unraveling

30.Aug.2024

Soiled valor

No valor accrues to a psychopath, who responds by trying to demean others. Even when we don't keep facts in mind, there are still facts. Thanks to polecat on Daily Kos for reminder of these Afghanistan Withdrawal Facts after the 3rd anniversary. It was Trump (not Biden) who:

• negotiated directly with the Taliban terrorists and excluded both the Afghan army and the US recognized Afghan government.
• drew down US forces from 13,000 to 2,500 making them vulnerable to attack.
• ordered the release of 5,000 Taliban fighters from prison, one of whom would become the new leader of Afghanistan
• wanted to invite the Taliban leaders to Camp David on the anniversary of September 11th. Seriously.
• agreed to a May 1st exit from Afghanistan, then bragged that he didn't need an exit strategy
• refused to brief Biden's incoming team on the situation in Afghanistan.
• shut down every airbase in Afghanistan except one, crippling the US's ability to extract its assets safely.

And it was Speaker Mike Johnson who facilitated Trump's invasion of Arlington National Cemetery for his campaign stunt on Monday.

The Army issued an exceedingly rare statement about the breach of respect, and defending the staffer who attempted to enforce the well-known rules. We see who Chris LaCivita is there, too, lying for his boss in a way that would make Sean Spicer blush:

...insisting that “the president and his team conducted themselves with nothing but the utmost respect and dignity for all of our service members, especially our beloved children.”

Steve Benen provides more details, including veep nominee JD Vance responding to the need for an apology by saying Vice President Kamala harris "can go to hell" for critizing the cemetery stunt.

How very Catholic of him. Just last Sunday, the NYT genuflected to Vance's conversion on the front page, meeting with the friar, getting baptized, taking communion... "as with many conversions, there is often an element of mystery that can be hard for those on the outside to understand," Elizabeth Dias wrote.

Except that by their words and their deeds, ye shall know them.

29.Aug.2024

Stolen valor

The +rump campaign leveraging Arlington National Cemetery for a campaign stunt sets yet another "new low," for Dodger Bonespurs. Some veterans reacted with alarm, and disgust, and the campaign put up a video on TikTok. Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Paul Eaton of VoteVets:

"They see no issue bringing partisan politics there, even if it means getting into physical altercations with cemetery staff. I truly cannot think of something more repugnant than starting a political fracas on land where Gold Star families mourn. Someone who would do that should never be Commander in Chief."

Never again, definitely, even if we can't undo the past. Everything +rump touches is soiled. General Eaton also talked to Joy Reid about the plan to turn our military into +rump's personal palace guard (as spelled out in the recipe of Project 2025).

Heather Cox Richards's Aug. 28 daily fleshes out the history in her inimitable way, with this amazing bit of "who knew?" trivia: "Arlington National Cemetery was established on the former property of General Robert E. Lee in 1864, after the Lee family did not pay their property taxes."

She delves into the nuances of current +rumplican namecalling, also going back to the Civil War, and forward to today, as the old man shouting at clouds' descent into madness continues. Apparently that superseding indictment in the Jan. 6 case in D.C. struck a nerve. He wants everyone else to pay for his crimes. Jack Smith (naturally), former president Barack Obama (weirdly, you have to say), "and the members of Congress who investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol." With sexual insults against Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton to make sure there's some misogyny, too.

He's been jumping sharks and electric boats ever since the President Biden, and take away his preferred opponent. Now all of a sudden, he's on about a "coup." An "overthrow," which doesn't have enough punch to it, so dialed up to a “vicious, violent overthrow”! As Robert Reich observed, Biden bowing out for the good of the nation is an act utterly incomprehensible to +rump.

28.Aug.2024

Representation

You will have already seen the news about the Harris-Walz campaigns quick start, with fundraising through the roof, resetting the race expectation from a blowout by Very Powerful Psychopath vs. Old Guy, to Very Normal Current Vice-president & Governor vs. Weird Old Guy, and Animatronic Sidekick. HCR's Aug. 27 Letter from an American says there have been “incredible surges in voter registration relative to the same time period in 2020, driven by women, voters of color, and young voters.” And quoting pollster pollster Tom Bonier:

“Democratic registration has increased by over 50%, as compared to only 7% for Republicans. These new registrants are modeled as +20 pts Dem, as compared to +6 during the same week in 2020.”

It's nice to see a couple in their high 50s being considered "young," especially now that I'm pushing 70 myself. But the Big Deal is that it feels like there are a lot fewer people leaning toward sitting this one out because neither of the choices seemed rational. Motivation to vote for someone seems inherently stronger than against.

Being able to see some part of yourself in a candidate also seems like an important element. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are relatable as genuine people with a lot of positive qualities, one of which is being able to experience joy, and demonstrating that in their biographies, their words and actions.

The opposing team promises (and has been delivering) dark entertainment, making the political stage a political stage show, but the act is losing steam. After we've been down the carnival midway a couple of times and seen the geeks and freaks, most of us find our curiosity amply satisfied, and don't need to keep going. It was tawdry from the get-go, but once you've experienced just how tawdry, you can move on to something more wholesome, right?

In the alternate universe, the 45th president of the United States put up an ad for a new series (his fourth, if you're counting) of "digital trading cards," giving you a chance to own a unique digital token (manufacturable for less than a dime a dozen) "featuring heroic images of Trump." How can this be real, you might wonder?

"People who buy 15 or more of them—at $99 apiece—get a physical trading card as well. Trump said that the physical card has a piece of the suit he wore at the presidential debate, and Trump promises to sign five of them, randomly. Up to 25 people who buy $25,750 worth of the cards with cryptocurrency will be invited to a gala next month at his Jupiter, Florida, golf club."

Like so much of the former guy's grifting it hardly seems like it could be real. Or legal? That description would not be legal in Idaho; if you say you're giving away something of value (arguable as "value" may be for a gala on Jupiter), you can't require a purchase. Check the fine print for the no purchase necessary to win disclaimer. Idaho's Attorney General won't be in the vanguard for filing a lawsuit, though; he's too busy serving the right-wing extremists in our state. Not yet selling NFTs, but give him time.

The Trump family is hedging their bets with this foray into crypto, almost 50,000 subscribers to Junior and Eric's Telegram channel “World Liberty Financial” (fka “The DeFiant Ones”). How many different ways can you set up a GoFundMe for legal expenses? With Special Counsel Jack Smith's superseding indictment in the DC January 6 case, there have now been “FIVE separate grand juries (scores of citizens) [that] have now found probable cause that Trump committed multiple felonies.”

And the New York trial jury that found him guilty of 34 felonies.

As his shot at taking over the White House and short-circuiting the remaining attempts at holding him accountable slips away, the ongoing mental health crisis of the Trump universe is going to be hitting him harder than ever.

We all love a good show, but this original wasn't that great, "and we all know that the sequel is usually worse." It's time to move on.

26.Aug.2024

Democracy v. Oligarchy

Robert Reich tells the story of "What I did at the bus stop when I was 10 years old" on the way to The real fight, now. The personal anecdote reminds me of Norman Maclean's observation that the first punch is the best one.

Oligarchs will always get on, one way or the other; both of our parties have been excessively deferential to them over the years. That's not to say all politicians are bastards, and it doesn't matter which party is in power. It will matter, a lot.

