The Conversation -- October 19, 2024

Presidential Race

Kamala Harris has four U.S. Presidents pulling for her, including three who are campaigning for her. Donald Trump, he's got zero.

Peter Alexander of NBC News: "Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday continued to steer clear of criticizing President Joe Biden, arguing that vice presidents not denigrating the commander-in-chief is an American tradition. After she delivered remarks at an afternoon campaign rally, Harris was asked by NBC News to identify one policy she would have done differently from Biden over the last three and a half years. 'To be very candid with you, even including Mike Pence, vice presidents are not critical of their presidents. I think that really, actually, in terms of the tradition of it, and also just going forward, it does not make for a productive and important relationship,' Harris said.... Earlier this week, Biden said Harris would 'cut her own path' as president separate from his, seen as a signal that he would not be upset if she put distance between them." MB: Harris has finally come up with the correct answer to "what would you do differently from Biden."

Maeve Reston & Ashley Parker of the Washington Post: “Around the world, many other democratic countries, from those in Europe to South America to Asia, have elected women as leaders for decades. Yet 40 years after Geraldine Ferraro became the first female vice-presidential nominee of a major party and eight years after Hillary Clinton became the first female presidential nominee of a major party..., thousands of voters ... are grappling with the question that still bedevils the nearly 250-year-old nation: Is America ready and willing to elect a female president? The answer, according to polling and more than two dozen interviews with voters, experts, campaign strategists and operatives, is yes — but. Yes, the country is open, in some cases even eager, to a elect a female president — but she faces myriad hurdles her male counterparts do not, and with far less room for error.... In interviews with The Washington Post and in focus groups, many voters expressed subconscious bias and outright sexism, worrying that a female president will be too emotional, or that she will be weak and get rolled by male leaders on the world stage. Some even said they couldn’t imagine handing the nuclear codes to someone who they fear may become moody while menstruating.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Seriously? Donald Trump blows up after a technical problem and voters are worried Kamala Harris might start World War III because she was menstruating? News Flash: It's none of my business, but there's a very good chance a 59-year-old woman is done with menstruation.

Nicholas Nehamas, et al., of the New York Times: “Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump converged on Michigan on Friday as they fought for the small pool of undecided voters and Arab Americans who could decide a battleground state that has shot toward the top of the priority list for both campaigns. In Grand Rapids, Lansing and Oakland County, a pivotal Detroit suburb, Ms. Harris made explicit and extended overtures to blue-collar Americans as she campaigned in a state that has historically been the heart of the nation’s labor movement, and as polls show her struggling with working-class voters. 'Donald Trump is no friend of labor — let’s be really clear about that, no matter what the noise is out there,' Ms. Harris said in Grand Rapids. She promised to 'work with unions to create good-paying jobs, including jobs that do not require a college degree.'... Appearing to refer to Politico’s reporting that Mr. Trump was dodging media appearances because of exhaustion, she jabbed: 'If you are exhausted on the campaign trail, it raises real questions about whether you are fit for the toughest job in the world....'... Throughout her speech in Grand Rapids, in Kent County, Mich. — a place Mr. Trump won in 2016 and President Biden flipped in 2020 — Ms. Harris was by turns forceful in laying out the grave stakes of the election and almost gleeful in her efforts to cast Mr. Trump as unfit for office....

