There are only 19 days to go until November 5. I believe that Kamala Harris will win, but I was also sure Hillary Clinton would win in 2016.
Both Harris and Trump have been holding rallies and giving interviews. She speaks in complete sentences and discusses her policies in a coherent fashion. He can’t complete a sentence, mispronounces words, rambles nonsensically, and has no understanding of his own policies. And, of course, he is a pathological liar.
Harris is a former prosecutor who is committed to the rule of law. Trump is a convicted felon out on bail, with multiple indictments hanging over his head. How can the race be close?
One positive development is that Trump’s dementia and his violent rhetoric and threats are getting more attention in the media. He and his advisers may well live to regret driving Joe Biden out of the race.
I feel as if my life is on hold until I know who will win this election. If Harris wins, my life will continue on its current track. If Trump wins, everything will change–and not in a good way. In addition, the chaos we have all lived through in the past 9 years will continue and most likely get much worse. That’s where things stand right now, as I see it.
State of the Race
In the latest national polls, Harris leads by a few points.
In the presidential contest, Vice President Kamala Harris leads former President Donald Trump by five points among likely voters, including those who are undecided yet leaning toward a candidate. The race gets closer, however, among registered voters nationally. Here, three points separate the two candidates.
Harris (52%) leads Trump (47%) among likely voters nationally, including those who are undecided yet leaning toward a candidate. Earlier this month, two points separated Harris (50%) and Trump (48%) among likely voters.
The contest is tighter among registered voters. Among the general electorate, Harris receives 51% to 48% for Trump. In early October, the same margin separated Harris (50%) and Trump (47%) among the broader electorate.
Trump (54%) leads Harris (44%) among independents who are likely to vote, widening the 4-point edge Trump (50%) had against Harris (46%) previously.
Trump (53%) leads Harris (47%) among men who are likely to vote while Harris (57%) has the advantage over Trump (42%) among women.
While members of Gen X divide (51% for Harris to 48% for Trump), Harris has majority support among GenZ/Millennials (53%) and among Baby Boomers/the Silent-Greatest Generations (55%).
While the gap between the two remained steady compared with a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted a week earlier, the new poll, which closed on Sunday, gave signs that voters – particularly Democrats – might be more enthused about this year’s election than they were ahead of the November 2020 presidential election when Democrat Joe Biden defeated Trump.
Some 78% of registered voters in the three-day poll – including 86% of Democrats and 81% of Republicans – said they were “completely certain” they would cast a ballot in the presidential election. The share of sure-to-vote poll respondents was up from 74% in a Reuters/Ipsos survey conducted Oct. 23-27, 2020, when 74% of Democrats and 79% of Republicans said they were certain to cast ballots.
The poll had a margin of error of around 4 percentage points.
A record number of early votes have been cast in Georgia on Tuesday as residents headed to the polls in a critical battleground state that is grappling with the fallout from Hurricane Helene and controversial election administration changes that have spurred a flurry of lawsuits.
More than 328,000 ballots were cast Tuesday, Gabe Sterling of the Georgia secretary of state’s office said on X. “So with the record breaking 1st day of early voting and accepted absentees we have had over 328,000 total votes cast so far,” he said.
The previous first day record was 136,000 in 2020, Sterling said.
The swing state is one of the most closely watched this election, with former President Donald Trump trying to reclaim it after losing there to President Joe Biden by a small margin four years ago, leading Trump and his allies to unsuccessfully push to overturn his defeat.
Those efforts have loomed large this year as new changes to how the state conducts elections have been approved by Republican members of the State Election Board, leading Democrats and others to mount legal challenges, many of which have yet to be resolved even as Election Day nears.
Despite the massive turnout on Tuesday, the process appeared to go smoother this year for some Atlanta-area voters who spoke with CNN.
“Last time I voted, I voted in the city and the lines were out the door. They only had like, maybe like three people working,” said Corine Canada. “So people honestly just started leaving because it was like that. Yeah, like, ‘This is too long. I can’t sit here (and) wait, I have to go back to work.’ But here, no, it was easy.”
Dementia Don
Yesterday Trump appeared at the Economic Club of Chicago and gave a disastrous interview. He mostly talked about his plan to put high tariffs on imports, and continued to claim that these tariffs would be paid by foreign countries and not by Americans paying higher prices. Other news from the interview: he would not commit to allowing a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the election.
Donald Trump continued his pre-election economic event tour on Tuesday with a lengthy interview with Bloomberg at the Economic Club of Chicago. It was a total mess.
Bloomberg Editor-In-Chief John Micklethwait did not take it easy on Trump, and it quickly became clear that the former president has no conception of the mechanics of or the potential ramifications of the economic platform he’s running on. Bluntly, the former president was incoherent when pressed with real questions about his policies.
Micklethwait spent most of the interview attempting to break Trump out of what the former president repeatedly referred to as “the weave,” his term for his rambling digressions — with ever-decreasing intelligibility — and general inability to focus on a given topic for more than a few seconds during his rallies and interviews.
Micklethwait didn’t weave along with Trump, however, repeatedly working to bring him back on topic and answer the actual questions. The grilling exposed Trump’s total cluelessness with regard to his own economic policy, and led Trump to attack Micklethwait as biased….
The central pillar of Trump’s economic plan is widespread tariffs on all imported goods, with penalties appearing to increase depending on how much he dislikes the country. Economists have warned that such a policy could have devastating effects on American consumers, who would be saddled with increased costs for all imported goods.
When questioned about the specifics of his plan, and if he was aware of its pitfalls, Trump seemed ignorant of basic economic principles, insisting that other countries, not American consumers, would pay for the tariffs.
A bit more:
Micklethwait tried to explain the actual impact. “Three-trillion worth of imports and you will add tariffs to every single one of them, and push up the cost for all of these people to buy foreign goods,” he said. “That is just simple mathematics.”
Trump countered that he was “always good at mathematics,” and that high tariffs — and thus costs — would force companies to move production into the United States.
Anxiety, by Edvard Munch
“That will take many, many, many years,” Micklethwait said, to which Trump replied that high enough penalties would make the move immediate as if companies could simply wand wave production plants, orchards, wineries, factories, and the like into existence.
The former president also insisted that his tariff proposal would not result in the loss of jobs that are dependent on trade, because companies that moved to the U.S. would not be subject to the tax. “All you have to do is build your plant in the United States and you don’t have any tariffs,” he said…..
Micklethwait’s attempts to keep Trump on topic earned him no grace from the former president, who hates few things more than being contradicted.
When Micklethwait asked Trump to address a report by The Wall Street Journal estimating that his economic proposals would raise the national debt by upwards of $7 trillion, the former president fell back on his standard playbook: bashing the interviewer.
“What does The Wall Street Journal know? They’ve been wrong about everything, and so have you by the way, you’ve been wrong,” Trump replied, crossing his arms and curling into his seat.
“You’ve been wrong all your life on this stuff,” he added.
There’s more at the link. I didn’t encounter a paywall when I clicked on the link at Memeorandum.
Former president Donald Trump is campaigning on the most significant increase in tariffs in close to a century, preparing an attack on the international trade order that would likely raise prices, hurt the stock market and spark economic feuds with much of the world.
