Mostly Monday Reads: Say Hello to my Little Friend Francine

Posted: September 9, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: 2024 Elections, 2024 presidential Campaign | Tags: , , , , | 10 Comments

“We must shut down the government to prevent this from happening.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

I’m trying to get this post up while doing early Hurricane Prep.  I’ve located the matches for my hurricane lamps and the range.  I’m powering up the solar charger and all the little charge sticks I have left from Hurricane Ida.  I’m not excited about this since the last few days brought some drips back into my usual spot over my bed. I need to go up and caulk between the roof on the addition and the side of the old house. That’s usually what solves it.  At least the roof is relatively new.  We’re on the edge of the cone, so we could get the dirtiest part of it or miss it. It’s always something, isn’t it?

One of the worst parts of the RNC, which I refused to watch but did see clips, was the utter hypocrisy of the crowds waving ‘mass deportation’ signs while Usha Vance reaffirmed the “GOP’s “good immigrant, bad immigrant” narrative.”

“Usha Vance talking about being a daughter of immigrants as the mostly white people at the RNC hold ‘Mass Deportations Now’ signs is quite the scene,” one person tweeted.

Throughout the evening, blue and red signs peppered the convention floor, reading “Mass Deportations Now” Audible chants of “Send them back” also reverberated multiple times when politicians like Usha Vance’s husband, former president Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick JD Vance, spoke about “illegal aliens” entering the country.

The bottom line is that if you’re not indigenous, your status as an American citizen is the result of being a colonizer or an immigrant. But this kind of xenophobia has worked well in the past, so no wonder we have to endure it again.  DonOld has just hyped up a lot of people whose relatives were unwanted at various parts of our history, like the Irish, the Germans, or the Italians in recent history. This is a disturbing headline in The Guardian today.  “Trump says his plan to expel millions of immigrants will be a ‘bloody story.’ The GOP’s plans for America after a Trump victory include aggressive immigration enforcement and mass deportations.”

Donald Trump has issued yet another ominous warning about his potential second term in the Oval Office, this time promising a “bloody story” for the millions of immigrants he intends to deport.

He made the comments at a campaign rally in Mosinee, Wisconsin on Saturday, echoing the broader Republican National Committee’s 2024 platform. The GOP’s plans for America after a Trump victory include aggressive immigration enforcement and mass deportations.

That’s when Trump alluded to the blood.

“And ya know getting them out will be a bloody story,” Trump said. “[Undocumented immigrants] should have never been allowed to come into our country. Nobody checked them.”

Though Trump did not explain what he meant by “bloody story,” he has frequently — and falsely — insisted that many undocumented workers crossing into the US illegally are criminals released from Venezuelan prisons or other violent lawbreakers.

He told his supporters that “in Colorado, they’re so brazen they’re taking over sections of the state,” which is likely a reference to a fake story claiming that a Venezuelan gang took over an apartment building in the city.

The fearmongering and dehumanizing language used by Trump to describe immigrants may be intended to prime his base for more brutal ICE crackdowns, should he succeed in November.

As was previously reported by the New York Times, Trump’s vision for America includes mass deportations that will be so extensive that “huge camps” will be needed to detain people. To execute his vision, Trump has proposed the creation of a deportation force pulled from local police and National Guard troops volunteered by “Republican-run states.”

In other words, Trump wants an army of Republican-loyal racial purity troops and concentration camps.

“Following the Eisenhower model, we will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” he told a crowd in Iowa earlier his month.

Suppressing rights: October 28, 2018

It’s hard to analyze this policy suggestion as being much more than hate and fear-mongering, racist, and inhumane. But that’s who he is and what his cult loves to hear.  He’s unlikely to get a plurality of the vote.  More of his former appointees and Republicans are announcing they will not vote for him.  The latest to announce this is Trump’s Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. That also adds to the number of national Security Advisors who warn about him.  Raw Story has an interesting take by Mark Chapman outlining how Tennesse has been gutting voting rights. “‘Master class in undermining democracy’: How Tennessee has gutted voting rights.”

Tennessee has become America’s most efficient state at stripping its citizens of voting rights, according to an analysis for The New York Times — to the point the Volunteer State has become a “master class in undermining democracy.”

