;)
Saturday
Aug102024
The Conversation -- August 10, 2024
Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "... Donald Trump's campaign said Saturday that some of its internal communications had been hacked. The acknowledgment came after Politico began receiving emails from an anonymous account with documents from inside Trump's operation. The campaign blamed 'foreign sources hostile to the United States,' citing a Microsoft report on Friday that Iranian hackers 'sent a spear phishing email in June to a high-ranking official on a presidential campaign.' Microsoft did not identify the campaign targeted by the email and declined to comment Saturday.... On July 22, Politico began receiving emails from an anonymous account. Over the course of the past few weeks, the person -- who used an AOL email account and identified themselves only as 'Robert' -- relayed what appeared to be internal communications from a senior Trump campaign official. A research dossier the campaign had apparently done on Trump's running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, which was dated Feb. 23, was included in the documents. The documents are authentic, according to two people familiar with them...."
~~~~~~~~~~
Presidential Race
Kellen Browning & Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times: "Vice President Kamala Harris rolled into Arizona on Friday evening with the same political momentum that has infused her first swing across the country this week, drawing a crowd that her campaign estimated at more than 15,000 -- her largest yet -- in a Western state that not long ago appeared to be falling off the battleground map. Along with her newly minted running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, Ms. Harris delivered a stump speech that is barely a week old, and yet familiar enough to an impassioned new following that some shouted her lines before she did. The rally was her fourth in four days with an arena-filling crowd that demonstrated the degree to which her candidacy replacing President Biden's had remade the 2024 race.... Despite her momentum, Ms. Harris faces an uphill battle in Arizona, a longtime Republican stronghold that flipped to Mr. Biden in 2020 but, according to polling, had been drifting back to ... Donald J. Trump this year." ~~~
~~~ Hannah Knowles, et al., of the Washington Post: "The rallies have seemingly grown bigger by the day as Democrats try to harness the newfound enthusiasm for their nominee with just three months before Election Day.... Attendees waited for hours Friday in 105-degree heat to enter the Desert Diamond Arena, as the campaign provided water, chairs and campaign-branded navy cardboard fans to try to keep attendees cool...."
Fin Gómez & Nidia Cavazos of CBS News: "The nation's oldest and largest Latino civil rights organization, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), has done something it has not done since its founding in 1929 -- it endorsed a presidential candidate. The organization's political arm, the LULAC Adelante PAC, announced its endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday in a press release.... The endorsement comes with Harris set to hold rallies in Glendale, Arizona on Friday and Las Vegas, Nevada on Saturday. They are two critical battleground states with large Latino populations." (Also linked yesterday.)
Lisa Lerer & Ruth Igielnik of the New York Times: "Vice President Kamala Harris leads ... Donald J. Trump in three crucial battleground states, according to new surveys by The New York Times and Siena College, the latest indication of a dramatic reversal in standing for Democrats after President Biden's departure from the presidential race remade it. Ms. Harris is ahead of Mr. Trump by four percentage points in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, 50 percent to 46 percent among likely voters in each state. The surveys were conducted from Aug. 5 to 9.... Still, the results show vulnerabilities for Ms. Harris. Voters prefer Mr. Trump when it comes to whom they trust to handle the economy and immigration, issues that remain central to the presidential race." MB: Because tariffs on all imports, Trump controlling the Fed, mass deportations of anyone who can say "Buenos dias," and kids in cages are all excellent policies. Good thinking, voters.
Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post has pretty much everything you want to know about the veracity of the attacks -- so far -- on Tim Walz's service record. In one case, Walz has been criticized for saying "in war" instead of "of war." Here Kessler finds "Walz's language was sloppy and false." MB: My overall take is that Walz, who is an exuberant guy, over the course of his decades of public remarks, occasionally got a little imprecise in describing his military service. As a person who never put a boot to the ground herself, I'll be damned if I'll be any more critical than thanking Walz for his service. ~~~
~~~ Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post: “Republicans have rummaged through their vast library of dirty tricks and pulled out a 20-year-old playbook to attack Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.... Pushback from Democrats should be fast, hard and unrelenting."
