Sunrise.

TRUMP SHOT!

ALIVE

UP AND WALKING.

We were watching it live.

Rewatching: I see the bullet grazes the right side of his head above the ear. His hand goes up, almost like you'd swat a fly. He doesn't fall down. He crouches down. Secret Service everywhere. He gets up. We see the blood over his ear. As the Secret Service is about to hustle him out, he says "Wait, wait!," and he turns to crowd, angry look on his face, and shakes his fist hard four 4 times and we can read his lips: "Fight! Fight!"

There was a minute there where we didn't know if he had been killed or was dying, and we were in great distress. The relief when he stood up was insane.

God protected President Trump pic.twitter.com/96UKVdjF3A

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) July 13, 2024

"Her father was a notions wholesaler in Frankfurt, and together with her parents and grandmother, she lived a comfortable life largely shielded from the reality..."

"... that Germany was becoming ever more perilous for Jews. When the Nazis took her father away in 1938, her mother and grandmother managed to get her included in a group of children sent to a school in the Swiss mountains. There, she later recalled, she was educated only through the eighth grade and served for all practical purposes as a housekeeper for the Swiss children. She never saw her family again; they were all presumed murdered at Auschwitz."

From "Ruth Westheimer, the Sex Guru Known as Dr. Ruth, Dies at 96/Frank and funny, the taboo-breaking psychologist said things on television and radio that would have been shocking coming from almost anyone else" (NYT).

"I have some news to tell you. Please don’t be sad. I am ….dying.... The truth is we all are dying. Every day we live we are getting closer to our death."

"Why am I telling you this? Because I want you to enjoy your life to the fullest every single day. Get up in the morning and look at the sky… count your blessings and enjoy.  Start with a healthy breakfast.... Then there is lunch. How about a nice salad? Don’t eat your dinner too late.... Every day that you are alive you have got to move.... I have a lot of workout videos on YouTube that you can use....Tell the ones that you love that you love them... If you have time I want you to listen to a terrific song. It is by Tim McGraw it is called Live Like You Were Dying. Live today and don’t forget to pray."

Wrote Richard Simmons, on Facebook last March.

I clicked there from Richard Simmons, legendary fitness personality, dies at 76/Simmons was found unresponsive Saturday at his Hollywood Hills home, one day after his 76th birthday, two law enforcement sources said" (NBC News).

"When Mr. Biden referred to his political opponent, there were chants of 'Lock him up' — which the president did not discourage."

From "A Fiery Biden, Ignoring Critics, Attacks Trump to Chants of 'Lock Him Up'/Facing rising frustration in his party, the president brushed it off in an energetic speech in Michigan. Inside the room, at least, the Democratic mood was defiant, with cheers of 'Don’t go, Joe.'"

Mr. Biden thundered that his rival was a “convicted criminal” and a “business fraud,” and said that he had “raped” the writer E. Jean Carroll, whom Mr. Trump was found liable of sexually abusing by a civil court.

Should Trump sue Biden for defamation? Or is Trump's best move to say nothing while his opponent makes the mistake of becoming the bigger, more threatening blowhard?

You can watch the whole speech here. I listened to some of it live. I distanced myself because I hated the yelling. He's been criticized for speaking too softly — some say that's symptomatic of Parkinson's disease — so he's responding by speaking too loudly.

Can someone just be normal?

"You studied semiotics in college. I’m curious if that also shapes the way you think of narrative...."

Sarah Larson asks Ira Glass, in "Ira Glass Hears It All/Three decades into 'This American Life,' the host thinks the show is doing some of its best work yet—even if he’s still jealous of 'The Daily'" (The New. Yorker).

Glass answers:

For me, the most important book was “S/Z,” by Roland Barthes, where he takes apart a short story by Balzac phrase by phrase, paragraph by paragraph. What he’s interested in is, How does this story get its hooks into you? Why do you read to the next paragraph? Why do you care? And that feeling that you get at the end of a really good story, where you just feel, like, Ahh!—what produces that? And he names a bunch of mechanisms that, once you know them, you can create yourself.

"The Biden crew is hectoring journalists to leave the president alone and explain how awful Donald Trump is."

"I have used every damning word in the thesaurus, thrice, about Trump. And I’ll invent some new ones if I have to. (Suggestions welcome.) But it is not my fault if 2016 Hillary Clinton and 2024 Biden are unable to prosecute the case against a candidate with as many psychoses and felonies as Trump. It’s theirs...."

Writes Maureen Dowd, in "For Biden, a Race Against Time" (NYT).

"Meta on Friday said it would soon roll back restrictions it placed on former President Donald Trump's Instagram and Facebook accounts."

"The company said it was making the change to ensure parity among presidential candidates leading up to the 2024 election."

Axios reports.

I love the delicate tension between "soon" and "ensure parity."

Consider Trump the moderate.

"... Trump is not a movement conservative, not an ideologue outside of core obsessions like trade and immigration, and he no longer has to fear revolts from his right the way he did in the days when he felt the need to pick a religious-conservative Reaganite as his vice president. Glance over the G.O.P. platform, focus on the substance... and you can see outlines of the pitch the moderate version of Trump wants to make to swing voters. I’ll be right-wing on crime and immigration, but I won’t touch your retirement programs. I’ll be anti-woke and pro-patriotism, but I won’t be Mike Pence on social issues. I’ll keep the tax cuts I passed last time, but I won’t necessarily pile on more tax cuts for the rich. I’ll keep America out of unnecessary wars."

I'm reading "From Moderate to Caesarist: 4 Scenarios for Trump 2.0" by Ross Douthat (NYT).

The other 3 versions of Trump are: Trump the doctrinaire right-winger, Trump the imperial president, and Trump the great mobilizer of opposition.

"Flares of unprompted anger. Glimpses of the politician’s inner monologue... spoken aloud... in all its narcissism and vulnerability."

