Posted: September 18, 2024 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: 2024 presidential Campaign, Donald Trump, Kamala Harris 2024 | Tags: abortion, Amber Thurman, Candi Miller, D&C, election interference, Georgia, J.D. Vance, Lawrence O'Donnell, Springfield Ohio |
Good Day!!
Autumn Portrait of Lydia Cassatt, by Mary Cassatt, 1880
Last night, Lawrence O’Donnell opened his show with a scathing rant on the results of the Republican crusade against legal abortion titled, “Women are dying. They got what they wanted.” He talked about the ProPublica article about Amber Nicole Thurman, who died in a Georgia hospital because doctors were afraid to give her the basic procedure (dilation and curettage or D&C) that would have saved her life. They then continued to withhold treatment until she died of sepsis. As a result, Thurman’s 6-year-old son has been left without a mother. O’Donnell then talked about what happened to his own mother when he was 6 years old. His mother had a miscarriage and was immediately given a D&C. This was before abortion was legal. O’Donnell choked up as he told this story. You can watch the video at MSNBC.
Today, Kavita Surana posted the story of the second Georgia woman known to have died because of the state’s anti-abortion laws: Afraid to Seek Care Amid Georgia’s Abortion Ban, She Stayed at Home and Died.
Candi Miller’s health was so fragile, doctors warned having another baby could kill her.
“They said it was going to be more painful and her body may not be able to withstand it,” her sister, Turiya Tomlin-Randall, told ProPublica.
But when the mother of three realized she had unintentionally gotten pregnant in the fall of 2022, Georgia’s new abortion ban gave her no choice. Although it made exceptions for acute, life-threatening emergencies, it didn’t account for chronic conditions, even those known to present lethal risks later in pregnancy.
At 41, Miller had lupus, diabetes and hypertension and didn’t want to wait until the situation became dire. So she avoided doctors and navigated an abortion on her own — a path many health experts feared would increase risks when women in America lost the constitutional right to obtain legal, medically supervised abortions.
Miller ordered abortion pills online, but she did not expel all the fetal tissue and would need a dilation and curettage procedure to clear it from her uterus and stave off sepsis, a grave and painful infection. In many states, this care, known as a D&C, is routine for both abortions and miscarriages. In Georgia, performing it had recently been made a felony, with few exceptions.
Her teenage son watched her suffer for days after she took the pills, bedridden and moaning. In the early hours of Nov. 12, 2022, her husband found her unresponsive in bed, her 3-year-old daughter at her side.
An autopsy found unexpelled fetal tissue, confirming that the abortion had not fully completed. It also found a lethal combination of painkillers, including the dangerous opioid fentanyl. Miller had no history of drug use, the medical records state; her family has no idea how she obtained them or what was going through her mind — whether she was trying to quell the pain, complete the abortion or end her life. A medical examiner was unable to determine the manner of death.
Her family later told a coroner she hadn’t visited a doctor “due to the current legislation on pregnancies and abortions.”
The conclusion of experts:
When a state committee of experts in maternal health, including 10 doctors, reviewed her case this year at the end of August, they immediately decided it was “preventable” and blamed the state’s abortion ban, according to members who spoke to ProPublica on the condition of anonymity.
They came to that conclusion after weighing the entire chain of events, from Miller’s underlying health conditions, to her decision to manage her abortion alone, to her reticence to seek medical care. “The fact that she felt that she had to make these decisions, that she didn’t have adequate choices here in Georgia, we felt that definitely influenced her case,” one committee member told ProPublica. “She’s absolutely responding to this legislation.”
This is the second preventable death related to abortion bans that ProPublica is reporting this week. Amber Thurman, 28, languished in a suburban Atlanta hospital for 20 hours before doctors performed a D&C to treat sepsis that resulted from an incomplete abortion. It was too late. “This young mother should be alive, raising her son and pursuing her dream of attending nursing school,” Vice President Kamala Harris said of Thurman on Tuesday. “This is exactly what we feared when Roe was struck down.”
There are almost certainly other deaths related to abortion access. Georgia’s committee, tasked with examining pregnancy-related deaths to improve maternal health, has only reviewed cases through fall 2022. Such a lag is common in these committees, which are set up in each state; most others have not even gotten that far.