Also from Knowles, et al., Washington Post report: "Donald Trump, meanwhile, is in red territory at a rally in Montana on Friday, where Republicans are in a fierce race to unseat Sen. Jon Tester (D) but have won handily in recent presidential elections.... Trump -- who spent the first half of the summer gaining momentum -- has had to retool for a new opponent and grown upset about Harris's rise." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Trump headlined a rally in Bozeman, Montana, in a venue that holds more than 8,000 people. He nearly filled it. When a reporter asked Trump at his press availability Thursday, he called it "a stupid question." But it's not only his absence from the campaign trail that suggests Trump is finding campaigning too taxing -- because now he's complaining about it. Michael Gold in Friday's New York Times election blog wrote, "Donald Trump, perhaps flicking at his travel woes earlier after his plane suffered a mechanical issue and was diverted to another city, reflected on how long it takes to travel to Montana. 'I've got to like Tim Sheehy [the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate] a lot to be here,' he said." ~~~
~~~ Flight Problems, Ctd. Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump on Friday afternoon vehemently maintained that he had once been in a dangerous helicopter landing with Willie Brown, the former mayor of San Francisco, and insisted he had records to prove it, despite Mr. Brown's denial. In an angry phone call to a New York Times reporter [-- Haberman --] as he landed several hours away from his planned rally in Bozeman, Mont., because of a mechanical issue on his plane, Mr. Trump excoriated The Times for its coverage of his meandering news conference on Thursday at Mar-a-Lago..., during which he told of an emergency landing during a helicopter trip that he said both he and Mr. Brown had made together.... 'We have the flight records of the helicopter,' Mr. Trump insisted Friday, saying the helicopter had landed 'in a field,' and indicating that he intended to release the flight records, before shouting that he was 'probably going to sue' over the Times article. When asked to produce the flight records, Mr. Trump responded mockingly, repeating the request in a sing-song voice. As of early Friday evening, he had not provided them. Mr. Trump has a history of claiming he will provide evidence to back up his claims but ultimately not doing so." ~~~
~~~ ⭐Update. "I Guess We All Look Alike." Christopher Cadelago of Politico: "The man who almost crashed in a helicopter with Donald Trump told Politico Trump confused him with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.... It was Nate Holden, a former city councilman and state senator from Los Angeles, who said in an exclusive interview late Friday that he remembers the near-death [helicopter] experience well. He and others believe it happened sometime in 1990.... Also aboard [the flight, which was supposed to go from Trump Tower in Manhattan to Atlantic City,] was Trump's late brother, Robert, the attorney Harvey Freedman and Barbara Res, Trump's former executive vice president of construction and development.... On that ride, she said the pilots started feverishly maneuvering the equipment as the chopper lurched over the water. 'From the corner of my eye, I can see in the cockpit and what I see is the co-pilot pumping a device with all his might,' Res wrote in her book. 'Very shortly thereafter the pilot let us know he had lost some instruments and we would need to make an emergency landing,' she wrote. 'By now, the helicopter was shaking like crazy.'... Holden assured a [Politico] reporter that nobody discussed -- let alone criticized -- Kamala Harris as Trump claimed Brown did." Read the whole story.
