The Conversation -- Election Day 2024

Marie: I am happy to report that even here in Election-Day-only voting, old-fashioned, fuddy-duddy New Hampshire ~~~

Marie: This is a particularly good day to read the Comments. See particularly Akhilleus's treatment of "The Fatty Gunpowder Plot," featuring the very best Three Stooges. Also Bobby Lee's perhaps prescient concern about the final vote tally in the presidential election.

For your enjoyment: ~~~

New York Times reporters are liveblogging Election Day news here.

The last polls will close at 1 a.m. Eastern, in Alaska."

Simon Levien: "Senator JD Vance of Ohio ... voted at his local precinct this morning in Cincinnati.... Vance said he was headed to Florida, where the Trump campaign is hosting an election night watch party in West Palm Beach."

David Goodman: The Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, had a brief spat with the Justice Department over its deployment of election monitors to several counties in Texas.... Paxton dropped an emergency lawsuit over the monitors today after he said they had agreed to remain outside of polling places in the state."

Glenn Thrush: "F.B.I. officials said unknown people had been circulating fake news clips and videos using the bureau's insignia to push false narratives that voters should avoid polling places because of imminent terror attacks."

Jazmine Ulloa: "[Gov. Tim] Walz started the morning by joining radio shows in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Georgia, encouraging listeners to vote. The Walz team is headed to Harrisburg, Pa., for a final campaign event before meeting up with Vice President Kamala Harris at her alma mater, Howard University in Washington, to watch the election results."

David Chen: "Voters are poised to elect governors on Tuesday in 11 states, including eight that are wide open, with no incumbent running. But only a handful of races are expected to be competitive.... With Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, a Republican, leaving office after eight years, the race between the Republican nominee, former Senator Kelly Ayotte, and Joyce Craig, a Democrat, is viewed by many pollsters as the most competitive for governor. Ms. Ayotte is much better known. But Ms. Craig, the former mayor of Manchester, the state's biggest city, has been buoyed by criticism of Ms. Ayotte's [anti-abortion stances]."

Michael Gold: "Donald Trump just voted in Palm Beach, Fla., minutes away from his private club and residence in Mar-a-Lago.... Pressed by reporters on whether he might concede if he loses, he said, 'If I lose an election, if it's a fair election, I'm going to be the first one to acknowledge it, and I think it's -- well, so far, I think it's been fair.'... 'My supporters are not violent people,' he said, not addressing the actions of a mob of his supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.... 'I don't have to tell them that.'"

Ulloa: "Gov. Tim Walz, speaking at a packed diner in Harrisburg, Pa., thanked supporters for seeing themselves in his middle-class family and made a final pitch for Vice President Kamala Harris's vision for the nation, saying their ticket is about being part of a system that is hopeful where 'every voice matters.'"

Theodore Schleifer: "Elon Musk's super PAC just announced its last $1 million award to a registered voter [in Michigan] as part of its controversial sweepstakes program."

Gold: "After voting, Trump went to his campaign headquarters, inside a nondescript office building in West Palm Beach, Fla., where he thanked his staff, cast doubt on the use of voting machines and questioned the integrity of an election that could not be called on Election Day."

Gold: "In the closing days of the race..., Mr. Trump has used misogynistic language to refer to Vice President Kamala Harris and has fostered an environment at his rallies where speakers and attendees feel comfortable making the kind of gendered insults that, in another political era, would have been unthinkable to say in public.... He appeared to embrace a remark shouted by a rallygoer that insinuated Ms. Harris was a prostitute. And he voiced some approval of an audience member's idea to put Ms. Harris in the ring with the boxer Mike Tyson.... He used violent imagery as he denounced Liz Cheney ... as a coward.... And even as Mr. Trump has said that his advisers have told him to stop saying he would protect women, he went a step further last week by saying he would protect them 'whether the women like it or not.'The Harris campaign cast those remarks as paternalistic and sexist."

Schleifer & Maggie Haberman: "Elon Musk plans to spend election night with ... Donald J. Trump, giving Mr. Trump direct access to the person controlling one of key information platforms on what could be a chaotic evening. Mr. Musk ... plans to be at Mar-a-Lago for some of the evening festivities in Palm Beach, Fla. He will be among a small group watching the returns with Mr. Trump...."

Here's something I forgot to highlight this morning, but I think the story may appear down the page in one or more of the reports I linked: ~~~

     ~~~ Kierra Frazier of Politico: "At a rally Monday in Reading, Pennsylvania, [Donald Trump] suggested that Kamala Harris should get into the ring with boxer Mike Tyson. 'Put Mike in the ring with Kamala. That will be interesting,' Trump said while appearing to repeat something someone in the crowd said. It's been a theme of Trump's campaign in recent days. He's repeatedly aimed violent rhetoric at his critics, particularly women."

This New York Times page tells you when the polls close in each state (and even within each state, where there is more than one closing time.) This CNN page tells you when the last polls close in each state, but it does not provide the intra-state details the Times report does.

Patrick Marley & Robert Klemko of the Washington Post: "Before polls opened [today], some 80 million voters had cast early ballots, either in person or through the mail. That's about half the overall number who voted in 2020. Tens of millions more will vote Tuesday. Early voting has gone mostly smoothly around the country, though voters have faced long lines in some places, including in the swing state of Pennsylvania.... Voting administrators ... will perform their duties amid stepped-up security after facing years of threats from some Trump supporters who believe his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him."

Some GOP-run States Favor Election Fraud. Alanna Richer & Jim Salter of the AP: "Some Republican-led states say they will block the Justice Department's election monitors from going inside polling places on Election Day, pushing back on federal authorities' decades-long practice of watching for violations of federal voting laws. Officials in Florida and Texas have said they won't allow federal election monitors into polling sites on Tuesday. And on Monday, Missouri filed a lawsuit seeking a court order to block federal officials from observing inside polling places. Texas followed with a similar lawsuit seeking to permanently bar federal monitoring of elections in the state. The Justice Department announced last week that it's deploying election monitors in 86 jurisdictions across 27 states on Election Day. The Justice Department declined to comment on the moves by the Republican-led states, but filed court papers urging the judge to deny Missouri's request."

Presidential Race

First Results Reported! Christopher Maag of the New York Times: At the Balsam Grand Resort Hotel in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, "the tally -- the first result of this election -- was announced 12 minutes after midnight. In a hamlet where 66.67 percent of the registered voters are Republicans (the other two are independents) and where Nikki Haley swept the primary with all six votes, the general election ended in a tie: three votes for Kamala Harris, and three for Donald J. Trump. Four years ago, all five votes went to Joseph R. Biden Jr. In 2016, Hillary Clinton got four votes and Mr. Trump two." MB: The Times report doesn't address gender, but I think I heard on the teevee that four of the voters were men and two were women.

Katie Rogers, et al., of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump and Kamala Harris closed out their campaigns ... in starkly different moods: The former president, often appearing drained at arenas that were not filled, claimed that the country was on the brink of ruin, while the vice president promised a more united future as energized supporters chanted alongside her, 'We're not going back.' In stop after stop, the presidential rivals essentially offered up two competing versions of reality on Monday and into early Tuesday.... Stopping in Scranton, Allentown and Pittsburgh before a nighttime rally in Philadelphia, Ms. Harris talked about bolstering the economy and restoring federal abortion rights. She asserted that Americans were 'exhausted' and ready to move on from the politics of the past decade.... Ms. Harris, still appearing fresh after a three-month sprint, appealed for unity and pressed the contrast to her rival without uttering his name.... But Mr. Trump, reaching the end of a grueling marathon of a campaign that began in 2022, looked visibly weary, battling fatigue in front of listless crowds, though he was relatively more upbeat and energized in Michigan.... Her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, was campaigning in Wisconsin and Michigan. To cover more ground virtually, their campaign simulcast rallies from the battleground states featuring top surrogates and musical performers, with crowds looking to big screens to see what was happening in other cities."

Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump on Monday threatened tariffs as high as 100 percent on Mexico, America's largest trading partner last year, in yet another escalation of the drastic protectionist promises of his 2024 presidential campaign. Speaking in Raleigh, North Carolina, a day before Election Day, Trump said he would impose tariffs on Mexico of between 25 percent and 100 percent until it closed off its border with the United States. Trump has already suggested new import duties of as high as 20 percent on every country in the world, and economists have warned that if enacted, his sweeping new trade proposals are likely to send costs soaring for U.S. consumers."

Michael Gold of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump has spent parts of the last week of his campaign speaking in self-aggrandizing reverence about the arenas he has filled and the size of his enthusiastic audiences. Never again, he has said, will there be crowds like the ones he has attracted this year. But in the closing stretch of his third run for the White House, Mr. Trump -- a 78-year-old whose voice lately has strained at times, whose speech has been slurred and whose energy appears to be flagging -- is not quite the candidate he used to be. And neither are his crowds.... During the final week of his campaign, Mr. Trump has at times been delivering boasts about crowd size in arenas that are far from packed to the rafters. And when he insists that thousands more are waiting outside, they are often not. On Saturday, his campaign curtained off the upper bowl of an arena in Greensboro, N.C., that Vice President Kamala Harris had filled. Seating in the lower bowl wasn't packed either." Read on for a little schadenfreude fix. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: It's almost as if Michael Gold is not enamored of the subject of his assignment. And perhaps Gold isn't all that pleased that Trump said it would be fine if Gold & the rest of the Trump press corps were shot by an aspiring Trump assassin.

Marie: Perhaps, like me, you thought naming RFK Jr. to oversee the federal government's management of women's health issues was just about the worst possible hire Trump could boast. BUT we should have factored in Trump's penchant for striving to top his most egregious pronouncements: ~~~

     ~~~ Kathleen Culliton of the Raw Story: "Trump raised eyebrows Sunday during his Georgia rally when he [said]..., 'We will build a missile defense shield.... We'll put Herschel Walker in charge of that little sucker.' Walker, a Trump supporter whose 2022 senatorial bid failed as reports rolled in he paid for partners to have abortions despite claiming to oppose the procedure and lied about having a military career, had introduced the former president earlier that evening. 'It stops on Tuesday,' Walker said, 'when we vote for my friend and your friend Donald Trump Jr.'"

David Frum of the Atlantic on the horrors Donald Trump has promised us. MB: I have not been a fan of Frum's, formerly a speechwriter for Bush the Younger. But this essay, to which laura h. pointed us and gave us the gift of a link, is a fine piece of writing, IMO. If my link here doesn't work, laura's link in Monday's Comments does. (Also linked yesterday.)

Chris Cameron & Simon Levien of the New York Times: "Senator JD Vance of Ohio said in a campaign rally on Monday afternoon that 'in two days, we're going to take out the trash, and the trash's name is Kamala Harris,' moments after asserting that Ms. Harris had 'disrespect' and 'even hatred' for some Americans.... He ... referr[ed] to President Biden's remarks that denounced the racist language at ... Donald J. Trump's recent rally at Madison Square Garden but appeared to insult Trump supporters as 'garbage.' Mr. Vance told the crowd that 'here in our movement, we love every citizen of this country.' Thirty-five seconds later, Mr. Vance described the vice president as trash. The crowd roared its approval, with many giving Mr. Vance a standing ovation.... Mr. Vance at first dismissed the backlash against the racist remarks at Madison Square Garden, saying 'we have to stop getting so offended at every little thing in the United States of America.' Mr. Vance quickly seized on Mr. Biden's 'garbage' remarks, however, and mentioning it became a staple of his campaign rallies." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: It doesn't matter, but it's hard to know if JayDee is the stupid, rude naif he appears to be or if he is aware of his own hypocrisy and his smug bro remarks are merely poor performance art. Either way, he's the kind of obnoxious punk who makes pacifists cheer when somebody breaks & punches him in his fat little face.

Chris Cameron & Michael Gold of the New York Times: "Joe Rogan, the enormously popular podcast host who brought Donald J. Trump onto his show for a three-hour episode last month, endorsed the former president in a post on social media on Monday.... Minutes later, Mr. Trump promoted Mr. Rogan's endorsement from the campaign trail in Pittsburgh, falsely suggesting that Mr. Rogan had never before endorsed a political candidate. Mr. Rogan endorsed Bernie Sanders in 2020. 'He's the biggest there is,' Mr. Trump said of Mr. Rogan... The Trump campaign soon sent out a fund-raising email playing up Mr. Rogan's endorsement."

Bro Horror Story No. 1. Paul Mozur, et al., of the New York Times: "Right-wing groups, which use Telegram to organize real-world actions, are urging followers to watch the polls and stand up for their rights, in a harbinger of potential chaos. Groups backing ... Donald J. Trump recently sent messages to organize poll watchers to be ready to dispute votes in Democratic areas. Some posted images of armed men standing up for their rights to recruit for their cause. Others spread conspiracy theories that anything less than a Trump victory on Tuesday would be a miscarriage of justice worthy of revolt.... Telegram is a prime organizing tool for extremists, who have a tendency to turn digital coordination into real-world action." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Bro Horror Story No. 2. Drew Harwell, et al., of the Washington Post: An "organized network of conservative activists and conspiracy theorists ... have spent years building online followings by promoting their belief in corrupt elections. On platforms controlled by [Elon] Musk -- and Trump, the majority owner of the online platform Truth Social -- they have worked to stand up a preemptive infrastructure stronger than the 'Stop the Steal' movement that grew after Trump's 2020 loss. The online movement ... four years ago was driven by a small, disordered and slapdash group of right-wing fringe accounts echoing Trump's claims of election fraud. Today, it is an army -- organized, widely promoted and shored up by an ideology that has permeated the Republican base.... [Besides using Xitter and Trump's failing social media platform,] election deniers also have gathered in Discord servers, Facebook pages, Telegram channels and video conference calls to share strategies to combat what they say is a secret 'deep state' vote-stealing scheme." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Bro Horror Story No. 3: Ryan Reilly of NBC News: "As Donald Trump yet again tells his supporters he can lose Tuesday only if there's massive voter fraud and as he ramps up violent rhetoric about Democrats and other 'enemies,' members of the far-right group [Proud Boys] that put more 'boots on the ground' than any other at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, say they're mobilizing.... Several Proud Boys leaders were ultimately convicted of seditious conspiracy and are still in prison, including former chairman Enrique Tarrio, who is serving 22 years, the longest sentence given to any Jan. 6 defendant. But the decentralized all-male far-right group remains active around the country, and some of its members are openly making plans to get involved in Tuesday's elections, as Trump closes his campaign by talking about shooting through the evil,' 'dangerous' and 'the enemy within'; and spreads more baseless predictions of election fraud."

Amanda Moore in Politico Magazine: "A white nationalist worked on the Trump campaign in an important position in Pennsylvania for five months -- until Friday, when the Pennsylvania GOP fired him after learning about his views from my reporting. Last week, I confirmed that Luke Meyer, the Trump campaign's 24-year-old regional field director for Western Pennsylvania, goes by the online name Alberto Barbarossa. As Barbarossa, he co-hosts the Alexandria podcast with Richard Spencer, organizer of the 2017 white nationalist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. On his podcast and others, and in posts online, Barbarossa regularly shares white nationalist views."

Julian Barnes & Steven Myers of the New York Times: "Russian groups and other foreign adversaries have unleashed an extensive disinformation campaign to undermine confidence in the election, and senior U.S. officials are worried that Moscow's efforts could continue to stoke political discord until the election is certified in January. On Monday night..., the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the F.B.I. said in a joint statement that foreign adversaries led by Russia were 'conducting additional influence operations intended to undermine public confidence in the integrity of U.S. elections and stoke divisions among Americans.'" MB: I don't doubt it, but Russia's "extensive disinformation campaign" isn't nearly as great as the "extensive disinformation campaign" the Trump/Musk ticket is running.