The issue comes back to felony disenfranchisement laws, which became commonplace throughout Southern states following the end of slavery, since the justice system of several states for decades made it possible to essentially fabricate charges against Black Americans as needed, and then use that as pretext to eliminate voting rights.

In recent years, most states with these laws have rolled them back, making it far easier for most rehabilitated convicts to regain voting rights on completion of their sentence.

But in Tennessee, things are going backward: over 200,000 people are disenfranchised by such laws in the state, including 21 percent of Black adults. Among them is Sarah Bynum, a grandmother and local community advocate who runs her local homeowners’ association and has fought for many municipal improvements — but because she still has no right to vote, she says she feels like “I’m a foreigner in my own country.”

“The good news is, Tennessee has a path for reclaiming voting rights,” she added. “The bad news is, the process is absurdly complicated.”

It appears they may be relying heavily on voter suppression measures, given their campaign is sorely lacking on the ground in many states. This is from Hugo Lowell writing for The Guardian. “Trump’s voter turnout operation in swing states is too small, GOP worries. Republican officials see Trump’s campaign as comparable in size to a midterm election rather than a presidential.”

Republican officials are raising the alarm that Donald Trump’s campaign has invested far fewer resources for its voter turnout operation in battleground states than previous presidential election races, and attempts to bridge the gap with political action committees have come too late.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) once envisioned an extensive field operation for the 2024 election, including having about 90 staffers in the must-win state of Pennsylvania.

But the Trump campaign scrapped those plans when it took over the RNC in March, redirecting the focus on field operations to combating supposed voter fraud and pursuing a twin voter turnout strategy of relying on several political action committees and ardent Trump volunteers.

The result has been that the Trump campaign has put fewer resources into its ground game in battleground states, according to people familiar with the matter – and Republican officials have derisively said the Trump operation is more comparable in size to a midterm cycle than a presidential.

Also, the Harris campaign and the DNC are spending unprecedented levels of money to help down-ballot candidates.  They have sent nearly $25 million to help states turn votes and advertise their local candidates. Trump is siphoning money from the Republican Party and his campaign to pay his massive law bills.  He’s even asked candidates who appear with him to give to his campaign.  The Washington Post has the numbers of the Harris fund-raising and fund-sharing. Michael Scherer has the analysis.

Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee plan to transfer nearly $25 million to support down-ballot Democratic candidates in state and federal races this year, a significant boost to those efforts following record fundraising for her campaign this summer.

“If we want a future where every American’s rights are protected, not taken away; where the middle class is strengthened, not hollowed out; and a country where our democracy is preserved, not ripped apart, every race this November matters,” Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a statement Tuesday. “The Vice President believes that this race is about mobilizing the entire country, in races at every level, to fight for our freedoms and our economic opportunity.”

The funds include $10 million transfers to both the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which are leading the efforts to win Democratic majorities next January on Capitol Hill.

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which focuses on winning control of state legislative bodies, will receive $2.5 million, while the Democratic Governors Association and the Democratic Attorneys General Association will each receive $1 million.

The Harris Walz policy agenda will have a much more difficult time if the Democratic Party does not hold the Senate and retake the House.  The ABC Debate is tomorrow.  It is unlikely to bring whatever little best Trump has to offer.  Kamala has dealt with big-time Criminals before, so she will be ready. But what about the press?  Will they be ready?  This is from Andrew Egger writing for The Bulwark. ” Trump Leans Into the Violence. Is our press corps up for this moment? Take the Ranting Seriously!”

Donald Trump’s rhetoric has only ever really been constrained by one thing: His lizard-brain sense of what he can get away with.

As the election draws near, he seems to believe he can get away with more than ever.

Trump’s policy promises are getting wilder and his flirtation with authoritarianism more brazen. At a rally in Wisconsin Saturday, he made a new pledge to slap a “100 percent tariff” on countries that adopt reserve currencies other than the dollar: “You leave the dollar and you’re not doing business with the United States because we are going to put a 100 percent tariff on your goods.”

“We’re gonna be a tariff nation,” he went on inanely. “It’s not going to be a cost to you, it’s going to be a cost to another country.”

