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  In 2022, Georgia repealed provisions requiring people to obtain a license and be subject to background checks before carrying concealed weapons in public spaces.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

 

 
Not Just Weird🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴

Misogyny Much:  This week, Trump offended grieving military families and posted a disgusting misogynistic attack on Kamala Harris while also using QANON language to call for a second revolution and plain English to call for Barack Obama and a number of his other “enemies” to be tried by military tribunals.  Either one of those moves should be disqualifying but with Trump they are par for the course.  It’s what he does, and his diehard voters, media echo chamber, and even the rest of the mainstream media either don’t care or have gotten so used to his deplorable behavior that they’ve given him another pass. Besides Trump’s awful utterances generate viewership and 💰 💰, so who cares about the damage they do?  What gets the media up in arms is that Kamala Harris who is running a time compressed campaign for the country’s highest office and has been engaged in a whirlwind swing state tour while also preparing for a debate hasn’t found time for them and when she finally did sit for her first press interview, she had the audacity to bring along her running mate, Tim Walz. That apparently is galling in their eyes even though it’s traditional for presidential candidates to conduct their post nomination interviews with their partners, Romney did it, Obama did it, Hillary Clinton did it, and even Trump did it. And that interview, conducted by CNN’s Dana Bash, it was uneventful.  Kamala did what candidates are supposed to do, moved to the center, didn’t say anything offensive and praised her party’s current president. No fireworks, just lots of normal.   

66 Days:  Labor Day is Monday, we’re barreling towards the November election and despite Kamala’s improving polls given the vagaries of the electoral college system, Trump, who absent a disaster will once again lose the popular vote, could pull out an election victory because all he has to do is win, or maybe just assert he won, a few of the swing states.  Let me say that again, the Putin/Hanibal Lecter loving convicted felon and adjudicated sex offender who staged a thumbs up photo op at Arlington which he then posted all over social media even after one of his staff members had a physical altercation with an Arlington employee who his press person then painted as mentally deranged and who also slut shamed (WTF) the current Vice President by reposting a tweet that is so vile I am not going to repeat its contents here could return to the White House. That Arlington visit was so offensive that the US Army issued a statement condemning it and the Arlington employee who tried to get Trump’s team to abide by “federal laws, Army regulations, and Department of Defense policies” against staging political events at the cemetery’s hallowed grounds is afraid that if her name goes public, her life will be ruined because that’s what Trump does to people who cross him.  So, the next time one of your friends tells you that they’re not sure about Kamala and Tim because they’re communists (they’re not) and/or are worried about their taxes, etc., feel free to let loose with the expletives of your choice (nothing violent), because their guy and his running mate, the one who in addition to his bizarre cat ladies slam is also on record saying childless people shouldn’t teach “our” children aren’t just weird, they’re dangerous in too many ways to count and the only way we get back to a viable two party system, if that is even possible given the MAGA proliferation, is by defeating Trump again.

And:  Late yesterday, Trump’s lawyers again asked for the New York “hush” money case to be moved to a federal court where they will then ask for Trump’s guilty verdict to be vacated because he’s a king or thinks he’s one and has convinced the Supreme Court that he is.  Trump’s due to be sentenced on September 18.  It’s unlikely that his case will be moved to federal court though it is possible that Judge Merchan will postpone the sentencing until after the election. Trump is growing increasingly nervous about “his abortion problem,” no neither he nor anyone in his orbit is dealing with a problem pregnancy that we know of, they’re rich so their problems can almost always be dealt with, but he’s worried about losing votes which explains why he’s now claiming that if elected he’ll help families pay for IVF so “we can produce babies.” Produce?!? Don’t believe him and anyway, though subsidizing the costs of fertility treatment would be nice, a lot of countries do, it wouldn’t solve the “abortion” problem that his court created.

#BringThemAllHomeNow

Have a great Labor Day weekend!   

 

 68 Days 🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴

Debate Update:  The September 10 on again of again debate between Harris and Trump is on, at least for now.  The two sides had been arguing over mic procedure, with Harris’ team wanting the mic’s open at all times and Trump’s team preferring that candidate’s mics remain off when the other side is speaking, the deal struck when Biden was the candidate.  After a verbal tussle, with Trump actually saying that he’d prefer they stay on at all times, his team, which wants to limit opportunities for him to make rude and stupid off the cuff remarks, prevailed so the debate will proceed with the Biden negotiated mic procedures.  Much the way Trump continues to assert that the November election will be tainted, but only if he doesn’t win, he’s spent the last few days dumping on everyone at debate host ABC News calling the network the “nastiest and unfair,” but that’s just his way of alerting his base that if he doesn’t perform well, it will be the network’s fault, not his.  In other news, Harris and Walz will be sitting down for their first joint interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on Thursday.

