Mostly Monday Reads: High Anxiety

“I seen it on Fox News so it must be true.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

It’s finally here, and I’m so ready, but I would feel safer if I knew the outcome. I’m pretty sure the women of America have got this. I also know anyone who values their freedom, and the girls and women in their lives are doing their best, too.  This headline caught my attention. It’s from The Daily Beast.  “Teary-Eyed John Oliver Begs Reluctant Voters to Back Kamala Harris. The late-night host sent an emotional message to viewers in a passionate monologue days before the election.” My Discord Kamala volunteer channel has been beeping constantly with requests to call just a few more folks in the Swing States. I think everyone is trying to help in their own way because we all remember how awful DonOld and his cult can be.  Sean L. McCarthy writes about John Oliver’s teary plea. I think it’s likely he’s higher up on the Project 2025/DonOld’s revenge list than I am.

Fighting back tears, John Oliver choked up Sunday night while urging undecided and reluctant voters to turn out Tuesday to elect Kamala Harris as president.

“What am I going to be feeling on Wednesday? And is there anything I’m going to wish I’d said right now?” Oliver said at the start of his impassioned 10-minute closing monologue on Last Week Tonight.

Oliver said he supports Harris’ proposals to expand Medicare for long-term elder care, as well as expanding reproductive freedoms and boosting incomes for poor Americans. He also acknowledged that several episodes in this 11th season of his late night HBO show already have warned of the danger of a second Trump term and the policies spelled out in Project 2025. “All of that is why a bunch of our stories this year have ended with me telling you to vote against Donald Trump,” Oliver said. “But to be clear, I am voting for Kamala Harris. And I think you should, too.”

Oliver directed his Sunday night plea to those voters “rightly furious” about the Biden administration’s “indefensible” policy toward the war in Gaza. “Look, I get why this is so difficult, and I know there are some who won’t vote for Harris under any circumstances because of this issue,” he said, adding: “I wish Harris had done more to reach out to you, beyond sending Bill Clinton to basically scold you this week. That didn’t seem remotely helpful to me, and honestly, felt a bit like bullying.”

But he also pointed to Muslim and Arab voices “who have also wrestled hard with this question and arrived at the conclusion that despite their pain, to vote for Harris.” Such as Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman, one of the Palestinians who had hoped to speak at this summer’s DNC but was rebuked. Oliver played a TikTok from Romman where she explained her reasons for sticking with Harris and the Democrats. “It’s honestly worth watching the whole thing,” Oliver said.

I know what it feels like to think you should’ve done something more when you had a chance.  I don’t like being in that place.

Some signs show things moving in the right direction, even though the big pollsters call this race a toss-up.  It’s why we can’t afford to sit this one out. This NPR report has me breathing easier. “Meet the conservative women who are keeping their votes for Kamala Harris a secret.  It played on Morning Edition today with Sarah MacCammon.  It’s a 4 minute listen if you go to the link.

In political ads and campaign speeches, supporters of Vice President Harris have a message for Republican women: Your vote is private, and no one will know if you secretly vote for Harris.

“No one gets to know how you’re going to vote,” Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin said last week during a campaign stop in Michigan. “No one gets to check it. It’s not available online. Right? Your vote is your choice. You don’t have to tell anyone.” Slotkin, who’s running for Senate, was campaigning with former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, who’s also crossed the aisle to endorse Harris.

Their message is aimed at conservative-leaning women like T, whom we’re calling by her first initial. T, who is in her 60s and lives in Wisconsin, asked for anonymity to discuss how living in a politically divided household is affecting her marriage of more than 40 years.

“He’s frustrated with me that I won’t listen to him plead his case. I can’t and I won’t,” she explained.

T says she mailed her absentee ballot from another family member’s home to avoid a confrontation with her husband over her support for Harris.

“It’s not that he would ever stop me or anything, it’s just I just can’t deal with that animosity,” she said with an audible sigh.

There was some sad news today.  Quincy Jones has gone home to the elders at the age of 91.  His influence on my life as a musician cannot be overstated. He was the “it” man. An interview with the great man in 2018 on DonOld and his family is something I pass along because you’ll see how strongly he was disgusted by the man.  This is from Newsweek. “What Quincy Jones Said About Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump.”

