Sunrise — 7:33, 7:36.

People seem to think this squirrel story is going to get Trump elected.

You've seen this, no doubt: "Peanut the Squirrel, beloved pet and internet sensation, euthanized after being seized by NY state" (NY Post).

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."

So why hasn't Biden resigned or been ousted using the 25th Amendment?

Asks Glenn Reynolds in "Harris would be as much a figurehead as Biden — and we’d be ruled by the swamp" (NY Post).

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....

The loon at sunrise...

... on Lake Mendota at 7:35:

"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..."

"Hewitt stormed off the set during the online show 'First Look' with Jonathan Capehart and Ruth Marcus, who claimed former President Donald Trump was 'laying the groundwork'” to contest Tuesday’s election if he lost. After being cut off by Capehart, an MSNBC host, and then accused by him of spouting misinformation, Hewitt ripped out his earpiece and said: 'I’m done. This is the most unfair election ad I’ve ever been a part of.' Hewitt, who hosts a nationally syndicated radio show, then quit the paper, which has been roiled by owner Jeff Bezos’ decision to kill an endorsement for Vice President Kamala Harris."

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..."

"... and never had a hair out of place, refusing to take off his jacket in company even on hot nights. He was given to incomprehensible monologues and Garbo-like utterances such as 'You don’t seem to understand that I want to be alone.'... He once entered a room, wrinkled his nose, and commented to his host, 'It smells old in here.' Mondrian was known for planting bizarre, forceful and one-sided kisses, some lasting 30 minutes, on women. Yet he mostly felt women got in men’s way; the feminine was 'hostile to the spirit.' He once remarked, 'Every bit of semen expended is a masterpiece lost.'"

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."

"In 2019, she introduced herself at a CNN town hall by saying, 'My pronouns are she, her and hers.' Today, she changes the topic when asked whether she would honor her pledge to guarantee that detained immigrants, prisoners and anyone else under the government’s care can access gender affirming surgery. 'I think we should follow the law,' she said in a recent interview with NBC News, moving on quickly.... At the same time, Ms. Harris has not explicitly acknowledged any distance from the party’s left flank.... The question for those in the progressive wing of the party is whether they continue to pursue some of their more polarizing ideas about identity.... Whether Ms. Harris wins or loses next week, few expect full capitulation or retreat...."

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..."

Wrote Philip Larkin, in a poem called "Party Politics," analyzed by A.O. Scott, in "A Poem About Waiting, and Wishing You Had a Drink/Our critic A.O. Scott walks you through a poem that speaks to his mood right now. It’s called 'Party Politics,' but it’s not about those parties, or those politics." (NYT)(gift link, because there's some great analysis and images too, including a photo of Philip Larkin sitting on the floor and dumping a Pee Wee Russell LP out of its album cover).

The party seems to be a cocktail party, but you can see that he's talking about human interaction more generally. If you want those in control of the flow of liquor to fill up your glass, are you better off drinking the whole thing and standing there with an empty glass, or better off holding onto it in the half full — half empty! — condition?

By the way, I recommend not reading past the photograph of Philip on the floor with that record he wants to play for us. There are 4 more paragraphs, and they raise a separate topic — whether Larkin was "canceled" and is supposed to stay canceled — and it's an insulting distraction from what is otherwise a delightful essay.

Here — here's Pee Wee:

"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.'"

Said Steve Bannon, quoted in "Trump, Preparing to Challenge the Results, Puts His 2020 Playbook Into Action/Step by step, Donald J. Trump and his allies are following the strategies that caused chaos four years ago. Election officials say they are ready this time" (NYT)(gift link, because there's a lot of procedural detail to see).

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."

Perhaps you've heard this part of the Joe Rogan podcast with JD Vance:

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:

Sunrise — 7:16, 7:25, 7:33, 7:45.

"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."

Writes Kenneth L. Khachigian, who was chief speechwriter to Ronald Reagan and an aide to Richard Nixon, quoted in "The Three Reasons Harris Will Lose the Election/Traditional Democrats are deserting the party, she was unprepared, and she has no clear message" (Wall Street Journal)(no subscription needed).

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..."

"... and that psychologists will be available during the week to provide counseling. In a section of an email to members of the school’s community headed 'Election Day support,' Stacey Bobo, principal of the upper school at the institution, the Ethical Culture Fieldston School, said that it 'acknowledges that this may be a high-stakes and emotional time for our community.' 'No matter the election outcome,' she wrote, the school 'will create space to provide students with the support they may need.' No homework will be assigned on Election Day, the email said, and no student assessments will take place on Wednesday. Excused absences will be allowed on Wednesday or whatever day the election results are announced for students who feel unable to 'fully engage in 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).

Annual tuition at this school: $65,540.

"What kind of lives have these people led that makes them think that this is the right way to handle young people? To encourage them to buckle. This is the lesson they are providing, for ungodly sums of money" — said Jerry Seinfeld, whose kids used to go to this school.