Isabel Rosales & Paul Murphy of CNN: "An American social media influencer said he was paid $100 by a pro-Kremlin propagandist to post a fake video of Haitian immigrants claiming to vote in the US presidential election. The payment was one of several the man said he received from the propagandist- a registered Russian agent - to post on social media in the run-up to the election. The pro-Trump influencer, who uses the @AlphaFox78 handle on X, is an American man living in Massachusetts, CNN has learned.... The account, which has a history of posting right-wing memes in support of ... Donald Trump, was the first to post the now-debunked video that purportedly showed a Haitian immigrant claiming he would vote at least twice in Georgia for Vice President Kamala Harris."

Andrew Sorkin, et al., of the New York Times: "Investors on Monday appear to be unwinding bets on the so-called Trump trade. In a major reversal, bonds have rallied and the dollar and crypto currencies have dipped in the race's final hours. One explanation is a surprising new poll that showed Vice President Kamala Harris, powered in part by support from women and older voters, edging ahead in deep-red Iowa -- a finding that's also led to a tightening of Donald Trump's lead in political prediction markets." (Also linked yesterday.)

Theodore Schleifer of the New York Times: "A Pennsylvania judge handed Elon Musk a legal victory on Monday, refusing to halt Mr. Musk's election sweepstakes, in which registered voters who signed a petition to support the Constitution were entered into a drawing to win $1 million. Judge Angelo Foglietta of the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas denied a request from Philadelphia's district attorney, Larry Krasner, to issue an emergency injunction against Mr. Musk and put an immediate end to the giveaways. Mr. Musk's win is primarily symbolic.... The Musk team had already cut $1 million checks for 17 registered voters across the country and had no plans to give away more money to any voters in Pennsylvania.... Mr. Musk's petition was meant to build media publicity for his organization, America PAC, and also allow it to build a list of loyal supporters of ... Donald J. Trump, but full details on precisely how it worked had not been made public before Monday." Read on to learn how the scheme worked, or at least how Musk's lawyers described it to the court. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: If Musk's lawyer got him out of one kettle of fish with his convoluted defense, the lawyer may have plunged Musk into another, more costly one. ~~~

     ~~~ Maryclaire Dale of the AP: "Judge Angelo Foglietta -- ruling after Musk's lawyers said the winners are paid spokespeople and not chosen by chance -- did not immediately explain his reasoning.... [Philadelphia District Attorney Larry] Krasner has said he could still consider criminal charges, as he's tasked with protecting both lotteries and the integrity of elections.... Krasner -- who noted that he has long driven a Tesla -- said he could also seek civil damages for the Pennsylvania registrants." ~~~

     ~~~ David Ingram of NBC News: "A lawyer for Elon Musk said in a Philadelphia courtroom Monday that the winners of Musk's $1 million daily prize giveaway in election swing states are not chosen at random, contradicting what Musk said when he announced the contest last month. Legal experts told NBC News that the disclosure could have legal fallout for Musk across multiple jurisdictions under laws designed to protect consumers from deceptive practices. 'This is absolutely, unambiguously illegal,' Christopher Peterson, a University of Utah law professor who specializes in consumer protection, said in an email. 'You cannot lawfully lie to the public about conducting a random sweepstakes, lottery, or contest and then rig the results to hand-select the winners,' he said. 'It really is not complicated. This is just fraud; a simple, ugly fraud on the public.' He said Musk and his super PAC's behavior could be 'both a civil wrong and a crime.'... 'They falsely advertised that people who never had a chance to win should participate, and participation meant providing the PAC with valuable information about voters to target,' ... said [Harvard Law professor Rebecca Tushnet] in an email." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: A subpoena of Musk's mailing list would make it right easy to find some disgruntled losers willing to play another fun game: "Sue a Billionaire." The prize: $1 million. And every player wins. I'm thinking class action here. ~~~

~~~ Farah Stockman of the New York Times: "Of all the things that Elon Musk has done to get Donald Trump elected -- magnifying misinformation on his social media platform, X; jumping up and down onstage at rallies; and pouring eye-popping sums into pro-Trump propaganda -- nothing has generated more excitement than his strange and dubious [$1 million] contest.... It's very on brand for allies of Trump ... to turn our elections into a game show.... An oligarch is playing games with our democracy."

Robert Reich explains why Elon Musk & his ilk will be f***ed if Trump loses the election. Interesting that Musk himself acknowledges he'll be f***ed if Trump loses. And wouldn't that be a shame? Thanks to RAS for the links. (Also linked yesterday.)

Chris Cameron of the New York Times: "Tucker Carlson, a top surrogate for ... Donald J. Trump who spoke at the Republican National Convention this summer and made racist claims at a Trump rally last week at Madison Square Garden, said on Monday that the increased occurrence of hurricanes in the United States was a consequence of abortion -- which he characterized as 'human sacrifice.' Appearing on a podcast hosted by Stephen K. Bannon, a right-wing political strategist and Trump ally who was just released from prison, Mr. Carlson repeatedly portrayed abortion -- a medical procedure -- as a kind of religious human sacrifice. He dismissed scientific research that links global warming to the increased potency and frequency of hurricanes, saying instead that 'it's probably abortion, actually.' 'I'm sure I'll be attacked for saying this, but I really believe it,' Mr. Carlson said, adding, 'You can't participate in human sacrifice without consequences.'...

Mr. Carlson also described nuclear weapons as 'demonic,' adding that they were created by 'not-human forces,' and asserted that the U.S. military had 'consistently' targeted and killed Christian populations since the end of World War II." MB: It seems to me that the demons who "physically mauled" Tucker also could have instilled in him these novel beliefs. Not that Tucker's hypotheses don't seem like perfectly sensible theories flowing from empirical observations. P.S. Tucker needs a job. What Cabinet position should Trump offer him?

Ed Shanahan of the New York Times: "On Monday..., a New Jersey man was convicted of assaulting a law enforcement officer as part of the mob of Donald J. Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. A jury in Federal District Court in Washington, D.C., found the man, Brian Glenn Bingham, of Pennsville, N.J., guilty of the felony offenses of assaulting, resisting or impeding a police officer and civil disorder, and several misdemeanors, prosecutors said.

Lori Aratani & Rachel Lerman of the Washington Post: "Striking Boeing machinists have ended their nearly two-month walkout, voting Monday to accept a four-year deal that locks in historic gains in wages and benefits that are substantially higher than the company offered before the strike began."

~~~~~~~~~~

Ohio. Isabelle Taft of the New York Times: "A former Columbus, Ohio, police officer was found guilty of murder on Monday in the 2020 shooting of Andre Hill, a Black man whose death spurred protests against police brutality and led to police reforms in the city. A Franklin County jury also found the officer, Adam Coy, who is white, guilty of two other charges, felonious assault and reckless homicide. Mr. Coy was taken into custody after the verdict was read. He will be sentenced on Nov. 25.... Mr. Coy was responding with another officer to a call about a suspicious S.U.V. parked in a residential area. His body camera footage showed that he approached a garage and shined a light inside. As Mr. Hill walked slowly toward the officers, the video shows, Mr. Coy pulled his gun and shot Mr. Hill four times.... No weapon was recovered at the scene, the city announced shortly after the shooting."

~~~~~~~~~~

Russia. Arden Farhi, et al., of CBS News: "U.S. and European law enforcement agencies are working together to investigate whether incendiary devices detonated in July at DHL logistics hubs in Germany and the U.K. were part of a larger operation directed by Russian Intelligence services (in particular, the GRU -- Russian military intelligence), the highest level of the Russian government or by outside individuals acting in the interests of Russia, a source familiar with the matter said. Officials are working to determine whether the larger operation was to place similar devices on aircraft servicing the U.S. and U.S. allies. The Wall Street Journal first reported the alleged plot targeting U.S. aircraft."

News Ledes

How often we are oblivious to the heroes who walk among us.

New York Times: "Richard A. Cash, who as a young public-health researcher in South Asia in the late 1960s showed that a simple cocktail of salt, sugar and clean water could check the ravages of cholera and other diarrhea-inducing diseases, an innovation that has saved an estimated 50 million lives, died on Oct. 22 at his home in Cambridge, Mass. He was 83.... In 1978, the British medical journal The Lancet called [the] innovation [devised together with another American doctor] 'potentially the most important medical advance this century.'"

New York Times: "Murray McCory, who founded the outdoor equipment company JanSport while still in college and whose signature innovation, a lightweight backpack, revolutionized school life for millions of students, died on Oct. 7 in Seattle. He was 80."

The Conversation -- November 4, 2024

David Frum of the Atlantic on the horrors Donald Trump has promised us. MB: I have not been a fan of Frum's, formerly a speechwriter for Bush the Younger. But this essay, to which laura h. pointed us and gave us the gift of a link, is a fine piece of writing, IMO. If my link here doesn't work, laura's link in Monday's comments does.