He keeps promising to elevate kooks. He says he’s tapped Elon Musk to run a “government efficiency” task force. He’s left open the door to a cabinet appointment for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the anti-vax crank whose endorsement he secured last month. In Wisconsin, he extolled his plan to end the federal Department of Education and “send it back to the states so that Ron Johnson can run it.”

His diagnoses of what ails the country remain utterly untethered from reality, as with his repeated false assertions that public schools are performing transgender surgeries on minors: “Can you imagine you’re a parent and your son leaves the house and you say, ‘Jimmy, I love you so much, go have a good day at school,’ and your son comes back with a brutal operation,” he Saturday.

Most of all, though, he’s leaning into the violence. Trump, repeatedly and in open sight, is outlining two major initiatives involving large-scale, systematic arrests of groups of people.

His proposed mass deportations of millions of migrants, he warned Saturday, will be “a bloody story.” And he keeps pledging to redirect the Department of Justice against his own political enemies, calling for prominent Democrats to face “public military tribunals” and for members of the congressional committee who investigated January 6th to be indicted for treason. (For good measure, his promises to pardon January 6th rioters now explicitly include those who assaulted police during the insurrection attempt.)

On Saturday, Trump made clear that that enemies list won’t stop with national Democrats, promising “long term prison sentences” for anyone he deems to have cheated in the upcoming election in a baroque post to Truth Social:

CEASE & DESIST: I, together with many Attorneys and Legal Scholars, am watching the Sanctity of the 2024 Presidential Election very closely because I know, better than most, the rampant Cheating and Skullduggery that has taken place by the Democrats in the 2020 Presidential Election. It was a Disgrace to our Nation! Therefore, the 2024 Election, where Votes have just started being cast, will be under the closest professional scrutiny and, WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again. We cannot let our Country further devolve into a Third World Nation, AND WE WON’T! Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.

Emmy Martin of Politico reports that the Vice President has this prediction for the debate.“Harris says Trump is ‘going to lie’ during the debate, prepares for ‘untruths.’  The vice president said she expects Trump to revert to personal attacks during their match-up on Tuesday.”

Kamala Harris expects that former President Donald Trump is “going to lie” during their debate Tuesday and is prepping for those “untruths,” she said in a prerecorded radio interview released Monday.

“There’s no floor for him in terms of how low he will go,” the vice president said on “The Rickey Smiley Morning Show.” “And we should be prepared for that. We should be prepared for the fact that he is not burdened by telling the truth.”

Harris also said she believes the former president will revert to personal attacks during the debate, pointing to the “playbook” he used with former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Such an attack might have been just what the Harris campaign had hoped for if the candidates had unmuted microphones throughout the event. However, each candidate’s mic will be muted while the other speaks on Tuesday, limiting the time they can challenge each other to their allotted turns.

This coverage of the debate is from NPR. “Harris and Trump debate in Philadelphia tomorrow night. Here’s what you need to know.”

Harris has since made up the ground Biden lost in swing state polls and now stands virtually tied with Trump. Despite a groundswell of support and reportedly record-breaking fundraising amounts, her campaign’s honeymoon phase is likely to end, especially as Trump and Republicans look to ramp up attacks.

Here’s what you need to know about this second debate of the 2024 presidential election cycle.

The event will air at 9 p.m. ET for 90 minutes from the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. ABC News anchors David Muir and Linsey Davis are slated to moderate the debate, which will be broadcast by the network and streamed on ABC News Live, Disney+ and Hulu.

Follow NPR’s live blog for the latest updates, analysis, fact-checking and color; listen to NPR’s special coverage of the ABC News Presidential Debate Simulcast on many public radio stations.

S0, that’s it from me today.  I’m back to getting the house ready for what could be a lot of wind and rain.  I’m hoping it doesn’t develop too much since it does appear to be moving quickly.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

 

Mostly Monday Reads: The Weirdo Trifecta

Posted: August 26, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

“I know they wanted JFK Jr, but RFK Jr is a nice addition to the trump campaign.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

The Trumplican Party continues to devolve. I doubt my father would even recognize it if he were alive.  The latest example is the addition of RFK Jr., a conspiracy nut with habits that the word eccentric can’t even begin to describe.  This headline from The Wrap, written by Stephanie Kaloi, is something regular folks can’t wrap their head around. “RFK Jr.’s Daughter Says Dad Cut Off a Whale’s Head, Drove It 5 Hours Home. When they would accelerate, “whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet,” Kick Kennedy explained to Town & Country Magazine.”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s daughter Kick Kennedy may or may not be spending time with Jennifer Lopez’s estranged husband Ben Affleck (as reported by Page Six), but she certainly spent time with Town & Country Magazine for a profile that has been resurfaced and made waves on social media, in which she shared an anecdote about her father and a dead whale that still checks out with what we know about the odd politician — especially when it comes to his love for dead animals.