"Trump and his lackeys work for the oligarchs — cutting their taxes, rolling back regulations that protect the public but that cost the oligarchs, and dividing the rest of us into warring factions so we don’t look upward to see where most power and wealth have gone....

"[Our present contest] is between democracy and oligarchy, between self-government and tyranny. It is a fight between the bullies and the bullied."

25.Aug.2024

Old taunts, and the unanswered question

Today's crop of letters in the Idaho Press are using more (or all) of the new 300 word limit, with more newsprint involved (and one more letter on line than fit the print edition). The jury's out on whether it's too good effect or not.

Dave Kinter got his work done in under 150 words (plus the question in the headline): DON'T TRUMP'S CONVICTIONS MATTER? Not to the true believers, it seems. He lists

"...confidence games (Trump University, Trump Foundation), sexual assault and defamation x2 (E. Jean Carroll), fraud with intent to influence an election x34 (state of New York)..."

and demurs listing the as-yet untried others as "too numerous to mention," but there was room enough to say inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection, the election interference in Georgia, and the theft of government documents and obstruction of their return.

"Any one of these cases should be enough to disqualify this guy or anybody else on either side of the aisle as a candidate in anyone's mind simply on the grounds of their blatant lack of honor. Have times changed so much that morals, ethics, respect and the rule of law just don't matter??? It's an absurdity that a lying, misogynist, perv creep is even getting a second chance. So when he runs (aka jumps bail) for Venezuela will his cultists follow him? Just like Jonestown?"

Same as our current unbalanced Supreme Court, the new, smaller +rumplican party seems to be ok with having one man above the law.

Guy Webster chalks it all up to "Trump Derangement Syndrome," as if that boilerplate gaslighting were an all purpose excuse for Don-old's crimes. The assassination attempt is woven into the narrative along with the golden oldies of excuses, as if it, too, was a Democratic conspiracy. Russia hoax®, and weaponizing the Justice Department® were featured, along with a symbolic proposal (offered three months before the shooting) from House Republicans to relieve the Secret Service of responsibility for protection of those who have been sentenced to prison following conviction for a Federal or State felony, in favor of "prison authorities" doing their regular job.

(As bill titles with an acronym go, its header was pretty catchy: the "Denying Infinite Security and Government Resources Allocated toward Convicted and Extremely Dishonorable Former Protectees Act or the DISGRACED Former Protectees Act.")

Webster is as generous (and credulous) in heaping out the benefit of the doubt for said disgraced protectee as he is in projecting his faults to anyone with the temerity to demand accountability for crimes:

"Trump did not say he would be a dictator forever. He said that he would be a dictator for one day, on day one, to straighten out our disastrous border and to reduce energy costs. Either Democrats are too dense to understand English, or they are resorting to their common tactic of accusing their opponents of performing the evil, destructive, fascist, dictatorial deeds that they themselves are guilty of doing."

24.Aug.24

Coulda been worse dept.

This story would have caught my eye in any event, but moreso a little over a week after I cracked four ribs in my lesser two-wheeled catastrophe, failing to negotiate a rock passage on Freddy's Stack Rock trail, more than 20 miles in on my mountain bike. The site of my crash is well-traveled, and I was moderately ambulatory, only about a mile from the high road end of my route. Another rider gave assistance, and two hikers were kind enough to give me a ride down the mountain and straight to the ER. Last Thursday.

The AP story on NBC Montana was put up this Thursday, 11 days after Zachary Demoss' trouble, and a week after he was found, air-ambulanced out of the Bitterroot mountains above the Lochsa River: Injured Montana man survives on creek water for 5 days after motorcycle crash on mountain. It ran in our local paper today, without the photo of the 24 year-old, with his road bike loaded with camping gear.

Demoss suffered "multiple broken bones, a collapsed lung and several other injuries," it says, and yeah, I'm feeling some of his pain from those broken ribs. The news story leaves a lot of questions unanswered. Where (and why) did he go off-highway, for starters? It was "near a campground" is all we get. There's a 5 mile stretch with four of them, Wendover, Whitehouse, and Powell all pretty close to US 12, and White Sand CG a mile or two (depending which way you go) on FS roads, one way going by Lochsa Lodge and the Powell Ranger Station. DeVoto Grove is a couple miles up the road, then 9 miles up to Lolo Pass, and you're into Montana.

It had some of the familiar components of unpreparedness I remember from my 20s. One of his buddies said "we were low on gas and our back tire was starting to show threads [!] so we couldn't go further back down the highway to where we came from to search further...." But some kind of searching went on till 4am that night, and then the Idaho County Sheriff's Office kicked in for several days, without success (and called it a day?!), until a fellow in the ongoing "family and friends" search party "spotted him near a campground" on the fifth day of the search.

Damn. That is a long, long time to be waiting for help. My ride up along the Lochsa and over Lolo was pretty epic for me back in the day, but with no mishaps involved.

23.Aug.2024

The daily distractions

Trying to get off an email list from my working days, checking the spam bucket for the password reset they said they'd send me, and down the rathole we go. NRSC is worried I might be getting squishy, big red button for I'M STILL VOTING FOR THE GOP >> or the blue one for I SUPPORT KAMALA & THE LEFT NOW >>. God only knows how their "files currently indicate [I've] supported" the orange-o-man in the past. But yeah, I haven't "pledged to vote for the GOP this time around."

That one was a misclick, I was aiming for Richard Viguerie's keening lament about "The Democrats' Convention is finally over" to drink in some of CHQ-flavored Schadenfreude. His "Paul Revere Lantern" screed-o-rama had slipped by the filters for a couple editions, but now is back where it belongs. Lantern #20 attempts to brand the DNC as "a toxic parade of lies, smears and hate!" (yes, complete with the exclamation) but he must've been tuned into OANN or something.

Come for the gaslighting, stay for the misfacts. "Venezuela was once the third largest economy in the world," really? I mean, really? I think Viguerie might be sundowning. A good third of his DONATE NOW vehicle is devoted to singing his own praise, complete with a bullet list testimonial from the inestimable Roger Stone, crediting Mr. V for getting Barry Goldwater nominated in 1964, both of Reagan's terms as president, and the Donald Trump kicker. (There's also a [MORE ON BIO & TESTIMONIALS] button if you can't get enough.) Select all matching "Viguerie" and delete gives the same pleasure of flushing a good turd.

Speaking of good pre-flush search terms, "patriot" is a durable winner. Today's favorite subject line is Patriot, Elon Musk is deeply concerned... Good.

After deleting a series of NYT Opinion emails with the theme "Rating the D.N.C.'s night, on a scale of 0 to 10," with mild prejudice, I finally clicked through to see what it was about. There's a cute 0 to 10 scale (as promised!) from "Hurt" to "Helped." and 11 talking head bubbles floated across it. They ranged from 6 to 9 for the closer, which is weird, because where we sat watched nearly the whole thing (undisturbed by commentators, anchors, and dubious pundits, thanks), I'd give the week's festivities solid 10s, with an 11 for last night. Not that I'm biased or anything. Not sure what it would take to get some genuine enthusiasm out of these folk, but at least they all got above "average"?

Charles M. Blow, Times columnist "Women ruled the night. There were so many impressive, effective women presenting — culminating with Harris, of course — that the remarkable almost became unremarkable. I had to force myself to pause and absorb the fact that I was witnessing a revolution."

