The Conversation -- July 29, 2024
Edward-Isaac Dovere of CNN: "Kamala Harris' plan as a running mate was to brush past JD Vance as nothing but a rubber stamp for Donald Trump. But now that she's the presumptive Democratic nominee, her campaign is seizing on the Ohio senator as a major liability, looking to her own vice presidential selection process and the contenders' public auditions to drive home the point. Vance's elevation -- despite his relative lack of government experience -- is giving Harris a new opportunity to go after Trump. The message is not just that Vance is 'weird,' as the vice president said at a fundraiser this weekend, or that he has objectionable views, advisers said; it's that the Ohio senator shouldn't be a heartbeat away from the presidency, and that Trump picking him raises more questions about the top of the ticket. The strategy is also a way to put Trump's age in focus, now that President Joe Biden is not part of the conversation, by highlighting how close Vance could be to occupying the Oval Office if something were to happen to a 78-year-old president."
Donald Trump's Very Bad Week. A.B. Stoddard in the Bulwark: "IT MUST BE HARD TO TRANSITION from martyr anointed by God and positioned to win in a blowout to jealous old whiner grumbling about the misunderstood relevance of Hannibal Lecter.... Within days, the vice president had captivated the nation, united her party, upended the campaign, raised record sums, tied up the race in polling, and seen a bounce in her favorability ratings. In the same stretch of time Trump had backed out of a debate, watched JD Vance become a meme, fielded concerns about what a failure it was to pick Vance, and seen his own approval rating erode under Harris's attacks.... Enraged by Harris's surge, Trump is flailing about for any attack to use on her."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Margaret Sullivan of the Guardian in a Substack essay: "This past Friday, Trump urged Christian voters in West Palm Beach, Florida to vote, but told them it would be the last time they'd need to bother.... The New York Times, among many news organizations, was slow to focus on this, though they eventually added these startling remarks to their original coverage of the speech. Later, they published a separate story focusing on the 'it will be fixed' comments.... A few days earlier, on Fox & Friends, Trump went so far as to tell the faithful not to bother to vote even now. 'My instruction -- we don't need the votes. We have so many votes.' And a week ago, at another rally, Trump put it this way: 'In four years, don't vote. I don't care. But we'll have it all straightened out, so it'll be much different.'... Ruth Ben-Ghiat, the scholar of authoritarian movements..., warned: 'Media: This should be *the* A1 story. I have studied dictatorship for years and this is it -- "you won't have to vote anymore." Trump will never leave office if he wins in November."... I urge news decision-makers to take Trump's authoritarian desires very seriously."
Devlin Barrett & Perry Stein of the Washington Post: "The gunman who tried to kill ... Donald Trump conducted internet searches related to power plants, mass shooting events and the attempted assassination this year of Slovakia's prime minister, FBI officials said Monday, offering new details about what they described as the gunman's 'careful planning' for the attack.... He used aliases and at least some encrypted communication accounts to purchase firearm supplies and materials to build explosive devices, the officials said.... He carried a backpack and an AR-style weapon with a collapsible stock, an enhancement to weapons that makes them more compact." ~~~
~~~ Hannah Rabinowitz & Holmes Lybrand of CNN: "Donald Trump has agreed to sit for a victim interview with the FBI, which is investigating this month's attempted assassination, an agency official said Monday. Victim interviews are a routine part of criminal investigations, but are voluntary." ~~~
~~~ Sasha Pezenik, et al., of ABC News: Beaver County, Pa., SWAT team members at the rally during which Donald Trump was shot told ABC News "they had no contact with the agents on Trump's Secret Service detail.... The Washington Post reported over the weekend that Secret Service agents have complained they were not made aware of the warnings [that there was a suspicious person in the crowd]."
~~~~~~~~~~
** President Joe Biden in a Washington Post op-ed: "... the Supreme Court's 6-3 decision on July 1 to grant presidents broad immunity from prosecution for crimes they commit in office means there are virtually no limits on what a president can do.... And that's only the beginning. On top of dangerous and extreme decisions that overturn settled legal precedents -- including Roe v. Wade -- the court is mired in a crisis of ethics.... For example, undisclosed gifts to justices from individuals with interests in cases before the court, as well as conflicts of interest connected with Jan. 6 insurrectionists, raise legitimate questions about the court's impartiality.... What is happening now is not normal....