Path in the garden of the asylum, Vincent Van Gogh
The situation women are dealing with now is far worse than what happened in the years before Roe. Old right-wing men without even basic knowledge of the female anatomy and medical procedures are making decisions that can condemn women to death and their families to the loss of a mother or daughter who becomes pregnant in a red state. Of course none of this could have happened without six monsters on the Supreme Court. As Lawrence O’Donnell said, “Women are dying. They got what they wanted.”
Here’s another horror story out of Georgia; this one is about election interference. Justin Glawe at The Guardian: Network of Georgia election officials strategizing to undermine 2024 result.
Emails obtained by the Guardian reveal a behind-the-scenes network of county election officials throughout Georgia coordinating on policy and messaging to both call the results of November’s election into question before a single vote is cast, and push rules and procedures favored by the election denial movement.
The emails were obtained by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) as a result of a public records request sent to David Hancock, an election denier and member of the Gwinnett county board of elections. Crew shared the emails with the Guardian.
Spanning a period beginning in January, the communications expose the inner workings of a group that includes some of the most ardent supporters of the former president Donald Trump’s election lies as well as ongoing efforts to portray the coming election as beset with fraud. Included in the communications are agendas for meetings and efforts to coordinate on policies and messaging as the swing state has once again become a focal point of the presidential campaign.
The communications include correspondence from a who’s who of Georgia election denialists, including officials with ties to prominent national groups such as the Tea Party Patriots and the Election Integrity Network, a group run by Cleta Mitchell, a former attorney who acted as an informal adviser to the Trump White House during its attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
The group – which includes elections officials from at least five counties – calls itself the Georgia Election Integrity Coalition.
These emails go way back:
Among the oldest emails released are those regarding a 30 January article published by the United Tea Party of Georgia. Headlined “Georgia Democratic Party Threatens Georgia Election Officials”, the article was posted by an unnamed “admin” of the website, and came in response to letters sent to county election officials throughout Georgia who had recently refused to certify election results.
“In what can only be seen as an attempt to intimidate elections officials,” the article began, “the Georgia Democratic party sent a letter to individual county board of elections members threatening legal action unless they vote to certify upcoming elections – even if the board member has legitimate concerns about the results.”
The letter had been sent by a lawyer representing the Democratic party of Georgia to county election board members in Spalding, Cobb and DeKalb counties. Election board members in each of those counties had refused to certify the results of local elections the previous November. In their letter, Democrats sought to warn those officials that their duty to certify results was not discretionary in an attempt to prevent further certification refusals, including in the coming presidential election. In response, the United Tea Party of Georgia took issue with the letter, calling it “troubling” and saying that it was “Orwellian to demand that election officials certify an election even if they have unanswered questions about the vote”.
While the author of the article was not named on the United Tea Party of Georgia’s website, the emails obtained by Crew show that it was Hancock, an outspoken election denier and member of the Gwinnett county board of elections, who has become a leading voice in the push for more power to refuse to certify results.
There’s more at the link.
Autumn in Honfleu Cote de Grace, cir. 1906, byEmile-Othon Friesz
More efforts at election interference were reported by ABC News: Suspicious mail containing white powder was sent to election offices in at least 16 states.
The FBI and Postal Service are investigating suspicious mail containing a white powder substance that was sent to election offices in at least 16 states this week, according to an ABC News canvass of the country.
None of the mail has been deemed hazardous so far – and in one case, the substance was determined to be flour – but the scare prompted evacuations in some locations.
Election offices in New York, Tennessee, Wyoming, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, Indiana, Massachusetts, and Colorado received the suspicious packages. Similar suspicious mail was addressed to offices in additional states – Arizona, Georgia, Connecticut and Maryland among them – but investigators intercepted them before they reached their destination.
The FBI and U.S. Postal Inspection Service said in a statement Tuesday that they were investigating letters containing white powdery substances. A law enforcement source said at this point none of the packages were believed to be hazardous.
“We are also working with our partners to determine how many letters were sent, the individual or individuals responsible for the letters, and the motive behind the letters,” the statement read.
At least some of the packages were signed by the “United States Traitor Elimination Army,” according to a copy of a letter sent to members of the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center obtained by ABC News.
The Saga of Springfield goes on and on. The Wall Street Journal learned that before he began spreading rumors of dogs and cats being eaten, he was told by city officials that the stories were baseless. We know this from a story in The Wall Street Journal. It’s behind the paywall, so this is a summary from Raw Story: J.D. Vance shared pet-eating claims after being told ‘point blank’ they were lies: report.
