३ ऑगस्ट, २०२४
"Taiwan must be 'mentally prepared' for a Trump victory in November — and the scrutiny that will come with that..."
From "Taiwan is readying citizens for a Chinese invasion. It’s not going well. The government extended mandatory military service and revamped reservist training in an effort to make Beijing think twice. But it’s already falling short" (WaPo).
"Gianna is a beast. She’s better than I was at her age. She’s got it. Girls are amazing. I would have five more girls if I could. I’m a girl dad."
"Everyone... had a story about explaining basic etiquette to boorish colleagues. No, you can’t microwave fish at lunch."
From "So, Human Resources Is Making You Miserable?/Get in line behind the H.R. managers themselves, who say that since the pandemic, the job has become an exasperating ordeal. 'People hate us,' one said" (NYT).
"Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III on Friday overruled the overseer of the war court at Guantánamo Bay and revoked a plea agreement reached earlier this week..."
From "Defense Secretary Revokes Plea Deal for Accused Sept. 11 Plotters/Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III assumed direct oversight of the case and effectively put the death penalty back on the table" (NYT).
"The two candidates conveyed the customary air of indifference, neither saying anything publicly or appearing to lift a finger in his own behalf."
From "John Adams" (p. 672) by David McCullough, describing the candidates' participation in the election campaign of 1800. (Commission earned.)
"But it’s... a different time. From school board meetings to board rooms, Americans... question whether affirmative action and diversity and inclusion programs are achieving what they’re supposed to."
Trump rejects the old agreement to debate — with Kamala Harris swapped in for Joe Biden — and proposes a new one. But I think, in the end, the old one will prevail.
I have agreed with FoxNews to debate Kamala Harris on Wednesday, September 4th.
He has agreed. She hasn't agreed, and I don't think she will. Why would she? She's boldly claimed Joe Biden's position as the Democratic Party's candidate, and she can claim status as the successor to the agreement. And she will want to, because the terms are favorable to her, and the terms of the proposed new agreement are worse. It's Fox News, instead of ABC.
The Debate was previously scheduled against Sleepy Joe Biden on ABC, but has been terminated in that Biden will no longer be a participant, and I am in litigation against ABC Network and George Slopadopoulos, thereby creating a conflict of interest.
That "conflict of interest" is not new. It existed when the agreement was with Biden. Trump could have backed out of the agreement with Biden too. It's just a matter of how we the people would view the backing out. Is Trump afraid? Harris is already out there taunting him, saying "If you’ve got something to say, say it to my face." That's a taunt that will work against any criticism he might make of her. She's not going to give up the old agreement. Not only are the terms better for her...
The perverse incentive of prisoner deals.
Officials and experts agree that these recent cases reflect what Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken in February called a “rising trend” in which American enemies are “wrongfully detaining people, often as political pawns.”...
[I]n roughly the past 10 years, as foreign terrorist threats have receded, the imprisonment of Americans by hostile governments on false or inflated legal charges has risen sharply, according to Danielle Gilbert, an assistant professor at Northwestern University who studies so-called hostage diplomacy....
Families of prisoners.... enlist celebrities and the media to help pressure U.S. officials to “do whatever it takes,” as they often say.... Ms. Gilbert noted that such deals have proven to be politically popular. Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden have benefited from heartwarming Oval Office meetings with freed prisoners and their families, and dramatic accounts of how their leadership sealed the deals....
The article links to Trump's response at Truth Social:
२ ऑगस्ट, २०२४
In the sun's spotlight in the woods today: Lycoris squamigera.
A dark-horse contender in the VP race offers a new — better? — concept than weird: Bewildered!
I'm reading: "Pritzker says Trump 'bewildered' by Harris, new Dem excitement" (The Hill).
Now, I'd written Pritzker off. I just didn't think it could be him. But he's jumping to the top of the headlines at Memeorandum, and I am tantalized by his use of a single word, a funny word — "bewildered" — so I'll bite:
"Democrats need a dad?"
It's an episode of "The Ezra Klein Show." From the transcript, here's the "dad" part:
KLEIN: Let me ask you about political geography. There’s a sense of, particularly, the Midwest as “That’s where people are normal. Then they get weirder on the coast.” You’re a former Army guy, right? You’re a former football coach. You’ve got real good Midwestern dad vibes. And so you can talk about the weirdness of Trump and Vance in a way that I think a lot of Democrats would not feel they could and also in a way that they’re like, “Oh, right, maybe we’re not the weird ones.” But I always think this is a very unhealthy dimension of our politics, a sense that there are sort of “real” Americans here, not “real” Americans there, beyond the coast. I’m curious how you think about this, both from the perspective of what it’s allowed you to say — maybe that would not have landed coming from others — and also just, like, what you do about it.