Trump’s trade plans, a staple of his stump speeches, have fluctuated, but he consistently calls for steep duties to discourage imports and promote domestic production. The former president has floated “automatic” tariffs of 10 percent to 20 percent on every U.S. trading partner, 60 percent levies on goods from China, and rates as high as 100, 200 or even 1,000 percent in other circumstances.
These proposals would go far beyond the disruptive trade wars of his first term even if they are only partially implemented. They would wrench the nation out of the system of global interdependence that arose in recent decades, making the U.S. economy much more isolated and autonomous, like it was in the late 19th century. (Trump last week falsely claimed that the United States was never richer than in the 1890s, when it had high trade barriers.)
“To me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary is tariff. And it’s my favorite,” Trump said in Chicago on Tuesday. “I’m a believer in tariffs.”
The consequences would be far-reaching: Americans would be hit by higher prices for grocery staples from abroad, such as fruit, vegetables and coffee. Domestic firms dependent on imports would need to either figure out new supply chains or raise costs for consumers. U.S. manufacturers would almost certainly see sharp declines in orders from abroad as foreign nations impose retaliatory tariffs.
“We are talking about a plan of historic significance: It would be enormous, and the blowback would be even more enormous,” said Douglas A. Irwin, an economist at Dartmouth College who authored a 2017 book on the history of U.S. trade policy. “This would stand way off the charts.”
Companies and governments around the world have begun preparing contingency plans for the potential Trump tariffs. Diplomats and business leaders from Latin America, Europe, Asia and even Canada have in recent weeks asked their U.S. counterparts about Trump’s intentions and authorities, according to interviews with several domestic and international economic advisers, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect private planning.
While some business leaders and congressional Republicans remain optimistic that the former president is engaged in election-year posturing, Trump has repeatedly insisted that tariffs represent an unmitigated positive for the U.S. economy, recently calling them “the greatest thing ever invented.” Tariffs have been a constant bedrock of his economic agenda since he first ran in 2016, along with lower taxes, increased energy production and deregulation.
You should watch the interview Trump did yesterday at the Economic Club of Chicago. You might think you’ve got a pretty good idea of the big guy’s solipsism, his buffoonish overconfidence, his utter inability to engage on matters of policy. Watch a few answers, and you’ll be forced to conclude: It’s way worse than you thought.
Victor Wang, Emotional tension and psychological drama
Bloomberg News editor-in-chief John Micklethwait began by asking Trump simple questions, like how he plans to pay for the $7 trillion hole his proposals would blow in the federal deficit. Trump responded with his ordinary magical thinking about making that sum back through a combination of growth and tariffs. “To me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary is ‘tariff,’” he said. “It’s my favorite word . . . the most beautiful word.”
Micklethwait asked how Trump planned to follow through on his promises of trimming the fat of wasteful spending. Trump responded with a lengthy story about him personally spending months negotiating with Boeing over a contract for new planes to serve as Air Force One, which ultimately saved the government more than a billion dollars. A cool story—until you remember the federal government spends an average of nearly $17 billion a day.
It takes a certain amount of ego and delusion to run for president. Trump has those characteristics in excess. But what stood out at the talk yesterday was the degree to which these are now the only elements undergirding his vision. Gone is the talk about surrounding himself with the best people. Dropped is the pretense that his answers are coherent. (Trump has started referring to his meandering logorrhea as “the weave.”) The pitch instead is that some sort of mad genius remains within him: Trust me, I’m the deals guy! I’ll get the best deals!
But there’s a lot more to guiding the economy than dealmaking, and even the most capable, hard-nosed, mano-a-mano negotiating with individual vendors can only take you so far.
There’s more about the interview at the link. There’s no paywall.
Donald Trump on Tuesday dodged the question of whether he will allow for a peaceful certification of election results if Kamala Harris defeats him in three weeks.
During an interview at the Economic Club of Chicago, Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait asked Trump if he would commit “to respecting and encouraging a peaceful transfer of power,” especially in light of Jan. 6, 2021, which the journalist called “unruly and violent.”
Trump didn’t answer the question. Instead, he rejected the premise and blamed Micklethwait as “a man that has not been a big Trump fan over the years.” He also falsely claimed that he allowed for a peaceful transfer of power in 2020, when Joe Biden defeated him.
“Come on, President Trump, you had a peaceful transfer of power compared to Venezuela, but it was by far the worst transfer of power for a long time,” Micklethwait insisted.
The audience booed and Trump thanked them. The former president then admitted that people were angry when they arrived in Washington to protest the results that January—but according to him, they were perfectly behaved.
“It was love and peace, and some people went to the Capitol,” Trump said. “And a lot of strange things happened there, a lot of strange things, with people being waved into the Capitol by police.”
For perhaps the first time, Trump downplayed his crowd size.
He added that he left the White House the morning he was supposed to and that only a fraction of the protestors were among those who breached and defaced the Capitol.
“Not one of those people had a gun, nobody was killed, except for Ashli Babbitt,” he said.
MAGA-friendly CNBC host Joe Kernen dropped an interesting nugget right as Squawk Box went to commercial break on Tuesday.
“Well, Trump canceled, and he was going to come on,” Kernen said.
Not only did Trump once love going on CNBC, but Kernen’s revelation comes on the heels of Trump declining or canceling a number of other high-profile opportunities to make a pitch to voters on mainstream TV. Trump refused to debate Kamala Harris a second time, which would’ve aired on CNN. Trump then refused CNN’s offer to host a town hall. And Trump of course also recently backed out of a 60 Minutes interview.
Still Tension, Wassily Kandinsky
The explanation for all this is not that Trump has suddenly become camera shy. It’s that his campaign undoubtedly realizes his rapidly degrading condition doesn’t play well with audiences beyond the MAGA cult. As a result, they’re retreating to the safer terrain of nonstop rallies and fawning Fox hits….
The reason Trump’s campaign isn’t keen to get him in front of swing voters on mainstream platforms was on stark display Tuesday when Trump did a rare event that wasn’t a festival of sycophancy.
By any objective standard, Trump’s Economic Club of Chicago interview was a disaster. He came out of the gates with an asinine proposal for 2,000 percent tariffs on imported cars, then was quickly reduced to insulting the moderator, Bloomberg’s John Micklethwait, when Micklethwait rightly pointed out that his his economic proposals are an inflationary disaster. (Watch below.)
By the end of the event, Trump had veered into making an impassioned defense of the big lie and his coup attempt, bragging about his crowd size on January 6 and absurdly claiming the events of that day were just “love and peace.” (Watch below.)
OAKS, Pa. — The town hall, moderated by South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem (R), began with questions from preselected attendees for the former president. Donald Trump offered meandering answers on how he would address housing affordability and help small businesses. But it took a sudden turn after two attendees required medical attention.
And so Trump, after jokingly asking the crowd whether “anybody else would like to faint,” took a different approach.
“Let’s not do any more questions. Let’s just listen to music. Let’s make it into a music. Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?” he said.
For 39 minutes, Trump swayed, bopped — sometimes stopping to speak — as he turned the event into almost a living-room listening session of his favorite songs from his self-curated rally playlist.