That's worth... an 8? You witness a revolution and you give it an 8? Huh. (Maybe he was upset about finally learning what FUBAR stands for, 80-some years after it was new.)

Matt Labash, author of the newsletter Slack Tide "God bless Adam Kinzinger for telling the truth about his (and my) party, now corrupted to its core. MAGA snowflakes get triggered by him, suggesting he’s a RINO Judas. But the actual reason they hate him is that he reminds them of something they abandoned years ago: their integrity."

Also an 8.

The NYT included had Liam Donovan, "Republican strategist," to provide some "bothsides" and damning with faint praise. He did muster a 6 rating (coming in last), and this: "Harris continues to exceed modest expectations and avoid the Republican-painted caricature."

Two of them whined about Beyoncé not giving a rumored performance, and had nothing to say about Pink, and her daughter Willow, and four others singing "What About Us?" with a gentle guitar accompaniment. And The Chicks' beautiful a capella rendition of our national anthem passed without comment.

You don't need a gift link to the NYT, you can go to NPR and see the clips.

22.Aug.2024

Then where will they go?

The hits keep coming as the party of Lincoln's devolution into a bizarre cult of personality with no apparent bottom. There must be a bottom, right? History has plenty of examples, but unfortunately, current events have more than a few that are still plumbing the depths. Including half of our country, give or take, and with a chokehold on half of the branches of federal government, and a lot of the states. In spite of the occasional expressions of repudiation, very few authentic Republicans have had the temerity to speak up with conviction. For those who do, the true believers remaining in the hijacked party do their best to apply retribution.

Wikipedia has a list of Republicans who oppose the Donald Trump 2024 presidential campaign, helpfully. Some are beyond politics, one way or another, including the most recent not-Trump president from the party, and the last two Republican vice presidents. A handful of current Republicans in Congress, and a lot more "former" ones. Four cabinet-level officials, and a long list of others who served under him. Olivia Troye, the Homeland Security and Counterterrorism advisor and lead COVID-19 advisor to the Vice President who resigned four years ago this month, said this at the DNC last night:

"Four years ago, I resigned from the Trump administration. As a Republican who dreamed of working in the White House, it was a hard decision. But as an American, it was the right one. I saw how Donald Trump undermined our intelligence community, military leaders, and, ultimately, our democratic process. Now, he's doing it again, lying and laying the groundwork to undermine this election.

"Being inside Trump's White House was terrifying, but what keeps me up at night is what will happen if he gets back there. The guardrails are gone. The few adults in the room the first time resigned or were fired."

Former Georgia Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan followed Troye, and addressed members of his own party and independents:

"If Republicans are being intellectually honest with ourselves, our party is not civil or conservative. It's chaotic and crazy. And the only thing left to do is dump Trump."

Joyce Vance's "Dump Trump" blog post linked there also featured a montage of 16 front pages from Jan. 7, 2021. ICYMI, those featured INSURRECTION, PRO-TRUMP MOB INVADES CAPITOL, ASSAULT ON DEMOCRACY, UN-AMERICAN, and SAD DAY FOR AMERICA. How exactly do you get over that, and pretend like it was just too many tourists visiting at once, and decide you know what, we don't care if the guy's a criminal who assaulted democracy, we're ok with him having another term in office?

Postscript
Heather Cox Richardson's daily ended with a note about the closing hymn, Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World." The chorus is easy to pick up and sing along, which I started doing when it was new, 35 years ago. The lyrics, like a lot of Young's work, are dark, "a critique of society and government" (one lyrics site footnotes for us), from when George H.W. Bush was president. (Man, bring back those "thousand points of light," would you?). It's an odd fit for the campaign of an incumbent, actually, but it worked to clear the hall for the benediction and recess.

"Tonight, after his acceptance speech, Walz walked off stage to a favorite song of his: Neil Young’s “Rockin‘ in the Free World.” Neil Young personally allowed the campaign to use the song. When the Trump campaign used it, Young sued to make them stop."

21.Aug.2024

One less true believer

We watched most of the DNC's feed for day 2 of the convention yesterday, for the last 4+ hours, but I didn't remember seeing Stephanie Grisham's bit, and looked it up. Just two minutes, but very well used. PBS Newshour has the clip. I don't need to add anything to the first person account of an insider—a "true believer," by her own admission—for whom Jan. 6 was a bridge too far. She was the first senior staffer to resign that day.

"He has no empathy, no morals, and no fidelity to the truth. He used to tell me, 'it doesn't matter what you say, Stephanie. Say it enough, and people will believe you.' But it does matter."

This isn't a news flash; don-old has told who he is from the get-go. For those of us who haven't tasted the Kool-aid, and aren't in the cult of personality, how can we understand the attraction? As Barack Obama said in the closer,

"Here's a 78 year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator 9 years ago. It has been a constant stream of gripes and grievances, that's actually been getting worse now that he's afraid of losing to Kamala... This weird obsession with crowd sizes, it just goes on and on and on."

If you just have time for one great speech, I'll recommend Michelle Obama's ("a truly extraordinary speech, perfectly delivered"); if you want the summary highlights, Heather Cox Richardson's daily provides them for both Obamas. One note I will add, on FREEDOM, from Barack Obama's speech:

"For them, freedom means that the powerful can do pretty much what they please.... Well, we have a broader idea of freedom. We believe in the freedom to provide for your family if you're willing to work hard. The freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water and send your kids to school without worrying if they'll come home. We believe that true freedom gives each of us the right to make decisions about our own life: how we worship; what our family looks like; how many kids we have; who we marry. And we believe that freedom requires us to recognize that other people have the freedom to make choices that are different than ours. That's OK.... An America where 'We the People' includes everyone.... America can be and must be a force for good."

20.Aug.2024

P.S. It's not about policy

Tom Nichols boils it down succinctly, in The Atlantic: Policy Isn’t Going to Win This Election. "In the 2024 election, policy details matter even less than they usually do."

The appeal of the former guy is about amplified rage, sticking it to the man, with utter cluelessness of the supposed "pig" on offer in Trump's poke. If there's a policy statement in "I AM YOUR RETRIBUTION," it's that we don't need democracy any more, and so it will be sloughed into the bin. It's "I ALONE CAN FIX IT" 2.0. If you think he's on your side, there is no "policy" that's going to change your mind. His blunderbuss of splutterances covers the field, and you can pick whichever dog's breakfast looks best on a given day.

If Republicans and their lapdog media are performatively upset about the lack of a press conference (in the middle of an incomprehensibly busy month for the candidates), that's a good sign. It means they recognize they're losing.

The opportunity is on

Cleaning out the email inbox, in that increasingly Sisyphusean attempt to tame the flood, I came across one of the too many "interesting, but unread" items, Timothy Snyder's July 9 post on what he termed Biden Experiments; possible responses to the fallout from the twin disasters of the Biden-Trump debate in late June. This was long before the drumbeat for Biden to exit the race had reached its peak, and before the way forward had been made clear by action. Snyder had the advantage of not watching the debate live, only hearing about it from friends. (There wasn't much to be said about Trump's half of the debate disaster; the lying, criminal psychopath factor has been so baked into reporting and analysis, what more is there to say about his camp followers, and the tragedy of the party he's hijacked being turned to subservient mush? The only meaningful thing is to repeat the obvious: if Trump someone insinuates himself into a second term, it will be an unmitigated disaster, and quite possibly the end of our American democratic experiment.) But what Snyder said about the main focus, Biden's failure to meet the moment, on stage, one-on-one with the psychopath:

When I was asked by a stranger that day what I felt, I said that “this is a chance that has been given to us to think things over, a chance that we might not otherwise have had. And now we should use this chance.”

