;)
The Conversation -- September 22, 2024
Maggie Astor of the New York Times: “More than 700 current and former national security leaders, as well as former military officials, endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in a letter released on Sunday, arguing that only she had the temperament and values needed to serve as commander in chief. The signatories of the letter, which was organized by the group National Security Leaders for America, included former secretaries of state and secretaries of defense, former ambassadors and retired generals. They argued that ... Donald J. Trump posed a threat to both national security and the United States’ democratic system. Among the most prominent names were the former defense secretaries Chuck Hagel, a Republican who served under President Barack Obama; William Cohen, a Republican who served under President Bill Clinton; and William J. Perry, a Democrat who served under Mr. Clinton.... 'This election is a choice between serious leadership and vengeful impulsiveness,' the letter said. 'It is a choice between democracy and authoritarianism. Vice President Harris defends America’s democratic ideals, while former President Donald Trump endangers them.'”
NYT Reporters Notice Trump Is the Chaos Candidate. Lisa Lerer, et al., of the New York Times: “Even by the standards of a head-spinning presidential campaign, Donald J. Trump’s campaign over the past two weeks has been tumultuous. A period that began when Mr. Trump pushed baseless claims from the debate stage that immigrants in Ohio were stealing and eating household pets ended with him facing attacks over his support of the Republican candidate for governor in North Carolina, who referred to himself as a 'black Nazi' on the message board of a pornographic website. In between, Mr. Trump invited Laura Loomer, a right-wing influencer known for promoting Sept. 11 conspiracy theories, to join him at events commemorating the anniversary of the attacks. He urged a government shutdown, attacked a cornerstone of his own tax policy, declared “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!” on social media after she endorsed his rival and — at events intended to woo Jewish voters — said '”the Jewish people' would be responsible if he lost the election, prompting fears of antisemitic reprisal.... [AND] Instead of calling for the country to join together and condemn political violence in the aftermath [of a second attempt to assassinate him], he ... blam[ed] what he described as the 'Communist Left Rhetoric' of President Biden and Ms. Harris for the attempts on his life.”
Karoun Demirjian of the New York Times: “Congressional leaders from both parties unveiled a short-term agreement to fund the government on Sunday, after Speaker Mike Johnson abandoned demands for a longer-term deal that also included new proof-of-citizenship requirements for voter registration. The deal, which extends federal appropriations through Dec. 20, includes an additional $231 million to help the beleaguered Secret Service protect candidates during the upcoming presidential election and into next year.”
Black NAZI News. Dianne Gallagher & Daniel Strauss of CNN: “Four top operatives on Republican Mark Robinson’s campaign for North Carolina governor have stepped down, the campaign announced on Sunday, days after a CNN report uncovered inflammatory comments he made on a porn website. General consultant and senior adviser Conrad Pogorzelski III, campaign manager Chris Rodriguez, finance director Heather Whillier and deputy campaign manager Jason Rizk have stepped down from the campaign.”
Contributor Jeanne & her daughter went to Tim Walz' rally in Bethlehem, Pa. (near Allentown). See her commentary in today's thread.
Texas Senate Race. Martha McHardy of Newsweek, republished by MSN: "Ted Cruz is losing to Colin Allred for the first time in the U.S. Senate race, according to new polling. The survey, conducted by Morning Consult between September 9 and 18, showed Allred one point ahead of Cruz, on 45 percent to his 44 percent among 2,716 likely voters. His lead was within the poll's margin of error of +/-2 percentage points." Thanks to RAS for the lead. MB: An Allred win would be such a good thing. I'm sending his campaign a small contribution right now.
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Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: “President Biden hosted the leaders of Australia, India and Japan at his home in Wilmington, Del., this weekend, seeking to use his fourth and final 'Quad summit' to cement the alliance between the United States and Indo-Pacific nations and to counter China’s rising influence in the region. Mr. Biden used the summit to expand both his 'cancer moonshot' initiative and the Quad Fellowship, a scholarship program designed to build ties among the next generation of scientists and technologists. The four leaders also signed a maritime agreement and announced a joint Coast Guard mission. The Quad alliance has existed for more than a decade, but Mr. Biden was the first president to convene a meeting among the leaders of the nations as a foursome.... Mr. Biden has often said that 'all politics is personal,' and the decision to open his home in Wilmington — the first time he has invited foreign leaders there — reflected his conviction that deep relationships are the best way to forge constructive alliances.”