Sounds like the way they talk about Trump, but it's David Frum, talking about Biden, in "Biden’s Heartbreaking Press Conference/His pathos should not become America’s tragedy" (The Atlantic).

The headline doesn't sound like the way they talk about Trump. No one's heart breaks for Trump. No one speaks of "pathos" and "tragedy" when describing his unusual, emotive speech.

Biden said to have zero chance of winning even as FiveThirtyEight says that a Biden victory is more likely than not.

I'm reading — at NBC News — "'No one involved in the effort thinks he has a path': Biden insiders say the writing is on the wall/The set of Democrats who think he should reconsider his decision to stay in the race has grown to include aides, operatives and officials tasked with guiding his campaign to victory":

Several of President Joe Biden’s closest allies, including three people who are directly involved in efforts to re-elect him, told NBC News they now see his chances of winning as zero — and the likelihood of him taking down fellow Democratic candidates growing.

“He needs to drop out,” one Biden campaign official said. “He will never recover from this.”

Zero!

And then there's this at FiveThirtyEight:

So Biden is more likely to win than Trump. Just slightly, but still. Call it a tie. That's infinitely more than zero. Now, FiveThirtyEight is working with actual polls, but the campaign officials saying zero are picturing the path of events in the next 4 months. They're also affected by their hopes and fears and capable of distorting and lying. They want Joe out. His own campaign officials! Well, they are, technically, Biden's people, hired to help him win, but they are also human beings with career aspirations of their own. I don't trust them. But do I trust FiveThirtyEight? Is FiveThirtyEight corrupt? 

Sunrise — 5:15, 5:33.

"Judge dismisses Alec Baldwin’s ‘Rust’ case/A judge ruled that prosecutors improperly withheld potential evidence from the defense team."

The Washington Post reports. Free-access link.

One of the prosecutors “was aware of the new evidence and yet did not make an effort to disclose it to defense,” Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer said in her ruling. “The state’s woeful withholding of this information was intentional and deliberate.”

From the NYT, "Case Against Alec Baldwin Is Dismissed Over Withheld Evidence/Mr. Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter trial in the 'Rust' shooting came to a stunning end after the judge left the bench to examine ammunition in the courtroom":

"That's the old saying — right? — if you're going to shoot at the king you better not miss."

Said the NYT White House correspondent Peter Baker on yesterday's episode of "The Daily." Context:

[Biden is] saying, in essence, you can't have this debate anymore because this debate, it undermines my chances exactly, and therefore I want you to shut up. This question is over. Knock it off move on. And I think he's daring them. He's daring his doubters and naysayers to come after him or to shut up. You want to take me on? Take me on. Right? That's the old saying — right? — if you're going to shoot at the king you better not miss. So all eyes right now are on Congressional Democrats to see where they fall this week. Do the floodgates open and they end up abandoning him in large numbers or do they decide to give up on that notion?

First, the "old saying" is in fact a famous quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson: "When you strike at a king, you must kill him." I wrote about it back in 2019:

"I will never be able to write a Trump monologue that’s as good as an actual Trump monologue."

Said the novelist Mark Doten, author of "Trump Sky Alpha," "a surreal dystopia about language and the internet" and "two short stories about Trump," quoted in "Writing a novel about Trump seemed like a good idea at the time/During his time in office, he loomed over the literary world. Why was it so hard to write fiction about him?" (WaPo).

Eventually, Doten realized that the trick was not to try to make Trump more outrageous. Rather, “it’s about the little granular details and strange turns that the speech takes.” Doten added: “He’s someone who has a very particular mode of speech — it’s very digressive, and the digressions have offshoots themselves, and those have other offshoots. And then you see him having to kind of battle his way back out to get to whatever point he was making. It’s really fascinating to work with the character on a monologue that has no center.”...

Here's a quote from the novelist Carl Hiaasen, who wrote “Squeeze Me,” "a sendup of Palm Beach, Fla., society, prominently featured a fictionalized Mar-a-Lago": "How do you improve on the real-life Donald Trump?... How do you make it more outrageous? With Trump, you have to turn the dials all the way up just to get close to what he’s really like.” After January 6th, Hiaasen added an epilogue that says Trump "hunkered like a wheezing badger for weeks after the messy expulsion from Washington." Now, events have gotten ahead of his book again, and he's the one hunkering and wheezing.

I'd say the reason it's hard to write a good novel about Trump is that the choice of topic is likely to go along with political motivation and hatred of the character you're writing about — a real, living human being. Look into your own heart, novelist. 

"It felt like he was still the smart, witty guy we’ve all followed for many years, but the volume and speed are turned way down — to an alarming level."

Said an unnamed female Democratic Party donor quoted in "Inside the glitzy fundraiser where Biden lost George Clooney/At the June 15 event at L.A.’s Peacock Theater, some donors said this week that they noticed Biden seemed slow. He seemed frail. As he greeted donors lined up for photos, he trailed off or spoke too quietly in small talk conversation to be heard" (WaPo).

Making small talk with the current and former presidents while preparing for a photo, the donor said that she and Obama shared a brief joke that Biden initially seemed to miss. The current president only attempted a retort “in a barely audible voice” after the photo was over and others had moved on, she said.

So this lady got her big moment, wafted a joke/"joke," and Obama laughed, because that's what sharp people do when someone they want to please say something intended as a joke, and Biden did not laugh. In the wealthy woman's opinion, conveyed to The Washington Post with a demand not to use her name, Biden seemed to miss the joke/"joke." Initially. What was the purported joke and was it explained to him so that eventually he acted as though he got it? Maybe Obama explained it: Joe, this woman and her husband donated $100,000 and she believes she's said something amusing — don't you understand? And then Joe seemed to understand. But Joe had to have known he was at a fundraiser. And who could this lady be but a donor?

"While studies show that posts on social media that evoke negative emotions, like fear, revulsion or anger, elicit more engagement..."