The rest of his column is his "thinking things over," even more interesting with the benefit of knowing how things have turned out (so far). As he wrote, "the question, broadly, is whether the United States will continue to exist."

We watched much of the first night of the Democratic convention last night. There were a lot of great moments. One of my toots garned a lot of boosts on Mastodon:

Jamie Raskin had a tightly written speech (which the PBS coverage skipped over in favor of their talking heads, annoyingly; we switched to C-Span when needed), covering the essential points with arena-sized bombast, after welcoming delegates "TO THE DEMOCRACY CONVENTION" and to "THE FREEDOM CONVENTION." Maybe a little too stand-up comedy at times, but the material he's working with, my god:

"We meet in this great city tonight where Abraham Lincoln was nominated in 1860 to save the union from fanatical insurrectionists and where Franklin D Roosevelt was renominated by democrats in 1940 to defeat fascist dictators. Now, we fight in our time to defend our freedom and democracy against the banana Republicans who converted Lincoln's party into a dangerous cult of personality. You know, I will never forget the pounding of the doors on the house chamber on January 6, or the screams that followed.

"Hundreds of our police officers taunted and attacked. 140 of them wounded by extremists wielding baseball bats, steel pipes, even American flags. Five people died that day and four of our officers took their own lives in the days and weeks to come. All of this after trump was defeated by more than 7 million votes by the great Joe Biden. It was after 80 judges rejected every ridiculous claim raised by this sore loser who does not know how to take no for an answer from American voters, American courts, or American women.

Remember what the mob chanted as they stormed the Capitol and injured our officers? "HANG MIKE PENCE"... Pence has now joined more than two dozen officials from Donald Trump's own administration in denouncing him. A historical record.... By the way, JD Vance, do you understand why there was a sudden job opening for running mate on the GOP ticket? They tried to kill your predecessor. They tried to kill him because he would not follow Trump's plan to destroy and nullify the votes of millions of Americans. Your votes, Pennsylvania, your votes, Michigan, your votes, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona."

There were a lot of punch lines, but this was the punchiest for me:

"Make no mistake, a man who uses fraud, theft and violence to take power will commit any crime to keep it. Now Trump is promising to pardon hundreds of his fellow criminal convicts and insurrectionists. He calls for "termination of all rules, regulations and articles—even those in the Constitution....

"America, let's make it a landslide so big that Donald Trump and his kangaroo Supreme Court justices cannot even try to steal it. Let's make every vote count. Let's make sure every vote is counted. Let's let freedom ring and let's let democracy work in America."

Hillary Clinton was strong, and brilliant, and of course the three word chants had to include a hearty, and well-deserved round of LOCK HIM UP.

"I want my grandchildren and their grandchildren to know I was here at this moment, that we were here and that we were with Kamala Harris every step of the way. This is our time, America. This is when we stand up. This is when we break through. The future is here. It’s in our grasp. Let’s go win it."

President Joe Biden's hour-long closer kept going a little past my bedtime, but we watched the end of it today. "I made a lot of mistakes in my career, but I gave my best to you" he said at the end, before going out to "Bring Me a Higher Love," as Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff joined him and the whole Biden family onstage. What a moment in history.

P.S. Heather Cox Richardson's daily has a longer/better list of speakers and excerpts than mine.

19.Aug.2024

Have you no sense of decency?

Joyce Vance takes us down memory lane, for Conventions Past, including her father's role in Alabama's delegations in 1968 and 1972. She quotes her conversation with "Democratic super-lawyer Marc Elias" back in March, 2023, on the subject of preparedness. (Stopping the steal, you might say.) With the link in the original:

Joyce: In the run-up to the 2022 midterm elections, election deniers running for key statewide offices like Governor and Secretary of State posed a serious threat to our democracy. Fortunately, most of those candidates went on to lose their elections. As you look ahead to 2024, what do you predict will be the greatest threat to our democracy during the next election cycle?

Marc: The shamelessness of today’s Republican Party is arguably the greatest threat to our democracy as we look ahead to 2024. Democracy only works when we all share certain core values and a common decency, regardless of our party affiliation. Unfortunately, today’s Republican Party is committed to undermining faith in elections with evidence-free conspiracies about voter fraud, while targeting minority voters with gross acts of suppression and intimidation. And I worry that Republicans will continue to target the vote counting and certification process.

Elias' period piece takes us back to when some of the Republican leaders (Romney and McCain, for two) did apply shame appropriately, and then to the devolution of the party with the likes of George Santos, Kevin McCarthy, and Marjorie Taylor Greene. What Elias said back then remains true (and more urgent) today:

"Politicians must feel shame to have a functioning democracy. I am not talking about civic virtue or political courage. I am talking about something more basic: common decency. Shared decency is what holds our democratic system together. It helps citizens of differing views to trust each other. It allows political leaders to act in good faith based on a common understanding that some behavior is simply out of bounds.

"A party that mocks acts of common decency cannot be trusted to campaign fairly within the rules. When one party targets minority voters with gross acts of suppression and intimidation, we cannot celebrate the democratic process regardless of who wins. If election workers are subjected to partisan harassment and vilification, we cannot have a democracy that accurately counts votes or certifies results.

"There is no easy solution for our current situation because the government can’t mandate decency. We also must realize that Democrats are helpless to make this better. Only Republicans can change their culture and restore decency to their party. For now, at least, there is no sign that Republicans want to restore honor and dignity to the Grand Old Party."

That reminds me of another "scene from Idaho" I intended to include in what became an end-of-the-day post yesterday, beyond the boundaries of Eagle. "Longtime Idaho journalist and columnist" Chuck Malloy did a little stenography for Idaho's junior senator, Jim Risch for his Idaho Press column a week ago. (You can also find it on the far-right Idaho Dispatch if the paywall troubles you.)

The nut of it is that from his glorious seat as ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Risch wanted to throw shade on Kamala Harris' foreign policy résumé, and Malloy was happy to let him go on, unfiltered (and untroubled by even a softball question or two). Also, un-fact checked, starting with the "border czar" false premise Risch trotted out. And so on, to this:

"Risch says he has no doubt that Trump would be superior to Harris in the handling of foreign policy." Because...? "Trump had the unique ability to frustrate foreign actors, especially the autocrats that you should worry about, because they never knew what he was going to do."

Is Risch seriously trying to tell us that the autocrats we should worry about are perplexed by Trump's unpredictability? Our allies are certainly perplexed, wondering if the US can be counted on to stay in NATO. The "embarrassing" withdrawal from Afghanistan was teed up by Risch's pal, before he was voted out of office. There were the love letters with Kim Jong Un, and Jared Kushner being put in charge of fixing the Middle East (while collecting a couple $billion from the Saudi investment fund, a scandal that has never aroused interest from most of the Republican Party), and the most embarrassing foreign affairs cuckolding of recent memory, when Trump sided with Putin against the FBI at the Helsinki summit.

