The Conversation -- October 20, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~~~~~~~~~~

Presidential Race

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

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

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

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

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

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

     ~~~ The AP's report is here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~~~~~~~~~~

Israel/Palestine, et al.

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

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

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

News Lede

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

The Conversation -- October 19, 2024

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

~~~~~~~~~~

Presidential Race

Kamala Harris has four U.S. Presidents pulling for her, including three who are campaigning for her. Donald Trump, he's got zero.

Peter Alexander of NBC News: "Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday continued to steer clear of criticizing President Joe Biden, arguing that vice presidents not denigrating the commander-in-chief is an American tradition. After she delivered remarks at an afternoon campaign rally, Harris was asked by NBC News to identify one policy she would have done differently from Biden over the last three and a half years. 'To be very candid with you, even including Mike Pence, vice presidents are not critical of their presidents. I think that really, actually, in terms of the tradition of it, and also just going forward, it does not make for a productive and important relationship,' Harris said.... Earlier this week, Biden said Harris would 'cut her own path' as president separate from his, seen as a signal that he would not be upset if she put distance between them." MB: Harris has finally come up with the correct answer to "what would you do differently from Biden."

Maeve Reston & Ashley Parker of the Washington Post: "Around the world, many other democratic countries, from those in Europe to South America to Asia, have elected women as leaders for decades. Yet 40 years after Geraldine Ferraro became the first female vice-presidential nominee of a major party and eight years after Hillary Clinton became the first female presidential nominee of a major party..., thousands of voters ... are grappling with the question that still bedevils the nearly 250-year-old nation: Is America ready and willing to elect a female president? The answer, according to polling and more than two dozen interviews with voters, experts, campaign strategists and operatives, is yes -- but. Yes, the country is open, in some cases even eager, to a elect a female president --- but she faces myriad hurdles her male counterparts do not, and with far less room for error.... In interviews with The Washington Post and in focus groups, many voters expressed subconscious bias and outright sexism, worrying that a female president will be too emotional, or that she will be weak and get rolled by male leaders on the world stage. Some even said they couldn't imagine handing the nuclear codes to someone who they fear may become moody while menstruating. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Seriously? Donald Trump blows up after a technical problem and voters are worried Kamala Harris might start World War III because she was menstruating? News Flash: It's none of my business, but there's a very good chance a 59-year-old woman is done with menstruation.

Nicholas Nehamas, et al., of the New York Times: "Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump converged on Michigan on Friday as they fought for the small pool of undecided voters and Arab Americans who could decide a battleground state that has shot toward the top of the priority list for both campaigns. In Grand Rapids, Lansing and Oakland County, a pivotal Detroit suburb, Ms. Harris made explicit and extended overtures to blue-collar Americans as she campaigned in a state that has historically been the heart of the nation's labor movement, and as polls show her struggling with working-class voters. 'Donald Trump is no friend of labor -- let's be really clear about that, no matter what the noise is out there,' Ms. Harris said in Grand Rapids. She promised to 'work with unions to create good-paying jobs, including jobs that do not require a college degree.'... Appearing to refer to Politico's reporting that Mr. Trump was dodging media appearances because of exhaustion, she jabbed: 'If you are exhausted on the campaign trail, it raises real questions about whether you are fit for the toughest job in the world....'... Throughout her speech in Grand Rapids, in Kent County, Mich. -- a place Mr. Trump won in 2016 and President Biden flipped in 2020 -- Ms. Harris was by turns forceful in laying out the grave stakes of the election and almost gleeful in her efforts to cast Mr. Trump as unfit for office....

"Mr. Trump hit back by promising to revitalize the auto industry through a combination of tax incentives and tariffs. As he was proclaiming at length his fondness for tariffs, his microphone cut out, leaving him visibly frustrated as he paced onstage for nearly 20 minutes.... [Countering the claims he was too exhausted to campaign,] Mr. Trump called Ms. Harris a 'loser' and insisted to reporters ... after stepping off his plane in Detroit: 'I'm not even tired. I'm really exhilarated.'" ~~~

~~~ How Exhilarated Is He? Megan Lebowitz of NBC News: "Kamala Harris' campaign posted a video that appeared to show Donald Trump nodding off at a campaign event Friday, pushing a new line of attack that the former president is too "exhausted" to run for office. 'An exhausted Trump appears to be falling asleep during his campaign event,' the Harris campaign posted to its X account with a clip of Trump at a campaign roundtable event in Michigan on Friday. In the video, Trump appeared to be closing his eyes and bobbed his head." ~~~

An exhausted Trump appears to be falling asleep during his campaign event pic.twitter.com/WRMt0iTwAn

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) October 18, 2024

Marianne LeVine & Isaac Arnsdorf of the Washington Post elaborate on Trump's 20-minute faulty mic break in Detroit. "For 20 minutes, Trump paced the stage, voiceless, helpless, frustrated, alone. [After the mic situation was repaired, Trump said,] 'I won't pay the bill for this stupid company that rented us this crap.... I won't pay the bill. And then we'll have a story that Trump didn't pay the bill to a contractor. No. When they do that kind of a job, don't pay the bill.'... [He] encouraged his supporters to vote early by dramatizing how a supporter might encourage a friend named Jill to motivate her husband. 'Jill, get your fat husband off the couch,' he said. 'Get that fat pig off that couch.... Slap him around. Get him up.'... Friday's rally was notably smaller than most of his events, with few standing beyond the rows of chairs in a downtown convention hall. Trump did not revise his dim view of the city but promised a brighter future under his leadership." ~~~

     ~~~ According to Matt Dixon of NBC News, Trump also said of the audio failure, "'If it goes out again, I'll sue the a-- off that company.'... The rally went on for another hour, but Trump, at times, struggled to move on from the initial audio failures; 20 minutes into the event, he was still complaining that he had to 'scream' to get his message across, even as the audio system had been fully restored."

     ~~~ Marie: There are a number of ways for a speaker to respond to technical difficulties and other interruptions, but anger isn't a very good one. Trump is supposed to be an expert at improvisation, but he isn't. Earlier this week, two routine medical emergencies occurred during one of his events. Trump "responded" to them by trance-dancing, as Scott Lemieux described it (linked below), for 40 minutes, and long after the emergencies were resolved. That trance-dancing was a form of anger management. Trump seems to have realized getting angry at supporters for fainting was not a good look, but he was mad at them anyway, so he refused to take other supporters' questions. In Detroit, he got mad at a company his campaign had employed, so he angrily declared he would punish the company. It was a bad move. His reason for returning to Detroit was to try to clean up his dissing of the city last week. But most likely, the company he disparaged as "stupid" was locally-owned. My guess is the real source of his anger was just having to be in Detroit itself and having to make nice to Detroit, where all the Black people live. And Donald Trump cannot control his racist anger.

"An Older, Loonier Donald Trump." Reis Thebault of the Washington Post: "Former president Barack Obama further sharpened his criticism of Donald Trump at a rally Friday, casting the Republican nominee as a huckster who lacks the mental fitness to lead the nation, leaning into a strategy of withering mockery as he hits the campaign trail in support of Vice President Kamala Harris.... Obama spoke to a crowd the Harris campaign estimated at 7,000 people, who packed onto the turf field inside the University of Arizona's football practice facility the night before the school's hotly anticipated homecoming game.... 'You would be worried if your grandpa was acting like this,' Obama said of Trump's bizarre town hall appearance this week in which he stopped taking questions and instead swayed to music onstage for more than half an hour. 'Tucson, we do not need to see what an older, loonier Donald Trump looks like with no guardrails.'... Attendees embraced Obama's new tone, with some saying it was refreshing to hear their side criticize Trump in a more direct, personal way." The Hill's story is here.

Kevin Brueninger of CNBC: "Donald Trump on Friday dismissed more questions about whether he would release his current medical records, doubling down on refusing to provide a health update even as Kamala Harris works to sow doubts about his fitness for the presidency.... 'Yeah, my health records -- I've done five exams over the last four years. You've got them all,' Trump told a reporter on an airport tarmac after landing in Detroit, Michigan, on Friday afternoon. Trump then appeared to suggest that he was too busy campaigning against Vice President Harris ... to devote time to update his records. 'Obviously, I'm in the middle of a very big and very contentious fight,' he said. 'We're leading. I've given my health exams.' Trump added that he has 'done cognitive tests twice, and I've aced them. Meaning a perfect score.... I want to see her do a cognitive test because she couldn't ace because she wasn't born smart,' he said, before walking away from the press." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Just as he hasn't released his tax returns as all other presidential candidates have, Trump has never released a comprehensive medical report from a competent physician. Donald Trump has many things to hide, and his various medical conditions and his cognitive impairment are among them.

Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump on Friday tried to revise the history of the deadly attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, as new details in the federal prosecution against him were made public by the judge in the case. His attempt to recast the events of Jan. 6, 2021, came on the same day that he compared his supporters who were arrested, convicted and imprisoned for their actions at the Capitol to the victims of the Japanese internment camps in the United States during World War II.... During that war, people of Japanese descent were among those held in internment camps under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a law Mr. Trump has said he wants to try to use for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants if he returns to the White House.... On Friday, on his website..., Mr. Trump amplified a conspiracy theory that the attack on the Capitol was staged by the federal government, and he promoted his false claims that widespread fraud cost him the 2020 election.... And it followed a recent remark in which Mr. Trump declared Jan. 6 a day of 'love.' ...

"Earlier on Friday, on a podcast hosted by the conservative media figure Dan Bongino, Mr. Trump lamented how those arrested in connection with the attack have been treated.... Mr. Trump repeatedly offered a picture of the Capitol attack this week that downplays the violence that unfolded and maintains that he played no role in its buildup."

There is no comparison between between the treatment received by the January 6 rioters and Japanese Americans who were denied due process when they were forcibly removed from their homes, systematically dispossessed and incarcerated for the duration of the war. Now more than ever, the lessons from the Japanese American incarceration must never be forgotten, ignored, minimized, or erased. -- Ann Burroughs, CEO of the Japanese American National Museum~~~

     ~~~ Isaac Arnsdorf of the Washington Post: "In 1942, following Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States' entry into World War II, the federal government forcibly evacuated and detained about 112,000 Japanese Americans on the West Coast, including 70,000 U.S. citizens. None of the detainees were [was!] individually charged or held on any individual suspicion, and they had no opportunity to contest their denial of liberty, according to the National Archives.... 'It's flat-out offensive. It's a night-and-day difference what happened,' David Inoue, executive director of the Japanese American Citizens League, said of Trump's comparison [of January 6 insurrectionists to innocent Japanese Americans]. 'Japanese Americans' whole families were incarcerated without any sort of trial -- their only crime was they were of Japanese descent. For these January 6 people, they have had their day in court, they've either been indicted or convicted of crimes, and that is why they're being incarcerated.' Inoue also raised concern about Trump's proposal last week in Aurora, Colo., of a mass deportation operation citing the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, the same law that was used to justify Japanese incarceration."

Most presidential candidates go out of their way not to use profanity in public. Not Trump, even if he is counting on his Christian nationalist base: ~~~

~~~ Alanna Vaglanos of the Huffington Post: "'I was so amazed that Harvey Weinstein got schlonged,' Trump told [Dan] Bongino." Trump was surprised because Weinstein was "someone who worked in progressive Hollywood circles" and Trump thought the media protected Democrats.

Yo, MAGA voters, say goodbye to that "freedom of the press" Constitutiony thing: ~~~

Ted Johnson of Deadline: "Near the end of an appearance Friday on Fox & Friends, Donald Trump told the hosts that he was following up his guest spot with a 'big event': a meeting with Rupert Murdoch. Trump also said that he would be telling Murdoch 'something very simple because I can't talk to anybody else about it. Don't put on negative commercials for 21 days, and don't put on there the horrible people that come in love. I am going to say, "Rupert, please do it this way." And then we are going to have a victory. Because I think everyone wants to have a victory.' On his social media platform Truth Social, Trump has been bashing Fox News for featuring Democrats, including Ian Sams, a spokesperson for Kamala Harris' campaign. Trump wrote on Truth Social earlier this week, 'Sams is just a below average guy, with memorized FAKE NEWS soundbites, almost all of which are WRONG, but coupled with all of the other Harris Radical Left Democrat mouthpieces that Fox puts on (Richard Fowler, Patrick Murphy, "something" Wolf, Jessica Tarloff?), it has a very negative effect on the Election.... Trump also has recently suggested that CBS and ABC should lose their broadcasting licenses -- CBS for the way that a 60 Minutes interview with Harris was edited, and ABC for David Muir and Linsey Davis' fact checking during the presidential debate last month." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: If you're having a little trouble interpreting Trump's planned "big event" with Rupert, allow me to sane-splain/translate it: "I'm going to tell Rupert not to run any ads against me and not to invite any Harris surrogates or supporters on your shows. P.S. Fire contributors who might say something 'negative' about me.

"A Very Stable Genius." Brett Samuels of the Hill: "Former President Trump on Friday responded to a barrage of attacks from Vice President Harris that he's 'unstable' and 'unhinged.'... 'First of all, the question is a pretty rough question because you know you're giving this whole argument of this woman who, I don't think she knows where she is. She's a low IQ person. She's not smart,' Trump said of Harris [during an in-studio visit to 'Fox & Friends']. 'I am the most stable human being. Remember they said "a stable genius,"' Trump added, referring to his own tweet in which he described himself as a 'very stable genius.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Notice that Trump is so disoriented, disconnected with reality, and might I add, unstable and unhinged, that he thinks that "they," i.e., other people, described him as "a stable genius" when in fact it was he who asserted, in what I consider an odd choice of descriptors, as a "stable genius." We have often accused Trump of projecting his own traits onto others, but in this instance he's projecting a projection of a trait onto himself.

Ivana Saric of Axios: "Former President Trump's planned appearance at a National Rifle Association event next week was cancelled Thursday, the latest in a slew of scuttled public appearances and interviews by the former president in recent weeks.... The NRA said Thursday it had cancelled its 'Defend the 2nd' event with Trump in Savannah, Georgia, next week due to 'campaign scheduling changes.'... Vice President Kamala Harris, on the other hand, has been on a media blitz after enduring criticism from Republicans about a perceived lack of interviews. And while Harris has ventured into the unfriendly territory of a Fox News interview, Trump has stuck to the safe spaces of conservative outlets. In the appearances he has made, Trump's rhetoric has grown more violent and nativist. In recent weeks, he has decried his critics as the 'enemy from within' and fanned the flames of false conspiracy theories about migrants." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Things Fall Apart. Scott Lemieux in LG&$: "Trance dance Don's cognitive difficulties are beginning to break containment.... Even the famously wired-for-Trump Politico Playbook can't avoid the obvious: 'Recently, it's become something of a pattern: Trump is scheduled for an interview with a neutral media outlet, the date nears and then --- things fall apart.... Playbook has learned that yet another outlet was given an explanation by Trump's team for why their own interview wasn't coming to fruition: exhaustion.... When describing why an interview hadn't come together just yet, a Trump adviser told The Shade Room producers that Trump was "exhausted and refusing [some] interviews but that could change" at any time, according to two people familiar with the conversations.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

Irie Sentner of Politico: "Donald Trump says Fox News employees helped him write his jokes for the Al Smith dinner. Fox says that's fake news. The former president ... said Friday morning on 'Fox & Friends': 'A couple of people from Fox actually -- I shouldn't say that -- but they wrote some jokes, and for the most part, I didn't like any of them.' The network disputed that claim. In a statement, a Fox News spokesperson said: 'Fox News confirmed that no employee or freelancers wrote the jokes.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Let's just assume, for argument's sake, the Fox denial is accurate. That means that Trump either lied, was misinformed or is delusional about who wrote those jokes, then said he didn't like the jokes that maybe didn't exist at all. In any event, the "jokes" Trump did like were cruel and profane.

Nicholas Liu of Salon: "Trump might have encapsulated his performance [at the Al Smith dinner] in one sentence during his speech. 'I don't give a s**t if this is comedy or not,' he declared, before calling former New York City mayor Bill de Blasio a 'terrible mayor' who did a 'horrible job -- that's not comedy, by the way, that's a fact.'... Though Trump was greeted with some laughter and applause (but also gasps and boos) at the event itself, other people who watched his performance were outspoken with their displeasure.... Former Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., told CNN's Kasie Hunt that her husband, who teaches at a Catholic girls school, called her at the middle of the dinner about 'what a buffoon and what an ungodly, profanity-laced hot mess that dinner was, because he knows what that Catholic dinner is supposed to be. This was somebody who was just being horrendous at that dinner, swearing in front of priests -- who does that?'" MB: Comstock has endorsed Kamala Harris for president. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Normalizing a Madman. Lee Moran of the Huffington Post: "Critics condemned the appearance of Donald Trump at the Al Smith charity dinner in New York on Thursday, saying it 'normalized' the GOP presidential nominee's divisive and hateful rhetoric.... Commentators thought the shindig, during which guests laughed at Trump's jokes, validated and reinforced his toxic ideologies." Ron Filipkowski of Meidas Touch wrote on X: "Kamala Harris absolutely made the right call not to attend the Al Smith dinner with Trump. You don't normalize a deranged madman who wants to annihilate the Constitution by joking around with him at a roast." (Also linked yesterday.)

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "They're eating the dogs. They're eating the cats. And now, they're banning the cows. Or so says Donald Trump.... 'Kamala even wants to pass laws to outlaw red meat to stop climate change,' Donald Trump told supporters in North Carolina. 'That means no more cows. You know, this is serious.' Ruminate on that. 'She wants to get rid of your cows. No more cows,' Trump warned an audience in Georgia.... If you are alarmed by Trump's portrait of bovine abolition under a President Kamala Harris, the good news is you probably wouldn't have to look at it much if it happens. This is because, according to Trump, Harris is also planning to ban windows. 'They want buildings taken down and new buildings built without windows,' Trump informed his followers in Wisconsin.... Under the stress of the final weeks of the campaign, Trump has somehow become even more bonkers than he already was.... And his doomsaying has gotten even more outlandish....

"In the closing weeks of the 2020 campaign, Trump issued similarly cataclysmic visions -- in some cases, word for word the same -- about a Joe Biden presidency. They apparently didn't come true. (We're still here, after all, and so are the cows and windows.)" Milbank runs through a long list of fake terrible things Joe Biden would do to destroy the country which is just like the fake terrible things he now says Kamala Harris will do. "The problem with this particular false prophet is that he tries to prove his auguries true even when they invariably fail to materialize." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: A note to Milbank & Trump. According to the Googles, 70% to 80% of beef cattle are steers; steers are not cows.

Jing Feng & Nicole Acevedo of NBC News: "Both presidential candidates promise to build more homes. One promises to deport hundreds of thousands of people who build them.... Donald Trump's pledge to 'launch the largest deportation operation in the history of our country' would hamstring construction firms already facing labor shortages and push record home prices higher, say industry leaders, contractors and economists. 'It would be detrimental to the construction industry and our labor supply and exacerbate our housing affordability problems,' said Jim Tobin, CEO of the National Association of Home Builders. The trade group considers foreign-born workers, regardless of legal status, 'a vital and flexible source of labor' to builders, estimating they fill 30% of trade jobs like carpentry, plastering, masonry and electrical roles."

Filip Timotija of the Hill: "Veteran journalist Bob Woodward outlined a recent email he received from former Defense Secretary James Mattis, where he seemingly agreed with Woodward's dire warning about a second Trump administration. During an appearance Thursday on 'The Bulwark Podcast,' Woodward told the host that Mattis -- who served under former President Trump -- acknowledged Gen. Mark Milley's assessment that the former president is 'the most dangerous person ever' and seemed to concur. 'He thinks the book is important,' the muckraker said of Mattis. 'He believes it's true. And it was a kind of, you know, Hey, I understand this." It was the strongest endorsement.'... Mattis was Trump's first defense secretary. He resigned in December 2018 after a fallout with the former president over the withdrawal of American troops from Syria." (Also linked yesterday.)

Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "House Democrats on Friday accused ... Donald J. Trump of accepting 'hundreds of unconstitutional and ethically suspect payments' through the Trump International Hotel in 2017 and 2018, moving weeks before the election to remind voters of the ethical issues raised by his refusal to divest from his businesses while in office. The 58-page report from Democrats on the Oversight Committee includes their final findings in a yearslong investigation.... It accuses Mr. Trump of ripping off the Secret Service by charging the agency exorbitant rates and of inappropriately accepting payments from clients who worked for state governments or were seeking appointments and pardons from him. 'Mr. Trump has made clear that he will not only refuse to divest from his businesses in a possible future presidency, but he will seek to multiply opportunities to commodify the Oval Office for his personal enrichment by turning thousands of civil service jobs into patronage positions -- all with the attendant payoff possibilities from supplicant job-seekers and the prospective blessing of his handpicked Supreme Court justices,' said Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee." (Also linked yesterday.)

Trump Watch Scam, Ctd. Hafiz Rashid of the New Republic, republished by Yahoo! News: "Last month, Donald Trump announced that he was selling limited-edition, gaudy watches ranging from $499 to the bargain price of $100,000, bragging about their Swiss-made precision. But a CNN investigation traced the watches' origin to a shopping center in remote Sheridan, Wyoming, where TheBestWatchesOnEarth LLC, the company behind the timepieces, is based. There's no indication that a watch company is located at the building listed at the address, only a daycare. Its neighbors include an H&R Block, a Wendy's, and a 'vape and hemp smoke shop.'... The limited liability corporation behind Trump's infamous gold sneakers is also based at the address, along with other random businesses." The CNN story is firewalled. ~~~