Maggie Haberman & Jonathan Swan of the New York Times: An August 2 fundraiser for Donald Trump in Bridgehampton, N.Y. "came amid a stretch of flailing and self-harm that began after President Biden's July 21 withdrawal from the race and endorsement of Ms. Harris to succeed him. Close Trump allies have described this as the rockiest period of Mr. Trump's campaign.... As Ms. Harris -- long ridiculed and underestimated -- has transformed the contest, campaigning energetically and drawing roughly even with Mr. Trump in many polls, Mr. Trump has responded with one unforced error after another while struggling to land on an effective and consistent argument against her.... Mr. Trump has often been in a foul mood the past few weeks." ~~~
~~~ Marie: All I want is to get to the part of the story where Queen Kamala figures out Trumplethinskin's name, thus depriving him of his prize, and in a fury, he rends himself in two. As a rule, I don't care for blood & gore, but here I'd like a visual, please.
digby, in Salon, conducts an autopsy of Trump's press availability Thursday: "He was dour and angry and frankly is starting to look a whole lot older, just in the past few months. He's not enjoying himself and it shows and compared to the excited crowds greeting Harris and Walz this week this sad, pathetic appearance seemed almost funereal. Donald Trump isn't fun anymore. I think he's considering for the first time that he might lose again and he is not psychologically equipped to deal with that reality.... There's a look of panic in his eyes right now."
Clay Risen, whose day job at the New York Times is writing obituaries, has a longish piece in the Times Magazine in which he attempts to describe the "New Right," which as far as I can tell from his description is a bunch of not very bright guys who share the legacy of several generations of not very bright guys, all of whom are/were dedicated to pushing back against cosmopolitan, upper-crust liberal tyrants and establishment conservatives. One problem with Risen's report is that it puts JayDee Vance & Running Man Josh Hawley in the same sentences with "intellectual." MB: I keep getting JayDee mixed up with the Beverly Hillbillies for some reason I can't quite put my finger on, particularly because Buddy Ebsen had a lot more sense than JayDee, As for Josh, he does remind me of Benny Hill, although again if I had to get stuck someplace with one or the other of them, I'd pick Benny.
Neil Bedi, et al., of the New York Times: "For about two and a half minutes, at least five Pennsylvania law enforcement officers converged around the warehouse where a gunman had clambered onto a roof near a rally held by ... Donald J. Trump, struggling to reach the attacker before he shot at Mr. Trump, newly released police videos and a social media video show. The body-cam and dashcam footage, paired with an eyewitness video posted on YouTube, provide new insight into the presence of and the response by Pennsylvania law enforcement at the building where the gunman, Thomas Crooks, was positioned. They reveal for the first time the critical moments -- starting around 6:08 p.m. -- when officers establish Mr. Crooks's location, frantically try to find a way to get onto the roof and determine that he is armed. By around 6:11, Mr. Crooks opens fire." The video was embedded in yesterday's Conversation. (Also linked yesterday.)
Holmes Lybrand, et al., of CNN: "A hearing on the next steps in the federal election subversion case against ... Donald Trump will take place on September 5 after a trial judge on Friday granted an extension sought by special counsel Jack Smith. Prosecutors with Smith's office said in a filing Thursday that they are still working through what the Supreme Court's decision earlier this summer -- which granted Trump sweeping immunity for official acts as president -- means for the case and how it proceeds." (Also linked yesterday.)
Tom Jackman of the Washington Post: At the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021, David "Dempsey ... repeatedly attacked police officers in the lower West Terrace tunnel for more than an hour, throwing poles and deploying bear spray at the line of officers protecting the Capitol. He then sprayed bear spray directly inside the mask of one officer, who testified that he thought he might die, and used a crutch to smash one officer's head, giving him a concussion. Senior U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth sentenced Dempsey, 37, to 20 years in prison Friday, the second-longest sentence of the approximately 950 defendants sentenced so far. Only Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys who was convicted of seditious conspiracy, received a longer sentence of 22 years.... The judge also weighed Dempsey's lengthy criminal history in California for burglary, drug dealing, evading police and 'assault with a caustic chemical,' for spraying bear spray at anti-Trump protesters in 2020, one of multiple attacks he allegedly launched at political rallies.... [Dempsey's] family started an online fundraiser for him, which has raised more than $20,000, saying that 'he is being politically silenced for his beliefs in the Constitution.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: I'm having trouble finding that part of the Constitution that guarantees a right to viciously attack police officers. Maybe it's somewhere around the same place that Donald Trump claimed yesterday the Constitution bars a political party from changing presidential nominees.