In the interview, Jones mentioned knowing Ivanka’s father and didn’t hold back his opinions about him, expressing a strong distaste for Trump and referring to him in disparaging terms. Jones described him as “crazy” and criticized him as being “limited mentally,” calling him “narcissistic.”

“I used to hang out with him. He’s a crazy motherf***er. Limited mentally – a megalomaniac, narcissistic. I can’t stand him,” Jones said.

During the no-holds-barred interview, Jones expressed frustration about Trump’s political career and business practices, implying that he lacked leadership skills and didn’t know how to bring people together.

“A symphony conductor knows more about how to lead than most businesspeople – more than Trump does. He doesn’t know s***. Someone who knows about real leadership wouldn’t have as many people against him as he does. He’s a f***ing idiot,” Jones said.

Referring to Trump’s supporters, again Jones didn’t hold back, saying: “It’s Trump and uneducated rednecks. Trump is just telling them what they want to hear.”

Trump didn’t respond publicly to the claims. The following year, in March 2019, Jones donated $2,800 to Kamala Harris‘ primary campaign.

Jones had six daughters and publicly stated he was proud of every one of them.  I’ve always voted in honor of my grandmothers, who could not vote until they were well into middle age.  Tomorrow, I will vote for my daughters and granddaughters and every woman in the country who needs autonomy to make decisions about her life. I will vote for me, my sister, and all the other adult women who deserve their own moral authority.  None of us are chattel, nor should we be under the law or the decision of a bunch of weird old men on the Supreme Court.  And with that, I will shame Nikki Haley, who wrote this in the WSJ. “Trump Isn’t Perfect, but He’s the Better Choice.  If you like his policies but are put off by his tone or his excesses, consider the cost of the past four years.” That is all you will see here. You have to deliberately confuscate the US economy, jobs, and business growth of the last few years for that conclusion.

After SNL on NBC gave Harris some fun time on the show Saturday night, the Orange Dotard demanded equal time.  Fortunately, I didn’t see it because there would be no way I would be watching either of these shows.  This is from, of all places, The Hollywood Reporter. “NBC Gives Donald Trump Campaign Time During NASCAR Race, ‘Sunday Night Football’ in Response to Kamala Harris’ ‘SNL’ Appearance. Trump appeared in spots that aired during Sunday’s coverage of both sporting events on NBC, speaking directly to the camera.”

On Sunday, NBC broadcast a NASCAR playoff race, but some viewers noticed toward the end of the broadcast (technically right after the race ended but while coverage was still ongoing) that Trump appeared in an unusual ad, speaking directly to camera while wearing a Red “Make America Great Again” baseball cap, and claiming that electing Harris would cause a “depression” and that viewers should “go and vote.”

A source familiar with the matter says that the spot during the NASCAR race was connected to NBC giving the Trump campaign equal time.

During NBC’s Sunday Night Football coverage, Trump was given 60 additional seconds of campaign time. While the game was already over, the spot — which was the same one that aired during the NASCAR coverage — aired during the post-game coverage (and shortly after a paid campaign ad).

It is not clear whether it was the Trump camp or NBC that suggested the NASCAR and SNF placements.

It is also not clear if any other campaigns have requested equal time. If they do, however, NBC will likely need to find time for them, given the FCC rules. SNL creator Lorne Michaels previously cited the rules in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter as a reason why the show hadn’t had Trump or Harris on during this cycle.

Harris appeared on SNL in a “cold open” sketch alongside Maya Rudolph, who portrays the vice president for the late night comedy show. The sketch saw Rudolph’s Harris seeking a pep talk from the real Harris, with the pair ending the bit by saying “Keep Kamala and carry on-ala.”

However the sketch drew a rebuke from FCC commissioner Brendan Carr, who is seen as a potential FCC chair if President Trump is re-elected. Carr wrote that the sketch was “a clear and blatant effort to evade the FCC’s Equal Time rule,” because it came just two days before election day, within the seven-day window the FCC gives campaigns to request equal time.

