The Conversation -- August 24, 2024

Kenneth Chang of the New York Times: "Two astronauts who have spent months aboard the International Space Station will have to stay there months longer after NASA decided on Saturday that they could not return on Boeing's troubled Starliner space vehicle. They will return instead on a SpaceX capsule next year. That decision finally brings clarity to the saga of the two NASA astronauts, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who docked at the space station as part of a test flight of the Boeing vehicle. It also adds to months of difficult problems experienced by Boeing, a dominant aerospace company that has faced embarrassing setbacks in its much larger civilian aviation and defense divisions this year. 'A test flight by nature is neither safe nor routine,' Bill Nelson, the NASA administrator, said during a news conference, 'and so the decision to keep Butch and Suni aboard the International Space Station and bring the Boeing Starliner home uncrewed is a result of a commitment to safety."

In Saturday's episode, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times mocks Daffy Donald and his new sidekick Bobby Junior. (And of course she had to knock Kamala Harris a little bit, too, because equal opportunity.)

Michael Bender & Michael Gold of the New York Times: "Despite a carefully scripted week of campaign events aimed at counterprogramming the Democratic National Convention, [Donald] Trump undercut much of his messaging with a series of off-the-cuff remarks, rants and blunders that threatened to stoke the kind of Republican anxiety he has spent much of the past month trying to tamp down. On Monday in Pennsylvania, he struggled to clarify a previous comment that he believed the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which honors civilians, was 'much better' than the Medal of Honor given to military members. On Tuesday in Michigan, he claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris had won the Democratic nomination after a 'vicious, violent overthrow of a president' and called Chicago, which hosted the Democratic convention, 'a war zone that's worse than Afghanistan.' He openly rejected advice from allies to limit his personal attacks on Ms. Harris and other Democrats during a speech on Wednesday in North Carolina. He called the nation;s first Black vice president 'lazy' during a stop in Arizona on Thursday afternoon and, that night, rambled during a 10-minute phone call with Fox News. The anchors ultimately cut him off and ended the interview, but Mr. Trump picked up where he had left off by quickly phoning into Newsmax. And on Friday, Mr. Trump concluded his week by embracing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in exchange for his endorsement, a move with an uncertain impact on tilting the race in his favor."

Melinda Newman of Billboard: "Donald Trump ... played the Foo Fighters' 1997 anthem 'My Hero to welcome [Bobby Kennedy, Jr.,] to the stage at a rally Friday (Aug. 23) in Glendale, Arizona.... [but] 'Foo Fighters were not asked permission, and if they were, they would not have granted it,' a spokesperson tells Billboard of the unauthorized usage. Furthermore, 'appropriate actions are being taken' against the campaign, the spokesperson continues, and any royalties received as a result of this usage will be donated to the Harris/Walz campaign."

Man Who Ushered in President* Trump Endorses Harris. Tara Suter of the Hill: "Former FBI Director James Comey is backing Vice President Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), in the 2024 presidential race, he said Friday morning. 'Kamala Harris made me feel like it's finally morning in America,' Comey wrote in a post on the social platform X.... ' Comey endorsed Biden during the 2020 Democratic primary. However, Biden's campaign pushed back against the endorsement. 'Yes, customer service? I just received a package that I very much did not order,' Andrew Bates, director of rapid response for Biden's campaign at the time, said when responding to Comey's endorsement. 'How can I return it, free of charge?'"