This is the very stable genius Jim Risch can get behind, all the way.... because he figures there's something in it for him. His legacy.

Update:
In the Philadelphia Tribune, and all over:

"Retired federal appeals court Judge J. Michael Luttig, a prominent conservative legal scholar put on the bench by President George H.W. Bush, is endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris...

“The time for America’s choosing has come,” Luttig writes. “It is time for all Americans to stand and affirm whether they believe in American Democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law, and want for America the same – or whether they do not.”

18.Aug.2024

Scenes from Eagle, Idaho

Eagle, Idaho, now has its own "Fort Knox," except it's better than that. Storage capacity for more than $100 billion in gold and silver.  Its 9,000-square-foot vault will be the “largest in North America,” the company's press release said.

The depository’s vault has received Class 3 designation, the highest possible vault rating, and possesses “more than twice the capacity as the United States bullion depository at Fort Knox,” the release said. Class 3 vaults are designed to withstand two hours of attack with torches or tools, in accordance with Underwriters Laboratories (UL) standards, which classifies vault strength.

Last month, Eagle's city council also scooted a resolution through on its consent agenda to not become a “sanctuary city” for undocumented immigrants or use any city funds toward assisting people who are living in the country illegally.

Graffitti "showed up" about then, to amplify the message. "CALIFORNIANS SUCK" is kind of hateful, but "EAGLE HATES MEXICANS" might be more of an observation?

A subsequent story in the Idaho Press had a nice picture of Eagle's oversized "WELCOME" sign, ironically. If you're wondering where the push came from, here's what their story offers by way of explanation:

"According to Ada County Sheriff Matthew Clifford, the concerns came after H-1B Visa migrant workers were loaded onto unmarked buses to work in Oregon and stopped to eat at a Chinese buffet on Five Mile and Fairview Avenue in Boise....

"We have no proof that illegals [sic] were getting dropped off," [Eagle Mayor Brad] Pike said. "We don't have the proof, but they (Eagle residents) wanted us to be proactive in making sure none of the citizens of Eagle's tax dollars were going to illegal immigration or any programs."

That Boise location mentioned is more than 3 miles from the nearest corner of Eagle, so yeah, somebody being real "proactive." That report from the Sheriff is dense with stated and implied facts, and fact-like claims. The H-1B Visa program is for a range of "specialty occupations," and foreigners who obtain the visas to work here—legally—aren't what you'd think about as "migrant" workers. I worked with engineers from the UK who came here to work for HP for a time, for example. And engineers who went to work in the UK, and other countries for temporary assignments.

Where were these workers supposedly "loaded onto unmarked buses," and why should their transportation be marked? How do we know they were going to work in Oregon, and why would we care where they stopped to have lunch en route?

Temporary workers with H-2A visas would likewise be "legals," and able to ride on an umarked bus, and stop at a restaurant. A Chinese restaurant, even, if they wanted to.

But speaking of sanctuary, the 2nd Amendment, Eagle is all over that.

17.Aug.2024

We have been warned

I see the New York Times is doing some work beyond "horse race," and getting to consequences, a bit. Top of the home page just now, Deploying on U.S. Soil: How Trump Would Use Soldiers Against Riots, Crime and Migrants. "The former president’s vision of using the military to enforce the law domestically would carry profound implications for civil liberties."

The post-Civil War Posse Comitatus Act makes an appearance, along with the 1807 Insurrection Act, which "creates an exemption to that ban" of using federal troops for domestic policing. George H.W. Bush is in it, Rodney King, John Yoo's skeevy lawyering.

"Mr. Trump has boasted that, if he returns to the White House, he will dispatch forces without any request for intervention by local authorities. At a campaign rally in Iowa last year, for example, he vowed to unilaterally use federal forces to “get crime out of our cities,” specifically naming New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco as “crime dens” he pointedly noted were run by Democrats."

Once you scroll past the (anti-)hero image, you'll see it's the "Troops on U.S. Soil" item of ten articles about "Trump's 2025 Plans." There's an Overview, and Inflation, Prosecutions, Executive Power, Lawyers, Immigration, Weaker Checks, NATO, Trade.

Family matters

Mary L. Trump, Don-old's niece, has a blog, "The Good in Us." Aspirationally titled, I assume. Found it from a link to today's post, Trolling the Troll, in which she details—and gives appreciation for—for the work the Harris-Walz campaign is doing to stop the bullying. Perhaps mocking is what's needed, at last. (Not from the rabble like me, but more directly, from his opponent.) It sure as hell seems to be working. Compare the "disjointed and rattled response from a clearly unwell man" sent up with a "media advisory":

“TODAY: Donald Trump To Ramble Incoherently and Spread Dangerous Lies in Public, but at Different Home. TODAY at 4:30 p.m. — Donald J. Trump, loser of the 2020 election by 7 million votes, will hold another public meltdown in Bedminster, New Jersey.”

As noted, "quality trolling," and prescient.

From the depths of the swamp

There's a lot to digest in Heather Cox Richardson's August 16 Letter; mostly I'm wondering how it's possible to be constructive, when one side of our great divide is intent on division, domination, and amplifying The Longest Con, as Joe Conason's book title names it. The Macmillan book site provides the "about" and some responses, and as usual, the précis in the subtitle: How Grifters, Swindlers, and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism. Forward by George T. Conway III. Jane Mayer calls it

"an indispensable and utterly entertaining field guide to right-wing sleaze. Behind the movement’s high-minded rhetoric lies an industry of grubby, greedy profiteers exploiting ignorance, anger and fear. As the conservative con men have grown rich and powerful, American voters have been ripped off and misled. From Roy Cohn to Donald Trump, Conason shows that the degradation of democracy isn’t just a shame, it’s a booming business."

HCR reviews some of the recent instances, including Ben Sasse's brief but profitable tenure as president of the University of Florida (after he'd jumped ship out of the U.S. Senate, having been one of the seven Republicans to vote to convict Trump on Feb. 13, 2021); FirstEnergy in Ohio, that turned its $61 million in bribes into a $1.3 billion federal bailout; and Don-old's lucrative "Big Lie":

"According to Conason, Trump and his fellow election deniers pocketed $255.4 million between the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol to stop the counting of the electoral votes that would make Democratic candidate Joe Biden president."

Funnily enough, that haul is not nearly enough to cover the court judgments against him. $355 million plus interest, for civil fraud in New York. $88.3 million for defamation.

The mysterious $10 million in cash from the state-run National Bank of Egypt seems like pocket change by comparison, but the WaPo blockbuster that dropped this month is quite the read.

"Inside the state-run National Bank of Egypt, employees were soon busy placing bundles of $100 bills into two large bags, according to records from the bank. Four men arrived and carried away the bags, which U.S. officials later described in sealed court filings as weighing a combined 200 pounds and containing what was then a sizable share of Egypt’s reserve of U.S. currency."

It goes on to detail how Bill Barr played fixer, and whoops, it ticked by the statute of limitations for illegal campaign contributions more than two years ago. Jessie Liu, the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney in D.C. was somewhat on the case in late 2019, when her office "was poised to make sentencing recommendations for [...] Michael Flynn and Roger Stone.... That December, the White House nominated Liu to be an assistant secretary of the Treasury Department."