“Mr. Trump hit back by promising to revitalize the auto industry through a combination of tax incentives and tariffs. As he was proclaiming at length his fondness for tariffs, his microphone cut out, leaving him visibly frustrated as he paced onstage for nearly 20 minutes.... [Countering the claims he was too exhausted to campaign,] Mr. Trump called Ms. Harris a 'loser' and insisted to reporters ... after stepping off his plane in Detroit: 'I’m not even tired. I’m really exhilarated.'” ~~~

~~~ How Exhilarated Is He? Megan Lebowitz of NBC News: “Kamala Harris’ campaign posted a video that appeared to show Donald Trump nodding off at a campaign event Friday, pushing a new line of attack that the former president is too "exhausted" to run for office. 'An exhausted Trump appears to be falling asleep during his campaign event,' the Harris campaign posted to its X account with a clip of Trump at a campaign roundtable event in Michigan on Friday. In the video, Trump appeared to be closing his eyes and bobbed his head.” ~~~

An exhausted Trump appears to be falling asleep during his campaign event pic.twitter.com/WRMt0iTwAn

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) October 18, 2024

Marianne LeVine & Isaac Arnsdorf of the Washington Post elaborate on Trump's 20-minute faulty mic break in Detroit. “For 20 minutes, Trump paced the stage, voiceless, helpless, frustrated, alone. [After the mic situation was repaired, Trump said,] 'I won’t pay the bill for this stupid company that rented us this crap.... I won’t pay the bill. And then we’ll have a story that Trump didn’t pay the bill to a contractor. No. When they do that kind of a job, don’t pay the bill.'... [He] encouraged his supporters to vote early by dramatizing how a supporter might encourage a friend named Jill to motivate her husband. 'Jill, get your fat husband off the couch,' he said. 'Get that fat pig off that couch.… Slap him around. Get him up.'... Friday’s rally was notably smaller than most of his events, with few standing beyond the rows of chairs in a downtown convention hall. Trump did not revise his dim view of the city but promised a brighter future under his leadership.” ~~~

     ~~~ According to Matt Dixon of NBC News, Trump also said of the audio failure, “'If it goes out again, I’ll sue the a-- off that company.'... The rally went on for another hour, but Trump, at times, struggled to move on from the initial audio failures; 20 minutes into the event, he was still complaining that he had to 'scream' to get his message across, even as the audio system had been fully restored.”

     ~~~ Marie: There are a number of ways for a speaker to respond to technical difficulties and other interruptions, but anger isn't a very good one. Trump is supposed to be an expert at improvisation, but he isn't. Earlier this week, two routine medical emergencies occurred during one of his events. Trump "responded" to them by trance-dancing, as Scott Lemieux described it (linked below), for 40 minutes, and long after the emergencies were resolved. That trance-dancing was a form of anger management. Trump seems to have realized getting angry at supporters for fainting was not a good look, but he was mad at them anyway, so he refused to take other supporters' questions. In Detroit, he got mad at a company his campaign had employed, so he angrily declared he would punish the company. It was a bad move. His reason for returning to Detroit was to try to clean up his dissing of the city last week. But most likely, the company he disparaged as "stupid" was locally-owned. My guess is the real source of his anger was just having to be in Detroit itself and having to make nice to Detroit, where all the Black people live. And Donald Trump cannot control his racist anger.

“An Older, Loonier Donald Trump.” Reis Thebault of the Washington Post: “Former president Barack Obama further sharpened his criticism of Donald Trump at a rally Friday, casting the Republican nominee as a huckster who lacks the mental fitness to lead the nation, leaning into a strategy of withering mockery as he hits the campaign trail in support of Vice President Kamala Harris.... Obama spoke to a crowd the Harris campaign estimated at 7,000 people, who packed onto the turf field inside the University of Arizona’s football practice facility the night before the school’s hotly anticipated homecoming game.... 'You would be worried if your grandpa was acting like this,' Obama said of Trump’s bizarre town hall appearance this week in which he stopped taking questions and instead swayed to music onstage for more than half an hour. 'Tucson, we do not need to see what an older, loonier Donald Trump looks like with no guardrails.'... Attendees embraced Obama’s new tone, with some saying it was refreshing to hear their side criticize Trump in a more direct, personal way.”

Kevin Brueninger of CNBC: “Donald Trump on Friday dismissed more questions about whether he would release his current medical records, doubling down on refusing to provide a health update even as Kamala Harris works to sow doubts about his fitness for the presidency.... 'Yeah, my health records – I’ve done five exams over the last four years. You’ve got them all,' Trump told a reporter on an airport tarmac after landing in Detroit, Michigan, on Friday afternoon. Trump then appeared to suggest that he was too busy campaigning against Vice President Harris ... to devote time to update his records. 'Obviously, I’m in the middle of a very big and very contentious fight,' he said. 'We’re leading. I’ve given my health exams.' Trump added that he has 'done cognitive tests twice, and I’ve aced them. Meaning a perfect score.... I want to see her [Harris?] do a cognitive test because she couldn’t ace because she wasn’t born smart,' he said, before walking away from the press.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Just as he hasn't released his tax returns as all other presidential candidates have, Trump has never released a comprehensive medical report from a competent physician. Donald Trump has many things to hide, and his various medical conditions and his cognitive impairment are among them.

Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: “Donald J. Trump on Friday tried to revise the history of the deadly attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, as new details in the federal prosecution against him were made public by the judge in the case. His attempt to recast the events of Jan. 6, 2021, came on the same day that he compared his supporters who were arrested, convicted and imprisoned for their actions at the Capitol to the victims of the Japanese internment camps in the United States during World War II.... During that war, people of Japanese descent were among those held in internment camps under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a law Mr. Trump has said he wants to try to use for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants if he returns to the White House.... On Friday, on his website Truth Social, Mr. Trump amplified a conspiracy theory that the attack on the Capitol was staged by the federal government, and he promoted his false claims that widespread fraud cost him the 2020 election.... And it followed a recent remark in which Mr. Trump declared Jan. 6 a day of 'love.'...

“Earlier on Friday, on a podcast hosted by the conservative media figure Dan Bongino, Mr. Trump lamented how those arrested in connection with the attack have been treated.... Mr. Trump repeatedly offered a picture of the Capitol attack this week that downplays the violence that unfolded and maintains that he played no role in its buildup.”

There is no comparison between between the treatment received by the January 6 rioters and Japanese Americans who were denied due process when they were forcibly removed from their homes, systematically dispossessed and incarcerated for the duration of the war. Now more than ever, the lessons from the Japanese American incarceration must never be forgotten, ignored, minimized, or erased. -- Ann Burroughs, CEO of the Japanese American National Museum ~~~

     ~~~ Isaac Arnsdorf of the Washington Post: “In 1942, following Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States’ entry into World War II, the federal government forcibly evacuated and detained about 112,000 Japanese Americans on the West Coast, including 70,000 U.S. citizens. None of the detainees were [was!] individually charged or held on any individual suspicion, and they had no opportunity to contest their denial of liberty, according to the National Archives.... 'It’s flat-out offensive. It’s a night-and-day difference what happened,' David Inoue, executive director of the Japanese American Citizens League, said of Trump’s comparison [of January 6 insurrectionists to innocent Japanese Americans]. 'Japanese Americans’ whole families were incarcerated without any sort of trial — their only crime was they were of Japanese descent. For these January 6 people, they have had their day in court, they’ve either been indicted or convicted of crimes, and that is why they’re being incarcerated.' Inoue also raised concern about Trump’s proposal last week in Aurora, Colo., of a mass deportation operation citing the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, the same law that was used to justify Japanese incarceration.”

Most presidential candidates go out of their way not to use profanity in public. Not Trump, even if he is counting on his Christian nationalist base: ~~~