Presidential Race
Samantha Waldenberg of CNN: “Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday accepted an invitation from CNN to debate former President Donald Trump on October 23, challenging her rival to another engagement on a public stage in the final weeks of the campaign.” The story has been updated to reflect Trump's response/ MB: I heard on the teevee (at 3pm ET Saturday) that Chickenman Trump said he would not debate Harris again. He said it was because the proposed debate would occur after early voting had commenced. Trump debated Joe Biden on October 22, 2020; i.e., after early voting had begun. And he debated Hillary Clinton on October 19, 2016, after early voting had started. (Also linked yesterday.) The Washington Post's story is here.
Maeve Reston of the Washington Post: “Former president Barack Obama headlined his first solo fundraiser for Kamala Harris in Los Angeles on Friday night, bringing in $4 million for her campaign as he framed the election as a struggle against radical forces in America that want to take the country backward. The event was part of the increasingly active role that Obama is playing in Harris’s effort as he wields his popularity within the Democratic Party to power grassroots fundraising and to galvanize younger voters to turn out in what could be a margin-of-error race.”
Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood. Neil Vigdor & Michael Gold of the New York Times: “Speaking for just over an hour at a boisterous rally on an airport tarmac in Wilmington, N.C., Mr. Trump made no mention of [his designated gubernatorial candidate, Lt. Gov. Mark] Robinson or the scandal surrounding him, even as he gave shout-outs to a number of the state’s officials and politicians. And Mr. Robinson, who has denied the accusations [that he called himself a 'black NAZI' on a porn site years ago], was conspicuous by his absence. Instead, Mr. Trump delivered a fairly standard rally speech, attacking Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democrats on the economy and immigration while digressing to criticize Ms. Harris’s livestreamed event this week with Oprah Winfrey; to call her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, 'weird'; to say that he would ask Elon Musk to help him send rockets to Mars; and to claim falsely that an Olympic boxer was transgender....
“Mr. Trump made a direct appeal to women, repeating claims that he had made in a lengthy all-caps social media post overnight, insisting that women were 'more stressed and depressed and unhappy than they were four years ago.'” MB: Well, see, Trump did say one true thing. Sure, four years ago many women were “stressed, depressed and unhappy” that the three anti-abortion justices Trump had appointed to the Supreme Court might overturn Roe v. Wade, but it wasn't until 2022 that they did so. ~~~
~~~ Mr. “They Let You Do It” Sez He Would Be Better President for Women. Meg Kinnard & Erik Verduzko of the AP: “Donald Trump returned to North Carolina on Saturday, stumping in the southern battleground state with direct appeals to women, claiming he would be a better champion for them than Vice President Kamala Harris.... Trump argued women would be safer and more prosperous with him as president and would 'no longer be thinking about abortion.'... 'I will protect women at a level never seen before. They will finally be healthy, hopeful, safe and secure,' Trump said. 'Their lives will be happy, beautiful, and their lives will be great again. So women, we love you. We’re going to take care of you.'... Voters overwhelmingly say they trust Harris to do a better job handling abortion policy, with 55% favoring her while 27% favored Trump in a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: You could take Trump at his word. Or you could ask him why he repeatedly promoted Mark Robinson for N.C. governor, a man who is so anti-woman that he said we should go back to the days women couldn't vote, that the bodies of pregnant women and mothers belong to men, and that abortion must be banned in the U.S. because unwanted pregnancies are the results of women "not responsible enough to keep their skirts down." And that's saying nothing about admitted & adjudicated rapist Trump's astounding disdain for women. ~~~
~~~ OR you could check out Trump's social media site where yesterday, just yesterday, he called MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle a "bimbo." Yeah, Trump definitely "will protect women at a level never seen before."