"Barr seized the moment to make a change. Breaking with the tradition of allowing White House nominees to remain in their current posts until confirmed for new ones, he ordered Liu in early January 2020 to step down by the end of the month, people with knowledge of the matter said. The White House later withdrew Liu’s nomination."

And then I saw that Robert Reich had a suitable last word for this post:

"This week convicted felon Donald Trump moved to delay his sentencing until after the election. Remember, he's not running for president as much as he's running from the law."

16.Aug.2024

Upbeat

Didn't see this coming, but Kelly Corrigan fishing for feedback on her podcast led me to look it up, and give a listen. We've been enjoying her series on PBS, Tell Me More, so chances were good. I expect they're all wonderful, but I picked the conversation with Rainn Wilson to start. Corrigan's takeaways from Going Deep with Rainn Wilson on Spirituality include:

• You don't have to feel joy to give joy.
• We must drink in our mortality; it's the ultimate framing device."
• Beware the insistent self.

There's more! Give a listen. Or check the menu for what sounds good to you; she's dropping three episodes a wekk.

Dog parks?

That feeling when Media Matters for America starts to overlap with The Onion. They (MMfA) got their hands on a galley copy of Heritage Foundation mastermind Ken Robert's "delayed" book, Dawn's Early Light, which they say decries IVF, abortion, childlessness, and dog parks. Perhaps a dog hurt him when he was a child. His thing is that a particular dog park has "too much room for dogs to play and not enough for children." More than a little weird of him.

Speaking of weird, Fox News is bucking to become the "anti-joy" network. Happiness is not a positive either. Just wait until they catch wind of growing enthusiasm and confidence. And poll numbers.

In the real world of reporting, I'm wondering how many times actual journalists will take the bait for a "press conference" at a former guy property that devolves into "things he likes to talk about," and IDK, "flanked by tables of common household goods." Is it Goya all over again?! Philip Bump's take:

"There was a table of breakfast cereals and fruit and instant coffee, but they all looked — probably for good reason — like the varieties of those products used in hotel buffets. Meanwhile, the brick-and-column facade of Bedminster loomed in the background. Louis XIV stepping out of Versailles to commiserate with the peasants."

13.Aug.2024

Civil Discourse Project 2025 Posts

Joyce Vance compiled an index to her blog posts on this subject, going back to last November, on July 8. I've rewritten the list with hyperlinks inline, and minus the "Five Questions" features only available to paid subscribers. (She made the one with Jared Huffman open to all, so I included that.) I've added a couple of her important subsequent posts, too. It's a long list (in blog order), but here's the easy, quick tip: Read the first one in the list, and use the others for reference, as needed.

• More Lies [and the truth] About Project 2025, Aug 8, 2024

This was after the project's director at the Heritage Foundation, Paul Dans, announced he's stepping down from that, just about the time of Trump's fatuous "Sgt. Schultz" disavowal. Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, "the front man for Project 2025" blurted out the truth on Xitter:

“Under Paul Dans’ leadership, Project 2025 has completed exactly what it set out to do: bringing together over 110 leading conservative organizations to create a unified conservative vision, motivated to devolve power from the unelected administrative state, and returning it to the people. This tool was built for any future administration to use.”

Vance's post starts by noting the announcement that Roberts' forthcoming book, "Dawn's Early Light," with a foreword from J.D. Vance, will have its publication pushed out until after the election. Roberts' tweet didn't say anything about the personnel database they've been compiling for the vetting of tens of thousands of loyalists for their plan to staff a greatly expanded politicized part of the bureaucracy. We can be certain that effort is ongoing.

• What Happens to Education if Trump Wins?, July 19, 2024. A deeper dive into the 44 page Education chapter, and the long-term goal of dismantling public education, starting with eliminating the Department of Education.
• Trump's Party Issues a Platform; But We Know Project 2025 Is the Real Deal. July 10, 2024. "For the first time in eight years, the Republican Party has a platform. It’s not written in Sharpie, but it might as well be." IT IS IN ALL CAPS. Naturally.
• Trump’s Project 2025, July 5, 2024
• Five Questions with Congressman Jared Huffman, July 4, 2024 (open to all)
• “Bloodless if the Left Allows it to Be”, July 4, 2024
• Let’s Read Project 2025 Together, June 26, 2024
• John Oliver on Project 2025, June 22, 2024
• Frogs Continue to Ignore Rising Temperatures, May 2, 2024
• What Trump wants to do to America, December 16, 2023
• Frogs Boiled: What Trump is Planning for a Second Term, November 9, 2023

12.Aug.2024

Idaho's Don Quixote

Our perennial political hopeful, once a "Freedom Caucus" back-bencher, aspirant to the governor's chair and currently Idaho's obstreperously partisan Attorney General, was so dubbed by former SCOTSOI Justice Jim Jones on that August 4 Opinion page of the Idaho Press.

Raúl Labrador's latest stunt is to try to have his office be the lawyer for both sides of a lawsuit attacking the Open Primary Initiative, suing the Secretary of State (who is supposed to be his client), and also proposing to defend the Secretary as well. He's got two thumbs on the scale of Lady Justice, and a finger in her eye, in other words. Never mind the conflict of interest...

"Turning to the legal grounds that Labrador asserts in support of his personal side of the case, let’s just say they are non-existent. The Secretary of State has no legal authority to keep an initiative off of the ballot if it meets all of the requirements for certification. The OPI does and, as a matter of fact, it has already been certified."

Jones provides a forecast, based on his own experience on the state's high court. It has routinely denied challenges to initiatives before they're approved by voters. ("If the voters turn it down, that takes care of the matter.") But I don't think Jones has this last line right:

"He may end up paying everyone’s legal fees."

Labrador's not going to be paying; we, the taxpayers in the state if Idaho will be paying for both sides, just as we have when the legislature has made one of its "statements" without regard to due diligent or legal recommendations.

How many women would be enough?

The Idaho Press ran a page-wide announcement headed "Sometimes, 175 words just isn't enough room" (which should have been "Sometimes, 175 words aren't enough," and handled in a box with idk, 50 words?), and 218 words to explain the Letters limit has been increased to 300. The Guidelines box noted that they prioritize letters that:

• Make a clear, informed argument
• Have a civil tone
• Provide insight on a local issue

Hear, hear. There were just two letters below that a week ago Sunday, 89 words in one, and they made their point with Mary Mosely's 268 well-chosen words. GOP ACTIONS SHOW LITTLE REGARD FOR MOTHERS. You know, "less funding for education than [every] other state in the nation, turn[ing] down $6 million in federal funds to feed hungry children during the summer," and

"abolishing the Maternal Mortality Review Committee, which studied the reasons women died in childbirth, because so few women had died that they saw no need for it. How many women dying in childbirth would be enough?"

Our legislature also

"Applauded the Dobbs decision that overturned women’s right to abortion. They responded by legislating a near total ban on abortion, even if the pregnancy endangers the woman’s life, thereby driving many doctors out of state and prompting some hospitals to close their maternity wards."

11.Aug.2024

That way madness lies

Cheery pair of top right front page stories in today's NYT: Haberman and Swan, Trump's Circle Sees Him Lose Grip of His Bid, and "HARRIS LEADING IN 3 KEY STATES, NEW POLLS SHOW."

"Allies Rattled by Rants and Self-Sabotage" is the dek on the first one, surprisingly difficult to track down on the web. The web hed features "the Worst Three Weeks" of this 3rd campaign of the con man.