~~~ Alanna Vaglanos of the Huffington Post: “'I was so amazed that Harvey Weinstein got schlonged,' Trump told [Dan] Bongino.” Trump was surprised because Weinstein was “someone who worked in progressive Hollywood circles” and Trump thought the media protected Democrats.

Yo, MAGA voters, say goodbye to that "freedom of the press" Constitutiony thing: ~~~

Ted Johnson of Deadline: “Near the end of an appearance Friday on Fox & Friends, Donald Trump told the hosts that he was following up his guest spot with a 'big event': a meeting with Rupert Murdoch. Trump also said that he would be telling Murdoch 'something very simple because I can’t talk to anybody else about it. Don’t put on negative commercials for 21 days, and don’t put on there the horrible people that come in love. I am going to say, “Rupert, please do it this way.” And then we are going to have a victory. Because I think everyone wants to have a victory.' On his social media platform Truth Social, Trump has been bashing Fox News for featuring Democrats, including Ian Sams, a spokesperson for Kamala Harris’ campaign. Trump wrote on Truth Social earlier this week, 'Sams is just a below average guy, with memorized FAKE NEWS soundbites, almost all of which are WRONG, but coupled with all of the other Harris Radical Left Democrat mouthpieces that Fox puts on (Richard Fowler, Patrick Murphy, “something” Wolf, Jessica Tarloff?), it has a very negative effect on the Election.... Trump also has recently suggested that CBS and ABC should lose their broadcasting licenses — CBS for the way that a 60 Minutes interview with Harris was edited, and ABC for David Muir and Linsey Davis’ fact checking during the presidential debate last month.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: If you're having a little trouble interpreting Trump's planned "big event" with Rupert, allow me to sane-splain/translate it: "I'm going to tell Rupert not to run any ads against me and not to invite any Harris surrogates or supporters on your shows. P.S. Fire contributors who might say something 'negative' about me.