He played nine tracks. He danced. He shook hands with people onstage. He pointed to the crowd. Noem stood beside him, nodding with her hands clasped. Trump stayed in place onstage, slowly moving back and forth. He was done answering questions for the night….
As Trump stood onstage in his oversize suit and bright red tie, swaying back and forth, it was almost as if he were taking a trip back to decades past. Trump’s decision to cut short the question-and-answer portion of the town hall and instead have the crowd stay to listen to his favorite songs was a somewhat bizarre move, given that the election was only 22 days away. Vice President Kamala Harris has called Trump, 78, unstable and questioned his mental acuity.
Some in the crowd began to leave. Some looked around, wondering whether he was done speaking for the night and how much longer the dance — or sway — session would last. Many stayed holding their cameras and watched as Trump took in the music, at times looking over at a screen beside him that showed videos of James Brown singing “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’sWorld” and Sinéad O’Connor performing “Nothing Compares 2 U.”
For 38 minutes or so, former President Donald Trump was in a happy place. After some people collapsed at his town hall, Trump got frustrated, decided he’d had enough softball questions from Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) and asked to play music. For nearly 40 minutes, Trump kept asking for more music, swaying oddly in front of the crowd, occasionally closing his eyes, and retreating to a comforting place in his mind, like being wrapped in a warm blanket.
The Anxiety Monster, by Jeremy Campbell
For those of us who’ve had family members slip into dementia, it was a familiar sight. Both of my grandmothers suffered it near the ends of their lives. Even before they were sent to nursing homes, they started to exhibit increased frustration and even anger. My maternal grandmother accused her caretaker of purposely turning the shower knob too tight so she would have to come in and see my grandmother naked. But she also liked to sing old-time songs she remembered. She had her happy place—an oasis in a time of increasing confusion. Then, there were other times she was completely lucid. She would talk about the situation in the Middle East (which was still a thing back then, too) with total clarity. There were good days and there were bad days.
It isn’t like we haven’t seen Trump’s behavior with our own eyes. It isn’t like media hasn’t noticed it, either. And yet, no one seems to want to talk about the distinct possibility that Trump is well on the way to the same state my grandmothers found themselves in and that millions of Americans find friends and family in – severe cognitive decline, if not outright dementia.
For 38 minutes or so, former President Donald Trump was in a happy place. After some people collapsed at his town hall, Trump got frustrated, decided he’d had enough softball questions from Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) and asked to play music. For nearly 40 minutes, Trump kept asking for more music, swaying oddly in front of the crowd, occasionally closing his eyes, and retreating to a comforting place in his mind, like being wrapped in a warm blanket.
For those of us who’ve had family members slip into dementia, it was a familiar sight. Both of my grandmothers suffered it near the ends of their lives. Even before they were sent to nursing homes, they started to exhibit increased frustration and even anger. My maternal grandmother accused her caretaker of purposely turning the shower knob too tight so she would have to come in and see my grandmother naked. But she also liked to sing old-time songs she remembered. She had her happy place—an oasis in a time of increasing confusion. Then, there were other times she was completely lucid. She would talk about the situation in the Middle East (which was still a thing back then, too) with total clarity. There were good days and there were bad days.
It isn’t like we haven’t seen Trump’s behavior with our own eyes. It isn’t like media hasn’t noticed it, either. And yet, no one seems to want to talk about the distinct possibility that Trump is well on the way to the same state my grandmothers found themselves in and that millions of Americans find friends and family in – severe cognitive decline, if not outright dementia.
Angry, frustrated, confused, unable to focus. And now, he retreats to his happy place in a time of stress. Put it all together and ask yourself if that’s someone you’d trust to take care of your kids in a house with a working stove.
With three weeks left before Election Day, former President Donald J. Trump is pushing to the forefront of his campaign a menacing political threat: that he would use the power of the presidency to crush those who disagree with him.
In a Fox News interview on Sunday, Mr. Trump framed Democrats as a pernicious “enemy from within” that would cause chaos on Election Day that he speculated the National Guard might need to handle.
A day later, he closed his remarks to a crowd at what was billed as a town hall in Pennsylvania with a stark message about his political opponents.
“They are so bad and frankly, they’re evil,” Mr. Trump said. “They’re evil. What they’ve done, they’ve weaponized, they’ve weaponized our elections. They’ve done things that nobody thought was even possible.”
And on Tuesday, he once again refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power when pressed by an interviewer at an economic forum in Chicago.
With early voting underway in key battlegrounds, the race for the White House is moving toward Election Day in an extraordinary and sobering fashion. Mr. Trump has long flirted with, if not openly endorsed, anti-democratic tendencies with his continued refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election, embrace of conspiracy theories of large-scale voter fraud and accusations that the justice system is being weaponized against him. He has praised leaders including President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary for being authoritarian strongmen.
But never before has a presidential nominee — let alone a former president — openly suggested turning the military on American citizens simply because they oppose his candidacy. As he escalates his threats of political retribution, Mr. Trump is offering voters the choice of a very different, and far less democratic, form of American government.
“There is not a case in American history where a presidential candidate has run for office on a promise that they would exact retribution against anyone they perceive as not supporting them in the campaign,” said Ian Bassin, a former associate White House counsel under Barack Obama who leads the advocacy group Protect Democracy. “It’s so fundamentally, outrageously beyond the pale of how this country has worked that it’s hard to articulate how insane it is.”
Harris and Waltz are also calling attention to Trump’s cognitive issues and threats. They have three weeks left to educate the public an get legacy media to focus on Trump’s age and obvious dementia.
Take care everyone and keep hope alive, as Jesse Jackson used to say.
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Elizabeth Blackadder, Cat and Irises, 2001, watercolor
Good Afternoon!!
It’s a long weekend here in Massachusetts (Indigenous Peoples Day), and I’m planning to try to relax and read something other than politics news. Lately I can’t tolerate watching cable news, but I’ve been obsessed with keeping up with everything that is happening in the presidential campaigns. I spend too much time on social media, but it’s the only way to find out what Trump is really up to, because of the legacy media’s compulsive sanewashing of Trump’s demented behavior and speech patterns.
If you use social media, you may have seen Trump’s bizarre behavior during his speech at the Detroit Economic Club. The speech was supposed to be about economics but, since Trump has no comprehension of economics, he did his usual nonsensical rambling act. The New Republic: Watch: Trump Completely Loses Train of Thought in Awkward Speech.
Donald Trump drifted in and out of coherency during an awkward, weaving speech Thursday at the Detroit Economics Club, where he ranted about tariffs and railed against government mandates on electric vehicles….
But while explaining his fears that Kamala Harris’s policies would cause domestic manufacturing to leave the United States, Trump seemingly got carried away by the tide of his own weave and swept out into a sea of complete nonsense.
“And, it’s so simple, I mean, you know. This isn’t like Elon with his rocket ships that land within 12 inches on the moon where they wanted to land,” Trump said. “Or, he gets the … engines back—that was the first I realized, I said, ‘Who the hell did that?’ I saw engines about three, four years ago. These things were coming—cylinders, no wings, no nothing—and they’re coming down very slowly, landing on a raft in the middle of the ocean someplace, with a circle, boom!”