That Was Then. Thanks to RAS for the link. ~~~

RFK Jr, exactly 3 months ago. pic.twitter.com/Qu82lfGjTk

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) August 24, 2024

Yasmeen Abutaleb of the Washington Post: "Anthony S. Fauci was hospitalized with West Nile virus this month, according to a spokesperson for the nation's former top infectious-disease official.... Fauci, 83, was hospitalized for six days before he returned home.... West Nile virus is a mosquito-borne illness that can cause fever, body aches, diarrhea and rash, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There are no vaccines or treatments for the virus."

~~~~~~~~~~

Presidential Race

Rick Porter of the Hollywood Reporter: "The closing of the Democratic National Convention drew a big audience Thursday -- topping both the final night of the party's gathering four years ago and that of the Republican convention in July.... Coverage of the Democrats' closing night averaged 26.2 million viewers across 15 broadcast and cable networks, according to Nielsen figures. That's about 820,000 more people than the 25.38 million who watched the final night of the Republican National Convention.... The DNC's four-day average also topped the July Republican convention in TV viewers by a 14 percent margin...."

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times critiques Kamala Harris's nomination acceptance speech, calling it "a strong speech but not particularly lyrical." MB: This seems a fair generalization to me. Where I think Dowd --and many other critics of what Dowd dubs "Kamalot" -- err is in insisting Harris get specific about policy. That's bull. When you're trying to appeal to a broad swath of the electorate (Harris needs more than 50% of the vote), you want to speak vaguely enough to allow people with different views to think you're embracing their views. And almost no president can keep policy positions intact anyway, since Congress controls much of a president's agenda. So being nebulous on policy while appearing likeable, strong and competent is probably the way to go.

Matt Viser of the Washington Post: "Vice President Kamala Harris's campaign is releasing a new television ad in battleground states with a message aimed at the middle class, in its first major move after the convention."

Trump to Wrestle Bear in Central Park. A Kook & a Crook Hook Up. Brittany Gibson of Politico: "Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in a court filing, endorsed ... Donald Trump, ahead of an announcement that will likely bring an end to his quixotic campaign just months before the November elections. Kennedy filed on Friday to officially have his name withdrawn from the Pennsylvania ballot 'as a result of today's endorsement of Donald Trump for the office of President of the United States,' according to a brief filed by Kennedy's campaign attorney. He also filed to withdraw from another swing state, Arizona, on Thursday evening.... The presidential election remains incredibly close, and if even a fraction of Kennedy's support moves to Trump, it could be decisive in swing states." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Meryl Kornfield of the Washington Post: "Kennedy announced that he would suspend his campaign with a number of caveats.... He said he would stop campaigning in critical states and withdraw his name from their ballots, but also that he would remain an option in blue and red states to ensure he doesn't spoil the election. Kennedy blamed the two-party system and unfair media coverage when explaining his decision to a room of reporters and hardcore supporters gathered Friday. 'In an honest system, I believe I would have won the election,' he said....

"Trump welcomed Kennedy onstage at a Friday evening campaign rally in the Phoenix area and heaped praise on his former opponent, calling him a well respected candidate who raised important issues during his campaign. Trump pledged to appoint an independent commission on assassination attempts, release all documents about the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy and create a panel to investigate increases in chronic health problems.... Members of his famous, extended family forcefully opposed his candidacy...." The AP's story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Trump has previously scoffed at Bobby Junior, calling him "one of the most Liberal Lunatics ever to run for office" in a post in May. ~~~

~~~ Elizabeth Crisp of the Hill: "Democrats are rolling out a set of billboards describing former President Trump, independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy and Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance (Ohio) as 'weird' ahead of a possible [an] endorsement of Trump by Kennedy on Friday. The billboards will be seen in Arizona near Trump's rally in Glendale..., and in Phoenix, where Kennedy is holding an event earlier in the day to address 'the present historical moment and his path forward.'"

Maggie Haberman & Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump, who recently said he has 'no regrets' about appointing the Supreme Court supermajority that overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling on abortion rights, declared on social media on Friday that his administration will be 'great' for women's 'reproductive rights.' Mr. Trump's use of the specific phrase 'reproductive rights' -- the language used by abortion-rights advocates -- appeared to be an effort ... to refashion himself ... as a political moderate on an issue that has the potential to be damaging to him in November.... On Thursday night..., Mr. Trump once again falsely claimed that 'everyone' wanted Roe 'terminated' and brought back to the states.... At the Democratic National Convention, the end of Roe -- and Mr. Trump's professed pride in appointing the justices who eliminated it -- was a central focus.... Some 22 states have implemented bans on abortion at various stages of pregnancy since the end of Roe in 2022." (Also linked yesterday.)

"Man of the People" JD Vance makes an awkward trip to a doughnut shop in Valdosta, Georgia. The staff don't want to be on camera, they don't want to chat with him and he doesn't know how to order doughnuts. There is some discussion of Regular Guy JayDee is yesterday's Comments. Thanks to RAS for the link, via digby. ~~~

JD Vance buys donuts in Holt’s Sweet Shop in Valdosta Georgia pic.twitter.com/xOO2j3AoRf

— Howard Mortman (@HowardMortman) August 22, 2024

~~~ Here, BTW, are Kamala Harris, Doug Emhoff and Tim & Gwen Walz visiting a restaurant in rural Pennsylvania. Each stops and chats with customers. The staff are smiling, the customers are glad to see them. BTW, Doug & Kamala, neither of whom has written a book about hillbillies, are as rich as JayDee, so it isn't that the high & mighty are unable to relate to ordinary people. Kamala & Doug have no problem. ~~~

Marc Levy of the AP: "Independent presidential candidate Cornel West lost a legal challenge Friday in his bid to get on the ballot in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. Commonwealth Court Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer, in a 15-page opinion, sided with the Secretary of State's office under Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro in rejecting West's candidacy paperwork. The Secretary of State's office said West's campaign lacked the required affidavits for 14 of West's 19 presidential electors. Jubelirer, a Republican, agreed with the Secretary of State's office that minor-party presidential electors are to be considered candidates for office who must file affidavits, even if major-party presidential electors are not."

Eileen Sullivan & Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: "The Secret Service has assigned five agents to administrative duties as a result of its investigation into the failures that led to the assassination attempt on ... Donald J. Trump on July 13, according to two people familiar with the situation. This means that they have been relieved of their operational duties, such as planning protective details for candidate rallies...."

Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. Matt Gertz of Media Matters: "Fox News did not air a second of the speeches from alienated GOP leaders and former Trump officials who endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris at this week's Democratic National Convention. The DNC speakers included former Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who spoke in prime-time before Harris' Thursday keynote; former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan; former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham; Olivia Troye, who served as a homeland security aide to former Vice President Mike Pence; and Mesa, Arizona, Mayor John Giles. MSNBC and CNN treated those speeches as newsworthy, airing each of them in full, according to a Media Matters review of the networks' convention coverage. But Fox hid the content of all of those speeches from their viewers...."

Jeanna Smialek of the New York Times: "Speaking in his most closely watched speech of the year, Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, clearly signaled on Friday that the central bank was poised to cut interest rates in September. And while Mr. Powell stopped short of giving a clear hint at just how large that move might be, he forcefully underscored that the central bank stands prepared to adjust policy to protect the job market from weakening further and to keep the economy on a path for a soft landing." (Also linked yesterday.)

Lisa Friedman of the New York Times: "The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana ruled on Wednesday that the Environmental Protection Agency is barred from using the federal civil rights law to prevent Louisiana from granting permits for numerous polluting facilities in minority and low-income communities. Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act allows the E.P.A. to investigate whether state programs that receive federal money are discriminating on the basis of race, color or national origin. But the judge's ruling effectively means that the federal government is limited to taking action against specific agency decisions that are intentionally discriminatory. The E.P.A. cannot, however, consider cumulative or 'disparate' environmental harms. That means the state cannot be held liable for actions like allowing several chemical plants, refineries and other industrial operations in minority communities." The AP's report is here.

Gisela Salomon & Valerie Gonzalez of the AP: "Sixteen Republican-led states are suing to end a federal program that could potentially give nearly half a million immigrants without legal status who are married to U.S. citizens a path to citizenship. The coalition filed suit Friday to halt the program launched by President Joe Biden in June, saying in court filings that the administration bypassed Congress to create a pathway to citizenship for 'blatant political purposes.' 'This action incentivizes illegal immigration and will irreparably harm the Plaintiff states,' the suit filed in federal court in Tyler, Texas, says. Under the policy, which started taking applications Monday, many spouses without legal status can apply for something called 'parole in place,' offering permission to stay in the U.S., apply for a green card and eventually get on a path to citizenship."

Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "Prosecutors in the federal case accusing ... Donald J. Trump of trying to overturn the 2020 election now appear unlikely to seek a broad public airing of their evidence in a courtroom before Election Day, according to two people familiar with the matter.... The prospect of a courtroom hearing this fall in which the prosecutors would present their evidence in something resembling a 'mini-trial' was one possible result of the Supreme Court's landmark ruling this summer that former presidents enjoy broad immunity for official actions they took in office.... While Judge [Tanya] Chutkan could in theory still order such a hearing to be held, [Jack] Smith's prosecution team is leaning against asking her for an expansive proceeding where witnesses would provide live testimony about the case, the people familiar with the matter said."

News Lede

New York Times: "Italian authorities said on Saturday that they had opened a manslaughter investigation into the sinking of the Bayesian luxury yacht, but that they had not yet zeroed in on any potential suspects. The sleek, $40 million sailing boat went down fast in a storm off Sicily's coast on Monday morning, killing Michael Lynch, a British tech billionaire; his teenage daughter, Hannah; four of his friends; and one member of the crew. The captain escaped on a lifeboat with 14 others. On Saturday, Ambrogio Cartosio, the prosecutor in charge of the case, said at a news conference that it was 'plausible' crimes were committed during the accident."

Comments

[NiskyGuy]