Trump Would Toss the Constitution on Day One. Derek Hawkins, et al., of the Washington Post: “Donald Trump has a long list of executive actions he says he wants to carry out on his potential first day back in the White House. Among them: Begin mass deportations, eliminate perks for electric vehicles and ban transgender women from women’s sports. Since launching his bid for a second term, Trump has made 41 distinct promises about what he says he wants to do 'on day one' as president, and he has mentioned those promises more than 200 times on the campaign trail.... His proposals often envision stretching the powers of the Oval Office beyond how previous presidents — including Trump himself — have invoked them.... Many of Trump’s promises fall outside the scope of a president’s authority under the Constitution, according to legal experts. Even some of those that are within his purview would face legal or logistical challenges that would make them all but impossible to carry out on a short timeline.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: BTW, if you don't quite recall what a thug Trump was during his presidency*, Rachel Maddow's "From Russia with Lev" provides a timely reminder. I watched it yesterday afternoon. If you happen to have Xfinity cable (or maybe some other cable or satellite connection), you can just speak to your remote (as if you're a crazy person) and say "From Russia with Lev," and up pops a link to stream the movie. (Big advantage over watching live: you can fast-forward through the ads.) Otherwise, if you jump through some hoops, you might be able to access it via this NBC page.
MEANWHILE, JayDee Sticks Up for Mark Robinson. Lauren Mayk & Megan Lebowitz of NBC News: “Sen. JD Vance on Saturday reacted for the first time to the bombshell report about Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for governor in North Carolina, saying..., 'The allegations are pretty far out there, of course, but I know that allegations aren’t necessarily reality.'... When asked whether Vance believes Robinson's denial that the comments were made by him, Vance said..., 'I don’t not believe him, I don’t believe him — I just think that you have to let these things sometimes play out in the court of public opinion.'” MB: Gosh, I guess JayDee is open-minded after all.
Nazi Pillows on Sale at Significant Price Point. Carl Gibson of AlterNet: "Far-right election denier Mike Lindell's MyPillow is now being advertised at a significant discount. One historian is pointing out that the pillow's new price is a reference to a prominent neo-Nazi rallying cry. On the social media platform Bluesky, Willamette University history professor Seth Cotlar observed that the official @MyPillowUSA X ... account tweeted an advertisement for its product with a posted price of $14.88. As the Southern Poverty Law Center explained, the number '1488' is a reference to the '14 words' slogan frequently used by neo-Nazis: 'We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.' The '88' is a reference to the eighth letter of the alphabet twice, interpreted by neo-Nazis to mean 'Heil Hitler.'... The MyPillow advertisement — which is still live on the account as of Saturday afternoon — was praised by numerous X users who made Nazi references."
Katie Hawkinson of the Independent: “New York Magazine’s Washington correspondent Olivia Nuzzi sent 'demure/ nude photos to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. which he later bragged about, two new reports claim....[Seventy]-year-old RFK Jr ... is married to the actor Cheryl Hines. Nuzzi apparently sent nude photos to the former independent presidential candidate, Puck News reported on Friday. Kennedy then bragged to his friends about receiving intimate photos of Nuzzi, The Daily Beast reported Saturday. These boasts ultimately made their way back to her boss, New York Magazine editor David Haskell.... On Friday, Nuzzi’s partner Ryan Lizza, a reporter at Politico, released a statement which referred to Nuzzi as his 'ex-finacée,' indicating the pair have broken up.” (Also linked yesterday.)
Blinkin' Elon Blinks. And Blinks. And Blinks. Jack Nicas & Ana Ionova of the New York Times: “After defying court orders in Brazil for three weeks, [Elon] Musk’s social network, X, has capitulated. In a court filing on Friday night, the company’s lawyers said that X had complied with orders from Brazil’s Supreme Court in the hopes that the court would lift a block on its site. The decision was a surprise move by Mr. Musk, who owns and controls X, after he said he had refused to obey what he called illegal orders to censor voices on his social network. Mr. Musk had dismissed local employees and refused to pay fines. The court responded by blocking X across Brazil last month. Now, X’s lawyers said the company had done exactly what Mr. Musk vowed not to: take down accounts that a Brazilian justice ordered removed because the judge said they threatened Brazil’s democracy. X also complied with the justice’s other demands, including paying fines and naming a new formal representative in the country, the lawyers said.”
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Texas. Erika Edwards, et al., of NBC News: “The number of women in Texas who died while pregnant, during labor or soon after childbirth skyrocketed following the state’s 2021 ban on abortion care — far outpacing a slower rise in maternal mortality across the nation, a new investigation of federal public health data finds. From 2019 to 2022, the rate of maternal mortality cases in Texas rose by 56%, compared with just 11% nationwide during the same time period, according to an analysis by the Gender Equity Policy Institute.... 'There’s only one explanation for this staggering difference in maternal mortality,' said Nancy L. Cohen, president of the GEPI. 'All the research points to Texas’ abortion ban as the primary driver of this alarming increase.... Texas, I fear, is a harbinger of what’s to come in other states.'...” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: This is state-decreed homicide.