I suppose none of these folks know that economists worldwide have indicated that it’s Trump’s stated economic policies that would immediately throw the US and the world into a recession.  This is an Op-Ed in the Business Standard from a few weeks ago.  “US elections: 23 Nobel laureates can’t be wrong about Donald Trump. Economists, from Columbia University professor Joseph Stiglitz to Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Daron Acemoglu, released a letter endorsing Kamala Harris for US president.”4

Economists mostly shun politics in favour of policy. We prefer to be aloof soothsayers giving voice to data and research rather than our own beliefs. A luminary in the profession once told me that “the only political party economists support is whichever is willing to be smart,” before adding, “and a smart economist would never join a political party.” And yet, in a stunning turn — at least for us in the profession — 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists, from Columbia University professor Joseph Stiglitz to Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Daron Acemoglu, released a letter endorsing Kamala Harris for US president.
“Simply put, Harris’s policies will result in a stronger economic performance, with economic growth that is more robust, more sustainable, and more equitable,” the Nobel laureates wrote in the letter. Donald Trump’s policies, they added, would “lead to higher prices, larger deficits, and greater inequality.” As for Ms Harris, they wrote that she “has emphasised policies that strengthen the middle class, enhance competition, and promote entrepreneurship.

Individuals can struggle to sort out the nuance of their own economic experience over the past eight years in weighing Ms Harris versus Mr Trump, but professional economists of all stripes have little to be torn about.It’s not a toss-up:Mr Trump’s policy agenda gives much for economists to condemn. Any one of these policies on their own would be enough to disqualify a candidate, but that Mr Trump has proposed them all is a clear enough indicator of just how much the economy would be at risk if he were reelected.

The latest Biden/Harris economy accolades have come from the U.K.’s The Economist.

The American economy

The envy of the world

Special reports – Oct 19th 2024

The American economy has left other rich countries in the dust. Expect that to continue, argue Simon Rabinovitch and Henry Curr

• Special report: The American economy has left other rich countries in the dust

• Economic output: American productivity still leads the world

• For richer and poorer: Is higher inequality the price America pays for faster growth?

• Energy: The shale revolution helped make America’s economy great

• Stocks: Why the American stockmarket reigns supreme

• The dollar: China’s yuan is nowhere close to displacing the greenback

• Looking ahead: What can stop the American economy now?

• The American economy: Sources and acknowledgments

   

Now, compare that to what Trump said yesterday. “It’s gonna be so much fun. It’ll be nasty… at the beginning in particular… You’re gonna see things that you’re not gonna believe.”  Does that sound like Happy Days are here again?  This is from Maddow Blog at MSNBC.  “Trump warns voters that his second term would get ‘nasty’ at times.  According to Donald Trump and his allies, his second term would be “nasty,” “bloody,” and filled with “hardships” for much of the population.”  Steven Benen reports on this gloom and doom rally.

When Donald Trump uses the word “nasty,” he tends to target those who have the audacity to criticize him or stand in his way. In 2016, for example, the Republican referred to Hillary Clinton as a “nasty woman.” Eight years later, the former president whined about Michelle Obama’s campaign appearances, complaining that the former first lady became “nasty.”

Last year, during a town hall event on CNN, Trump described moderator Kaitlan Collins as a “nasty person.” About a year later, he accused New York Attorney General Letitia James of having a “nasty” mouth. (If you’re noticing the gender similarity here, it’s not your imagination.)

But once in a while, the GOP candidate uses the word in a very different kind of context. NBC News reported:

After a meandering and at times hostile speech [Sunday] morning in Pennsylvania, Trump delivered a more subdued and on-prompter speech to a Georgia crowd at his third and final rally today. As he depicted a second-term Trump administration, he said: “We stand on the verge of the four greatest years in American history. … It’ll be nasty a little bit at times, and maybe at the beginning in particular.”

The report added, “He didn’t elaborate on what would be ‘nasty.’”

At face value, this isn’t the kind of rhetoric American voters generally hear from presidential candidates. On the contrary, White House hopefuls tend to tell the public that if they’re elected, the country will be vastly safer, stronger, more prosperous, and more secure.

But Trump wants voters to prepare for something qualitatively different: a country where conditions will get “nasty.”

This comes roughly two months after the Republican nominee also told an audience that he and his team intend to pursue a mass deportation policy, and the process of removing immigrants already in the United States “will be a bloody story.”