~~~ Bro Horror Story No. 1. Paul Mozur, et al., of the New York Times: "Right-wing groups, which use Telegram to organize real-world actions, are urging followers to watch the polls and stand up for their rights, in a harbinger of potential chaos. Groups backing ... Donald J. Trump recently sent messages to organize poll watchers to be ready to dispute votes in Democratic areas. Some posted images of armed men standing up for their rights to recruit for their cause. Others spread conspiracy theories that anything less than a Trump victory on Tuesday would be a miscarriage of justice worthy of revolt.... Telegram is a prime organizing tool for extremists, who have a tendency to turn digital coordination into real-world action.' Read on. ~~~

~~~ Bro Horror Story No. 2. Drew Harwell, et al., of the em> Washington Post: An "organized network of conservative activists and conspiracy theorists ... have spent years building online followings by promoting their belief in corrupt elections. On platforms controlled by [Elon] Musk -- and Trump, the majority owner of the online platform Truth Social -- they have worked to stand up a preemptive infrastructure stronger than the 'Stop the Steal' movement that grew after Trump's 2020 loss. The online movement ... four years ago was driven by a small, disordered and slapdash group of right-wing fringe accounts echoing Trump's claims of election fraud. Today, it is an army -- organized, widely promoted and shored up by an ideology that has permeated the Republican base.... [Besides using Xitter and Trump's failing social media platform,] election deniers also have gathered in Discord servers, Facebook pages, Telegram channels and video conference calls to share strategies to combat what they say is a secret 'deep state' vote-stealing scheme."

Andrew Sorkin, et al., of the New York Times: "Investors on Monday appear to be unwinding bets on the so-called Trump trade. In a major reversal, bonds have rallied and the dollar and crypto currencies have dipped in the race's final hours. One explanation is a surprising new poll that showed Vice President Kamala Harris, powered in part by support from women and older voters, edging ahead in deep-red Iowa -- a finding that's also led to a tightening of Donald Trump's lead in political prediction markets."

Australia's "6:57 News" anchor Mark Humphries reports on the U.S. presidential race. Take it just as seriously as Humphries does. Thanks to RAS for the lead: ~~~

Robert Reich explains why Elon Musk & his ilk will be f***ed if Trump loses the election. Interesting that Musk himself acknowledges he'll be f***ed if Trump loses. And wouldn't that be a shame? Thanks to RAS for the links.

Presidential Race

Katie Glueck & Nicholas Nehamas of the New York Times: "Vice President Kamala Harris made her final appeal to Michigan voters at an energetic rally on a college campus on Sunday, sounding notes of unity while drawing implicit contrasts with her opponent. The event at Michigan State University was her first rally since becoming a candidate in which she did not say ... Donald J. Trump's name. Instead, in the final hours of the race, she argued that her candidacy was focused on the future."

Normal v. Tired Old Liar. Adam Nagourney, et al., of the New York Times: On "the final Sunday of the campaign..., Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald J. Trump ... could not have been more different ... in message and demeanor.... Ms. Harris began her day at a Black church in Detroit where she told congregants that the nation was 'ready to bend the arc of history toward justice,' invoking the words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Mr. Trump began his at an outdoor rally at an airport in Pennsylvania where, his shoulders slumped and his voice subdued, he threw out his prepared remarks to tell supporters that he 'shouldn't have left' the White House after his loss to President Biden in 2020.... Mr. Trump was relatively subdued at his second stop of the day, in Kingston, N.C.... At his third rally, in Macon, Ga., he used harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric.... Ms. Harris was markedly more upbeat [than Mr. Trump] at a rally Sunday evening in East Lansing, Mich.... She opened her remarks in East Lansing, in a state with a significant population of Arab Americans, by acknowledging the devastation of the Gaza war."

Rebecca O'Brien of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump said on Sunday that he expected Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to have a 'big role' in a second administration, and acknowledged the possibility that he could take action against two major public health successes -- vaccines and the fluoridation of water -- if he won the presidency. The remarks, in an interview with NBC News, suggest that Mr. Kennedy, a former independent candidate, has assumed an elevated role in Mr. Trump's orbit.... Mr. Trump has voiced misgivings about vaccines in the past, including in a 2015 Republican primary debate and in a leaked phone call between him and Mr. Kennedy in July, as the former president tried to coax Mr. Kennedy to back his campaign.... Vice President Kamala Harris, in a podcast interview on 'The Checkup with Doctor Mike' that was released on Sunday, warned against Mr. Kennedy having a prominent role in public health if Mr. Trump wins. 'That's why I'm working so hard, because I know the stakes,' Harris said, in an exchange that the Harris campaign later amplified on social media." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I think if you read through the story, you'll conclude that Trump is shining on Bobby Junior and his fan base just to keep them on the reservation until after the election. For instance, this hardly sounds like a solid promise to ban vaccines: "Well, I'm going to talk to him and talk to other people, and I'll make a decision, but he's a very talented guy and has strong views." See Dan Diamond's WashPo story, linked below, for more on the Impending Trump Healthcare Disaster.

Kathleen Culliton of the Raw Story: "... Donald Trump praised a violent dead gangster and the wrong Republican at a campaign rally this weekend, spurring concerns of cognitive decline. Trump told North Carolina voters Sunday evening, just two days before the upcoming presidential election that could return him to the White House, that he thought Al Capone was 'lovely' and their senatorial candidate was a superior choice. 'You have one of the best of all right here, David McCormick,' Trump said. 'Great guy.'" But great guy McCormick is running for Senate in Pennsylvania, not North Carolina, and -- not surprisingly -- he was not at Trump's North Carolina rally. Moreover, there is no North Carolina Senate race this year.

Not Funny: Trump Says He's Okay with Assassins Shooting the Press. Michael Gold & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump told supporters on Sunday [at a rally in Lititz, Pa.,] that he 'shouldn't have left' the White House at the end of his term during an end-of-campaign rally where he vented angrily about a spate of new public polls showing him losing ground to Vice President Kamala Harris and joked about reporters being shot at.... Mr. Trump's voice was audibly hoarse and his speech sluggish as he made unfounded claims about election interference.... The remark [that he shouldn't have left the white House in 2021] echoed what Mr. Trump told some aides within days of his 2020 election loss: that he wasn't going to leave the White House.... He spent nearly 20 minutes trying to instill doubts about the election, reviving a host of baseless claims of widespread fraud that he made in 2020.... Mr. Trump, while riffing, also pointed to the protective glass encasing him now at outdoor rallies since he survived the assassination attempt in Butler. 'To get to me, somebody would have to shoot through fake news, and I don't mind that much, 'cause, I don't mind. I don't mind,' he said, as some in the crowd laughed and howled." (Also linked yesterday.) The AP's report is here.

Alex Weprin of the Hollywood Reporter: "NBC is giving ... Donald Trump's campaign free commercial time in response to Vice President Kamala Harris' appearance on Saturday Night Live, including an unusual ad during Sunday's NASCAR coverage, a source familiar with the matter says. Harris appeared on Saturday's SNL for one minute and 30 seconds, meaning that if another presidential campaign requests it, NBC would need to give it about 90 seconds of time. On Sunday, NBC broadcast a NASCAR playoff race, but some viewers noticed toward the end of the broadcast (technically right after the race ended but while coverage was still ongoing) that Trump appeared in an unusual ad, speaking directly to camera ... and claiming that electing Harris would cause a 'depression' and that viewers should 'go and vote.'... Trump was given 60 additional seconds of campaign time during NBC's Sunday Night Football coverage. While the game was already over, the spot -- which was the same one that aired during the NASCAR coverage -- aired during the post-game coverage (and shortly after a paid campaign ad)."

S.V. Date of the Huffington Post: "In the final sprint toward Election Day, Donald Trump has mused about former congresswoman Liz Cheney as well as journalists covering his rallies getting gunned down, confirmed that he will put an anti-vax conspiracy theorist in charge of the government's health care apparatus and explained that talking about a fictional serial killer proves his genius. And that was all before he declared at a rally Sunday that he should have just stayed in office despite his 2020 election loss and failed coup attempt on Jan. 6, 2021."

Meryl Kornfield of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump headlined a rally a week ago featuring a comedian's remark that Puerto Rico is an 'island of garbage.' On Thursday, Trump insisted he had previously won New Mexico, a state he lost twice by big margins. On Friday, he suggested a Republican adversary should have 'guns trained on her face.' And the following day, he unleashed a profane speech saying women have to be protected 'at home in suburbia.'... Trump's near-daily pattern of making provocative or inflammatory remarks threatens to undermine his campaign's message that a Trump presidency would restore an orderly, controlled leadership to the nation." MB: The notion that an elderly, confused person who has been a scatterbrained wild man his entire life "would restore an orderly, controlled leadership" is ludicrous, and it didn't take this week of his vicious, deranged remarks for normal people to suddenly arrive at that realization.

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "Public appearances by Mr. Trump throughout this year's campaign have been an Alice-in-Wonderland trip through the political looking glass, a journey into an alternate reality.... At its most fundamental, it boils down to this: America was paradise on earth when he was in charge, and now it's a dystopian hellscape.... And it is a version that has found traction with tens of millions of supporters.... Mr. Trump's four years in power were a nonstop treadmill for fact-checkers trying to catch up with the latest. His four years since leaving arguably have posed an even bigger challenge as he descended further into conspiracy theories.... But dishonesty is not necessarily punished politically in the way it once was." Baker runs through a brief history of Trump's biggest lies. (Also linked yesterday.)

Marie: I continue to worry that no one is paying attention to New Hampshire. I saw a poll (don't know if it was a reliable one) about a week ago showing Trump up by four points in New Hampshire. And now hear this: ~~~