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Marie: In yesterday's Comments, Akhilleus pointed to another New York Times (supposedly) straight news report that castigates President Biden for not delivering world peace. The author of the NYT piece is Michael Crowley, who IMO has a long history (back to when he worked for Time magazine) of being a big dickhead (although, to be fair, he was involved in a dispute with a popular fiction writer in which the small penis rule figured). Akhilleus points to Scott Lemieux's tweet which accuses Crowley of "essentially treat[ing] Trump's premise that he could press a button and immediately end the world's major conflicts as if it was fact." And he does! -- though Crowley admits that (unnamed) "analysts say" Trump's assertion "is highly unlikely." What Lemieux says, and what Josh Marshall concurs with is this: "The crucial and dishonest move is to take an accurate statement by Biden about decisions he had control over and expand it to a much broader claim he didn't make, and then judge him by the latter standard[.]" One note: screenshots in Lemieux's post show the headline for Crowley's piece was, "Biden promised peace, but will leave his successor a nation consumed by war." Evidently, somebody at the Times found at least part of the headline overly melodramatic, because the current headline described "a nation entangled in war." But it still makes the basic claim that "Biden promised peace." Which he did not.
~~~~~~~~~~
Israel/Palestine, et al. The New York Times' live updates of developments Saturday in the Israel/Hamas war are here. "An Israeli airstrike early Saturday hit a school compound in northern Gaza where displaced Palestinians were sheltering, killing more than 90 people, according to Gaza health authorities.... The Civil Defense spokesman ... said 11 children and six women were among the dead, adding that many people were seriously wounded.... More than 6,000 displaced Palestinians were sheltering in the compound -- the Al-Tabaeen school in the Al-Daraj neighborhood -- at the time of the strike, the civil defense service said." This is the top item in the liveblog at 6:30 am ET. MB: Somebody explain to me why this airstrike was a good idea.
Ukraine, et al. Catherine Belton & Francesca Ebel of the Washington Post: "Russian President Vladimir Putin convened a meeting of his Security Council on Friday and his military commanders rushed to send reinforcements as a stunning Ukrainian incursion into Russia's western Kursk region presented the biggest challenge to the Russian leader since an uprising by Wagner mercenaries in June 2023.... The attack on Kursk, which is adjacent to Ukraine's Sumy region, caught Russian defenses thinly staffed and seemingly unaware.... Meanwhile, a Russian strike on a supermarket in Kostiantynivka in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region Friday killed at least 14 people and injured 37, according to Ukrainian officials."
News Lede
New York Times: "Susan Wojcicki, who helped turn Google from a start-up in her garage into an internet juggernaut and became one of Silicon Valley's most prominent female executives with her leadership of YouTube, died on Friday. She was 56. Her death was confirmed by her husband, Dennis Troper, who wrote on Facebook on Friday that she had been living with lung cancer for two years.... Her more than two decades working with Google began in 1998 in her house in Menlo Park, Calif., part of which she rented to her friends Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the company's founders. For $1,700 a month, the two used the garage as their office to build the search engine. Ms. Wojcicki, who had been working at Intel, soon joined Google as one of its earliest employees and was its first marketing manager."
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Reader Comments (28)
Hold on now!!
“Attendees waited for hours Friday in 105-degree heat to enter the Desert Diamond Arena, as the campaign provided water, chairs and [Harris-Walz] campaign-branded navy cardboard fans to try to keep attendees cool....”
Giving water, or providing any comfort to people waiting in line for hours in uncomfortable conditions is ILLEGAL!! The Party of Traitors passed a law!
Oh, wait…that’s only if citizens are waiting in line to vote. I guess Democrats don’t have the Sadistic Inhumane Gene.
Never mind.