"I am calling for three bold reforms to restore trust and accountability to the court and our democracy. First, I am calling for a constitutional amendment called the No One Is above the Law Amendment. It would make clear that there is no immunity for crimes a former president committed while in office.... Second, we ... should have [term limits] for Supreme Court justices.... I support a system in which the president would appoint a justice every two years to spend 18 years in active service on the Supreme Court. Third, I'm calling for a binding code of conduct for the Supreme Court.... Every other federal judge is bound by an enforceable code of conduct, and there is no reason for the Supreme Court to be exempt.... In America, no one is above the law. In America, the people rule." ~~~
~~~ Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "President Biden is expected to deliver remarks on Monday pushing for legislation that would bring major changes to the Supreme Court.... The president is scheduled to speak at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and Museum in Austin, Texas, his first public engagement since announcing his decision to end his presidential campaign last week. His speech will commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act and propose overhauling the court, an effort that requires congressional approval and has little hope of gaining traction in a Republican-controlled House and a divided Senate. The White House said in a fact sheet that Vice President Kamala Harris..., also supported the changes Mr. Biden would outline in his remarks.... Mr. Biden has been discussing the proposals with constitutional scholars in recent months, and he had been inching toward announcing them when he ended his campaign.... Donald J. Trump ... denounced Mr. Biden's ideas on social media this month, accusing him and Democrats of 'desperately trying to "Play the Ref" by calling for an illegal and unConstitutional attack on our SACRED United States Supreme Court.'" The AP's report is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Among politicians (and not only nitwits like Trump), SACRED is one of the most misused words in the English language. "Sacred" means "related to God," and there is nothing in our Constitutional government that is "related to God." We have a secular government, and (listen up, Mike Johnson) that is something to cherish & revere.
Presidential Race
Steve Peoples & Michelle Price of the AP: "... over the last seven days, a week unlike any other in American history, the 2024 presidential contest has been transformed. And now, just 99 days before Election Day, a fundamentally new race is taking shape featuring new candidates, a new issue focus and a new outlook for both parties. Vice President Kamala Harris stepped in for [President] Biden last Sunday and quickly smashed fundraising records, took over social media and generated levels of excitement that some Democrats said reminded them of the energy that surrounded Barack Obama's historic candidacy nearly two decades ago.... Republicans are suddenly fearful and frustrated as they begin to accept the new reality that Trump's victory is no sure thing. And as their mood sours, the finger pointing has begun. Some prominent conservatives are openly second-guessing Trump's vice presidential pick, JD Vance, a little-known Ohio senator with less than two years in office and a well-documented history of provocative statements.... But the numbers ... point to a very close race in a deeply divided nation."
How to Change Horses in the Middle of the Stream. Michael Scherer & Tyler Pager of the Washington Post: "... some key preparations were ... put in place for the most spectacular transformation in recent American political history -- a flash-bang midsummer swap at the top of a presidential ticket, an outpouring of volunteer energy, a rebound in the polls and a flood of campaign cash.... State party chairs met in secret. Others operated without orders to prepare the ground. Donna Brazile, the former Democratic Party chair, and Bakari Sellers, the former South Carolina state lawmaker, started running their own delegate whip operation weeks before [President] Biden bowed out.... Two days before Biden announced his decision, Ken Martin, the chair of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, convened a meeting of the executive committee for the Association of State Democratic Committees -- about 50 people from around the country and territories.... If Biden recommitted to the race in the coming days, they would publicly back his decision. If he bowed out, they would immediately back Harris to end the suspense.... Brazile thought it would take 48 hours to finish the switch. The Associated Press declared a new presumptive nominee about 32 hours [after Biden dropped out]." Read on.
Mia McCarthy of Politico: "Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) may be 'one of the best things [Trump] ever did for Democrats' in an interview with CBS's Robert Costa on 'Face the Nation' Sunday morning.... 'I'll bet President Trump is sitting there, scratching his head, and wondering, "Why did I pick this guy?"' Schumer said." (See the monologue at the top of yesterday's Conversation for Trump's take on choosing J.D. [or whoever that guy is].)
David Edwards of the Raw Story: "Comedian Chelsea Handler ... addressed [J.D.] Vance's suggestion that Vice President Kamala Harris was not fit to be president because she had not been a mother. 'I'd like to remind you that no president in the history of the United States has ever been a mother.... But maybe if she had five kids with three different men, and a scandalous affair with a porn star, and was convicted felon, that would be more palatable to Republican men.'"