~~~ Margie Cullen of the Portsmouth Herald: "... JD Vance bashed Vice President Kamala Harris and touted ... Donald Trump in a last-minute attempt to shore up support in New Hampshire just two days before the 2024 presidential election. Vance held the rally at the New England Sports Center in Derry on Sunday night.... Recent polls show Harris leading Trump in the Granite State, but by a shrinking margin. A University of New Hampshire Survey Center poll released Sunday found Harris ahead by 5 points, down from 9 points in the previous poll. A poll released Oct. 30 by Saint Anselm found the same results: up by five, a smaller margin than previous polls. Political analyst Scott Spradling told WMUR [Manchester] the Trump campaign might think that they can take the state, and Vance's rhetoric suggested the same."

Marie: I wonder if pervasive GOP misogyny has turned Republican women into masochists. Donald Trump has treated Nikki Haley with contempt not only when she ran against him but also in the past several months when she has prostrated herself before him. Now Haley has doubled down on abused-partner syndrome by writing a Wall Street Journal op-ed endorsing Trump's candidacy. (I can't access the op-ed, and I don't care, but it's here.)

Dan Diamond of the Washington Post: "First came GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson's pledge last Monday to overhaul the Affordable Care Act if Donald Trump wins the presidential election. Then Howard Lutnick, the co-chair of Trump's transition team, on Wednesday endorsed Robert F. Kennedy Jr's vaccine skepticism and suggested that a future Trump administration would empower Kennedy to help oversee vaccine data. Three days later, Kennedy announced that Trump would seek to remove fluoride from Americans' drinking water as a Day 1 priority. The statements add up to a surreal final week of campaigning for Republicans in which several of Trump's top surrogates are introducing unconventional -- and generally unpopular -- ideas that pit them against the health-policy establishment.... The assorted proposals also add up to an agenda that would probably damage public health."

Andrew Van Dam of the Washington Post explains how polls are conducted in an era when "nobody answers the phone": "We stopped answering unknown numbers as phone spammers proliferated, everybody got caller ID and 'huge swaths of the population' switched to text messaging as their preferred means of communication.... The most common public, national polls use online panels that recruit willing participants, often through ads, and then try to massage their demographics until they match the U.S. population.... Many top pollsters adopt a 'whatever works' approach. They pick thousands of American households, often by selecting random mailing addresses, then pull out all the stops to wring an answer from each via phone, mail, internet or -- in some cases -- in-person visits."

~~~~~~~~~~

Florida Boy. Meet Your Trump Backer. Wicker Perlis of Treasure Coast Palm: "... a teenager and apparent supporter of ... Donald Trump was arrested [in Stuart, Florida,] Saturday at a rally in support of Vice President Kamala Harris and charged with punching a 70-year-old woman in the stomach. A 17-year-old boy -- wearing a T-shirt featuring an image of Trump raising his middle finger in front of an American flag background -- punched the Harris supporter, knocking her off her feet, according to police and the woman, Stuart resident Kathleen Tomasko.... According to witnesses, Bossio said, the 17-year-old was walking away from a separate altercation with a male Harris supporter when he struck Tomasko and knocked her to the ground. Tomasko said she did nothing to provoke the 17-year-old and she did not hear him say anything to her. In fact, she didn't even see him coming, she said." MB: Okay, so not old enough to vote, but old enough to flatten a little old lady. You've done your part, Kid. You've got a great future.

Montana Senate Race. Liz Goodwin of the Washington Post: "Tim Sheehy, the Montana Republican nominee for Senate, said in an interview with former Fox News host Megyn Kelly that there are no medical records that would prove he did not accidentally shoot himself in the arm in Glacier National Park in 2015. Sheehy is facing a fresh round of scrutiny about a bullet wound in his arm, which he has told voters he sustained while serving as a Navy SEAL in Afghanistan in 2012. But in 2015, he told a park ranger he accidentally inflicted the wound upon himself when he dropped his weapon in a parking lot in Glacier National Park and it fired into his arm. Democrats have poured millions of dollars into negative ads that raise questions about the incident, which was first reported by The Washington Post, in the closing days of the crucial Senate race.... Sheehy now says he lied to the park ranger in 2015 after seeking emergency medical treatment for a fall in Glacier National Park that he thought dislodged the bullet."~~~

     ~~~ MB: If you read through the story, you'll see that Sheehy not only changed his story about his bullet wound, he also has changed the story about the availability of his medical records: "Sheehy's contention that records from his hospital visit do not exist is new." It's pretty obvious Sheehy is lying. Again. Of course the hospital made a record of his visit. Not only that, most states require hospitals to report bullet wounds to law enforcement, so there should be a second, separate law enforcement record of his treatment. Knowing that they will be voting for an unrepentant serial liar, Montanans are set to elect him to unseat Jon Tester (D).

Nevada Early Voting. Mark Robison of the Reno Gazette Journal: "After the final day of early voting, registered Republicans have cast almost 50,000 more votes than Democrats statewide, according to Secretary of State data released at 9 p.m. Friday.... In 2020, Joe Biden won Nevada over Donald Trump by fewer than 34,000 votes. The state has not given its electoral votes to a Republican candidate since George W. Bush in 2004."

New York City Council Race. Maia Coleman of the New York Times: "When Harvey Epstein went to sleep on Saturday night, he was a low-profile New York State assemblyman. When he woke up on Sunday morning, he was something of an internet celebrity. Mr. Epstein was the subject of a 'Saturday Night Live' sketch this weekend that spoofed his name -- a somewhat unfortunate mash-up of the names of two notorious sexual predators, Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein. The show's host, the comedian John Mulaney, starred as Harvey Epstein in a campaign ad featuring the candidate struggling to explain to voters that he is neither of the disgraced men. Harvey Epstein is running for the New York City Council in District 2, which includes Greenwich Village, the Lower East Side and parts of southeastern Manhattan.... The real Harvey Epstein ... said in an interview on Sunday that he had no idea the sketch was planned.... In the wake of the publicity over the sketch, Harvey Epstein encouraged people to support survivors of sexual assault." ~~~

~~~~~~~~~~

Moldova. Andrew Higgins of the New York Times: "The pro-Western president of Moldova, Maia Sandu, won re-election on Sunday in a high-stakes runoff vote in the former Soviet republic against a rival candidate she had denounced as 'Moscow's man.'... With more than 98 percent of ballots counted, official results gave Ms. Sandu 54.9 percent of the vote, an unassailable lead on her Moscow-friendly rival, who had 45.3 percent. In a televised address early Monday, she thanked Moldovans living abroad, whose vote tipped the result in her favor, but said the election was a victory for the whole country. 'Today you saved Moldova,' she said. 'In our choice for a dignified future, no one lost.'"

