The Conversation -- August 18, 2024
Are you better off today than you were four years ago? Here's Rhode Island casting its delegate votes for president in the 2020 virtual Democratic National Convention": ~~~
~~~ Robert Draper, in the New York Times Magazine, profiles President Biden.
Peter Baker & Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times evaluate Kamala Harris's tenure as vice president.
~~~~~~~~~~
Presidential Race
Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, as she is wont to do, airs top Democrats' dirty laundry, even if she has to make up some stuff. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
Ezra Klein of the New York Times on what unites Democrats: Democrats "are unified in wanting to use the government to make people's lives better.... The modern Republican Party, by contrast, is built upon a loathing of the government.... [Democrats] are unified in believing Trump must be stopped. And so it is not quite true that this election is just a contest between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. It is that, but it is also a contest between Donald Trump and the Democratic Party."
Marianne LeVine & Isaac Arnsdorf of the Washington Post: At a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Saturday "Donald Trump fixated on Vice President Kamala Harris's appearance in terms he acknowledged were offensive, rejecting pressure from GOP allies to emphasize policy differences over personal attacks.... He appeared to take exception to a Wall Street Journal column that listed Harris's appearance as one of her political assets, saying, 'I am much better looking than her. I'm a better-looking person than Kamala.' He also said he mistook an illustration of Harris on the cover of Time Magazine for the actresses Sophia Loren or Elizabeth Taylor.... Trump repeatedly described Harris as a 'lunatic' and mocked her laugh. 'As soon as she laughs, the election's over,' he said.... In other recent remarks, Trump suggested Harris's appearance would undermine her with world leaders, saying they would view her as a 'play toy' and declining to specify why." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Sophia Loren? She hasn't made a film in a decade. Elizabeth Taylor? She's been dead for more than a decade. I pay far, far less attention to Hollywood celebrities than does Trump, but even I could come up with the names of contemporary beautiful movie stars without thinking too hard about it. ~~~
~~~ Meredith McGraw of Politico: "For ... Donald Trump, the 2024 race is a contest between him and Vice President Kamala Harris. And President Joe Biden. During a rally in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, Trump repeatedly blamed Harris and Democrats for Biden dropping out of the race more than a month ago -- undermining Harris' legitimacy as a candidate and highlighting his one-time opponent. He claimed, without evidence, that the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Chicago next week is 'rigged' because Biden isn't on the ticket.... Trump also brought up Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a finalist to be Harris' running mate before she tapped [Minnesota Gov. Tim] Walz, and he claimed without evidence she did not pick him because he is Jewish. 'I don't think he's good but they turned him down because he's Jewish. That's why they turned him down, and I'll tell you this, any Jewish person that votes for her or a Democrat needs to go out and have their head examined,' Trump said."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. James Fallows, in a Substack post, calls out the mainstream press for their coverage of presidential elections. "Eight years ago, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other leading news organizations raced to publish embarrassing secrets about the Hillary Clinton campaign, extracted and fed through Wikileaks by Russian-led email hackers.... This past weekend Politico reported that it, plus the NYT and the Washington Post, had again received hacked data, this time about the Trump campaign. The hacking was again foreign-directed, apparently from Iran. But this time the news outlets thought it wiser not to publish info aimed at disrupting a campaign.... Regardless of rationale, as a blunt reality the editors' decision in 2016 enabled (and probably elected) Donald Trump. Their decision in 2024 protects him." And this: "Especially after Robert Hur's notorious description of Joe Biden as 'an elderly man with a poor memory,' the state of Joe Biden's cognition became the 'but her emails!' of 2024.... [The MSM has covered every Biden gaffe while ignoring his mastery of the facts.] Over the past ten days..., nearly everything [Donald Trump] has said ... has been a fantasy or a lie. And yet: No major news organization has yet run even one serious story about the state of Trump's cognition and thus of his fitness for office. We saw dozens of these about Biden; so far, none about Trump." ~~~
~~~ Marie: In 2016, Donald Trump said, "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?" What we've learned is also accurate: "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and the New York Times would give me a pass, OK?"
Bad, Bad Willie Brown. Heather Knight & Shawn Hubler of the New York Times: "Willie Brown, the former mayor of San Francisco, had a message for ... Donald J. Trump on Saturday afternoon: Keep my name out of your mouth or get sued. He stood with his longtime lawyer, Joe Cotchett, on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco, outside John's Grill, the Saturday spot on Mr. Brown's lunchtime rotation, and told reporters that he would sue Mr. Trump for slander and defamation if he repeated his concocted helicopter story one more time. 'He's never brought a lawsuit in his life,' Mr. Cotchett said of Mr. Brown. 'But you know who's pushing him to it? A guy by the name of Trump.'... Mr. Trump ... said that Mr. Brown, who dated Vice President Kamala Harris in 1994 and 1995, said 'terrible things' about Ms. Harris just before they almost plummeted to their deaths. 'He was not a fan of hers very much, at that point,' Mr. Trump said. Mr. Brown promptly called the tale a lie -- saying he had never ridden in a helicopter with Mr. Trump and had never told him disparaging things about Ms. Harris. In fact, he repeatedly told reporters that he respected her and desperately hoped that she would beat the man with whom he had never ridden in a helicopter."