When she was 6, her dad chopped off the head of a whale that washed up on Squaw Island in Hyannis Port. Due to RFK Jr.’s love of studying animal skulls and skeletons, they then strapped the dead whale’s head to the car and spent five hours driving it to their home.

“Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet,” Kennedy said. “We all had plastic bags over our heads with mouth holes cut out, and people on the highway were giving us the finger, but that was just normal day-to-day stuff for us.”

RFK Jr. made headlines earlier this month when he shared the story of taking a dead bear that he found as roadkill, intent on saving it to eat, before ultimately dumping it in a bizarre prank in New York City’s Central Park. On Friday, the independent candidate dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Donald Trump.

RFK Jr. approached the Harris/Walz campaign, but they didn’t answer his calls. That’s just some American common sense with nothing to do with political savvy. What possible benefit could his addition add to a campaign?  But he’s just another (yawn) Maga Sideshow full of weirdos who generally wind up in trouble with the law, one way or another.  His J6 “gala” next month will undoubtedly highlight the number of criminals that actually might actually violate his terms of release.  Also, Rudy Guilliani will be there.  He is definitely on the Trumplican weirdo and felon list. This information popped up on Alternet, and I just had to share it.  “Trump’s ‘gala’ honoring ‘courage and sacrifice’ of J6 rioters may violate his terms of release” is written by Carl Gibson and answers my call out to all the parole officers in charge of these folks.

Convicted felon and 45th President of the United States Donald Trump is planning on hosting a gathering of other convicted felons next month. One legal expert is pointing out that the event may frustrate his efforts to remain a free man.

According to NJ.com, the ex-president is hosting a “J6 awards gala” at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club next month. Progressive group MeidasTouch reported that on September 5, Trump will be joined by former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and MAGA influencer Anthony Raimondi at the event, where he is expected to personally address participants in the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

…

However, if Trump follows through with the gala, it may complicate his own legal situation. According to attorney Tristan Snell – who prosecuted the former president over his sham Trump University while at the New York Attorney General’s office — New York state law would prohibit such an event given the expected guest list.

“Someone should alert Trump’s probation officer — because convicted felons are legally prohibited from associating with other felons,” he tweeted.

While Trump has been convicted by a jury on 34 class E felony counts, he won’t be sentenced until September 18. At that point, assuming the former president isn’t ordered to serve time behind bars (Judge Juan Merchan has the ability to sentence him to as much as 20 years in prison), he will then be issued a probation officer, who he will be required to check in with on a regular basis. This means the September 5 event will be legal, though it likely won’t help his case when he appears before Merchan less than two weeks later.

The former president narrowly dodged the ire of prosecutors at last month’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade pointed out that some of the convention’s attendees included indicted “fake electors,” and that Trump seen associating with them may have resulted in Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith and/or Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis petitioning the court to incarcerate Trump prior to his trial for consorting with criminal defendants.

DonOld is facing new lawsuits from musicians who don’t want their music to be associated with MAGA craziness.  The first to take action was the son of Issa Hayes.  This is reported in the Daily Beast by Clay Walker. “Isaac Hayes Estate Marks Victory in Suit Against Trump.” The candidate and the campaign continue to act like laws don’t matter.