News Lede

New York Times: "Quincy Jones, one of the most powerful forces in American popular music for more than half a century, died on Sunday in California. He was 91."

The Conversation -- November 3, 2024

Thanks to RAS for the link.

Not Funny: Trump Says He's Okay with Assassins Shooting the Press. Michael Gold & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump told supporters on Sunday [at a rally in Lititz, Pa.,] that he 'shouldn't have left' the White House at the end of his term during an end-of-campaign rally where he vented angrily about a spate of new public polls showing him losing ground to Vice President Kamala Harris and joked about reporters being shot at.... Mr. Trump's voice was audibly hoarse and his speech sluggish as he made unfounded claims about election interference.... The remark [that he shouldn't have left the white House in 2021] echoed what Mr. Trump told some aides within days of his 2020 election loss: that he wasn't going to leave the White House.... He spent nearly 20 minutes trying to instill doubts about the election, reviving a host of baseless claims of widespread fraud that he made in 2020.... Mr. Trump, while riffing, also pointed to the protective glass encasing him now at outdoor rallies since he survived the assassination attempt in Butler. 'To get to me, somebody would have to shoot through fake news, and I don't mind that much, 'cause, I don't mind. I don't mind,' he said, as some in the crowd laughed and howled."

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "Public appearances by Mr. Trump throughout this year's campaign have been an Alice-in-Wonderland trip through the political looking glass, a journey into an alternate reality.... At its most fundamental, it boils down to this: America was paradise on earth when he was in charge, and now it's a dystopian hellscape.... And it is a version that has found traction with tens of millions of supporters.... Mr. Trump's four years in power were a nonstop treadmill for fact-checkers trying to catch up with the latest. His four years since leaving arguably have posed an even bigger challenge as he descended further into conspiracy theories.... But dishonesty is not necessarily punished politically in the way it once was." Baker runs through a brief history of Trump's biggest lies.

~~~~~~~~~~

Patrick Marley, et al., of the Washington Post: "More than 74 million people had already cast their ballots as of Saturday, which is about 46 percent the total number cast in the 2020 presidential election. That includes 4 million voters in Georgia -- or 80 percent of the total that voted there in 2020.... This surge of early voting suggests that a long-term trend that was accelerated by the pandemic during the 2020 election has led to a lasting change in voting habits, with Election Day increasingly subsumed by Election Season....While nationwide rates of early voting aren't quite as high as they were at this time in 2020, they're significantly higher than in 2016 or any previous election year.... [Aside from the conveniences of voting early,] the booming interest in voting early may also reflect the nature of the presidential race, where the polls have barely budged for weeks and many voters don't need to hear more from the candidates to make up their minds."

Presidential Race

Marie: I don't do polls, but this one is such a shocker, I thought I'd share: ~~~

~~~ Brianne Pfannenstiel of the Des Moines Register: "Kamala Harris now leads Donald Trump in Iowa -- a startling reversal for Democrats and Republicans who have all but written off the state's presidential contest as a certain Trump victory. A new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows Vice President Harris leading former President Trump 47% to 44% among likely voters.... The results follow a September Iowa Poll that showed Trump with a 4-point lead over Harris and a June Iowa Poll showing him with an 18-point lead over Democratic President Joe Biden, who was the presumed Democratic nominee at the time.... A victory for Harris would be a surprising development after Iowa has swung aggressively to the right in recent elections, delivering Trump solid victories in 2016 and 2020. The poll shows that women -- particularly those who are older or who are politically independent -- are driving the late shift toward Harris." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The Des Moines Register poll is considered to be a highly-reliable, "gold-standard" poll. To me, the result doesn't necessarily mean Harris will win Iowa, but it may bode well for Harris's position in battleground states.

Kamala Harris's Closing Ad: ~~~

Nate Cohn of the New York Times tries to explain why it's so hard to beat even a deplorable GOP presidential* candidate like Donald Trump: "... the national political environment just isn't as conducive to a Democratic victory as many might imagine.... No party has retained control of the White House when so many Americans were dissatisfied with the country or the president.... For the first time in decades, Republicans have pulled even or ahead in nationwide party identification. Polls also find Republicans with the an edge on most key issues -- with democracy and abortion standing as significant exceptions.... Across the developed world..., voters appear eager for change.... Nearly everywhere, high prices and the fallout from the pandemic left voters angry and resentful.... Over just the last few years, all of [the] liberal energy [that surged beginning in 2008] suddenly seemed to vanish.... Democrats might keep their winning streak going on Tuesday, but when historians look back they might conclude that the liberal ascendancy had already come to an end."

Scranton Joe. Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: "In the final weeks of the presidential campaign, [President] Biden has been cast in the shadow of Vice President Kamala Harris amid concerns that his unpopularity could be a liability in her race against ... Donald J. Trump. But as he rallied union members in his hometown [of Scranton, Pennsylvania,] on Saturday during one of his last campaign events in office, Mr. Biden was in one of the few places Democrats feel he can still help Ms. Harris on the campaign trail.... Mr. Biden rattled Democrats this week when he appeared to call supporters of Mr. Trump 'garbage,' [and] ... Ms. Harris had to spend time on the campaign trail distancing herself from the comment. Ms. Harris's rallies are far more enthusiastic and energetic than Mr. Biden's, with crowds of thousands dwarfing those at his events. But Harris campaign officials believe that the incumbent president can still provide a key benefit to Ms. Harris by rallying working-class white voters and union members in battleground states.... Mr. Biden used the speech [Saturday] to argue that Mr. Trump would repeal much of his domestic agenda if he beat Ms. Harris, including efforts to invest in unions.... 'I'm not just asking for me,' Mr. Biden said. 'I'm going to be gone. I'm asking you to do something for yourself and your families.'"

Emily Davies of the Washington Post: "In swing states and Republican strongholds, on college campuses and in sports arenas, sticky notes have appeared reminding women that their votes are confidential -- kept private even and especially from the men in their lives. The origins of the trend are unclear, but the co-founder of Women for Harris-Walz, a grassroots group supporting the vice president's campaign, says her members have been sticking notes in bathrooms and similar spaces for months, encouraging women to vote their own minds and reminding them that their ballot is secret.... And in the closing weeks of the campaign, Democrats and their allies have made explicit appeals to women who are in relationships with Trump-supporting men."

The appeal have generated conservative fury, and the leaders of one conservative women's organization argued that "the real reason for the gender gap between the candidates ... is pressure that media and celebrities put on women to vote for Democrats." MB: Right. J.Lo & Beyoncé made me vote for Harris and that was very mean of them.

Marie: I made a big ole mistake yesterday and didn't learn about it till many hours after the fact, so if you read yesterday's Commentariat, please check out the correction. Thanks.

