November 2, 2024
People seem to think this squirrel story is going to get Trump elected.
On Wednesday, Peanut, and Fred the racoon [sic], were seized by the Department of Environmental Conservation after multiple anonymous complaints about wild animals living in the Longo house.... In a statement to The Post on Wednesday, the DEC said that they were responding to complaints of a rabies vector species that was in the home, namely, Fred the raccoon.
I don't know what happened to Fred. I guess he wasn't Instagram-famous. But the killing of Peanut is becoming a bigger election-adjacent animal story that the dogs and cats that were or were not eaten in Springfield. Elon is seeing to that...
Ron Paul would be happy to talk to Elon Musk.
I'd be happy to talk with you about it, Elon. https://t.co/tjG6O5CpIj
— Ron Paul (@RonPaul) November 1, 2024
"If, as virtually everyone agreed after the June presidential debate, it was obvious that Biden wasn’t up to running for president, it should have also been obvious that he wasn’t up to being president."
Maybe Democratic Party insiders think Harris would make such a hash of even a temporary presidency that she would destroy her chances of winning the election in November.... Or maybe it’s just that those currently running the government like this president-less setup. They have power without responsibility and without meaningful accountability.... That most of our political class doesn’t care about this at all tells us how little it thinks of both democracy and legitimacy.... The coming election offers a stark choice between a chief executive who will govern as an executive, and one more likely to serve as a colorless tool of special interests. The special interests would prefer the tool....
"Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt resigned from the Washington Post after feuding Friday with two of the newspaper’s liberal columnists during a live talk show..."
The NY Post reports (with video of Hewitt up and leaving).
I don't answer the doorbell unless I know who it is and want to see them...
... but I really don't answer the doorbell today in Madison, Wisconsin — the Saturday before Election Day.
Maybe I need to make a little sign that says we've already voted.
"Mondrian didn’t believe in ice cubes because cold food was bad for the health. He stood ramrod straight..."
Writes Dwight Garner, in "Piet Mondrian: An Orderly Painter, a Deeply Eccentric Man/A new biography of one of the quintessential artists of the 20th century" (NYT).
"On the sensitive and divisive issue of gender identity, Ms. Harris’s change in tone is especially telling."
Writes Jeremy W. Peters, in "In Shift From 2020, Identity Politics Loses Its Grip on the Country/There are signs that society is moving away from the progressive left’s often strict expectations about how to discuss culture and politics" (NYT).
"Some people will say, best show an empty glass: Someone will fill it..."
"He should stand up and say: 'Hey, I’ve won this. And we have teams right now that are going to make sure that this thing is not going to be stolen.'"
In recently filed court papers naming Mr. Bannon as a co-conspirator in Mr. Trump’s federal election interference case, the special counsel, Jack Smith, noted that Mr. Bannon had said the same thing four years ago.
“What Trump’s going to do is just declare victory, right?” he said, according to the records, later adding, “That doesn’t mean he’s the winner, he’s just going to say he’s the winner.”
I presume that under at least some circumstances, Kamala Harris would also want to say "Hey, I’ve won this. And we have teams right now that are going to make sure that this thing is not going to be stolen." It's all about when you say that, and not that you'd never say that. If the win is narrow enough, there are challenges. There's litigation. There's such a strong need, for the Harris campaign, to portray Trump as demonic for going as far as he did in January 2021, but that can't mean that it plans to concede immediately if the initial announcement says Trump won.
Me and...
I wrote an elaborate post about what JD Vance said (on Joe Rogan) about "the normal gay guy," and the subject, in the comments immediately turned to pronouns. No, not the innovative pronoun usage that has come into vogue in recent years but old-time grammar. Vance used the objective pronoun as a subject: "I wouldn't be surprised if me and Trump won just the normal gay guy vote."
The first commenter, Ralph L, calls attention to it, and I, the second commenter, point out that Vance used "me" as the subject more than that one time." 53 minutes into the podcast: "So one of the big things that me and President Trump confront all the time is the accusation that we're somehow like in bed with Russia, which is like the, the dumbest thing in the world to me."
Naturally, I thought about the "Me and" playlist I put together on Spotify a while ago. I'll embed it at the bottom of this post, but the point I want to make is that the "Me and" form — used as a subject — works very nicely in the colloquial speech that is reflected in many excellent song lyrics. Not all of the "Me and" songs on my playlist use "me" ungrammatically. But the ones that do are:
JD Vance and the concept of "the normal gay guy."