News Ledes
New York Times: "Heavy rainfall in southwestern Connecticut led to mudslides, washed-out roads and flash flooding on Sunday, while thunderstorms sweeping through New York City disrupted flights and train service. The National Weather Service declared a flash flood emergency or flash flood warning into Sunday evening for parts of Fairfield, New Haven, Litchfield and Hartford Counties, as overfilled rivers crested their banks and additional thunderstorms were predicted. Emergency crews carried out widespread water rescues, especially in the Southbury area, and several mudslides were reported, according to the Weather Service."
New York Times: "Alain Delon, the intense and intensely handsome French actor who, working with some of Europe's most revered 20th-century directors, played cold Corsican gangsters as convincingly as hot Italian lovers, died on Sunday. He was 88."
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Reader Comments (15)
The media, always at the ready with a new “Dems in disarray” story, especially if it helps Trump’s predictions of “Chaos!” if Harris wins the election, are trying out their comparisons to the riot and violence plagued DNC held in Chicago back in 1968.
Both the Guardian and the Washington Post have provided helpful reminders of that debacle, which helped set the stage for the end of Democratic political dominance that began in the 30’s with the first FDR administration, and propelled the rise of Republican control of the levers of power starting with the Tricky One, who promised law and order but delivered the first of a series of Republican administrations rife with criminality, corruption, and chaos that extended around the globe, from Watergate, dirty tricks, illegal bombings past the Vietnam borders, and support for South American dictatorships, to Reagan’s dirty tricks, weapons for hostages, Iran-Contra and support for South American dearth squads, to Dubya and Cheney’s endless Iraq war along with oversight of the collapse of economies around the world, to Trump and the sort of crime spree, grifting, and attempted coup, along with personal immunity from prosecution that Nixon could only dream of, but what we get instead from the press is “Dems in disarray.
It never ends.
Akhilleus: And of course "the press" includes the teevee. Last night on network news there was a piece on the DNC convening in Chicago. I told my wife, "Here it comes, wait for it." Right at the end, like the sun rises in the morning, was a predictable clip of the blue-helmet white shirt baton wielding Chicago cops of the 1968 Daleypalooza. Chicago + Democrats + protestors = mayhem. They (producers) cannot help themselves, it's like dope straight to the medulla for them.
Testing. Testing.
The collusion of the media to protect and give special treatment for Trump is so frustrating. The corporate capture of the media is a huge threat to the future of our democracy.
Scary ProPublica again
"Armed and Underground: Inside the Turbulent, Secret World of an American Militia"
RAS,
Because the corporate media is itself not democratic, it's no surprise it is not enthusiastic about democracy.
Democracy is not where the money is.
(A test. This morning's Sunday Sermon has failed to post three times already....)
Connections?
"Trump just announced a “crime and safety” rally for next Tuesday in Howell, Michigan, a town that has been heavily associated with the KKK for decades. Indeed, just late last month White Supremacists marched in the town chanting “We love Hitler. We love Trump.”"
Will the fourth time be the charm?
One of the memorable moments in our lives was when we finally owned our oldest son. We’d been making payments on him for years.
As it happened, meeting the hospital costs for his birth while I was still in school added significantly to my student loan. While the monthly loan payments were not large, with my beginning teacher’s salary of around $7000 a year, they were large enough to prompt occasional comment, often along the lines of questioning which part of our son the latest payment had purchased. Was it an ear or a toe? We thought it funny at the time.
Even then, though, we knew debt is no joke. It never has been. Simply put, when we owe, we are owned.
That’s why the “ownership society” George Bush dangled before Americans in 2003 always seemed wrong-headed to me. In the midst of his Iraq war, which has cost the United States nearly two trillion mostly borrowed dollars (wikipedia.org), then president Bush began to push for more privatization of public services and property, including Social Security, in the name of his “ownership’s society.” Depends on who’s doing the owning, I thought.
Increasingly, over the last five decades, it’s the financial industry that is has done most of our country’s owning. Since the 1980’s, banking, lending, renting, the stock market, and insurance have together become the nation’s biggest industry. In 1980, the financial sector comprised about five percent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product. By 2023, it accounted for nearly one quarter of our $26 trillion GDP. (aeaweb.org; statista.com). That’s a lot of ownership. And for the rest of us, a lot of owing.