"... some creators have found that negative comments have also become the most visible ones in recent years. Posts about the most lighthearted topics — whether it’s enjoying coffee with a spouse, pesto recipes or even power washing a home — can be overwhelmed by angry comments that seem to escalate rapidly.... Ms. Afualo has become known for videos that speak out against hateful or mean comments. The videos typically show one such comment, which Ms. Afualo then breaks down, highlighting systemic issues at play and sometimes mocking the poster, topped off with her signature high-pitched cackle. 'My typical response, depending on the severity, is to farm content out of it,' she said. One of her recent videos focused on a user’s comment asking why she had 'no ring' after having been in a relationship for years, to which she responded: 'You’re worried about me having a ring? How about you worry about your suffering — alone.'..."

From "How Creators Are Facing Hateful Comments Head-On/Ignore vitriol, or turn it into content? Creators like Kacie Rose and Drew Afualo share their tips for dealing with a harsh comments section" (NYT).

You have to chose which negative comments to respond to. You'll get more of what you reward, and any response to your haters will encourage them, especially if you look as though you've been angered or saddened. They like the action, but maybe action is what you want to. Afualo's phrase "farm content out of it" is telling. Even if your on-line creation is a content farm, you care about what you are farming. You can decide to grow back-and-forth negativity — trash talking. That may be the tendency of the internet. But don't encourage the weeds to take over your farm. Or is weed farming the most lucrative enterprise?

"Women are hurting and feel like they're crazy because everyone is letting all these predators back."

The trailer has been around for 4 weeks, but the documentary is out today. I'm noticing because there's a NYT article, "'Sorry/Not Sorry’ Review: Does Louis C.K. Get the Last Laugh? Cara Mones and Caroline Suh’s earnest and frustrating documentary, produced by The New York Times, has a bitter punchline."

The article is by Amy Nicholson, who calls the movie "earnest and frustrating."

After his status as a revered truth teller was revoked and his show “Louie” was pulled from streaming, Louis C.K has since rebranded as a renegade (and won a Grammy). Depending on the talking head, his moderate marginalization is either excessive punishment or an unearned pardon.

ADDED:  About that quote chosen for the post title: What makes people think they have the power to decide whether a free man is "let back"? Let back where? Into the mix of speech that each of us, individually, has the power to listen to or not? 

"I was a committed virgin till 22 and a committed slut from 55 on."

Said Hattie Weiner, quoted in "Hattie Wiener, Sex-Positive ‘Oldest Cougar,’ Dies at 88/She was an evangelist for older women having sex with younger men, and the health benefits that she said came with it" (NYT).

“People are always imagining that a cougar, that they’re clawing, they’re beasts of prey going after a boy toy or a cub,” she told “In the Know,” a Yahoo program, in 2020, “and I have turned that around. At no time have I ever gone after a young man. I wait for a man to come on to me, and that happens quite often.”

She's in this video, which I'm surprised to see linked in the NYT (with the warning that it's "truly raunchy").

"Duvall dancing at Studio 54. She lived the life of a celebrity in the 1970s and 1980s, dating Paul Simon and Ringo Starr...."

"The film critic Pauline Kael called her the 'female Buster Keaton.' On casting Duvall in 'The Shining,' Stanley Kubrick told her, 'I like the way you cry.'... Sitting between Paul Simon and James Taylor, Duvall greets Arnold Schwarzenegger at a screening in 1977."

From the captions at "Shelley Duvall: A Life in Pictures/With her gossamer frame and toothy smile, she was one of the biggest film stars of the 1970s" (NYT)(free-access link).

Sunrise — 5:28, 5:31.

Let’s watch the Biden press conference.

Now, they’re saying it will start at 7 ET.

Watch here.

Too much delay. It makes a bad impression. And we haven’t even seen him yet.

It’s starting to feel as though this press conference isn’t going to happen, but that will get some sort of announcement that Biden is going to drop out. It’s gotten really boring waiting.

Ah! Here he is.

I think he's doing reasonably well.

He keeps saying "Don't hold me to this."

He’s leapt over the low bar. This is the candidate. Deal with it, Democrats.

“I gotta finish this job.”

Whoa! He said his delegates, at the convention, are free to vote for anyone they want!

Goodbye to Shelley Duvall.

"Shelley Duvall, Star of ‘The Shining’ and ‘Nashville,’ Dies at 75/Her lithesome features and quirky screen presence made her a popular figure in 1970s movies, particularly Robert Altman’s" (NYT)(free-access link).

Transplendent!

"Monday will be dedicated to events under the banner 'Make America Wealthy Once Again,' Tuesday’s theme is 'Make America Safe Again,' Wednesday’s is 'Make America Strong Again' and Thursday’s is 'Make America Great Once Again'...."

Do you realize the GOP convention is just a few days away?

I'm reading "RNC schedule: Major speakers, events and when Trump will accept the nomination/From July 15 to 18, Republican lawmakers, delegates and other party figures will descend on the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to officially crown Trump the nominee and see him announce his running mate" (Independent).

Will we watch the Republican Party spectacle when we've got the Democratic Party debacle going on?

If only the Democrats had a schedule for the next week of the show they insist on staging for us. I'm thinking:

"Why Does the First Lady of a Country at War Need a Stylist?"

Asks a NYT headline. The first lady in question is Olena Zelenska. Volodymyr Zelensky's wife. The couple is visiting Washington for the NATO summit.

The NYT writer Vanessa Friedman interviews the stylist, who says:

For us, fashion is one more tool to speak about Ukrainians, designers and talent. It’s a light way to speak about much more serious things on big public occasions, when the first lady needs to use every detail to support her cause. During the normal week, she can’t leave her compound. She can’t go shopping. She can’t go from her house to her office. Even if she is on some business trip, it is just airport, hotel, meeting. Otherwise, it’s too dangerous....