But hey, THE WURST IS YET TO COME.

Enjoy the gift link, and read between the lines from the "interviews with more than a dozen people close to Mr. Trump, nearly all of whom insisted on anonymity to describe private discussions and events." Except a couple of blurts from the official spox, the onomatopoetic Steven Cheung, who "insisted Mr. Trump had put forward a 'positive' vision for the country that contrasted with 'the dangerously liberal policies'" of Biden and Harris.

Gee, I must have missed that vision. What Trump puts forward is more in the realm of "bad acid trip," for example the press con at "Motel-a-Lago," as Jeff Tiedrich waggishly brands it on his cheerfully vulgar everyone is entitled to my own opinion blog. I recommend staying for the Harris and Walz clips, and the "going out on a high note" Downfall video remake.

One quippet from Mr. T in the Haberman/Swan piece, "I am who I am" made me think of Popeye, another psychopathic cartoon character. Tom Nichols makes the point with conventional capitalization, and less rollick for The Atlantic, with The Truth About Trump's Press Conference: "His obvious emotional instability is frightening, not funny."

"His rallies and press conferences are rich sources of material, fountains of molten weirdness that blurp up stuff that would sink the career of any other politician. By the time they’re over, all of the attendees are covered in gloppy nonsense.

"And then, once everyone cleans up and shakes the debris off their phones and laptops, so much of what Trump said seems too bonkers to have come from a former president and the nominee of a major party that journalists are left trying to piece together a story as if Trump were a normal person. This is what The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, has described as the “bias toward coherence,” and it leads to careful circumlocutions instead of stunned headlines."

There are plenty of specifics about the former guy reprising his "greatest hits" (including "Putin and Xi Love Me and I Love Them) and garbling up new material, mixed with persistent obsessions. None seems quite as persistent as the CROWD SIZE theme, which went into uncharted territory this go 'round, when he brought up the 1963 March on Washington, and compared it to the mob gathered for his insurrection on January 6, 2021. A quarter of a million people back in the day, with perhaps 53,000 more recently. Maybe the fractions confounded him, and he turned three-fifths into just one fifth. And then he hallucinated a helicopter crash with Willie Brown. Nichols' conclusion is a bit too long for a headlin, but still:

"The Republican nominee, the man who could return to office and regain the sole authority to use American nuclear weapons, is a serial liar and can’t tell the difference between reality and fantasy.

"Donald Trump is not well. He is not stable. There’s something deeply wrong with him."

He's been unwell for a long time, even when he was lucid enough to be considered nominally coherent. But his rate of decline has accelerated and by one assessment, "it seems very unlikely that Trump could see out a second term without falling off the cliff and becoming totally incapacitated."

Last but not least, there is the sobering clinical assessment by psychologist Vince Greenwood: The Science Behind Donald Trump’s Dangerous Personality Disorder.

"Psychopaths tolerate two kinds of relationships: transactional and fawning admiration. The transactions are one-way and exploitative. All of life is a game to be won. If you are in the psychopath’s orbit, you will be used and eventually harmed. What may start as selfishness and lack of reciprocity inevitably moves to dereliction and cruelty. ...

"Donald Trump, because of his hard-wired and immutable traits, is more dangerous than even his harshest critics exclaim."

P.S. H/t to the Bard for today's headline, speaking to the enduring truth that Greenwood notes "has been with us from antiquity through medieval times to the present" with "remarkably consistent" "descriptions from Greek and Roman mythology, the Bible, and classical literature."

8.Aug.2024

The Greatest Show on Earth

This morning's brilliant insight sparked by my wife, and expanded: Donald Trump changed the rules by breaking all of them. He leveraged a popular TV show (I'll admit to be entertained for a while), accurately described by its producer Bill Pruitt as "a scam." (That's entertainment!) The make-believe New York trust-fund tycoon became a real boy. Apprentice supervising editor Jonathan Braun said “We didn’t think that so many people would look at it and go, ‘That’s real, this guy’s amazing.’”

Trump turned running for president into a reality TV show (with in-person promotional events (the publicity campaign) that kept going after the surprise ending in 2016. Never mind that dusty old Constitution; servicing the very rich and powerful, baiting populist frustrations, he entertains the pissed-off. He is their clown Hannibal Lector, ready to tear into raw flesh, label the enemy and roast them for dessert.

On January 6, 2021, he tried to fulfill the prime directive of the scammer, flipping a loss to a win. The campaign never ended, even as it was slowed down by an impeachment or two (the flaccid bulk of the Republican Party keeps greenlighting another season), civil and criminal cases that racked penalties that may never be collected, co-conspirators disgraced, disbarred, and in more than a few cases, locked up. Thirty-four felonies, you say? Not a problem! It's just the "weaponization of the justice system." He declares that he'll be the justice system now, "I AM YOUR RETRIBUTION" and the crowd roars. The background claque holds up YOU'RE FIRED signs, aimed at whomever gets in the way oblivious to the irony. (It's a job, ok?) The scam must go on.

With the fellow who stopped the steal in 2020 (and 2021) apparently running out of gas, the existential dread in the opposition was deep. Loyalty battled reality, hope and despair in dark dreams, and then, mirabile dictu, the Democrats showed themselves to be in array. Biden was just 18 years old when JFK was sworn in, and echoed the phrase from the 1961 inaugural address: "the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation."

Hulk Hogan ripped his shirt, Kid Rock morphed his way through supporting Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, Ben Carson, and now Trump, teasing American Bad Ass from a WWF/WWE theme song to... the christian nationalist anthem we've been waiting for?! My blog is too well-behaved to post the lyrics verbatim, but you could look them up, or watch the snippet on C-Span as he warms up the crowd for the CEO and President of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, who celebrated "the President [sic] Trump that I know, a man who truly cares about people."

A few people anyway. He likes people who say nice things about him, OK? Vladimir Putin, for example, and Kim Jong Un. He seems to especially like the detractor turned cuckold, sychophants such as J.D. Vance, who once derided Trump as the Opioid of the Masses. (The original German seems apt right now: Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes.) Now, Don-old is JD's Sugar Daddy du jour. (Well, and Peter Thiel.)

But the 2024 season provided a big surprise for us; we've got a perky, young (60!) non-white prosecutor leading the opposition, and a Minnesota-nice coach cheering on the decent folk (the moral majority, if you will), in a whole new ball game, as we remember that joy matters. Key points from Psychology Today, you hardly need me to tell you they're true:

• Kamala Harris has embraced laughter and joy in her presidential campaign, leading others to do the same.
• Positive emotions broaden our perspectives, build resilience, and shift focus from our own concerns to others.
• Focusing on positive emotions in this election can help us think more creatively and compassionately.

And one other thing, tooted by George Conway:

"Something to keep in mind: The desperation we saw Donald Trump exhibit during the 64 days between November 3, 2020 and January 6, 2021 was nothing compared to what we could see from him in the 88 days that remain before the 2024 election."

5.Aug.2024

Past, present, future

In amongst the NYT spoilers pushed as "breaking news" (a fall off the balance beam, and "global markets panic," what? "Signs US economy is slowing" seems less than panic-worthy, but ok), my top-of-daily reads provided an important history lesson, and notes on where we are, and what's coming.