A representative for J.D. Vance was told “point blank” that the Republican vice presidential nominee’s claims about Haitian immigrants in Ohio were not true, but he continued to smear them anyway as bomb threats were called in to local schools and government offices.
The Republican senator posted about the rumors on X, where he’s got 1.9 million followers, and he did not delete the post even after one of his staffers called Springfield city manager Bryan Heck on the morning of Sept. 9 to ask whether Haitian immigrants were stealing and eating cats and dogs, as other social media users had alleged, reported the Wall Street Journal.“
He asked point-blank: ‘Are the rumors true of pets being taken and eaten?’” Heck told the newspaper. “I told him no. There was no verifiable evidence or reports to show this was true. I told them these claims were baseless.” [….]
Vance has admitted the claims are false, but he continues to make dubious and debunked claims about Haitian immigrants in the state he represents in the U.S. Senate, such as his claim that communicable diseases have spiraled out of control in Springfield.“Information from the county health department, however, shows a decrease in infectious disease cases countywide, with 1,370 reported in 2023 — the lowest since 2015,” the Journal reported.
“The tuberculosis case numbers in the county are so low (four in 2023, three in 2022, one in 2021) that any little movement can bring a big percentage jump. HIV cases did increase to 31 in 2023, from 17 in 2022 and 12 in 2021. Overall, sexually transmitted infection cases decreased to 965 in 2023, the lowest since 2015.”
Another claim by Vance fell apart after a spokesperson provided the Journal reporter with a police report involving a woman who alleged that a Haitian immigrant may have taken her cat.“But when a reporter went to Anna Kilgore’s house Tuesday evening, she said her cat Miss Sassy, which went missing in late August, had actually returned a few days later — found safe in her own basement,” the newspaper reported. “Kilgore, wearing a Trump shirt and hat, said she apologized to her Haitian neighbors with the help of her daughter and a mobile-phone translation app.”
The Autumn, by Alphonse Mucha, 1896
Trump says he wants to visit Springfield, but the mayor would prefer that he didn’t. NBC News: After false pet claims, Springfield mayor says Trump visit would be ‘an extreme strain’ on resources.
The Republican mayor of Springfield, Ohio, the city that has been the target of unfounded claims from former President Donald Trump and his running mate about Haitian immigrants’ eating residents’ pets said Tuesday that a visit from Trump would tax the city’s resources.
“It would be an extreme strain on our resources. So it’d be fine with me if they decided not to make that visit,” Mayor Rob Rue said at a news conference at City Hall.
NBC News reported Sunday that Trump planned to visit the city “soon,” according to a source familiar with his planning, after he amplified during the presidential debate a baseless claim that had circulated in right-wing spheres online for weeks, saying Haitian immigrants were “eating the dogs” and cats of local residents.
Officials in Springfield have said the allegations are meritless, with city police issuing a statement that said there were “no credible reports” of Haitian immigrants’ harming pets.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, had also “panned the claims as “garbage,” and he visited Springfield Tuesday as the city responds to dozens of bomb threats, deemed hoaxes that have led to temporary closings and evacuations of schools and city buildings.
DeWine said a campaign visit from a presidential candidate is “generally very, very welcomed,” but he acknowledged that it would pose challenges.
“I have to state the reality, though, that resources are really, really stretched here,” he said.
Trump and Vance should stay the hell out of Springfield, Ohio.
Trump is holding a rally on Long Island tonight–a strange use of campaign resources in a blue state this close to the election. Anyway, there’s been a “suspicious occurrence.” Newsweek: ‘Suspicious Occurrence’ Near Donald Trump New York Rally: What We Know. “
Nassau County police responded to a “suspicious occurrence” near the location of former President Donald Trump‘s Wednesday night rally in Long Island, noting that no explosives were located, the department confirmed to Newsweek.
“We did respond to a suspicious occurrence in the vicinity of the Nassau Coliseum, however there was no validity of an explosive device being found,” a public information officer told Newsweek after a report about an explosive device at the rally site circulated online.
“We’re unsure where this information originated, but we can confirm that no explosives were discovered.”
I suppose we’ll be dealing with these false alarms from now on.
More Republicans are backing Kamala Harris every day now. This is from The New York Times: 111 Former G.O.P. Officials Back Harris, Calling Trump ‘Unfit to Serve.’
