“There are years when nothing happens, and there are weeks when decades happen. This was one of those decades-long weeks,” Wisconsin Democrats chair Ben Wikler tweeted on Friday.
Kamala Harris pulled in $200 million in her first week as a presidential candidate, a staggering figure the campaign points to as evidence of the intensity surrounding her nascent bid with 100 days to go before Election Day.
What a difference a week makes, Politico not-so-trenchantly observes.
With Harris ascending to the top of the ticket, the party saw mammoth fundraising, including topping the $100 million mark in her first full day as the Democrats’ likely nominee. The campaign soon announced she had secured enough verbal commitments from delegates to secure the party’s nomination ahead of the Democratic National Convention next month.
Of the seven-day haul, two-thirds of the donations came from first-time donors, something the campaign pointed to as evidence of overwhelming grassroots support for her historic White House bid.
The energy behind Harris, who is of Black and South Asian descent, is also showing up in the polls, with Harris closing the deficit that had widened in the final weeks Biden was the presumptive nominee.
According to a CNN/SSRS poll published last week, Harris trailed 46 percent to Trump’s 49 percent, a statistical tie since those figures were within the poll’s margin for error.
So now the horse-race press has a new horse race to blather about 24/7. And a new veepstakes.
Speculation about the Harris pick for running mate is a beauty pageant for national pundits, by their pick of favorites more about cosmetics than calculation. It’s about who looks good, has rhetorical chops, etc. But unless this race shifts dramatically in Harris’s favor, 2024 will be another close one.
States don’t send popular votes to Congress. They send electoral votes. So teasing potential VP picks from states that might not add to the Harris electoral totals misses the point. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is an excellent politician. Perhaps he can help shore up the ‘blue wall’. But can he bring electoral votes with him that Democrats don’t already expect to win? Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is the sharpest-witted politician I’ve ever seen. But seriously, is the former mayor of South Bend ready to step into the presidency? Will his being on the ticket give Harris a shot at Indiana’s 11 electoral votes?
I can’t wait until the VP beauty pageant ends and we get on to the real business of electing the Harris ticket and seeing the MAGA movement consigned to the ash heap of history.
“Get out and vote just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore,” Donald Trump told The Believers’ Summit, hosted by Turning Point Action on Friday in West Palm Beach, Fla. “Four more years it will be fixed. It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore…In four years you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good your not gonna have to vote.”
Democrats piled on Donald Trump’s comments to the Christian nationalists (no, not conservative Christians) on Friday:
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who is running for Senate, shared the clip of Trump’s speech on X, writing, “This year democracy is on the ballot, and if we are to save it, we must vote against authoritarianism. Here Trump helpfully reminds us that the alternative is never having the chance to vote again.” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) called Trump’s comments “terrifying.” And Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) said, “The only way ‘you won’t have to vote anymore’ is if Donald Trump becomes a dictator.”
Naturally, the Trump campaign tried to explain away what he meant. No, no, no, the 2020 election denier didn’t mean what you thought you heard, a spokesman corrected. Trump “was talking about uniting this country and bringing prosperity to every American, as opposed to the divisive political environment that has sowed so much division and even resulted in an assassination attempt.”
If shamelessness is conservatives’ superpower, Trump supplements it with plausible deniability which, Jason Statler argues, comes “from Trump’s constant blather, digressions, and weirdness…. Even his fiercest critics feed that power by assuming there must be some harmless explanation for his laser focus on dividing and conquering America. There’s not.”
On the left, our thirst for freshness and novelty, while an asset, is also a weakness. There will be a reflex to let these statements from Trump disappear down the memory hole, buried quickly by his next nonsensical boast or tirade or outrageous lie. Don’t move on. Don’t let this one go. Or Project 2025 either.
The Harris campaign should latch onto these statements like Jack Russell terrier with a knotted rope and not let go. Her campaign has for now called Trump’s statements “a vow to end democracy.” The Washington Post reports:
“When Vice President Harris says this election is about freedom she means it,” Harris campaign spokesperson James Singer said in a news release on Saturday. “Our democracy is under assault by criminal Donald Trump: After the last election Trump lost, he sent a mob to overturn the results. This campaign, he has promised violence if he loses, the end of our elections if he wins, and the termination of the Constitution to empower him to be a dictator to enact his dangerous Project 2025 agenda on America.”
Trump, his Christian nationalist and think tank allies have taken out a contract on America. They mean to terminate the freedoms of non- MAGA Americans — yours — with extreme prejudice in a second Trump term. Roe is just the beginning.
“[T]he press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally,” Salena Zito wrote in The Atlantic in 2016. Believe him. He’s January 6th serious. Christian nationalists are Gilead serious. Heritage is 900 pages worth of serious. They have rejected democracy, as David Frum belatedly predicted.
Your job is not to move on, not to be distracted by the next gibberish Trump spouts at the next rally. The press will move on. The left must not from the latest proof that he means to be a dictator. Not this time.
JD Vance endorses Project 2025: “We really need to be really ruthless when it comes to the exercise of power… I don't think there's a compromise that we're gonna come with… Unless we overthrow them in some way, we're gonna keep losing” pic.twitter.com/2sVHp4i1ek
I feed the pigeons, I sometimes feed the sparrows too It gives me a sense of enormous well-being
-from “Parklife”, by Blur
I know this is kind of a personal question, but…have you ever bathed in a forest? I have, many times. Now, I’m not talking about “skinny-dipping” (get your mind out of the gutter). The Japanese have a term for it… shinrin-yoku, which roughly translates to “forest bathing”:
Whether you call it a fitness trend or a mindfulness practice (or a bit of both), what exactly is forest bathing? The term emerged in Japan in the 1980s as a physiological and psychological exercise called shinrin-yoku (“forest bathing” or “taking in the forest atmosphere”). The purpose was twofold: to offer an eco-antidote to tech-boom burnout and to inspire residents to reconnect with and protect the country’s forests.