~~~ Trump Watch Scam, Ctd. Matt Giles of Wired: "... the defiant fist-raised photo from [Trump's] post-assassination-attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania -- ... according to the Trump Watches marketing materials, will be etched on the back of Fight watch[.] According to the Associated Press, though, TheBestWatchesonEarth LLC advertised a product it can't deliver, as that image is owned by the 178-year-old news agency. This week, the AP told WIRED it is pursuing a cease and desist against the LLC, which is registered in Sheridan, Wyoming.... Evan Vucci<, the AP's Pulitzer Prize-winning chief photographer, took that photograph, and while he told WIRED he does not own the rights to that image, the AP ... [wrote] "AP is proud of Evan Vucci's photo and recognizes its impact.... We reserve our rights to this powerful image, as we do with all AP journalism, and continue to license it for editorial use only."

Alan Feuer & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "A federal judge [Tanya Chutkan] on Friday ordered the release of a heavily redacted trove of evidence supporting the contention by federal prosecutors that ... Donald J. Trump illegally sought to overturn the 2020 election. In ordering the release, the judge was rejecting objections by Mr. Trump's legal team that making even a largely blanked-out version of the material public now would constitute interference in the presidential election. The materials -- a four-part appendix to a lengthy brief recently filed by the special counsel, Jack Smith -- consisted of 1,889 pages. But most of it was redacted and can only be seen by the parties involved in the case. The remainder appeared to consist almost entirely of previously released memos, social media postings, transcripts and other known materials." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Ryan Reilly, et al., of NBC News: "... Donald Trump on Friday called the judge overseeing the Jan. 6-related federal criminal case against him 'the most evil person,' despite threats U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan has already faced from his supporters. Trump also called special counsel Jack Smith, who has faced threats from Trump supporters as well, 'a sick puppy' ... during a podcast with right-wing media personality Dan Bongino. Trump slammed the judge for releasing hundreds of pages of documents Friday -- most of them heavily redacted -- that Smith had submitted in connection with an earlier filing arguing against Trump's motion to dismiss the case.... 'What judge would do that?' Trump said on Bongino's podcast. 'Forget about deranged Jack Smith. You know, judge is supposed to keep -- what judge would say "We're going to release something, you know, a couple of days before."'" MB: As inarticulate as ever.

Ben Protess & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times flesh out the story Rachel Maddow reported earlier this week about one of Donald Trump's lawyers offering Stormy Daniels another hush-money payoff. "The nondisclosure agreement would have once again silenced Ms. Daniels in the heart of a presidential campaign. And although the circumstances did not resemble the cover-up that Mr. Trump was prosecuted for -- it is not illegal to propose a nondisclosure agreement -- the effort underscored his familiar tactic of using a financial exchange to control what gets said about him.... It is unclear whether Mr. Trump directed Mr. Ross to suggest the nondisclosure agreement, or if it arose organically during the discussions with Ms. Daniels's lawyers.... [Mr. Trump's lawyer, Harry] Ross, reached on his cellphone, hung up on a reporter, and did not respond to an email seeking comment on his letter. Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump's campaign, issued a vague legal threat to The Times in a statement...." (Also linked yesterday.)

