Sunrise — 5:23, 5:26, 5:37, 5:43

Today's photos are all by Meade. I slept through it all.

"Last week, I took a bullet for democracy."

Said Donald Trump at his rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan just now.

If you think his convention speech went long, this speech was half an hour longer. It clocked in at two hours.

The speech wasn't just long. He was talking quite fast. Fast and crisply enunciated. Strong. I had the feeling maybe the brush with death had heightened his sense that he needs to compress his energy and do more and more. At the end, when it was time to walk out, he seemed to want to linger, as if the rally was life itself, and he didn't want to leave.

"The Trump team has already prepared opposition research books on Ms. Harris...."

"In particular, the Trump team plans to attack her over the border crisis, one that the president tasked her with finding the 'root causes' of.... They are also looking to define her based on her tenure as a senator in California and, before that, her time as the state’s attorney general and as the district attorney of San Francisco, where her record during her 2020 presidential campaign was alternately criticized as too conservative, or too lenient toward first-time drug offenders. According to people briefed on the strategy, if Mr. Biden drops out of the 2024 race but doesn’t resign as president, Republicans will argue that the reasons he quit the race are the same reasons he’s unfit to remain as commander in chief. They will try to tie Ms. Harris to Mr. Biden by claiming there was a broad effort to prevent the public from seeing the president’s deterioration and suggest she was part of that effort...."

From "Trump Campaign Prepares Attack Plan for Harris in Case Biden Withdraws/The effort, which includes expansive advertising and polling, assumes that the vice president would be the most likely candidate to replace the president at the top of the Democratic ticket" (NYT).

Things that are in the movie "Hillbilly Elegy" but not in the book.

1. Meals on Wheels

2. Funyuns

3. ... 

"Attacks without clear motivation aren’t unusual and have increased, researchers say, in part as a reflection of the ideologies that swirl together on social media..."

"... and gaming platforms, creating a toxic soup of grievances with no cohesive political agenda. Authorities have cited unclear or overlapping beliefs in recent plots or violence where, for example, white nationalism melded with misogynistic 'incel' subcultures, or when a member of a satanic neo-Nazi group invoked Islamist militancy in what the Justice Department called a 'a diabolical cocktail of ideologies.'"

From "Lack of motive in Trump attack frustrates public, but fits a pattern/Terrorism analysts say Trump’s would-be assassin is among a string of high-profile assailants with unknown or murky reasons for turning violent" (WaPo).

I thought at least you could say that shooting multiple bullets at Trump's head was anti-Trump, but apparently not.

We're supposed to stand back while the officials mull it all over, perhaps to tell us years from now that one can never really know the inside of anyone else's head. But until that modern-day equivalent of the Warren Report issues from the earnest authorities, please note that the Justice Department has bellied up to the bar of your mind and ordered a diabolical cocktail of white nationalism melded with misogynistic incel subculture and garnished with satanic neo-Nazism. Drink deeply and ideate about the right-wing morsels that might have swirled in the toxic soup of young Mr. Crooks's mind.

"The crab warned her. The goldfish warned her."

"Tell me who enlarged NATO. Tell me who did the Pacific basin. Tell me who did something that you never done with your Bronze Star — and your — like my son — and, you know — proud of your leadership. But guess what? Well, what’s happening? We got Korea and Japan working together."

That's what "Biden snapped over Zoom at Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), a decorated, retired Army Ranger, according to a recording of the virtual meeting with House Democrats," reported in "Behind the scenes as Joe Biden lost control of the Democratic Party/Many Democrats described the first three weeks of July as a kind of nightmare — too extraordinary to be real, too unexpected to be believed" (WaPo).

"Lost control" is right. Lost control of the Washington Post too — whatever control he had. Selecting that quote — it's in the third paragraph of the article — shows vicious hostility. 

To get hung up by Crow's Bronze Star! Is there any coherence to "who did something that you never done with your Bronze Star — and your — like my son"?

He's saying he did something as President that Crow hasn't done, even though Crow won a Bronze Star, and he's distracted onto the topic of his deceased son, perhaps because the son is always on his mind but probably because that son also won a Bronze Star.

I wondered why Beau Biden won was awarded a Bronze Star and found some discussion here. I believe it had to do with service in a combat zone and not for a particular act of heroism.

But Crow's Bronze Star has the "V" device for combat valor or heroism during the battle. He was the a platoon leader in the 82nd Airborne Division in the Battle of Samawah in 2003. To get up in Crow's face over the Bronze Star is just insane.

Joe Biden seems bereft of the ordinary tools of human interchange. His son died. Go home and grieve constantly if that's what you really need to do, but don't use your dead son randomly as a weapon when you run short of things to say. Quite aside from how the Democrats are going to extricate themselves from the idiotic jam they've gotten themselves into, the entire world is put at risk when the President of the United States has lost his mind.

"I appreciate President Zelenskyy for reaching out because I, as your next President of the United States, will bring peace to the world and end the war...

"... that has cost so many lives and devastated countless innocent families. Both sides will be able to come together and negotiate a deal that ends the violence and paves a path forward to prosperity."

Wrote Donald Trump last evening (on Truth Social).

Zelenskyy, we're told, called Trump to congratulate him for his nomination, to "condemn[] the heinous assassination attempt," and to "remark[] about the American people coming together in the spirit of Unity."

The NYT report about the phone call says that it came "amid mounting concern in Kyiv that a second Trump administration would spell the end of American support in Ukraine’s fight against Russia." And:

"The publics of many of our allies, and those countries we seek to build stronger relationships with, have traditional Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or Hindu moral values,"

"If confirmed, how would you explain to them what the United States' promoting 'human rights for LGBTQ people' would look like in their country?"