Wisconsin Senate Race. Wis Politics: “A bombshell report this morning from Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel revealed that Banco Azteca, a bank reportedly tied to the Mexican cartel flew $26 million of cash across the U.S.-Mexico Border to [GOP Senate candidate] Eric Hovde’s bank in California. As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel detailed, Banco Azteca was cut off by several other U.S. banks over 'risk and compliance concerns' after reporting linked it to cartel activity. An executive of the bank was recently implicated in a federal indictment detailing his attempts to bribe a member of the U.S. Congress to get U.S. banks to once again do business with the bank. Despite this, Eric Hovde’s bank flew $26 million of cash from Mexico City to Irvine, California as part of a deal with Banco Azteca last December. This shocking revelation comes as Hovde has refused to disclose which foreign banks and governments his bank has done millions of dollars of business with.” Thanks to RAS for the lead. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: According to the Hill's poll of polls, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D) has a 5-point lead over Hovde, but Wisconsin is notorious for overcounting Democratic votes. Baldwin appeared on MSNBC Thursday or Friday and said the race was neck-and-neck.
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France. Ellen Frances & Marisa Bellack of the Washington Post: “French Prime Minister Michel Barnier unveiled the country’s new government Saturday, seeking to end months of political uncertainty, if not the accompanying acrimony. Barnier’s newly named cabinet marks a tilt to the right and will need to maintain enough support across France’s National Assembly to avoid being dissolved with a no-confidence vote. Members of the left-wing alliance that won the most seats in July’s legislative elections — and led the effort to keep the far right out of power — objected that the slate of ministers was undemocratic, representing the election’s losers. France has had only an acting government since July’s snap elections concluded with no bloc of parties securing a governing majority of seats.”
Israel/Palestine, et al. The New York Times' live updates of developments Sunday in Israel's wars are here: “Reeling from a wave of audacious Israeli attacks, Hezbollah on Sunday responded with a barrage of missiles that went deeper into Israeli territory than most previous salvos, reinforcing fears of a broader regional war. Air raid sirens went off in the early hours of Sunday in scores of towns in northern Israel, and officials tightened restrictions on public gatherings in areas including the Golan Heights and Galilee. Most of Hezbollah’s missiles, fired from Lebanon, where it is based, were intercepted by Israel’s air defense system, and there were reports of only minor injuries. Nonetheless, it was clear that life had been disrupted in many places.”
15 Comments
Reader Comments (15)
Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
A: To avoid debating Kamala Harris again.
CNN: Hey guys, another debate. You in?
Harris: Oh yeah, I’m there.
Trump: Buck, buck, buck, buck, buck, buuuuck!
For a lazy ass grifter who spends the vast majority of time on a golf course, Fatty is an atrocious golfer.
Lemme tell ya, kids, I’m pretty sure if I golfed as much as the Orange Duffer, I wouldn’t suck this bad.
I guess this is why Fatty only plays at his own clubs, so he can cheat on every hole. He must! Anyone whose game is this terrible wouldn’t get through 9 holes in half a day. But he routinely brags that he’s better than most professional golfers and could hold his own against the best. Maybe if he were playing Stevie Wonder.
Donald Trump won't debate Kamala Harris because she has an unfair
advantage:
A functioning brain.
You can watch From Russia With Lev on YouTube.
Part one and part two.
@Forrest Morris: Can you give us the URL/Web address?
The only YouTube video I found was a pirated copy (so NBC may take it down soon) that says it's the full video, but it isn't. It definitely leaves off the ending segment, which came as a surprise to me, and it may leave out other parts, too, though I'm not sure about that.
This is the one I found. From Russia With Luv (full documentary
9/20/24)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gtOJFDotsc&t=19s
Not sure about the O before JFD, it might be 0 (zero).
I haven't rechecked it yet.
A Sunday Sermon from yesterday's weekend edition of the local paper. Guess that makes it a Sabbath Sermon.
I called it "The Polarization Bear."
Last week I had a rare visit from a friend I’ve known for nearly fifty years.
We had a lot of catching up to do. We talked family, some business, and even a little politics. Knowing that we didn’t see eye to eye on everything political, he remarked how pleasant it was that we could still talk politics in a friendly fashion.