Friedman opines that "The black and white dress Ms. Zelenska wore for the social dinner was pretty severe." The stylist argued that it was a "combination of refinement and femininity with strength all the women in Ukraine possess." There's a preference for "really calm clothes — nothing too colorful or playful or feminine." The stylist likes suits on the theory that "suits make us stronger. They are like a shield, and Ukrainian women are in a fight every day."

"[Elon] Musk is so wedded to the idea of creating a civilization on Mars — he once said he plans to die there — that it has propelled nearly every business endeavor..."

"... he has undertaken on Earth. His vision for Mars underlies most of the six companies that he leads or owns.... The Boring Company, a private tunneling venture founded by Mr. Musk, was started in part to ready equipment to burrow under Mars’s surface, two of the people said. Mr. Musk has told people that he bought X, the social media platform, partly to help test how a citizen-led government that rules by consensus might work on Mars. He has also said that he envisions residents on the planet will drive a version of the steel-paneled Cybertrucks made by Tesla, his electric vehicle company...."

From "Thermonuclear Blasts and New Species: Inside Elon Musk’s Plan to Colonize Mars/SpaceX employees are working on plans for a Martian city, including dome habitats, spacesuits and researching whether humans can procreate off Earth. Mr. Musk has volunteered his sperm" (NYT)(free-access link).

"The planet is officially on alert for La Niña... scientists declared Thursday. It could have a cooling effect on the ongoing stretch of record global heat...."

"The climate pattern linked to cool Pacific Ocean conditions... can deliver drought conditions in some places and heavy snow in others.... But there is some uncertainty over how this episode of La Niña could play out because it arrives amid over a full year of record average global temperatures and unprecedented ocean surface warmth. Climate scientists will be paying close attention to whether La Niña’s typical global cooling influence plays out as usual.... 'It’s going to be interesting to see how this La Niña intersects with the generally very warm global oceans,' said Nathan Lenssen, a climate scientist at the University of Colorado. 'We’re in really uncharted territory, globally.'.... La Niña typically lasts nine to 12 months but can sometimes last three years...."

WaPo reports.

By the way, the term El Niño originated as a reference to baby Jesus, after fishermen noticed warm water at Christmastime. La Niña doesn't refer to anyone in particular. It's just the opposite of El Niño.

Expect to be instructed time and again that the cooler weather should not be viewed as an easing up of global warming.

"I’ve written freelance articles for years, drawing mostly on my life experience.... My boyfriend of eight months has requested that I not write about him anymore."

"He was initially okay with it, but he has read the handful of things I’ve published since we started dating and has changed his mind. I never say anything that reflects poorly on him or that I think he would find embarrassing; usually, if anything, I am self-deprecating. Before this relationship, I dated someone else for more than five years and wrote about that relationship freely with his blessing. I actually think part of what my current boyfriend is uncomfortable about is the implied comparison between that relationship and this one. My writing life will be quite a bit more difficult if I can’t write from life anymore. And he has already said no not just to articles that focus on our relationship, but also to ones that mention him in even a cursory way. It is an understandable request, but I can’t shake the feeling that it’s controlling and sabotaging, hopefully unintentionally."

A letter to the WaPo advice columnist.

Are you supposed to support your partner by accepting that you are a topic to be written about — raw material? It's an old problem. I've been there... on both sides.

But what's funny here is the writer's unwillingness to see herself as the user.

In the last day, Kamala Harris just drifted back ahead of Joe Biden in the betting odds.

Graphically depicted at RCP:

What happened? Anticipation of the "big boy" news conference?

What do the polls say? "Most Democrats want Biden to drop out, but overall race is static, poll finds/More than half of Democrats say Biden should end his candidacy. Overall, 2 in 3 adults say the president should step aside, including more than 7 in 10 independents" (WaPo).

"Ms. Martin was in the crowd at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival when Mr. Dylan first performed with electric instruments."

"She recalled two things from the appearance: the raucous boos and her conviction that he needed a polished backup band. Around the same time, Rick Danko, a friend, sent her a demo tape by the Hawks, in which he played bass. Ms. Martin thought the group would be a perfect match for Mr. Dylan. But the Hawks were a rock band and Mr. Dylan was still considered a folkie, and at first neither side was interested. 'Mary was a rather persevering soul,' Mr. Dylan said in a 1969 interview with Rolling Stone magazine. 'She kept pushing these guys the Hawks to me.' She persuaded Mr. Dylan to try out two of the band’s five members, the drummer Levon Helm and the guitarist Robbie Robertson. After Mr. Helm insisted that the Hawks were a package deal, Mr. Dylan relented, and the Hawks — soon to be known as the Band — went on tour with him, setting in motion one of the greatest collaborations in rock history...."

From "Mary Martin, Who Gave Many Music Stars Their Start, Dies at 85/Her loyalty to artists and her eye for talent made her a force in a male-dominated business. Among her accomplishments: introducing Bob Dylan to the Band" (NYT).

ALSO: "While climbing the ranks within [Albert] Grossman’s office, she became close friends with many of his clients. One weekend at Mr. Grossman’s home in upstate New York, she swam a race against Mr. Dylan. She lost, but as a consolation prize, Mr. Grossman gave her his cat, Lord Growing — the same cat Mr. Dylan holds on the cover of his 1965 album 'Bringing It All Back Home.'"

Hmm. Lord Growing.

Conservatives upset?

I'm reading "White House roasted for saying Biden will give a ‘big boy press conference’: ‘Potty training next?’/Conservatives upset by ‘unbecoming’ joke in Monday’s White House briefing" (Independent).

Today's the big press conference that the White House referred to as “big boy press conference.” I would think that joke would upset Biden supporters. The idea of the press conference is, ostensibly, to give Biden another chance to prove he has the ability to serve as President. To tack a silly name onto the event is to undercut his effort. People can't stop saying "big boy press conference." Aren't conservatives just laughing?