Not Parody. Jon Levine of the New York Post: "One of the United States' foremost white supremacists is urging his followers to support Vice President Harris in the presidential election next week. Richard Spencer, an avowed racist, antisemite and admirer of Nazism who coined the term 'alt-right' and was a featured speaker when he took part in the deadly 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Va., called Harris the 'best manager of the American empire.' Spencer -- who also gained international recognition after yelling 'Hail Trump! Hail our people!' and being greeted with Nazi salutes during a white nationalist event in November 2016 -- also condemned former President Trump's strong support of Israel.... The Harris campaign did not respond to request for comment from The Post." MB: Even if this is not a ploy to help Trump, I'm thinking Spencer's endorsement is not what Harris has in mind when she talks about unity. But thanks to Rupert's New York Post for doing its very best to point out Harris' wide appeal.

This PSA is an Election Day guide for Trump voters.

c: @chunkled @LincolnsBible pic.twitter.com/KU9Cl3Bhn0

— Greg Olear (@gregolear) November 2, 2024

      ~~~ Thanks to RAS for the link.

Hannah Knowles, et al., of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump spent his last Saturday of the presidential race making a trio of meandering, profane speeches in which he spoke repeatedly about women -- saying they have to be protected 'at home in suburbia,' complaining that he is not allowed to call women beautiful and calling himself the 'father of fertilization' -- a disjointed appeal to female voters as he faces a gender gap against Vice President Kamala Harris in public polls.... He hit on his top policy issues, immigration and the economy -- but he also made many extended detours and aired false or exaggerated claims. He characterized the country as 'invaded' by immigrants and made dark, baseless predictions about what a Harris presidency would look like, notably claiming that Americans 'won't own your house anymore.'... Harris spoke in Charlotte, [North Carolina,] reprising her closing argument that Trump is not someone 'who is thinking about how to make your life better,' as she cast a spotlight on his threats and inflammatory rhetoric. She called him a candidate 'who is increasingly unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance,' and warned he would walk into the Oval Office 'stewing over an enemies list.'" Politico has an item here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Millions of non-white Americans live in suburbs, but be assured that fact hasn't occurred to Donald Trump. So when he says that he means to "protect women at home in suburbia," he is talking about White women. And that is to say that Trump has put the White ladies on notice: they are in as much danger as women of color.

Gary Robertson & Jill Colvin of the AP: "Donald Trump will rally supporters in North Carolina every day until Tuesday's election, a flurry of late activity in the only swing state that he won in both his 2016 and 2020 campaigns. Even as Trump looks to expand the electoral map and project strength with trips to New Mexico and Virginia, two Democratic states not widely viewed as competitive, he is putting considerable time into North Carolina, which last backed a Democrat for president in 2008.... [Trump's] path to the 270 electoral votes needed to capture the presidency gets significantly more complicated if he loses North Carolina.... Trump campaigned in Gastonia ... and Greensboro on Saturday, with a stop in Salem, Virginia, in between. He will be in the eastern city of Kinston on Sunday and in Raleigh on Monday. Those four rallies will bring his total events in North Carolina since Oct. 1 to nine. His running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, has been in the state six times during the same period, most recently on Friday."

Marie: As usual, when Trump behaves badly, the Gray Lady doesn't tell us the whole, sordid story. In an updated story I linked yesterday, Times reporters write,

"... [Mr. Trump's] closing pitch was derailed by problems with the microphone that seemed to frustrate him during a particularly busy stretch of the campaign.... After members of the crowd began chanting that they could not hear him properly, Mr. Trump yanked the microphone out of its holder. At one point, he pantomimed adjusting the microphone setup and bobbing down toward it, to the laughter of the crowd. But Mr. Trump, standing in front of people waving signs that said 'Trump will fix it,' was visibly irritated by the technical issue. 'Do you want to see me knock the hell out of people backstage?' he asked the crowd, on a day when his violent language had already drawn attention." ~~~

~~~ But Then. Other stories provided a different characterization: ~~~

~~~ Ryan Bort of Rolling Stone, republished by Yahoo! News: "The former president was rallying in Milwaukee on Friday night, and amid his usual fear-mongering over crime and immigration, he went on a weird, prolonged rant about the venue's microphone -- which apparently wasn't functioning properly. 'You gotta be kidding,' Trump said. 'Do you want to see me knock the hell out of people backstage?... I get so angry, I'm up here seething, seething,' he continued. 'I'm working my ass off with this stupid mic.' Trump complained about the mic for nearly four full minutes, bashing the 'stupid people' responsible, griping about how worn out his throat is, and complaining that it was set up too low. He also threatened to stiff the contractors, something he has a history of doing.... At one point, Trump bizarrely moved his head up and down from the empty mic stand on his podium, presumably to demonstrate how low he needed to bend over to get the mic to pick up his voice. The act resembled something else, though. 'BLOWING IT: TRUMP SIMULATES ORAL SEX ON STAGE!' read a front-page headline from Drudge." AND (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Ben Blanchet of Huffington Post, via Yahoo News: "Trump also complained about the low height of microphone stands at his events and showed how he would work around such issues, bobbing his head up and down in what many observers suggested was an imitation of oral sex." AND (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Kevin Manahan of NJ.com: "Trump, in one of his final rallies on Friday night, simulated sexually stroking and then performing oral sex on his malfunctioning microphone in Milwaukee." (Includes video; the supposed sex simulation part begins at about 2:55 minutes into the video embedded in a tweet.) (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ ⭐UPDATE. In a surprising move, the Times has published a new (12:21 pm ET), stand-alone story by Michael Gold in which Gold describes the whole mic meltdown, including this: "But observers on social media shared a 5-second clip of the moment, suggesting the former president was pantomiming oral sex. Those short clips quickly received millions of views." Marie: This is remarkably similar to what happened two weeks ago: Michael Gold wrote a campaign update item mentioning Trump's Arnold Palmer big-dick remark, but -- according to Gold -- his editor removed the item. When a reader complained to Gold that he had sane-washed Trump's remarks about Palmer, Gold wrote back saying, "I filed something that included the thing you mention as omitted, but I am not given the power to publish what I say." Gold suggesting the reader direct his complaint to a senior editor, and a short while later, the Times published a full story that led with Trump's reflections on Arnold Palmer's big dick. (See Steve M. on this.) (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The Gray Lady's sensibilities notwithstanding, the point of all this is not that the New York Times failed again to tell the whole story but that an old man who could again wield the power of the U.S. presidency finds it appropriate to perform Lenny Bruce routines at large public gatherings. One need not be a prude to find Trump's behavior alarming. ~~~

     ~~~ Tom Nichols of the Atlantic sounds the alarm: "A former president of the United States held a rally, during which he used a microphone holder on his podium to pantomime the act of giving fellatio. I could have put it differently. I might have said that 'a cognitively impaired man, who has long been showing signs of serious emotional instability and has a history of sexism and racism, engaged in crude behavior in front of a large audience.' But that wouldn't capture an important reality: This deeply impaired man is tied in the race to become the next president and could be holding the codes to the U.S. nuclear arsenal in less than three months.... Trump, by most reports, has always been a vulgar and ignorant man. This creepy moment in Milwaukee will add to our national and international humiliation if he is returned to office. But more important, manifesting this kind of disinhibited behavior in public more and more often is a warning sign that he is simply not stable enough to sit in the Oval Office.... The rally crowd ... laughed as Trump pretended to pleasure a piece of equipment. But for the rest of us, the laughter has to stop, and the horror of what might happen in a few days must take its place." Thanks to laura h. for the link, which is a gift. (If the link here doesn't work, see laura's contribution to yesterday's Comments.)

Right on the main page of the New York Times online, under the headline, "Vote to End the Trump Era," the Editors write, "You already know Donald Trump. He is unfit to lead. Watch him. Listen to those who know him best. He tried to subvert an election and remains a threat to democracy. He helped overturn Roe, with terrible consequences. Mr. Trump's corruption and lawlessness go beyond elections: It's his whole ethos. He lies without limit. If he's re-elected, the G.O.P. won't restrain him. Mr. Trump will use the government to go after opponents. He will pursue a cruel policy of mass deportations. He will wreak havoc on the poor, the middle class and employers. Another Trump term will damage the climate, shatter alliances and strengthen autocrats. Americans should demand better. Vote."