“Reminded me of the Biden circles that he used to have, right?” Trump said, seemingly referring to President Joe Biden’s campaign events that took precautions for Covid-19, in an awkward non sequitur.
“He’d have eight circles, and he couldn’t fill ’em up. But then I heard he beat us with the popular vote. He couldn’t fill up the eight circles, I always loved those circles, they were so beautiful, so beautiful to look at,” Trump continued.
Trump claimed that Biden “used to have the press stand in those circles, cause they couldn’t get the people. And then I heard we lost, no we’re never gonna let that happen again.”
“But—” he continued. “We’ve been abused by other countries, we’ve been abused by our own politicians, really, more than other countries.”
There are more examples of Trump’s insane rambling at the TNR link. But it’s not just rambling–it’s dementia; and it seems to be getting worse all the time. He flits from tangent to tangent, because his executive functioning is failing, likely from damage to his frontal lobes. You can watch the video clip at the TNR link.
This is disgusting, but I’m going to post it anyway. Trump appeared to either break wind (or foul his diaper) at least twice during his speech in Detroit. This is something that was happening even when he was in the White House. Reporters also noticed it happening during his fraud trial. WTF?!
Donald Trump attacked the city of Detroit in a speech he was giving while stumping for votes in Detroit.
The former US president and Republican nominee was speaking on Thursday at the Detroit Economic Club in the city, which is the biggest city in Michigan – one of the most crucial swing states in the 2024 US election.
But Trump, whose speeches are frequently rambling and lengthy discourses rather than set piece deliveries, could not stop himself from lambasting the city in which he was speaking by pointing to Detroit’s recent history of economic decline from its heyday as the home of American car production.
As he was speaking about China being a developing nation, Trump said: “Well, we’re a developing nation too, just take a look at Detroit. Detroit’s a developing area more than most places in China.”
He later returned to the theme, warning of an economic disaster if his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, wins in November’s election.
“Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she’s your president. You’re going to have a mess on your hands,” Trump said….
Democrats in the state reacted angrily to the insults and saw a chance to score political points.
Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer posted on Twitter/X: “Detroit is the epitome of ‘grit,’ defined by winners willing to get their hands dirty to build up their city and create their communities – something Donald Trump could never understand. So keep Detroit out of your mouth. And you better believe Detroiters won’t forget this in November.”
Former President Donald Trump is aware his rhetoric about migrants has become increasingly toxic, yet he has decided to double down on that strategy in the final weeks of the campaign cycle.
According to Rolling Stone’s Naomi Lachance and Asawin Suebsaeng, the ex-president is even rebuffing advice from his campaign team to “play it safe” as voters prepare to head to the polls on November 5. Lachance and Suebsaeng cited two unnamed sources close to Trump in their report, writing that Trump intended to “slam his foot on the gas” rather than pull back on his anti-immigrant message.
Agnes Miller Parker, Siamese Cat and Butterfly, 1950, wood engraving
“That’s how you lose,” Trump reportedly said in response to one of his aides.
The publication’s other unnamed source said the ex-president paid close attention to which lines at his rallies garnered the biggest reactions from his audiences. This includes not only his false claim that there are 13,000 undocumented immigrants freely roaming the United States who have been convicted of murder elsewhere (most of those 13,000 are currently incarcerated), but also his call to be a “dictator” on “day one” of a second term….
The former president recently demonstrated his willingness to take his condemnation of migrants to a new low on Friday night, posting a lengthy screed to X (formerly Twitter) in which he promised to use an 18th century law to round up, detain and deport immigrants. That law — the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 — would allow for the detainment of migrants without trial based solely on their country of birth. The last time that law was used was to force Japanese-Americans into detention camps during World War II.
“November 5th, 2024 will be LIBERATION DAY in America,” Trump tweeted. [W]e will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail or kick them the hell OUT OF OUR COUNTRY.”
And you’re not safe if you’re a legal immigrant, as Trump and Vance have both made clear in their attacks on Haitians in Springfield, Ohio.
Mark Milley, a retired US army general who was chair of the joint chiefs of staff under Donald Trump and Joe Biden, fears being recalled to uniform and court-martialed should Trump defeat Kamala Harris next month and return to power.
“He is a walking, talking advertisement of what he’s going to try to do,” Milley recently “warned former colleagues”, the veteran Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward writes in an upcoming book. “He’s saying it and it’s not just him, it’s the people around him.”
By Elizabeth Blackadder
Woodward cites Steve Bannon, Trump’s former campaign chair and White House strategist now jailed for contempt of Congress, as saying of Milley: “We’re gonna hold him accountable.”
Trump’s wish to recall and court-martial retired senior officers who criticized him in print has been reported before, including by Mark Esper, Trump’s second secretary of defense. In Woodward’s telling, in a 2020 Oval Office meeting with Milley and Esper, Trump “yelled” and “shouted” about William McRaven, a former admiral who led the 2011 raid in Pakistan in which US special forces killed Osama bin Laden, and Stanley McChrystal, the retired special forces general whose men killed another al-Qaida leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in Iraq in 2006.
Milley was able to persuade Trump to back down, Woodward writes, but fears no such guardrails will be in place if Trump is re-elected.
Woodward also describes Milley receiving “a non-stop barrage of death threats” since his retirement last year, and quotes the former general as telling him, of Trump: “No one has ever been as dangerous to this country.”
The longtime Donald Trump ally and friend Roger Stone said Republicans should send “armed guards” to the polls
in November to ensure a Trump victory, according to video footage by an undercover journalist.
The video, first published by Rolling Stone, shows an embittered Stone, still angry about the 2020 election and ready to fight in 2024. Stone described the former US president’s legal strategy of constant litigation to purge voter rolls in swing states.
“We gotta fight it out on a state-by-state basis,” said Stone. “We’re already in court in Wisconsin, we’re already in court in Florida.”
When the journalist, posing as a member of a rightwing voter turnout organization, pressed Stone for details on efforts to make sure Trump wins in 2024, Stone told him that the campaign has to “be ready”.
Mary Feddon, Tabby
“When they throw us out of Detroit, you go get a court order, you come in with your own armed guards, and you dispute it,” said Stone. In Detroit in 2020, there was a chaotic scene at a ballot counting center when GOP vote challengers pounded on the walls of the center and demanded to be let in.
Filmed at an August event in Jacksonville, Florida, called A Night with Roger Stone, the footage also reveals Stone’s lasting anger toward former attorney general Bill Barr, who he calls “a traitorous piece of human garbage”.
While in office, Barr acted as a staunch Trump ally, even pushing for a lighter sentence for Stone, when the operative was found guilty of witness tampering and obstruction of justice in connection with a congressional inquiry into Russian interference during the 2016 election. Barr lost favor with the former president when he declined to publicly back Trump’s false claims of a stolen election, drawing outrage from Trump’s closest allies.
“Once we get back in, he has to go to prison,” Stone exclaimed. “He has to go to prison, he’s a criminal.”
Donald J. Trump took his seat at the dining table in his triplex penthouse apartment atop Trump Tower on the last Sunday in September, alongside some of the most sought-after and wealthiest figures in the Republican Party.