This Guy Brought a Gun to a "Day of Love." Shayla Colon of the New York Times: "A New York man pleaded guilty on Friday to a felony charge of civil disorder for storming the U.S. Capitol while armed with a knife on Jan. 6, 2021, as supporters of ... Donald J. Trump sought to halt the certification of the 2020 presidential election results.... The man, Christopher D. Finney, 32, of Hopewell Junction, entered his plea before Judge Trevor N. McFadden of federal court in the District of Columbia.... Mr. Finney is among more than 1,500 people to be criminally charged in connection with the Jan. 6 riot, in which supporters of Mr. Trump, including members of far-right groups, violently tried to stop Congress from certifying President Biden as the winner of the 2020 election." ~~~

~~~ Scenes from a "Day of Love," Ctd. Ryan Reilly of NBC News: "A Donald Trump supporter who stormed the Capitol and assaulted law enforcement officers now says she was 'duped' by the former president's lies about the 2020 election. Dana Jean Bell was sentenced to 17 months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly on Thursday. Federal prosecutors had sought 27 months in federal prison, saying Bell 'belligerently pushed, grabbed, and verbally attacked countless U.S. Capitol Police ... and Metropolitan Police Department ... officers who were attempting to clear rioters from inside the United States Capitol Building.' Bell pleaded guilty in July to one count of assaulting officers. Her behavior included giving 'officers the middle finger while scowling at them and repeatedly yelling "F--- YOU" towards them,' prosecutors said." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Let's suppose you're an honorable Republican lady and you get your "news" from Fox where you learn that the 2020 election was rigged against Donald Trump. Okay. But before you make a trip all the way from Texas to Washington, D.C. to storm the Capitol in an exercise that could endanger your own life, wouldn't you undertake some due diligence to make sure the reports you heard on Fox were true? I find these near-miraculous "conversions" some insurrectionists have after-the-fact to be fairly suspicious.

Michael Shear, et al., of the New York Times: "President Biden on Friday urged Germany and other Western allies not to waver in their support for Ukraine, using what may be his final trip to Europe as president to bolster the grueling fight against Russia's invasion. 'German leaders had the wisdom to recognize a turning point in history, an assault on a fellow democracy, and also on principles that upheld 75 years of peace and security in Europe,' Mr. Biden said after receiving Germany's highest honor during a ceremony at the Bellevue Palace in Berlin. Mr. Biden added that the allies must continue to work tirelessly to 'ensure that Ukraine prevails and Putin fails and NATO remains strong and more united than ever.... We're headed into a very difficult winter... We cannot let up. We cannot.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

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Montana Senate Race. Mike Baker & Kellen Browning of the New York Times: "In a book and in his campaign for the U.S. Senate in Montana, Tim Sheehy has talked about a bullet lodged in his forearm -- an injury he says he suffered as a Navy SEAL during a firefight in Afghanistan. The bullet wound stands at the center of a story of bravery and honor that has boosted his credibility among voters in Montana, where Mr. Sheehy appears to be on the verge of ousting a longtime incumbent, Senator Jon Tester, and perhaps flipping the Senate chamber to Republican control. But the tale grew murky this year when it emerged that Mr. Sheehy had reported to the police that he had accidentally shot himself in the arm at Glacier National Park in Montana, three years after his military deployment.... Mr. Sheehy has stuck by his war story. Now, in interviews, two people who had close interactions with Mr. Sheehy during key moments in the story have come forward, raising new questions about whether the bullet wound had come during his military service.... Since the initial news reports on the issue appeared in April [in the Washington Post], Mr. Sheehy has largely stopped talking about his wound in his stump speeches." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: If you read the full account Park Ranger Kim Peach gives (it's long), you cannot believe Sheehy's war story. Among numerous proofs, Peach says Sheehy presented at the hospital with a bandaged arm after Sheehy himself said he shot himself in the park. If Sheehy is telling the truth about his supposed war wound, he would ask the Montana hospital to release his records. But the Times reports, "He has not given the hospital in Montana permission to discuss his treatment." There's a reason for that.

North Carolina. Gary Robertson of the AP: "More North Carolina residents turned out to cast ballots on the first day of early voting this year than in 2020, even as residents from the mountainous western portion of the state continued to recover from the devastating effects of Hurricane Helene. Preliminary data shows a record 353,166 people cast ballots at more than 400 early voting sites statewide on Thursday, compared to 348,599 on the first day in October 2020, the State Board of Elections said Friday." (Also linked yesterday.) The New York Times story is here. ~~~

~~~ Eduardo Medina of the New York Times: "Scarred by the extraordinary amounts of rain that unleashed deadly flooding and road-crushing mudslides last month, the people of western North Carolina are heading into voting booths with a difficult new question in mind: Which candidates will best help them heal and rebuild after one of the worst natural disasters in the United States in decades?... The political consequences of the storm remain unclear.... The North Carolina State Board of Elections said earlier this month that about 10 early voting sites in western North Carolina had significant damage or accessibility issues.... Some voters said their enthusiasm for Mr. Trump had been dampened by the lies he has uttered about the disaster." One Republican woman, who said she was disgusted to see the lies Trump told about FEMA aid, also said she would vote for Trump anyway because she believed he would be for business than Harris. MB: Right. For instance, see the report by Feng & Acevedo of NBC News, linked above.

Texas. Vivian Ho of the Washington Post: "Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against a Dallas-based pediatrician, accusing her of providing transition-related hormones to nearly two dozen minors in violation of a state ban on gender-affirming care for people under age 18. In what the Republican described as the state's first enforcement action under Senate Bill 14 the lawsuit seeks an injunction against May Lau, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who specializes in adolescent medicine at Children's Medical Center Dallas. The lawsuit accuses the physician of prescribing testosterone to 21 teenagers between the ages of 14 and 17 'for the purposes of transitioning their biological sex' from female to male."

~~~~~~~~~~

Cuba. Frances Robles of the New York Times: "Cuba's power grid failed and the entire nation plunged into darkness Friday, less than a day after the government stressed the need to paralyze the economy to save electricity in the face of major gasoline shortages and large-scale, regular outages. The electricity went out nationwide Friday morning after a failure at a thermoelectric power plant in Matanzas, east of Havana, Cuba's Energy Ministry said on X. The blackout came less than a day after the prime minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz, held a late-night television address with state officials to discuss the ongoing electricity crisis, which experts said was the worst the nation -- long accustomed to food and electricity shortages -- had ever experienced. For weeks, the country has lacked the fuel to run the power grid, which has left large parts of the nation without electricity for 15- to 20-hour stretches.... President Miguel Díaz-Canel blamed the United States trade embargo against Cuba, which limits the countrys ability to import fuel, for creating the government's cash shortfalls and imposing hardship on Cubans."

Israel/Palestine, et al.

The Washington Post's live updates of developments Saturday in Israel's wars are here: "A drone was launched toward Prime Minister Netanyahu's residence in the Caesarea area, his office said Saturday. However, it did not hit his home and both Netanyahu and his wife were not present at the time, with no casualties reported, his spokesman Omer Dostri added. The Israel Defense Forces said three drones had crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory, with two intercepted while one 'hit a structure in the area of Caesarea.' The Gaza Health Ministry said Saturday Israel was intensifying 'its targeting of the health system' in north Gaza, adding at least three people were killed as three hospitals came under siege or fire.... Hours earlier, on Friday, Israeli strikes on homes in Jabalya, also in northern Gaza, killed 33 people, Gaza's civil defense force said. In a statement Saturday, the IDF said its forces were 'operating against terrorists' in the Jabalya area. It added that its forces 'operating near the Indonesian Hospital' were 'briefed on the importance of mitigating harm to civilians and medical infrastructure' and that 'there was no intentional fire directed at it.'"

The New York Times' live updates of developments Friday in Israel's wars are here: "The leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, was killed by a gunshot wound to the head, according to the director of Israel's national forensic institute, Dr. Chen Kugel, who oversaw the autopsy and described its findings in an interview with The New York Times on Friday. He said that shrapnel, possibly from either a small missile or tank shell, had earlier hit Mr. Sinwar's arm, causing bleeding that he was trying to stanch by using an electrical cord as an impromptu tourniquet. 'But it wouldn't have worked in any case,' Mr. Kugel said. 'It wasn't strong enough, and his forearm was smashed.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

The Conversation -- October 18, 2024

Kamala Harris has four U.S. Presidents pulling for her, including three who are campaigning for her. Donald Trump, he's got zero.

Ivana Saric of Axios: "Former President Trump's planned appearance at a National Rifle Association event next week was cancelled Thursday, the latest in a slew of scuttled public appearances and interviews by the former president in recent weeks.... The NRA said Thursday it had cancelled its 'Defend the 2nd' event with Trump in Savannah, Georgia, next week due to ;campaign scheduling changes.'... Vice President Kamala Harris, on the other hand, has been on a media blitz after enduring criticism from Republicans about a perceived lack of interviews. And while Harris has ventured into the unfriendly territory of a Fox News interview, Trump has stuck to the safe spaces of conservative outlets. In the appearances he has made, Trump's rhetoric has grown more violent and nativist. In recent weeks, he has decried his critics as the 'enemy from within' and fanned the flames of false conspiracy theories about migrants." ~~~

     ~~~ Things Fall Apart. Scott Lemieux in LG&$: "Trance dance Don's cognitive difficulties are beginning to break containment.... Even the famously wired-for-Trump Politico Playbook can't avoid the obvious: 'Recently, it's become something of a pattern: Trump is scheduled for an interview with a neutral media outlet, the date nears and then ... things fall apart.... Playbook has learned that yet another outlet was given an explanation by Trump's team for why their own interview wasn't coming to fruition: exhaustion.... When describing why an interview hadn't come together just yet, a Trump adviser told The Shade Room producers that Trump was 'exhausted and refusing [some] interviews but that could change' at any time, according to two people....'"

Yo, MAGA voters, say goodbye to that "freedom of the press" Constitutiony thing: ~~~

Ted Johnson of Deadline: "Near the end of an appearance Friday on Fox & Friends, Donald Trump told the hosts that he was following up his guest spot with a 'big event': a meeting with Rupert Murdoch. Trump also said that he would be telling Murdoch 'something very simple because I can't talk to anybody else about it. Don't put on negative commercials for 21 days, and don't put on there the horrible people that come in love. I am going to say, "Rupert, please do it this way." And then we are going to have a victory. Because I think everyone wants to have a victory.' On his social media platform Truth Social, Trump has been bashing Fox News for featuring Democrats, including Ian Sams, a spokesperson for Kamala Harris' campaign. Trump wrote on Truth Social earlier this week, 'Sams is just a below average guy, with memorized FAKE NEWS soundbites, almost all of which are WRONG, but coupled with all of the other Harris Radical Left Democrat mouthpieces that Fox puts on (Richard Fowler, Patrick Murphy, "something" Wolf, Jessica Tarloff?), it has a very negative effect on the Election.... Trump also has recently suggested that CBS and ABC should lose their broadcasting licenses -- CBS for the way that a 60 Minutes interview with Harris was edited, and ABC for David Muir and Linsey Davis' fact checking during the presidential debate last month." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: If you're having a little trouble interpreting Trump's planned "big event" with Rupert, allow me to sane-splain/translate it: "I'm going to tell Rupert not to run any ads against me and not to invite any Harris surrogates or supporters on your shows. P.S. Fire contributors who might say something 'negative' about me.

Irie Sentner of Politico: "Donald Trump says Fox News employees helped him write his jokes for the Al Smith dinner. Fox says that's fake news. The former president ... said Friday morning on 'Fox & Friends': 'A couple of people from Fox actually -- I shouldn't say that -- but they wrote some jokes, and for the most part, I didn't like any of them.' The network disputed that claim. In a statement, a Fox News spokesperson said: 'Fox News confirmed that no employee or freelancers wrote the jokes.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Let's just assume, for argument's sake, the Fox denial is accurate. That means that Trump either lied, was misinformed or is delusional about who wrote those jokes, then said he didn't like the jokes that maybe didn't exist at all. In any event, the "jokes" Trump did like were cruel and profane.

Nicholas Liu of Salon: "Trump might have encapsulated his performance [at the Al Smith dinner] in one sentence during his speech. 'I don't give a s**t if this is comedy or not,' he declared, before calling former New York City mayor Bill de Blasio a 'terrible mayor' who did a 'horrible job -- that's not comedy, by the way, that's a fact.'... Though Trump was greeted with some laughter and applause (but also gasps and boos) at the event itself, other people ... were outspoken with their displeasure.... Former Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., told CNN's Kasie Hunt that her husband, who teaches at a Catholic girls school, called her at the middle of the dinner about 'what a buffoon and what an ungodly, profanity-laced hot mess that dinner was, because he knows what that Catholic dinner is supposed to be. This was somebody who was just being horrendous at that dinner, swearing in front of priests -- who does that?'" MB: Comstock has endorsed Kamala Harris for president. ~~~

~~~ Normalizing a Madman. Lee Moran of the Huffington Post: "Critics condemned the appearance of Donald Trump at the Al Smith charity dinner in New York on Thursday, saying it 'normalized' the GOP presidential nominee's divisive and hateful rhetoric.... Commentators thought the shindig, during which guests laughed at Trump's jokes, validated and reinforced his toxic ideologies." Ron Filipkowski of Meidas Touch wrote on X: "Kamala Harris absolutely made the right call not to attend the Al Smith dinner with Trump. You don't normalize a deranged madman who wants to annihilate the Constitution by joking around with him at a roast."

Alan Feuer & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "A federal judge [Tanya Chutkan] on Friday ordered the release of a heavily redacted trove of evidence supporting the contention by federal prosecutors that ... Donald J. Trump illegally sought to overturn the 2020 election. In ordering the release, the judge was rejecting objections by Mr. Trump's legal team that making even a largely blanked-out version of the material public now would constitute interference in the presidential election. The materials -- a four-part appendix to a lengthy brief recently filed by the special counsel, Jack Smith -- consisted of 1,889 pages. But most of it was redacted and can only be seen by the parties involved in the case. The remainder appeared to consist almost entirely of previously released memos, social media postings, transcripts and other known materials."

Ben Protess & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times flesh out the story Rachel Maddow reported earlier this week about one of Donald Trump's lawyers offering Stormy Daniels another hush-money payoff. "The nondisclosure agreement would have once again silenced Ms. Daniels in the heart of a presidential campaign. And although the circumstances did not resemble the cover-up that Mr. Trump was prosecuted for -- it is not illegal to propose a nondisclosure agreement -- the effort underscored his familiar tactic of using a financial exchange to control what gets said about him.... It is unclear whether Mr. Trump directed Mr. Ross to suggest the nondisclosure agreement.... [Mr. Trump's lawyer, Harry] Ross, reached on his cellphone, hung up on a reporter, and did not respond to an email seeking comment on his letter. Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump's campaign, issued a vague legal threat to The Times in a statement...."

Gary Robertson of the AP: "More North Carolina residents turned out to cast ballots on the first day of early voting this year than in 2020, even as residents from the mountainous western portion of the state continued to recover from the devastating effects of Hurricane Helene. Preliminary data shows a record 353,166 people cast ballots at more than 400 early voting sites statewide on Thursday, compared to 348,599 on the first day in October 2020, the State Board of Elections said Friday."

The New York Times' live updates of developments Friday in Israel's wars are here: "The leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, was killed by a gunshot wound to the head, according to the director of Israel's national forensic institute, Dr. Chen Kugel, who oversaw the autopsy and described its findings in an interview with The New York Times on Friday. He said that shrapnel, possibly from either a small missile or tank shell, had earlier hit Mr. Sinwar's arm, causing bleeding that he was trying to stanch by using an electrical cord as an impromptu tourniquet. 'But it wouldn't have worked in any case,' Mr. Kugel said. 'It wasn't strong enough, and his forearm was smashed.'"

Michael Shear, et al., of the New York Times: "President Biden on Friday urged Germany and other Western allies not to waver in their support for Ukraine, using what may be his final trip to Europe as president to bolster the grueling fight against Russia's invasion. 'German leaders had the wisdom to recognize a turning point in history, an assault on a fellow democracy, and also on principles that upheld 75 years of peace and security in Europe,' Mr. Biden said after receiving Germany's highest honor during a ceremony at the Bellevue Palace in Berlin. Mr. Biden added that the allies must continue to work tirelessly to 'ensure that Ukraine prevails and Putin fails and NATO remains strong and more united than ever.... We're headed into a very difficult winter... We cannot let up. We cannot.'"

Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "House Democrats on Friday accused ... Donald J. Trump of accepting 'hundreds of unconstitutional and ethically suspect payments' through the Trump International Hotel in 2017 and 2018, moving weeks before the election to remind voters of the ethical issues raised by his refusal to divest from his businesses while in office. The 58-page report from Democrats on the Oversight Committee includes their final findings in a yearslong investigation.... It accuses Mr. Trump of ripping off the Secret Service by charging the agency exorbitant rates and of inappropriately accepting payments from clients who worked for state governments or were seeking appointments and pardons from him. 'Mr. Trump has made clear that he will not only refuse to divest from his businesses in a possible future presidency, but he will seek to multiply opportunities to commodify the Oval Office for his personal enrichment by turning thousands of civil service jobs into patronage positions -- all with the attendant payoff possibilities from supplicant job-seekers and the prospective blessing of his handpicked Supreme Court justices,' said Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee."

"A Very Stable Genius." Brett Samuels of the Hill: "Former President Trump on Friday responded to a barrage of attacks from Vice President Harris that he's 'unstable' and 'unhinged.'... 'First of all, the question is a pretty rough question because you know you're giving this whole argument of this woman who, I don't think she knows where she is. She's a low IQ person. She's not smart,' Trump said of Harris [during an in-studio visit to 'Fox & Friends']. 'I am the most stable human being. Remember they said "a stable genius,"' Trump added, referring to his own tweet in which he described himself as a 'very stable genius.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Notice that Trump is so disoriented, disconnected with reality, and might I add, unstable and unhinged, that he thinks that "they," i.e., other people, described him as "a stable genius" when in fact it was he who asserted, in what I consider an odd choice of descriptors, as a "stable genius." We have often accused Trump of projecting his own traits onto others, but in this instance he's projecting a projection of a trait onto himself.

Filip Timotija of the Hill: "Veteran journalist Bob Woodward outlined a recent email he received from former Defense Secretary James Mattis, where he seemingly agreed with Woodward's dire warning about a second Trump administration. During an appearance Thursday on 'The Bulwark Podcast,' Woodward told the host that Mattis -- who served under former President Trump -- acknowledged Gen. Mark Milley's assessment that the former president is 'the most dangerous person ever' and seemed to concur. 'He thinks the book is important,' the muckraker said of Mattis. 'He believes it's true. And it was a kind of, you know, "Hey, I understand this." It was the strongest endorsement.'... Mattis was Trump's first defense secretary. He resigned in December 2018 after a fallout with the former president over the withdrawal of American troops from Syria."

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Presidential Race

Maeve Reston of the Washington Post: "Vice President Kamala Harris chided Donald Trump on Thursday for his revisionist history on the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol -- accusing him of 'gaslighting' the American people with his recent assertion that it was a 'day of love.'... At all her rallies this week -- including here in Wisconsin -- Harris has said Trump is 'unstable' and 'seeking unchecked power.' Campaigning in two Wisconsin cities, Harris touted her own combative performance on Fox News on Wednesday night as a show of her willingness to speak to people 'no matter their political party' or 'where they get their news.' She noted that on the same night, Trump had appeared at a Univision town hall where a 56-year-old self-described Republican said he was alarmed by what took place on Jan. 6, 2021, and wanted to give the former president the 'opportunity to try to win back my vote.' Trump responded by calling it 'a day of love' and seemed to include himself when referring to those who entered the Capitol that day as 'we.'... Harris's criticism of Trump followed a week in which her campaign has tried to paint him as confused, incoherent and unstable." More on Trump's recent remarks re: January 6 below.

Yes, Trump Is a Fascist. Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "The word 'fascist' has hovered around ... Donald J. Trump from the moment he rode down his golden escalator in 2015 to warn of Mexican rapists and drug dealers.... But for most top Democrats, it was a provocative term loaded with dread, historical import and potential incitement -- best left unsaid. Until Vice President Kamala Harris this week made clear -- again and again -- that it would be just fine with her to use the word. On Tuesday, as the radio host Charlamagne Tha God interviewed Ms. Harris, he interjected as the vice president contrasted her vision with her rival's. 'The other is about fascism,' he said of Mr. Trump's vision. 'Why can't we just say it?' Ms. Harris's response: 'Yes, we can say that.' On Wednesday, speaking in Washington Crossing, Pa., Ms. Harris quoted Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Mr. Trump, describing his former boss as 'fascist to the core,' as detailed in a new book from the journalist Bob Woodward.

"The quotation of Mr. Milley may have opened the floodgates for Democrats, granting new permission with the authority of his uniform and his unique closeness to the inner workings of Mr. Trump's administration. But an element of political risk remains, even as Mr. Trump freely uses the word himself against Ms. Harris.... Mr. Trump's running mate, Senator JD Vance, singled out the term 'fascist' as an incitement to violence that was beyond the pale."

     ~~~ Marie: Got that? According to both Weisman and JayDee, it's dangerous for Democrats to accuse Trump of being a fascist even though he is one. And according to JayDee, it's unacceptable. But it's okay for Trump to call Harris a fascist, though she has shown no fascistic bent; according to the linked story, he had called her a fascist at least five times by mid-September. Democrats must politely pull their punches because they're expected to be nice and reasonable. Trump can say whatever he wants because people expect him to be rude and crude. Both-siderism is so over. We're going full double standard here. ~~~

~~~ ⭐Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: "Let's stop for a second. It is simply extraordinary that the nation's top general would tell anyone, much less one of the most famous reporters in the world, that the former president of the United States was a 'fascist' -- a 'fascist to the core,' even -- and a threat to the constitutional order. There is no precedent for such a thing in American history -- no example of another time when a high-ranking leader of the nation's armed forces felt compelled to warn the public of the danger posed by its once and perhaps future chief executive. More important than the novelty of Milley's statement is the reality that he's right....

As if to prove the point, Trump ... [said on X], 'I make you this vow: November 5th, 2024 will be LIBERATION DAY in America.'... And 'to expedite removals of this savage gang..., I will invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to target and dismantle every migrant criminal network operating on American Soil.' To be clear, the Alien Enemies Act ... does not distinguish between 'legal' and 'illegal' immigrants and foreign nationals, a distinction that did not exist at the time of passage. This means that any immigrant deemed an 'enemy alien' by the Trump administration could be subject to arrest and removal by the federal government. And as he explained later in an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News, this crusade wouldn't stop with immigrants[, but would extend to 'the enemies within.']"

Heck, I'm only two months younger than Donald Trump. But good news for you is I will not spend 30 minutes swaying back and forth for you. I will not clap off beat, nor will I pretend to be a conductor, because we got a race to win. And we have to win it. I've been doing this a long, long time, and I can honestly say that this time I am not here running for anything anymore except for my grandchildren's future. -- President Bill Clinton, at a rally in North Carolina ~~~

~~~ Dylan Wells & Patrick Svitek of the Washington Post: z'Former president Bill Clinton campaigned for the first time alongside the Democratic ticket Thursday, appearing with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and reprising his role as 'explainer in chief' to make the case to North Carolinians to elect Kamala Harris on the first day of early voting here.... Clinton appeared with Walz as part of a multistate tour by the former president targeted at mobilizing rural and Black voters.... Clinton dedicated much of his remarks to acknowledging concerns voters have about the economy and explaining the conditions that led to the current rate of inflation."

Erin Doherty & Andrew Solender of Axios: "Former Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) revealed he voted for Vice President Kamala Harris and blasted former President Trump in a statement first shared with Axios.... '[Harris] and I will not agree on every issue, but in her, we have a capable leader who will always put the interests of our country before her own, unlike her opponent who will always put his personal interests ahead of those of the United States,' Dent said.... Dent, who endorsed President Biden over Trump in 2020, said Thursday that he cast his absentee ballot for Harris in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Dent offered a searing rebuke of Trump, saying that his 'affection for autocrats like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jung Un, his hostility toward the free press, our allies, and anyone who dares to disagree with him are reprehensible.'... A Trump critic while in the House, Dent resigned from Congress in 2018."

Kevin Manahan of NJ.com: "Fox News anchor Bret Baier is taking criticism from all sides: -- Donald Trump supporters are screaming that that the anchor from the Trump-friendly cable giant wasn't tough enough in his hourlong interview with Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday night; -- Democratic supporters have called him rude for interrupting Harris many times during her answers -- Media critics are pointing out that Fox deceptively edited a clip of Trump -- and were fact-checked by Harris in real time -- And many, in all circles, are claiming that Baier, in an attempted takedown of Harris, was no match for her. Even Baier seemed to acknowledge that Harris won the day. 'I think she had a mission that she wanted to do,' Baier said after the interview. 'Maybe she wanted to have a viral moment or pushback. She came to Fox News and she wanted to have a go-after-Donald-Trump viral moment that plays on a lot of other channels and on social media. She may have gotten that.'" ~~~

~~~ Margaret Sullivan of the Guardian: "... Baier came out guns blazing, barely allowing the vice-president to finish a sentence before jumping in with objections and arguments.... Immigrant hatred. Transphobia. And later, Joe Biden's age. Baier was running through the Fox News greatest hits playlist. This was grievance theater, not political journalism." ~~~

~~~ Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post: "One of the people Vice President Kamala Harris might want to thank in her victory speech, if she wins the election, is Fox News anchor Bret Baier. His combative interview Wednesday gave Harris the chance to display qualities -- and present facts -- that Donald Trump desperately wants to keep hidden from the network's millions of viewers.... Baier presented a too-brief clip from a town hall event, aired on Fox earlier Wednesday, in which Trump denied [calling his critics 'enemies of the people']. This was gaslighting: A slightly longer clip would have shown Trump railing against 'the enemy from within' and naming two leading Democrats, Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff, as being part of that 'sick' group. Baier obviously knew that -- and Harris called him on it....