Sunrise — 5:21.

"Independence has always been an important guiding principle for us, and resilience—not only the ability but the willingness to embrace multiple perspectives..."

"... and follow the facts on difficult stories, including some stories that upset people as individuals. But we need to provide good, well-rounded coverage of all the issues that are out there in the news for the broadest possible audience, and we need to create a culture where people feel incentivized to take on those stories even when they will sometimes engender a lot of scrutiny, some backlash. And I don’t think that comes automatically...." 

Says Joe Kahn, quoted in "The Culture Wars Inside the New York Times/Joe Kahn, the newspaper’s executive editor, wants to incentivize his staff to take on difficult stories, even when they might engender scrutiny, or backlash" (The New Yorker).

"One common argument for why the party should coronate Harris in Biden’s absence is that skipping over her would be racist—or be perceived as such..."

"... by Black Democratic voters. Yet Black voters have shown time and again that their interests are practical and that their demands are strategic: Give us a candidate who will win.... ... I find the invocation of Black voters’ interests here extremely cynical. It looks more like a strategy by some Harris supporters to make potential challengers appear racist or indifferent to people of color than an actual argument about viability.... To be frank, I don’t think Harris is the strongest choice to defeat Trump.... She’s in the unfortunate position of either having helped conceal Biden’s current condition or having been too far from the action to observe it up close. But perhaps the biggest concern is that, according to multiple accounts, the Biden administration has not entrusted her with opportunities to lead...."

Writes Jerusalem Demsas, in "The Problem With Coronating Kamala Harris/The No. 2 spot has never been a guarantee of a promotion" (The Atlantic).

Demsas, a black woman, worked on Harris’s 2020 presidential campaign.

"Smith’s team pushed the court into adopting a legal rule that massively constrained prosecutorial power vis-à-vis former presidents, not just for Trump but for all future presidents."

Said James Burnham, "a former law clerk for Justice Neil M. Gorsuch who has also worked at the Justice Department and Trump White House."

Quoted in "Supreme Court’s Trump immunity ruling shows risk of Jack Smith’s approach/The conservative high court often disapproves of how the Justice Department charges public corruption. Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 case was no exception" (WaPo).

The special counsel and the Justice Department, Burnham said, overplayed their hands by charging Trump based on his discussions with Justice Department officials and his vice president — government officials whose communications with the White House can be at the heart of a president’s job. 

Burnham called the indictment “a prime example of the Justice Department overreaching and ending up miles behind where it began.” 

The crafter of language, Margaret Atwood, proffers a "hints"/"details" distinction and now proclaims what she knew but did not know to be "horrifying."

From "'I knew this day was going to come': Alice Munro associates say they knew of abuse/A biographer of the Canadian writer says he was among those who knew that Munro’s daughter had been sexually abused by her stepfather" (WaPo)(free access link):

The story has shocked much of the literary world, which widely mourned [Alice] Munro with glowing tributes after her death in May at 92. 

"I did not learn the details of this until everyone else did, though I’d had hints not long before this past weekend. Horrifying," Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood, a friend of Munro’s, said in an email to The Post.

If something horrifying might be true, but you only have "hints" and not "details," you have some responsibility. Not only was Atwood Munro's friend, but Atwood writes books that purport to nudge and instruct us about morality. "The Handmaid's Tale" seems to be taken as a perceptive observation of the evils inherent in our culture, a warning to see and to act before it is too late. 

"The entire Democrat establishment have been caught red-handed in the thick of the biggest scandal and the biggest cover up. It's a cover up, that's what it is."

"And I said it when they hid this guy in the basement, and then they cheated on the election: It's a cover up. It's the biggest cover up in political history. As you know, they are all co-conspirators in the sinister plot to defraud the American public about the cognitive abilities of the man in the Oval Office. Sometimes. He's there not there often. Laughing Kamala — L-A-F-F-I-N apostrophe — laffin', laffin'. Kamala was in on it. Crazy Nancy Pelosi — who by the way is also very cognitively impaired (have you watched her lately? she's not doing too well, she's not doing too well she's- I think she's worse than Joe) — you want to know that she was in on it. Cryin' Chuck Schumer — you ever see him cry? (he cries when he- the phoniest crying I've ever seen) — Cryin’ Chuck Schumer was in on it. Every Democrat Cabinet member was in on it they all knew this guy was grossly incompetent. And every Democrat in the House and the Senate was in on it. It was a scam. The American people can never trust this group of liars ever again that put our country at great risk and danger. That's why we are going to sweep them all out of office this November. I believe it'll be an election like no other...."

Said Donald Trump at his rally last night, in Doral, Florida.

Crazy Nancy, Cryin' Chuck, Laffin' Kamala... the nicknames line up. And Trump accuses them — and every Cabinet member and every Democrat in Congress — as co-conspirators in a sinister plot to defraud the American public —  the biggest cover up in political history, the biggest scandal.

The boldface is all Trump's language. Overstated?

"I'm officially offering Joe the chance to redeem himself in front of the entire world.... Let's do another debate this week..."

"... so that Sleepy Joe Biden can prove to everyone all over the world that he has what it takes to be president. But this time it will be man to man — no moderators, no holds barred. Just name the place — anytime, anywhere. And in the debate, Sleepy Joe also declared that he wanted to test his skills and stamina against mine on the golf course. (Can you believe this? Did you ever see him swing? He's like
this.) That's why this evening I am also... officially challenging Crooked Joe to an 18-hole golf match — right here, on Doral's Blue Monster, considered one of the greatest tournament golf courses anywhere in the world one of the Great Courses of the world. It will be among the most watched sporting events in history maybe bigger than the Ryder Cup or even the Masters, and I will even give Joe Biden 10 strokes a side — 10 strokes, that's a lot, that means 20 strokes, in case you don't play golf —I will give him 10 strokes a side, and if he wins, I will give the charity of his choice any charity that he wants $1 million, and I'll bet you he doesn't take the offer, I would bet, because he's all talk, but what that match will do is prove that Joe is in fact all talk and no action...."