There was Paul Singer, the billionaire hedge fund manager who finances Republican campaigns and pro-Israel causes, and Warren Stephens, the billionaire investment banker. Joining them were Betsy DeVos, the billionaire former education secretary under Mr. Trump, and her husband, Dick, as well as the billionaire Joe Ricketts and his son Todd.
Some politicians might have taken the moment to be charming and ingratiating with the donors.
Not Mr. Trump. Over steak and baked potatoes, the former president tore through a bitter list of grievances.
He made it clear that people, including donors, needed to do more, appreciate him more and help him more.
By Miroco Machiko
He disparaged Vice President Kamala Harris as “retarded.” He complained about the number of Jews still backing Ms. Harris, saying they needed their heads examined for not supporting him despite everything he had done for the state of Israel.
At one point, Mr. Trump seemed to suggest that these donors had plenty to be grateful to him for. He boasted about how great he had been for their taxes, something that some privately noted wasn’t true for everyone in the room.
The rant, described by seven people with knowledge of the meal who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations, underscored a reality three weeks before Election Day: Mr. Trump’s often cantankerous mood in the final stretch. And one of the reasons for his frustration is money. He’s trailing his Democratic rival in the race for cash and has had to hustle to keep raising it.
Not only does Ms. Harris have far more money to buy ads and pay for staff after raising $1 billion in less than three months as a candidate — a sum greater than the total Mr. Trump raised all year — but she has also been freed from having to plead directly to donors anymore. She raised more than twice as much as Mr. Trump in July, August and September.
Good! Let him keep wallowing in self-pity, driving away people who could donate to his campaign.
I’ll end with something truly unbelievable: On October 16, Fox News and Trump are planning a town hall on women’s issues! From the press release:
FOX News Channel’s (FNC) Harris Faulkner will present a town hall with Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump focusing on issues impacting women ahead of the election and news of the day at Reid Barn in Cumming, Georgia. The event, which will be held with an audience entirely composed of women, will pre-tape on October 15th and air on October 16th on The Faulkner Focus (11 AM-12 PM/ET). FOX News has a standing invitation to Vice President Harris for a townhall event of equal stature which has been extended to her campaign multiple times since she became a candidate for president in August.
In commenting on the town hall, Faulkner said, “Women constitute the largest group of registered and active voters in the United States, so it is paramount that female voters understand where the presidential candidates stand on the issues that matter to them most. I am looking forward to providing our viewers with an opportunity to learn more about where former President Trump stands on these topics.”
Orovida Pissarro, Cat and Mouse, 1966
Faulkner joined FNC in 2005 and currently serves as the anchor of The Faulkner Focus and a founding co-host of Outnumbered. At 11 AM/ET, The Faulkner Focus features interviews with top newsmakers and analysts and is cable news’ most-watched program in the timeslot, averaging nearly 2 million viewers. Outnumbered features an ensemble of four female panelists and one male breaking down the day’s headlines from all perspectives and dominates the competition at 12 PM/ET with 1.8 million viewers. Both programs outpace broadcast program’s NBC’s TODAY Third Hour, TODAY with Hoda & Jenna, The Kelly Clarkson Show, NBC News Daily, ABC’s GMA3, CBS’ The Talk and The Drew Barrymore Show.
As the first Black woman to helm back-to-back weekday cable news programs, Faulkner has also played integral roles in FNC’s election coverage over the last several cycles. She is the lead of the network’s “Voter’s Voices” segments and recently presented a series titled, ”Families in Focus,” where she interviewed the family members of the then-presidential candidates during the 2024 primaries. Additionally, Faulkner has hosted a variety of primetime specials and townhalls focused on current events, including forums focused on policing in America, the ongoing conversation of justice in the country and education during the COVID-19 pandemic, among other topics.
That should be good for a laugh.
Have a nice weekend everyone!!
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Tonight Trump and Biden will meet in the second and final debate before the November 3rd election. I plan to watch, at least for a little while, in case Trump spontaneously combusts or strokes out in a rage over his mike being muted. The New York Times has the basics on how to watch:
The second and final debate between President Trump and former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. takes place on Thursday from 9 to 10:30 p.m. Eastern. Here are some of the many ways you can watch it:
— The Times will livestream the debate, and our reporters will provide commentary and analysis.
— The debate will be televised on channels including ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, C-SPAN, PBS, Fox News and MSNBC.
— Many news outlets, including ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, Fox News and C-SPAN, will stream the debate on YouTube.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, are set to square off in their final debate Thursday, one of the last high-profile opportunities for the trailing incumbent to change the trajectory of an increasingly contentious campaign.
Worried about losing the White House, some advisers are urging Trump to trade his aggressive demeanor from the first debate for a lower-key style that puts Biden more squarely in the spotlight. But it’s unclear whether the president will listen….
The president has promoted an unconfirmed New York Post report published last week that cites an email in which an official from Ukrainian gas company Burisma thanked Hunter Biden, who served on the company’s board, for arranging for him to meet Joe Biden during a 2015 visit to Washington. The Biden campaign has rejected Trump’s assertion of wrongdoing and noted that Biden’s schedule did not show a meeting with the Burisma official.
Trump’s attacks on the Biden family have been relentless, including his efforts to get Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, which led to Trump’s impeachment. It’s part of a determined, yet so-far-unsuccessful effort to drive up his opponent’s negatives, as he did with Hillary Clinton four years ago….
As the article notes, Biden has spent the past few days preparing for the debate; Trump has been holding superspreader rallies and raging at Lesley Stahl after she apparently asked him some tough questions in an interview for CBS’s 60 Minutes.
Trump tweeted a video of Stahl not wearing a mask while interacting with several people, writing, “Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes not wearing a mask in the White House after her interview with me. Much more to come.”
Trump then threatened to post the interview in advance of its airing so that “everybody can get a glimpse of what a FAKE and BIASED interview is all about,” adding, “Everyone should compare this terrible Electoral Intrusion with the recent interviews of Sleepy Joe Biden!”
Sources familiar with the interview told Forbes the video was taken after the interview with the CBS team, who had all been tested, and that Stahl had a mask on leading into the interview….
The incident comes as Trump and his allies have become increasingly critical of the questioning he receives from the press, with Trump accusing NBC’s Savannah Guthrie of “going totally crazy” in response to her tough line of questioning during a town hall last week.
This morning Trump tweeted:
I will soon be giving a first in television history full, unedited preview of the vicious attempted “takeout” interview of me by Lesley Stahl of @60Minutes. Watch her constant interruptions & anger. Compare my full, flowing and “magnificently brilliant” answers to their “Q’s”. https://t.co/L3szccGamP
I cant wait to hear those “magnificently brilliant” responses.
60 Minutes released short clips from the Biden and Trump interviews this morning.
WATCH: President Trump was asked by @LesleyRStahl about his priorities — before cutting his interview short.@60Minutes has a history of asking tough questions of presidential candidates during the run-up to the election.
Why would Trump squander his final chance to close his big polling gap with Joe Biden on unhinged public fights rather than on winning back voters who’ve been alienated by exactly these sorts of meltdowns?
The fact that this comes after Trump waged a public assault on Anthony S. Fauci, his own leading infectious-disease expert, only seems to compound the folly here, since voters are surely looking to the popular Fauci for advice with the coronavirus again spiking around the country.