It also comes a week after conspiratorial billionaire Elon Musk, a prominent Trump surrogate and megadonor, said during a virtual town hall event that Americans will need to endure “temporary hardship” if Trump wins a second term. As the world’s wealthiest man explained, much of the public will feel a real pinch as GOP officials work on “tackling the nation’s debt,” but those who suffer should take comfort in the hopes that the country will eventually enjoy “long-term prosperity.”

How is any person voting for this?  WTF is wrong with these people. That’s a Drink the Koolaide message if I ever saw one!

You might know that I spent most of my young years in Iowa.  It was not the same then as it later turned into when Pat Robertson rolled through an Iowa Primary and awakened the Beasts within. The Des Moines Register has always been an award-winning paper.  It was the paper of choice back then. The October Surprise might have come from the paper’s well-respected pollster who gets the pulse of the Iowa electorate fight with admirable accuracy. Her name is Ann Selzer.  This one must’ve hit a nerve because now the Orange Koolaide Vendor is attacking her. Her poll results caught a surprise shift!  This is from The Daily Beast. “Pollster Behind Shock Iowa Poll Hits Back at Trump’s Attacks. The former president called J. Ann Selzer one of his “enemies” after results showed him falling behind Harris in the state.” Dan Ladden-Hall has the analysis.

Revered Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer on Monday responded to the attacks Donald Trump made against her after her bombshell poll showed him trailing in the state.

The Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll conducted by Selzer and published Saturday showed Kamala Harris leading Trump by three points—47 percent to 44 percent—in Iowa, a state he won comfortably in 2016 and 2020. Although the result differed from that of other Iowa polls, the figures were potentially concerning for Trump given Selzer’s track record of accurately forecasting results in the Hawkeye State.

Trump was sufficiently concerned by the poll to post about it on Truth Social, claiming that all polls “except for one heavily skewed toward the Democrats by a Trump hater” showed him in the lead. “I’m 10 points up in Iowa,” he said during a campaign stop in Pennsylvania on Sunday. “One of my enemies just puts out a poll—I’m three down.”

“They just announced a fake poll,” he went on. “Hey, think of it—right before the election—that I’m three points down. I’m not down in Iowa.” Trump’s campaign separately released a memo calling Selzer’s poll “a clear outlier” and pointed to Emerson College polling released the same day that gave Trump a 10-point lead over Harris.

During an appearance Monday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Selzer acknowledged that the result of her poll was a “shock.”

“I’ve been shocked since Tuesday morning last week,” Selzer said. “So I’ve had the time for this to sink in because no one, including me, would’ve thought that Iowa could go for Kamala Harris.”

Co-host Willie Geist specifically asked Selzer about Trump’s criticisms, inviting her to respond to the claim that her poll is just an outlier.

“I give credit to my method for my track record,” Selzer said. “I call my method ‘polling forward.’ So I want to be in a place where my data can show me what’s likely to happen with the future electorate. So I just try to get out of the way of my data saying this is what’s going to happen.”

“A lot of other polls, and I’ll count Emerson among them, are including in the way that they manipulate the data after it comes in, things that have happened in the past,” she continued. “So they’re taking into account exit polls, they’re taking into account what turnout was in past elections. I don’t make any assumptions like that. So it’s in my way of thinking, it’s a cleaner way to forecast a future electorate, which nobody knows what that’s going to be. But we do know that our electorates change in terms of how many people are showing up and what the composition is.”

Notice the role women are playing in this election season?  The Bulwark’s Jonathan V. Last recognizes it. “The Valkyries of Democracy. In praise of three extraordinary women. Trigger warning: Emo JVL is here. I’ve got a lot of feelings and I’m going to share all of them with you. Sorry. But that’s where I’m at.”  There certainly are a lot of men who are getting all wet-eyed and emotional during this election.

By the time you read this Sarah will have concluded moderating a conversation between Kamala Harris and Liz Cheney. If you missed it, you can watch it here. And in a few minutes, I’m going to sit down with Sarah and have her unload on what this moment was like. It’ll be on the site the minute she’s able to get on camera.

Before that, though, I want to say a personal word about these three extraordinary women.

On Liz Cheney: I was wrong. I can’t say this often enough. When Cheney broke with Donald Trump after January 6, I was dismissive. I didn’t understand why it took her so long, or how she could have stayed on-side during COVID and the 2020 campaign.

But as she methodically blew up her own career in order to defend our democracy, I realized I’d underestimated her. This was a woman of real conviction, who was willing to put it all on the line.