The emphasis there is on the geography, the "Midwestern" part of "Midwestern dad." I wanted the "dad" part, but I'll soldier on:
"As a lesbian, I cringe when I hear straight women refer to their platonic friends as 'girlfriends.'"
"A whistleblower alleged that Secret Service acting Director Ronald Rowe personally cut security resources and 'retaliated'..."
From "Acting Secret Service Chief ‘Retaliated Against’ Agents Who Had Security Concerns At Trump Event, Whistleblower Claims" (Daily Caller).
🚨🚨 NEW - Whistleblower tells me Secret Service Acting Director Rowe personally directed cuts to the USSS agents who do threat assessments for events. Whistleblower says those agents were NOT present in Butler - and some of them had warned of security problems for months pic.twitter.com/v9igQ5L7FZ
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) August 1, 2024
"I mean, like, what I think probably happened on January 6th where they withheld the police presence? If something happens, well, this will sink Trump forever."
"There's nothing beyond our capacity when we act together. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Remember who the hell we are. We are the United States of America."
Said President Biden, next to the plane out of which emerged those freed by Russia in the prisoner exchange.
I'm glad the erstwhile prisoners are home, and I'm glad Joe Biden still walks and talks among the living, but I don't believe "There's nothing beyond our capacity when we act together," I don't believe we are "working together," I think it's interesting that a President said "Nothing. Nothing. Nothing," and I don't approve of the intensifier "the hell" on this occasion.
Most importantly, I want to muse over the announcement "We are the United States of America." It's not just a Bidenism. It's very widespread. It's "American exceptionalism." But the Russians got their prisoners back too. Is Putin out there saying «Мы — Россия»?
I get a Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair vibe. But what is grand about a prisoner exchange?"My son has all but cut connections with me.... A year or so ago when I was visiting, I had a DNA test swab with me..."
The Washington Post shines its sharp investigative journalism at Kamala Harris.
On the front page right now: "Kamala Harris’s cooking wisdom: 7 tips from her kitchen videos."
seriously you need to watch Kamala dice the hell out of an onion (w/new bonus laugh!) pic.twitter.com/1y0gtZHCCa
— Josh Josh (Coconomenon Era) (@Josh_____Josh) July 22, 2024
The competition was inspired by a political gaffe made by Hillary Clinton in 1992... In response to questions about her career and the Whitewater controversy, she stated that "I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession, which I entered before my husband was in public life."...
Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, said that Clinton's remarks "stepped outside the bounds of what was seen as the traditional role of first lady, potential first lady [...] the price she paid was being placed in the midst of a cookie bake-off."... According to media science professor Tammy R. Vigil, media coverage of the bake-off portrayed the women participating as adhering to traditional gender roles and published anecdotes about their domestic lives that contributed to this image.
And isn't it funny? 30 years later, traditional gender roles are still front-and-center in American politics. The Democratic Party candidate is, once again, a woman. Back in 2016, Bill Clinton competed in the (re-named) cookie contest. He won, too, just as Hillary had won in 1992 and 1996, and with the same recipe: "chocolate chip cookies." (Yes, I think we all know that recipe.) And the new female Democratic Party candidate isn't even using her husband to handle the cooking. She's dicing an onion, right there on camera for us. In 2024. I suppose she could have just fulfilled her profession, but what she decided to do was go on TV with Mindy Kaling and dice an onion.
१ ऑगस्ट, २०२४
"As of this afternoon’s model run, Harris’s odds had improved to 44.6 percent, as compared to 54.9 percent for Trump and a 0.5 percent chance of an Electoral College deadlock."
"Democratic Party elites and billionaire donors are attempting to manipulate Black voters by anointing Kamala Harris..."
"But while he is seen as a long shot for VP, the blizzard of Buttigieg appearances is thrilling his legions of fans on social media..."
"JD Vance... criticized the immigration policies of the Biden administration, which he repeatedly referred to as the 'Harris administration.'"
"I am ashamed at what this Harris administration has done, and I promise it’s gonna get better in about six months,” Vance said.
And Trump is leaning into his "Indian heritage" chaos:
"Russia freed wrongly convicted Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich as part of the largest and most complex East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War..."
The Wall Street Journal reports (with no pay wall).
"When Southwest launched in 1971, it specifically claimed the moral high ground. The company was consciously selling the American ideal of egalitarianism..."
"Why Southwest’s seating switcheroo is un-American/The move spurns egalitarianism and pushes the idea that only the affluent deserve decent service," writes Marc Fisher (at WaPo).
"She yelled 'this is unjust' at her corner and slammed her headgear on the canvas as the match in the 66-kilogram division was called off."
Kamala Harris supports this…
— John LeFevre (@JohnLeFevre) August 1, 2024
Vote accordingly.
pic.twitter.com/RHJzfrQlvv
An absolute travesty at the Olympics.
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) August 1, 2024
Angela Carini is forced to box against a biological male. She quits after just 45 seconds, and cries hysterically as her opponent is declared the winner.
Don't look away. This is wokeness. pic.twitter.com/wOkVRs88t5
There's the idea that Trump is mightily courageous. Mark Kelly begs to differ: Trump is terrified!
Well, Kaitlan, my first reaction was, you know, this is the reaction of a desperate and scared old man. It was very obvious to me watching him and just what I've seen over the last wee while she's been, you know, across the country just kicking his butt that he's afraid, that he's probably afraid to debate her. He's certainly afraid to lose an election to her in November, and he's afraid about his own future....
Kaitlan Collins, mirroring Kelly, restating his idea in the form of a question: "So you think this is just a sign that he's essentially spooked by by her momentum?
Is that catching on, Trump the big chicken?
The effort to trick Trump into making race the central issue and Trump's countervailing trickery.
Trump’s campaign seemed to have been holding onto some hope that their candidate would refrain from attacking his opponent based on race and gender. It was just last week that Trump’s spokesman, Steven Cheung, was asked at a rally if Republicans ought to be labeling Kamala Harris a "D.E.I. candidate." Cheung said then that "from the campaign’s standpoint, we haven’t done that." Asked if such attacks were "off-limits," Cheung replied: "I don’t know if it’s off-limits, but it’s not something that we’ve done. So, it is not even on our radar." Now, it is certainly on their radar. It was ABC’s Rachel Scott asking the former president if he believed Harris was a "D.E.I. hire" that set him off on his long tangent in which he questioned her ethnicity. Prodded again as to whether he considered Harris a "D.E.I. hire," Trump concluded: "I really don’t know. Could be, could be. There are some."
SCOTT: "Republicans on Capitol Hill have labeled vice president Kamala Harris, who is the first black and Asian-American woman to serve as vice president be on a major party ticket, as a DEI hire. Is that acceptable language to you, and will you tell those Republicans and those supporters to stop it?"TRUMP: "How do you how do you define DEI? Go ahead...."SCOTT: "Diversity Equity Inclusion."TRUMP: "Okay, yeah, go ahead. Is that, what, your definition?"
Scott limited herself to saying what the letters stand for.
"The discussion revolves around a video showing a person moving on a rooftop near where President Trump was shot, leading to widespread speculation..."
३१ जुलै, २०२४
Trump's wild interview at the National Association of Black Journalists Convention.
Laura Ingraham detects Trump's gender fluidity.
ADDED: As you can see a few posts down, I've been reading "John Adams" by David McCullough. After writing this post, I went out for a walk with my audiobook version and was stunned to hear a passage that fit with the topic of a President's gender fluidity. From pages 659-660, about the presidential campaign of 1800:Ingraham: What are your pronouns?
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 30, 2024
Trump: I don’t want pronouns
Ingraham: So, you’re fluid? pic.twitter.com/KjA8tZxpnw
Not satisfied that the old charges of monarchist and warmonger were sufficient, [the propagandist James] Callender called Adams a “repulsive pedant,” a “gross hypocrite,” and “in his private life, one of the most egregious fools upon the continent.” Adams was “that strange compound of ignorance and ferocity, of deceit and weakness,” a “hideous hermaphroditical character which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.”
Higher thoughts.
“I gotta laugh because I accepted the invitation not for being white, but because I’m a dude you know?” said actor Jeff Bridges, who pushed back on a philosophical point on the messaging from the campaign that Democrats must “fight” for democracy. “It’s not so much a fight, but a surrender to higher thoughts of how we want the future to turn out,” Bridges said. “That’s just my opinion, man.”
"That’s just my opinion, man" suggests he's joking. I get the reference.....
... but which way is he joking? Is it that the movie character of "The Dude" is averse to fighting and takes a slacker route to the same destination? You don't have to fight. Only surrender. That seems like a satire of the Democrats' message. Is he toying with them? Just fooling around? Or is he saying that white men really ought to surrender. Stand down and think of "higher thoughts." The future belongs to... somebody else.
"Democrats tend to lose whenever they forget that they are, first and foremost, the party of working American families."