Haley Willis, et al., of the New York Times: "Nearly 100 minutes before ... Donald J. Trump took the stage in Butler, Pa., a local countersniper who was part of the broader security detail ... texted his colleagues about ... a young man with long stringy hair ... who was outside the fenced area of the Butler Fair Show grounds where Mr. Trump was to appear.... The countersniper who sent the texts confirmed to The New York Times that the individual he saw was later identified as the gunman. By 5:10 p.m., the young man ... was right below the countersnipers, who were upstairs in a warehouse owned by AGR International. One of the countersnipers took pictures of him.... At 5:38 p.m., the photos were shared in a group chat, and another text went out among the officers, saying they should inform the Secret Service.... The text messages reveal ... that the gunman ... aroused police suspicion more than 90 minutes before the shooting.... The messages also add to the evidence that the would-be assassin was often one step ahead of security forces, and in particular the Secret Service."
Holly Bailey of the Washington Post: "Mark Meadows, Donald Trump's former White House chief of staff, took his battle to throw out the Georgia election interference case against him to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the high court to overturn a lower-court ruling that rejected claims that his alleged conduct was tied to his official federal duties. The move comes more than seven months after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit upheld a lower-court ruling from September that found Meadows had not proved his alleged conduct charged as part of the sweeping criminal racketeering case was related to his official duties as Trump's most senior White House aide." This is a case of a weasel pleading before a team of weasels, so we'll see if they stick together in a pack.
~~~~~~~~~~
Britain. Danica Kirka of the AP: "Britain's new Treasury chief is alleging that the previous government covered up the dire state of the nation's finances, as she prepares to deliver a major speech to Parliament on Monday that is widely expected to lay the groundwork for higher taxes. In extracts of her speech released late Sunday, Rachel Reeves professed shock at the scale of the problems she discovered following a department-by-department review of public spending commissioned shortly after she took office three weeks ago. While the excerpts included no figures, Reeves is expected to outline a 20 billion-pound ($26 billion) shortfall in public finances."
Germany. Melissa Eddy of the New York Times: "... in homes across Germany, [lightweight solar panels] are powering a quiet transformation, bringing the green revolution into the hands of people without requiring them to make a large investment, find an electrician or use heavy tools. 'You don't need to drill or hammer anything,' [a consumer] said. 'You just hang them from the balcony like wet laundry in Italy.'... They can then be plugged into a conventional wall socket to feed power to a home.... More than 500,000 of the systems have already been set up across Germany, and new laws that relaxed rules around solar panel installation have contributed to a boom in use.... In Germany, individual plug-in panels sell for as low as 200 euros, or about $217, at big box stores. Complete sets, including mountings, an inverter and cables, are about twice that cost. Elsewhere in Europe, plug-in solar panels are popular in the Netherlands, and interest is growing in France, Italy and Spain, in part driven by a steady drop in prices.... Most ... are produced in China, which makes better quality and less expensive panels than anything being produced in Europe."
** Israel/Palestine, et al. Loveday Morris & Sufian Taha of the Washington Post: "Rights groups say conditions in Israel's jam-packed prisons have deteriorated dangerously since the Hamas attacks on Israel. Former Palestinian prisoners described routine beatings, often carried out on entire cells or sections, usually with batons and sometimes with dogs. They said they were denied sufficient food and medical care and were subjected to psychological as well as physical abuse. The Post spoke to 11 former prisoners and half a dozen lawyers, examined court records and reviewed autopsy reports, revealing rampant, sometimes deadly violence and deprivation by Israeli prison authorities. While international attention and condemnation has focused on the plight of Gazan detainees -- specifically at the notorious Sde Teiman military site -- rights advocates say there is a deeper, systemic crisis in Israel's penal system."
Sahar Adbarzai of CNN: "A group of 45 American physicians and nurses who volunteered in hospitals across Gaza have sent an open letter to US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris sharing their experiences and demanding an immediate ceasefire and arms embargo. The signatories unanimously described treating children who had suffered injuries they believed must have been deliberately inflicted. 'Specifically, every one of us on a daily basis treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head and chest,' they wrote.... The doctors and nurses' letter calls on the Biden administration to participate in an arms embargo of both Israel and all Palestinian armed groups, and to withhold military, diplomatic, and economic support to Israel until a permanent and immediate ceasefire is achieved."