Practice Makes Perfect?   Though Trump would prefer everyone to believe that he’s not engaging in any debate prep, he has been practicing with former Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabard standing in for Kamala. Although Gabbard, who Hillary Clinton once aptly described as a “favorite of the Russians,” ran for president as a Democrat in 2016, she has grown increasingly red pilled ever since.  Her politics are akin to those of Tucker Carlson who she frequently subbed for during his last year on Fox. She’s been in Trump’s camp for some time, but to counter the growing list of Republicans and former security officials who’ve endorsed Harris, Trump’s team announced her endorsement and her participation on his transition team this week as if it was new following fellow endorser and transition team member RFK Jr’s assertion that a lot of prominent Democrats would be soon endorsing Trump. That’s probably not going to happen, but then again, Trump’s crowd tends to prevaricate.  As evidenced by what two members of his staff did this week at Arlington Cemetery, they also tend to be violent and disrespectful.  Trump who frequently disses veterans, especially those who’ve died or been injured in action participated in a wreath laying ceremony honoring the 13 service members killed during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.  His appearance was less about the service members and more about staging a photo op to highlight and blame the messy Afghan withdrawal which he initiated on Biden and Harris. The problem is that “Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate’s campaign.”  When told to ditch the cameras, two members of Trump’s staff got into a physical altercation with an official at the cemetery. Naturally, Trump’s team denied that they’d done anything wrong, and instead issued a statement attacking the unnamed Arlington official as “suffering from a mental health episode.”  The incident was caught on camera, the individual was just doing his job. 

Legal Update: Special Prosecutor Jack Smith is still trying to get things done, nice but increasingly pointless because at best nothing will come of his hard work until after the election and at worst, if Trump wins, he’ll be out of a job. That said, Smith is still trying to make Trump face consequences for his actions. He’s appealed Judge Eileen “loose” Cannon’s decision to throw out the Mar a Lago purloined documents case by arguing that her ruling which followed from her conclusion that Attorney General Garland had illegally appointed Smith was ill founded, wrong, idiotic, and ignores lots of precedent. Yesterday he filed a superseding indictment against Trump in the Washington DC case. The new indictment deletes the “crimes” that the Supreme Court recently opined can be committed by presidents because of their newly defined expanded immunity.    

😊:  Some good news for a change on the hostage front.  Yesterday, Israeli forces rescued Farhan al-Qadi, a 52-year-old member of Israel’s Bedouin Arab minority. Al-Qadi who was found in a Hamas tunnel, had been working as a security official at a produce packaging plant on October 7 when he was kidnapped. He’s one of 7 Israeli Bedouins who were kidnapped on October 7, 18 others were killed during the massacre.

#BringThemAllHomeNow   

 

 
Whale Heads 🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴

The Kennedy Legacy? On Friday, RFK Jr who in addition to dumping a bear carcass in Central Park has also decapitated and brough home the head of a dead whale exited the presidential race and endorsed Trump. Not a surprise, he’s been telegraphing his plans for some time and his biggest donor by far, Timothy Mellon, is also one of Trump’s biggest donors.  He and Trump are made for each other, they’re both dangerously charismatic, delusional, power hungry nepo babies who’ve mastered the art of speaking somewhat populist gibberish. They’ve both eviscerated each other in the past but that was then, and this is now.   Nothing RFK said during his Friday announcement made any sense, so his utterances are not worth repeating, but it’s more than fair to assume that Trump has promised him a very senior position of some sort, likely one where he’ll be able to endanger the country with his dangerous anti-vaccine positions and to be clear his opposition to vaccinations extends way beyond the COVID vaccine. Although he’s tried to equivocate, he’s on record dissing all vaccines, including those for all the childhood diseases.  Count me as one who thinks it’s particularly weird that a former, well hopefully former, heroin addict who according to his college friends also sold cocaine is okay with pumping himself full of steroids but not okay with disease preventing vaccines.   