Maybe the headline writer for Crowley's War and Peace article was using "promise" as pathetic fallacy, where "Biden" is synecdoche for a new administration. Like a bad writer would say "The song of the bluebird promised fair for the morning, but the deluge belied the GD bird."
Naw. They just like to write "blood ran in the streets" headlines.
Based only on Barbara Res' words, DiJiT's very bad but not Brown helicopter emergency sounds like hydraulic failure. You can fly the sucker, but need to use all your strength to handle the flight controls, resulting in jerky flight. In 5 minutes you're exhausted, so as soon as it fails you put it in the nearest flat wide dirt.
His mind is going. He clearly mashes together separate events, fantasies and stories, and believes his aggregations are real. As Biden would say, "God save us!"
Sounds like Trump may be suffering hydraulic failure as well. He can walk and talk, but trying to appear normal is exhausting so he’s in a perpetual state of crashing. His handlers have given up trying to man the controls. Hell, they never worked even before the engine started leaking. Gotta make sure Harris wins or we’ll go down with Fatty and there’s no flat surfaces in sight.
Who are these voters who prefer Trump for handling the economy and immigration issues? These must be the same people who approve of the fire department in Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451”. They don’t put out fires, they start them, and watch while everything burns, making sure no one’s around to put them out.
@Patrick: Right you are. Trump starts with a true incident that, had it happened to me, would be dramatic enough for me to recount -- no matter who was sitting next to me in the helicopter. But the people Trump went with weren't interesting enough for him.
Trump had to embellish what was already a dramatic event. So he turned a somewhat obscure state senator into well-known SF mayor & bad boy Willie Brown. Trump didn't just come up with the fake story on Thursday, though: he transformed the little-known state senator to the more famous mayor in a 2023 coffee-table book.
And away we go. In 2023, Kamala Harris was not Trump's direct opponent in the presidential race. But now that she is, a second embellishment of the already tarted-up story was in order. In the 2023 book, what Trump (or rather his ghostwriter) wrote about Harris was this: "[Willie Brown's] time with Kamala in retrospect turned out to be very interesting — but only he can tell that story." Well, now it turns out the "very interesting" story has a dark side. So 2023's "very interesting" relationship between Brown and Harris turns into 2024's insinuation of "terrible things" Brown says Harris did.
I do suspect that's not the last of the embellishments. Maybe we'll find out what those fictional "terrible things" were. S&M? Blackmail? Embezzlement?
Wile E DonOld
The press has been whining about Harris not doing a press conference with them, but then show just how incompetent they are at them with Trump's as a prime example. Trump's stupid helicopter story happened because a "reporter" asked Trump about Brown and Harris's relationship and if it helped Harris. It was a set for Trump to talk about the Right's ridiculous sexist attacks on Harris that she slept her way to success. They also didn't bother to follow up questions or repeat them when he didn't answer the question asked. They ignored too many Trump topics to count. Then afterwards many reporters clean up the garbled gibberish and take seriously much of the crazy and obvious lies Trump spews regularly. Harris would receive none of this preferential treatment. There would be push back to any answer that does not conform to their expected answer. And misstatements or imprecise language would in many cases be given the worst possible interpretation and attacked relentlessly. Maybe the press should show that they are capable doing the actual job before they are given a shot with the real presidential candidate.
"Inside Project 2025’s Secret Training Videos
The Project 2025 videos coach future appointees on everything from the nuts and bolts of governing to how to outwit bureaucrats. There are strategies for avoiding embarrassing Freedom of Information Act disclosures and ensuring that conservative policies aren’t struck down by “left-wing judges.” Some of the content is routine advice that any incoming political appointee might be told. Other segments of the training offer guidance on radically changing how the federal government works and what it does."
Jumping ship
Some are starting to smell the stench of the loser on TFG.
As I’ve mentioned before, the media has been terrified by right-wing attacks, dating back to the era of St. Ronald of Reagan, back when wingers resurrected the McCarthy period technique of lies and threats of investigating reporters who didn’t go along with their fantasies and tales of liberal hatred of ‘merica.
Democrats never made such threats so it was (and has been ever since) much easier to pretend to be “serious journalists” where Democratic politicians and policies are concerned. With Republicans, the fear of being attacked as LIBERAL brought about the deleterious and ultimately dangerous Both Sides bullshit.
Both Sides Journalism made it even more imperative to go after Democrats and liberals with everything they had, even to give the benefit of the doubt to the most ridiculous and easily debunked Republican lies. This faux journalism took two paths. One went all in on the lying (Fox, etc.) One Side Only, the other metastasized into Both Sides.
Over time, independent and local papers and TV stations were gobbled up by media conglomerates whose need for constant bottom line feeding militated against more rigorous investigations of right-wing perfidy.
Pretty soon it became largely a stenographic occupation. Trump sez Harris is evil and dirty and slept her way to the top? We’ll get right on that! Harris says she didn’t? Must be lying. Dig deeper!
And that’s where we are today. Help Trump and the traitors, practice “real journalism” on Harris and the Democrats.
@RAS: Harris has been a teensy bit busy nailing down a presidential nomination, beefing up staff, picking a running mate, headlining at least a rally a day, & I don't know what-all else, all over the course of a few weeks, something that's never been done before in modern U.S. history.
So she hasn't had time to prep for a one-on-one with a MSM lightweight, who will ask probing questions like, "Why did Tim say 'of' when he should have said 'in'? And I'll need a follow-up or two." Now, the MSM is all upset and asking again and again, "When is Kamala Harris going to speak to us? ... Why won't she hold a press conference? ... Is she afraid to answer real questions?"
But ask yourself this. How many interviews has Trump, the lumbering, languishing, golf-cart-riding Orange Jesus given to the MSM in all that time? Yeah, he goes on Fox or another winger channel from time to time and does a podcast or two with some right-wing friends-of-Nazis. But Donald Trump -- who doesn't seem to have much to do -- has not sat down for a MSM interview either. And no complaints from Chuck Todd.
Apparently at his so-called press conference, Trump hand-picked the "reporters," some of whom may have been staff. It was impossible to tell because Trump didn't identify the reporters he called on, there was no videocam on them, and the audio was such that the audience could not hear who was speaking or what they said. I read someplace that a few MSM reporters got wind of the presser in time to catch a flight from NYC to Miami. But it was for the most part an invitations-only "press conference."
But, please, let's complain about Kamala. She's Ducking the Press!
As a former but long-time resident of Tempe, AZ, it was gratifying to learn not all the AZ r politicians are members of the party of kooks. John Giles is quoted in the New York Times article Marie linked above. This is a link to his 4 minute speech at yesterday's rally.
The adults in the room
Finally, glimmers of hope for November.
Wajahat Ali echoes some the press criticisms here.
And Tom Nichols, another r never-trumper, tells
The Truth About Trump’s Press Conference
in The Atlamtic, gift link^
"His rallies and press conferences are rich sources of material, fountains of molten weirdness that blurp up stuff that would sink the career of any other politician.
...so much of what Trump said seems too bonkers to have come from a former president and the nominee of a major party that journalists are left trying to piece together a story as if Trump were a normal person. This is what The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, has described as the “bias toward coherence,” and it leads to careful circumlocutions instead of stunned headlines."
Spam
@Ak: I had lots of spam while in the military. I fought the battle
of San Francisco. It was quite tasty back then but I had some again
a few years back in Hawaii and thought it was awful.
Could be that you get really hungry while in the military.
(No, never was in a helicopter crash with the mayor).
Kayleigh (sp?) McEnany (sp?) says on a Fox show that the Harris-Walz camo caps are bogus, no one will wear them who is the type of person they are seeking out -- hunters, "people who love the land" yaddayadda.
All the hunters I know* (many, but I'm not a hunter) wear DayGlo International Orange hats. No exceptions. They would consider going in the field during hunting season wearing a camo hat to be folly.