“A Very Stable Genius.” Brett Samuels of the Hill: “Former President Trump on Friday responded to a barrage of attacks from Vice President Harris that he’s 'unstable' and 'unhinged.'... 'First of all, the question is a pretty rough question because you know you’re giving this whole argument of this woman who, I don’t think she knows where she is. She’s a low IQ person. She’s not smart,' Trump said of Harris [during an in-studio visit to 'Fox & Friends']. 'I am the most stable human being. Remember they said “a stable genius,”' Trump added, referring to his own tweet in which he described himself as a 'very stable genius.'” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Notice that Trump is so disoriented, disconnected with reality, and might I add, unstable and unhinged, that he thinks that "they," i.e., other people, described him as "a stable genius" when in fact it was he who asserted, in what I consider an odd choice of descriptors, as a "stable genius." We have often accused Trump of projecting his own traits onto others, but in this instance he's projecting a projection of a trait onto himself.

Ivana Saric of Axios: "Former President Trump's planned appearance at a National Rifle Association event next week was cancelled Thursday, the latest in a slew of scuttled public appearances and interviews by the former president in recent weeks.... The NRA said Thursday it had cancelled its 'Defend the 2nd' event with Trump in Savannah, Georgia, next week due to 'campaign scheduling changes.'... Vice President Kamala Harris, on the other hand, has been on a media blitz after enduring criticism from Republicans about a perceived lack of interviews. And while Harris has ventured into the unfriendly territory of a Fox News interview, Trump has stuck to the safe spaces of conservative outlets. In the appearances he has made, Trump's rhetoric has grown more violent and nativist. In recent weeks, he has decried his critics as the 'enemy from within' and fanned the flames of false conspiracy theories about migrants." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Things Fall Apart. Scott Lemieux in LG&$: “Trance dance Don’s cognitive difficulties are beginning to break containment.... Even the famously wired-for-Trump Politico Playbook can’t avoid the obvious: 'Recently, it’s become something of a pattern: Trump is scheduled for an interview with a neutral media outlet, the date nears and then … things fall apart.... Playbook has learned that yet another outlet was given an explanation by Trump’s team for why their own interview wasn’t coming to fruition: exhaustion.... When describing why an interview hadn’t come together just yet, a Trump adviser told The Shade Room producers that Trump was “exhausted and refusing [some] interviews but that could change” at any time, according to two people familiar with the conversations.'” (Also linked yesterday.)

Irie Sentner of Politico: “Donald Trump says Fox News employees helped him write his jokes for the Al Smith dinner. Fox says that’s fake news. The former president ... said Friday morning on 'Fox & Friends': 'A couple of people from Fox actually — I shouldn’t say that — but they wrote some jokes, and for the most part, I didn’t like any of them.' The network disputed that claim. In a statement, a Fox News spokesperson said: 'Fox News confirmed that no employee or freelancers wrote the jokes.'” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Let's just assume, for argument's sake, the Fox denial is accurate. That means that Trump either lied, was misinformed or is delusional about who wrote those jokes, then said he didn't like the jokes that maybe didn't exist at all. In any event, the "jokes" Trump did like were cruel and profane.

Nicholas Liu of Salon: “Trump might have encapsulated his performance [at the Al Smith dinner] in one sentence during his speech. 'I don’t give a s**t if this is comedy or not,' he declared, before calling former New York City mayor Bill de Blasio a 'terrible mayor' who did a 'horrible job — that's not comedy, by the way, that's a fact.'... Though Trump was greeted with some laughter and applause (but also gasps and boos) at the event itself, other people who watched his performance were outspoken with their displeasure.... Former Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., told CNN's Kasie Hunt that her husband, who teaches at a Catholic girls school, called her at the middle of the dinner about 'what a buffoon and what an ungodly, profanity-laced hot mess that dinner was, because he knows what that Catholic dinner is supposed to be. This was somebody who was just being horrendous at that dinner, swearing in front of priests – who does that?'” MB: Comstock has endorsed Kamala Harris for president. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Normalizing a Madman. Lee Moran of the Huffington Post: “Critics condemned the appearance of Donald Trump at the Al Smith charity dinner in New York on Thursday, saying it 'normalized' the GOP presidential nominee’s divisive and hateful rhetoric.... Commentators thought the shindig, during which guests laughed at Trump’s jokes, validated and reinforced his toxic ideologies.” Ron Filipkowski of Meidas Touch wrote on X: “Kamala Harris absolutely made the right call not to attend the Al Smith dinner with Trump. You don’t normalize a deranged madman who wants to annihilate the Constitution by joking around with him at a roast.” (Also linked yesterday.)