Does It Matter?  The question isn’t how many of members of RFK’s family are outraged by his decision, most of them with the exception of his complicit wife Chery Hines are and his sister Kerry called his action obscene, but whether or not his endorsement moves the needle enough towards Trump to impact the outcome of the election. We’ll have to wait for the full onslaught of this week’s polls to get a better picture as to whether his endorsement matters but at least one pollster/statistician has weighed in.  Yesterday Nate Silver explained why he thinks that RFK’s withdrawal from the race will have almost no impact. According to Silver’s model which reflects that it’s procedurally too late for RFK to take himself off the ballot in some swing states including Wisconsin and North Carolina where ballots have already been printed, RFK’s withdrawal improves Harris’ polling average by 0.8% from 48.0% to 48.8% while goosing Trump’s 1.1% from 43.7% to 44.8%.  In any case, this week’s set of polls will be revealing because in addition to reflecting RFK’s endorsement, they’ll also reflect Harris’ post-convention bounce.  Of note, third party candidates Cornell West and Jill Stein are still running.  In an attempt to grab some of RFK’s voters, West is now repositioning himself as a vaccine skeptic.  Stein also appears set on remaining in the race, but Trump is trying to court her, and they do share the same Russian friend so there’s that.

Reproductive Rights:  Abortion is on the ballot in ten states including Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada New York,  and South Dakota.  Not all of them are swing states, but some of them are and all of them have down ballot races which will be affected by an influx of voters showing up to vote for the reinstatement of reproductive rights, so Trump is now trying to reposition himself as being “great for women’s reproductive rights.” That’s obviously bull sh-t but there are probably some low information and/or gullible voters who’ll buy it.  Similarly, JD Vance, another one who has repeatedly taken a hardline position against abortion insisted this weekend that Trump wouldn’t sign legislation that imposes a nationwide ban on abortion.  That’s probably not true but even if it is, Trump and his judicial appointees can affectively ban abortion by eliminating access to mifepristone by strictly enforcing the antiquated but still in place Comstock Act of 1873 which outlaws the conveyance of “obscene” materials through the mail.  On the subject of Trump judges, citing the 2022 Bruen Supreme Court ruling, the decision where Clarence Thomas said that only gun regulations that are “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulations” is copacetic one of them ruled last week that the ban against machine guns is unconstitutional because apparently we need more machine guns in the hands of lunatics and since our forefathers didn’t explicitly ban them they can’t be banned now.   

Fog:  Before the October 7 massacre and the subsequent war in Gaza, Israel’s primary concern was an attack from the north by Iran’s heavier armed and more capable Hezbollah surrogates. That concern has never gone away. This weekend Hezbollah had planned to launch 3000 rockets and drones into Israel, but their plans were thwarted by Israel’s preemptive strike which took out most of their launch pads.  Hezbollah still managed to send off 300 of their rockets and drones but with the help of the Iron Dome they were not able to inflict much damage in Israel although they did take out a lot of chickens something that provided feed for some in the Arab press who mocked the attack’s failure. Despite its failure, Hezbollah and Iran are claiming that the attack was a success and that’s not a bad thing because painting it as a success to their population is face saving, a way to back off from additional attacks, at least for now.   The peace talks slog on. Hamas is still Hamas. The hostages are still hostages.  Civilians in Gaza are still suffering. 

#BringThemAllHomeNow

Joy Comes in the Morning 🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴

Wow, Wow, Wow:  That was one hell of a convention, joyful and chock full of incredible speeches with each night surpassing the night before, but to paraphrase Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries you only get to joy in November after a period of hard work, and that hard work has just begun. Still, let’s enjoy the convention afterglow for a few more hours. On Wednesday night it became clear why Kamala Harris chose Tim Walz as her running mate.  He’s the teacher who guided you in the right direction, he’s the coach that pushed you beyond where you thought you could go, and the loving parent that every child needs and that many of us now miss, but no one should be fooled that he’s just a teddy bear because behind his affability is a tough as nails strategist.  You don’t make it to Governor and then onto the presidential ticket by being just warm and cuddly. A special shout out to Walz’ son Gus whose tearful expression of pride and love for his father so offended right wing pundit Ann Coulter that she thought it was okay to mercilessly attack him.  Unfortunately, as a hate slinger, Coulter hardly stands alone, the slog to election day will be filled with more of that after all, Trump’s response to Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s convention speech was to pull the Jewish card, calling him an “overrated Jewish Governor,” hardly a surprise from the “both sides” guy who dines with neo-Nazis, but still despicable and a harbinger of what’s to come. Coulter and Trump aside, everything was pitch perfect on Wednesday including the surprisingly fun music filled delegate roll call (a link to a tweet with the list of songs played is included below),  purple attired Oprah tossing her usual independent stance aside to endorse Kamala and Tim, the very conservative former Lieutenant Governor of Georgia Geoff Duncan who is so disgusted with the MAGA-fication of his party that he showed up to speak on Kamala’s behalf, the speeches from former President Clinton and Nancy Pelosi, and the emotional appeal for peace and the return of the hostages delivered by Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg, whose severely injured son Hersh has been held hostage by Hamas for 321 days. Their speech was notable for two reasons, first because, despite their pain, they expressed genuine sympathy and concern for the citizens of Gaza and second because, despite Trump’s insistence that the Democratic party is chock full of Israel hating anti-Semites, the convention crowd greeted Polin and Goldberg warmly, showering them with sympathy while chanting for the hostages to be brought home now.      