More than 100 former national security officials from Republican administrations and former Republican members of Congress endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday after concluding that their party’s nominee, Donald J. Trump, is “unfit to serve again as president.”
In a letter to the public, the Republicans, including both vocal longtime Trump opponents and others who had not endorsed Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2020, argued that while they might “disagree with Kamala Harris” on many issues, Mr. Trump had demonstrated “dangerous qualities.” Those include, they said, “unusual affinity” for dictators like President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and “contempt for the norms of decent, ethical and lawful behavior.”
John Everett Millais, Autumn Leaves, 1855–1856
“As president,” the letter said, “he promoted daily chaos in government, praised our enemies and undermined our allies, politicized the military and disparaged our veterans, prioritized his personal interest above American interests and betrayed our values, democracy and this country’s founding documents.”
The letter condemned Mr. Trump’s incitement of the mob attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, aimed at allowing him to hold onto power after losing an election, saying that “he has violated his oath of office and brought danger to our country.” It quoted Mr. Trump’s own former vice president, Mike Pence, who has said that “anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States.”
The letter came not long after former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, former Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, both said they would vote for Ms. Harris. Democrats featured a number of anti-Trump Republicans at their nominating convention last month, including former Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. Mr. Pence has said he will not endorse Mr. Trump but has not endorsed Ms. Harris.
The 111 signatories included former officials who served under Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush or George W. Bush. Many of them had previously broken with Mr. Trump, including two former defense secretaries, Chuck Hagel and William S. Cohen; Robert B. Zoellick, a former president of the World Bank; the former C.I.A. directors Michael V. Hayden and William H. Webster; a former director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte; and former Gov. William F. Weld of Massachusetts. Miles Taylor and Olivia Troye, two Trump administration officials who became vocal critics, also signed.
But a number of Republicans who did not sign a similar letter on behalf of Mr. Biden in 2020 signed the one for Ms. Harris this time, including several former House members, like Charles W. Boustany Jr. of Louisiana, Barbara Comstock of Virginia, Dan Miller of Florida and Bill Paxon of New York.
I’ll end with this piece by conservative Stuart Rothenberg in Roll Call: So, you’re sure the presidential race will be close?
If there is one thing on which liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats, journalists and political partisans all agree, it’s that the 2024 presidential race is too close to call.
Vice President Kamala Harris may have a slight advantage nationally and in a couple of competitive states, but polling in at least half a dozen swing states – including Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina, Michigan and Wisconsin – shows that the presidential race between Harris and former president Donald Trump is separated by only a percentage point or two.
As the New York Times wrote on Sept. 8 and updated three days later, “The national results are in line with polls in the seven battleground states that will decide the presidential election, where Ms. Harris is tied with Mr. Trump or holds slim leads, according to New York Times polling averages. Taken together, they show a tight race that remains either candidate’s to win or lose.”
But if you are something of a gambler and everyone you know believes the 2024 presidential contest is and will remain extremely close, you probably should put a few dollars on the possibility that November will produce a clear and convincing win for Harris.
That assessment isn’t based on the most recent survey numbers but on the current dynamics of the race and the advantage of taking a contrarian position.
Harris has plenty of momentum going into the fall election. She has become a strong speaker at her rallies, and she should have a considerable financial advantage over the next couple of months.
Her coalition, which includes some high-profile Republicans and conservatives, stretches from former Vice President Dick Cheney and conservative intellectual Bill Kristol on the right to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the left.
Harris clobbered Trump in their first (and possibly only) debate, and another debate would be extremely risky for Trump, who can’t afford another bad performance.
Harris wasn’t merely good on one or two topics during the debate. She successfully deflected Trump’s attacks and baited him so that he spent more time defending himself than defining his opponent. Harris was particularly effective on abortion/reproductive rights and foreign policy/national security.
The Democratic ticket is drawing huge crowds in the key states where Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, are campaigning, and it’s quite possible that pollsters are underestimating the turnout that the Democrats will generate in the fall.
Read the whole thing at the link.
Have a nice Wednesday, everyone!!
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Posted: August 7, 2024 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: 2024 presidential Campaign, Donald Trump, Kamala Harris 2024 | Tags: Bringing back the joy, Harris-Walz rally in Philadelphia, J.D. Vance, Tim Walz |
Joie de Vivre (Antipolis), Pablo Picasso, 1946.
Good Morning!!