The estate of the late soul singer Isaac Hayes is moving forward in their lawsuit against Donald Trump for using a song co-written by the artist. “The Federal Court has granted our request for an Emergency Hearing to secure injunctive relief,” the late singer’s son, Isaac Hayes III, wrote on X Friday. According to Hayes III, Trump himself will have to appear in court in September. The lawsuit was originally filed earlier this month and sought $3 million for the former president’s campaign’s unauthorized use of “Hold On, I’m Coming,” a 1960s song originally performed by duo Sam & Dave, more than 100 times. Prior to the filing, the Trump campaign was asked to discontinue the use of the song, but things came to a head on August 10, the anniversary of the singer’s 2008 death, when Trump used it again at a Montana rally. “Donald Trump represents the worst in integrity and class with his disrespect and sexual abuse of Women and racist rhetoric. We will now deal with this very swiftly,” Hayes III wrote on X.

Next up in court is the band Foo Fighters. This is from The Hill. “Trump campaign disputes Foo Fighters claim song use was unauthorized.” Laura Sforza writes on the Foo Fight.

 A spokesperson for the Foo Fighters said in a statement to The Hill late Sunday the band did not give permission to the Trump campaign to use the song at a Friday campaign rally in Arizona. The spokesperson said any royalties the band earns off the song would be donated to Vice President Harris’s campaign.“Foo Fighters were not asked permission, and if they were they would not have granted it,” the spokesperson said.

However, the Trump campaign said it had permission to play the song.

“We have a license to play the song,” Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said in an email to The Hill.

He also took to the social platform X to dispute the claim.

“It’s Times Like These facts matter, don’t be a Pretender. @foofighters,” he wrote, referring to two other songs by the band.

“My Hero” could be heard playing at Trump’s rally in Glendale on Friday as the former president introduced former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who suspended his campaign earlier in the day and threw his support behind Trump.

And there’s more in the Weirdos and Felons news. We have this from the LGBTQ Nation.  Seriously, we’ve gone way past the deplorable basket at this point.  “MAGA ex-GOP party chair calls gay lawmaker a “f*g” on social media. She called Pete Buttigieg a “weak little girl” in 2022, before she got indicted.” This is written by Alex Bollinger.

A former high-ranking state Republican official who has been indicted in an alleged conspiracy to steal the 2020 election used an anti-gay slur to describe a gay Democratic lawmaker.

Meshawn Maddock used to be the head of the Michigan Republican Party until shortly after she was charged in connection to a scheme to make Michigan’s votes go to Donald Trump in 2020 instead of President Joe Biden, who won the state. Now she is now using slurs on social media.

She was responding to a post on X from Michigan state Rep. Jason Morgan (D), who is an out gay lawmaker and the vice chair of the state’s Democratic Party. Morgan posted a picture of the Michigan congressional delegation at the DNC last Friday, where they were smiling and holding American flags.

“F*gs and hags,” Maddock responded. X responded by reducing the visibility of her post due to a potential violation of the platform’s Hateful Conduct policy. However, the post has not been deleted by the platform.

Stay Classy you god-fearing Christians you! I have to agree with this Op-Ed headline at The Hill.  “The right’s killjoy politics only fuel Harris’s momentum.”  It’s written by Svante Myrick.

It’s been a couple of days since I flew home after attending the Democratic National Convention. And at the risk of sounding corny, I think I could have done it without the plane. To attend that convention was to experience a sense of joy so powerful that it made you feel like you had wings.

My organization, People for the American Way, was very excited to bring to the convention posters designed especially for us by the artist Victoria Cassinova, which we felt represented the pride and hopefulness of this campaign.

The posters featured a portrait of Harris with the single word: “Freedom.”

We had fun posting them all over the city. We were thrilled to see lots of residents and convention-goers admiring them and taking pictures and selfies. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) shared hers on Instagram.

Then, on the third night of the convention, something sad happened. A group calling itself Artists for Kennedy and Trump defaced a wall of these Harris portraits.

Capturing themselves on video, the vandals spray-painted crimson streaks across the images, focusing on the portrait’s face and eyes. They used words like “war” to describe what they were doing.

It was an ugly but galvanizing reminder of what we’re up against in this race.

I — we — have had enough of creepy authoritarians trying to censor art, ban books and steal our joy.

Because while art does give joy, it also gives strength. It has always been a tool to challenge injustice and enforced conformity, to resist oppression and authoritarianism. That’s why dictators down through history have suppressed and banned art and even murdered artists.