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: “They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats. And now, they’re banning the cows. Or so says Donald Trump.... 'Kamala even wants to pass laws to outlaw red meat to stop climate change,' Donald Trump told supporters in North Carolina. 'That means no more cows. You know, this is serious.' Ruminate on that. 'She wants to get rid of your cows. No more cows,' Trump warned an audience in Georgia.... If you are alarmed by Trump’s portrait of bovine abolition under a President Kamala Harris, the good news is you probably wouldn’t have to look at it much if it happens. This is because, according to Trump, Harris is also planning to ban windows. 'They want buildings taken down and new buildings built without windows,' Trump informed his followers in Wisconsin.... Under the stress of the final weeks of the campaign, Trump has somehow become even more bonkers than he already was.... And his doomsaying has gotten even more outlandish....

“In the closing weeks of the 2020 campaign, Trump issued similarly cataclysmic visions — in some cases, word for word the same — about a Joe Biden presidency. They apparently didn’t come true. (We’re still here, after all, and so are the cows and windows.)” Milbank runs through a long list of fake terrible things Joe Biden would do to destroy the country which is just like the fake terrible things he now says Kamala Harris will do. “The problem with this particular false prophet is that he tries to prove his auguries true even when they invariably fail to materialize.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: A note to Milbank and Trump. According to the Googles, 70% to 80% of beef cattle are steers; steers are not cows.

Jing Feng & Nicole Acevedo of NBC News: “Both presidential candidates promise to build more homes. One promises to deport hundreds of thousands of people who build them.... Donald Trump’s pledge to 'launch the largest deportation operation in the history of our country' would hamstring construction firms already facing labor shortages and push record home prices higher, say industry leaders, contractors and economists. 'It would be detrimental to the construction industry and our labor supply and exacerbate our housing affordability problems,' said Jim Tobin, CEO of the National Association of Home Builders. The trade group considers foreign-born workers, regardless of legal status, 'a vital and flexible source of labor' to builders, estimating they fill 30% of trade jobs like carpentry, plastering, masonry and electrical roles.”

Filip Timotija of the Hill: “Veteran journalist Bob Woodward outlined a recent email he received from former Defense Secretary James Mattis, where he seemingly agreed with Woodward’s dire warning about a second Trump administration. During an appearance Thursday on 'The Bulwark Podcast,' Woodward told the host that Mattis — who served under former President Trump — acknowledged Gen. Mark Milley’s assessment that the former president is 'the most dangerous person ever' and seemed to concur. 'He thinks the book is important,' the muckraker said of Mattis. 'He believes it’s true. And it was a kind of, you know, “Hey, I understand this.” It was the strongest endorsement.'... Mattis was Trump’s first defense secretary. He resigned in December 2018 after a fallout with the former president over the withdrawal of American troops from Syria.” (Also linked yesterday.)

Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: “House Democrats on Friday accused ... Donald J. Trump of accepting 'hundreds of unconstitutional and ethically suspect payments' through the Trump International Hotel in 2017 and 2018, moving weeks before the election to remind voters of the ethical issues raised by his refusal to divest from his businesses while in office. The 58-page report from Democrats on the Oversight Committee includes their final findings in a yearslong investigation.... It accuses Mr. Trump of ripping off the Secret Service by charging the agency exorbitant rates and of inappropriately accepting payments from clients who worked for state governments or were seeking appointments and pardons from him. 'Mr. Trump has made clear that he will not only refuse to divest from his businesses in a possible future presidency, but he will seek to multiply opportunities to commodify the Oval Office for his personal enrichment by turning thousands of civil service jobs into patronage positions — all with the attendant payoff possibilities from supplicant job-seekers and the prospective blessing of his handpicked Supreme Court justices,' said Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee.” (Also linked yesterday.)