That's talk from Donald Trump, at the Doral golf resort in Florida, which he owns.

Sunrise — 5:07, 5:21, 5:29, 5:30.

"Trump hasn’t raised the beard issue with Vance, insiders say, but like a number of ladies of MAGAville, Trump has repeatedly commented favorably..."

"... on his 'beautiful' blue eyes and long eyelashes (just Google 'J.D. Vance eye' and links galore auto populate on speculation he wears eyeliner—which his team denies). Such are the considerations of Trump. The ex-president has a certain—shall we say, unique—set of specifications when it comes to charting out his political course. 'Central casting' is crucial...."

From "J.D. Vance Has a Problem on His Face/Can a VP aspirant with a beard find acceptance from a candidate who hates facial hair?" (The Bulwark).

It will be Vance, I think, and Trump's distaste for beards will be just one more thing he can talk about. It's a good random topic to riff on. I can practically hear him: J.D. Vance, I love this guy. Imagine how much I would love him if he didn't have a beard. Shave off that beard! No! I would love him too much. I see a beard, I think: Abraham Lincoln. You know, I like to say I can be more presidential than any president in history except for Honest Abe Lincoln but when he’s wearing that hat. And that beard! Should I grow a beard? I can't be more presidential than any president in history when there's Abraham Lincoln and he’s wearing that hat and that beard. J.D. Vance! He has a beard! He's very vice presidential with that beard....

"A series of prominent Democrats were tested in a head-to-head ballot against Donald Trump."

By Emerson College Polling:

• Vice President Kamala Harris: 49% Trump, 43% Harris, 8% undecided
• Senator Bernie Sanders: 48% Trump, 42% Sanders, 10% undecided
• California Governor Gavin Newsom: 48% Trump, 40% Newsom, 12% undecided
• Former Vice President Al Gore: 47% Trump, 42% Gore, 11% undecided
• Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: 48% Trump, 41% Clinton, 11% undecided
• Senator Elizabeth Warren: 49% Trump, 39% Warren, 13% undecided
• Secretary of State Pete Buttigieg: 49% Trump, 39% Buttigieg, 12% undecided
• Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro: 46% Trump, 38% Shapiro, 16% undecided
• Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer: 48% Trump, 38% Whitmer, 15% undecided

Meanwhile, Trump beats Joe Biden by only 46% to 43%, with 11% undecided. That is, Biden loses to Trump by only 3 percentage points. All those other possibilities are worse: Harris loses by 6, Bernie by 6, Newsom by 8, Gore by 5, Hillary by 7, Warren by 10, Buttigieg by 10, Shapiro by 8, and Whitmer by 10.

I like how the most surprising inclusion — Gore — does best.

Saddest exclusion: Kerry. If Gore is in, it's mean to leave out Kerry.

Most interesting effect on Trump: Shapiro. Trump is at 48 or 48 for everyone else, but slips to 46 for Shapiro. There's a lurch toward undecided.

Fungus of the Day.

"But if you’ve ever wondered... if Americans are in fact totally cool with a group of unelected officials pulling strings behind the scenes..."

"... while the man known as POTUS watches Dick Van Dyke reruns and drools contentedly into a bowl of creamed corn—may I direct your attention to one of my favorite movies, the 1993 Kevin Kline comedy 'Dave,' in which some devious Washington insiders attempt to do exactly this? The premise of 'Dave' is... the president has a stroke and ends up comatose, his chief of staff... secretly hires a body double—that’s Dave—to impersonate the president full time...."

Writes Kat Rosenfield, in "'Dave' Predicted the Biden Debacle/In the Nineties film, the president ends up comatose, and his chief of staff secretly hires a body double. These days, the plot feels eerily familiar" (Free Press).

"The logic of the suit is balanced against the magic of the tie. The two together become symbolic..."

"... the gray or blue jacket reminds us of a common class background; the distinctive pattern of the tie orients us toward the wearer’s unique identity.... The tie could sometimes get so compressed in its significance as to lose its witty, stealthy character and become overly and unambiguously 'loaded.' There is no better story of suicide-by-semiotics than that of the rise and death of the bow tie, which, beginning in the nineteen-eighties, became so single-mindedly knotted up with neoconservatism, in the estimable hands of George Will, that to wear one was to declare oneself a youngish fogy, a reader of the National Review, and a skeptic of big government. The wider shores of bow-tie-dom—the dashing, jaunty, self-mocking P. G. Wodehouse side of them—receded, and were lost. It became impossible to wear a bow tie and vote Democratic...."

Writes Adam Gopnik, in "The Knotty Death of the Necktie/The pandemic may have brought an end to a flourishing history" (The New Yorker).

"There’ll always be people who say, 'Why can’t the Museum of American History tell everybody’s story?'"

"But the truth of the matter is, America’s history is too big for one building. I really think that what we did with the African American museum—which has become one of the most diversely visited museums in the world—is the right model. This is a two-sided coin. One side is about a community, about identity. But the other side is 'How does that identity shape all of us?'"

Said Lonnie G. Bunch III, quoted in "How Lonnie G. Bunch III Is Renovating the 'Nation’s Attic'/The Smithsonian’s dynamic leader is dredging up slave ships, fending off culture warriors in Congress, and building two new museums on the National Mall" (The New Yorker).

"Black House members have rallied behind Biden... The desire to defend Biden appears to be so widespread..."

"... among members of the Congressional Black Caucus that it is possible the group will formalize its support for him in a statement over the next several days.... The importance of the roughly 60-member Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) — which includes Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) and [Minority Leader Hakeem] Jeffries — was on display last night as Biden met with the bloc during a Zoom call.... 'You’ve had my back, and I’ll continue to have yours,' Biden [said].... CBC members know that their decision — especially if they choose to release a collective statement embracing Biden — will challenge private concerns by other House Democrats, particularly those in swing districts worried about their own reelection chances...."

