Tim Miller and former Obama advisor now CNN pundit David Axelrod on last night’s Bulwark podcast, bedwetting is in order

Madison Square Garden? While Kamala Harris and her proxies, including former President Obama, are popping up all over the crucial swing states, Trump’s plans, besides badmouthing Detroit in Detroit, include large rallies in New York’s Madison Square Garden and California’s Coachella Valley.  NY and California are states he will not win but both states, which have always had red enclaves, have gotten redder. He lost New York by about 23 points in both 2016 and 2020.  He lost California both times by about 29 points.  Right now, polls indicate that he’s down 14 points in NY and down 23 in California.  For what it’s worth, my theory is that despite his assertions that he can pull off NY and California miracles, he knows he won’t come close in either state, but his objective is pick up votes to narrow what is likely to be a loss in the nationwide popular vote which he lost by 2.9 million votes in 2016 and 7 million votes in 2020.  Should he lose the Electoral College vote, the only one that matters, shrinking his popular vote loss will bolster his inevitable claim that “the fraudulent” election was “stolen” from him. He’s been laying the groundwork for that for some time.  Think January 6 on steroids.  Of course, if he wins, there will have been no fraud and no steal.

And:  The Kremlin has confirmed that despite his claims to the contrary, Trump did send his bestie Vlad COVID tests during the height of the pandemic though they haven’t confirmed any of the seven or more calls mentioned in Bob Woodward’s new book.  Those $60 Bibles that Trump’s been selling to his fans, they like his hats were made in China at a cost of $3 per Bible.   Remember those suspicions that the FBI investigation into Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s alleged sexual assaults was incomplete at best, well Senator Sheldon Whitehouse now has the receipts, and it turns out that as suspected, the Trump White House and the FBI “misled the public and the Senate” about the scope of their investigation because mostly they didn’t follow-up on leads or talk to accusers. Harris received another endorsement yesterday, this one from The Atlantic. In endorsing Harris, they said she is a “devoted public servant who respects the law and the Constitution.  She believes in the freedom, equality, and dignity of all Americans.” They also noted that Trump “is even more vicious and erratic than in the past, and the ideas of his closest advisers are more extreme.”   Additionally, tech billionaire Ben Horowitz of the huge Andreesen Horowitz venture capital firm has shifted teams and is now endorsing and contributing to the Harris campaign.

Have an easy fast (if you are fasting)

#BringThemAllHomeNow

     

 

The Flying Nun 🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴

Storm Clouds:  Hurricane Milton hasn’t made landfall in the US yet but already the official Trump/Vance line, bolstered by Republican Congressman Steve Scalise and amplified by Elon Musk, is that the Helene recovery efforts and the Milton preparations being undertaken by the Biden administration and by extension VP/presidential candidate Kamala Harris are the real disaster.  A number of Governors, Republican and Democrat, insist that the administration is doing a good job and has been quick out of the box, doing whatever it can wherever necessary, but the Trump’s team is going with disaster response is a disaster theme because disinformation is so much more on brand and has so much election tilting potential, The Wall Street Journal in on the action, sort of.  Yesterday they ran a JD Vance authored op-ed in which the prince of smarm slams the administration for its horrible response to Milton predecessor Helene, asserting that the administration cares little about JD’s Appalachian brethren and that  Biden was lolling at his beach house in Delaware, while Harris was hobnobbing with celebrities, and Homeland Security head Mayorkas was busy giving handouts to illegal migrants, those people who Trump insists have bad blood and even worse genes when they should have been tossing paper towel rolls at storm victims. Today’s WSJ has an article entitled “FEMA battles two storms – and Misinformation,” about how lies like those spread in the JD Vance piece they published yesterday is making the hurricane recovery process more difficult, even convincing some gullible victims that they shouldn’t bother seeking the lifesaving government help they need.  No wonder we as a nation are so divided, how can we not be, when media outlets like the increasingly schizophrenic WSJ know the truth but consciously remain part of the problem that they themselves point out as the problem?   

Media Blitz:  As to Kamala Harris, JD is wrong about her ignoring hurricane relief but he’s right about one thing, she has been spending some of her time “hobnobbing”  with the media and that seems to be eating his and his Trump’s kishkes out.  She’s been everywhere, on 60 Minutes, on The View, with Howard Stern, on the popular Call her Daddy podcast and last night she shared a Miller Lite with Stephen Colbert. Sure, she doesn’t have Elon Musk doing bizarre cheerleading jumps at her rallies, but at least so far, her media romp has gone off without a hitch and really, did we need to see Musk’s flabby midsection?   Trump who initially committed to participating in 60 Minutes’s presidential candidates interview episode, a tradition that spans fifty years, pulled out of his scheduled interview because 60 Minutes fact checks, something he abhors for fairly obvious reasons.  His team added that he’s also still mad at CBS’s Lesley Stahl over something she never said.  Trump’s team is now furious that CBS went ahead with the episode without him and that they opened the segment with a statement to viewers about how he pulled out largely because of that not so little check thing. By the way Elon Musk says it’s okay that his X promotes hurricane lies as well as anti-Semitic tropes because though X doesn’t fact check it includes “community notes” where others can fact check if they want to and anyway it’s okay to tell people that Democrats, particularly Jewish Democrats are responsible for hurricanes if they’re dumb enough to believe it.