Vance: I think that frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if me and Trump won just the normal gay guy vote. Because again, they just wanted to be left the hell alone. And now you have all this crazy stuff on top of it that they're like, no, no, no, no, we didn't. We didn't want to give pharmaceutical products to nine year olds who are transitioning their genders. We just wanted to be left the hell alone.
Rogan: Well, a lot of gay guys feel like the whole movement is homophobic. Which is ironic. 'cause they think there's, they think that there's, people think there's something wrong with being gay. So what you really are is a girl. And they think that a lot of this is being given, these thoughts are being given to gay kids. These kids will just grow up to be gay men. And instead you're getting them to convert their gender.
Vance: It's pharmaceutical conversion therapy. Right?
When you're actually being persecuted, your reaction is: Leave me alone. But that doesn't make you a permanent libertarian, stuck in the position of just wanting to be left alone. Once the persecution and formal discrimination stops, you might be satisfied and want nothing more for your group and adopt a libertarian philosophy going forward, but that doesn't make you any more "normal" than the other members of your group who think that having come this far, they want something more. They go in a left-wing direction.
I'd say it's "normal" for a "gay guy" to find his way right, left, or center, like anyone else. JD Vance may be accurate in saying "they just wanted to be left the hell alone" — speaking in the past tense — but that doesn't mean that now, as he seeks their vote, they still want nothing more than to be left alone. But it's a separate question what the "normal gay guy" wants if he wants more than only to be left alone. Some do, some don't.
But Vance is making an additional argument: the "normal gay guy" would not embrace the transgender ideology because it the equivalent of conversion therapy. Even a "gay guy" who wants more than just to be left alone might agree with that, though I suspect that he would find it socially very hard to say that out loud these days.
Scrolling through TikTok yesterday, I saw a trend of men who said they were gay and agreed with Vance, and I wanted to collect a few of these here:
November 1, 2024
"Ms. Harris’s lack of stature, unreadiness for prime time, and content-confused narrative are why voters will opt for a former president with a proven record over an untested swimmer without a life vest."
The vice president had nearly four years to rise to levels of national and international prominence.... She squandered that opportunity.... She isn’t the person who matches the moment.... [W]hile she promotes her career path as a tough prosecutor, when it came to time to face the national jury, she abdicated to the teleprompter and friendly interviewers....
Either she couldn’t find a way to escape her baked-in California Bay Area political culture, or she was flummoxed by her own slippery evasions from left-wing orthodoxy. Nevertheless, there is an empty hole where potential leaders of the free world must have a strong message. She has filled it with the bizarre notion that if she loses, Mr. Trump would establish fascism in America.....
"One of New York City’s elite private schools told families on Thursday that 'students who feel too emotionally distressed' the day after Election Day will be excused from classes..."
From "Elite School Will Offer a Day Off for Students Distressed by Election/Attendance on Wednesday, or whatever day the results are announced, is optional for high school students at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York City, families were told" (NYT).
"She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay?"
Said Donald Trump, quoted in "Trump suggests 'war hawk' Liz Cheney should have guns 'trained on her face'/The GOP nominee has long vilified the former congresswoman over her criticism of his role in fomenting the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol" (WaPo).
"Job creation stalled in October, with employers adding only 12,000 positions in a month that included a major strike and two destructive hurricanes."
The New York Times reports.
"I have been working in politics since 1980, and in every single presidential election, at this point in the campaign, I had a clear sense of the winner. (OK, I got it wrong in 2016.)"
Says Doug Sosnik, in "How Harris or Trump Could Win This Deadlocked Presidential Race, in 19 Maps" (NYT).
President? What President? We have a President?
"The media is doing its best to play down Joe Biden’s casual insult of half of America as 'garbage'.... Why on earth would anyone assume Mr. Biden would..."
October 31, 2024
"See, one, one of the weirdest things is if you are on the wrong side of their ideology, like if you are aligned with Trump, like RFK Jr is now all of a sudden."
Said Joe Rogan, 48 minutes into his 3+ hour podcast with JD Vance. It's an excellent conversation, and I was particularly interested in what Joe said, because he's been cagey about which side he's on. You can hear that he's concerned that he's getting classified as right-wing.
Later, 2 hours and 7 minutes in, Joe says this about Kamala Harris:
"If you’re not prepared to be sent to a federal prison as a political prisoner, then you’re not worthy to be in this movement, and to step forward and try to save your country."