From "Today could be really good for Biden ... or really bad" (WaPo).

Is it the case that CBC members are in safe districts and less worried about reelection? Here's something from Axios (from February 2023):

Sunrise — 4:51, 5:18, 5:23, 5:25, 5:26, 5:34, 5:38.

"If any of these guys don’t think I should run, run against me. Go ahead, announce for president. Challenge me at the convention."

Fungus of the day.

"The designer Willie Norris said she was interested in 'why the short inseam vigor is so strong with straight men.'"

"Gay men, Mx. Norris added, have long chosen their inseam lengths without the same sort of heated debate: 'This type of granular sartorial stance is something I see straight men participating in far more than gay men.'... Zach Pollakoff, 39, remembered when, as a college student, it seemed like a 'big statement' if someone was wearing super short shorts. 'It was like, OK, he’s not a frat dude, he’s not an academic. That’s an indie music kid.' But... 'The rules about things like inseams have become a moving target,' Mr. Pollakoff said. 'And it makes it sort of irrelevant to have a rule in the first place.'"

From "Men Wear Short Shorts. And Long Shorts. And Everything in Between. Micro-inseams are trending, but almost any length goes" (NYT)(free-access link, so you can see all the pictures of hairy legs and decide for yourself).

A dialogue about Trump and Biden.

Composed by my son John (at Facebook):

“Biden is too old to be president.” 

“But Trump is also old.” 

“But Biden is older.” 

“But since they’re both very old, it’s unfair to focus so much on how old one of them is. Besides, Trump lies.” 

Why does The Washington Post illustrate this article with a photo of a random woman rather than the woman the article is about?

Notice that the woman's name does not appear anywhere in the long headline: "Radio station parts ways with host who interviewed Biden with questions from his aides/Interview 'violates our practice' said WURD president and CEO Sara M. Lomax. The station 'is not a mouthpiece for the Biden or any other Administration.'"

The name appears in the second and third paragraphs of the article:

"The most basic part of gender identity is what I call our transcendent sense of gender. In a way that goes beyond language..."

"... people often just feel male or female, and some more strongly than others. This can manifest in different ways. Some of my young patients draw themselves as a certain gender and have a 'wow, this is me' feeling.... [I]t’s hard to describe this transcendent feeling in words. But it is the foundation of our gender identity, the scaffolding we’re born with...."

Writes Jack Turban, a psychiatrist, in "Not Everyone Thinks About Gender the Same Way. Here’s One Way to Talk About It" (NYT).

"Biden’s word salad and sudden drops in volume to pianissimo are relevant for reporters to cover because they’re a microcosm of the questions..."

"... at the heart of the 2024 Democratic campaign: Is the president’s mental state strong enough to beat Donald Trump and can he serve for four more years? The desperate Biden team is ready to go to war over every syllable."

Writes Maureen Dowd in "Joe Biden, in the Goodest Bunker Ever" (NYT), detailing how the Biden team came for her:

"If the Democrats’ goal is to stay true to their brand of identity politics, then Harris is the clear choice. But if the goal is to stop Donald Trump..."

"... then she’s almost the worst one, with the arguable exception of Gavin Newsom, the much-too-slick governor of California."

Says Bret Stephens, in the new episode of his weekly conversation with Gail Collins (NYT).

Stephens continues: "Betting Trump’s nickname for him will be Governor Nuisance."

Nice revelation that you don't take in Trump rally speeches. He already has a nickname for Newsom. It's "New Scum."

Back to Stephens: "[Kamala Harris] is wildly unpopular.... She’s won only one truly competitive election in her career. Fairly or unfairly, she’s associated with the immigration issue, which Americans see as the administration’s single greatest policy fiasco. She ran a dreadful primary campaign in 2020. And I don’t think she has much appeal with the swing voters who are going to decide this election. There’s a Hillary Clinton vibe to her...."

Is there going to be "a Hillary Clinton vibe" to every woman who gets close to becoming President or does "a Hillary Clinton vibe" mean something more specific? What are the similarities between the 2 women? I'd say: 1. An instinct to laugh inanely over nothing, 2. Vaulted to the front of the line through sexual alliance with a powerful man, 3. ...

"[Go] after Trump on substantive issues. That's what I've said many times I wish Biden had been doing..."

"Biden and the Democrats have gone on and on about Trump, the bad bad man — gone on in words and gone on in bringing criminal prosecutions. Tragically, they've done it to the point where they look as bad or worse in their own way and now we who want a man of character have no one to choose...."

That's what I wrote last April. 

I thought about that when I saw this new NYT piece, "Biden’s Strategy to Make the Race About Trump Is Suddenly in Doubt/The Biden campaign’s effort to raise questions about Donald J. Trump’s ability to be president has boomeranged into a referendum on the president’s own competence" (by Reid J. Epstein).

Catching up with a favorite mushroom.

You remember yesterday's "Fungus of the Day," the one you thought looked like the back of Donald Trump's head. Here's a different angle on the now-famous mushroom, photographed on the same day (July 5th), this time including its small companion:

And to take an even longer view, here's Meade's photograph of me getting into the weeds:

I should admit that mushroom was also "The 4th of July Fungus," the one that looked disgusting at first and then, 21 hours later, flipped into something pleasingly jaunty.

The July 5th photo of the mushroom, above, shows it in decline. And now, here's how it looked today:

If they could only see its shocking, advanced state of decline, the other mushrooms would surely demand that it withdraw from the ongoing "Fungus of the Day" race.

UPDATE, July 8th. In tatters:

"To a great degree, in older age, ambition falls away. Such a relief. Appreciation and surprise bloom many mornings: Yay — I like it here."