Heather Cox Richardson's Aug. 4 Letter from an American gets back to the roots of those "crossing the aisle" Republicans "returning to their party's origins." In the 1850s, the forces of oligarchy, and enslavement threatened to take over the nation. The 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act "effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820" [Wikipedia] toward a vile end:

"The new slave states that would form there would be able to join forces in the House of Representatives with the southern slave states to outvote the northern states that rejected enslavement. Without a brake on their ambitions, the enslavers would be able to spread their worldview across the nation. From their position at the head of the United States, they expected to spread their slave-based economy around the globe."

The "anti-Nebraska movement" that took off in response was the genesis of the Republican Party. Fast forward 170 years:

"The present looks much like that earlier moment when people of all different political backgrounds came together to defend the principles of the United States. In today’s moment, when someone like J.D. Vance backer billionaire Peter Thiel says, “Democracy, whatever that means, is exhausted,” and the Republicans’ Project 2025 calls for replacing democracy with Christian nationalism, it makes sense for all people who care about our history and our democratic heritage to pull together.

"Today, Olivia Troye, who served on national security issues in the Trump White House, said, “[W]hat is happening here with the Republican Party... is dangerous and extreme. And I think we need to get back to the values of... observing the rule of law, of standing with our international allies and actually providing true leadership to the world, which is something that Kamala Harris has exhibited during the Biden Administration.”

Speaking of observing the rule of law, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has imposed a gag order against mentioning that Donald Trump has been convicted of 34 felonies, and stuff. Because decorum. And uh, reminding members that the Republican nominee for president is a felon is "engaging in personalities." (That NYT story dated June 21, ICYMI, as I did.) H/t, and TLDR in Jessica Craven's artful video seen on Mastodon.

As Rep. Jamie Raskin pointed out, that hearkens back to the 1836 House rule "that automatically postponed action on all petitions related to slavery without hearing them." The top Democrat on the rules committee, Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts may have had his remarks struck from the Congressional Record, but the facts remain.

“We have a presumptive nominee for president facing 88 felony counts, and we’re being prevented from even acknowledging it,” he complained, adding: “He’s also charged with conspiring to overturn the election. He’s also charged with stealing classified information, and a jury has already found him liable for rape in a civil court and, yet, in this Republican-controlled House, it’s OK to talk about the trial — but you have to call it a sham.”

Yesterday, Joyce Vance noted Judge Tanya Chutkan was Back in Business in the United States of America v. Donald J. Trump for conspiracy to defraud, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstructing an official proceeding, and a conspiracy against voting rights, for the January 6, 2021 insurrection. That after the Supreme Court's considerable and unconscionable delay, and lawless interference to concoct "immunity" for the president out of thin air.

In her regular Monday feature in Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance, the Week Ahead starts with an illustration of "if your vote wasn't vitally important, they wouldn't be working so hard to take it away."

Republican members of the Georgia State Election Board pulled a dodgy meeting to "adopt[] some measures that made it more difficult for Georgians to vote, including one that would have imposed burdens on election workers by dramatically increasing the number of partisan poll watchers permitted at vote tabulation centers," "a harbinger of what we may expect to see elsewhere as the election gets closer and politicians who are afraid of voters try to disenfranchise them." Georgia's creative malfeasance looks to include a web portal

"meant, or so we are told, to make it easy for people who are moving out of state or who have a deceased family member to remove them from Georgia’s voter rolls, there are concerns it will be exploited by groups who want to disenfranchise voters. That’s the case because anyone is allowed to request that a voter be “purged” from the rolls on the Georgia Voter Registration Cancellation Portal. Although some identifying information is necessary to do so, an earlier “glitch” where the system temporarily made voters' confidential information publicly available is being cited as a reason to believe the system is ripe for abuse. And there are other challenges brewing in Georgia over new provisions that make it easier to purge voters who do not have a permanent home address, despite the fact that they are entitled to vote if otherwise eligible."

And to the future:

"For each of us, the mantra needs to be: register, make sure you remain registered, vote, and make sure your vote gets counted. And help the people around you do the same thing. This is a great week to work on that because, after the 90th day before the election, registered voters cannot be removed from the active voter rolls. Take a screenshot to prove your status! This nifty countdown to the election clock tells us that Wednesday will be the 89th day, so make a note on your calendar to check your status, remind the people around you to do the same, and encourage those who aren’t already registered to go ahead and get it done! You can use websites like vote.gov or IWillVote.com to register and check your status."

2.Aug.2024

SO HELLO, HOW ARE YOU?

Rachel Scott got right to it at the conference of the National Association of Black Journalists on July 31.

"Mr. President, we so appreciate you giving us an hour of your time. I want to start by addressing the elephant in the room, sir. A lot of people did not think it was appropriate for you to be here today. You have pushed false claims about some of your rivals, from Nikki Haley to former president Barack Obama, saying they were not born in the United States, which is not true. You have told four congresswomen of color who were american citizens to go back to where they came from. You have used words like 'animal' and 'rabid' to describe black district attorneys. You have attacked black journalists, calling them 'losers,' saying the questions they ask are 'stupid' and 'racist.' You have had dinner with a white supremacist at your Mar-a-Lago resort. So my question sir, now that you are asking black supporters to vote for you, why should black voters trust you after you have used language like that?"

Don-old's response, verbatim:

"First of all, I don't think I've ever been asked a question so– in such a horrible manner, first question. You don't even say 'Hello, how are you.' Are you with ABC, because I think they're a fake news network, a terrible network. And, I think it is disgraceful that I came here in good spirit. I love the black population of this country, I've done so much for the black population of this country, ah, including employment, including opportunity zones with Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, which is one of the greatest programs ever for black workers and black entrepreneurs.

I have done so much, and you know, I say this: historically black colleges and universities were out of money, they were stone cold broke, and I saved them and I gave them long-term financing, and nobody else was doing it. I think it was a very rude introduction. I don't know exactly why you would do something like that. Let me go a step further. I was invited here and I was told my opponent, whether it was Biden or Kamala [kuhMAla]—I was told my opponent was going to be here. It turned out my opponent isn't here. You invited me under false pretense, and then you said you can't do it with Zoom. Where's Zoom? She's going to do it with Zoom and she is not coming. And then you are half an hour late, just so we understand. I have too much respect for you to be late. They couldn't get their equipment working or something was wrong with the video feed. I think it's a very nasty question."

Cross-talk as Scott attempts to refocus him off the tirade.

"I have answered the question. I have been the best president for the black population since Abraham Lincoln. That's my answer."

I skipped ahead to see how it ended, less than 40 minutes later. What's the first thing he would do on Day One? He'd CLOSE THE BORDER and DRILL, BABY, DRILL. So you can buy bacon again. He'll bring home the bacon.

Not that facts are a thing any more, but Politifact debunked the "savior of HBCUs" bloviation when it was fresh, almost four years ago. And Snopes had at the "greatest since Abraham Lincoln" when that was fresher, near the end of the 2020 campaign. It's the summer reruns of his campaign lies.

Update:
Will Saletan of The Bulwark has a thoughtful analysis of the Fox News Trump team talking heads (one of whom was on that NABJ panel), trying to lead Don-old Trump into the light. He just can't seem to find the way. Even FOX can't save Trump! Anchors struggle to stop Trump disaster.

raveling

Tom von Alten