"[During his inquisition,] Baier repeatedly interrupted the vice president, trying to talk over her and posing questions seemingly cut and pasted from the list of Republican talking points. Intentionally or not, all of this was a gift to Harris. She stood her ground, refuting the Trump campaign's claim that she is weak and easily pushed around. She spoke fluently and cogently, putting to rest GOP claims that all she offers is word salad. She brushed off the most tendentious questions, engaged with the substantive ones, and insisted on finishing her answers whether or not Baier liked it." ~~~

~~~ An interesting update to all that: ~~~

     ~~~ Michael Luciano of Mediaite: "Fox News host Bret Baier said the wrong clip aired during his interview with Vice President Kamala Harris.... During a contentious 30-minute sit-down, Harris referenced remarks by former President Donald Trump on Sunday Morning Futures on Fox News. Trump suggested using the military against 'the enemy from within,' which he explained are 'radical left lunatics.' Baier responded by teeing up a clip of a Fox News town hall.... 'We asked that question to the former president today,' Baier told Harris. 'Harris Faulkner had a town hall, and this is how he responded.' 'They were saying I was like, threatening,' Trump said in the snippet. 'I'm not threatening anybody. They're the ones doing the threatening....'... Harris took exception. 'Bret, I'm sorry, and with all due respect, that clip was not what he has been saying about the enemy within that he has repeated when he's speaking about the American people,' the vice president said. 'That's not what you just showed!' Baier addressed the dustup at the end of Thursday's Special Report. '... I did make a mistake,' he told panelists Faulkner and Harold Ford Jr. 'And I did want to say that I did make a mistake. When I called for a soundbite, I was expecting a piece of the "enemy from within" from Maria Bartiromo's interview to be tied to the piece from your town hall, Harris, where you asked the former president about "the enemy from within." It just had the piece about the town hall.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Baier went on to say, "My point was that we asked him about the question about that sentence and what he was trying to mean." So, even though Baier says he made a mistake, he also admits that the whole purpose of airing the clip from the town hall was to give the audience a chance to see Trump try to clean up his act. That is, even before he interviewed Harris, Baier had planned to give Trump the chance to falsely deny he was threatening detractors. Airing the clip of Trump's false denial was not a mistake at all; the mistake was failing to air an "enemy from within" clip, too. AND there's this: ~~~

     ~~~ Daniel Hampton of the Raw Story: "On Thursday night, Gretchen Carlson, who joined Fox News in 2005 and was a co-host on Fox & Friends until 2013, blasted Baier on X. 'Now Bret Baier says "his mistake" he ran wrong Trump "enemy from within' clip during interview w/ Harris. Newsflash: When wrong clips run (which happens) hosts can easily say "Sorry that was the wrong clip". He or his producers would have known it was the wrong one right then,' she said."

Michael Gold of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris both delivered remarks to the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Ms. Harris in a recorded video and Mr. Trump in person in a ballroom in Manhattan packed with New York's political elite, business leaders and religious luminaries. Mr. Trump rushed through prepared remarks, stumbling at times as he read through pointed political jokes, bitter grievances and crude and at times profane personal attacks. He seemed most energized when he ditched his script, caught between being an insult comic or just being insulting. Ms. Harris was campaigning in Wisconsin.... She ... appear[ed in a video] with the actress Molly Shannon as her Catholic schoolgirl character Mary Katherine Gallagher." Gold relates some of the "jokes" and jokes. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I won't embed a video of Trump's remarks, and so far YouTube doesn't have a good copy of Harris's video, but the brief local report below gives you a flavor of Trump's flat, halting delivery and of Harris's video presentation: ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Here we go: ~~~

     ~~~ Admittedly, since Harris' remarks were recorded, she had the advantage of being able to do retakes (which is not to say she did so). But anyone who listens to her and to Trump for about 15 seconds each has to be daft (or Mitch McConnell -- see link below) to say, "I'm liking old Orange Man there." Harris's competence and dynamism shine, while Trump clearly is not capable of reading a script. (He never was, according to [NYT link] John Lithgow and other reports I've read.) Even if you knew nothing else about Harris or Trump, it wouldn't be a close call: you'd pick Harris to be Leader of the Free World.

Michael Gold of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump blamed President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine for Russia's invasion of his country in a podcast interview released on Thursday, inverting the facts of the largest military action in Europe since the Second World War.... Mr. Trump, in a rambling, muddled answer on a conservative podcast, was criticizing President Biden's leadership when he abruptly brought up his skepticism over the administration's continued military aid to Ukraine."

Trump Advisors Concerned He's a Babbling Idiot. Michael Bender of the New York Times: "... some Trump advisers and allies say privately they are concerned that ... Mr. Trump's impetuousness and scattershot style on the campaign trail needlessly risk victory.... At a time when ... Vice President Kamala Harris has stepped up her attacks on him as 'unstable,' Mr. Trump has struggled to publicly hone his message by veering off script and ramping up personal attacks on Ms. Harris that allies have urged him to rein in." Bender offers numerous examples of Trump's wacko behavior & unfocused remarks from just this past week. Here's one: "At the Economic Club of Chicago on Tuesday, he answered a question about whether he would break up Google by complaining about a Justice Department lawsuit against Virginia election officials. When he was reminded the question was about Google, he said he 'called the head of Google the other day' to grouse about the difficulty of finding positive news stories about his campaign on the company's search page." Bender notes that the Harris campaign is taking advantage of Trump's instability with remarks and in ads.

Marie: (I wrote this earlier, but I'm leaving it in, because it backs up an assertions Maeve Reston made in the WashPo story linked above.) Nicolle Wallace of MSNBC said yesterday that Trump had made a "confession" during his Univision town hall when he responded to a question about January 6 and identified himself with the Capitol marauders. Here's a part of the transcript of Trump's response:

Some of those people went down to the Capitol, I said, peacefully and patriotically, nothing done wrong at all. Nothing done wrong. And action was taken, strong action. Ashli Babbitt was killed. Nobody was killed. There were no guns down there. We didn't have guns. The others had guns, but we didn't have guns. And when I say 'we' these are people that walk down, this was a tiny percentage of the overall, which nobody sees and nobody shows. But that was a day of love from the standpoint of the millions, it's like hundreds of thousands. ~~~

     ~~~ If this is a "confession," everything else Trump says here is a lie. As Maeve Reston of the Washington Post writes (linked above), "Trump supporters, trying to stop the affirmation of Joe Biden's 2020 win, assaulted 140 police officers, damaged the building and destroyed government property.... Babbitt was one of five people who authorities said died as a consequence of the siege.... It is still unclear how many in the crowd were armed before the riot occurred. But six men were arrested that day for having guns in the vicinity of the U.S. Capitol...." As for the crowd size at the Ellipse, PolitiFact went with the House Select Committee's estimate of 53,000, not "like hundreds of thousands."

The Miracle of Evolution: A Turtle Morphs into a Chicken. Mary Jalonick of the AP: "Mitch McConnell said after the 2020 election that ... Donald Trump was 'stupid as well as being ill-tempered,' a 'despicable human being' and a 'narcissist,' according to excerpts from a new biography of the Senate Republican leader that will be released this month. McConnell made the remarks in private as part of a series of personal oral histories that he made available to Michael Tackett, deputy Washington bureau chief of The Associated Press. Tackett's book, 'The Price of Power,' draws from almost three decades of McConnell's recorded diaries and from years of interviews with the normally reticent Kentucky Republican.... Despite those strong words, McConnell has endorsed Trump's 2024 run...." (Also linked yesterday.)

⭐ Confessions of a Suit. John D. Miller in a U.S. News opinion piece: "I want to apologize to America. I helped create a monster.... I led the team that marketed 'The Apprentice,' the reality show that made Donald Trump a household name outside of New York City, where he was better known for overextending his empire and appearing in celebrity gossip columns. To sell the show, we created the narrative that Trump was a super-successful businessman who lived like royalty.... At the very least, it was a substantial exaggeration; at worst, it created a false narrative by making him seem more successful than he was.... To sell the show, we created the narrative that Trump was a super-successful businessman who lived like royalty. That was the conceit of the show." Read on. (Also linked yesterday.)

Marie: Decades ago, when Steve Martin was a stand-up comic, he did a joke where he gave advice on how to make a million dollars and not pay any taxes: “First, make a million dollars. Then, when the IRS asks you why you didn't pay any taxes, say 'I forgot.'" Well, I've got a joke that's not so funny. Because it works: "Here's how to make a billion dollars (or 247 billion) and take control of a major foreign country. First get 247 billion dollars; then, become a U.S. citizen & bribe Donald Trump." This is intended to highlight Elon Musk's influence, but without much massaging, it applies to Rupert Murdoch, too.

Marie: In her stump speech, Kamala Harris zeroes in on the "freedoms" Americans have a right to expect. One of them is the "freedom to breathe clean air, and drink clean water and live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis." She knows whereof she speaks: ~~~

~~~ Project 2025 Oil & Gas Industry Addendum -- Stinks. Evan Halper & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "An influential oil and gas industry group whose members were aggressively pursued for campaign cash by Donald Trump has drafted detailed plans for dismantling landmark Biden administration climate rules after the presidential election, according to internal documents obtained by The Washington Post. The plans were drawn up by the American Exploration and Production Council, or AXPC, a group of 30 mostly independent oil and gas producers, including several major oil companies. They reveal a comprehensive industry effort to reverse climate initiatives advanced during nearly four years of Democratic leadership. At the same time, the documents contain confidential data showing that industry's voluntary initiatives to cut emissions have fallen short. The lobbying blueprint takes particular aim at a new tax on emissions of methane, a gas that the International Energy Agency (IEA) says is responsible for nearly a third of human-caused global warming. The documents show the methane emissions of nine of 19 AXPC member companies that responded to an internal survey are increasing -- in many cases sharply."

Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "An independent panel reviewing the failures that led to the attempted assassination of ... Donald J. Trump in July called on the Secret Service to replace its leadership with people from the private sector and focus almost exclusively on its protective mission. The recommendations, part of a report released Thursday commissioned by the Department of Homeland Security, outlined deficiencies that have already been identified in the months after the rally in Butler, Pa., on July 13. Those include the failure of the Secret Service to secure a nearby building where a rooftop would-be assassin fired eight shots toward Mr. Trump. That and other security lapses, members of the panel said, result from an absence of 'critical thinking' among agents and supervisors. The panel was particularly struck by a 'lack of ownership' conveyed by the agents it interviewed. Those involved in the security planning did not take responsibility in the lead-up to the event, nor did they own failures in the aftermath. And, the report added, they 'have done little in the way of self-reflection in terms of identifying areas of missteps, omissions or opportunities for improvement.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: There's a biting irony here: every intellectual lapse the panel identifies in Secret Service leadership is one that the target of the assassination shares: an absence of critical think, lack of ownership of mistakes, failure to take responsibility from the git-go right on through the follow-up and "little in the way of self-reflection in terms of identifying areas of missteps, omissions or [making] opportunities for improvement."

