New Week, New Start
Election, Likable Kamala, Daddy Donald, Arnold Palmer’s Attributes, Hitler Love, Dining on Dogs & Cats, Putin Push

Sha’Carri Richardson, the fastest woman in the world, accepts a 4-year-old girl’s challenge to a race ❤️ pic.twitter.com/ILl7QRqO9H

— Women Posting W’s (@womenpostingws) August 12, 2024

• Infidel753 confesses to speculation, but with evidence and logic, anticipating a blue wave.

• Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger has the numbers to demonstrate the Harris secret power Trump didn’t expect.

• Green Eagle has figured out the main problem MAGA media has with trying the usual smear tactics on Kamala Harris: She’s too damn likeable.

  Key MAGA media solution:

  

  Just make her disappear. I mean, it worked for Stalin. And who, apart from Adolf Hitler, could possibly appeal to Trump more than Stalin?

• At Unabashedly American, my longtime friend, Darrell Michaels, goes all Gish gallop (defined) with every reason his fevered imagination can contrive for hating Kamala Harris.

  His first three attack items are devoted to hating her parents: both for being foreign born and for choosing to live in the US, her mother for being born into a privileged caste in India, her father for having ancestors in centuries past who engaged in slave trade, and Harris herself for being raised for a time (5 years, actually) as a kid in Montreal and therefore not being legitimately discriminated against.

  The rest goes downhill from there. She engaged in sex outside of marriage, while in her twenties, with a married man. She failed her first attempt at passing the bar. That sort of thing.

  One fact my old friend forgets to mention: That married man had, at the time, been separated from his wife for more than a decade.

  As for Trump and sex, forced and otherwise, perhaps we can follow Darrell’s good example, and forget to get into all that.

  You might take my word: Darrell is a capable conservative writer. He usually does better.

• Master of rant, Max’s Dad, contrasts the two campaigns and the state of the race.

  On the one hand, Kamala Harris is for keeping politicians out of bedrooms, hospitals, and medical offices. She wants to promote the economy by expanding income for the middle class.

  In contrast, Donald Trump illustrates his skepticism that his opponent worked at a McDonalds 40 years ago because the national corporation, which doesn’t track locally owned locations, has no national record of it.

  He proves he loves local workers (as long as they don’t get a higher minimum wage) by dedicating his few hour career at a closed-for-the-day McDonald’s to serving campaign workers disguised as drive-thru patrons.

  He illustrates his masculine credentials by disclosing his fascination over the years with Arnold Palmer’s genitals.

  And he declares political opponents to be the “enemy within” and promises to have them arrested.

  Key objection:
  Palmer’s daughter came forward (how uncomfortable) to state her Dad didn’t really like Trump and his crass demeanor though he was a die hard Republican.

  One review:
  

• Ant Farmer’s Almanac has the quotes (sort of). There is no connection, none, between mr Trump’s franchise appearance and an ecoli breakout. We all promise.

• Since Donald is so preoccupied with Arnold Palmer’s after shower nakedness: Frances Langum has a quick response.

• M. Bouffant at Web of Evil sees, in Tucker Carlson’s words, a summary of MAGA. Trumpers agree with Tucker that America is the equivalent of a little girl who needs a long, severe, spanking. And they join in envisioning Donald Trump as the furious daddy who will administer that paddling on the nation.

• @whiskeywhistle98 watches a campaign that is decidedly not weird (not!):

• YellowDog Granny has a couple of asides on religion and aging, but has a lot about eating cats and dogs.

• Donald Trump says too many non-white immigrants means America is regarded as “the garbage can of the world”. North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz has a suggestion.
  

  Maybe we don’t want a president who thinks we’re garbage.https://t.co/dWpb21Onwz

  — John Pavlovitz (@johnpavlovitz) October 25, 2024

• In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, Bruce has photos, social media posts, statements, and correspondence with a skeptic. He says what everyone seems to know, and balance prevents from saying aloud: Former President Donald Trump is a racist.

• We’re never supposed to embellish to the point of calling someone a fascist or even a Nazi. So Dave Dubya considers John Kelly’s witness, then dives into parallels between history and current events: considering Adolph, Vladimir, and Donald.

  Key quote:
  “We have to paralyze the will and national unity of these and other countries,” Hitler said. “The great issue was to liberate the world from the poison of democracy, with its degenerating doctrine of liberty and equality”

• Chris Sununu kind of blows off the Trump-admires-Hitler talk:
  

  Q. Hearing John Kelly’s disturbing revelation about Trump’s admiration of Adolph H!tler, does it change how you feel about Trump?