Russia, Russia, Russia:  Bob Woodward is back, this time teasing his soon to be released book “War.” In the book which will be available to the masses next week, Woodward cites an unnamed Trump aide’s revelation that Trump and Putin have spoken at least seven times since Trump left office in 2021.  Those assertions are not all that surprising considering that Trump, hardly a student of history, seems very up on the Kremlin’s talking points on Russia’s “stellar” military history and is also so very simpatico with Putin’s views on Ukraine.  Also, there’s Trump’s ongoing efforts to get his House and Senate “colleagues” to block the aid Ukraine needs to continue fighting against Russia’s invasion as well as his assertion that he’ll resolve the Ukraine-Russia “dispute” immediately after he “wins” the election, by making Ukraine agree to Putin’s demands, or as Kamala Harris so aptly puts it, by making Ukraine surrender.  The Woodward book also reveals that Trump secretly sent sophisticated COVID-19 testing equipment to Putin for his personal use early in the pandemic.  That was back when testing was unavailable to the rest of us but then again each of us only has one vote while Putin has the resources and ability to influence the outcome of elections.  Woodward’s book also addresses President’s Biden difficult relationship with Israel’s Netanyahu, noting that Biden, known for using “spicy” language has applied some “eff” words to Bibi.  That’s not so shocking, more than half of Israelis share that sentiment.  Bibi is and always will be Bibi and  “eff” words aren’t all that shocking, hardly as incriminating as Trump’s ongoing canoodling with Vladimir Putin which should really, really concern us but doesn’t because we are so desensitized to his violation of norms and laws.  Naturally, Trump’s team is now slamming Woodward, calling his assertions made-up and claiming they just prove that he’s suffering from advanced Trump Derangement Syndrome.  JD Vance even suggested that not only does no one care what Woodward has to say but that he didn’t even know that Woodward was still alive.

Just Get Over It: Reproductive rights are still a bigly issue though the Republican party line seems to be that women need to just get over losing their body autonomy.  That appears to be the SCOTUS view too, on Monday they let it be known that they are totally okay with Texas refusing to provide emergency abortions to women who show up at hospital emergency rooms if providing that care violates Texas law because who really cares about women anyway. Apparently, The Flying Nun’s Sister Bertrille, better known as Sally Fields, is not okay with that.  Fields was 19 when she started playing Sister Bertrille in that long ago sitcom.  She revealed this week that just two years before she starred in the Flying Nun sitcom, she had an illegal, painful abortion.  That was in the before Roe times which are now the current times for women in the thirteen states with total abortion bans and the eight more with early, including six-week bans.   

More Politics:   The race to replace New Jersey’s senior Democratic Senator Bob Menendez who having been tried and convicted of bribery, extortion, and acting as a foreign agent, finally stepped down from the Senate is on between Democratic Congressman Andy Kim and Republican businessman Curtis Bashaw.  Kim best known until now for picking-up waste left in the Capitol by the January “tourists,” played hometown hero again during his recent debate with Bashaw. While answering a question, the 63-year-old Bashaw, glitched, freezing in place, experiencing some kind of medical emergency, perhaps a seizure or maybe as he later said he was just hungry?  While everyone watched in stunned silence, Kim sprang into action, rushing to Bashaw’s podium to try to help. Finally, taking a cue from Kim, the debate moderator called for a commercial after which Bashaw returned to finish the debate.  Kim who leads in the polls by a around four points is expected to win the NJ seat, but nothing is a given.  Also, despite his assertion that he unlike Kamala has been to Gaza, Trump has not been to Gaza though he still wants to build a beach resort there someday soon.  At least a few Muslim groups are waking up to the fact that even though they’re not happy with Harris’ support for Israel that seeing Trump retake the White House won’t be a good thing for them, maybe it’s the specter of a Trump Gaza resort, or maybe it’s his Muslim ban. In an open letter, twenty-five Islamic religious leaders have endorsed the Harris/Walz ticket, telling their followers that they have a duty to think logically about their voting.              