Kyle Cheney of Politico: "U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan has agreed to release a dossier of evidence amassed by special counsel Jack Smith, ruling Thursday that the high public interest in the document outweighs Trump's demand that she keep it hidden until after the election. In a five-page ruling, Chutkan rejected Trump's argument that releasing the potentially explosive material constitutes election interference. In fact, she said, suppressing the evidence -- which would typically be released as part of public court proceedings -- would be the actual political meddling. She said she plans to release the filing at an unspecified time on Friday."

Devlin Barrett of the New York Times: "Federal prosecutors have charged a man they identified as an Indian intelligence officer with trying to orchestrate from abroad an assassination on U.S. soil -- part of an escalating response from the United States and Canada to what those governments see as brazenly illegal conduct by a longtime partner. An indictment unsealed in Manhattan on Thursday said that the man, Vikash Yadav, 'directed the assassination plot from India' that targeted a New York-based critic of the Indian government, a Sikh lawyer and political activist who has urged the Punjab region of India to secede. The target of the New York plot has been identified by American officials as Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the general counsel of Sikhs for Justice.... Authorities say Mr. Yadav recruited an associate to find a U.S.-based criminal to arrange the murder of the Sikh activist. Last year, U.S. prosecutors charged the man accused of being Mr. Yadav's henchman, Nikhil Gupta, and said Mr. Gupta had acted under instructions from an unidentified employee of the Indian government.... The indictment came just days after the Canadian government expelled India's top diplomat and five others, saying they were part of a criminal network."

Zach Montague of the New York Times: "The Biden administration has reached a major milestone in its pursuit of expansive student debt relief, announcing on Thursday that over one million people have had their federal student debt canceled through a program that offers forgiveness to public service workers. For President Biden, whose student debt agenda has been repeatedly handicapped by Republican legal challenges, the announcement marked a modest but undeniable achievement. With just weeks until the election, the administration has reported approving around $175 billion in total student debt relief for nearly five million borrowers through all the actions taken during Mr. Biden's presidency." (Also linked yesterday.)

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Arizona Senate Race. Shocking Divorce File Unsealed. Meh. Maria Paul of the Washington Post: "For months, Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake has speculated that her opponent, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), had used the courts to hide 'something really, really bad' in his divorce from Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego.... Lake and her allies have repeatedly sought to paint Gallego's personal life in a negative context -- running ads describing him as a 'deadbeat dad' and alleging his divorce records contain a 'massive story.'... But on Thursday, an Arizona court unsealed most of the case file -- revealing what one judge called 'one of the most garden-variety divorce files I have ever seen.' The records were made public following a 10-month-long legal battle between the Gallegos and the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative publication that filed a lawsuit earlier this year to unseal them.... The 465 pages that were unsealed Thursday by the Yavapai County Superior Court detail standard divorce proceedings.... They also include no details of any illegal activity or infidelity and expressly state that no physical abuse had occurred. Following the documents' release, the Gallegos blasted Lake and demanded an apology 'for lying about our family and the circumstances of our divorce,' the former couple wrote in a joint statement."

Arizona. Frances Vinall of the Washington Post: "A deaf Black man with cerebral palsy will no longer face charges over an incident in which he was repeatedly Tasered and punched by Phoenix police. Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said Thursday that she had reviewed the case and 'made the decision to dismiss all remaining charges.' Tyron McAlpin, 34, had been charged with resisting arrest and two counts of aggravated assault on an officer. Mitchell said she had consulted with the local chapter of the NAACP and 'convened a large gathering of senior attorneys and members of the community to hear their opinions' before concluding her review.... The arrest happened less than three months after an almost three-year federal civil rights investigation by the Justice Department into the Phoenix Police Department found it had routinely used excessive force and discriminated against Black, Hispanic and Native American people."

Florida. Ha! Lori Rozsa of the Washington Post: "A federal judge in Florida on Thursday ordered the state to stop threatening TV stations with criminal charges if they run a political ad in support of a referendum that would repeal the state's six-week abortion ban. Proponents of Amendment 4 sued the state on Wednesday over letters from the Florida Department of Health to broadcast stations around the state, threatening 'criminal proceedings' if they ran the ads. U.S. District Chief Judge Mark Walker said the state's actions amount to 'unconstitutional coercion' and violate the First Amendment.... Julia Friedland, Gov. Ron DeSantis's deputy press secretary, denounced the decision as 'another order that excites the press.'... DeSantis and his administration have been using state agencies to attack the proposed amendment ahead of the Nov. 5 general election." MB: The injunction expires October 29, so I guess it anticipates an appeal by the state. I dunno. ~~~

     ~~~ Update: The New York Times story, by Patricia Mazzei, explains why the injunction lasts only till October 29: "The [abortion-rights] campaign is seeking a preliminary injunction against the state. Judge Walker scheduled a hearing for Oct. 29."

Texas. David Goodman of the New York Times: "The Texas Supreme Court on Thursday halted the execution of Robert Roberson, a Texas man convicted of killing his 2-year-old daughter, after a roller-coaster series of legal maneuvers initiated by an unusual intervention from a bipartisan group of Texas House members. The decision by the state's highest civil court related to a procedural question raised by the legislators' issuing a subpoena for Mr. Roberson to testify before the Legislature on Monday and not the details of his case. But the effect was to run out the clock for the time being. Because the execution could not be carried out before midnight, a new date would now have to be set."

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Israel/Palestine, et al.

The Washington Post's live updates of developments Friday in Israel's wars are here: "Top U.S. officials renewed calls to pursue an end to the war in Gaza in the wake of Israel's announcement that its troops had killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.... U.S. officials described Sinwar as having been the 'chief obstacle' to a truce, but two diplomats familiar with the negotiations -- which the United States mediated along with Egypt and Qatar -- said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had repeatedly obstructed a deal since June by placing new demands on a framework proposed by [President] Biden."

Ronen Bergman, et al., of the New York Times: Israeli soldiers were on a routine patrol Wednesday in the southern Gaza Strip when "a firefight erupted and the Israelis, backed by drones, destroyed part of a building where several militants had taken cover, Israeli officials said." One of the Palestinians killed was Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader. "Mr. Sinwar's death was the most severe blow to Hamas's leadership after more than a year of escalating violence in the Middle East, and it immediately plunged the war in Gaza into a new and uncertain phase."

Zolan Kanno-Youngs & Ephrat Livni of the New York Times: "President Biden said on Thursday that the death of Yahya Sinwar ... could create the opportunity to 'move on' to a cease-fire in Gaza, adding that he had spoken to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to congratulate him on Mr. Sinwar's death. 'It's time for this war to end and bring these hostages home. So that's what we&'re ready to do,' Mr. Biden told reporters upon his arrival in Berlin on Thursday evening. He added that he was 'hopeful' about the prospects of a cease-fire and would be sending Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken to Israel in the coming four to five days to discuss securing Gaza and what the 'day after' the war will look like." ~~~

     ~~~ Here's President Biden's statement via the White House.

Katie Rogers & Reid Epstein of the New York Times: "Declaring that 'justice has been served,' Vice President Kamala Harris said on Thursday that the killing of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader whom she called the 'mastermind' of the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel, created an opportunity to end the war in Gaza. Ms. Harris spoke shortly after Israeli officials confirmed the death of Mr. Sinwar, who was viewed as the architect of the Hamas-led attack, in which militants killed roughly 1,200 people and took about 250 others hostage."

⭐ Josef Federman, et al., of the AP: "Israeli forces in Gaza killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, a chief architect of last year's attack on Israel that sparked the war, the military said Thursday. Troops appeared to have run across him unknowingly in a battle, only to discover afterwards that a body in the rubble was Israel's most wanted man. Israeli leaders celebrated his killing as a settling of scores just over a year after Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped 250 others in an attack that stunned the country. They also presented it as a turning point in the campaign to destroy Hamas, urging the group to surrender and release some 100 hostages still in Gaza. 'Hamas will no longer rule Gaza. This is the start of the day after Hamas,' Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. U.S. officials expressed hopes for a cease-fire with Sinwar out of the picture." (Also linked yesterday.)

The New York Times' live updates of developments Thursday in Israel's wars are here: "The Israeli military said on Thursday that it was assessing whether Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar had been killed in the Gaza Strip. The military released no further details about the assessment, but four Israeli officials said the military was taking the body of a slain militant to a laboratory in Israel in order to assess whether its DNA matches that of Mr. Sinwar." ~~~

Update: "The Israeli military confirmed on Thursday that Yahya Sinwar, the powerful and elusive militant leader who has been the No. 1 target for Israel since the beginning of the war, had been killed in battle. Mr. Sinwar was viewed as the architect of the brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israel that set off the 13-month war that has plunged the Gaza Strip into a humanitarian crisis and began a wider conflict that now includes the fighting in Lebanon." (Also linked yesterday.)

The New York Times has an obituary of Sinwar here. (Also linked yesterday.)