But in a very real sense people such as Stahl and Fauci actually are the chief opponents Trump must contend with in the campaign’s final days. They are the figures he perceives to be standing in the way of his effort to conduct this campaign in an entirely invented universe that he’d hoped to manufacture for this very purpose.
Tom Toles Editorial Cartoon
Trump unloaded on Stahl at a rally on Tuesday night, showing that he’s still stewing about an interview he did with “60 Minutes,” which is set to air on Sunday but apparently went very badly.
“You have to watch what we do to ‘60 Minutes,’” Trump seethed. “You’ll get such a kick out of it. You’re gonna get a kick out of it. Lesley Stahl is not gonna be happy.”
This appears to be a reference to Trump’s threat to release the full footage of the interview before edited parts air. It’s not clear what that would prove, but Trumpworld is all in: White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows just told Fox News that it would show Stahl “came across more like an opinion journalist than a real reporter.”
Of course the real explanation is that Trump is looney tunes, coo-coo for Cocopuffs, and completely off his rocker.
This is a very good explanatory piece at Psychology Today by Richard E. Cytowic, a professor of Neurology at George Washington University, that addresses Trump’s odd gait, forward-leaning stance, and other behavioral symptoms that many people have noticed.
President Trump’s pre-COVID halting gait, bent posture, and jerking right arm have caused much speculation on social media. Armchair critics, without any apparent medical background, have freely diagnosed him as having a series of mini-strokes, frontotemporal dementia, or other neurological illness such as the Lewy Body dementia that afflicted comedian and actor Robin Williams….
Trump’s forward-listing posture—illustrated by nearly every political cartoonist—was initially attributed to the high-heeled elevator shoes readily observed in photographs. But his torso leans so markedly off-center that it suggests the possibility of a neurological problem rather than vanity. In medical terms the Bent Spine Syndrome is called camptocormia, first documented in the 17th century by Francisco de Zurbaran, a Spanish painter. The mean age of onset is 65 years (Trump is 74).
While most frequently observed in Parkinson’s Disease, the bent posture so evident in Trump may also be seen in Alzheimer’s Dementia, movement disorders of the basal ganglia, and as the side effect of certain medications.
Also noted are the sudden, jerking movements of Trump’s right arm. Since they occur only on one side, the prefix “hemi” is applied, while “ballistic” means sudden or flinging in the manner of a projectile. Trump’s hemiballistic arm movements are evident in news clips from Memorial Day (also here via C-Span) at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, as are his uncontrolled swaying and forward tilt. He is seen to grab his wayward arm with the left one in an effort to keep it under control.
It is common for affected individuals to incorporate the flinging into deliberate movements such as scratching or smoothing the hair as if to make them less noticeable.
— The Thane of Lochaber's Ghost (@andy_tweetz) June 14, 2020
On Trump’s “Apparent arm weakness, slurred Speech, and odd circular gait” Cytowic writes:
Evaluating gait and muscle strength is always part of the neurological exam because posture and locomotion call on vast swaths of brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves. In June 2020, the president spoke at the West Point graduation ceremony. When he paused to take a sip of water, it appeared that his right arm couldn’t lift the glass all the way. As seen in this C–Span clip, he used his left hand to push it up from the bottom until it met his lips. During his address, you hear slurred speech and mispronunciation of well-known historical names such as Ulysses S. Grant and Douglas MacArthur.
When it came time to exit, Trump hesitantly edged down the ramp. He appeared to have difficulty raising his right leg sufficiently to clear it, as video spread of his struggle on the Drudge Report and major news sites. In September, as Trump walks down the White House driveway to meet the press, you see a clear example of the inability to gain adequate clearance for the right foot to swing normally. To compensate, he abducts his thigh and swings the leg in a semicircle: This is the circumducted gait, or spastic hemiparesis, the most common abnormal gait in neurology. Other photos show his right foot turned in, or inverted, which is part of the hemiparetic gait.
The fact that the leg makes a circle is what makes this way of walking distinctive. Stroke patients with weakness on one side (hemiparesis) almost always show it, along with increased muscle tone (spasticity) on the affected side and a turned in (inverted) foot. When mild, loss of the normal arm swing and a slight circumduction of the leg may be the only outwardly visible abnormalities. But Trump exhibited this spastic circumducted gait back in July during his visit to a North Carolina Lab. Exactly when it began is as yet unknown.
I’m having difficulty getting started today. I’ve been dealing with a stomach virus since the weekend. I’m nauseated, have no energy, and feel weak an wobbly on my feet. I spoke to a doctor’s assistant at my health clinic who told me the stomach viruses going around now can last up to two weeks. She just told me to call back if I get any respiratory symptoms. Anyway, I’m not enjoying reading the news these days. I’ll just share some stories that caught my depleted interest this morning.
One of the largest collections of royal Kingdom of Judah seal impressions has been uncovered at a massive First Temple-period public tax collection and storage complex being excavated near the new United States Embassy in Jerusalem. The main Iron Age structure is exceptional in terms of both its size and architectural style, said Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist Neri Sapir, who co-directed the excavation.
Uncovered only three kilometers (1.8 mile) outside the Old City, the compound is believed by Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologists to have served as an administrative center during the reigns of Judean kings Hezekiah and Menashe (8th century to the middle of the 7th century BCE).
Clay figurines of women and animals found at the Arnona, Jerusalem excavation site. (Yaniv Berman, Israel Antiquities Authority)
Over 120 jar handles stamped 2,700 years ago with ancient Hebrew script seal impressions were discovered at the site, clearly indicating the location’s use as a storage and tax center, according to an IAA press release Wednesday. Prevalent among the stamped inscriptions is “LMLK,” “LamMeLeKh,” or “Belonging to the King,” a way of marking that the foodstuffs stored in the jars had been tithed to the Judean ruler.
This trove of LMLK seal impressions adds to the over 2,000 similar seals previously discovered at excavations and allows archaeologists to rethink the administrative and tax collection systems of the Kingdom of Judah.
“This is one of the most significant discoveries from the period of the Kings in Jerusalem made in recent years. At the site we excavated, there are signs that governmental activity managed and distributed food supplies not only for shortage but administered agricultural surplus amassing commodities and wealth,” said IAA excavation co-directors Sapir and Nathan Ben-Ari in a press release Wednesday.
There’s much more fascinating information at the link.
Back in the 21st Century, American democracy is still threatened by a moron who thinks he’s brilliant and aspires to be dictator for life.
During a private campaign meeting in the Cabinet Room in early June, Trump brought up the test unprompted. In an extended riff, he talked about how well he had done — boasting that he’d been able to remember five different words, in order — and suggested challenging Biden to take the assessment, saying he was certain the former vice president would not fare as well.
Since then, the president has been speaking about the test publicly, telling Fox News’s Sean Hannity in a July 9 phone interview that he’d “aced it,” and again on Sunday, when he told the network’s Chris Wallace that he doubts Biden could answer all of the questions. On Wednesday evening, in another Fox News interview, Trump couldn’t resist revisiting what he said was the hardest part of the test — repeating the five words, in order.