Venezuela. Anatoly Kurmanaev, et al., of the New York Times: "Venezuela's authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, was declared the winner of the country's tumultuous presidential election early Monday, despite enormous momentum from an opposition movement that had been convinced this was the year it would oust Mr. Maduro's socialist-inspired party. The vote was riddled with irregularities, and citizens were angrily protesting the government's actions at voting centers even as the results were announced. With 80 percent of voting stations counted, the country's election authority claimed that Mr. Maduro had received 51.2 percent of the vote, while the main opposition candidate, Edmundo González, had received 44.2 percent. Mr. Maduro's government has invented election results before, and this tally was immediately called into question by the opposition and by several officials in the region." ~~~
~~~ Joshua Goodman & Regina Cano of the AP: "Venezuela's opposition and President Nicolas Maduro's government were locked in a high-stakes standoff after each side claimed victory in Sunday's presidential vote, which millions in the long-suffering nation saw as their best shot to end 25 years of single-party rule. Several foreign governments, including the U.S., held off recognizing the results as election officials delayed releasing detailed vote tallies after proclaiming Maduro the winner with 51% of the vote, to 44% for retired diplomat Edmundo González.
News Lede
Washington Post: "Alma Powell, a civic leader and widow of retired Gen. Colin L. Powell, the first Black national security adviser, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and secretary of state, died July 28 at a hospital in Alexandria, Va. She was 86."
Share Article
Reader Comments (8)
Nothing Sacred
The Orange Monster gets it wrong again. As always. First, he refers to the Supreme Crooks as SACRED!!! (Is something more sacred if it’s described in all caps?) As Marie points out, these con artists are anything but sacred.
Although a secondary definition points to something religious as opposed to secular, which seems like it might apply since the Supreme Crooks are attempting to make the country into a theocracy. But that’s wrong too. The theocratic control they seek to institute has everything to do with political power and control and almost nothing to do with actual religion, religion being simply a handy cudgel with which to beat the rest of us into submission.
You see, the likes of Thomas and Alito care about the Bible as much as they care about the Constitution, which is not at all.
In fact, as legal scholar Ahil Reed Amar has recently pointed out, the Supreme Crooks, by anointing Trump as a king above the law have made the Constitution itself unconstitutional.
Then Fatty goes into projection mode once more and screams that “Biden and the Democrats are playing the refs!”
No, you fat fuck. That’s what you and your Heritage whores do every step of the way. “I’m sure the Supreme Court will rule in my favor. I mean, I put them there. They owe me!”
And by the way, the term is “work then refs” not “play the refs”. Playing the refs sounds like you’ve challenged them to a game of basketball. Well, not basketball. The only dribbling that tub of lard could do is drooling out the pie hole after screaming for an hour and a half. And not chess either. He’s too stupid. Probably tiddlywinks. In any event, it wouldn’t matter. He’d cheat.
He always does.
Is nothing sacred?
With regard to a rigged and stolen election, I think the MAGAts should change their initials to MAVA:
Make America Venezuela Again.
It seems Maduro has been following the Trump Triumphs Master Classes in exchanging truth for repetitive lying and partisan ballot counting.
Can you call it mass-delusion when some large chunk of voters believe that a snake-oil salesman and carnival barker is the chosen one and that "Trump’s reelection has a divine mandate"?
McKay Coppins, in The Atlantic writes ---
What’s new is how many Christians now seem convinced that God has anointed a specific leader who, like those prophets of old, is prepared to defeat the forces of evil and redeem the country. And that leader is running for president.
Gift link:
“No one prays for Trump to do right; they pray that God will do right by Trump”
Jeanne,
Might have to make that MAV since we’ve never been Venezuela before, but certainly might be with the Fat Dictator back in office.
I’ve been thinking about that “full immunity for official acts” bullshit put in place by the Supreme Crooks. Which supposedly means Fatty or some future criminal in chief could be prosecuted for unofficial acts.
Okay, two things about that.
First, who really cares about unofficial acts? It’s the stuff Trump would do (and already has done) in an official capacity that is most dangerous. Having his AG arrest and prosecute people he hates as enemies of the state. Attempting to overthrow the government. Sending Seal Team Six out to murder people. Ignoring treaties signed by the US in order to help dictators like Putin attack our allies.