I hope you were able to watch the Harris-Walz rally in Philadelphia last night. It was so positive and uplifting. One famous quote that emerged from the event was vice presidential candidate Tim Walsh saying to Kamala Harris, “Thank you for bringing back the joy.” Harris, Walz, and the huge audience were joyful, enthusiastic, and loud. It has been a very long time since this country has seen a rally like this.
Serena Lin at Mother Jones: At Harris Rally in Philadelphia, the Return of “Joy.”
On Tuesday evening, Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) began his speech by turning back to his new running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris, and said, “Thank you for bringing back the joy.”
At the rally in Philadelphia, there was a Democratic excitement that was palpable. Despite the potential for disarray from President Joe Biden dropping out of the race, the party quickly assembled behind a candidate. One could see the common stereotypes of the Democratic voter outside the Liacouras Center at Temple University—even in shirt selection: a sea of union apparel appeared (most notably, dozens of people donning bright purple SEIU shirts); a few “Kamala is brat” ones; many women calling out Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) for his comments about “childless cat ladies.”
Most everyone I spoke with was very happy that Biden had dropped out. In fact, thrilled. But that did mean, for many, much more than standing the Democratic party as a whole with an easier candidate to back. Harris was still introducing herself to them as a candidate in 2024.
Michael Parella, a student at the University of Pennsylvania, saw Harris as a dramatic improvement over Biden, whose candidacy felt like a “losing ballot.” Parella had been a Harris supporter in 2020, when she was a contender in a crowded primary candidate. Now, he said, “the crowd is standing behind her.” [….]
Many of the young attendees with whom I spoke were excited by Walz’s selection. Makayla Speers, a student from Delaware, said that she felt Harris’ choice of Walz over Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro was an indication that she’s listening to young voters—and that Harris may take more action regarding Israel’s war in Gaza. (As I previously reported, some critics knocked Shapiro for his comments on student protesters.)
Shapiro, who was reportedly the other finalist in the veepstakes, side-stepped the elephant in the room when he spoke, promising to help Harris win Pennsylvania. And Walz and Harris, who both have described Shapiro as a friend, took care to thank him in their remarks.
Salon’s Amanda Marcotte attended both the sad JD Vance appearance (for some reason, he is following Harris around the country) and the huge Harris-Walz rally. Here’s her report: “Bringing back the joy”: Kamala Harris’ rally blows away JD Vance’s weird appearance across town.
He’s so weird! He’s so weird!” the crowd chanted in a sing-song, taunting voice that echoed across Temple University’s packed basketball stadium Tuesday evening. Gov. Josh Shapiro, D-Penn., was the first person to mention Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, to the crowd that had packed the overflowing Philadelphia rally for Vice President Kamala Harris, as she introduced her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn. The spontaneous chant cracked Shapiro up, causing him to pause momentarily before laying back into the authoritarian threat posed by Donald Trump’s “weird” and beardy running mate.
The chanters didn’t know the half of it. Hours earlier, I had been at a South Philly venue where Vance spoke briefly to about 200 supporters and a group of bored journalists. Vance’s event was small, mean, and yes, weird, featuring the unjustified sarcasm of the candidate and a desperate feeling reminiscent of the mood at a strip mall shot bar at 2 AM on “ladies’ night.”
Meanwhile, the Harris/Walz rally felt like a rousing speech by Coach Eric Taylor of “Friday Night Lights” combined with the front row at Coachella. The cheers were so loud that I regretted not bringing my earplugs. The mood was jubilant, even though folks had to wait hours in the heat and humidity to even get into the place. The campaign claimed over 12,000 people showed up, which is not an exaggeration. Even as Harris and Walz gave the final speeches of the evening, the line to get into the overflow room — just to watch the event on TV — went on for multiple city blocks.
Rythme, Joie de vivre, Robert Delaunay, 1930.
“Thank you for bringing back the joy,” Walz said, to a thunderous reception. A simple line, but it brought the house down because of the plain-spoken truth Walz has swiftly become famous for. “Joy” was the word of the night. People in the stands practically vibrated with it. In the air was a visceral hope that this campaign would be the end of the long national nightmare that is Trump and the MAGA movement….
The crowd was so exuberant that Harris and Walz could have done shadow puppets and the place would have erupted. Even before they spoke, DJ Diamond Kuts had the crowd repurposing classic hip-hop lyrics into political chants, with the funniest being “move, Trump, get out the way” rather than the expletive used in the original Ludacris tune. But both brought their A-game. Harris drew ecstatic applause with her promises to end Trump’s criminal career. Walz has honed “Minnesota nice” into a deadly rhetorical weapon, both making his desire to help people sincerely felt while also making “weird” burn like Dorothy Parker’s ghost had insulted you.
Vance’s speech, on the other hand, wasn’t just underwhelming but a little uncanny. Despite using room dividers to shrink the space, the campaign could not hide that the crowd felt like a medium-sized wedding, albeit a pathetic one where no one cares for the couple. Vance, perhaps recognizing charisma isn’t his strong suit, spoke briefly before bringing up a series of local citizens ready to blame Mexicans for their familial tragedies of drug addiction. He spoke for a couple more minutes, before taking the reporters’ questions about cat ladies.
Even in his short speech, it seemed Vance — like the Trump campaign overall — is still struggling to accept that they are running against Harris and not President Joe Biden. It felt like the speechwriter had typed Ctrl-F “Biden” and replaced every instance with “Harris,” whether it made sense or not. Vance accused Harris of hiding from the press with a “basement campaign.” Never mind that Harris is now the young and spry candidate who can keep up with an aggressive schedule, while Trump is the tired old man who can barely campaign between naps.
Read the whole thing at Salon.
At The Daily Beast, Josh Fiallo noted an embarrassing “signage gaffe” at the Vance “rally.”: J.D. Vance’s Backdrop Makes It Look Like He’s Campaigning for ‘Kamala.’
J.D. Vance delivered a rally speech Tuesday in Pennsylvania with a backdrop that made it appear he was campaigning for his arch nemesis, Kamala Harris.
The unfortunate signage appeared to stem from the event’s advance team not accounting for its crowd blocking half of a gigantic poster that sat directly behind Vance, which appeared to read in full, “KAMALA CHAOS.”
For those watching on Fox News and other broadcasts, however, the only words clearly visible—in white text on a blue background, in all caps—was simply “Kamala.”
The apparent gaffe quickly went viral on X, where many joked that Harris’ VP choice in Tim Walz, which was announced just prior to Vance’s rally speech, had convinced Trump’s running mate to switch teams….
“Kamala Harris has been such a disastrous vice president of this country that everywhere she goes, chaos and uncertainty follow,” he said, leaning into what his backdrop’s full text read.
It appears the Trump campaign may be attempting to link Harris to the word “chaos” in the same way Democrats, starting with Walz himself, began characterizing Trump, Vance, and the MAGA movement as “weird.
WHYY, a local NPR station in Philadelphia, reported that Vance’s rally had about 200 attendees, which included local Republican leadership from around Philadelphia.
This man is definitely not ready for prime time.
Joie de Vivre, Max Ernst, 1936.
More on the Harris-Walz rally from Lauren Gambino and Melissa Hellmann at The Guardian: Kamala Harris introduces running mate Tim Walz at raucous Philadelphia rally.
Kamala Harris introduced her running mate, Tim Walz, as “the kind of vice-president America deserves” at a raucous rally in Philadelphia that showcased Democratic unity and enthusiasm for the party’s presidential ticket ahead of the November election.
Casting their campaign as a “fight for the future”, Harris and Walz were repeatedly interrupted by applause and cheering as they addressed thousands of battleground-state voters wearing bracelets that twinkled red, white and blue at Temple University’s Liacouras Center – a crowd Harris’s team said was its largest to date.
“Thank you for bringing back the joy,” a beaming Walz told Harris after she debuted the little-known Minnesota governor as a former social studies teacher, high school football coach and a national guard veteran.
“We’ve got 91 days,” he declared. “My God, that’s easy. We’ll sleep when we’re dead.” [Walz is a Warren Zevon fan!] [….]
Arriving on stage to Beyoncé’s Freedom, the newly minted Democratic ticket rode a weeks-long wave of momentum from an unusually exuberant party happy to be looking forward.
“He’s the kind of person who makes people feel like they belong and then inspires them to dream big,” Harris said. “That’s the kind of vice-president he will be. And that’s the kind of president America deserves.”
Walz shared more of his biography, casting himself as a politician who learned to “compromise without compromising my values” and a midwesterner who lives by the “golden rule” when it comes to personal choice: “Mind your own damn business.” Drawing a personal connection to one of the most searing issues of the election cycle, Walz said he and his wife had two children through in vitro fertilization (IVF) after years of struggling with infertility. “When we welcomed our daughter into the world, we named her Hope,” he said.
Then he turned to his Republican opponents, who he has branded “weird” in a line of attack that has resonated widely, especially among Democrats. “These guys are creepy and, yes, just weird as hell,” he said, setting off a new round of whoops and cheers.
Noah Berlansky at Public Notice: Kamala Harris’s inspired choice. Democrats often use their running mate to pivot to the center. But not this time.
Kamala Harris’s choice of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her runningmate is, in some respects, a standard, safe choice. Like most of her potential picks, Walz is a white man. He’s a popular Democratic governor with deep roots in the party. He’s by no means an odd or risky selection.
And yet, at the same time, Harris’s choice of Walz is unusual, exciting, and even inspirational. Over the last forty years, Democrats have generally used the VP pick to try to cater to centrist swing voters. Some of Harris’s leading choices, like Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, were in that mode.
Instead, Harris chose Walz — a candidate who has a good deal of potential bipartisan appeal, but who is also well-positioned to excite Democrats, and particularly progressives. As such, Walz’s rise is a promising indication that Harris plans to continue and expand upon the approach of President Biden, who’s embraced progressive ideas and legislation as a way to unify and inspire Democratic voters.
Au Temps d’Harmonie (La Joie de Vivre – Dimanche au Bord de la Mer), Paul Signac, 1895-96.
It’s easy to make the case for Walz as a safe, sturdy, and conventional pick for VP. He served in the National Guard for 24 years; he’s now the vice presidential candidate with the longest military career.
In 1996 he left the military to to work as a high school history teacher in Mankato, Minnesota. He ran for Congress in 2006, a strong year for Democrats, and defeated six-term Republican Gil Gutknecht. He held the rural district through 2010 and 2014 — two red wave years — and even held on in 2016, when Trump won the district by 15 points. In 2018, he ran for governor and won. He won a second term in 2022.
This is an impressive record, and one that seems almost custom-made for a vice presidential resume.
Walz’s military record should appeal to at least some conservative voters, who tend to value military service in candidates. His strong record in a rural Trump district also testifies to his ability to reach out to red voters….
On the other hand, Walz’s experience as a teacher should play well with educators — a core Democratic constituency — and with teacher’s unions. He’s also shown himself to be exceptionally skilled at attacking Republicans. After he called Republicans “weird” on MSNBC, Democrats as a whole seized on the word to define the abortion-hating, single-women hating, book-hating weirdos in the GOP.
Walz’s conventional qualifications and strengths have made him acceptable within, and popular with, the mainstream of the Democratic Party, as evidenced by the wave of enthusiasm from mainstream party leaders.
There’s much more at the the link.
More background on Tim Walz, links only:
Steven Greenhouse at Slate: Why Harris’ VP Choice Is Good News for Workers.
Julia Metraux at Mother Jones: Tim Walz Is Leading the Way on Long Covid Funding.
Miranda Nazzaro at The Hill: Why Trump supporters are calling Walz ‘Tampon Tim.’
Erin Reid at Erin in the Morning: Tim Walz Took Historic Action To Protect Trans People, Now He’s The Dem VP Choice.
Time: What to Know About Tim Walz’s Relationship With China.
Animals 24-7: Demo VP nominee Tim Walz hunts, but loves cats & is hated by gun lobby.
Distractify: Tim Walz Advocates for Rescuing Pets — Let’s Meet His Adorable Animals.
So what’s happening with stodgy old Grandpa Trump? Not much. He’s only making one appearance this week–in Montana–and it’s not a campaign event. He’s really freaking out about Kamala Harris and all the excitement around her candidacy.
Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo: Kamala Goes Electric and Trump Melts Down.
Last Thursday the Harris campaign began offering tickets for a campaign rally in Detroit the following Wednesday (tomorrow, August 7th). Over the first 24 hours they received 47,000 requests for tickets. 47,000. That spurred a multi-day search for a Detroit area venue that could handle the demand to see the Vice President. As Donald Trump never grasped, there’s no straight-line connection between rally attendance and votes. But at that scale they signal enthusiasm and energy that neither campaign (Trump or Biden) has seen at any time in this cycle. They demonstrate a purchase into the larger popular culture that President Biden never had and Donald Trump, for all his greater currency on social media, doesn’t either.
The joy of life, by Henri Matisse, 1906
It’s that disconnect between the attention currency of the two campaigns that is driving Trump’s current meltdown likely much more than the polls which have shown Harris go from one or two points behind two weeks ago to two to three points ahead today. Trump’s approach to a political campaign is to grab hold of media dominance, dominate the attention economy and then try to maintain the initiative of the campaign from there. Media dominance doesn’t always work for him. As often as not, once he’s holding the national attention, he’s offending people and losing support. But without that, as a campaigner, he’s lost. He tried to get that back with his Black/Indian tirade at the NABJ conference. And it worked, until it didn’t, which was quickly. 36 hours later the attention had shifted back to Harris.
I don’t entirely understand it yet. But Harris’s campaign is reaching out beyond the ordinary political ecosystem, even the expanded one we know from the final months or a general election and into the broader popular culture. Some of that is energizing an array of celebrities, music artists and influencers who are adding excitement and attention to the campaign. But it’s not only that, not even primarily that. That’s more consequence than cause. Her campaign, at least for the moment, is operating in a much larger cultural space than conventional politics. Trump’s political magic has always been his ability to access a larger cultural space, even if it’s often negative attention. But Harris’s campaign is accessing something much larger. For the moment he cannot keep up.
Kelly Rissman at The Independent: Republicans worry Trump is having a ‘public nervous breakdown.’
Republicans are concerned that party leader Donald Trump is having a “public nervous breakdown” after he made a series of offensive outbursts about Vice President Kamala Harris as he slips behind her in the polls.
The former president has made a number of insulting personal attacks against his Democratic rival since she moved to the top of the ticket. Last week, Trump questioned Harris’s racial identity at the National Association of Black Journalists conference. Over the weekend, he accused Harris of having a “low IQ.”
New polls indicate Trump is slipping behind the vice president in the popular vote and races are tightening in battleground states.
“This is what you would call a public nervous breakdown,” Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist and former Trump state department appointee, told Politico.
“This is a guy who cut through the Republican primary like a knife through butter. This is a guy who pummeled a semi-conscious president in a debate and literally out of a race. And now this is a guy who cannot come to grips with a competitive presidential race that would require discipline and effective messaging,” Bartlett continued. “And we’re seeing a candidate and a campaign absolutely meltdown.”
Chair of the Vermont Republican Party, Paul Dame, predicted that Trump allies will start to wane in their defense of the former president.
“I think we’re starting to see the old Trump that a lot of Republicans got tired of in 2020, got tired of defending him,” Dame told USA Today. “If the next three months is defined by more examples like this I think he’s going to see some of that soft centrist support deteriorate.
Read the rest at The Independent.
Griffith, Arthur R.; Joie de vivre, 1904-1992
One more sign of panic from The Guardian: Project 2025 leader’s book with JD Vance introduction delayed until after election.
A JD Vance-introduced book by a leader of Project 2025, the vast and controversial hardline rightwing plan for a second Trump administration, will be delayed until after the 2024 election.
“There’s a time for writing, reading, and book tours – and a time to put down the books and go fight like hell to take back our country,” the book’s author, Kevin Roberts, told RealClearPolitics, which first reported the news.
“That’s why I’ve chosen to move my book’s publication and promotion to after the election.”
Roberts is president of the Heritage Foundation, a hard-right Washington thinktank. His book, Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America, was due to be published in September. It will now come out on 12 November, a week after Donald Trump and Kamala Harris square off on election day.
As Project 2025 has attracted sustained fire from Democrats, over its 900-plus pages of plans for far-reaching government reform including attacks on reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, labor rights and other progressive priorities, so Roberts’s book quickly became a magnet for controversy of its own.
Trump and his campaign have sought to distance themselves from Project 2025 – efforts undermined when it became known Vance, the hardline populist Ohio senator Trump picked as his running mate, had written an introduction to Roberts’s book.
Those are my recommended reads for today. What’s on your mind?
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The result was a wide-ranging, policy-heavy back and forth that often pushed Walz and Vance to play defense for the presidential nominees, affording them little opportunity to make a fresh and forceful case to undecided voters just weeks before they head to the polls.
Vance dismissed the argument that courts had already rejected Trump’s allegations of election fraud. “You can’t litigate these things judicially; you have to litigate them politically,” Vance told Douthat. “And we never had a real political debate about the 2020 election.”
On Tuesday, the Carter Center shared excerpts of messages of support from 
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