Writes Errol Louis, in "The Memes Have Been Great. Now Kamala Harris Needs to Talk About This" (New York Magazine).
"A peck of troubles in a large bundle of papers.... No company. No society. Idle, unmeaning ceremony."
Wrote John Adams, complaining about what it's like to be President of the United States, quoted in "John Adams" by David McCullough (page 638)(commission earned).
I've spent so much time in the last 20 years watching numerous characters seeking the presidency. It's a wholesome respite to read about someone who doesn't like it at all.
ADDED: On the subject of the President's security: "Told there had been an attempt to break into the President’s House and asked if a guard should be posted, Adams said no, lest a sentinel at the door lead people to think the situation worse than they knew" (page 603).
"She doesn’t look around for others to join inasmuch as she simply reflects the moment: the thrill, the fun, the catharsis, the you-have-to-laugh-to-keep-from-crying-or-punching-a-wall of it all."
Robin Givhan is writing about Kamala Harris's notable laughing, in "Kamala Harris’s powerful laughter in the face of weirdness/Her guffaws speak to a moment: the thrill, the catharsis, the you-have-to-laugh-to-keep-from-crying-or-punching-a-wall of it all" (WaPo).
There's that word "weird" again, in the headline. I checked to see if maybe Givhan resisted using it herself. Givhan is a wordsmith. You can tell by that one sentence I put in the post title. She went with "inasmuch," and she made one of those long adjectives that hyphens let you construct out of any string of words: "you-have-to-laugh-to-keep-from-crying-or-punching-a-wall." But she's not a got-to-avoid-using-the-word-of-the-day wordsmith.
I'd hoped "weirdness" was a just-in-the-headline word, inserted by one of those nameless headline writers, but it's in the body of the essay:
How weird is it to deride a person for laughing? Not for laughing inappropriately, in the middle of a funeral, for example...
The link goes to the "Mary Tyler Moore" Chuckles the Clown episode, not — how could it be?! — Bill Clinton laughing at Ron Brown's funeral (laughing, then fake-crying).
... but simply for enjoying a good chuckle?
But sometimes it is inappropriate — and quite mystifying — as in this widely shared example:
Givhan acknowledges the word-of-the-momentness of "weird":
The pervasiveness of "weird" in the mind of Tim Walz.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz — in the running for VP — has gotten attention over the past week for purveying the word "weird," but he was calling Republicans "weird" a year ago.
Here's something I blogged August 21, 2023: "Who's the 'most normal' in this 'pretty weird group'?":
३० जुलै, २०२४
"If I were advising the candidates, I’d tell them to double down on weirdness."
Says David Brooks, on September 8, 2008.
Blogging that at the time, here, I said that Brooks observed that "Obama started out weird and did well, then got conventional and did less well, especially with McCain getting weird. 'Weirdness wins,' [Brooks] says."
I thought you might like to see that today, when so many people are saying "weird" at the same time and as if it's a bad thing.Let me give you a bit more of Brooks:
"She either likes or loves me."
NEW: Donald Trump says Melania was watching his rally live when he was shot in the face by Thomas Crooks, says she is traumatized.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 30, 2024
Ingraham: What was Melania's reaction?
Trump: She was watching live. It was all over the place. I asked her that, I mean, I wasn't there. I was on… pic.twitter.com/2CYLRuSBw4
"These guys are just weird. That's where they are.... The fascist depend on fear. The fascists depend on us going back, but we're not afraid of weird people. No, we we're a little bit creeped out, but we're not afraid."
The podcast host observes that the message — "Republicans are... just too weird for America" — "does seem like it's sticking a little bit."
"Oh! Oh! I am a Democrat. Oh! So sad, so cold, so hungry! The world is dark! The world in the future, she's bleak!... The worst nightmare kind of scenario! It's a doom loop!"
"100,000 white women? That is a giant group of white women. I believe the scientific term is actually a 'goop' of women...."Montage of "Joe Biden is going to be the nominee.... Biden's not going anywhere," etc....A gesture at a JD Vance/couch joke...Montage of Republicans emoting about the "coup inside the Democratic party" and a connection to the January 6th "coup"...
"Isn't there a grosser way you can say" that Kamala Harris slept her way to the top?
Ted Cruz providing the occasion for Jon Stewart to offer a delicate way to call him fat...
A "she was a DEI hire" montage followed by much pricking of your conscience for thinking about race.
"By Saturday, July 20, former President Barack Obama was deeply involved, and there was talk that he would place a call to Biden."