Trump said he was first asked to repeat a set of words — “person,” “woman,” “man,” “camera,” “TV,” he said, offering a hypothetical example — and then, later in the assessment after some time had elapsed, he was again asked whether he remembered those same words, in order.
“And they say… ‘Go back to that question, and repeat them. Can you do it?’ ” Trump said, mimicking the doctors administering the exam. “And you go, ‘Person, woman, man, camera, TV.’ They say, ‘That’s amazing. How did you do that?’ I do it because I have, like, a good memory, because I’m cognitively there.”
But, as those of us with normal cognitive abilities know, the “test” Trump “aced” is routinely given to people who are suspected of having brain damage, dementia, or other cognitive deficits. It’s not a test of intelligence, as Trump seems to think. Back to the WaPo story:
Experts say the president’s fixation on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment — or MoCA, as it is sometimes called — is particularly puzzling because the test is normally administered only if someone is concerned that they or their loved ones may be experiencing dementia or other cognitive decline. Getting a perfect score — as Trump has repeatedly claimed he did — merely signifies that the test-taker probably does not have a cognitive impairment as measured by the exam.
“It’s not meant to measure IQ or intellectual skill in anyway,” said Ziad Nasreddine, the neurologist who created the test. “If someone performs well, what it means is they can be ruled out for cognitive impairment that comes with diseases like Alzheimer’s, stroke or multiple sclerosis. That’s it.”
Nasreddine continued: “The reason most people take the test is they or others start noticing mental decline. They forgot where they parked the car, can’t remember what groceries to buy by the time they get to the store. They keep forgetting to take their medication.”
Yesterday Federal agents in Portland, Oregon tear-gassed the city’s mayor.
The mayor of Portland, Ted Wheeler, was left coughing and wincing in the middle of his own city Wednesday night after federal officers deployed tear gas into a crowd of protesters that Mr. Wheeler had joined outside the federal courthouse.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler visits protesters
Mr. Wheeler, who scrambled to put on goggles while denouncing what he called the “urban warfare” tactic of the federal agents, said he was outraged by the use of tear gas and that it was only making protesters more angry.
“I’m not going to lie — it stings; it’s hard to breathe,” Mr. Wheeler said. “And I can tell you with 100 percent honesty, I saw nothing which provoked this response.”
He called it an “egregious overreaction” on the part of the federal officers, and not a de-escalation strategy….
But the Democratic mayor, 57, has also long been the target of Portland protesters infuriated by the city police’s own use of tear gas, which was persistent until a federal judge ordered the city to use it only when there was a safety issue. As Mr. Wheeler went through the crowds on Wednesday, some threw objects in his direction, and others called for his resignation, chanting, “Tear Gas Teddy.”
After a large wave of tear gas sent Mr. Wheeler away from the scene, some protesters mocked him, asking how it felt. Mr. Wheeler said that joining the protesters at the front of the line was just one way he was going to try to rid the city of the federal tactical teams.“
A lot of these people hate my guts,” Mr. Wheeler said in an interview, looking around at the crowd. But he said they were unified in wanting federal officers gone.
We have recently come to learn of at least a hundred documents authorizing extraordinary presidential powers in the case of a national emergency, virtually dictatorial powers without congressional or judicial checks and balances. President Trump alluded to these authorities in March when he said, “I have the right to do a lot of things that people don’t even know about.” No matter who occupies the office, the American people have a right to know what extraordinary powers presidents believe they have. It is time for a new select committee to study these powers and their potential for abuse, and advise Congress on the ways in which it might, at a minimum, establish stringent oversight.
Gary Hart
Secret powers began accumulating during the Eisenhower years and have grown by accretion ever since. The rationale originally was to permit a president to exercise necessary control in the case of nuclear war, an increasingly remote possibility since the Cold War’s end. An obscure provision in the Communications Act of 1934 empowers the president to suspend broadcast stations and other means of communication following a “proclamation by the President” of “national emergency.” Powers like these have been deployed sparingly: A few days after the Sept. 11 attacks, a proclamation declaring a national emergency, followed by an executive order days later, invoked some presidential powers, including the use of National Guard and U.S. military forces.
What little we know about these secret powers comes from the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University Law School, but we believe they may include suspension of habeas corpus, surveillance, home intrusion, arrest without a judicial warrant, collective if not mass arrests and more; some could violate constitutional protections.
A number of us have urged immediate congressional investigations concerning what these powers are and why they have been kept secret. Public hearings should be held before the November elections, especially with rumors rife that the incumbent president might interfere with the election or refuse to accept the result if he felt in jeopardy of losing.
Please read the rest of this important piece at the NYT.
We’re halfway through the holiday madness, and I have to admit it has been nice having slow news days instead of shocks to the system every few hours day after day. There really is nothing to write about today, but here are a few reads to check out if you’re interested.
Of course Trump is still nuts and he’s still tweeting nonsense.
As Americans gather with their loved ones for Christmas, Trump couldn’t let the day pass without talking about the most important woman in his life…
President Donald Trump’s speech in Florida over the weekend provides evidence that he is suffering from cognitive decline, according to a psychiatric expert.
Seth Davin Norrholm, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University School of Medicine, said Monday that the president’s recent rant about Christmas included at least three signs of mental problems.
“So if anybody wants to be a nice conservative, talk show host is not a bad living, I would say. But I have to say, he’s a very unique guy and he’s a great man and he’s been a great friend. So thank you to Rush. Thank you,” Trump said.
“And let me begin by wishing you a beautif — [NOTE from BB: This is the point where he had the shoulder spasm and lost the plot at 22 sec.] look, do you remember this? Do you remember this? Remember, they were trying to take Christmas out of Christmas. Do you remember? They didn’t want to let you say Merry Christmas,” Trump continued.
“You’d go around, you’d see department stores that have everything red, snow, beautiful, ribbons, bows. Everything was there. But they wouldn’t say Merry Christmas. They’re all saying Merry Christmas again. You remember?”
MORE EVIDENCE OF COGNITIVE DECLINE 👇👇👇 – slurred speech – semantic paraphasia (inserting wrong word) – phonemic paraphasia (combining words to form a likely nonsense word) https://t.co/XLRc740ci2
Military cyber officials are developing information warfare tactics that could be deployed against senior Russian officials and oligarchs if Moscow tries to interfere in the 2020 U.S. elections through hacking election systems or sowing widespread discord, according to current and former U.S. officials.
One optionbeing explored by U.S. Cyber Command would target senior leadership and Russian elites, though probably not President Vladimir Putin, which would be considered too provocative, said the current and former officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity. The idea would be to show that the target’s sensitive personal data could be hit if the interference did not stop, though officials declined to be more specific.
“When the Russians put implants into an electric grid, it means they’re making a credible showing that they have the ability to hurt you if things escalate,” said Bobby Chesney, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin. “What may be contemplated here is an individualized version of that, not unlike individually targeted economic sanctions. It’s sending credible signals to key decision-makers that they are vulnerable if they take certain adversarial actions.” [….]
The development comes as numerous agencies within the Trump administration seek to ensure that the United States is shielded against foreign efforts to disrupt the 2020 elections, even as President Trump has cast doubt on or belittled his own intelligence community’s finding of Russian interference in 2016.