Kamala, Kamala, Comma-La:  Last night we didn’t get Beyonce, but instead got more of her Freedom song and a surprise video endorsement from gold medal basketball player Stephen Curry as well as an awesome performance by Pink and her very talented 12- year-old daughter Willow.  We also heard from a line-up of speakers including Republican Adam Kinzinger, former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, and Arizona Senator Mark Kelly who all slammed Trump for his affinity to dictators, his dissing of veterans, and his disparagement of allies. Kelly’s wife, former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, also spoke, capping off speeches from several other victims of gun violence. Then there was the long-awaited acceptance speech from Kamala Harris. She didn’t disappoint at all.  She delivered a five-star, two thumbs up performance that was spot on in every way. We know that because a clearly rattled Trump spent the night sh-t posting, and probably throwing ketchup at the wall.  At last count he posted 40 missives, no reports on the number of ketchup bottles bashed.  Still, circling back to Hakeem Jeffries, though this week was full of joy, the work has just begun, much needs to be done between now and November, and probably all the way up to inauguration day to take down Trump.  The NY Times reports that RFK Jr who was polling in the low single digits, has already withdrawn his Arizona ballot application.  Later today he is expected to endorse Trump in a “joint” presentation.  One can only imagine what position Trump has offered him in exchange for that endorsement.  The hypocrisy of the one-time environmental activist joining the climate denying, pro-oil Trump train is stunning but sadly not surprising. Whether his support will shift enough votes to Trump to blunt Harris’s expected convention bump or worse yet, permanently close the gap between the two is the question.  We’ll have to wait for the next round of polls to quantify the value of RFK’s endorsement. Sadly, if his endorsement pushes Trump over the top, we’ll then be able to measure his impact in cases of polio, measles, mumps, rubella and so on.

Trouble Ahead:  Trump’s Bedminster Golf Club will be hosting a fundraiser for the January 6^th defendants on September 5.  Those are the “nice tourists” who created mayhem and caused a few deaths at the Capitol after Trump lost the last election.  It’s sadly very fair to assume that this election we will be seeing some more of the same.  Trump is already planting seeds of doubt about the election’s integrity, MAGAs in states like Georgia are already suggesting that they won’t certify election results they don’t like, and Republican officials in other states are making it more difficult for “some” voters to vote.  Yesterday, the Supreme Court weighed in on some new Arizona election “voter suppression” rules. By a vote of 5 to 4 with Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining the liberal minority, they partly granted a request from the RNC for Arizona to enforce a recently passed law requiring people to show proof of US citizenship when registering to vote. Election lawyer Mark Elias said that the ruling, while not ideal, could have been worse because at least for now, a provision that would have blocked thousands of previously registered voters from casting their ballots was rejected.  

 

And:  Abortion rights will be on the ballot in Montana which could give Democratic Senator Jon Tester a bit of a boost in what is likely to be a very tough race.  New Jersey Congressman Bill Pascrell, the 87-year-old Representative who’d been in and out of the hospital has died.  Democrats now need to find themselves a new candidate for the November election.

#BringThemAllHomeNow

Music Link:

 

For those who have asked…a table with every state and territory's song title and artist at tonight's #DNC2024 roll call.

Benjy Renton (@bhrenton) x.com

 

 

 

Goldilocks 🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴

On Fire: So far, the Democratic convention has rocked.  There have been good and sometimes even great speeches, tributes to Joe and lots of exhortations to get onboard for Kamala and Tim.  VP candidate Tim Walz is scheduled to speak tonight after former President Clinton.  Presidential candidate Kamala Harris is scheduled to deliver her acceptance speech on Thursday.  Putting distance between their speeches and those of the Obamas was a good scheduling move because the Obamas were in tip top shape last night, with both delivering forceful riveting speeches.  If you missed it, the former President not so subtly equated Trump’s obsession with crowd size to a certain part of his anatomy while Michelle, whose speech may have been her best one ever, very astutely pointed out that now is not the time to be a Goldilocks because seeking perfection when the opposition is as flawed and dangerous as Trump is the kind of folly that could lead to disaster. Both warned that the election will be close and it likely will be which explains why Trump’s team is doing their best, and by best think worst, to load the dice throughout the country but especially in swing states like Georgia where in addition to putting in place procedures intended to make it more difficult for people in heavily Democratic areas to vote, three members of the State Election Board have managed to “slip in” rules that allow local election officials to delay or deny certification if they have “concerns” about the election results. No definition of what would constitute valid concerns because just a general feeling of unhappiness will suffice.  Each of those “concerned” board members still question the result of the 2020 election so it’s more than fair to believe that their intent is to refuse to certify election results that don’t go Trump’s way. They don’t stand alone, MAGA Republican election officials in other swing states like Arizona and Pennsylvania have similar plans. It’s not hyperbole to say that this is a five-alarm fire, not only will Democrats have to win convincingly on election day but they’re likely to be spending the months following the election fighting to get results certified.

Ugh:  Added further fuel to the fire, yesterday during a podcast interview RFK Jr’s running mate Nicole Shanahan said that their campaign is considering dropping its bid and joining forces with Trump as it “weighs options for the future.”  For his part Trump told CNN that he “certainly” would be open to RFK Jr playing a role in his administration in exchange for an endorsement, adding “I like him, and I respect him,” he’s a “smart” guy.  It’s fair to assume that Trump will give RFK whatever title he wants to get that endorsement and it’s also fair to assume that RFK is open to negotiating a position especially one that would allow him to put the kibosh on vaccinations.  Afterall, it’s not a coincidence that RJK Jr’s largest donor is billionaire Timothy Mellon, the heir to the Mellon banking fortune, who in addition to giving $25 million to RFK’s campaign also has contributed $125 million to Trump’s.  It’s highly likely that Mellon’s contributions to RFK were always intended to help Trump. RFK is polling in the low single digits right now and given how close this election is expected to be, if a disproportionate number of his voters follow him to Trump, they will influence the outcome of the election.  

More Stupid:  House Republicans have released their Biden impeachment inquiry report concluding that though they have no evidence that he did anything wrong, Biden should be impeached because of course.  It’s not expected to go anywhere largely because with Biden stepping aside what’s the point and also because they have some vulnerable House candidates who can’t afford to be voting on a totally ridiculous Biden impeachment right now. Intelligence officials have confirmed that Iran really did hack into Trump’s campaign by compromising (likely through phishing) Roger Stone’s Hotmail and Gmail accounts to gain access to the emails of Trump campaign aides.  Apparently, the Iranians also tried to hack into Harris’ campaign, but their attempts weren’t successful possibly because having been burned in 2016, the DNC team is being more careful about responding to emails from questionable sources than their Republican counterparts, who think that hacking and disseminating information is okay but only when it is done to Democrats.

Fog:  A ceasefire and hostage release deal remain elusive.  Secretary of State Blinken reports that Israel has agreed to ceasefire terms, but Hamas says that they have not agreed to those terms.  Meantime Iran’s Hezbollah surrogates have been waging a war of attrition against Israel in the north.  Their constant bombardment hasn’t been getting as much press attention maybe because it doesn’t fit into the Gaza narrative but it’s most definitely escalatory and dangerous.  And taking a page from Nixon’s pre-election Viet Nam playbook, PBS’s Judy Woodruff reports that Trump has been urging Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to hold off cutting a deal right now over concerns that a ceasefire would help the Harris campaign. Trump admits to having tanked the border/immigration deal for a similar purpose so this is definitely something that he would do, and we know that more death and destruction wouldn’t bother him if it led to his winning in November. 

#BringThemAllHomeNowALIVE because while recovering bodies is important, bringing home live hostages is infinitely better.