Screwing a porn star and hiding hush money payments via fraudulent business records is pretty nasty, but none of that compromises the nation’s democratic and governmental institutions. It’s the dangerous and illegal official acts for which he now has has full immunity from prosecution that cause the most deleterious outcome of this ridiculous and unconstitutional ruling.
Second, even if Trump were to be prosecuted and found guilty of criminal acts in his unofficial capacity, his slimy lawyers, in conjunction with the Supreme Crooks, will find some way to make those acts official, thereby triggering his kingly immunity. They’re trying this trick right now in the NY fraud case. Trump is claiming his conviction has to be thrown out because prosecutors pointed to a conversation he had with Hope (Steam my Pants, Baby) Hicks while in the White House, to the effect of “Jesus H. Christ, it’s a good thing this Stormy Daniels stuff didn’t come out during the campaign. I’d have been screwed!”
And it doesn’t matter what the judge decides. Fatty will appeal every conviction up to HIS judges who will “Black and white magic, turn around and touch the ground, hi-hosey” find a way to rule in his favor.
So I guess they’re kings as well. No accountability for them either.
I had to chuckle last week when I read about Justice Kagan saying that the Supreme Court needed to be better about abiding by ethical guidelines. Better? How about “at all”? Johnny Roberts’ pinky swear guidelines mean as much to the Supreme Crooks as the Constitution. Meaning not at all.
The AG Sulzberger NY Times, not content with sticking the knife into Joe Biden because he wouldn’t bow down before the Gray Lady, now is issuing new instructions: Harris MUST move to the right!
Have you ever seen them suggest that people like Trump or Cotton or Bannon or Bible Mike or MTG or Bobo move to the left???
Never.
“As the Democratic Party began to coalesce behind Kamala Harris, the New York Times‘ popular Morning newsletter (7/23/24) quickly put forward the knee-jerk corporate media prescription for Democratic candidates: urging Harris to the right.
Under the subhead, ‘Why moderation works,’ David Leonhardt explained that ‘the average American considers the Democratic Party to be further from the political mainstream than the Republican Party.’
As evidence, he pointed to two polls. The first was a recent Gallup poll that found Trump leading Biden on the question of who voters agreed with more ‘on the issues that matter most to you.’ The second was a 2021 Winston poll asking people to rate themselves on an ideological scale in comparison to Democratic and Republican politicians; people on average placed themselves closer to Republicans than to Democrats.
Of course, these polls, which ask only about labels and perceptions, tell you much more about the fuzziness—perhaps even meaninglessness—of those labels than about how well either party’s policy positions align with voters’ interests, and what positions candidates ought to take in order to best represent those voters’ interests. Responsible pollsters would ask about actual, concrete policies in the context of information about their impact; otherwise, as former Gallup editor David Moore has pointed out (FAIR.org, 2/11/22), they merely offer the illusion of public opinion.”
Hold on…the average American voter thinks that centrist pols like Biden are far more out of the mainstream than Trump and his Nazi Qanon supporters who are demanding public hangings of Democrats??
Sez who?
This is why you simply cannot trust the corporate media any longer.
NY Times circa 1933:
Holy shit! The Reichstag burned down! Proof positive that most Germans consider Paul Himdenburg much further out of the mainstream than that nice Adolf Hitler!
And since when does the Party of Traitors value moderation? Have these fucking people read the Project 2025 scheme?
Yeah, I know, that "again" didn't really work in the comparison with the Venezuela "election" in which Maduro CLEARLY was the 51% winner...ha! But since MAGA has gotten adopted to describe the other side's total inability to use their heads while supporting the gross Pig of Palm Beach, even by those of us on occasion, I felt like I had to leave it in there...
For the Noo Yolk noospaper of note, they have suggested those sorts of "compromises" before. In other words, if WE only move, the editorial worthies and the MAGAts may consider us to be something that deserves a private or public hanging rather than the firing squad, as a concession. We are the problem, as we stubbornly cling to our ideals and morals and ethics, rather than inch into grubby right wing land. If we were to even consider that move to the right, the goalposts would be quietly moved again. They, as a whole, can't be trusted for anything. Opinion, of course--
Jeanne,
Your opponent gets twice as many votes but you declare yourself the winner? Maduro is the Venezuelan Trump.