  Chris Sununu: No. We’ve heard a lot of extreme things from Trump. With a guy like that, it’s kind of baked into the votepic.twitter.com/sMTbZicUrJ

  — Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) October 24, 2024

  Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged, headlines a pointed question: If Fascism is Baked in, Why Choose Fascism?

• At News Corpse, Fox actually endeavors to say it’s perfectly fine, really kind of normal, even insightful, for mr Trump as President to wish, right out loud, that he had ‘the Kind of Generals that Hitler Had’.

  Key example:

  Fox host Brian Kilmeade justifies Trump wanting German generals

  Kilmeade: I can absolutely see him go it’d be great to have German generals that actually do what we ask them to do, maybe not fully being cognizant of the third rail of German generals who were Nazis or whatever pic.twitter.com/6lpjH6foEk

  — Lis Power (@LisPower1) October 23, 2024

• Fair and Unbalanced having been hacked by Putin’s Moscow based Biterika Grupp, I was, until now, unable to link to Letters from an American, where historian Heather Cox Richardson watched the Republican campaign for mr Trump respond to being called weird by becoming more and more bizarre. It’s much later, but still relevant. Besides, I do have an excuse courtesy of Vlad Putin.

  That same analysis by Heather Cox Richardson is available in audio format, as Richardson narrates in podcast.

  Key example:
  Trump has repeatedly seemed to fantasize that Biden will return to the head of the Democratic ticket, and on Sunday, seemingly frantic about Harris’s huge rallies while he can no longer attract big crowds, released a rant accusing Vice President Harris of using AI to create fake footage showing large groups of supporters greeting her airplane. Faking crowds with AI is a technique we know Trump uses, but there is no evidence Harris does.

• So, yeah, Trump accuses Kamala Harris of using AI to exaggerate her crowds (he did really say that). Dave Columbo voices what we’re all thinking: if Kamala cheats on crowd size, what else will she cheat at?

• From The Borowitz Report, mr Trump boasts about the huge crowd of voices in his head.

  Key contrast:
  “I have maybe millions of voices, all talking at the same time,” he told reporters. “How many voices does Kamala have? Maybe one, if she’s lucky.”

• Hackwhackers has internet reaction to mr Trump’s internet interview with Elon Musk. My favorite favorite out of many favorites:
  

  I’m beginning to think “X” went to Trump University.

  — Jo (@JoJoFromJerz) August 13, 2024

• Tommy Christopher has the transcript of one of the weirder parts of the Elon-Donald techno-flawed love-fest. mr Trump goes …well… strangely on the physical beauty of Kamala Harris.

  Key attraction:
  And, uh, actually, she looked very much like a great first lady. Melania.

  Key again:
  That’s right. But of course, she’s a beautiful woman, so we’ll leave it at that, right?

• Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson has a thought about the latest Trump conspiracy theory:
  

  Just going to suggest that a psychiatrist accompany a couple boys in blue to do a welfare check and see if a 72-hour hold might be in order. pic.twitter.com/x5DOlOlfR5

  — James Wigderson (@jwigderson) August 11, 2024

• tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors quotes mr Trump’s promise that, should he lose, he’ll flee to Venezuela. He invites Elon to visit him there. Should we take that seriously? Well, yes and no.

• Juanita Jean encourages eager buyers to purchase Trump Watches. Get yours now!

  Key Biblical benefit:
  will withstand water pressure down to 666 feet

• Disaffected and it Feels So Good sees JD Vance as a pitiable individual on many levels but, after watching his campaign activity, finds it difficult to empathize.

• CalicoJack in The Psy of Life suggests the real psychosis at the core of Trumpism is not that MAGA folk can’t recognize lies, but that they do recognize lies and embrace them.

• Margaret and Helen are here (Yay!), in time for JD Vance to assure everyone that the way to deal with abortion rights is to make it a non-issue by encouraging women to have babies, and getting them to trust Republicans to make that decision for them. Helen isn’t having it!

• Imani Gandy and Jessica Mason Pieklo of Rewire News Group go to podcast, blasting a few anti-abortion-rights Attorneys General who argue for making mifepristone illegal. Turns out they are using junk science to demand teens stay pregnant.

• Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit has a bit of solid proof, literally explosive evidence, that Putin’s military war on the US has begun.

