October 15, 2024
"Vice President Kamala Harris has gone 86 days as the presumptive, and now, official Democratic nominee for president without holding an official press conference."
Says Fox News, just Fox News, but isn't it true?
It seems impossible. I'm reading about this and that podcast, and an occasional interview with a mainstream newsperson, such as Fox's Bret Baier coming up, but never a news conference. How is it possible to rise to the presidency without one attempt at handling a press conference?
"Nothing has come to fruition. Look at the schools, the playgrounds, the parks. Downtown is struggling. In our community, typically, we vote for Democrats."
Said Ahmad Taylor, 47, of Pontiac, Michigan, quoted in "In a Michigan city, Harris has failed to catch fire with Black men/In December, Black men in Pontiac told The Post they were unenthused about Biden. Now, some feel the same about Harris" (WaPo)(free-access link).
"In a July interview... Rogan called Harris 'the worst'... said he was bothered to see her suddenly viewed as a 'hero' and 'solution,' wondered if she was medicated..."
From "Trump And Harris May Appear On Joe Rogan’s Podcast—Despite His Harsh Comments About Both" (Forbes).
I'm seeing that Trump is going on Rogan's show and that Harris is "in talks" to go on the show. If the "talks" don't result in an actual appearance on the show, I would expect Rogan to tell us what the Harris people wanted that he refused to give. I trust him to maintain his usual standards, which I believe give him freedom to ask what he wants and deny the guest any power to edit. It's hard to believe Harris's people would submit to that. Even the "talks" feel like desperation. It's risky for her to go on the show, and I believe she is risking having him release his own rant describing the failed talks and crediting Trump for simply going on the show like anyone else.
We were watching Trump's Oaks, Pennsylvania town hall live, so we experienced the shift from talk to pure music....
"It makes a weird kind of sense that 'The Apprentice' is arriving in theaters Friday, a week after 'Joker: Folie à Deux.'"
October 14, 2024
"And thus, on this tooth and claw planet, you need a very strong military - so I’m going to stick with the idea that ['Full Metal Jacket'] footage was used primarily because of its powerful, realistic portrayal of boot camp..."
TO THOSE WHO THINK MY FATHER WOULDN’T HAVE WANTED #TRUMP TO USE FMJ FOOTAGE
— Vivian Kubrick (@ViKu1111) October 13, 2024
Here are my thoughts: I agree in principle that an anti-war movie is incongruous with promoting the idea of a tough non-woke US military and thus war itself - however - these are very dangerous and… https://t.co/0bSXz8nL3V
Reading the rabbit's mind.
After pausing to take a photo of a flower along the trail, I looked up to see a doe standing directly in the path in front of me.... Later on, while sitting to take in a quiet moment, I watched as a rabbit popped out of the bush onto the trail, ears twitching. The two of us stayed there together for a minute, maybe two. Then she ran off a second before I heard the dog coming toward us. It wasn’t safe for a rabbit with a potential predator close by....
I see rabbits all the time, in our yard and along the nearby woodland trails, and the rabbits are always the same. They freeze at first, and then they suddenly bolt. It doesn't take a dog to trigger the shift from frozen to hopping the hell out of there. The rabbit has 2 modes. The column writer interprets it her way, flattering herself by imagining the rabbit is communing with her, followed by fear of the dog. But I think I've seen far more rabbits than the author. That doesn't make my reading of the rabbit's mind perfect. But I'm thinking that the rabbit isn't thinking anything at all, but is programmed by evolution to alternate between 2 strategies: 1. Look invisible, 2. Become invisible. That is: 1. Freeze, 2. Run. The rabbit does the same thing every time.
And, by the way, no matter how gently you may move through the woods and how fondly you may regard bunnies, when you, the human being, are around, for the rabbit, there is "a potential predator close by."
I don't like this random worker being embarrassed. She didn't ask to be exploited as scenery.
Just a pro-tip for Kamala campaign staffers...
— Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) October 14, 2024
When you film Bill Clinton going to a McDonalds for a campaign stop... you might want to edit out the part where the cashier thinks he's Joe Biden.
What a complete mess. pic.twitter.com/NEKdBVWjs9
"The relationship between Kamala Harris' team and Joe Biden's White House has been increasingly fraught in the final weeks before Election Day..."
[M]any senior Biden aides remain wounded by the president being pushed out of his re-election bid and are still adjusting to being in a supporting role on the campaign trail.Go to the link for a list a specific clashes.
"They're too much in their feelings," one close Harris ally said of the president's team — a sentiment shared even by some White House aides....
"When Joe Biden called Kamala Harris on the morning of Sunday, July 21st, she was... wearing sweatpants and a hoodie..."
Writes Evan Osnos, in "Kamala Harris’s Hundred-Day Campaign/Three months ago, the Vice-President was fighting for respect in Washington. Can she defy her doubters—and end the Trump era?" (The New Yorker).
October 13, 2024
"Maybe Musk’s time would be better spent doing concentrating on SpaceX and his other corporate interests instead of engaging in fascist politics and peddling trash through his social media platform at X!"
That's the top-rated comment at "SpaceX successfully catches returning Starship rocket/The uncrewed mission on Sunday was the company’s first successful attempt to 'catch' its Starship rocket as it lowered itself down to the launch pad" (WaPo)('A SpaceX Starship rocket successfully landed upright alongside a massive metal landing tower on Sunday as it was caught by two converging 'chopstick' arms — marking another historic engineering breakthrough for the company’s largest rocket").
Meanwhile, "peddling trash through his social media platform at X," Musks posts this:
And this:Starship rocket booster caught by tower pic.twitter.com/aOQmSkt6YE
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 13, 2024
"NYT reporter Lulu Garcia-Navarro sits in silence as JD Vance educates her on the labor force participation rate relating to illegal immigration."
ADDED: I don't agree that Garcia-Navarro is silenced by Vance. She lets him have his say, but she also breaks in. She's challenging him with a practical point that I don't think Harris supporters like to be explicit about. From the NYT transcript (with Garcia-Navarro in boldface, interrupting Vance 5 times):NYT reporter Lulu Garcia-Navarro sits in silence as JD Vance educates her on the labor force participation rate relating to illegal immigration.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 12, 2024
Garcia-Navarro tried arguing that illegal immigrants can't be deported because America needs them for jobs.
She pointed to the… pic.twitter.com/SiNwyldSwR
"Although Mr. Trump is not expected to be competitive in California, the rally showed that he could turn out a crowd."
Writes Neil Vigdor, in "Trump Hits Coachella, Campaigning Once Again in a Blue State/The former president took a detour from the battleground states to hold a rally in the California desert, where temperatures hovered near 100 degrees" (NYT).