#BringThemAllHomeNow  

 

One Year 🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴 🕯️ 🕯️

Twenty-Eight Days:  Election day is getting closer.  The candidates are on the road and all over the airwaves.  Though their messages are startlingly different and many of the policies that Trump and his partner JD Vance are promoting are not popular and would hurt his base, the electorate is so locked into their lanes that the election remains frighteningly close.  Abetted by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man who mostly just wants to be an oligarch unencumbered by any inconvenient regulations, one of the two candidates, the one who promises to be a dictator on day one, is spreading so many lies about hurricane relief, that some Republican Governors and even a few local Republican politicians including Georgia’s Republican Governor Brian Kemp and North Carolina’s Republican Senator Thom Tillis have alerted their constituents that those assertions are false. For his part wannabee oligarch Musk is using his social media site X to amplify the relief lies, spreading false assertions that the Biden/Harris administration has closed air space in hurricane ravaged areas to prevent aid from getting to those who need it most while also claiming that affected citizens are being given no more than $750 in recovery aid while illegal migrants are being showered with cash.  Lies are powerful and lying to the downtrodden is even more potent, Trump knows that and so does Musk, thus the lies won’t stop and with Hurricane Milton on the way to Florida, they’ll only get worse.  The aid lies are particularly ironic since Trump wanted his stooges in Congress to let the government coffers run dry and, following his lead, a significant number of Republicans in hurricane ravaged areas voted against keeping FEMA up and running.  On the subject of deception, Trump also posted on his Truth Social account that JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon had endorsed him.  Dimon, who earlier in the campaign season was a Niki Haley fan, responded by making it clear that he HAS NOT endorsed Trump. Trump’s response was to then assert that the Dimon endorsement that he posted on his personal account was fake because having lied about the endorsement, why not lie about who posted it?  Anyway, as Winston Churchill once said:  “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on,” so while discourse and articles, including one this weekend in the NY Times, about Trump’s mental decline are pervasive, his lying skills have gotten more brazen. For her part, Kamala Harris has been all over the place too, appearing in swing states and also participating in loads of interviews, some targeted to specific niche audiences, some like her interview on CBS’ 60 Minutes scheduled to air tonight, national.  Notably 60 Minutes also reached out to Trump, but he cancelled once he realized that he would be fact-checked because, of course he did.  And while November 5^th is less than a month away, Election Day will only the first act in this cycle’s saga, because should he lose, Trump has already made it clear that he and his Republican allies will stall the verification of election results, drag the election into the courts, including al the way to his SCOTUS friends, and if that doesn’t work there’s always violence.  To paraphrase the Bette Davis line from All About Even: fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy few months.

October 7 🕯️ 🕯️ 🕯️:  It’s been one very long year since Hamas invaded Israel, killing 1200, some at a concert, others asleep in their homes, while also abducting 250 more men, women, and babies, with many of those hostages since murdered.  Around the world, in Israel, Paris, London, German, Australia and Switzerland, ceremonies for the first anniversary of the Hamas attack are taking place.  Events are scheduled to take place in the US today as are a number of protests against the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, protests that here and abroad have in many cases morphed into anti-Semitic/anti-Israel rallies.  Since last October 7 things have gone downhill from what should have been the depths of hell.  More attacks, more missiles, more death, and no end in sight.  It’s just about a given that Israel will retaliate for Iran’s most recent missile barrage which in itself was a retaliation for Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah which were in retaliation for Hezbollah’s unending attacks on Northern Israel, and so on.  The official US party line, delivered by President Biden, is that Israel is entitled to retaliate for the most recent barrage, but that they shouldn’t go after Iran’s nuclear facilities.  Trump who claims that he’s the ultimate peacemaker who with the power of his Sharpie can stop all wars, is egging Israel’s Netanyahu, another seriously compromised politician, to go for the nukes. Israel has gone after nuclear facilities in the past, but Iran’s won’t be so easy to destroy which is probably why they haven’t been destroyed already so encouraging such an attack is not so presidential nor all that diplomatic but then again Trump cares little about that.  No one should be fooled, he is only saying what he thinks some of his donors and some voters want to hear while also further stirring the Middle East cauldron because increasing regional uncertainty raises gas prices and, upset about the economy’s continued upswing, he’d love an inflationary oil shock and maybe even a nuclear cloud before the election, even if it that brings more suffering in its wake.

Bibles, Watches, Crypto: Trump’s surrogates have been badmouthing the dockworkers’ quick return to work, they had been counting on a long strike and disruptions in supply chains tanking the economy.  On the subject of eye for an eye, and all that other Biblical stuff, over the summer Oklahoma’s top education official issued a mandate that the Bible be incorporated into all lesson plans.  Would it surprise you to learn that the only Bible that meets the very specific criteria he’s set for “teaching” those lessons is the $60 one being hawked by Trump?  Separation of church and state is out, but Trump Bibles and grift, bigly in.  Maybe mandating Trump watches in the classroom is next because don’t kids have to learn how to tell time?  Lastly, Rudy Guiliani’s daughter Caroline has endorsed Kamala.  That’s not surprising as she has been fairly vocal about her feelings about Trump and her father’s downward trajectory for some time.  

 

#BringThemAllHomeNow