It’s why artists and creators face an enormous threat today, not just from vandals roaming the streets of Chicago but from the deadly serious, powerful operatives behind Project 2025, who are intent on stigmatizing and suppressing vast numbers of artworks by calling them “pornography.”

I remember being shocked and stunned by Trump stalking Hillary on the debate stage and the lack of response to it by the debate’s moderators.  Now I think we know exactly how low they go, and as far as I can tell, there is no bottom. If they stage an insurrection and try to nullify votes, they’ll do anything, and we should all be prepared.  So, the Harris/DonOld debate with ABC is now in jeopardy.  I bet we all had this on our bingo card.  This is from Marianne Levine, who is writing for the Washington Post. “Trump suggests he might skip ABC debate with Harris. The Sept. 10 debate with ABC is the only one both campaigns have agreed to.”

Former president Donald Trump suggested Sunday evening that he might skip a Sept. 10 ABC News debate with Vice President Kamala Harris (D), after agreeing earlier this month to participate.

“I watched ABC FAKE NEWS this morning, both lightweight reporter Jonathan Carl’s (K?) ridiculous and biased interview of Tom Cotton (who was fantastic!), and their so-called Panel of Trump Haters, and I ask, why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network?” Trump asked in a social media post Sunday evening.

During a campaign stop Monday after visiting Arlington National Cemetery, Trump reiterated his criticism of ABC News, calling it “the single worst network for unfairness” and saying that ABC “really should be shut out.”

The Sept. 10 debate is the only one that both campaigns have officially committed to. Trump’s renewed questioning of the ABC News debate comes as Harris has increased her lead in national polls and is gaining ground in key swing states. As of Sunday, The Washington Post polling average has the vice president leading in Wisconsin by three percentage points, in Pennsylvania by two points and in Michigan by less than one point. Trump continues to lead in four Sun Belt swing states, but Harris has significantly narrowed the gap.

The latest rift between the campaigns is about the terms and conditions about how the debate would work. Brian Fallon, the Harris campaign’s senior adviser for communications, said in a statement that the campaign has told ABC and other networks that “both candidates’ microphones should be live throughout the full broadcast.”

“Our understanding is that Trump’s handlers prefer the muted microphone because they don’t think their candidate can act presidential for 90 minutes on his own,” Fallon said.

When asked by a reporter Monday about whether he wanted his microphone muted, Trump replied, “Doesn’t matter to me, I’d rather have it probably on.”

Jason Miller, senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said the campaign agreed to the “the ABC debate under the exact same terms as the CNN debate,” referring to a June 27 debate between Trump and President Joe Biden, before Biden ended his reelection campaign.

Oh, I officially quit the New York Times a while ago.  I would like to say that seeing the headline on a guest’s op-ed today reinforced my excellent decision. Here’s a brief statement: I agree with her.  I can’t say

more because I refuse to read it. Rich Lowry can bite his crank for  writing “Trump Can Win on Character.” RIFF NYT.  Rest in Fuckery and Failure.

Now, back to the normal news.  This is from Salon’s Charles R. Davis.  As the Vice President said, she’s been a prosecutor and knows his type. “”He’s now terrified of debating her”: Trump’s debate flip-flop is a sign Harris has him figured out. The former president suggested Sunday that he would not attend his scheduled Sept. 10 debate with Kamala Harris.”

Donald Trump is not feeling great. This year alone he’s been found liable by a jury for sexual assault, convicted by another jury on 34 felony counts of fraud, and shot at by a young registered Republican at a campaign rally, the one previously safe space where the president could comfortably rant and complain to certain applause. Then he had to spend a week at home watching Democrats pull off their convention without a hitch, just a month after an unprecedented switch at the top of the ticket.

The former president’s own campaign is publicly predicting that Vice President Kamala Harris will now surge in the polls (after already leading, nationally, by an average of about 3.6%). In a similar situation, the current president and his team decided it was time to debate, saying a televised contest would “reset” the race; the subsequent performance cost Joe Biden the Democratic nomination.

Perhaps that’s why Trump himself is doubting his own commitments.

“Why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network?” Trump posted on social media Sunday night, complaining about an ABC News interview with Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and panel discussion earlier that day, saying the former was “biased” and the latter full of “Trump Haters.” The Republican nominee filled the rest of his post with tedious name calling — “Crooked,” “Marxist” — and attacks on the insufficiently fawning journalists of ABC.