Trump Watch Scam, Ctd. Hafiz Rashid of the New Republic, republished by Yahoo! News: “Last month, Donald Trump announced that he was selling limited-edition, gaudy watches ranging from $499 to the bargain price of $100,000, bragging about their Swiss-made precision. But a CNN investigation traced the watches’ origin to a shopping center in remote Sheridan, Wyoming, where TheBestWatchesOnEarth LLC, the company behind the timepieces, is based. There’s no indication that a watch company is located at the building listed at the address, only a daycare. Its neighbors include an H&R Block, a Wendy’s, and a 'vape and hemp smoke shop.'... The limited liability corporation behind Trump’s infamous gold sneakers is also based at the address, along with other random businesses.” The CNN story is firewalled. ~~~

~~~ Trump Watch Scam, Ctd. Matt Giles of Wired: “... the defiant fist-raised photo from [Trump's] post-assassination-attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania — ... according to the Trump Watches marketing materials, will be etched on the back of Fight watch[.] According to the Associated Press, though, TheBestWatchesonEarth LLC advertised a product it can’t deliver, as that image is owned by the 178-year-old news agency. This week, the AP told WIRED it is pursuing a cease and desist against the LLC, which is registered in Sheridan, Wyoming.... Evan Vucci, the AP’s Pulitzer Prize–winning chief photographer, took that photograph, and while he told WIRED he does not own the rights to that image, the AP ... [wrote] “AP is proud of Evan Vucci’s photo and recognizes its impact.... We reserve our rights to this powerful image, as we do with all AP journalism, and continue to license it for editorial use only.”

Alan Feuer & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: “A federal judge [Tanya Chutkan] on Friday ordered the release of a heavily redacted trove of evidence supporting the contention by federal prosecutors that ... Donald J. Trump illegally sought to overturn the 2020 election. In ordering the release, the judge was rejecting objections by Mr. Trump’s legal team that making even a largely blanked-out version of the material public now would constitute interference in the presidential election. The materials — a four-part appendix to a lengthy brief recently filed by the special counsel, Jack Smith — consisted of 1,889 pages. But most of it was redacted and can only be seen by the parties involved in the case. The remainder appeared to consist almost entirely of previously released memos, social media postings, transcripts and other known materials.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Ryan Reilly, et al., of NBC News: “... Donald Trump on Friday called the judge overseeing the Jan. 6-related federal criminal case against him 'the most evil person,' despite threats U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan has already faced from his supporters. Trump also called special counsel Jack Smith, who has faced threats from Trump supporters as well, 'a sick puppy' ... during a podcast with right-wing media personality Dan Bongino. Trump slammed the judge for releasing hundreds of pages of documents Friday — most of them heavily redacted — that Smith had submitted in connection with an earlier filing arguing against Trump's motion to dismiss the case.... 'What judge would do that?' Trump said on Bongino's podcast. 'Forget about deranged Jack Smith. You know, judge is supposed to keep — what judge would say “We’re going to release something, you know, a couple of days before.”'” MB: As inarticulate as ever.

Ben Protess & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times flesh out the story Rachel Maddow reported earlier this week about one of Donald Trump's lawyers offering Stormy Daniels another hush-money payoff. “The nondisclosure agreement would have once again silenced Ms. Daniels in the heart of a presidential campaign. And although the circumstances did not resemble the cover-up that Mr. Trump was prosecuted for — it is not illegal to propose a nondisclosure agreement — the effort underscored his familiar tactic of using a financial exchange to control what gets said about him.... It is unclear whether Mr. Trump directed Mr. Ross to suggest the nondisclosure agreement, or if it arose organically during the discussions with Ms. Daniels’s lawyers.... [Mr. Trump's lawyer, Harry] Ross, reached on his cellphone, hung up on a reporter, and did not respond to an email seeking comment on his letter. Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump’s campaign, issued a vague legal threat to The Times in a statement....” (Also linked yesterday.)

This Guy Brought a Gun to a “Day of Love.” Shayla Colon of the New York Times: “A New York man pleaded guilty on Friday to a felony charge of civil disorder for storming the U.S. Capitol while armed with a knife on Jan. 6, 2021, as supporters of ... Donald J. Trump sought to halt the certification of the 2020 presidential election results.... The man, Christopher D. Finney, 32, of Hopewell Junction, entered his plea before Judge Trevor N. McFadden of federal court in the District of Columbia.... Mr. Finney is among more than 1,500 people to be criminally charged in connection with the Jan. 6 riot, in which supporters of Mr. Trump, including members of far-right groups, violently tried to stop Congress from certifying President Biden as the winner of the 2020 election.” ~~~