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times: "When I asked a scholar what Shakespearean figure Trump most resembles, he replied that Trump is not complex enough to be one. You have to have a character to have a tragic flaw that mars your character.... I was surprised when some commentators reacted with shock at some of the insults slung [at his Madison Square Garden rally]. For me, it seemed like a pretty typical Trump rally: ugly, dark, crude, denigrating, racist, misogynistic.... Speakers included Elon Musk, R.F.K. Jr. and Tucker Carlson, who thinks a demon clawed him while he was in bed last year. It is frightening to contemplate how much power this gruesome threesome will have if Trump wins a second term."

México Primero! Trump Media Outsources to Mexican Techs. Robert Faturechi, et al., of ProPublica: "... Donald Trump's social media company outsourced jobs to workers in Mexico even as Trump publicly railed against outsourcing on the campaign trail and threatened heavy tariffs on companies that send jobs south of the border. The firm's use of workers in Mexico was confirmed by a spokesperson for Trump Media, which operates the Truth Social platform. The workers were hired through another entity to code and perform other technical duties, according to a person with knowledge of Trump Media. The reliance on foreign labor was met with outrage among the company's own staff, who accused its leadership of betraying their 'America First' ideals, the person said."

Move Over, Project 2025. There's a New Nut on the Block. If you don't yet find Trump alarming enough, look at what one of his most prominent surrogates promises. ~~~

~~~ Rebecca O'Brien & Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Saturday that among the first acts of a second Trump administration would be to 'advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water,' a stunning potential reversal of what is widely considered one of the most important public health interventions of the past century. The statement, posted on social media, is among the more concrete pledges made by Mr. Kennedy ... in his capacity as a top adviser on Mr. Trump's transition team. It also raises the specter of an all-out assault on public-health expertise should Mr. Trump win next week's election, a prospect that has already caused significant alarm among experts across the medical and environmental fields.... [Such] a presidential pronouncement [would not have the force of law in local and state jurisdictions, but it] would inject the White House into a debate that stretches back to the 1950s, when conspiracy theories swirled around fluoridation, with critics claiming it was a Communist plot to poison Americans' brains -- a view that was memorably parodied in Stanley Kubrick's film 'Dr. Strangelove.'" Read on for a summary of the current science on fluoridated drinking water. ~~~

     ~~~ The AP story, by Jonathan Cooper, is here: "Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent proponent of debunked public health claims whom Donald Trump has promised to put in charge of health initiatives<, said Saturday that Trump would push to remove fluoride from drinking water on his first day in office."

~~~ Alas, the Old Nut Jobs Are Still Around. And a True Witch Hunt is Underway. Jonathan O'Connell, et al., of the Washington Post: "An organization funded by the conservative Heritage Foundation has compiled an online watch list' of federal employees it claims cannot be trusted to secure the U.S. border and should be fired, a sign that supporters of Donald Trump's immigration policies are preparing to help him neutralize the administrative state they believe tried to thwart his first presidency. The 'DHS Bureaucrat Watch List' -- a website unveiled in the final weeks of a presidential campaign in which immigration is a key issue -- names 51 federal policy experts and high-ranking leaders, the majority of whom are career civil servants at the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies.... Among the employees' actions cited by the group are posts celebrating the legalization of same-sex marriage or lauding the contributions and successes of undocumented immigrants, as well as donations as little as $10 to Democratic candidates. One employee union likened the effort ... to Sen. Joseph McCarthy's 1950s-era campaign to purge federal workers he accused of being communists."

"Obeying Fascisim in Advance." Jessica Corbett of Common Dreams: "Historians and other critics are responding with fierce condemnation to this week's Wall Street Journal reporting that 'U.S. Archivist Colleen Shogan and her top advisers at the National Archives and Records Administration, which operates a popular museum on the National Mall, have sought to de-emphasize negative parts of U.S. history.'... The Biden appointee is now responsible for a $40 million overhaul of the National Archives Museum ... and the adjacent Discovery Center. Current and former employees expressed concerns about various changes to both spaces in interviews with the Journal, which also reviewed internal documents and notes.... As the Journal reported:

"'Shogan's senior aides ordered that a proposed image of Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. be cut from a planned 'Step Into History' photo booth in the Discovery Center. The booth will give visitors a chance to take photos of themselves superimposed alongside historic figures. The aides also ordered the removal of labor union pioneer Dolores Huerta and Minnie Spotted-Wolf, the first Native American woman to join the Marine Corps, from the photo booth, according to current and former employees and agency documents. The aides proposed using instead images of former President Richard Nixon greeting Elvis Presley and former President Ronald Reagan with baseball player Cal Ripken Jr." Read on. It gets worse. Thanks to pat for the lead. MB: I'm having a bit of trouble seeing how MLK Jr. would be viewed as "a negative part of U.S. history," but Dick Nixon would be a reminder of happy days.

Alex Williams of the New York Times: "Patricia Johanson, an environmental artist who made nature her medium, transforming highway underpasses, sewage treatment plants and other grimly functional public spaces into sweeping artworks, died on Oct. 16 at her home in Buskirk, N.Y., northeast of Albany. She was 84." Includes photographs of some of Johanson's installations.

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Tennessee. Rachel Nostrant of the New York Times: "The remains of a sixth factory worker in eastern Tennessee who was swept away in the flooding brought on by Hurricane Helene have been found, ending a search for what is believed to be the last missing employee more than a month after the storm tore through the Southeast. Officials on Friday disclosed the identity of the body as Rosa Andrade, 29, one of a half-dozen victims of the flood who worked at Impact Plastics, a factory in the close-knit town of Erwin, about 120 miles east of Knoxville.... It remains unclear what exactly happened at the plant on Sept. 27, and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations and the state's occupational safety board are still looking into the deaths.... Some workers said that as the downpour began, they were told not to leave the plant, despite their concerns about safety. Organizers with the Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition..., said that the workers told them they 'didn't have evacuation instructions at all.'"

Virginia, Where a Poll Worker Might Harass You if You "Look" Latina. Michael Laris of the Washington Post: The Post's 2023 Principal of the Year Liza Burrell-Aldana, went to vote Thursday in Fairfax County, Virginia, where "a poll worker ... looked at her driver's license and asked her, twice: 'Are you a citizen?'... Burrell-Aldana ... immigrated from Colombia in 2002 and became a U.S. citizen in 2011.... The incident played out as Donald Trump and many Republicans have falsely claimed that waves of noncitizens are voting, stoking fears. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) has embraced the issue, pushing for a daily scrub of voter rolls.... It is a violation of Virginia law for a poll worker 'to require or even to ask a voter to provide anything more than' a form of identification when they check in to vote, said Ryan Snow, a voting rights attorney at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.... Burrell-Aldana, in considering why her citizenship was questioned this year and not in past years, noted an environment where demeaning jokes about Latinos and others seem to be thrown around easily -- as they were at a recent Trump rally at Madison Square Garden."

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Israel/Palestine, et al. The Washington Post's live updates of developments Sunday in Israel's wars are here: "At least 50 children in northern Gaza's Jabalya were reportedly killed in the past 48 hours, according to UNICEF. The agency warned that the entire population of the region, especially children, is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and ongoing bombardment. The deaths in Jabalya were the result of strikes on two residential buildings where hundreds of people had sought shelter, UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell said in a statement Saturday."

U.K. Mark Landler & Stephen Castle of the New York Times: "Britain's Conservative Party announced on Saturday that it had selected Kemi Badenoch as its leader, putting a charismatic, often combative, right-wing firebrand at the helm of a party that suffered a crushing election defeat in July. Ms. Badenoch, 44, whose parents were immigrants from Nigeria, becomes the first Black woman to head a party that has had three other female leaders -- Margaret Thatcher, Theresa May and Liz Truss. She succeeds Rishi Sunak, who became the first nonwhite British prime minister after taking over the Tories, Britain's oldest party, in 2022."