He went on to say he thought America’s biggest political problem was polarization, that we couldn’t deal with many pressing issues because the two sides, the Red and the Blue, wouldn’t compromise. True enough, I agreed, and suggested it would be useful to look at the causes of our many divides. I brought up the vast economic inequality that has overtaken the country since the 1980’s as an example. I offered a few numbers that confirm how much things have changed in our economy since then, and my friend agreed that today’s economic environment differs greatly from that of our youth. We left it at that, still friends.
I’m still thinking about polarization, though, a word that has become one of those cliches we often utter without much thought. There are many things dividing us, and as I mentioned to my friend, economic inequality is surely one. In 2024 the top ten percent of Americans still control 67% of the country’s total wealth, while the bottom 50 percent possesses just 2.5 percent (statistic.com). Between 1971 and 2023 the proportion of middleclass families declined from 61 to 51 percent of the population (newsweek.com). Economically, we are undoubtedly much farther apart today than we were fifty years ago when manufacturing still outweighed the financial sector, when the top marginal income tax rate was still 50%, not 37% as it is today (walterskluer.com), and when unions were still strong.
But our bimodal economy is hardly the whole story. The wedge issues surrounding race, geography, and religion still retain their political potency.
Since the Civil and Voting Rights Acts of the 1960’s, America has still not made peace with its racial divisions. One political party has welcomed racial minorities, while the other has employed racial animus, denied racism’s existence, and attempted to write it out of our history. Certainly, the Trump campaign’s focus on the fictions of a brown immigrant crime wave (brennancenter.org) and Haitian immigrants eating family pets is overtly racist.
Our geography also separates us. Different parts of our vast country have different cultures, and our voting patterns reflect some of those differences. Red states predominate in the plains and the south, the coasts and large cities tend to be Blue, so some politicians naturally use geography as another wedge to pry us apart. Sarah Palin’s “real America” was not New York, San Francisco or Seattle. It was where the real Americans lived. That her “real Americans” resided in Red States and were predominantly white (fivethirtyeight.com) and Christian was no coincidence.
In fact, religious affiliation closely tracks geography and political preferences. Though church attendance has declined across the country, people in Red states remain more avowedly religious than in other regions (statista.com). When public schools closed their doors during the Covid epidemic and some Red states provided public money in the form of vouchers to private schools, enrollment in private Christian schools grew rapidly (baptistnews.com), one more ingredient in America’s melting pot that is not melting.
Since my friend and I did not discuss religion, we didn’t touch on the polarizing effects it has on the difficult issues surrounding abortion and gender identity. When I thought I heard my friend mention the anti-abortion lie that Trump later repeated in his debate with Kamala Harris that pro-life adherents are OK with “after birth” abortion (salon.com), I said nothing. Fortunately, Trump’s outrageous claim that schools are performing sex-altering surgery never came up (nbcnews.com).
I also didn’t point out to my friend that a divided country is politically advantageous for his minority Republican party. The Electoral College has elected Republican losers of the popular vote twice in this century, and in the current Senate, Democrats with their slim one vote majority represent 65 million more people than do the forty-nine Republican Senators (mettlinger.medium.com).
With that kind of Constitutional advantage, with their gerrymandering that ensures safe seats for incumbents, with the 60 votes necessary to bring anything to the Senate floor, and with all our home-grown, ready-made divisions, I wouldn’t think the minority party needs any help from the Russian Bear to split the majority’s vote.
When I read that more Russian hirelings have recently been indicted for creating and spreading propaganda designed to “amplify domestic divisions in the United States” (justice.gov), I almost wondered why they bothered.
We can polarize well enough on our own.
@Forrest Morris: I'm guessing that's the one I found, too. I can't tell, because -- as I predicted -- it "isn't available anymore."
So your saying there is a chance,
"For first time, poll shows Colin Allred beating Ted Cruz in November
News of the poll breaks as the two candidates agreed to their first televised debate."
How pathetic. JD rented a dog to seem more humanlike to the people.
@RAS. Nice try. When something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
@Marie: Thanks for the catch. I was looking for the AI tell tales, but that doesn't help when it is a real clip just without full context. Like Ak yesterday it can be easy to fall for these things sometimes with how weird and bizarre so many of our political stories are these days.
Yeah! What he said. (RAS)
The effluence of bizzare business in the Age of Trumps and Traitors does make it hard to discern facts from forgeries.
