The Conversation -- October 21, 2024

Marie: Just when I think maybe the New York Times is getting a little better, somebody like Steve M. comes along and snaps me back to reality. Steve got the goods on the Times' reporting Donald Trump's Arnold Palmer-has-a-big-dick story. After a reader called out Michael Gold for "reporting" the dick story as "telling Arnold Palmer golf stories," Gold wrote back that he did report the dick story in one of his posts but his editors removed the post (or that part of it). Gold suggested the reader complain to senioreditor@nytimes.com . May that happened, because the Times then published the full story, which led with the dick remark. Steve wonders, "Did reader complaints pressure the Times to run this story? Or was it the fact that most other media organizations, including The Washington Post, AP, CNN, USA Today, and even Fox, recognized the news value of the joke?" Thanks to RAS for the link. (See also Akhilleus's commentary below on the Times "equality of outcomes" standard.)~~~

     ~~~ The Times is quite all right with reporting dick jokes if Democrats tell them. Here's Peter Baker, reporting on President Obama's 2024 Democratic convention speech:

"Mr. Obama scorned his successor's fixation with 'childish nicknames' and his 'crazy conspiracy theories' and 'this weird obsession with crowd sizes.' At that point, Mr. Obama held his hands together in a way that implied a certain concern over masculine proportions. When the crowd roared with laughter, he made an I-don't-know-what-you're-talking-about face of faux innocence."

     ~~~ Both Barack Obama and Donald Trump are former presidents, even if one of them was a president*. Why is it okay to report on Obama's joke but not on Trump's vulgar remark?

~~~~~~~~~~

Presidential Race

Maeve Reston of the Washington Post: "Kamala Harris spent the Sunday of her 60th birthday working to turn out Black voters in Georgia, where she asked congregants at two churches outside of Atlanta to choose between a country of 'chaos, fear and hate' -- represented, she implied, by ... Donald Trump -- and the 'country of freedom, compassion and justice' that she envisions.... At her first stop, at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Stonecrest on Sunday morning, Harris told congregants that she was guided by the teachings of the Bible from an early age, and that growing up in the Black church in Oakland has shaped her leadership style.... At her second stop -- a Souls to the Polls event at Divine Faith Ministries International where musician Stevie Wonder serenaded her with 'Happy Birthday' -- Harris again framed the election as a choice between a leader who would denigrate others and one who would seek to lift them up.... Harris's campaign hopes that the Souls to the Polls effort -- led by its National Advisory Board of Black Faith Leaders -- will allow it to bank millions of early votes so it can focus on turning out lower-propensity voters, including non-churchgoers skeptical of her, in the final days before the election." (Also linked yesterday.) CNN's story is here.

Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "In an interview on Sunday with the Rev. Al Sharpton, Vice President Kamala Harris responded to a profanity-laden insult that ... Donald J. Trump used about her tenure as vice president, saying he had 'not earned the right' to hold office again. 'The American people deserve so much better,' she told Mr. Sharpton on his show.... Ms. Harris spent much of Sunday, her 60th birthday, at churches in Georgia, as part of the campaign's 'Souls to the Polls' mobilization effort to reach Black faith communities." (Also linked yesterday.)

Jess Bidgood, et al., of the New York Times: "... Vice President Kamala Harris is moving aggressively to make sure voters in the battlegrounds remember precisely why they rejected Donald J. Trump four years ago. Gone is the euphoria of her joyful first weeks as the Democratic presidential nominee. She is no longer trying simply to diminish the former president.... 'See for yourself,' she told a crowd in Ashwaubenon, Wis., on Thursday, gesturing to two large television screens installed at the rally. 'Let's roll a clip.' The video screens lit up with a 40-second montage of Mr. Trump bragging about overturning Roe v. Wade.... Deploying his words as her sharpest weapons, Ms. Harris is pointing to Mr. Trump's erratic behavior and increasingly outlandish and antidemocratic statements to paint him as unfit, unstable and, above all, too dangerous for another term.... His recent run of undisciplined behavior has given Ms. Harris ample material to highlight.... Mr. Trump has been delivering winding speeches that have alarmed some allies, and he has doubled down on politically toxic threats to his opponents and a dark, apocalyptic message that helps to illustrate Ms. Harris's point."

Theodore Schleifer & Albert Sun of the New York Times: "Vice President Kamala Harris's campaign set a record for the biggest fund-raising quarter ever this fall, raising $1 billion in the three-month period that ended Sept. 30. Ms. Harris's campaign and its allied party committees raised over $359 million in September alone, compared with the $160 million reported by ... Donald J. Trump's campaign and allied groups. Ms. Harris and her groups entered October with over $346 million on hand; Mr. Trump's aides said his campaign and its affiliated groups had $283 million.... Each month since Ms. Harris became the Democratic presidential nominee, she has significantly out-raised and outspent Mr. Trump, building a vastly bigger campaign than has the Republican nominee." ~~~

     ~~~ Politico's story, under the headine "Harris outraised Trump more than 3-to-1 in September," is here. MB: I sure hope a good portion of Harris' money is going to a GOTV effort. The Harris campaign probably can't do worse than Elon who has funded GOTV efforts in which canvassers are scamming him by not actually visiting potential voters.

Donald McDonald. Jacob Gallagher of the New York Times: "At a McDonald's in Pennsylvania, [Donald Trump] manned the fry line and dispensed orders to supporters in the drive-through lane.... He did not wear a hairnet.... Beyond the apron, Mr. Trump ... [didn't wear the McDonald's] uniform.... He didn't change into the pedestrian dark shirt and slip-resistant shoes like the rest of the McDonald's staff. Mr. Trump didn't plop on a McDonald's branded visor. Certainly, he was the only 'employee' at the franchise on Sunday to be packing orders in a shirt with French cuffs.... The visual differences between Mr. Trump and the franchise's employees mostly served to underscore ... that the former president ... exists in a vastly different class of someone working a service job to get by.... His unpaid campaign stunt reaffirmed Mr. Trump's well-crafted image as a rich man with relatable, unvarnished sensibilities." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Of course there's a reason Relatable Don put on that McDonald's apron, and it's not because he's the Hamburglar: ~~~

~~~ Heather Knight & Nicholas Nehamas of the New York Times: "Vice President Kamala Harris has recalled her stint at a Bay Area McDonald's 41 years ago in introducing herself to voters -- a biographical detail relatable to millions of Americans who have toiled in fast-food restaurants. But ... Donald J. Trump has repeatedly accused her of inventing it. Lacking a shred of proof, he has charged that she never actually worked under the golden arches == recalling his earlier false claim that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. Mr. Trump's latest allegation also appears to be false.... Wanda Kagan, a close friend of Ms. Harris's when they attended high school together in Montreal, said she recalled Ms. Harris having worked at McDonald's around that time.... Ms. Kagan said that Ms. Harris's mother, who died in 2009, had told Ms. Kagan about the summer job years ago." MB: Oddly, the reporters wait till the 11th paragraph to get to Kagan's recollections. This is particularly peculiar because, as far as I know, this is the first time a major news outlet has reported out a refutation of this particular Trump invention. ~~~

~~~ AND, as we have come to expect, Donald McDonald's stunt was even phonier than the Times let on:

~~~ Marianne LeVine & Isaac Arnsdorf of the Washington Post: "The restaurant was closed to the public during Trump's visit, and the motorists whom Trump served were screened by the U.S. Secret Service and positioned before his arrival. No one ordered food. Instead, the attendees received whatever Trump gave them. Trump was at the fry station for about five minutes and spent about 15 minutes at the drive-through window, much of it taking questions from reporters.... Trump ... did not answer a question about whether he supported raising the minimum wage. 'Well, I think this. These people work hard,' Trump said. 'They're great. And I just saw something -- a process that's beautiful.'... Instead, he focused on promoting his unsubstantiated claim that Vice President Kamala Harris did not work at the fast-food chain in college.... In pro-Trump media..., the absence of documentation [that Harris worked at a McDonald's in 1983] has morphed into proof that Harris lied." ~~~

~~~ Now Serving: Fries & Lies. John Bowden of the Independent: "As he took a question from a reporter through the drive-thru window, Trump once again resorted to baseless suggestions that the 2024 presidential election results would be tainted by fraud, a charge he and running mate JD Vance have repeated about the past presidential election. 'Will you accept the results of the election?' asked a reporter. 'Yeah, sure, if it's a fair election,' the apron-clad Trump declared, his head fully poking out of the drive-thru.... He now looks poised to contest the results of the race again should he lose; whether it be through legal challenges or merely rhetoric."

Maggie Astor of the New York Times: "... on Sunday, [Donald Trump] sat for an interview on Fox News, where he was challenged directly on some of his most glaring falsehoods of the campaign.... Mr. Trump repeatedly denied knowledge of information that has long been publicly available, questioned the sources and then pivoted away to an unrelated topic. On one point, though, he stuck by his words with no deflection or equivocation: He absolutely believed, he said, that his political opponents were an 'enemy from within' who posed a greater threat than foreign adversaries. Here's a look at notable moments in Mr. Trump's interview with Fox News's Howard Kurtz[.]" Do read on if you have a NYT subscription. (Also linked yesterday.)

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "America for the first time in its history may send a criminal to the Oval Office.... What would once have been automatically disqualifying barely seems to slow Mr. Trump down in his comeback march for a second term that he says will be devoted to 'retribution.'... He has survived more scandals than any major party presidential candidate, much less president.... He has turned them on their head, making allegations against him into an argument for him by casting himself as a serial victim rather than a serial violator.... Any one of [Mr. Trump's] scandals by itself would typically have been enough to derail another politician. Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s first bid for the presidency collapsed when he lifted some words from another politician's speech." Baker runs down many of Trump's scandals & failures. It is, for that reason, quite a long article. (Also linked yesterday.)

Michael Bender of the New York Times: Donald Trump "says that his [speaking] style is to 'weave' from one subject to the next.... His critics say such detours are a troubling sign of his incoherence and raise questions about his age and cognitive health.... Here are four examples of Mr. Trump's rambling from just this past week. Schoolchildren asked him about boyhood heroes. He ended up at the border wall.... Asked about inflation, he roamed to his annoyance with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's college experience.... Asked about climate change, he drifted to his golf course and then to World War III.... He started discussing tax breaks for car loans. He found his way to a nerve-racking rocket landing." In each case, Bender transcribes Trump's quite crazy meanderings. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I realize that when most of us speak extemporaneously, our remarks don't sound as if we're reading from a well-edited textbook. On the other hand, politicians should be able to anticipate a high percentage of the questions they'll be asked, and they should be able to give coherent answers that more-or-less address the questions. At the same time, politicians -- unlike most of us -- are accustomed to answering questions, so they should know how to do it, even when they don't like the questions, or even when they're unprepared for particular questions. I don't care if Trump's groupies find him entertaining or even mesmerizing; I find his incoherence in and of itself disqualifying.

⭐ Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Dan Froomkin in Salon: "If Donald Trump wins the Nov. 5 election, the New York Times will be partly responsible. As the dominant voice in American journalism, the Times could have fundamentally changed the way Trump has been covered not just by its own journalists but by the political media as a whole. It could have stopped using soft, empty language and false equivalence, and made it crystal clear to the public that if elected Trump would turn America into a racist, authoritarian regime where facts don't matter. But ... the Times has chosen to engage in tortured euphemisms, passive construction, and poor news judgment.... The day-to-day coverage treats Trump like a normal candidate, rather than as the wildly dangerous and unhinged felon that he is. Day in and day out, the Times 'sanewashes' his dark and unintelligible ramblings.... New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger and editor Joe Kahn have made it abundantly clear time and again that they prize their so-called 'journalistic independence' over any obligation to sound the alarm that electing Trump would be a disaster for the country." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I don't disagree with Froomkin, except to the extent that other outlets need not mimic the Times' "standards." For instance, if you listen to "neutral" CNN through several segments covering U.S. politics, you'll see that their reports & panel discussions treat the candidates from president on down as equals. If you watch CNN, you have to already know Trump's MO to figure out when on-air personalities are reporting or alleging scary news about his latest threat.

Ruthless Rick Wilson, the former (and likely future) GOP strategist, said on his latest podcast: "This is why they're canceling [Trump's] events. He's too tired. He's too sick. His brain is too broken and he can't keep doing this. He has lost a fundamental edge.... He has for the last two weeks displayed an acute, immediate, severe mental decline. His family should frankly have him withdraw from the race and get him some immediate medical attention. This is elder abuse at this point, folks.... He's out there threatening to put his political opponents in jail, but he won't be the president for very long. JD Vance will be the president.... Now, this is the dirty little secret of this campaign. Peter Thiel and JD. Vance and Chuck Johnson and Steve Bannon and all the rest of these people around Trump. Elon. The second Trump by some chance is inaugurated, the clock starts running. They will replace him under the 25th Amendment...." There's more. Via Red State Rachel of Crooks & Liars.

Marie: Depending upon whose reporting you believe, Donald Trump drove his companies into bankruptcy four or six times (and would have done so more often if his father hadn't repeatedly bailed him out). So are we surprised that his latest plan is to bankrupt Social Security? ~~~

~~~ Julie Weil of the Washington Post: "A new report projects that the Social Security Trust Fund might run out of money within six years under a Donald Trump presidency, while Vice President Kamala Harris's proposed policies would not meaningfully change the current trajectory. Social Security faces a looming funding crisis in an aging country, with trustees most recently predicting that the retirement and disability program's trust fund will become insolvent in 2035. Many of Trump's campaign proposals would accelerate that timeline, potentially by years, said the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan group that opposes large federal deficits." MB: Bear in mind that hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people are voting for Trump because they think -- and are willing to say out loud -- that he is better at business than Harris. Every week we get at least one stunning new story that disproves their theory of the case. Nitwits. ~~~

~~~ AND This. Steve Peoples & Linley Sanders of the AP: "Voters remain largely divided over whether they prefer Republican Donald Trump or Democrat Kamala Harris to handle key economic issues, although Harris earns slightly better marks on elements such as taxes for the middle class, according to a new poll. A majority of registered voters in the survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research describe the economy as poor. About 7 in 10 say the nation is going in the wrong direction." MB: Gosh, too bad the reporters don't bother to report that by most measures, this is perhaps the best U.S. economy in history, and it is currently the "world's strongest" economy. I don't see much point in running a survey asking how people "feel" about the national economy without comparing or contrasting those "feelings" with the facts. The average person has no way to know the state of the economy.

Yesterday, Jamelle Bouie tries to reassure us how unlikely it is Trump will successfully overturn the election results if he loses. Come now Kyle Cheney and others at Politico to explain how Trump could pull it off. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Daddy, What's an Oligarchy? ~~~

~~~ Eric Lipton, et al., of the New York Times: Elon "Musk's rocket company, SpaceX, effectively dictates NASA's rocket launch schedule. The Defense Department relies on him to get most of its satellites to orbit. His companies were promised $3 billion across nearly 100 different contracts last year with 17 federal agencies. His entanglements with federal regulators are also numerous and adversarial. His companies have been targeted in at least 20 recent investigations or reviews, including over the safety of his Tesla cars and the environmental damage caused by his rockets.... [Mr. Musk] has thrown his fortune and power behind ... Donald J. Trump and, in return, Mr. Trump has vowed to make Mr. Musk head of a new 'government efficiency commission' with the power to recommend wide-ranging cuts at federal agencies and changes to federal rules. That would essentially give the world's richest man and a major government contractor the power to regulate the regulators who hold sway over his companies, amounting to a potentially enormous conflict of interest.... Instead of entering this new role as a neutral observer, Mr. Musk would be passing judgment on his own customers and regulators. Already, Mr. Musk has discussed how he would use the new position to help his own companies." (Also linked yesterday.)

Theodore Schleifer of the New York Times asks some campaign finance lawyers to address whether or not Elon Musk's financial incentives to voters are legal. "Brendan Fischer ... said, 'There would be few doubts about the legality if every Pennsylvania-based petition signer were eligible, but conditioning the payments on registration arguably violates the law, which prohibits giving anything of value to induce or reward a person for registering to vote.'... Josh Shapiro, the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania and the state's former attorney general, said on Sunday on Meet the Press that the giveaway was 'something that law enforcement could take a look at.'" Schleifer did find one expert who said it was okay: former SEC chair Brad Smith. MB: I checked out Smith: he's a member of the right-wing Federalist Society, he planned to testify for Trump in his hush-money trial, he's probably the country's most prominent opponent of campaign finance laws. Oh, and Bill Clinton, formerly our sleaziest modern president, appointed him to head the FEC, an appointment which horrified campaign finance reform advocates. (Also linked yesterday.) CNN's story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin -- who is a lawyer -- pointed out in an appearance on MSNBC that the payments may be illegal because they appear to be unreported campaign contributions.

Colby Hall of Mediaite: "CNN's Jake Tapper and Speaker Mike Johnson battled over former President Donald Trump's recent warning of an 'enemy within' the nation and the suggestion of using the National Guard against them.... At one point, after Speaker Johnson tried to insist he wasn't talking about American democratic officials, Tapper interjected with, 'Nope! He talked about Adam Schiff, the Pelosis....'" Tapper played a clip of Trump saying exactly that, after which Johnson had the gall to say, "... No. He's talking about using the National Guard in the military to keep the peace in our streets in the summer of 2020 that my Democratic colleagues call this summer of love...." The article includes a transcript of the full exchange between Tapper & Johnson as well as of the clip Tapper played. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ At about the same time Bible Mike was lying about what he had just heard on the CNN teevee, Donald Trump was over at Fox, confirming what Bible Mike just lied about. According to Maggie Astor of the New York Times (linked above), "Mr. Kurtz asked who the 'enemy from within' was, and Mr. Trump identified Representative Adam Schiff of California and the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi." Marie: Some reporter should ask Bible Mike if his church suspends the Ninth Commandment ("Thou shall not bear false witness" [i.e., lie]) during campaign season. ~~~

~~~ Kelby Vera of the Huffington Post: "Jake Tapper couldn't get a straight answer from House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) when he asked him Donald Trump's recent rally riff about golfer Arnold Palmer's penis on Sunday's episode of 'State of the Union.'... Though the speaker tried to deflect, Tapper pressed on.... After a bit of back and forth, Johnson reluctantly relented. 'I'll address it. Let me answer it. OK. Don't say it again,' the clearly uncomfortable speaker told Tapper, before dismissing the Palmer penis comments as mere 'lines in a rally.' 'You can cherry pick a few words or lines out of a two-hour event,' he later added, then criticizing Democratic candidate Kamala Harris' communication style as 'word salads.'"

60 Minutes, in a statement: "... Donald Trump is accusing 60 Minutes of deceitful editing of our Oct. 7 interview with Vice President Kamala Harris. That is false. 60 Minutes gave an excerpt of our interview to Face the Nation that used a longer section of her answer than that on 60 Minutes. Same question. Same answer. But a different portion of the response. When we edit any interview, whether a politician, an athlete, or movie star, we strive to be clear, accurate and on point. The portion of her answer on 60 Minutes was more succinct, which allows time for other subjects in a wide ranging 21-minute-long segment. Remember, Mr. Trump pulled out of his interview with 60 Minutes and the vice president participated."

Hannah Nichols & Stef Kight of Axios: "In a biography set to publish a week before the election, Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell backed special counsel Jack Smith and said he hopes former President Trump will 'pay a price' for his role in Jan. 6th.... 'If he hasn't committed indictable offenses, I don't know what one is,' the longest-serving Republican leader told journalist Michael Tackett in an interview for 'The Price of Power,' weeks after Smith brought the charges against Trump in August 2023. 'From the start, McConnell thought the charges brought by federal prosecutors against Trump had merit.' Tackett writes. McConnell told him 'there's no doubt who inspired it, and I just hope that he'll have to pay a price for it,' referencing Jan. 6." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Axios now requires readers to "subscribe" to its content and to provide Axios with their email addresses. It took maybe 10 seconds for Axios to send me a verification email and another 15 seconds to send me their first "regular" email. I'm afraid this may become (at least) a daily thing.

Lauren Irwin of the Hill: "President Biden released a statement mourning the 'devastation' after a bridge collapsed on Georgia's Sapelo Island, killing 7 people.'We are heartbroken to learn about the ferry dock walkway collapse on Georgia's Sapelo Island. What should have been a joyous celebration of Gullah-Geechee culture and history instead turned into tragedy and devastation,' Biden said in a statement Saturday evening." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Vice President Harris's statement, via the White House, is here. See stories under Sunday's Ledes. (Also linked yesterday.)

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Ohio Senate Race. Julie Smyth of the AP: "Former Ohio Gov. Bob Taft, scion of one of the state's best-known Republican families, threw his support Sunday behind Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in his hotly contested reelection race against GOP nominee Bernie Moreno. Taft, 82, made known his intention to vote for Brown over Moreno, a Donald Trump-backed Cleveland businessman, in a letter to the editor of the Dayton Daily News. The grandson of 'Mr. Republican' Robert A. Taft Sr. and great-grandson of William Howard Taft, the only person in American history to have been president and chief justice of the United States, praised Brown in the letter without mentioning Moreno. Taft cited, among the reasons for his decision, Brown's collaboration with U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, on behalf of the Dayton area, including Wright-Patterson Air Force Base; Brown's 25 years of experience in public office; and Brown's committee assignments as a result of his senior status in the Senate.... Bob Taft is the only politician in Brown's long political career to ever defeat him in an election. Taft beat Brown in his 1990 bid for reelection as secretary of state."

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Israel/Palestine, et al. The Washington Post's live updates of developments Monday in Israel's wars are here: "Israel launched a string of airstrikes across Lebanon, including the capital Beirut, saying it was targeting the financial operations of the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah."

News Ledes

New York Times: "John Kinsel Sr., a World War II veteran who was one of the last surviving Navajo Code Talkers, a group of Marines whose encrypted wartime messages based on the Navajo language helped secure an Allied victory in the Pacific, died on Saturday. He was 107.... An estimated 400 Navajo Code Talkers served during World War II, transmitting a code crafted from the Navajo language that U.S. forces used to confuse the Japanese and communicate troop movements, enemy positions and other critical battlefield information.... The code was never broken." The AP's obituary is here.

AP: "Thelma Mothershed Wair, one of the has died at age 83."

AP: "Two crew members who were missing following the crash of a fighter jet in mountainous terrain in Washington state during a routine training flight have been declared dead, the U.S. Navy said Sunday. The EA-18G Growler jet from the Electronic Attack Squadron crashed east of Mount Rainier on Tuesday afternoon, according to Naval Air Station Whidbey Island. Search teams, including a U.S. Navy MH-60S helicopter, launched from the air station to try to find the crew and crash site. Army Special Forces soldiers trained in mountaineering, high-angle rescue and technical communications were brought in to reach the wreckage, which was located Wednesday by an aerial crew resting at about 6,000 feet (1,828 meters) in a remote, steep and heavily wooded area east of Mount Rainier, officials said."

New York Times: "Hundreds of people were rescued in eastern New Mexico late Saturday and Sunday, as torrential rains dumped more than a third of the city of Roswell's annual rainfall total in just a few hours, causing at least two deaths, officials said. Search and rescue efforts were still underway on Sunday morning, as forecasters warned that storms were expected to continue in the area, carrying the threat of more floods, large hail and possibly tornadoes. As of Sunday morning, nearly 300 people had been rescued by county and state agencies and 38 people had been taken to local hospitals, the New Mexico National Guard said."

The Conversation -- October 20, 2024

Maeve Reston of the Washington Post: "Kamala Harris spent the Sunday of her 60th birthday working to turn out Black voters in Georgia, where she asked congregants at two churches outside of Atlanta to choose between a country of 'chaos, fear and hate' -- represented, she implied, by ... Donald Trump -- and the 'country of freedom, compassion and justice' that she envisions.... At her first stop, at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Stonecrest on Sunday morning, Harris told congregants that she was guided by the teachings of the Bible from an early age, and that growing up in the Black church in Oakland has shaped her leadership style.... At her second stop -- a Souls to the Polls event at Divine Faith Ministries International where musician Stevie Wonder serenaded her with 'Happy Birthday' -- Harris again framed the election as a choice between a leader who would denigrate others and one who would seek to lift them up.... Harris's campaign hopes that the Souls to the Polls effort ... will allow it to bank millions of early votes so it can focus on turning out lower-propensity voters, including non-churchgoers skeptical of her, in the final days before the election."

Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "In an interview on Sunday with the Rev. Al Sharpton, Vice President Kamala Harris responded to a profanity-laden insult that ... Donald J. Trump used about her tenure as vice president, saying he had 'not earned the right' to hold office again. 'The American people deserve so much better,' she told Mr. Sharpton on his show.... Ms. Harris spent much of Sunday, her 60th birthday, at churches in Georgia, as part of the campaign's 'Souls to the Polls' mobilization effort to reach Black faith communities."

Donald McDonald. Jacob Gallagher of the New York Times: " A McDonald's in Pennsylvania, [Donald Trump] manned the fry line and dispensed orders to supporters in the drive-through lane.... He did not wear a hairnet.... Beyond the apron, Mr. Trump ... [didn't wear the McDonald's] uniform.... He didn't change into the pedestrian dark shirt and slip-resistant shoes like the rest of the McDonald's staff. Mr. Trump didn't plop on a McDonald's branded visor. Certainly, he was the only 'employee' at the franchise on Sunday to be packing orders in a shirt with French cuffs.... The visual differences between Mr. Trump and the franchise's employees mostly served to underscore ... that the former president ... exists in a vastly different class of someone working a service job to get by.... His unpaid campaign stunt reaffirmed Mr. Trump's well-crafted image as a rich man with relatable, unvarnished sensibilities." ~~~

~~~ Of course there's a reason Relatable Donald put on that McDonald's apron, and it's not because he's the Hamburglar: ~~~

~~~ Heather Knight & Nicholas Nehamas of the New York Times: "Vice President Kamala Harris has recalled her stint at a Bay Area McDonald's 41 years ago in introducing herself to voters -- a biographical detail relatable to millions of Americans who have toiled in fast-food restaurants. But ... Donald J. Trump has repeatedly accused her of inventing it. Lacking a shred of proof, he has charged that she never actually worked under the golden arches -- recalling his earlier false claim that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. Mr. Trump's latest allegation also appears to be false.... Wanda Kagan, a close friend of Ms. Harris's when they attended high school together in Montreal, said she recalled Ms. Harris having worked at McDonald's around that time.... Ms. Kagan said that Ms. Harris's mother, who died in 2009, had told Ms. Kagan about the summer job years ago." MB: Oddly, the reporters wait till the 11th paragraph to get to Kagan's recollections. This is particularly peculiar because, as far as I know, this is the first time a major news outlet has reported out a refutation of this particular Trump invention.

Maggie Astor of the New York Times: "... on Sunday, [Donald Trump] sat for an interview on Fox News, where he was challenged directly on some of his most glaring falsehoods of the campaign.... Mr. Trump repeatedly denied knowledge of information that has long been publicly available, questioned the sources and then pivoted away to an unrelated topic. On one point, though, he stuck by his words with no deflection or equivocation: He absolutely believed, he said, that his political opponents were an 'enemy from within' who posed a greater threat than foreign adversaries. Here's a look at notable moments in Mr. Trump's interview with Fox News's Howard Kurtz[.]" Do read on if you have a NYT subscription.

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "America for the first time in its history may send a criminal to the Oval Office.... What would once have been automatically disqualifying barely seems to slow Mr. Trump down in his comeback march for a second term that he says will be devoted to 'retribution.'... He has survived more scandals than any major party presidential candidate, much less president.... He has turned them on their head, making allegations against him into an argument for him by casting himself as a serial victim rather than a serial violator.... Any one of [Mr. Trump's] scandals by itself would typically have been enough to derail another politician. Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s first bid for the presidency collapsed when he lifted some words from another politician's speech." Baker runs down many of Trump's scandals & failures. It is, for that reason, quite a long article. ~~~

~~~ Daddy, What's an Oligarchy? ~~~

~~~ Eric Lipton, et al., of the New York Times: Elon "Musk's rocket company, SpaceX, effectively dictates NASA's rocket launch schedule. The Defense Department relies on him to get most of its satellites to orbit. His companies were promised $3 billion across nearly 100 different contracts last year with 17 federal agencies. His entanglements with federal regulators are also numerous and adversarial. His companies have been targeted in at least 20 recent investigations or reviews, including over the safety of his Tesla cars and the environmental damage caused by his rockets.... [Mr. Musk] has thrown his fortune and power behind ... Donald J. Trump and, in return, Mr. Trump has vowed to make Mr. Musk head of a new 'government efficiency commission' with the power to recommend wide-ranging cuts at federal agencies and changes to federal rules. That would essentially give the world's richest man and a major government contractor the power to regulate the regulators who hold sway over his companies, amounting to a potentially enormous conflict of interest.... Instead of entering this new role as a neutral observer, Mr. Musk would be passing judgment on his own customers and regulators. Already, Mr. Musk has discussed how he would use the new position to help his own companies."

Theodore Schleifer of the New York Times asks some campaign finance lawyers to address whether or not Elon Musk's financial incentives to voters are legal. "Brendan Fischer ... said, 'There would be few doubts about the legality if every Pennsylvania-based petition signer were eligible, but conditioning the payments on registration arguably violates the law, which prohibits giving anything of value to induce or reward a person for registering to vote.'... Josh Shapiro, the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania and the state's former attorney general, said on Sunday on Meet the Press that the giveaway was 'something that law enforcement could take a look at.'" Schleifer did find one expert who said it was okay: former SEC chair Brad Smith. MB: I checked out Smith: he's a member of the right-wing Federalist Society, he planned to testify for Trump in his hush-money trial, he's probably the country's most prominent opponent of campaign finance laws. Oh, and Bill Clinton, formerly our sleaziest modern president, appointed him to head the FEC, an appointment which horrified campaign finance reform advocates. ~~~

     ~~~ Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin -- who is a lawyer -- pointed out in an appearance on MSNBC that the payments may be illegal because they appear to be unreported campaign contributions.

Down the page, Jamelle Bouie tries to reassure us how unlikely it is Trump will successfully overturn the election results if he loses. Come now Kyle Cheney and others at Politico to explain how Trump could pull it off.

Colby Hall of Mediaite: "CNN's Jake Tapper and Speaker Mike Johnson battled over former President Donald Trump's recent warning of an 'enemy within' the nation and the suggestion of using the National Guard against them.... At one point, after Speaker Johnson tried to insist he wasn't talking about American democratic officials, Tapper interjected with, 'Nope! He talked about Adam Schiff. the Pelosis....'" Tapper played a clip of Trump saying exactly that, after which Johnson had the gall to say, "... No. He's talking about using the National Guard in the military to keep the peace in our streets in the summer of 2020 that my Democratic colleagues call this summer of love...." The article includes a transcript of the full exchange between Tapper & Johnson as well as of the clip Tapper played. ~~~

     ~~~ At about the same time Bible Mike was lying about what he had just heard on the CNN teevee, Donald Trump was over at Fox, confirming what Bible Mike just lied about. According to Maggie Astor of the New York Times (linked above), "Mr. Kurtz asked who the 'enemy from within' was, and Mr. Trump identified Representative Adam Schiff of California and the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi." Marie: Some reporter should ask Bible Mike if his church suspends the Ninth Commandment ("Thou shall not bear false witness" [i.e., lie]) during campaign season.

Lauren Irwin of the Hill: "President Biden released a statement mourning the 'devastation' after a bridge collapsed on Georgia's Sapelo Island, killing 7 people. 'We are heartbroken to learn about the ferry dock walkway collapse on Georgia's Sapelo Island. What should have been a joyous celebration of Gullah-Geechee culture and history instead turned into tragedy and devastation,' Biden said in a statement Saturday evening." ~~~

     ~~~ Vice President Harris's statement, via the White House, is here. See stories under Sunday's Ledes.

Michael Bender of the New York Times: Donald Trump "says that his [speaking] style is to 'weave' from one subject to the next.... His critics say such detours are a troubling sign of his incoherence and raise questions about his age and cognitive health.... Here are four examples of Mr. Trump's rambling from just this past week. Schoolchildren asked him about boyhood heroes. He ended up at the border wall.... Asked about inflation, he roamed to his annoyance with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's college experience.... Asked about climate change, he drifted to his golf course and then to World War III.... He started discussing tax breaks for car loans. He found his way to a nerve-racking rocket landing." In each case, Bender transcribes Trump's quite crazy meanderings. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I realize that when most of us speak extemporaneously, our remarks don't sound as if we're reading from a well-edited textbook. On the other hand, politicians should be able to anticipate a high percentage of the questions they'll be asked, and they should be able to give coherent answers that more-or-less address the questions. At the same time, politicians -- unlike most of us -- are accustomed to answering questions, so they should know how to do it, even when they don't like the questions, or even when they're unprepared for particular questions. I don't care if Trump's groupies find him entertaining or even mesmerizing; I find his incoherence in and of itself disqualifying.

~~~~~~~~~~

Presidential Race

Brianna Tucker, et al., of the Washington Post: "Vice President Kamala Harris criticized ... Donald Trump over the issue of abortion access at a rally in Atlanta on Saturday, pointing out that the family of Amber Thurman -- a Georgia woman who died in 2022 after she did not receive proper medical care because of abortion restrictions -- was in the audience.... Harris played a clip of Trump at an all-women Fox News town hall, in which the moderator said Thurman's family had just participated in a call hosted by the vice president's campaign. 'Oh, that's nice,' Trump said in the clip. 'We'll get better ratings, I promise.' Harris said Trump had 'mocked' Thurman's family in the clip and later asked, 'Where is the compassion?'... Harris also repeated her assertion that Trump is exhausted from campaigning after several canceled appearances, and called into question Trump's coherence.... At a smaller campaign event earlier Saturday in Detroit, Harris said that voters need to 'just watch' Trump's rallies if they remain undecided.... In Atlanta, R&B singer Usher rallied for Harris."

Nicholas Nehamas of the New York Times: "Vice President Kamala Harris let her T-shirt do the talking in Detroit on Saturday. The black shirt ... bore the words 'Detroit vs. Everybody.' The attire was a clear response to ... Donald J. Trump, who last week disparaged what is one of the nation's largest majority-Black cities, portraying Detroit as a decaying harbinger of America's future under Ms. Harris. In brief remarks to the crowd on the inaugural day of early voting in the city, Ms. Harris urged her supporters to reject Mr. Trump's division and insults. 'We stand for the idea that the true measure of the strength of a leader is not based on who you beat down, it's on who you lift up,' she said, saying that her campaign was seeking the kind of 'grit' and 'excellence' possessed by 'the people of Detroit.'... Speaking before Ms. Harris at the rally in Detroit, [singer & Detroit native] Lizzo also challenged Mr. Trump's attacks on the city. 'They say if Kamala wins, this whole country will be like Detroit,' she said. 'Well, I say proud like Detroit. I say resilient like Detroit. This is the same Detroit that innovated the auto industry and the music industry. So put some respect on Detroit's name.'"

Zachary Leeman of Mediaite: "NBC News correspondent Yasmin Vossoughian spoke with a panel of Arab American viewers, all of whom refused to back Vice President Kamala Harris in the upcoming election." MB: I do understand their anger; however, there is not a whiff of a chance xenophobic Muslim-Ban Donald would be a better president for Arabs or Arab-Americans. "Gosh, you guys don't 'look American.' Off to the detention/deportation camp you go." Think clearly, people.

Benjamin Oreskes of the New York Times: "For [Nevada] Democrats [on the first day of early voting], Saturday culminated with an appearance in Las Vegas by former President Barack Obama, who has been visiting battleground states to energize Democrats. Speaking in a high school gym filled to capacity with 3,000 people and another thousand watching in an overflow area, according to the Harris campaign, Mr. Obama acknowledged the struggles Nevadans were facing -- how people are 'treading water,' as he put it, from high housing and consumer prices.... 'I get why people are looking to shake things up,' he told the crowd. 'What I cannot understand is why anyone would think Donald Trump would shake things up in a way that's good for you.' He added, 'We do not need a president who makes problems worse just to make his politics better.'" Democrats are holding several events in Nevada, including one with Sen. Alex Padilla (Cal.) and Rep; Nanette Barragán (Cal.) in Reno on Saturday and another with Gwen Walz & actor Jennifer Garner in Reno, scheduled for Sunday.

A Genuine New York Times Front-Page Headline: "At a Pennsylvania Rally, Donald Trump Descends to New Levels of Vulgarity." Michael Gold: "... Donald J. Trump on Saturday spewed crude and vulgar remarks at a rally in Pennsylvania that included an off-color remark about a famous golfer's penis size and a coarse insult about Vice President Kamala Harris. The performance, 17 days before the election in a critical battleground state, added to the impression of the Republican nominee as increasingly unfiltered and undisciplined.... Mr. Trump opened his speech at the airport in Latrobe, Pa., with 12 minutes of reminiscing about the golfer Arnold Palmer, who grew up in the Western Pennsylvania town and for whom the airport was named. His monologue culminated in lewd remarks about the size of Mr. Palmer's penis.... [After goading the audience to shout the word 'shit,'] Mr. Trump urged his supporters to vote, telling them that they had to send a crude message to Ms. Harris: 'We can't stand you, you're a shit vice president.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Funny how the Gray Lady can twist her sensible underthings in knots over vulgarities but quietly sip her tea & nibble on scones while contemplating the impending inauguration of a racist, nationalist dictator and his host of enablers in Congress and the courts. ~~~

     ~~~ The AP's report is here.

Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times tries to calm the anxieties of everyone who fears Donald Trump will try to steal the election if he loses. Yeah, he will. BUT "His ability to reverse a loss is limited to his ability to inspire others to commit crimes on his behalf. Remember, the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 clarified that congressional counting of the electoral votes is a formality and has no real bearing on the outcome. The Jan. 6 method is off the table. More important, Trump is not the president. He has no legal authority. If he loses, he'll be just another private citizen.... Trump has a better chance of winning outright than he does of overturning a defeat.... [So] you might want to focus more on putting him out to pasture on whether he can break out of the enclosure."

MoDo Is Not Amused. Maureen Dowd of the New York Times: Cardinal "Timothy Dolan let a white-tie charity dinner in New York showcase that most uncharitable of men, Donald Trump. At the annual Al Smith dinner, Dolan suffused the impious Trump in the pious glow of Catholic charities. Dolan looked on with a doting expression as Trump made his usual degrading, scatological comments about his foils, this time cloaked as humor.... As he did in 2016 when he crudely attacked Hillary Clinton as she sat on the dais, Trump added a rancid cloud to what used to be a good-tempered bipartisan roast.... Instead of telling Trump he was over the line, Dolan enabled him in his blasphemous effort to cast his campaign as a quasi-religious crusade and himself as a saintly martyr saved by God.... Al Smith ... would have detested Trump, a bigot cynically stoking racial fears and bloodthirsty impulses to get elected.... The pols on the dais looked like a Last Supper for this unnerving election. Hopefully, it's not a Last Supper for the Republic."

Kipp Jones of Mediaite: Donald Trump & Elon Musk insulted billionaire Mark Cuban (and Musk insulted not-billionaire Rachel Maddow), presumably because Cuban is supporting and campaigning for Kamala Harris. MB: I won't bother running down the insults, but you can read 'em at the link.

Jason Koebler of 404 Media: "An Elon Musk-funded group called Future Coalition PAC is targeting Muslim voters in Michigan and Jewish voters in Pennsylvania with diametrically opposed political advertisements about Kamala Harris. In areas of Michigan with relatively large Muslim populations, the Super PAC is painting Harris as a close friend of Israel and is suggesting that she is beholden to the beliefs of her Jewish husband Doug Emhoff; in parts of Pennsylvania with relatively large Jewish populations, the advertisements call Harris antisemitic and say she 'support[s] denying Israel the weapons needed to defeat the Hamas terrorists who massacred thousands.' Meanwhile, a related PAC also funded by Musk is microtargeting likely Black voters on Snapchat with ads that says Kamala Harris is trying to ban menthol cigarettes (surveys have shown that 81 percent of Black smokers use menthols, and big tobacco has disproportionately marketed menthol cigarettes to Black Americans)." Thanks to RAS for the link. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'm not familiar with 404 Media, but I've seen this story elsewhere, so I think it's solid. Update: I see Josh Marshall of TPM also cites 404's reporting, so we're in good company. So does digby, beneath a swell headline and subhead: "Move Over Roger. There's a new ratfucker in town." As for Elon, I know he's one of the richest people on the planet, but if money could buy that guy a conscience, I'd start a GoFundMe page for him. ~~~

~~~ Oh, not only immoral, but also criminal, according to election law expert Rick Hasen: ~~~

~~~ Rick Hasen on his Election Law Blog cites Hugo Lowell on  X: "Elon Musk says on stage at a town hall that America PAC will be awarding $1 million every day until the election to a registered Pennsylvania voter who has signed his petition. Musk awarded the first $1 million this evening to someone at the town hall, bringing the guy onto the stage and handing him a jumbo check, lotto-style. Musk is essentially incentivizing likely Trump voters in PA to register to vote: Petition is to support for 1A [First Amendment] and 2A [Second Amendment], so basically R voters. But they also have to be registered to vote, so if they weren't already, they would do it now." ~~~

     ~~~ Hasen: “Though maybe some of the other things Musk was doing were of murky legality, this one is clearly illegal. See 52 U.S.C. 10307(c): 'Whoever knowingly or willfully ... pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both...." (Emphasis [Hasen].) ~~~

~~~ And This. Arianna Coghill of Mother Jones: "On Thursday, [Elon Musk] tweeted to more than 200 million followers that he's offering $100 to registered Pennsylvania voters who sign his pro-Trump petition." MB: Here again, the offer incentivizes people to register to vote. So if $1MM to a few lucky voters is unlawful, then so is $100 to everyone who signs the petition. BTW, Monday is the last day one can register to vote in Pennsylvania.

Hugo Lowell of the Guardian: "Donald Trump's campaign may be failing to reach thousands of voters they hope to turn out in Arizona and Nevada, with roughly a quarter of door-knocks done by America Pac flagged by its canvassing app as potentially fraudulent, according to leaked data and people familiar with the matter. The potentially fake door-knocks -- when canvassers falsely claim to have visited a home -- could present a serious setback for Trump.... The Trump campaign earlier this year outsourced the bulk of its ground game to America Pac, the political action committee founded by Elon Musk.... Paid canvassers are typically not as invested in their candidate's victory compared with volunteers or campaign staff​.... The Trump campaign took a gamble this cycle when it outsourced the bulk of its ground game to political action committees, after the Federal Election Commission​ earlier this year for the first time allowed campaigns to coordinate its voter turnout efforts with ​outside groups." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Wouldn't it be a terrible shame if these lowly temps were ripping off multi-billionaire Elon Musk and probable billionaire Donald Trump, who is himself the Scam King?

Marco Margaritoff of the Huffington Post: "Dominion Voting Systems released a pointed statement Saturday following remarks from billionaire Elon Musk and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who have reiterated debunked conspiracy theories that the 2020 election was stolen from Republican nominee Donald Trump.... Musk ... promoted the false assertion that Dominion manipulated the election in 2020 at his first solo event to support Trump's campaign on Thursday, insinuating without proof that 'some very strange things' happened to people's votes.... Dominion ... reacted strongly to Musk's comments [citing what the company said were facts that countered Musk's claims].... Separately, Greene ... appeared on Alex Jones' InfoWars network on Friday, where she claimed that a Dominion machine 'changed' the ballot of a voter in her district [this past week]." On its Website, Dominion debunked Greene's claim.

~~~~~~~~~~

Israel/Palestine, et al.

The New York Times' live updates of developments Sunday in Israel's wars are here. The Washington Post's live updates are here: "On Sunday morning, the Israel Defense Forces said it struck about 175 militant targets in Gaza and Lebanon in the past day. At least 73 people were killed when an Israeli airstrike pummeled a group of homes in the northern border town of Beit Lahia on Saturday, according to Gaza's Civil Defense. Rescue operations continued through the night, with many people still buried under the rubble, said Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for the Civil Defense."

Aaron Boxerman, et al., of the New York Times: "Israeli forces pounded targets in the northern Gaza town of Jabaliya on Saturday, killing at least 33 people and injuring dozens of others in the bombardment, a Palestinian emergency services group said.... Fighting also escalated in Lebanon on Saturday, as the Israeli military targeted several areas outside of Beirut in airstrikes that covered the area in clouds of dust."

Julian Barnes, et al., of the New York Times: "The leak of a pair of highly classified U.S. intelligence documents describing recent satellite images of Israeli military preparations for a potential strike on Iran offers a window into the intense American concerns about Israel's plans. It also has U.S. officials working to understand the size of the improper disclosure. The two documents were prepared in recent days by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which is responsible for analyzing images and information collected by American spy satellites. They began circulating on Friday on the Telegram app and were being discussed by largely pro-Iran accounts. The documents, which offer interpretations of satellite imagery, provide insight into a potential strike by Israel on Iran in the coming days. Such a strike has been anticipated in retaliation for an Iranian assault earlier this month, which was itself a response to an Israeli attack." CNN's story focuses on the leak.

News Lede

New York Times: "At least seven people were killed on Saturday when a ferry dock gangway collapsed on a Georgia island where hundreds had gathered to celebrate the heritage of a community of slave descendants, the authorities said. The deaths on Sapelo Island were confirmed by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, which manages the island and operates its ferry service. The island is about 70 miles by road south of Savannah, Ga. The department said late Saturday that at least 20 people went into the water when the gangway collapsed, and that it was not immediately clear how many people had been injured." A CBS News story is here.

The Conversation -- October 19, 2024

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times is not amused: Cardinal "Timothy Dolan let a white-tie charity dinner in New York showcase that most uncharitable of men, Donald Trump. At the annual Al Smith dinner, Dolan suffused the impious Trump in the pious glow of Catholic charities. Dolan looked on with a doting expression as Trump made his usual degrading, scatological comments about his foils, this time cloaked as humor.... As he did in 2016 when he crudely attacked Hillary Clinton as she sat on the dais, Trump added a rancid cloud to what used to be a good-tempered bipartisan roast.... Instead of telling Trump he was over the line, Dolan enabled him in his blasphemous effort to cast his campaign as a quasi-religious crusade and himself as a saintly martyr saved by God.... Al Smith ... would have detested Trump, a bigot cynically stoking racial fears and bloodthirsty impulses to get elected.... The pols on the dais looked like a Last Supper for this unnerving election. Hopefully, it's not a Last Supper for the Republic."

~~~~~~~~~~

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." The Hill's story is here.

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 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..., 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 & 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 countrys 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.)