२९ जुलै, २०२४
The sculptor Sabin Howard said he "studied many images from the war, including paintings like John Singer Sargent’s 'Gassed,' a portrait of soldiers blinded by poison gas."
"White people like Vance’s grandmother who are strongly anti-institution and don’t go to church but consider themselves very much Christian..."
Writes Michelle Boorstein, in "JD Vance’s Catholic conversion is part of young conservative movement/The Republican vice-presidential nominee and Ohio senator was raised nominally evangelical, then dabbled with atheism before converting in 2019" (WaPo).
"You might recall the epic 2008 Beijing opening ceremony, which showcased the four great Chinese inventions: the compass, gunpowder, paper, and typesetting."
Begins Suzy Weiss, in "Was the Opening Ceremony Demonic, or Just Cringe? Don’t feel bad for Christians—feel bad for the French" (Free Press).
Ha ha. Very well put.
The lamest lame duck executive seeks to meddle with the judicial branch.
Having faltered and fallen in his own lane, Joe Biden seems to think his view of the Supreme Court might matter.
I served as a U.S. senator for 36 years, including as chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. I have overseen more Supreme Court nominations as senator, vice president and president than anyone living today. I have great respect for our institutions and the separation of powers.
What is happening now is not normal, and it undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms. We now stand in a breach....
I agree that what is happening now is not normal, but which way is it not normal?
Are The Washington Post and The New York Times treating the rise of Kamala Harris quite differently?
Kamala Harris is at the top of the Washington Post home page:
२८ जुलै, २०२४
"The US could have avoided almost 250,000 Covid-19 deaths if every state had adopted stricter mask and vaccine requirements seen in the Northeast..."
From "Stricter Covid mask rules could’ve saved hundreds of thousands of lives, new study finds/Restrictions in Northeastern states likely ‘saved many lives’ say researchers" (Independent).
"Why has Connections in particular seemed to inspire so much online discourse? The people who work on it aren’t entirely sure..."
From "The NYT Connections Editor Knows What You’ve Been Saying/Wyna Liu makes the game every day. She isn’t sure why it makes people lose their minds" (Slate).
"Looking anew at Harris, I see something different from what I once did: a person who stumbled as a candidate and vice president..."
Writes Lydia Polgreen, in "I Was a Kamala Harris Skeptic. Here’s How I Got Coconut-Pilled" (NYT).
What is "disgusting" to J.D. Vance?
Here's what motivated me to look, from "JD Vance Hits Back at Jennifer Aniston, Defending ‘Childless Cat Ladies’ Remarks/The 'Friends' actress, who has been open about her fertility struggles, recently criticized Mr. Vance’s 2021 comments on social media" (NYT):
In [an Instagram] post, which drew widespread attention, [Jennifer Aniston], who has been open about her fertility struggles, wrote, “Mr. Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day.”...
“Hollywood celebrities say, ‘Oh, well, JD Vance, what if your daughter suffered fertility problems?’” Mr. Vance said [on “The Megyn Kelly Show” on SiriusXM]. “Well, first of all, that’s disgusting because my daughter is 2 years old. And second of all, if she had fertility problems, as I said in that speech, I would try everything I could to try to help her because I believe families and babies are a good thing.”
Why did he say "that's disgusting"? Was it some kind of notion that Aniston was sexualizing the toddler?! Aniston was being very tactful and delicate, and he's saying it's disgusting? That's very strange. I'm getting a gynophobia vibe.
Here's the Vance quote that provoked Aniston: "We are effectively run in this country… by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made."
By the way, I've seen Aniston's cat, and it is disgusting:
"very shocking & disrespectful to make light of the Feast of Dionysus; deeply offensive to those who have devoted their lives to feasting, drinking, & salacious behavior."
I googled "world leaders who laugh" and Google treated it as if I had googled "world leaders who laugh at Trump."
"Hillary Clinton’s laugh was criticized, and also called weird. There was a suggestion that it made her seem inauthentic..."
"As a Black woman, I am bracing for the inevitable racist and sexist attacks on her and have mixed emotions about us asking her to sprint a marathon and do something unprecedented in an impossibly short timeline."
"You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, 'you are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe that you have been completely fair."
"So there’s a big difference between equality and equity. Equality suggests, 'oh everyone should get the same amount.' The problem with that, not everybody’s starting out from the same place. So if we’re all getting the same amount, but you started out back there and I started out over here, we could get the same amount, but you’re still going to be that far back behind me. It’s about giving people the resources and the support they need, so that everyone can be on equal footing, and then compete on equal footing. Equitable treatment means we all end up in the same place."