And while we’re on the subject of forgeries…
I recently listened to a thoroughly engaging Smithsonian podcast on perhaps the greatest counterfeiter of all time, a German immigrant to the United States in the 19th century who remained at large for almost 20 years as the Secret Service (originally created to track down counterfeiters) pursued him with no luck.
Incredibly, during the mid 19th century, about one third of all bills were fakes. Local banks were allowed to print their own money, a boon for counterfeiters, but the most impressive, because his work was all hand drawn, absolute works of art, were created by the mystery man nicknamed Jim the Penman. It took him weeks to create a single bill, so his output was limited. He was an artist. (You can see his beautiful work online.)
Jim the Penman was a soft spoken farmer named Emmanuel Ninger. When Ninger was finally caught, the arrest made national headlines. But here’s the intersting point. After being tried, he was sentenced to six years in the pen.
The biggest counterfeiter in American history, Donald Trump, will likely never see the inside of a jail cell. The fraud whose narcissistic desires allowed a million Americans to die, whose scams and cons are still in play, is waddling around a free man.
The Secret Servive was created to arrest those who commit fraud. Today, they spend millions 24/7 to protect a fraud.
Just wondering how many women will actually buy Fatty’s declaration that he’s their supreme protector, their only choice if they don’t want to be “depressed and unhappy”*. Granted the MAGA women are lost, but those who consider themselves independent and (almost unbelievably, uncommitted)? Does this incredibly smarmy bullshit work with them?
I’ve heard him, in that whiny, oleaginous voice, dripping self-congratulatory salaciousness, wheeze “Suburban women LOOOOOVE me. They all looove me.”
Ewww…you can almost picture him as a sleazy perv walking around in an overcoat, exposing himself to women on the street. “They all looooove me!”
I guess he thinks this sort of icky come-on actually works? No wonder he and the dregs of the political world, and fellow pervs like Jeffrey Epstein are such buddies.
*This image he has of women being unhappy and depressed seems hopelessly anachronistic and mythological, with origins in pop culture impressions from the fifties and sixties of housewives sitting home with the bottle and popping pills cuz they married the wrong guy or don’t have a mink stole. WTF. I guess he thinks a little bit of the Donald will straighten them right out. Yet more proof that for Trump, women are two dimensional characters whose role is as arm candy abs sex slaves for rich men.
Hello: Daughter and I drove to Bethlehem yesterday to the Tim Walz rally. It was held in a high school gym (a big one--) at Freedom High School and the Freedom name was on everything; but the campaign thought that was great and they used the word many times! I expect the righties would feel badly, as they have "trademarked" that word. The team is the Patriots, and of course, they took that word, too... We got there very early and many many people were there before we were. My take on the crowd? So happy to be with people who are NOT insane and ugly. Multihued people, also all ages, from all over. Lots of tee shirts of different kinds. Don't know numbers of attendees. No one left early. Early speakers were mayor of Bethlehem, county executive, the House rep from that area, Susan Wild, a high school senior, and the two special guests: both latino-- a guy whose name I don't remember, actor, and the woman on The Bear who just won a big Emmy. All speakers were inspirational, and didn't hesitate to say rude things about Trump. After our hours of standing, the secret service came out and Tim pretty well ran on stage, and he is exactly like you saw on state at the convention-- enthusiastic, also being "rude" about the Orange Moron, and very complimentary about the high school band and twirlers and the area and all of us... It was so nice. A woman standing near us kept us apprised of what was happening with the secret service-- one was a friend of hers. It was a jolly crowd with chanting and cheers. Except when the audience produced some Gaza shouters, all hustled out by secret service and the crowd chanted USA USA...ha. Tim just went on chatting. After, daughter stuck her hand out through the people ringing the stage to shake hands with Tim. She said he was so nice, but sweaty! It got hot in there and no one could bring in water although after, there were bottles to take. The parking lot, a large one, was filled and all the roads around parked up. It was nice. The Dumpie protesters were confined to the road. A few. Leaving and going toward Allentown, cops had numerous roads to ours blocked off for the cavalcade to the airport, I guess. So, tiring to stand for five hours but worth it. He was so cool and smart...
Friday night we watched To Russia with Lev and it was quite interesting and well-done. Look for it-- it was on MSNBC again last night-- maybe again at some point. Crazy story how a nobody inserted himself into everything imaginable. Ending startling but nice. He had thousands of photos of himself with Dump and yet Dump claims he doesn't know him...
44 days? Yikes...