~~~ Scenes from a “Day of Love,” Ctd. Ryan Reilly of NBC News: “A Donald Trump supporter who stormed the Capitol and assaulted law enforcement officers now says she was 'duped' by the former president's lies about the 2020 election. Dana Jean Bell was sentenced to 17 months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly on Thursday. Federal prosecutors had sought 27 months in federal prison, saying Bell 'belligerently pushed, grabbed, and verbally attacked countless U.S. Capitol Police ... and Metropolitan Police Department ... officers who were attempting to clear rioters from inside the United States Capitol Building.' Bell pleaded guilty in July to one count of assaulting officers. Her behavior included giving 'officers the middle finger while scowling at them and repeatedly yelling “F--- YOU” towards them,' prosecutors said.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Let's suppose you're an honorable Republican lady and you get your "news" from Fox where you learn that the 2020 election was rigged against Donald Trump. Okay. But before you make a trip all the way from Texas to Washington, D.C. to storm the Capitol in an exercise that could endanger your own life, wouldn't you undertake some due diligence to make sure the reports you heard on Fox were true? I find these near-miraculous "conversions" some insurrectionists have after-the-fact to be fairly suspicious.

Michael Shear, et al., of the New York Times: “President Biden on Friday urged Germany and other Western allies not to waver in their support for Ukraine, using what may be his final trip to Europe as president to bolster the grueling fight against Russia’s invasion. 'German leaders had the wisdom to recognize a turning point in history, an assault on a fellow democracy, and also on principles that upheld 75 years of peace and security in Europe,' Mr. Biden said after receiving Germany’s highest honor during a ceremony at the Bellevue Palace in Berlin. Mr. Biden added that the allies must continue to work tirelessly to 'ensure that Ukraine prevails and Putin fails and NATO remains strong and more united than ever.... We’re headed into a very difficult winter... We cannot let up. We cannot.'” (Also linked yesterday.)

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Montana Senate Race. Mike Baker & Kellen Browning of the New York Times: “In a book and in his campaign for the U.S. Senate in Montana, Tim Sheehy has talked about a bullet lodged in his forearm — an injury he says he suffered as a Navy SEAL during a firefight in Afghanistan. The bullet wound stands at the center of a story of bravery and honor that has boosted his credibility among voters in Montana, where Mr. Sheehy appears to be on the verge of ousting a longtime incumbent, Senator Jon Tester, and perhaps flipping the Senate chamber to Republican control. But the tale grew murky this year when it emerged that Mr. Sheehy had reported to the police that he had accidentally shot himself in the arm at Glacier National Park in Montana, three years after his military deployment.... Mr. Sheehy has stuck by his war story. Now, in interviews, two people who had close interactions with Mr. Sheehy during key moments in the story have come forward, raising new questions about whether the bullet wound had come during his military service.... Since the initial news reports on the issue appeared in April [in the Washington Post], Mr. Sheehy has largely stopped talking about his wound in his stump speeches.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: If you read the full account Park Ranger Kim Peach gives (it's long), you cannot believe Sheehy's war story. Among numerous proofs, Peach says Sheehy presented at the hospital with a bandaged arm after Sheehy himself said he shot himself in the park. If Sheehy is telling the truth about his supposed war wound, he would ask the Montana hospital to release his records. But the Times reports, “He has not given the hospital in Montana permission to discuss his treatment.” There's a reason for that.