Doppsee, a 12-year-old black rhino, presented a Michigan zoo and conservationists with an early holiday gift on Christmas Eve, delivering a newborn calf in a rare zoo birth for the endangered species.
The arrival of the male calf, which hasn’t been named yet, was the first time that a black rhino had been born at the Potter Park Zoo in Lansing, Mich., in its 100-year history, according to a news release.
Pat Fountain, an animal care supervisor at the zoo, said on Wednesday that the birth was one of the zoo’s “crowning achievements” because black rhinos are “statistically and historically very hard to breed and be successful.” Getting Doppsee to breed with Phineus, the calf’s father, who came to the zoo in 2017, was a “milestone,” he said.
About two black rhinos are born every year in facilities accredited by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums in the United States, Mr. Fountain said, noting how rare the birth was.
For months the Vermont senator was written off by Democratic Party insiders as a candidate with a committed but ultimately narrow base who was too far left to win the primary. Elizabeth Warren had skyrocketed in the polls and seemed to be leaving him behind in the race to be progressive voters’ standard-bearer in 2020.
But in the past few weeks, something has changed. In private conversations and on social media, Democratic officials, political operatives and pundits are reconsidering Sanders’ chances.
“It may have been inevitable that eventually you would have two candidates representing each side of the ideological divide in the party. A lot of smart people I’ve talked to lately think there’s a very good chance those two end up being Biden and Sanders,” said David Brock, a longtime Hillary Clinton ally who founded a pro-Clinton super PAC in the 2016 campaign. “They’ve both proven to be very resilient.”
Democratic insiders said that they are rethinking Sanders’ bid for a few reasons: First, Warren has recently fallen in national and early-state surveys. Another factor, they said, is that he has withstood the ups and downs of the primary, including his own heart attack. At the same time, other candidates with once-high expectations, such as Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Beto O’Rourke, have dropped out or languished in single digits in the polls.
A woman accused of driving into a teenager because she believed the girl was Mexican had struck another child with her car less than an hour earlier, authorities say.
Police in Iowa say Nicole Marie Poole Franklin struck a 12-year-old black boy as he walked home from school earlier this month. The 42-year-old Des Moines woman has not discussed her motive in that incident, but authorities say they are sickened by the seeming hate behind actions that occurred over less than two hours that day, ending with Franklin allegedly calling African Americans racial slurs in a gas station.
“When you look at the pattern of behavior here, you look at the victim selection, I think it speaks for itself,” said Sgt. Paul Parizek of the Des Moines Police Department.
Franklin’s case drew anger and fear last week when officials announced that the woman had not only confessed to a Dec. 9 hit and run but also told police that she targeted a 14-year-old for her perceived country of origin. Community members pushed for a hate crime designation on top of an attempted murder charge.
I was in line at a cheese shop, contemplating our dependence throughout life on milk, mothers’ milk (even if we move quickly on to the milk of other species’ mothers, like cow, goat, sheep, buffalo or vegan substitutes, which emerge from mother earth), when it occurred to me that the Alfred Hitchcock movie “Spellbound” is really about sexual harassment. It’s not about Gregory Peck’s goofy psychological problems; it’s an elucidation of women’s problems — with men. Hitch was way ahead of his time: It’s a #MeToo movie released 74 years ago.
Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck in “Spellbound.”Credit…Getty Images
Hitchcock was always keen on female protagonists, usually blond. He used (and some would say abused) Grace Kelly, Carole Lombard, Eva Marie Saint, Tippi Hedren, Joan Fontaine, Doris Day, Janet Leigh, Kim Novak and Ingrid Bergman. Oddly, he settled on Hedren for “The Birds” and “Marnie,” an awkward actress at best, brittle and shaky. Hitchcock’s treatment of these actresses was pretty sadistic, yet his dramatic portrayals of women are often sympathetic….
One principle of psychoanalysis is that what is buried deep will surface; it will pop out in some way, no matter how well you try to repress it. The craziness buried in “Spellbound” is misogyny: The movie veers off to become an examination not of the hazards of neurotic trauma but of what it’s like to be a woman tormented by patriarchy. For wherever Bergman goes, she’s under scrutiny from men, if not direct attack.
The story seems at first to be about Gregory Peck’s mixed-up identity and amnesia and phobias and fainting spells and stuff, but in the end you realize Peck is by the by. The movie is told from Bergman’s point of view, and it’s really about the difficulties she faces (Hitchcock was probably one of them, given his penchant for tormenting his leading ladies). You can tell Peck doesn’t matter much, by the way the three central traumas of his life are so breezily dealt with once they surface. These complexes of his are MacGuffins. What matters is Bergman. Of course.
Above all else, Louisa May Alcott was a radical. From an early age, she was an abolitionist. She was also a feminist, committed to never marrying, and loved to pull up her skirts and go for a long run through the woods.
Louisa May Alcott
Alcott’s most famous work, “Little Women,” was nearly the opposite — a light, juvenile novel focused on sisterly love and domestic peace. And though it was semi-autobiographical, she hated it. Now, the latest film version, directed by Greta Gerwig, hits theaters Christmas Day.
Alcott’s father, Bronson Alcott, with whom she was close, was also a radical. He hung out with Transcendentalist poets and used the family home as a stop on the Underground Railroad. He was also a teacher who was disgraced after publishing a book with ideas about education that were a little too innovative.
And he was prone to depression. Once he was fired from his school, he didn’t work again for years. An attempt to start a utopian community failed utterly, deepening his depression, and his wife and daughters were forced to take any work they could to keep the family afloat.
Alcott took on sewing projects, worked as a maid to a rich woman on a trip to Europe, and tried to sell stories she had written to women’s magazines. She also worked as a Civil War nurse, and her written account of this period turned into her first literary success.
But her favorite things to write were suspense novels, which she published under the name A.M. Bernard. These stories featured liberated women following sensational passions across the high seas and in glamorous locales. She wrote dozens of these stories for women’s magazines but earned only a pittance.
Then her editor finally convinced her to grind out some sentimental schock. BTW, I hated Little Women, and I’m glad to know that Alcott did too.
Have a great day everyone!
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The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
Tonight Trump and Biden will meet in the second and final debate before the November 3rd election. I plan to watch, at least for a little while, in case Trump spontaneously combusts or strokes out in a rage over his mike being muted. The New York Times has 
Worried about losing the White House, some advisers are urging Trump to trade his aggressive demeanor from the first debate for a lower-key style that puts Biden more squarely in the spotlight. But it’s unclear whether the president will listen….
It must have been really awful for Trump, because he cut the interview short and didn’t return for a scheduled “walk and talk” with Stahl and VP Pence. Right after the interview ended, Trump began attacking Stahl on Twitter. Forbes: 
Trump’s forward-listing posture—illustrated by nearly every political cartoonist—was initially attributed to the high-heeled elevator shoes readily observed in photographs. But his torso leans so markedly off-center that it suggests the possibility of a neurological problem rather than vanity. In medical terms the Bent Spine Syndrome is called camptocormia, first documented in the 17th century by Francisco de Zurbaran, a Spanish painter. The mean age of onset is 65 years (Trump is 74).
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