Liz Cheney has been a workhorse. She’s been willing to do as much as anyone, and more than most, in the service of elevating country over party.

On Kamala Harris: I am not in the Yass Queen camp. My view is that Kamala is a standard-issue, ambitious politician and that she might be a good president, or a bad president, or a middling president. There’s no real way to know ahead of time. I do not have any illusions about her being a savior.

But I also do not believe that any sane person would want to be the Democratic presidential nominee in the Year of Our Lord 2024.

The stakes are too high; the pressure too great.

I believe that for all her political ambition, Kamala Harris is carrying this burden for us. She’s not Barack Obama, basking in the warmth of a cultural moment en route to becoming a cultural icon. She’s more like Frodo Baggins, walking toward Mordor while carrying a millstone around her neck, in an attempt to save all of Middle Earth from a dark fate.

Here are two things I truly believe: (1) Kamala Harris has wanted to be president for a long time; and (2) Kamala Harris never wanted to run for president with the fate of democracy on the line.

When Howard Stern interviewed Harris, he asked her about the pressure and she answered that she literally loses sleep over it. That she goes to bed every night wondering, “Is there anything else I could have done?”

I cannot imagine that burden. And I am grateful—in my heart—to her for bearing it.

Finally, there’s Sarah Longwell.

I cannot properly convey the depth of my affection and admiration for her. I would run through walls for Sarah. I’d take a bullet for her.

When the Harris campaign called and asked Sarah to come to Pennsylvania today and sit down with Harris and Cheney, I kvelled.

Knowing that other people see the same things in Sarah that we see? Absolutely bursting with pride.

But it’s not just pride.

It’s relief. Look: None of us wants to be living in this moment.

But history chose us. It is our burden and the burden is, itself, a form of privilege.

And there is no group of people I would rather fight through this moment with than those three women: Liz, Kamala, and Sarah.

As Coach D’Amato once said, the inches we need are all around us. And when I look at these women, I see people who will go that inch with us. Who have been willing to sacrifice for that inch. Who are going to fight for every inch.

And I’m ride or die with them. I hope you will be, too.r

So, my birthday is today. I just turned 69, and there’s a party at the bar on the corner, so we can have some fun, make silly references to my age, and ignore things for a bit.  Tomorrow, I will walk down the street to the Rec Center and greet my Poll Workers!  I will vote.  I’m counting on women and a few good men to do the right thing.

This may not be over quickly, but we must keep Calmala and Carry-on-ala.  This is from The Hill‘s Alexander Bolten.  “GOP primed to back Trump if he contests election.”  All the court cases to date have been big losers.  You can always follow them on Democracy Docket. This fight described below in Bolten’s piece may finally end the Republican Party once and for all.

The Republican Party is now more primed to back former President Trump if he contests the results of the 2024 election than it was four years ago, when his efforts to overturn President Biden’s victory fell flat in courts and Congress.

Trump’s unwavering claims about the nation’s election system being “rigged” have steadily gained more acceptance among rank-and-file Republicans voters over the past four years, and his biggest Republican critics in Congress have either retired, will retire soon or have lost sway.

Additionally, Trump allies around the country have worked to gain more influence over state and local election boards, which will be in charge of tallying votes and certifying the results.

Republicans are feeling increasingly optimistic Trump will win the election, but they are girding for an intense battle if Vice President Harris is declared the winner.

“The strength of the cult of Trump amongst voters is strong so members are reflecting what their constituents want them to do,” said a Republican strategist and former Senate leadership aide.

“The other angle is there are a lot of concerns about how elections are being conducted and the power of social media and our partisan news,” the strategist said. “Republicans watch a lot of Twitter and Fox News, and they see voting irregularities,” they continued, pointing out a recent Detroit News report that a Chinese citizen attending the University of Michigan voted illegally by absentee ballot, and election officials weren’t able to retrieve it.

Four years ago, Trump’s claims that Biden and his allies “stole” the election struck many Republicans in Washington as outlandish, though most of them extended the 45th president the courtesy of letting him pursue his claims in court, where they failed.

So we are all in this together. Just keep telling people to go vote and make sure you vote. You can always ask for a provisional ballot as is your right if anything goes wrong. It’s important we do this!