“They’ve got a lot o questions to answer!!!” Trump posted just after 10 p.m. Eastern. “Why did Harris turn down Fox, NBC, CBS, and even CNN? Stay tuned!!!”

The former president already agreed to debate Harris on Sept. 10, which was originally slated to be the second of two televised confrontations with Biden. He did so after previously trying to pull out of the event when Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee, initially claiming the debate was off because Biden was out of the race and then trying to move it to the friendlier waters of Fox News, a media platform that was forced to pay out $787 million after admitting that it cynically aired what its knew to be MAGA lies about the 2020 election.

This last read is from the New Republic‘s Michael Tomasky. “Finally, the Democrats Have Found Trump’s Achilles’ Heel: Ridicule Him. Kamala Harris gets it. Yes, we should fear Trump—but we should also mock him mercilessly because it drives him nuts.”

Donald Trump is in free fall. Read this description from Sunday’s Washington Post of how the GOP nominee spent last week: “[A]ides did not want a situation where he was watching the convention every night, getting angry, and then just golfing all day and stewing, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private interactions. Trump also had grown annoyed with the news coverage that depicted him as not working as hard as his opponent, one person who talked to him said.”

If you didn’t know that the article was about Trump and you just read it cold without knowledge of the context, you might think it was a description of parents trying to figure out how to handle an ungovernable four-year-old. So they convinced Trump to get out of Bedminster and hit the road, trading suck-ups with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In the past, Trump has called Kennedy the “dumbest member” of the Kennedy family and a “radical left lunatic.” Kennedy has called Trump a “terrible human being” and “probably a sociopath.”

Will RFK’s endorsement get Trump a few votes? It might. But these two unprincipled freakos deserve each other, and if it ever looks like RFK might matter, all Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have to do is say something like that.

Harris’s campaign so far has been a work of genius on several levels, but maybe the most ingenious stroke of all has been the decision to mock Trump—to present him not only as someone to fear but also to ridicule. Harris perfectly encapsulated this two-pronged attack in these memorable lines from her acceptance speech: “In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences—but the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.… Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails.”

But the emphasis has been on ridicule (Tim Walz’s “weird” comment, Maryland Governor Wes Moore’s jab at Trump’s bone spurs, Barack Obama’s hilarious hand gesture when he was talking about Trump’s obsession with crowd size). It’s great on three levels. The first is that it must drive Trump nuts, and when he goes nuts, he says especially nutty things. Second, it’s arguably more persuasive to swing voters than calling Trump a fascist. Trump is a fascist, make no mistake. But he’s also ridiculous. Mocking him over his Hannibal Lecter obsession will stick in apolitical people’s minds far more strongly than warning about his plans to wreck the Justice Department, and in its way, it’s just as disqualifying. Do we really want a president who thinks an eater of human flesh, however fictional, was misunderstood?

And third and most of all: Sustained ridicule has the potential to reinforce the downward spiral Trump is now in. He probably likes it when we call him a fascist or authoritarian, because it expresses fear of him, and he aches to be feared. It acknowledges his power. This motivates him and makes him stronger.

Ridicule makes him weaker. Ridicule makes him small. Ridicule makes him desperate. He’ll try to respond with ridicule of his own, but he is not a clever man. He’s a stupid man. He has no wit. He has no sense of mischief. He doesn’t read. He doesn’t think beyond first reactions. These nicknames of his, which the press has made such a big deal of over the years—they’re nothing. They’re dick contests put into words. Little Marco, Sleepy Joe. There’s nothing remotely clever about any of them.

And now he reportedly thinks he’s come up with a great one in “Communist Kamala.” Well, it’s alliterative, I’ll give him that. But I doubt very much that it’ll play beyond the base. First of all, people under 40 barely know what a communist was. Even for older people who do know, is communism the specter it once was?

Brilliant!  When he goes low, we make fun of him and call him weird.  He becomes lethargic and fussy.  He says weird things and makes weird decisions.  That’s a daily event in Day Cares everywhere and evidently in not-so-posh Jersey Golf Clubs with Galas for Criminals.  This is getting fun.

Embrace the JOY!!!!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?