How much do Americans owe these days? Our total private debt is so great it’s hard to comprehend. Home mortgages in the United States totaled over $12 trillion in 2023 (bankrate.com). The average household carries nearly $8000 in credit card debt, an increase of nearly $3000 since 2015 (usatoday.com). Outstanding student loan balances total nearly $1.8 trillion (lendingtree.com). Not surprisingly, from June 2023 to June 2024 bankruptcy filings increased seven percent (abi.com).
As headlines focus on the national debt and whether Republican or Democrat administrations are most responsible for it, we lose sight of how much Americans personally owe, to whom they owe it and what it all means.
When Willie Sutton, the notorious bank robber, was asked why he robbed banks, he supposedly said, because “that’s where the money is.” When we borrow, we share one thing with Willy Sutton. We go to those who have the money, because we don’t. But in our debt-ridden lives, the financial institutions issuing credit cards are not the ones being robbed. In 2022, Americans paid nearly $164 billion in credit card fees and interest (cnbc.com).
The immense growth in personal debt is another clear sign of how unevenly wealth has been distributed over the last fifty years. Because states contribute much less to the cost of higher education than they did when we Boomers moved through the system, students today must borrow far more than their parents and grandparents did. The average college graduate today leaves school owning nearly $40,000 (cnn.com). The interest payments and the outstanding debt frequently leave them in a poor position to pursue home ownership. They rent instead of buying, adding even more to the wealth of the ownership class. They remain not an owner, but one of the owned.
The wealth concentration we’ve experienced since the Reagan years affects everything in our lives and our politics. The trickle-down fantasy Reagan promoted is still with us. The Bush II and Trump tax cuts did not goose the economy as promised. Instead, they added immensely to the national debt (nytimes.com). At the same time, those cuts on the wealthy and on corporations further concentrated wealth, ownership and power, making more available for the few to lend or rent to the many.
I see my Irish grandmother in the small home her husband built. She made wonderful cinnamon rolls. Her wit was equally memorable, if more sharp than sweet, and I remember the way she applied that fine wit to debt. Wryly describing herself as “far better able to owe someone than to pay him,” she limited her appetites to what she could afford. Pride in her independence would not have allowed her to live any other way.
When I made my last student loan payment, we said our son was finally ours. Amusing or not, it was the punchline to a silly family joke. We knew we never really own another human being.
Just as we know an ownership society that ensnares millions in the bonds of debt is no laughing matter.
I'm only two hours from Howell, Michigan, but I don't have any
Nazi armbands or stuff so guess I won't be going. Anyway,
mowing the lawn is more important.
Guardian
"Inciting rioters in Britain was a test run for Elon Musk. Just see what he plans for America
Because while Kamala Harris is enjoying her hot girl summer and liberal America is sighing with relief, it’s to Britain that the US needs to look. To rioters in the streets and burning cars and contagious, uncontained racism spreading like wildfire across multiple platforms. To lies amplified and spread by algorithms long before the facts have been reported, laundered and whitewashed by politicians and professional media grifters."
Sophia Loren? Elizabeth Taylor? Cary Grant? Fatty seems mired in the past, and not just any past, a fake, Hollywood, made up past where looks were everything. I guess that makes sense for someone with such an active but appalling fantasy life. Just imagine any other presidential candidate saying something as narcissistic and vainglorious as “I have a much better body than he does! or “I’m much better looong than she is.” “No one has bigger crowds than me!” “I have all the best words.”
Maybe he’s been watching too many movies.
Hey, I’ve got a great movie reference that reminds me of Fatty and Shady. How about Abbott and Costello? “Abbott abd Costello meet Kamala”? But who would be the straight man? They’re both funny and stupid, in a nasty kind of way. Okay, no straight man. Forget Abbott and Costello. Fred and Ginger? Shady likes dressing up as a woman with blond hair. Hmmm…Trump is too fat to play Fred. Plus, he lacks grace, charm, humor, elegance, and he doesn’t dress well. Besides, if he tried to tap dance he’d probably have a heart attack and fall of the stage in five seconds. Martin and Lewis? Nah. Neither can sing, and Fatty can’t even remember the words to the National anthem, plus Jerry Lewis is smarter than both of them put together.
I guess we’ll have to go with Dumb and Dumber.
Test…again
Not working.
Over on Digby, a post shows MAGAts posing with what appear to be urine sample containers with Jaydee's face and some text.
Can anyone explain the semiotics of this? I'm stumped.
@Patrick: To figure this one out, I had to go to the comments on the X tweet with the pictures. These are not supposed to be urine samples; they're meant to be semen specimens. The cups say "JD VANCE [photo of JayDee] Full Family Kit." One commenter opines that the idea is to mock people who need help starting a family, and these "kits" will provide what's needed. The person who tweeted the pix, Alejandra Caraballo, writes in a comment, "Apparently they want to mock people who need IVF, like Tim Walz and his wife."