North Carolina. Gary Robertson of the AP:  “More North Carolina residents turned out to cast ballots on the first day of early voting this year than in 2020, even as residents from the mountainous western portion of the state continued to recover from the devastating effects of Hurricane Helene. Preliminary data shows a record 353,166 people cast ballots at more than 400 early voting sites statewide on Thursday, compared to 348,599 on the first day in October 2020, the State Board of Elections said Friday.” (Also linked yesterday.) The New York Times story is here. ~~~

~~~ Eduardo Medina of the New York Times: “Scarred by the extraordinary amounts of rain that unleashed deadly flooding and road-crushing mudslides last month, the people of western North Carolina are heading into voting booths with a difficult new question in mind: Which candidates will best help them heal and rebuild after one of the worst natural disasters in the United States in decades?... The political consequences of the storm remain unclear.... The North Carolina State Board of Elections said earlier this month that about 10 early voting sites in western North Carolina had significant damage or accessibility issues.... Some voters said their enthusiasm for Mr. Trump had been dampened by the lies he has uttered about the disaster.” One Republican woman, who said she was disgusted to see the lies Trump told about FEMA aid, also said she would vote for Trump anyway because she believed he would be for business than Harris. MB: Right. For instance, see the report by Feng & Acevedo of NBC News, linked above.

Texas. Vivian Ho of the Washington Post: “Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against a Dallas-based pediatrician, accusing her of providing transition-related hormones to nearly two dozen minors in violation of a state ban on gender-affirming care for people under age 18. In what the Republican described as the state’s first enforcement action under Senate Bill 14, the lawsuit seeks an injunction against May Lau, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who specializes in adolescent medicine at Children’s Medical Center Dallas. The lawsuit accuses the physician of prescribing testosterone to 21 teenagers between the ages of 14 and 17 'for the purposes of transitioning their biological sex' from female to male.”

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Cuba. Frances Robles of the New York Times: “Cuba’s power grid failed and the entire nation plunged into darkness Friday, less than a day after the government stressed the need to paralyze the economy to save electricity in the face of major gasoline shortages and large-scale, regular outages. The electricity went out nationwide Friday morning after a failure at a thermoelectric power plant in Matanzas, east of Havana, Cuba’s Energy Ministry said on X. The blackout came less than a day after the prime minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz, held a late-night television address with state officials to discuss the ongoing electricity crisis, which experts said was the worst the nation — long accustomed to food and electricity shortages — had ever experienced. For weeks, the country has lacked the fuel to run the power grid, which has left large parts of the nation without electricity for 15- to 20-hour stretches.... President Miguel Díaz-Canel blamed the United States trade embargo against Cuba, which limits the country’s ability to import fuel, for creating the government’s cash shortfalls and imposing hardship on Cubans.”

Israel/Palestine, et al.

The Washington Post's live updates of developments Saturday in Israel's wars are here: “A drone was launched toward Prime Minister Netanyahu’s residence in the Caesarea area, his office said Saturday. However, it did not hit his home and both Netanyahu and his wife were not present at the time, with no casualties reported, his spokesman Omer Dostri added. The Israel Defense Forces said three drones had crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory, with two intercepted while one 'hit a structure in the area of Caesarea.' The Gaza Health Ministry said Saturday Israel was intensifying 'its targeting of the health system' in north Gaza, adding at least three people were killed as three hospitals came under siege or fire.... Hours earlier, on Friday, Israeli strikes on homes in Jabalya, also in northern Gaza, killed 33 people, Gaza’s civil defense force said. In a statement Saturday, the IDF said its forces were 'operating against terrorists' in the Jabalya area. It added that its forces 'operating near the Indonesian Hospital' were 'briefed on the importance of mitigating harm to civilians and medical infrastructure' and that 'there was no intentional fire directed at it.'”

The New York Times' live updates of developments Friday in Israel's wars are here: “The leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, was killed by a gunshot wound to the head, according to the director of Israel’s national forensic institute, Dr. Chen Kugel, who oversaw the autopsy and described its findings in an interview with The New York Times on Friday. He said that shrapnel, possibly from either a small missile or tank shell, had earlier hit Mr. Sinwar’s arm, causing bleeding that he was trying to stanch by using an electrical cord as an impromptu tourniquet. 'But it wouldn’t have worked in any case,' Mr. Kugel said. 'It wasn’t strong enough, and his forearm was smashed.'” (Also linked yesterday.)