• Kamala Harris proposes a tax on unrealized capital gains, but only for those holding $100,000,000 or more in assets. That basically means the fabulously wealthy can no longer keep investment income hidden by simply holding on to their increasing assets and not disclosing them. The idea embraced by the wealthy: if you can’t see it, it must not be there. If those assets can remain hidden, the hope is Republicans will one day take over and slash taxes again, and the extremely rich can then reveal their gains and pay little or no tax. As usual.

  Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara raises one or two objections.

  First: What is to stop those assets from including middle class homes? Yeah, the proposal is just for those hiding $100,000,000 or more, but Michael fears for those struggling families with large 100,000,000 dollar mansions. What about them?

  Second: What about the slippery slope? If the phenomenally wealthy are required to pay taxes on hidden income, like the rest of us pay on ordinary income, what will stop politicians from increasing taxes across the board? Protecting the rich from paying taxes also protects the rest of us from dramatic increases not yet contemplated.
  So letting the astonishingly wealthy escape taxation is kind of noble, if you think about it.

• PZ Myers explains part of what went into mr Trump’s Project 2025 and why Trump, and pretty much every other political conservative, are running away like it’s Mount Vesuvius at its worst behavior. Has a lot to do with its creepy weird apocalyptic conspiracy theories about sex.

• At The Onion, a number of numbers found in Trump’s Project 2025.

  Key personal favorite:
  24:Number of times Trump has heard about Project 2025 for the first time

• This is almost a month late (because…you know…Russians), but Vagabond Scholar has made available an annual list of the best 10 banned books.
  As judged by the those seeking the bans, and moderated by the American Library Association.

• As ethical analysts are prone to do, FBI statisticians figured out a way to make their published crime stats more accurate.

  The Propaganda Professor traces right wing reaction, led by the usual suspects (looking at you, Fox) breathlessly reporting and repeating the newest news of a deepstate pro-Harris conspiracy.

  Key conspiracy evidence:
  That’s the word they all use, over and over and over. Quietly. The FBI made its changes quietly, quietly, quietlyyyyyyyyy. ( The New York Post cutely characterized it as a “stealth edit”.) It’s the Deep State. It’s a commie plot. It’s Jewish space lazers.

  Key conspiracy deconstruct:
  Well of course they did it quietly. How much fanfare does a government agency normally give to a post on its website? Did you expect them to announce it on a billboard, or place a commercial about it in the middle of MLB playoffs? You think this is Hunter Biden’s laptop or something?

• In 5 seconds (Go ahead, time it), driftglass quickly dissects today’s both-sides journalism.

• Washington Post owner gazillionaire Jeff Bezos buckles under pressure and the paper suddenly declines to endorse.

  Julian Sanchez, on Threads, points to profound damage Bezos may not have considered:

   

  Post by @normative

  View on Threads

   

  and may be forced to reconsider his own views:
   

   

  Post by @normative

  View on Threads

   

• Juliet at Decoding Fox News brings us the desperation at Fox where, unable to find an effective attack on Tim Walz, resorts to a swift boat smear on his military record.

• This actually wears well. Three years ago, Marjorie Taylor Greene made a video of herself reading the Bible.

  Tamra Brown educates us on how her publicist had to have advised her:

• At The Moderate Voice, Don Hermann speaks from personal experience at the death of a child, a level of pain most of us can only try to imagine, and yet can offer a glimmer of hope.

• In Happiness Between Tails da-AL hosts children’s writer (among other things) who suggests, writing being a long solitary effort, writers should hang out with other writers every once in a while.

• Scotties Playtime notes how important this week is in history. Here are some of what happened in years past on October 24.

• The Strategic Studies Book Club examines international power with concepts outlined by Joseph Nye in his book Power in Flux.

  The past Chair of the National Intelligence Council, Assistant Secretary of Defense, and Deputy Under Secretary of State has a couple of idea for international power, in addition to traditional carrot and stick levers: like persuasion and example.

  Key addition:
  A country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries – admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness – want to follow it.

  Ruthless bastards!

• The Journal of Improbable Research finds a small study demonstrating that one cup of coffee won’t help or hurt your sense of balance if you are old.

  Whew:
  At last, a reason the issue of coffee won’t keep me up at night.

  Good example of improbable research, right?

• Well-l-l-l, maybe not.

  Nan’s Notebook goes to work on a study linking balance to longer life.

  Okay, Nan. You’ve got my attention.

• Clickbait satirist Reductress discovers another reason some folks don’t want to have kids.

• In Georgia baseball, The Savanna Bananas have a very special celebration for a homerun.

• SilverAppleQueen fights a cold, and her “hungry kitties” come to the rescue.