So ... maybe Fox talking heads don't know bupkus about hunting?
*PS: None of them own AR-15 type weapons, either, but they all own and use multiple firearms, including black powder muzzle loaders.
Still not working.
I had meant to add an addendum to my previous post about how the media gives Trump every break possible but goes after Harris hard, but Marie took care of that.
My point was similar, that Harris had to get up to speed with immense alacrity over a short period of time. She has had to organize staff, direct the campaign, pick a VP, deflect attacks, and decide on what policies her administration will support and how she’ll go about it.
Just think of how much detail goes into taking the family on a one week vacation. Where do we go, how will we get there, what do we bring, where are the kids’ bathing suits, do we bring sandwiches for the ride or stop somewhere, can we bring Rover, if not, can the vet board him, can we get someone to water the flowers?
And that’s just going to the beach for a week, not planning to lead the free world. Also, don’t forget, she needs to have her positions locked down tight. The media won’t let her get away with Trump-Vance style flip-flops every three hours. If she misspeaks once, it’ll be Times headlines for six weeks.
Plus, I like that she’s taking her time and not letting herself be bullied into jumping before she’s ready. Even her most solidly developed positions will be attacked, so make them as bulletproof as possible.
She’s got a crazy short amount of time to get up to speed and a ton of things to do. She doesn’t have the benefit of golfing every day and substituting 75 3am rage tweets for campaigning.
Walz probably knows a few things about Spam.
"SPAM, the most famous brand produced by Austin, Minn. -based Hormel Foods"
It's been a few years now since I've spent a morning in the woods, but the fellows I see are still in the camo caps. Many of us are still using shotguns as well although more rifles than when I started,
I heard a conversation on TV somewhere that pointed out that Kamala Harris has an extra layer of difficulty when it comes to her policy positions because she is still the sitting Vice President. That means that while running for the highest office in the land she also has to make sure that she is still supporting Joe Biden and his administration's policy decisions and goals. For something like the heated Gaza debate that is a tightrope that she is walking where she doesn't do anything to undermine the work of the Biden administration while subtly signalling a possibility of a harsher stance with Bibi. It just adds one more layer of difficulty to the on the fly campaign that she has had to put together while still doing her day job along the way. It also makes it all the more impressive what she and her team have pulled off.
Bobby Lee: if those guys wore a pair of those Christmas reindeer antler deely boppers over their camo caps, that would be even cooler. Maybe they don't know deer don't see orange as a stand-out color, it's drab to their eyes.
FL also does not require motorcycle helmets either. Way back when I worked in an ER (college, Methodist Houston), the nurses there called bikes "donorcycles." I have always thought that people who consciously avoid obvious safety hedges, when engaged in activities that can kill you, serve that vital function of increasing the supply of relatively clean organs for the chronically ill.
Presidential candidates try different approaches...
"Charles Gaba
Donald Trump calls Kamala Harris a "fucking bitch" in front of dudebros sycophants & his 18-yr old son.
Kamala Harris looks a young girl in the eye and tells her how special & important she is and that she can accomplish anything she sets her mind to.
Nothing else to say."
Monty Python demonstrates the ubiquitous nature of Spam.
The antipathy to motorcycles must be universal in the medical community. When I worked at Harvard Medical School, ER people called them Organ Donors, pretty close to Donorcycles.
Gov.Walz May have been off base talking about “weapons I carried in war”, but what’s completely ignored here is the context. Unlike Vance, who tries to portray himself as a kick ass Marine when he was sitting in an air conditioned office filing reports, Walz was making the point that weapons used in combat have no place being sold to just anyone off the street.
There was no “stolen valor” here. Walz was not trying to make himself out to be Rambo, he was pointing out the importance of gun control laws that could keep weapons of war out of the hands of nuts and unstable gun knobbers.
But that doesn’t make for good copy in the corporate media. Even if that context is buried in a report, the headline is still “Walz lies!”