From a questionnaire J.D. Vance gave to nominees seeking Senate confirmation as ambassadors, quoted in "Leaked memo shows J.D. Vance’s anti-woke ideology on foreign affairs/Trump’s VP pick froze dozens of ambassador nominations over issues like gender transition care and diversity hiring, offering a glimpse into his anti-establishment views" (WaPo).

Sunrise — 5:38, 5:39, 5:48.

"Viewed from the traditional American abundance mind-set, MAGA looks less like an American brand of conservatism and more like a European brand of conservatism."

"It resembles all those generations of Russian chauvinists who argued that the Russian masses embody all that is good but they are threatened by aliens from the outside. MAGA looks like a kind of right-wing Marxism, which assumes that class struggle is the permanent defining feature of politics. MAGA is a fortress mentality, but America has traditionally been defined by a pioneering mentality. MAGA offers a strong shell, but not much in the way of wings needed to soar. If Democrats are to thrive, they need to tap into America’s dynamic cultural roots and show how they can be applied to the 21st century. It should be said that social dynamism is more complicated than it appears at first blush. It’s not just getting on your Harley and hitting the open road. It’s not really about rugged individualism or the libertarian version of freedom as the absence of constraint...."

Writes David Brooks, in "What Democrats Need to Do Now" (NYT).

Somehow I thought you should know he's saying that. Be it known that it’s not just a matter of getting on your Harley and hitting the open road. 

Fungus of the Day.

"Seeing Donald Trump get up after getting shot in the face and pump his fist in the air with the American flag is one of the most badass things I've ever seen in my life."

"But look, as an American, it's, like, hard not to get emotional about that spirit and that fight. And I think that's why a lot of people like the guy."

Said Mark Zuckerberg, who's not endorsing anyone this time around.

Mark Zuckerberg says that it’s "hard not to get emotional" about the spirit Trump showed getting up and pumping his fist with the American flag behind him after being shot. He says it’s "one of the most badass things I've ever seen."

What is happening? 😳pic.twitter.com/YV2MkQBIpb

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) July 19, 2024

Absolutely he's in... until he's out.

"Absolutely the president is in this race, you've heard him say that time and time again... He is the best person to take on Donald Trump."

"Absolutely the president is in this race, you've heard him say that time and time again... He is the best person to take on Donald Trump."

— Biden campaign chair @jomalleydillon says Biden is not exiting the presidential race pic.twitter.com/zElSb3fG4X

— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) July 19, 2024

"One of his signature bits, where an advertising man coaches Abraham Lincoln before the Gettysburg Address..."

"... was a pointed critique of the cynicism of professional politics. 'Hi, Abe, sweetheart' begins the man from Madison Avenue, who encourages him to work in a plug for an Abraham Lincoln T-shirt. When the president says he wants to change 'four score and seven years ago' to '87,' the ad man first patiently explains they already test marketed this in Erie. Then he says: 'It’s sort of like Mark Antony saying "Friends, Romans, countrymen, I’ve got something I want to tell you."'"

Writes Jason Zinoman, in "Bob Newhart Holds Up/He basically invented the stand-up special in 1960 and continued to be a source of comic brilliance until his final years" (NYT).

Listen to the Abe Lincoln routine here (at YouTube).

I would have blogged that passage anyway, so it is by mere chance that in 2 posts in a row I'm quoting something that contains a quote from Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar." The line quoted above is from Act III, Scene II, with Antony speaking at Caesar's funeral:

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.
I have come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interrèd with their bones.

In the previous post, Maureen Dowd had written that Trump, at the convention, "played the Roman emperor, like a Julius Caesar who survived that 'foul deed' and 'bleeding piece of earth,' fist in the air, sitting high in the forum, gloating, as his vanquished foes bent the knee." The internal quotes, from Act III, Scene I, are spoken by Antony over the dead body of Julius Caesar:

O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.

"At the convention, he had a new role: He played the Roman emperor, like a Julius Caesar who survived that 'foul deed' and 'bleeding piece of earth,' fist in the air..."

"... sitting high in the forum, gloating, as his vanquished foes bent the knee. Caesar had a cult of personality as well, the epitome of the strongman authoritarian politician. That Caesar was martyred. But before that he had already eroded republican rule and was on his way to emperor. (Some Trump supporters on X call Barron 'Octavian.').... Playing Caesar, Trump asked gladiators to speak before his speech: Dana White, the U.F.C. chief, to introduce him, which seemed fitting since Trump always treated politics like a blood sport, and Hulk Hogan, the W.W.E. star. Hogan ripped off his shirt to show his muscly arms and a red Trump-Vance T-shirt. He said he was 'bleeding like a pig' the last time he saw Trump at a championship match at Trump Plaza. 'I know tough guys,' Hogan said. 'But let me tell you something, brother: Donald Trump is the toughest of them all.' Trump blew Hogan a kiss...."

Writes Maureen Dowd, in "Trump the Lion, or Trump the Lyin’?" (NYT).

This makes me think of a trend from last year: "The Roman empire: why men just can’t stop thinking about it/Women across the world are asking men how often the ancient civilisation pops into their head – and the answer is frequently startling" (Guardian). Back then, the women were flummoxed. What's up with men thinking about the Roman Empire "three or four times a month," "every couple of days" or "at least once a day."

But here's Maureen Dowd, famously female, going all Roman Empire on us. Why is this happening?