If the press really wanted presidential candidates to lay out solid policy positions for everyone to see, we would be in a re-election campaign for Elizabeth Warren. In 2020 I was in love with EW, and my wife was fine with it.

Oh, what has Maureen Dowd written about the depth of policy presented by candidates? This shit, a column titled "Girl Squad" that was a made-up conversation between EW and HRC in 2016:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/opinion/sunday/girl-squad.html

Or this nonsense, where she reduces Warren and Sanders policies to less than a snack, saying they "proposed all their free stuff that would require tax hikes."

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/14/opinion/sunday/democrats-debate-trump.html

Free stuff my ass. They were talking about fixing health care and making life better for Americans struggling to get by, as opposed to comforting the comfortable.

[NiskyGuy]

Thank you Joe.

Foreshadowing?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uV4UpCq2azs

[ForrestMorris]

Here's a man worth listening to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgFPxgstrbc

Mayor Pete.

[Ken Winkes]

Old news, but something that stuck with me from this last week:

When the Pretender polled his audience, asking if they wanted him to continue his personal attacks on his opponents or to discuss policy, they loudly chose the personal.

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/donald-trump-kamala-harris-personal-attacks-election-2024-rcna167805

I was neither surprised nor appalled. Just saddened. That moment did not say everything that could be said about the inhabitants of MAGAland, but it came close.

[Akhilleus]

Maureen Dowd is exactly the type of opportunistic vulture opinion writer who roots for people to fall on their faces so she’ll have an easy column that writes itself. She is snarky, lazy, and boring, hasn’t written anything worth reading in 15 years. Remember how she used to shit on Obama, calling him “Barry”? And the Clinton hatred? That was embarrassing. She should save that crap for her hoity-toity Georgetown cocktail parties where everyone is just too cool to be caught having an honest response to events that might make it seem as if they care about something besides snapping off the bon mots and trading insider jokes to show how awesome their contacts are. Fuck her and her ChatGPT columns.

[Marie Burns]

I mentioned in yesterday's Comments that JayDee's advance team had done a piss-poor job by sending him into a doughnut shop cold for a video-op, as these fake "spontaneous" events where politicians chat with "ordinary people" are almost always set up in advance for both logistical reasons and political effect.

But another thing: JayDee's handlers should have known by now he hasn't mastered small-talk. It's something that can be taught, and they should have taught him. I don't think JayDee is as dumb as Trump, who can't learn anything because he thinks he knows more than everyone else, so he could have learned some icebreakers, most of which don't include the interrogation-type questions JayDee asked the doughnut-shop employees. (If they had been immigrants, they would have dropped everything and run out of the store in fear of being deported.)

And here's another thing. JayDee ended up talking to at least one Kamala supporter. Of course she didn't want to be in his promotional video. In the summer of 2009, I stopped in a Cracker Barrel somewhere in the South to try to get a copy of one of Barack Obama's audio books. Cracker Barrel lets you rent an audio book in one store and drop it off in another, which is great when you're taking a long trip. I couldn't find the book, which I knew was on Cracker Barrel's list, so I asked a clerk, who was white. Not only did she profess to know nothing about the book, she acted as if she had no idea who Obama was. "He's the president of the United States," I said helpfully. "Oh. Isn't that nice," she said vaguely. I'm pretty sure even that woman knew who the POTUS was. She just was not going to do one damned thing to acknowledge him. Did I mentioned she was white? And this was the South?

JayDee, ya gotta pick the right doughnut shop and the right clerk. Oh, and the right campaign staff, people who won't set you up for a fail.

[Marie Burns]

@Akhilleus: Since the turn of the century, Dowd has been a columnist in search of a scandal. She won a Pulitzer in 1999 for a series of snarky columns about the Lewinsky affair. She was a clever writer then, and she still is. But she isn't someone who has learned new tricks, and damned if she's not going to stick with a formula that worked so well in the most stunning presidential scandal of the last century.

[RAS]

@Marie: What you said about the advanced team should be what they learn on day one so they probably know it already. It may be that like the rest of us here that they hate JD and can't be bothered to do the advanced work for such an asshole. I doubt JD is a better person when the cameras aren't around. An entitled guy who has had so much handed to him probably doesn't treat the help very well.

[laura hunter]

Like RAS is yesterday's comments, I've been puzzled by the contradictions of rfk, jr endorsing djt, and haven'nt found satisfactory answers yet, but Kurt Andersen, writing in The Atlantic describes some similarities:
"Both [rfk, jr and djt] are entitled playboy sons of northeastern wealth; both (in Michelle Obama’s words) were “afforded the grace of failing forward” as misbehaving, underachieving adolescents admitted to Ivy League colleges thanks to “the affirmative action of generational wealth”; both were reckless lifelong adolescents, both attention-craving philanderers and liars, both jerks."
gift link:
RFK Jr. Was My Drug Dealer

[RAS]

Blue Wave

[RAS]

"Oldest DNC delegate Each convention has been so exciting. But this one especially. It's for women. It's for everyone. It's something that I can't explain. I feel like the world is opening up to everybody, every color, every creed, and every woman."

Pick a torch

[RAS]

Different tune.

Just three months ago Kennedy was saying Trump scammed American workers. But as Laura points out in the article she posted Trump and Kennedy are similarly liars and narcissists who don't care about the truth or how many people they hurt in their quest for power.

[Ken Winkes]

RAS,

How about six years ago? Lamebrain Kennedy has been sniffing after the Pretender for a long time.

https://www.politico.com/blogs/donald-trump-administration/2017/01/trump-meets-robert-f-kennedy-jr-233417

And when the Harris campaign turned him down, I'd guess they hurt the little boy's feelings.

The marriage was inevitable.