"This winter, I’ll try to prune more gently, and I’ll probably fail. Perhaps the trees will begin to move incrementally back toward pre-human growth patterns."
Writes Manjula Martin, in "The Rebellion of a Fruitless Apple Tree/As the rest of our culture thrives on overexposure, why shouldn’t a garden have the right to retain an air of mystery?" (The New Yorker).
"And the postmortems after a Trump victory would not focus primarily on any ill-considered, easily weaponized remarks, such as a comment Biden made on Tuesday..."
That's Frank Bruni, over at the NYT, with his pre-postmortem, in a piece called "Biden’s Stake in This Election Is Like Nobody Else’s."
"Although Vice President Kamala Harris recently acknowledged that Iran is a 'destabilizing, dangerous force in the Middle East'..."
Write Jeb Bush and Claire Jungman in The Washington Post — "Why we should return to ‘maximum pressure’ against Iran/The Trump administration policy showed that well-enforced sanctions could cripple Iran’s economy."
"Although Harris acknowledges the Iranian threat, her reluctance to back a stronger stance is puzzling. If Iran is truly the United States’ greatest adversary, avoiding a comprehensive strategy that could neutralize the threat is illogical — particularly when Iran’s proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, are weakened, and Israel, our key ally, is fighting for survival."
Pre-postmortem, Part 2: "Democrats start to point fingers even as they hope for Harris win."
“People are nervous and they’re trying to cover their ass and get a little ahead of Election Day,” one Democratic strategist said of the sniping. “It’s based on anxiety, stakes and the unique nature of this cycle."
“We didn’t have a traditional process for this election. We didn’t have a primary. People just had to fall in line,” the strategist added, saying “it’s not surprising to me” that some of the blame game is happening even before Election Day....
“[Harris] is going to look real silly for not picking Shapiro,” one former aide in the Obama White House said....
[E]ven before Garbage-gate, there were whispers that Biden would be responsible for a Harris defeat....
For Pre-postmortem, Part 1, see the previous post.
"This is pre-postmortem. They know it's lost."
In our reporting, we called dozens of black men across Georgia and heard story after story like this of people who are frustrated with their prospects right now, especially their place in the economy....
You can listen to the whole thing. I'll just say this is what prompted my remark, from a man talking about how his mother would be disappointed to know he hesitated to vote for Harris:
"I'm someone who has been raised with understanding the importance of voting, with understanding how many people sacrifice for us to have this right. To participate in the process. And so to give that vote away, to use that vote in a way that could possibly hurt a candidate like Kamala Harris, you know, it, it kind of goes against what my people have decided. Majority of my people have decided that this is, you know, what we're doing. And for me to vote against Harris would be a little bit of a betrayal."
I've only used the word "pre-postmortem" once before on this blog, but I've been thinking it a lot in the last couple weeks. The prior usage was on October 14th, in a post titled "When Joe Biden called Kamala Harris on the morning of Sunday, July 21st, she was... wearing sweatpants and a hoodie..."
I chose this article to blog first this morning, but it was one of the many headlines I saw that made me want to create a new tag, something like "pre-postmortem."
October 30, 2024
At the Coot Café...
Making the most of Biden's "garbage" remark, Trump arrives at his Green Bay rally wearing garbage worker's gear.
"Nick Newman had replied to a tweet a few weeks back asking me what movies I would recommend. I told him to try The Unknown with Lon Chaney and go from there."
I love that Bob Dylan tweets and how great he is at. The best.
"There are basically only two major continents. Antarctica and everything else..."
From "How Many Continents Are There? You May Not Like the Answers" (NYT)(free-access link so you can read the definitions and so forth).
I've quoted the position of one geologist, but another says that there could be a third continent, Zealandia, which might not be sufficiently connected to Australia to deserve inclusion in the everything-but-Antarctica continent. There are also geologists who say 6 or 5 or 8 or 9. Just don't say 7.
"Mr. Musk has told people close to him in recent months that he envisions his children (of which there are at least 11) and two of their three mothers occupying adjoining properties."
From "Elon Musk Wants Big Families. He Bought a Secret Compound for His. As the billionaire warns of population collapse and the moral obligation to have children, he’s navigating his own complicated family" (NYT)(free-access link).
"[Ex-White House Chief of Staff John] Kelly has always seen the role we shared, that of White House chief of staff, differently than I."
Writes Mick Mulvaney, in "I was Trump’s chief of staff — ex-aide’s Hitler claims are deranged" (NY Post).
The New Republic says "Joe Rogan Offers Pitiful Defense for Why He Won’t Interview Harris."
Criticizing the mayor's "All Chicagoans" mode: How do you decide when to dispense with specificity.
I was sent that by someone who said, "Something that looked this much like a hate crime against a black person would not be answered with a statement that is equivalent to saying all lives matter."Why not mention WHY the victim was shot (because he was Jewish)? Why not mention WHERE the victim was shot (en route to a synagogue)?
— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) October 30, 2024
Any Mayor who cannot be bothered to acknowledge the antisemitism of a hate crime against a Jewish man heading to a synagogue is unworthy of the… pic.twitter.com/HMP64Ra3oO
An undocumented individual from Africa opened fire on an Orthodox Jew and police officers in Chicago, while shouting “Allahu Akbar.”
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) October 29, 2024
When asked the police what did he shout, “um um, we can’t get into it um nothing we can bring as evidence as a motive at this point…” pic.twitter.com/YMe1zzTvOW
"Just moments ago, Joe Biden stated that our supporters are garbage."
October 29, 2024
Goodbye to Teri Garr.
"Speaking of secrets, Harris knew Biden was physically and mentally impaired and kept it a secret. The F.B.I. knew the Hunter Biden laptop was real..."
Said Mike Johnson to the NYT, quoted in "Trump Hints at ‘Little Secret’ With House Republicans, Setting Off a Panic/The former president seemed to delight in fueling speculation about what he is cooking up with House Republicans, prompting Democrats to worry about election fraud. Speaker Mike Johnson refused to explain."
"'[Musk] believes that if Trump wins Pennsylvania, he wins the election. He’s told us that repeatedly. He’s treating this almost like it’s a business deal'..."
From "Elon Musk is the October surprise of the 2024 election/The billionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO, and owner of X, has interjected himself into a presidential race like no other titan before him" (WaPo)(free-access link, my last of the month, so use it well).
"Robert Zemeckis’ film 'Here' is an object lesson in how to take a touching idea and make an extremely annoying movie out of it...."
From the NY Post review of "Here."
Let's read WaPo's "note from our owner": "The hard truth: Americans don’t trust the news media."
In the annual public surveys about trust and reputation, journalists and the media have regularly fallen near the very bottom, often just above Congress. But in this year’s Gallup poll, we have managed to fall below Congress. Our profession is now the least trusted of all. Something we are doing is clearly not working.
He's calling it a "profession," so it should have a system of ethical principles that must be followed, even if the polls don't go your way.
People don't want to shout out their own name, but Kamala Harris seems to have thought it would be a cool way to demonstrate that "It's about all of us."
But she got silence. She still pretended she'd received the desired response, and declared the conclusion to be derived from the demonstration that hadn't happened: "It's about all of us."This might be the most awkward moment ever, the second-hand embarassment is real pic.twitter.com/ObaMKPR9c3
— TaraBull (@TaraBull808) October 29, 2024
October 28, 2024
"Why is Donald Trump going to win? The people he's about to defeat have no idea."
"[Ketanji Brown] Jackson is not alone among Justices in telling her life story."
Writes Amy Davidson Sorkin, in "What Can Memoirs by Supreme Court Justices Teach Us? We’re primed to read Justices’ accounts of their lives for clues to their jurisprudence. Should we?" (The New Yorker).
"Taking pictures of the same things over and over can emphasize the rhythms of existence."
Writes Joshua Rothman, in "What Can You Learn from Photographing Your Life? Pictures of the mundane can capture much more" (The New Yorker).
Trump likened to a lion and to Elon Musk's rocket.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 28, 2024I have to just try to imagine the people who get all jazzed up by music and montage like that. Here's something — also pro-Trump and heavy on the A.I. — that I saw yesterday and found more appealing:
Joe Rogan would like to have a conversation with Kamala Harris "like a human being — that's all I want to do — that's literally all I want to do."
"I want to know what is it like to be — I don't even give a fuck about all all stuff she's talked about about policies and all these different things. We all know her positions.... Who are you? Who are you?... I would be willing to talk about anything other than politics.... If there was some certain things they didn't want to talk about, like fine, I don't care, let's talk. I want to know who you are. I can find out who you are if we can talk about sports.... I want to talk to her like a human being...."
Who are you? Who are you?... Yes, we all have that question.
Elite media reacts to Trump's MSG extravaganza by zeroing in on Tony Hinchcliffe (Kill Tony).
• "As Trump courts their vote, comedian at his rally makes racist jokes about Latinos and Puerto Rico Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made crude jokes about Latinos having babies and called Puerto Rico a 'floating island of garbage,' drawing a rebuke from several Republicans" (NBC News)
• "Trump’s New York homecoming sparks backlash over racist and vulgar remarks/A pro-Trump comedian’s racist diatribe drew widespread condemnation" (Politico)
• "Anti-Puerto Rico comments at Trump rally spur outrage as Bad Bunny supports Harris/The artist’s gesture of support came as a number of speakers at a Trump event in New York made racist and disparaging comments about Puerto Ricans and other Latinos" (WaPo)
• "A Trump Rally Speaker Trashed Puerto Ricans. Harris Reached Out to Them. Her campaign moved swiftly to highlight that even as a speaker at Donald Trump’s rally in New York made offensive remarks about Puerto Rico and Latinos, she was visiting Puerto Rican voters in Philadelphia" (NYT)I started watching the rally at 4 Central Time — when I put up a post — so I hadn't seen the Hinchcliffe routine in real time. My first instinct was to watch the entire 12 minutes of his routine. Here. You can use the Althouse method of determining what somebody said. Listen to him, in context:
• "There's literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. Yeah. I think it's called Puerto Rico."
• "I think that Travis Kelce might be the next OJ Simpson."
• Purporting to see a black friend in the audience: "He had a Halloween party last night. We had fun. We carved watermelons together."
• "Wars. It is unbelievable what's happening right now. It is incredible. Ukraine versus Russia. Israel/Palestine. It's like bad soccer games. Who even cares?"
Hinchcliffe had another comic move. With a foundation of failed jokes before the tough crowd, he was in position to comment when the crowd finally, genuinely responded with real spontaneous laughter at one of them. Here's that joke:
"It feels good in here. The other side's got a lot of crazy endorsements. Swift, Eminem, Leo DiCaprio, Beyonce. Every day the Democratic party looks more and more like a P Diddy party."
October 27, 2024
JD Vance versus Jake Tapper.
NEW: JD Vance shuts down a very emotional Jake Tapper over CNN’s constant coverage of hoaxes.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 27, 2024
Tapper, who was very emotional throughout the interview, sat as Vance roasted CNN for their biased coverage.
Vance: Ask yourself a basic question about network integrity. You guys… pic.twitter.com/0Ce84sWrH3
BREAKING: JD Vance called out Fake Tapper for the lies he pushed about Russiagate earlier this morning
— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) October 27, 2024
Tapper denied telling any lies
So here are 3.5 minutes of Jake Tapper spreading Russiagate conspiracy theory pic.twitter.com/qeiFMtimx9
"Voters prefer Harris’s agenda to Trump’s — they just don’t realize it. Take our quiz."
But I'll supply you with a free link anyway: here. Let them prove to you what you really want.
Is it anti-democratic to believe that voters don't really know what they want? There's some higher knowledge of what is really wanted that is beyond the reach of the voters... but not beyond the reach of The Washington Post.
Hey, this quiz is 5 days old! Why is it in the top right corner of the WaPo home page?
Is there so little new news that can work to encourage readers to vote for Kamala? Searching the entire front page, I find "See how people like you vote," "Polls are tied, voters dig in and Harris, Trump scratch for any advantage," "Michelle Obama implores men to support Harris to protect women’s health," "To understand the U.S. economic success is to love Harris’s plan," and — my favorite — "Harris talks increasingly about her faith but walks a careful line.""You know how polls are done. Oh, I'm gonna get myself in trouble, but, so I really don't believe too much in 'em...."
"Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality."
A NYT columnist wonders about "Eminem’s endorsement, and the way he made it" and it makes me question whether Eminem did endorse Harris.
What was special about the way he made what Grose is calling his "endorsement"? Reading the transcript and rewatching the video, I realized that Eminem did not make an endorsement at all — not of a candidate anyway. What Eminem endorsed was freedom of speech. That's where he put his Michigan clout:Obama casually rapping a few bars of “Lose Yourself” got a lot more attention than Eminem’s brief speech. But in this tight election that could be decided by a few swing states — including Michigan — I wonder if Eminem’s endorsement, and the way he made it, will be the most consequential one that Vice President Harris receives.