"We more easily accept the world as is, even as we doggedly keep trying to save it, like aging Smurfs.... I’m not loving the cognitive decline, which can be so scary at the time but (for me, in the early throes) still ends up being sort of funny.... We finally realize we can’t save or fix or rescue anyone, even and especially those we most love. We stop rushing to people’s sides like arthritic St. Bernards with kegs of brandy strapped around our necks. We’ve learned that we cannot reshape their lives, get in there swinging and carry their pain for them. Now? We mostly listen. Sometimes, we lay some money on them. We are lighter than we’ve ever been...."

Writes Anne Lamott, in "Gentle is the joy that comes with age/It turns out the point of life is gratitude. And gratitude is joy" (WaPo)(free-access link/the illustration is especially nice, especially if you like cats used to express a pleasant way of life for someone who is no longer doggedly trying to save the world).

Lamott is only 70. Is she really in "cognitive decline" — the "early throes"? 

"During a campaign broadcast on NHK, Airi Uchino, the young entrepreneur, removed a striped, button-down shirt to reveal her cleavage in a cream-colored tube top."

"'I’m not just cute,' she purred, inviting prospective voters to connect with her on Line, Japan’s popular messaging app. 'I’m sexy, right?' Ms. Uchino is backed by the Party to Protect the People from NHK, a renegade group that is supporting close to half of those running for governor. The group has permitted its candidates and some others to post campaign posters featuring photos of cats or cartoon animals on the official election signboards...."

From "Is This Vibrant Democracy in Japan, or Has the Circus Come to Town? A ridiculous number of candidates contended to be governor of Tokyo and its surrounding prefecture. Many were not even trying to win" (NYT).

"Sorry UCI for having damaged the image of sport. But I am willing to pay 200 (francs) every day and relive this moment."

Said Julien Bernard, quoted in "Tour de France cyclist fined for kissing wife and son, says penalty was worthwhile for 'dream moment'" (The Athletic).

For stopping his ride to kiss his family, Bernard was slapped with a fine of 200 Swiss francs ($223) by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) for what the governing body deemed “unseemly or inappropriate behavior during the race and damage to the image of sport.”

Rules are rules. 

Amazing scenes for Julien Bernard with incredible fan support and stopping with his family during the time trial.#TDF2024 📺: Peacock pic.twitter.com/FjIhSOWtjx

— NBC Sports Cycling (@NBCSCycling) July 5, 2024

"Kennedy's campaign did not comment on the 'sides' he was referring to in his tweet, or what other 'debates' he was referring to, beyond pointing to his post on the '60 Minutes' report."

 From "Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he 'won't take sides' on what happened on 9/11/The independent presidential candidate made the remark in a social media post, later saying that he was referring to 'possible Saudi involvement' in the 2001 terror attacks" (NBC News).

"Tourism is a curse."

Tourism is a curse.
The place becomes unlivable. Real estate values rise but future generations priced out of the market. Convenience stores become luxury outlets. Natives move out, jet setters own empty apartments..

The planet is too small & everybody wants to go to Venice. pic.twitter.com/xFXyZVJmNb

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) July 7, 2024

Here's the article, "Barcelona residents protest against mass tourism/The city's rising cost of housing, up 68% in the past decade according to local authorities, is one of the main issues for the movement, along with the effects of tourism on local commerce and working conditions" (Le Monde).

Under the slogan "Enough! Let's put limits on tourism", some 2,800 people – according to police – marched along a waterfront district of Barcelona to demand a new economic model that would reduce the millions of tourists that visit every year.... The second most visited country after France, Spain received 85 million foreign visitors in 2023, an increase of 18.7% from the previous year, according to the National Statistics Institute. The most visited region was Catalonia, whose capital is Barcelona, with 18 million....

All you need is a high enough tourist tax, right? 

"[American media] have become a stampeding herd producing an avalanche of stories suggesting Biden is unfit, will lose and should go away..."

"... at a point in the campaign in which replacing him would likely be somewhere between extremely difficult and utterly catastrophic. They do this while ignoring something every scholar and critic of journalism knows well and every journalist should. As Nikole Hannah-Jones put it: 'As media we consistently proclaim that we are just reporting the news when in fact we are driving it. What we cover, how we cover it, determines often what Americans think is important and how they perceive these issues yet we keep pretending it’s not so.' They are not reporting that he is a loser; they are making him one. According to one journalist’s tally, the New York Times has run 192 stories on the subject since the debate, including 50 editorials and 142 news stories. The Washington Post, which has also gone for saturation coverage, published a resignation speech they wrote for him. Not to be outdone, the New Yorker’s editor-in-chief declared that Biden not going away 'would be an act not only of self-delusion but of national endangerment' and had a staff writer suggest that Democrats should use the never-before-deployed 25th amendment. Since this would have to be led by Vice-President Kamala Harris, it would be a sort of insider coup. And so it goes with what appears to be a journalistic competition to outdo each other in the aggressiveness of the attacks and the unreality of the proposals. It’s a dogpile and a panic, and there is no one more unable to understand their own emotional life, biases and motives than people who are utterly convinced of their own ironclad rationality and objectivity, AKA most of these pundits."

Writes Rebecca Solnit, in "Why is the pundit class so desperate to push Biden out of the race?" (The Guardian).

Solnit is very anti-Trump, as you'll see if you read the rest of the column. She goes on to say — "Speaking of coups" — that Trump "orchestrated a coup attempt to steal an election" and is planning "yet another coup" through the implementation of Project 2025. She even uses the word "coup" to describe what the Supreme Court — with its Trump appointees — did in finding presidential immunity and in "dismantling the regulatory state."

I'm quoting her anyway, because she's questioning the motives and judgment of liberal media. I'd really like to know who decided a stampede was the right approach and unleashed it while the President was still on the debate stage. Immediately after the debate, CNN's John King was cued up to describe a stampede already in motion: