The Ledes

Friday, February 28, 2025

New York Times: “Boris Spassky, the world chess champion whose career was overshadowed by his loss to Bobby Fischer in the 'Match of the Century' in 1972, died on Thursday in Moscow. He was 88.”

New York Times: “The actor Gene Hackman was found dead in a mud room in his New Mexico home and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, was found dead on the floor of a bathroom on Wednesday, according to a search warrant affidavit. An open prescription bottle and scattered pills were discovered near her body on a counter in the bathroom. A dead German shepherd was found between 10 and 15 feet away from Ms. Arakawa in a closet of the bathroom, the affidavit said. There were no obvious signs of a gas leak in the home, it said, and the Fire Department did not find signs of a carbon monoxide leak. The maintenance workers who found them said they had not been in contact with the couple for two weeks. The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement on Thursday afternoon that 'there were no apparent signs of foul play.'... The causes of their deaths had not been determined.”

The Wires
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The Ledes

Thursday, February 27, 2025

CNBC: “Initial filings for unemployment benefits hit their highest level of the year last week in another potential signs of weakness in the labor market. Jobless claims for the week ended Feb. 22 totaled a seasonally adjusted 242,000, up 22,000 from the previous week’s revised level and higher than the Dow Jones estimate for 225,000, according to a Labor Department report Thursday. The level of claims matched the highest since early October 2024 and comes amid questions over broader economic growth and worrying signs in recent consumer sentiment surveys.”

CNBC: “High mortgage rates and elevated home prices combined to crush home sales in January. Pending sales, which are based on signed contracts for existing homes, dropped 4.6% from December to the lowest level since the National Association of Realtors began tracking this metric in 2001. Sales were down 5.2% from January 2024. These sales are an indicator of future closings.”

New York Times: “Gene Hackman, who never fit the mold of a Hollywood movie star, but who became one all the same, playing seemingly ordinary characters with deceptive subtlety, intensity and often charm in some of the most noted films of the 1970s and ’80s, has died, the authorities in New Mexico said on Thursday. He was 95. Mr. Hackman and his wife were found dead on Wednesday afternoon at a home in Santa Fe., N.M., where they had been living, according to a statement from the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Department. Sheriff’s deputies found the bodies of Mr. Hackman; his wife, Betsy Arakawa, 64; and a dog, according to the statement, which said that foul play was not suspected.” ~~~

     ~~~ Update. New York Times: “An investigation was underway on Thursday after the prolific actor Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, were found dead along with their dog at a house in New Mexico, the local authorities said. The bodies of Mr. Hackman, 95, and Ms. Arakawa, 64, were found by sheriff’s deputies in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Santa Fe on Wednesday afternoon, the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. The couple had lived in the Santa Fe area for years. Sheriff Adan Mendoza of Santa Fe County said in a phone interview that an associate of Mr. Hackman and his family had placed an emergency call on Wednesday afternoon after discovering the bodies of the actor and his wife.”

New York Times: “Michelle Trachtenberg, a touchstone of millennial youth culture who grew up onscreen, rising to fame as a troubled teenager on the supernatural 1990s series 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' and as a conniving young socialite on 'Gossip Girl,' was found dead on Wednesday in Manhattan. She was 39. The New York Police Department said in a statement that officers, responding to a 911 call just after 8 a.m. on Wednesday, found Ms. Trachtenberg unconscious and unresponsive in a Manhattan apartment. She was pronounced dead by emergency medical workers, who had also responded.”

Help!

To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.

Link Code:   <a href="URL">text</a>

OR here's a link generator. The one I had posted died, then Akhilleus found one, but it too bit the dust. He found yet another, which I've linked here, and as of September 23, 2024, it's working.

OR you can always just block, copy and paste to your comment the URL (Web address) of the page you want to link.

Note for Readers. It is not possible for commenters to "throw" their highlighted links to another window. But you can do that yourself. Right-click on the link and a drop-down box will give you choices as to where you want to open the link: in a new tab, new window or new private window.

Thank you to everyone who has been contributing links to articles & other content in the Comments section of each day's "Conversation." If you're missing the comments, you're missing some vital links.

Marie: Sorry, my countdown clock was unreliable; then it became completely unreliable. I can't keep up with it. Maybe I'll try another one later.

 

Public Service Announcement

Zoë Schlanger in the Atlantic: "Throw out your black plastic spatula. In a world of plastic consumer goods, avoiding the material entirely requires the fervor of a religious conversion. But getting rid of black plastic kitchen utensils is a low-stakes move, and worth it. Cooking with any plastic is a dubious enterprise, because heat encourages potentially harmful plastic compounds to migrate out of the polymers and potentially into the food. But, as Andrew Turner, a biochemist at the University of Plymouth recently told me, black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid." This is a gift link from laura h.

Mashable: "Following the 2024 presidential election results and [Elon] Musk's support for ... Donald Trump, users have been deactivating en masse. And this time, it appears most everyone has settled on one particular X alternative: Bluesky.... Bluesky has gained more than 100,000 new sign ups per day since the U.S. election on Nov. 5. It now has over 15 million users. It's enjoyed a prolonged stay on the very top of Apple's App Store charts as well. Ready to join? Here's how to get started on Bluesky[.]"

Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

Democrats' Weekly Address

Marie (Feb 23): As far as I can tell, there isn't any. I hope I'm wrong, but it looks like Democrats are so screwed up, they can't even put together a couple of minutes of video to tell us how screwed we are.

Out with the Black. In with the White. New York Times: “Lester Holt, the veteran NBC newscaster and anchor of the 'NBC Nightly News' over the last decade, announced on Monday that he will step down from the flagship evening newscast in the coming months. Mr. Holt told colleagues that he would remain at NBC, expanding his duties at 'Dateline,' where he serves as the show’s anchor.... He said that he would continue anchoring the evening news until 'the start of summer.' The network did not immediately name a successor.” ~~~

~~~ New York Times: “MSNBC said on Monday that Jen Psaki, the former White House press secretary who has become one of the most prominent hosts at the network, would anchor a nightly weekday show in prime time. Ms. Psaki, 46, will host a show at 9 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, replacing Alex Wagner, a longtime political journalist who has anchored that hour since 2022, according to a memo to staff from Rebecca Kutler, MSNBC’s president. Ms. Wagner will remain at MSNBC as an on-air correspondent. Rachel Maddow, MSNBC’s biggest star, has been anchoring the 9 p.m. hour on weeknights for the early days of ... [Donald] Trump’s administration but will return to hosting one night a week at the end of April.”

New York Times: “Joy Reid’s evening news show on MSNBC is being canceled, part of a far-reaching programming overhaul orchestrated by Rebecca Kutler, the network’s new president, two people familiar with the changes said. The final episode of Ms. Reid’s 7 p.m. show, 'The ReidOut,' is planned for sometime this week, according to the people, who were not authorized to speak publicly. The show, which features in-depth interviews with politicians and other newsmakers, has been a fixture of MSNBC’s lineup for the past five years. MSNBC is planning to replace Ms. Reid’s program with a show led by a trio of anchors: Symone Sanders Townsend, a political commentator and former Democratic strategist; Michael Steele, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee; and Alicia Menendez, the TV journalist, the people said. They currently co-host 'The Weekend,' which airs Saturday and Sunday mornings.” MB: In case you've never seen “The Weekend,” let me assure you it's pretty awful. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: "Joy Reid is leaving MSNBC, the network’s new president announced in a memo to staff on Monday, marking an end to the political analyst and anchor’s prime time news show."

Y! Entertainment: "Meanwhile, [Alex] Wagner will also be removed from her 9 pm weeknight slot. Wagner has already been working as a correspondent after Rachel Maddow took over hosting duties during ... Trump’s first 100 days in office. It’s now expected that Wagner will not return as host, but is expected to stay on as a contributor. Jen Psaki, President Biden’s former White House press secretary, is a likely replacement for Wagner, though a decision has not been finalized." MB: In fairness to Psaki, she is really too boring to watch. On the other hand, she is White. ~~~

     ~~~ RAS: "So MSNBC is getting rid of both of their minority evening hosts. Both women of color who are not afraid to call out the truth. Outspoken minorities don't have a long shelf life in the world of our corporate news media."

As we watch in horror the rapid destruction of our democratic form of government, it is comforting to remember there is life outside politics. I took a break a while ago to enjoy a brief lesson in the history of the moonwalk: ~~~

But it may go back even further:

And this chronological account is helpful:

New York Times: “Chuck Todd, the former 'Meet the Press' moderator and a longtime fixture of NBC’s political coverage, told colleagues on Friday that he was leaving the network. A nearly two-decade veteran of NBC, Mr. Todd said that Friday would be his last day at NBC.... Mr. Todd, 52, is the latest TV news star to step aside at a moment when salaries are being scrutinized — and slashed — by major media companies. Hoda Kotb exited NBC’s 'Today' show this month, and Neil Cavuto of Fox News and CNN’s Chris Wallace departed their cable news homes late last year.”

CNBC: “ CNN plans to lay off hundreds of employees Thursday [Jan. 23] as it refocuses the business around a global digital audience.... The layoffs come as CNN is rearranging its linear TV lineup and building out digital subscription products. The cuts will help CNN lower production costs and consolidate teams, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss nonpublic changes. Certain shows that are produced in New York or Washington may move to Atlanta, where production can be done more cheaply, said the people. For the most part, the job cuts won’t affect CNN’s most recognizable names, who are under contract, said the people. CNN has about 3,500 employees worldwide.... NBC News is also planning cuts later this week, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss nonpublic changes. While the exact number couldn’t be determined, the job losses will be well under 50....”

 

Contact Marie

Email Marie at constantweader@gmail.com

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Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts. — Anonymous

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. — Edward R. Murrow

Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns

I have a Bluesky account now. The URL is https://bsky.app/profile/marie-burns.bsky.social . When Reality Chex goes down, check my Bluesky page for whatever info I am able to report on the status of Reality Chex. If you can't access the URL, I found that I could Google Bluesky and ask for Marie Burns. Google will include links to accounts for people whose names are, at least in part, Maria Burns, so you'll have to tell Google you looking only for Marie.

Saturday
Aug102024

The Conversation -- August 10, 2024

Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "... Donald Trump's campaign said Saturday that some of its internal communications had been hacked. The acknowledgment came after Politico began receiving emails from an anonymous account with documents from inside Trump's operation. The campaign blamed 'foreign sources hostile to the United States,' citing a Microsoft report on Friday that Iranian hackers 'sent a spear phishing email in June to a high-ranking official on a presidential campaign.' Microsoft did not identify the campaign targeted by the email and declined to comment Saturday.... On July 22, Politico began receiving emails from an anonymous account. Over the course of the past few weeks, the person -- who used an AOL email account and identified themselves only as 'Robert' -- relayed what appeared to be internal communications from a senior Trump campaign official. A research dossier the campaign had apparently done on Trump's running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, which was dated Feb. 23, was included in the documents. The documents are authentic, according to two people familiar with them...."

~~~~~~~~~~

Presidential Race

Kellen Browning & Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times: "Vice President Kamala Harris rolled into Arizona on Friday evening with the same political momentum that has infused her first swing across the country this week, drawing a crowd that her campaign estimated at more than 15,000 -- her largest yet -- in a Western state that not long ago appeared to be falling off the battleground map. Along with her newly minted running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, Ms. Harris delivered a stump speech that is barely a week old, and yet familiar enough to an impassioned new following that some shouted her lines before she did. The rally was her fourth in four days with an arena-filling crowd that demonstrated the degree to which her candidacy replacing President Biden's had remade the 2024 race.... Despite her momentum, Ms. Harris faces an uphill battle in Arizona, a longtime Republican stronghold that flipped to Mr. Biden in 2020 but, according to polling, had been drifting back to ... Donald J. Trump this year." ~~~

     ~~~ Hannah Knowles, et al., of the Washington Post: "The rallies have seemingly grown bigger by the day as Democrats try to harness the newfound enthusiasm for their nominee with just three months before Election Day.... Attendees waited for hours Friday in 105-degree heat to enter the Desert Diamond Arena, as the campaign provided water, chairs and campaign-branded navy cardboard fans to try to keep attendees cool...."

Fin Gómez & Nidia Cavazos of CBS News: "The nation's oldest and largest Latino civil rights organization, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), has done something it has not done since its founding in 1929 -- it endorsed a presidential candidate. The organization's political arm, the LULAC Adelante PAC, announced its endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday in a press release.... The endorsement comes with Harris set to hold rallies in Glendale, Arizona on Friday and Las Vegas, Nevada on Saturday. They are two critical battleground states with large Latino populations." (Also linked yesterday.)

Lisa Lerer & Ruth Igielnik of the New York Times: "Vice President Kamala Harris leads ... Donald J. Trump in three crucial battleground states, according to new surveys by The New York Times and Siena College, the latest indication of a dramatic reversal in standing for Democrats after President Biden's departure from the presidential race remade it. Ms. Harris is ahead of Mr. Trump by four percentage points in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, 50 percent to 46 percent among likely voters in each state. The surveys were conducted from Aug. 5 to 9.... Still, the results show vulnerabilities for Ms. Harris. Voters prefer Mr. Trump when it comes to whom they trust to handle the economy and immigration, issues that remain central to the presidential race." MB: Because tariffs on all imports, Trump controlling the Fed, mass deportations of anyone who can say "Buenos dias," and kids in cages are all excellent policies. Good thinking, voters.

Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post has pretty much everything you want to know about the veracity of the attacks -- so far -- on Tim Walz's service record. In one case, Walz has been criticized for saying "in war" instead of "of war." Here Kessler finds "Walz's language was sloppy and false." MB: My overall take is that Walz, who is an exuberant guy, over the course of his decades of public remarks, occasionally got a little imprecise in describing his military service. As a person who never put a boot to the ground herself, I'll be damned if I'll be any more critical than thanking Walz for his service. ~~~

     ~~~ Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post: “Republicans have rummaged through their vast library of dirty tricks and pulled out a 20-year-old playbook to attack Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.... Pushback from Democrats should be fast, hard and unrelenting."

Also from Knowles, et al., Washington Post report: "Donald Trump, meanwhile, is in red territory at a rally in Montana on Friday, where Republicans are in a fierce race to unseat Sen. Jon Tester (D) but have won handily in recent presidential elections.... Trump -- who spent the first half of the summer gaining momentum -- has had to retool for a new opponent and grown upset about Harris's rise." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Trump headlined a rally in Bozeman, Montana, in a venue that holds more than 8,000 people. He nearly filled it. When a reporter asked Trump at his press availability Thursday, he called it "a stupid question." But it's not only his absence from the campaign trail that suggests Trump is finding campaigning too taxing -- because now he's complaining about it. Michael Gold in Friday's New York Times election blog wrote, "Donald Trump, perhaps flicking at his travel woes earlier after his plane suffered a mechanical issue and was diverted to another city, reflected on how long it takes to travel to Montana. 'I've got to like Tim Sheehy [the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate] a lot to be here,' he said." ~~~

~~~ Flight Problems, Ctd. Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump on Friday afternoon vehemently maintained that he had once been in a dangerous helicopter landing with Willie Brown, the former mayor of San Francisco, and insisted he had records to prove it, despite Mr. Brown's denial. In an angry phone call to a New York Times reporter [-- Haberman --] as he landed several hours away from his planned rally in Bozeman, Mont., because of a mechanical issue on his plane, Mr. Trump excoriated The Times for its coverage of his meandering news conference on Thursday at Mar-a-Lago..., during which he told of an emergency landing during a helicopter trip that he said both he and Mr. Brown had made together.... 'We have the flight records of the helicopter,' Mr. Trump insisted Friday, saying the helicopter had landed 'in a field,' and indicating that he intended to release the flight records, before shouting that he was 'probably going to sue' over the Times article. When asked to produce the flight records, Mr. Trump responded mockingly, repeating the request in a sing-song voice. As of early Friday evening, he had not provided them. Mr. Trump has a history of claiming he will provide evidence to back up his claims but ultimately not doing so." ~~~

     ~~~ ⭐Update. "I Guess We All Look Alike." Christopher Cadelago of Politico: "The man who almost crashed in a helicopter with Donald Trump told Politico Trump confused him with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.... It was Nate Holden, a former city councilman and state senator from Los Angeles, who said in an exclusive interview late Friday that he remembers the near-death [helicopter] experience well. He and others believe it happened sometime in 1990.... Also aboard [the flight, which was supposed to go from Trump Tower in Manhattan to Atlantic City,] was Trump's late brother, Robert, the attorney Harvey Freedman and Barbara Res, Trump's former executive vice president of construction and development.... On that ride, she said the pilots started feverishly maneuvering the equipment as the chopper lurched over the water. 'From the corner of my eye, I can see in the cockpit and what I see is the co-pilot pumping a device with all his might,' Res wrote in her book. 'Very shortly thereafter the pilot let us know he had lost some instruments and we would need to make an emergency landing,' she wrote. 'By now, the helicopter was shaking like crazy.'... Holden assured a [Politico] reporter that nobody discussed -- let alone criticized -- Kamala Harris as Trump claimed Brown did." Read the whole story.

Maggie Haberman & Jonathan Swan of the New York Times: An August 2 fundraiser for Donald Trump in Bridgehampton, N.Y. "came amid a stretch of flailing and self-harm that began after President Biden's July 21 withdrawal from the race and endorsement of Ms. Harris to succeed him. Close Trump allies have described this as the rockiest period of Mr. Trump's campaign.... As Ms. Harris -- long ridiculed and underestimated -- has transformed the contest, campaigning energetically and drawing roughly even with Mr. Trump in many polls, Mr. Trump has responded with one unforced error after another while struggling to land on an effective and consistent argument against her.... Mr. Trump has often been in a foul mood the past few weeks." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: All I want is to get to the part of the story where Queen Kamala figures out Trumplethinskin's name, thus depriving him of his prize, and in a fury, he rends himself in two. As a rule, I don't care for blood & gore, but here I'd like a visual, please.

digby, in Salon, conducts an autopsy of Trump's press availability Thursday: "He was dour and angry and frankly is starting to look a whole lot older, just in the past few months. He's not enjoying himself and it shows and compared to the excited crowds greeting Harris and Walz this week this sad, pathetic appearance seemed almost funereal. Donald Trump isn't fun anymore. I think he's considering for the first time that he might lose again and he is not psychologically equipped to deal with that reality.... There's a look of panic in his eyes right now."

Clay Risen, whose day job at the New York Times is writing obituaries, has a longish piece in the Times Magazine in which he attempts to describe the "New Right," which as far as I can tell from his description is a bunch of not very bright guys who share the legacy of several generations of not very bright guys, all of whom are/were dedicated to pushing back against cosmopolitan, upper-crust liberal tyrants and establishment conservatives. One problem with Risen's report is that it puts JayDee Vance & Running Man Josh Hawley in the same sentences with "intellectual." MB: I keep getting JayDee mixed up with the Beverly Hillbillies for some reason I can't quite put my finger on, particularly because Buddy Ebsen had a lot more sense than JayDee, As for Josh, he does remind me of Benny Hill, although again if I had to get stuck someplace with one or the other of them, I'd pick Benny.

Neil Bedi, et al., of the New York Times: "For about two and a half minutes, at least five Pennsylvania law enforcement officers converged around the warehouse where a gunman had clambered onto a roof near a rally held by ... Donald J. Trump, struggling to reach the attacker before he shot at Mr. Trump, newly released police videos and a social media video show. The body-cam and dashcam footage, paired with an eyewitness video posted on YouTube, provide new insight into the presence of and the response by Pennsylvania law enforcement at the building where the gunman, Thomas Crooks, was positioned. They reveal for the first time the critical moments -- starting around 6:08 p.m. -- when officers establish Mr. Crooks's location, frantically try to find a way to get onto the roof and determine that he is armed. By around 6:11, Mr. Crooks opens fire." The video was embedded in yesterday's Conversation. (Also linked yesterday.)


Holmes Lybrand, et al., of CNN: "A hearing on the next steps in the federal election subversion case against ... Donald Trump will take place on September 5 after a trial judge on Friday granted an extension sought by special counsel Jack Smith. Prosecutors with Smith's office said in a filing Thursday that they are still working through what the Supreme Court's decision earlier this summer -- which granted Trump sweeping immunity for official acts as president -- means for the case and how it proceeds." (Also linked yesterday.)

Tom Jackman of the Washington Post: At the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021, David "Dempsey ... repeatedly attacked police officers in the lower West Terrace tunnel for more than an hour, throwing poles and deploying bear spray at the line of officers protecting the Capitol. He then sprayed bear spray directly inside the mask of one officer, who testified that he thought he might die, and used a crutch to smash one officer's head, giving him a concussion. Senior U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth sentenced Dempsey, 37, to 20 years in prison Friday, the second-longest sentence of the approximately 950 defendants sentenced so far. Only Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys who was convicted of seditious conspiracy, received a longer sentence of 22 years.... The judge also weighed Dempsey's lengthy criminal history in California for burglary, drug dealing, evading police and 'assault with a caustic chemical,' for spraying bear spray at anti-Trump protesters in 2020, one of multiple attacks he allegedly launched at political rallies.... [Dempsey's] family started an online fundraiser for him, which has raised more than $20,000, saying that 'he is being politically silenced for his beliefs in the Constitution.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'm having trouble finding that part of the Constitution that guarantees a right to viciously attack police officers. Maybe it's somewhere around the same place that Donald Trump claimed yesterday the Constitution bars a political party from changing presidential nominees.

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Marie: In yesterday's Comments, Akhilleus pointed to another New York Times (supposedly) straight news report that castigates President Biden for not delivering world peace. The author of the NYT piece is Michael Crowley, who IMO has a long history (back to when he worked for Time magazine) of being a big dickhead (although, to be fair, he was involved in a dispute with a popular fiction writer in which the small penis rule figured). Akhilleus points to Scott Lemieux's tweet which accuses Crowley of "essentially treat[ing] Trump's premise that he could press a button and immediately end the world's major conflicts as if it was fact." And he does! -- though Crowley admits that (unnamed) "analysts say" Trump's assertion "is highly unlikely." What Lemieux says, and what Josh Marshall concurs with is this: "The crucial and dishonest move is to take an accurate statement by Biden about decisions he had control over and expand it to a much broader claim he didn't make, and then judge him by the latter standard[.]" One note: screenshots in Lemieux's post show the headline for Crowley's piece was, "Biden promised peace, but will leave his successor a nation consumed by war." Evidently, somebody at the Times found at least part of the headline overly melodramatic, because the current headline described "a nation entangled in war." But it still makes the basic claim that "Biden promised peace." Which he did not.

~~~~~~~~~~

Israel/Palestine, et al. The New York Times' live updates of developments Saturday in the Israel/Hamas war are here. "An Israeli airstrike early Saturday hit a school compound in northern Gaza where displaced Palestinians were sheltering, killing more than 90 people, according to Gaza health authorities.... The Civil Defense spokesman ... said 11 children and six women were among the dead, adding that many people were seriously wounded.... More than 6,000 displaced Palestinians were sheltering in the compound -- the Al-Tabaeen school in the Al-Daraj neighborhood -- at the time of the strike, the civil defense service said." This is the top item in the liveblog at 6:30 am ET. MB: Somebody explain to me why this airstrike was a good idea.

Ukraine, et al. Catherine Belton & Francesca Ebel of the Washington Post: "Russian President Vladimir Putin convened a meeting of his Security Council on Friday and his military commanders rushed to send reinforcements as a stunning Ukrainian incursion into Russia's western Kursk region presented the biggest challenge to the Russian leader since an uprising by Wagner mercenaries in June 2023.... The attack on Kursk, which is adjacent to Ukraine's Sumy region, caught Russian defenses thinly staffed and seemingly unaware.... Meanwhile, a Russian strike on a supermarket in Kostiantynivka in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region Friday killed at least 14 people and injured 37, according to Ukrainian officials."

News Lede

New York Times: "Susan Wojcicki, who helped turn Google from a start-up in her garage into an internet juggernaut and became one of Silicon Valley's most prominent female executives with her leadership of YouTube, died on Friday. She was 56. Her death was confirmed by her husband, Dennis Troper, who wrote on Facebook on Friday that she had been living with lung cancer for two years.... Her more than two decades working with Google began in 1998 in her house in Menlo Park, Calif., part of which she rented to her friends Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the company's founders. For $1,700 a month, the two used the garage as their office to build the search engine. Ms. Wojcicki, who had been working at Intel, soon joined Google as one of its earliest employees and was its first marketing manager."

Comments Off
Friday
Aug092024

The Conversation -- August 9, 2024

Today is the 50th anniversay of Richard Nixon's resignation. Here are some "60 Minutes" clips of Nixon's presidency.

Fin Gómez & Nidia Cavazos of CBS News: "The nation's oldest and largest Latino civil rights organization, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), has done something it has not done since its founding in 1929 -- it endorsed a presidential candidate. The organization's political arm, the LULAC Adelante PAC, announced its endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday in a press release.... The endorsement comes with Harris set to hold rallies in Glendale, Arizona on Friday and Las Vegas, Nevada on Saturday. They are two critical battleground states with large Latino populations."

Holmes Lybrand, et al., of CNN: "A hearing on the next steps in the federal election subversion case against ... Donald Trump will take place on September 5 after a trial judge on Friday granted an extension sought by special counsel Jack Smith. Prosecutors with Smith's office said in a filing Thursday that they are still working through what the Supreme Court&'s decision earlier this summer -- which granted Trump sweeping immunity for official acts as president -- means for the case and how it proceeds."

Tom Jackman of the Washington Post: At the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021, David "Dempsey ... repeatedly attacked police officers in the lower West Terrace tunnel for more than an hour, throwing poles and deploying bear spray at the line of officers protecting the Capitol. He then sprayed bear spray directly inside the mask of one officer, who testified that he thought he might die, and used a crutch to smash one officer's head, giving him a concussion. Senior U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth sentenced Dempsey, 37, to 20 years in prison Friday, the second-longest sentence of the approximately 950 defendants sentenced so far. Only Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys who was convicted of seditious conspiracy, received a longer sentence of 22 years.... The judge also weighed Dempsey's lengthy criminal history in California for burglary, drug dealing, evading police and 'assault with a caustic chemical,' for spraying bear spray at anti-Trump protesters in 2020, one of multiple attacks he allegedly launched at political rallies.... [Dempsey's] family started an online fundraiser for him, which has raised more than $20,000, saying that 'he is being politically silenced for his beliefs in the Constitution.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'm having trouble finding that part of the Constitution that guarantees a right to viciously attack police officers. Maybe it's somewhere around the same place that Donald Trump claimed yesterday the Constitution bars a political party from changing presidential nominees.

Neil Bedi, et al., of the New York Times: "For about two and a half minutes, at least five Pennsylvania law enforcement officers converged around the warehouse where a gunman had clambered onto a roof near a rally held by ... Donald J. Trump, struggling to reach the attacker before he shot at Mr. Trump, newly released police videos and a social media video show. The body-cam and dashcam footage, paired with an eyewitness video posted on YouTube, provide new insight into the presence of and the response by Pennsylvania law enforcement at the building where the gunman, Thomas Crooks, was positioned. They reveal for the first time the critical moments -- starting around 6:08 p.m. -- when officers establish Mr. Crooks's location, frantically try to find a way to get onto the roof and determine that he is armed. By around 6:11, Mr. Crooks opens fire." Video embedded below.

Presidential Race

NEW. Ezra Klein of the New York Times interviews Nancy Pelosi. Edited transcript of Klein's podcast. Fairly interesting. Update: And here's Biden campaign advisor Anita Dunn's take on the same story, as expressed in an interview Ryan Lizza of Politico Magazine conducted. (As for Pelosi, she told the New Yorker recently, "I've never been that impressed with [President Biden's] political operation.")

Bring in Da Joy! Ashley Parker & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "Ever since President Joe Biden stepped aside as the Democratic presidential nominee a little more than two weeks ago, the heady combination of Democratic relief and genuine enthusiasm for his replacement has transformed the Democratic ticket -- a metamorphosis turbocharged by Tuesday's addition of [Gov. Tim] Walz as Harris's No. 2.... 'All the things that make me mad about those other guys and all the things they do wrong, the one thing I will not forgive them for is they tried to steal the joy from this country. They try and steal the joy,' Walz ... said at a boisterous Detroit Metro Airport rally Wednesday for ... Vice President Kamala Harris. 'But you know what? You know what? Our next president brings the joy! She emanates the joy!'... [Meanwhile,] Donald Trump and ... Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, are offering a dark and dystopian vision of Democratic rule, running an operation laden with name-calling and trolling and rife with grievance. Their calculation is that the country believes things are way off track and that their darker message will resonate with how voters see reality." (Also linked yesterday.)

Jared Mitovich of Politico: "Kamala Harris' presidential campaign updated its online biography of running mate Tim Walz's military service amid Republican efforts to question his record in the Army National Guard. On its website, the Harris campaign axed a reference to Walz as a 'retired command sergeant major' and now says that he once served at the command sergeant major rank -- a small change that nonetheless reflects his true rank at retirement from the Army National Guard.... Led by GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance, a Marine Corps veteran who deployed to Iraq, Republicans have suggested that Walz inflated his credentials by calling himself a 'retired command sergeant major.' The Minnesota governor did serve as a command sergeant major but was reverted back to the rank of master sergeant when he left the military because he had not completed required coursework for the higher rank.... 'The son of an Army veteran who served as a command sergeant major, Walz was the ranking member on the House Veterans Affairs Committee, where he passed legislation to help stem veterans' suicides,' the Harris campaign's biography of Walz now reads. In the original biography, the same sentence called Walz 'the son of an Army veteran and a retired Command Sergeant Major in the Army National Guard himself,' website archives show."

Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post: "Republicans have smeared Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz as an 'extremist,' 'communist' and 'left-wing radical.' They warn of the 'dangerously liberal' agenda that he's implemented as governor of Minnesota and that he might soon inflict upon the entire country.... The country should be so lucky. In general, Walz's state agenda has been politically smart, fiscally sound and family-friendly -- not to mention long overdue pretty much everywhere else in America. In fact, Democrats should seriously consider rebranding themselves as the 'MAMA' ticket: 'Make America Minnesota Already.'" Read on. Rampell's contrast between Walz & Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is, well, picture-perfect.

Alexander Burns & Jonathan Martin in Politico Magazine: "'LIBERATE MINNESOTA!' raged Donald Trump. [Tim] Walz was in his second year as governor of Minnesota when the Covid-19 pandemic struck; like most governors, he imposed strict public health policies to contain the spread of the virus. And when Trump goaded on angry protesters who were targeting Walz and other governors, Walz found himself under siege. Trump's broadside, Walz said, 'brought armed people to my house.... [The beginning of the pandemic] was really the first time certainly in my political career and possibly my whole adult life that I did not feel you can count on the federal government for help.... [Then] on Jan. 6, when the Capitol riot happened we had that too, and there were, of course, legislators as well as some of these elements that believe the election was stolen, marched on the residence, and that's the one where it got way out of hand. The state patrol had to evacuate my 14-year-old, find the dog, take him to an off-site location." Read on.

Ha Ha! Alexandra Petri of the Washington Post -- with a little help from Virgil and maybe Dante -- takes Trump & Vance through the nine circles of HELL ON EARTH that Tim Walz has unleashed on Minnesota & that the Trump campaign warns Walz will impose upon the rest of us. Thanks to RAS for the link. (Also linked yesterday.)

Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump tried on Thursday to shoehorn himself back into a national conversation that Vice President Kamala Harris has dominated for more than two weeks, holding an hourlong news conference in which he assailed Ms. Harris's intelligence and taunted her for failing to field questions similarly from journalists. Throughout the event, held in the main room at Mar-a-Lago..., Mr. Trump assailed the state of the U.S. economy, described the country as in mortal danger if he did not win the presidential election and falsely described his departure from the White House ... as a 'peaceful' transfer of power. Mr. Trump also flashed frustration when asked about the size of Ms. Harris's crowds while boasting about the attendance at his own rally on Jan. 6, 2021, and insisted that the group of hundreds that stormed the Capitol was relatively small. But he fixated on the size of the crowd that he initially gathered on the national mall, making comparisons to -- and declaring it was larger than -- the one drawn by Martin Luther King Jr. for his famous 'I Have a Dream' speech. 'Nobody's spoken to crowds bigger than me,' Mr. Trump said....

"Mr. Trump insisted that he was 'not complaining' about the Democratic Party's late decision to replace President Biden atop the ticket -- as he proceeded to lodge a litany of such complaints. He has called the move to replace Mr. Biden with Ms. Harris 'unconstitutional,' but when challenged about what section of the U.S. Constitution would prohibit the change in the ticket, he acknowledged that perhaps it was not actually unconstitutional.... When a reporter asked about how muted his public schedule has been over the last few weeks, including this past week, Mr. Trump snapped, 'What a stupid question.'... He tiptoed toward identity politics as he described some of her appeal. 'She's a woman,' he said. 'She represents certain groups of people.'"

     ~~~ If Trump "tried to shoehorn himself back into a national conversation," he got a lot of help from major media. Lawrence O'Donnell of MSNBC was livid at the network press coverage and at the reporters in the room, who did not follow up and challenge Trump's stream of lies. ~~~

     ~~~ "A Seemingly Pointless Press Conference." Andrew Feinberg of the Independent: :... Donald Trump spent nearly an hour at his Palm Beach, Florida, social club on Thursday ranting to a room full of ... hand-picked ... reporters as he tries to grab the spotlight from a resurgent Democratic ticket....: ~~~

~~~ In its daily election liveblog yesterday, New York Times reporters covered a press conference Donald Trump held Thursday afternoon. See yesterday's Conversation for a few of the entries. There were many fact checks which I could not reproduce. So if you have time & a subscription, it's worth scrolling through the fact checks, if only to wonder at the shear volume of them. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ The Harris campaign issued its own fact-checks, and they run to two pages. The campaign prefaced their fact-checking effort with a few comments: "Donald Trump took a break from taking a break to put on some pants and host a p̶r̶e̶s̶s̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶f̶e̶r̶e̶n̶c̶e̶ public meltdown. We have a lot to say about it. Here are some initial thoughts -- with more to come. He hasn't campaigned all week. He isn't going to a single swing state this week. But he sure is mad Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are getting big crowds across the battlegrounds. The facts were hard to track and harder to find in Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago meltdown this afternoon. He lied. He attacked the media. He made excuses for why he;s off the campaign trail. We're here to help because his staff clearly isn't." Thanks to RAS for the lead.

Well, I know Willie Brown very well. In fact, I went down in a helicopter with him.... We thought maybe this was the end.... There was an emergency landing. This was not a pleasant landing. And Willie was -- he was a little concerned. So I know him, but I know him pretty well. I mean, I haven't seen him in years. But he told me terrible things about her [i.e., Kamala Harris].... But he had a big part in what happened with Kamala. But he -- he, I don't know, maybe he's changed his tune. But he -- he was not a fan of hers very much, at that point. -- Donald Trump, responding to a reporter's question Thursday ~~~

~~~ The Secret Life of Donald Trump. Heather Knight & Shawn Hubler of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump told a jaw-dropping story on Thursday about nearly dying in a helicopter ride with Willie Brown, the former California politician and ex-boyfriend of his rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.... [HOWEVER,] It wasn't the famous former San Francisco mayor on the helicopter flight at all. It was Gov. Jerry Brown, the former governor of California, who bears little resemblance to Willie Brown. There was also no emergency landing, and the helicopter's passengers were never in any danger at all, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was also on the flight. Jerry Brown, who left office in January 2019, said through a spokesman, 'There was no emergency landing and no discussion of Kamala Harris.' 'I call complete B.S.,' Mr. Newsom said, laughing out loud.... Mr. Brown, 90, said the whole story was false." An NBC News report is here. MB: In short, this is not a Willie Brown story; it's a Walter Mitty story. Sad!

No Country for Old Men. Shawn McCreesh of the New York Times: "It has been 18 days since the 46th president was shoved aside by his own party, and the 45th president has yet to get over it. He agonized on Mr. Biden's behalf, telling a tale of treachery perpetrated against him by former President Barack Obama, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and, most of all, Vice President Kamala Harris.... This sudden outpouring of sympathy for a man he recently called 'a broken-down old pile of crap' was somewhat surprising. Perhaps there was some projection at play: Was the dismay Mr. Trump expressed for his erstwhile opponent really just dismay at the predicament in which he now finds himself?"

Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post: "Trump, who only three weeks ago thought he had this election in the bag, is freaking out over the ascendance of Vice President Kamala Harris to the top of the Democratic ticket.... But rather than framing a sharp and coherent case against Harris [during his news conference], which his strategists so desperately want him to do, the former president on Thursday veered from grievance to grievance like a pinball."

Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times: "Vice President Kamala Harris and ... Donald J. Trump will face off in a televised prime-time matchup on Sept. 10, ABC News said on Thursday, setting up the latest crucial moment in an already unpredictable presidential campaign.... The ABC anchors David Muir and Linsey Davis will serve as moderators. The debate will probably be held without a live audience, but the exact format and ground rules are still being determined.... Mr. Trump said at a news conference on Thursday that he would debate Ms. Harris on two other occasions, at events hosted by NBC News and Fox News. But the Harris campaign has not agreed to those debates, which were not part of the original debate schedule that Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump had agreed upon in May."

Robert Costa of CBS News: "President Biden said he is 'not confident at all' that there will be a peaceful transfer of power in January 2025 if ... Donald Trump is defeated. 'He means what he says.... All the stuff about "If we lose, there'll be a bloodbath, it'll have been a stolen [election],"' Mr. Biden told CBS News chief election and campaign correspondent Robert Costa.... The interview will air on 'CBS News Sunday Morning' on Sunday, Aug. 11. 'Look what they're trying to do now in the local election districts where people count the votes,' said Mr. Biden. Repeating a familiar maxim about elections and democracy, the president said, 'You can't love your country only when you win.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

Amy Gardner of the Washington Post: "Since May, an unambiguously pro-Trump majority has controlled the [Georgia] state election board. And it got to work this week approving a raft of new rules that critics say could void valid votes, place onerous burdens on overtaxed election workers and potentially delay the certification of results.... The board's work is supposed to be done outside the fray of politics, and Trump's [praise of the new board members] suggested that if he loses the state, he would again mount a pressure campaign on the officials responsible for fairly and impartially overseeing elections, just as he did during his failed attempt to overturn his loss in 2020."


Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "Prosecutors with special counsel Jack Smith on Thursday asked for a three-week delay in ... Donald Trump's 2020 election obstruction case, saying the Justice Department needed more time to analyze the Supreme Court's ruling last month that presidents have broad immunity from prosecution after leaving office. U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan had set a Friday deadline for both sides to propose how they wanted to proceed and set a hearing for Aug. 16 in the federal case in Washington, D.C., after the Supreme Court returned the case to her control last week.... Lawyers for Trump ... did not object to the [requested] delay."

~~~~~~~~~~

Texas. Asad Jung of the Texas Tribune: "Gov. Greg Abbott signed an executive order on Thursday that requires public hospitals in Texas to collect information on the immigration status of patients so that the hospitals can then track costs incurred for the care of undocumented migrants.... The order requires that public hospitals in Texas collect information regarding the costs of medical care provided to undocumented immigrants starting Nov 1, 2024. Direct covered hospitals would have to report data to the state health commission quarterly, beginning in March 2025."

~~~~~~~~~~

The New York Times' live updates of developments Friday in the Israel/Hamas war are here.

News Ledes

Washington Post: "A domestic flight in Brazil carrying 61 people crashed near São Paulo on Friday, killing everyone onboard, Brazilian officials said. Tarcísio Gomes de Freitas, the governor of São Paulo state, said he had been informed that there were no survivors in the crash."

New York Times: "The remnants of Tropical Storm Debby were moving up the East Coast on Friday morning, prompting warnings for flash floods and tornadoes and causing airport delays at some of the major Northeast cities. 'Unfortunately, even in Debby's weakened state, dangerous flash flooding and severe weather will continue' through Saturday across portions of the Carolinas, Mid-Atlantic, Interior Northeast and New England, forecasters from the Weather Prediction Center said. The weather was causing delays at some airports in the region."

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Thursday
Aug082024

The Conversation -- August 8, 2024

Bring in Da Joy! Ashley Parker & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "Ever since President Joe Biden stepped aside as the Democratic presidential nominee a little more than two weeks ago, the heady combination of Democratic relief and genuine enthusiasm for his replacement has transformed the Democratic ticket -- a metamorphosis turbocharged by Tuesday's addition of [Gov. Tim] Walz as Harris's No. 2.... 'All the things that make me mad about those other guys and all the things they do wrong, the one thing I will not forgive them for is they tried to steal the joy from this country. They try and steal the joy, Walz ... said at a boisterous Detroit Metro Airport rally Wednesday for ... Vice President Kamala Harris. 'But you know what? You know what? Our next president brings the joy! She emanates the joy!'... [Meanwhile,] Donald Trump and ... Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, are offering a dark and dystopian vision of Democratic rule, running an operation laden with name-calling and trolling and rife with grievance. Their calculation is that the country believes things are way off track and that their darker message will resonate with how voters see reality."

In its daily election liveblog, New York Times reporters covered a press conference Donald Trump held Thursday afternoon. Here are a few of their entries: ~~~

Lisa Lerer: "Mr. Trump spoke at a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, where he repeatedly mispronounced Ms. Harris's first name, criticized her intelligence and resurrected a series of familiar attacks casting her as 'a radical left person.' As he continued answering questions, ABC confirmed that the network would host the two candidates for a debate on Sept. 10.... As is typical for the former president, his remarks were littered with falsehoods. He falsely accused Democrats of violating the constitution by replacing Mr. Biden on the ticket. He said nobody was killed on the Jan. 6 siege on the Capitol, when in fact several people died, including one Trump supporter, who was shot dead by the Capitol Police." This is the pinned entry.

[Marie: There are many fact checks, but to make a long story short, I can't reproduce them. Suffice it to say that Trump told a buncha porkies. If you have time & a subscription, it's worth scrolling through the fact checks, if only to wonder at the shear volume of them.]

Shane Goldmacher: "Trump says he is 'not complaining' about Democrats switching candidates but proceeds to air grievances about it."

Jonathan Weisman: "Trump seems to have engaged in some revisionist history of the transfer of power in 2020 that did not include an attack on the Capitol. 'Of course there will be a peaceful transfer, and there was last time,' he said."

Reid Epstein: "All these years later, Trump is still fixated on crowd sizes, which he regularly misrepresents. He began his administration by arguing about crowd sizes, and more than seven years later, he is still making false claims about crowd sizes." [MB: Trump said Harris had barely 1,000 or 1,500 people at her rallies, whereas he had more than Martin Luther King, Jr., attracted to the March on Washington. At one of their rallies this week, Harris & Walz (whose name Trump could not remember, BTW), could accommodate only 15,000; 47,000 people had applied.]

Weisman: "Trump said abortion wasn't really an issue in this campaign, then turned to attacking Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, the new Democratic vice-presidential candidate, for his position on abortion.... Trump repeats his aspersion on Kamala Harris, who is married to a Jewish man, Doug Emhoff: 'She's been very, very bad to Israel and very bad to Jewish people.'"

Alan Feuer: "Trump is now falsely claiming that his criminal trial in Manhattan was controlled by the Justice Department."

Weisman: "Trump just went on a lengthy digression about how he could have put Hillary Clinton in jail but opted for magnanimity, despite the demands of his 'people.'... Trump just said Biden sold off the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to lower gas prices, unsuccessfully. Biden did tap heavily into the reserve a while ago, but has been working to replenish it. On July 29, the administration announced that it had bought more than four million barrels.... Trump repeats his assertion that a president should have a say in the interest rate decisions of the Federal Reserve Board. This would fundamentally change the way the U.S. central bank operates, but Trump was often rankled by the Fed chairman during his term."

Katherine Faulders & John Santucci of ABC News: "... Donald Trump says he has agreed to an offer from ABC News to debate Vice President Kamala Harris on Sept. 10. Trump said so during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago Club on Thursday. Trump previously said he had been willing to go toe-to-toe with President Joe Biden and agreed to ABC's first invitation issued in May. However, after Biden dropped out of the race last month and Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee, Trump had implied he would not debate Harris on ABC."

Robert Costa of CBS News: "President Biden said he is 'not confident at all' that there will be a peaceful transfer of power in January 2025 if ... Donald Trump is defeated. 'He means what he says.... All the stuff about "If we lose, there'll be a bloodbath, it'll have been a stolen [election],"' Mr. Biden told CBS News chief election and campaign correspondent Robert Costa.... The interview will air on 'CBS News Sunday Morning' on Sunday, Aug. 11. 'Look what they're trying to do now in the local election districts where people count the votes,' said Mr. Biden. Repeating a familiar maxim about elections and democracy, the president said, 'You can't love your country only when you win.'"

Ali Velshi of MSNBC fact-checks Vance's and Trump's attacks on Tim Walz:

Ha Ha! Alexandra Petri of the Washington Post -- with a little help from Virgil and maybe Dante -- takes Trump & Vance through the nine circles of HELL ON EARTH that Tim Walz has unleashed on Minnesota & that the Trump campaign warns Walz will impose upon the rest of us. Thanks to RAS for the link.

~~~~~~~~~~

Presidential Race

Creepy Guy Stalks Harris & Walz. Tyler Pager, et al., of the Washington Post: "Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz continued their blitz through the country's battleground states Wednesday, rallying supporters in the Midwest and seeking to sustain their momentum as Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance followed closely behind and escalated his attacks on the Democratic ticket. Harris's and Vance's planes landed within minutes of each other Wednesday in Eau Claire, Wis., before they held dueling events just four miles apart. The gatherings had very different tones: Harris and Walz rallied more than 12,000 boisterous supporters outdoors, while Vance appeared with a handful of workers at an aviation factory at an event largely designed for the media.... Arriving shortly after Harris..., Vance walked over to Air Force Two.... 'I figured I'd come by and, one, just take a good look at the plane because hopefully it's going to be my plane in a few months, but I also thought you guys might get lonely because the vice president doesn't answer questions from reporters,' Vance told reporters....

"Following the Wisconsin rally, the Harris campaign took a page out of Trump's playbook, holding a 15,000-person rally in a hangar at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport with Air Force Two sitting in the background. Several protesters interrupted Harris at the Michigan rally by shouting pro-Palestinian slogans. They were drowned out by shouts of 'Kamala!' but continued to chant about 'genocide,' referring to Israel's military campaign in Gaza.... 'You know what? If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that,' Harris told the protesters. 'Otherwise, I'm speaking.' The Harris campaign has struggled to find venues large enough to hold the crowds.... In contrast to the Democrats' large rallies, Vance has held small events, designed to attack Harris and Walz in front of cameras."

Theodore Schleifer & Erin Griffith of the New York Times: "The latest affinity group to organize behind Kamala Harris on Wednesday represented the lowly millionaire and billionaire investors of Silicon Valley. Relative to the massive Zoom telethons that other groups had been hosting for Ms. Harris over the last two weeks, the 'VCs for Kamala' call was a small group of around 600 people. But they represented some of the country's most notable donors who have outsize influence in technology and Democratic politics.... Ms. Harris, who grew up in Bay Area politics and has stronger personal relationships with tech executives and investors than did President Biden, has ushered in an enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket not seen in years. She is set to return to San Francisco for a fund-raiser this weekend, and the event is already sold out at all but the most expensive price points. On the call, Reid Hoffman, a major donor to President Biden and Ms. Harris, made the business case for supporting Ms. Harris ... Donald J. Trump. 'No chaos' was far better for business, he said. Other chief executives of major companies he has spoken to agreed, he added.... In total, the group received pledges of roughly $135,000 for the Harris campaign." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Say what? $135K?? That's not even lunch money for this gang.

So Unfaaair. Josh Dawsey & Michael Scherer of the Washington Post: "As staffers and allies gathered at the GOP nominating convention in Milwaukee last month, some privately discussed what administration jobs certain people wanted -- and predicted a landslide election.... Trump now finds himself back in a dead-even contest and with new signs of strain in his orbit. In the face of new Democratic momentum, he has grown increasingly upset about [Vice President] Harris's surging poll numbers and media coverage since replacing [President] Biden on the ticket, complaining relentlessly and asking friends about how his campaign is performing.... 'I's unfair that I beat him and now I have to beat her, too,' Trump told an ally in a phone call last weekend....

"Since the June 27 debate, Trump has held eight campaign rallies, besides his nominating convention, including events in Minnesota, Florida and Virginia, all outside the main battleground map. Harris will visit six states this week. Beyond interviews, the only event Trump has scheduled is a rally in Montana, a state where he is almost certain to win by double digits." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: As Lawrence O'Donnell said Wednesday, there was no evidence Trump even got out of bed yesterday. Meanwhile, Harris & Walz held large rallies in two battleground states Wednesday: Wisconsin & Michigan. Montana, BTW, has four, count 'em 4, Electoral College votes. The state last sent Democratic electors to college in 1992. Anyhoo, my guess is that Trump is too old and tired to handle a "normal" campaign schedule, but Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg has another plausible explanation: "... After his disastrous week last week, where he repeatedly embarrassed himself, his campaign has taken him off the trail. His campaign knows."

Shane O'Neill & Taylor Lorenz of the Washington Post: "On Tuesday night, following his first public appearance as Vice President Kamala Harris's running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz posted a photo of himself wearing the just-released'Harris-Walz Camo Hat.' The official campaign merch was modeled after the cap Walz wore in a video circulated by the Harris campaign, in which he accepted Harris's offer to be her running mate. According to the campaign, it sold out of its initial inventory of 3,000 hats within 30 minutes -- with camo-hat sales totaling nearly $1 million Tuesday via its online store. As governor of Minnesota, Walz has advocated for stricter gun-control laws and signed a bill that included universal background checks and a red-flag law. But he is also an avid hunter who has boasted about being a good shot. 'That's what JD Vance's shtick is, talking about guns,' Walz told Anderson Cooper last month. 'I guarantee you he can&'t shoot pheasants like I can.'... Randy Kozuch ... of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, wrote via email that 'a camo hat can't camouflage the fact that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are gun-grabbing radicals who support confiscating firearms from law-abiding hunters and gun owners.'"

Reid Epstein, et al., of the New York Times write that Tim Walz is a calculating politician: After the 2022 midterm elections, Tim &"Walz and his aides crafted a strategy to inject him into the national political conversation.... They would build his profile, one state party dinner and cable news appearance at a time. And few Democratic politicians, officials or members of the party faithful would see them coming because they would do it in a way that was, above all, Minnesota Nice. Their plan exploded into the public consciousness over a turbulent two weeks. Mr. Walz transformed from a little-known governor of a blue state to one of his party's most prominent and powerful messengers.... Mr. Walz also relied on a skill he had refined over a career in the classroom and a conservative congressional district: being pleasantly agreeable." MB: Sorry, NYT. All this sounds pretty normal: you know, a politician promoting his brand and being pleasant. But, sure, I can see that "pleasantly agreeable" is the sort of scandalous behavior you might want to highlight on the front page of the paper of record.

Vance Swift-Boats Walz. Michael Bender & Thomas Gibbons-Neff of the New York Times: "Senator JD Vance of Ohio accused Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota on Wednesday of quitting the Army National Guard two decades ago to avoid being deployed to Iraq and of exaggerating his service record to claim falsely that he had served in combat.... Mr. Vance said Mr. Walz had effectively deserted his fellow soldiers to avoid serving in Iraq because he retired from the National Guard in May 2005, several months before his artillery unit received orders to deploy there.... Mr. Vance based his accusations on a Facebook post from 2018, and a paid letter to the editor to The West Central Tribune that same year in which the writers, Thomas Behrends and Paul Herr, both retired command sergeant majors in the Minnesota National Guard, accused Mr. Walz of 'conveniently retiring a year before his battalion was deployed to Iraq.' But Joseph Eustice, a 32-year veteran of the national guard who led the same battalion as Mr. Walz and served under him, said in an interview on Wednesday that the governor was a dependable soldier and that the attacks by his fellow comrades were unfounded....

"Mr. Vance's comments were also reminiscent of the 'Swift boat' attacks in 2004 that effectively cast doubt on the military exploits of Senator John Kerry, then the Democratic presidential nominee. A key strategist behind those attacks, which helped doom Mr. Kerry's bid for the White House, was Chris LaCivita, who is a senior strategist for the Trump campaign." ~~~

     ~~~ "Privileging the Lie." Jamison Foser on Finding Gravity: "Tim Walz 'enlisted Army National Guard in Nebraska in 1981 and retired honorably in 2005,' according to his military records. Months after Tim Walz retired from the Army National Guard in 2005, his unit received orders to deploy to Iraq. But now JD Vance is lying about Tim Walz' military service, falsely claiming 'When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, you know what he did? He dropped out of the Army and allowed his unit to go without him.' Again, this is false, as CNN explains: 'Walz retired from the Army National Guard in May 2005, according to the Minnesota National Guard. Typically, service members need to submit papers several months before they can retire. A National Guard article on his unit's deployment states that it received alert orders to deploy to Iraq in July 2005, two months after Walz retired....' This is an extremely simple situation: JD Vance is lying about the military service of a fellow veteran for political gain. The story is extremely simple, and extremely important -- and it is a story about JD Vance being a liar. Journalists have a responsibility to tell that story, the story about JD Vance smearing a fellow veteran.... Predictably, Vance and Trump are already getting a helping hand from the news media, which is privileging their lies. The New York Times, for example, leads with Vance's false accusation, not with the truth[.]... The first seven paragraphs of the New York Times article are devoted to recounting Vance's false claims -- without once even hinting at their falsity." Emphasis added. ~~~

     ~~~ Alex Henderson of AlterNet publishes more reactions to Vance's attack on Walz's military record.

Marie with news on an Important Election Controversy: So I was hunting down articles about JayDee when I came across a throw-away line that caused me to ask Google, "does JD Vance ..." whereupon Google, in that eerie way it does, finished my question for me: "wear eyeliner". Here's a Times of India post, republished by MSN, that pretty much answered that question for me.

Back When Trump Said Walz Was "Excellent." Lucien Bruggeman & Katherine Faulders of ABC News: "In the hours after Vice President Kamala Harris announced Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, allies of ... Donald Trump rushed to denigrate the Minnesota Democrat, seizing on criticism of his handling of the riots in the wake of George Floyd's murder in May 2020. 'He allowed rioters to burn down the streets of Minneapolis,' Ohio Sen. JD Vance, the Republican candidate for vice president, said Tuesday. But at the time, Trump expressed support for Walz's handling of the protests, according to a recording of a phone call obtained by ABC News -- telling a group of governors that Walz 'dominated,' and praising his leadership as an example for other states to follow. 'I know Gov. Walz is on the phone, and we spoke, and I fully agree with the way he handled it the last couple of days,' Trump told a group of governors on June 1, 2020, according to a recording of the call, in which he also called Walz an 'excellent guy.' 'I was very happy with the last couple of days, Tim,' Trump continued. 'You called up big numbers and the big numbers knocked them out so fast it was like bowling pins.'" MB: I sure hope the Guard didn't "knock out protesters like bowling pins."

Brett Samuels of the Hill: "Former President Trump said Wednesday he'll debate Vice President Harris in the near future, suggesting the two sides could reach an agreement after Trump backed out of a planned ABC News debate. 'I hear she's sort of a nasty person, but not a good debater,' Trump said on Fox News's 'Fox and Friends.' 'But we'll see because we'll be debating her I guess in the pretty near future.... It's going to be announced fairly soon. But we'll be debating her. I would like to see it on Fox, by the way,' the former president added. Trump indicated that other networks, such as NBC and CBS, have also been lobbying to host the event. 'I want to debate her. I think it's important for the country that we debate,' the GOP nominee said. 'Now where it is, I'm all for Fox. I think Fox would do a really good job. But two people have to agree.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: That's super. The other day Trump said that he had "agreed" to a debate. Well, he hadn't agreed with Harris, because she said no. And he hadn't agreed with Fox, as Akhilleus pointed out, because the debate wasn't supposed to be between the Republican nominee/felon and the network that sponsors him. Besides, it wasn't clear that even Fox had "agreed" to host the debate Trump said he had agreed to. So now someone appears to have successfully explained to the fake author of "The Art of the Deal" (at least till he forgets) that "two people have to agree" to make an agreement/deal/contract.

Kevin Manahan of New Jersey Online: "As Democratic presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris introduced her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, at a fiery campaign rally in a packed arena in Philadelphia on Tuesday..., Donald Trump was melting down on Truth Social. The GOP's nominee posted arguably his craziest social media rant -- a wacked-out fantasy that President Joe Biden would change his mind about stepping out of the race and demand the nomination back.... 'What are the chances that Crooked Joe Biden, the WORST president in the history of the US, whose presidency was unconstitutionally STOLEN from him by Kamabla [and others]..., CRASHES the Democrat National Convention and tries to take back the nomination, beginning with challenging me to another DEBATE....' [Trump wrote.] ... Reaction to Trump's cringy post was swift and widespread...: Was 'Kamabla' a typo? A new nickname? A racist play?... George Conway, an attorney who once worked for Republicans and former husband of Trump ex-spokesperson Kellyanne Conway, tweeted a question to Trump's campaign staff and his children: 'Are you guys gonna get this guy the help he so obviously needs, or are you all just there to cash his checks?'"

Yes, Trump & Project 2025 Are Joined at the Hip. Isaac Arnsdorf, et al., of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump has repeatedly denied knowing about the Project 2025 policy blueprint or the people behind it.... But in April 2022, Trump shared a 45-minute private flight with Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts. They flew together to a Heritage conference where Trump delivered a keynote address that gestured to Heritage's forthcoming policy proposals. 'They're going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do,' Trump said in the speech. Separately, Roberts told The Washington Post in an interview in April of this year that he had previously discussed Project 2025 with Trump as part of offering briefings to all presidential candidates.... Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Roberts never briefed Trump." MB: So who you gonna believe? In fairness. Trump's plans are worse than Project 2025's recommendations. ~~~

~~~ Madeline Peltz of Media Matters: Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts' book will be published after the November elections, according to a report from Real Clear Politics. This comes after backlash against the Heritage-led initiative Project 2025, which aims to provide policy and personnel to the next Republican presidential administration.... Project 2025 has deep ties to ... Donald Trump and his running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-OH). Vance wrote the foreword to the now-delayed Dawn's Early Light..., calling Roberts' ideas an 'essential weapon' in the 'fights that lay ahead.'... Media Matters has obtained a galley copy of the book. A review found Roberts rails against birth control, in vitro fertilization, abortion, and dog parks. He says that having children should not be considered an 'optional individual choice' but 'a social expectation or a transcendent gift,' and describes 'contraceptive technologies' as 'revolutionary inventions that shape American culture away from abundance, marriage, and family.' He labels reproductive choice methods as a 'snake strangling the American family."

Trisha Thadani of the Washington Post: "Prominent X accounts advocating for Vice President Kamala Harris have been labeled as spam or restricted in recent weeks, triggering alarm among some Democrats that Elon Musk's social media platform is tilted in favor of his chosen candidate..., Donald Trump. Only a handful of pro-Harris accounts, including one called 'White Dudes for Harris,' appear to have been affected. But the recurring issues are raising questions about whether Musk's platform is intentionally censoring the pages, or if the deep staff cuts he made after buying the company in 2022 have left the platform ill-equipped for the surge in political speech ahead of the Nov. 5 election. Musk's recent posts on X -- which have actively courted support for Trump and amplified a manipulated video of Harris -- highlight the potential risks of having the owner of a major platform openly champion a presidential candidate."


Yvonne Sanchez of the Washington Post: "An Arizona grand jury that indicted 18 Donald Trump allies this spring for their role in efforts to overturn the 2020 election had expressed interest in possible charges against the former president, according to a legal motion filed this week by state prosecutors.... The interest prompted the Arizona case's lead prosecutor to give a PowerPoint presentation and request that jurors not indict Trump, according to the motion. Nicholas Klingerman, assistant attorney general for the Arizona attorney general's criminal division, cited a rule about prosecuting someone for the same crime twice as well as a lack of evidence.... Trump was not indicted but was described as an unindicted co-conspirator." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Fake Elector Cops a Plea. Kyle Cheney of Politico: 'An Arizona Republican who falsely claimed to be a legitimate presidential elector for ... Donald Trump ... has pleaded guilty for her role in the scheme. Lorraine Pellegrino, one of 11 Arizona Republicans who falsely posed as Trump's electors that year, accepted a guilty plea to a single charge for filing a 'false instrument' -- the fraudulent Electoral College certificate. The state charge was one of several she faced for allegedly joining in a conspiracy to corrupt Arizona's election results.... Pellegrino's plea deal is the second victory in the Arizona case in as many days for [Arizona Attorney General Kris] Mayes, a Democrat. Another one of the 18 defendants, former Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis, began cooperating with prosecutors this week in exchange for a deal to dismiss the charges she faced. Ellis similarly cooperated with prosecutors last year in the Georgia case." (Also linked yesterday.)

~~~~~~~~~~

Austria

Zahid Mahmoud, et al., of CNN: "Organizers have canceled three Taylor Swift concerts in Austria after authorities said they foiled a terror attack planned for the Vienna leg of her blockbuster Eras tour. The extraordinary decision -- which could come at significant cost to Vienna's businesses -- has devastated fans and renewed focus on the vulnerability of huge concerts as soft targets for terror networks and spree killers." ~~~

     ~~~ Sarah Nir & Christopher Schuetze of the New York Times: "Less than 24 hours after the arrest of two teenagers who the Austrian authorities say planned to attack a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna, security officials outlined a picture of an Islamic State-inspired assault designed to kill as many people as possible.... Searching the [main suspect's] home, where he lived with his parents, the police found explosives, timers, machetes and knives, Franz Ruf [-- head of public safety --] said."

Great Britain

William Booth & Karla Adam of the Washington Post: "Faced with a week-long wave of widespread violence and rioting by people authorities describe as far-right 'thugs,' British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the police have been struggling to end some of the worst civil unrest here in more than a decade. On Wednesday night, something unexpected happened. Thousands of counterdemonstrators poured into the streets of a dozen English cities to denounce racism and to protect refugee centers, law offices and other sites that had appeared on an online 'target list' for anti-immigrant protests. Video of a gathering in west London's Brentford neighborhood showed a large crowd chanting 'This is what community looks like,' as police looked on from a distance. People shouted 'No to racism' in Harrow. In Southhampton, a dozen anti-immigration protesters showed up, to be confronted by hundreds of counterprotesters who bellowed 'Racists go home.'... For the most part, the counterdemonstrators appeared to outnumber the agitators. And, for one night at least, they helped stop the violence."

Billionaire Know-It-All Pisses off British PM. Eshe Nelson of the New York Times: "As he tries to quell violent outbreaks across Britain, Prime Minister Keir Starmer is also embroiled in a war of words with Elon Musk.... Over the past few days, Mr. Musk has posted incendiary comments and shared memes and videos about the riots in Britain to his more than 193 million followers on X. Violence has flared in towns across the country over the past week amid widespread misinformation after a deadly stabbing attack in Southport, England, last week, in which three girls died at a dance class. 'Civil war is inevitable,' Mr. Musk posted on X on Sunday in response to a video that showed small fires in the streets, fireworks being set off and rioters confronting the police.A spokesperson for Mr. Starmer said there was 'no justification' for Mr. Musk's comments. Since then, Mr. Musk has continued to post comments directed at the prime minister.... The comments fit a wider effort by Mr. Musk to influence politics in several countries, including the United States, Italy and Venezuela, and at times sow discontent." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Andrew McDonald of Politico: "Amid an ongoing feud with the British government about unrest on the country's streets, [Elon Musk,] the billionaire X owner boosted, and then deleted, an entirely-manufactured news headline Thursday pushed by a far-right political party. Musk shared a fake headline -- purporting to be from the Telegraph newspaper -- that said U.K. PM Keir Starmer is 'considering building "emergency detainment camps" on the Falkland Islands' to house far-right rioters arrested in the country's round of race riots. A cursory Google search for the headline would have quickly proved that it isn't real.... Musk shared the image posted by Ashlea Simon, the co-leader of Britain First. It's a fringe faright party in the U.K. known for its 'invasions' of mosques and the time its senior figures have spent in jail for religiously aggravated harassment. Though Musk deleted the tweet within an hour, he is yet to acknowledge the move. According to one U.K. journalist, the tweet was seen by almost two million people before it was deleted."

News Lede

Washington Post: "Tropical Storm Debby moved ashore once again early Thursday, its center appearing to make landfall near South Carolina's Bulls Bay. The tropical storm, which has already dropped 15 to 20 inches of rain in spots this week, is now poised to lumber through the Carolinas on Thursday, bringing more torrents and flooding. Between Thursday night and early Saturday, the storm will gain speed, sweeping from Virginia to Vermont, where it could also produce 'considerable flooding,' the National Hurricane Center said." This is a liveblog. ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times' live updates are here.

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