The Japanese quickly embraced this form of ecotherapy. In the 1990s, researchers began studying the physiological benefits of forest bathing, providing the science to support what we innately know: time spent immersed in nature is good for us. While Japan is credited with the term shinrin-yoku, the concept at the heart of the practice is not new. Many cultures have long recognized the importance of the natural world to human health.
Whatever you want to call it—a hike in the woods, a walk in the park, or a romp in the fields…I think we would all concur that communing with nature gives one a sense of enormous well-being.
This sense of communion lies at, well, the heart of Laurent Charbonnier and Michel Seydoux’s nature documentary Le Chêne(Heart of an Oak), which chronicles 18 months in the life of a Pedunculate oak tree (“born 1810”) and the ecosystem that sustains and takes sustenance from it.
Eschewing narration, the directors and their co-writer Michel Fessler cleverly create a four-season narrative, letting their “cast” tell (chirp, squeak, screech, snort, hiss) the story in their own words (as it were). Your moments of shinrin-yoku are provided courtesy of the elements; an ambient soundtrack of wind rustling through the leaves, distant thunder signaling the sudden approach of a summer squall, the pitter-patter of steady rain on the forest canopy, the dapples of sunlight filtering through the limbs once the clouds pass.
The mood isn’t completely meditative; there are several “predator vs. prey” interludes that should sate any action fan stealing a glance at their watch; particularly one “how in the hell did they film that?” high-speed air chase through the thick of the forest that tracks a Northern Goshawk zeroing in on its target (the sequence almost comically recalls the speeder chase in The Return of the Jedi).
The colorful cast of dozens (all helpfully billed in the end credits) includes wood mice, coypus (your basic Rodent of Unusual Size), badgers, Roe deer, Eurasian jays, barn owls, great spotted woodpeckers, and the ever popular (say it with me) Eurasian blue tit. The “star” is a Eurasian red squirrel that takes a break from its usual ass-over-teakettle squirrel antics to heroically sound the alarm when an Aesculapian snake slithers into the community. The most unlikely scene-stealers are the acorn weevils, who seem impervious to the traumas and psychodramas unfolding around the tree and engage in a protracted mating sequence set to the amorous crooning of Dean Martin.
“Nature documentary” is probably a loose term here, as the film is more of a fantasy (e.g. save for the “natural deaths” of a few weevils, it’s a bloodless affair…and we all know that nature is cruel). But it is a beautifully photographed and completely immersive 80 minutes of pure escapism. And with all the stress and anxieties in today’s world, who couldn’t use a relaxing soak in the forest?
(Available for digital download in the UK August 12th; availability in the U.S. TBA.)
Forest bathers will find ample room to roam in Adirondack Park. Stretching across more than six million acres of New York State and home to more than a hundred peaks and some 2,000 miles of hiking trails, it’s the largest protected area in the contiguous United States. Native evergreens are both aromatic and release a high concentration of phytoncides—airborne essential oils that provide a natural immunity boost. The health benefits of this phytoncide “shower” can last for weeks. Evergreen needles are rich in antioxidants and vitamin C and some—such as spruce, eastern hemlock, balsam, and pine—can be steeped and sipped as a tea.
Indeed, there is much beauty to be found in upstate New York. My late parents owned a lovely piece of property near Esperance. It wasn’t a huge acreage, but they built a modest house on it. The property included a hillside leading up to a patch of forest with a proverbial babbling brook running straight through it. Whenever I visited, I loved sitting by the stream and, well, bathing in the forest for a spell.
The forests of upstate New York’s Hudson Valley provide a bucolic scenic backdrop (and the creative inspiration) for the subjects of Not Not Jazz, a new music documentary profiling “avant-groove” band Medeski, Martin, and Wood. Director Jason Miller delivers an intimate glimpse at the improvisational trio’s process, as they work on an album at the isolated Allaire Studio.
Sort of the Crosby, Stills, & Nash of alt-jazz, keyboardist John Medeski, drummer/percussionist Billy Martin, and bassist Chris Wood originally came together in the early 90s. All three were in-demand players who had worked with downtown NYC stalwarts like John Zorn and John Lurie. In addition to being chops players, they each brought strong improvisational skills to the table; it was one of those cases of something “clicking” from the first time they played onstage together.
Miller weaves in archival performance footage and interviews with the present-day chronicle of the Hudson Valley sessions. In a jazz-like construct, Miller gives each member an extended unplugged “solo” on their respective instruments, uniquely staged in the midst of the forest.
I’ll admit that aside from hearing a cut here and there on alternative radio over the years, I went into this breezy portrait largely unfamiliar with their catalog but came away marveling at how effortlessly these guys create such compelling soundscapes-separately and as a unit (I wouldn’t really consider it “jazz” in a traditional sense…hence the film’s title, I’d reckon!).
With cameras rolling and flashing, the two men sought to repair what had been seen as one of the closest relationships between leaders when they were in office, now that Trump is once again the Republican presidential nominee three months out from a new election.
At their talks, also attended by Sara Netanyahu, Trump declared that he could not understand how Jews could vote for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, referring to remarks she made on Thursday after she met with Netanyahu regarding the suffering of Gazans that Trump called “disrespectful to Israel.”
Trump also charged that the world would see “major wars in the Middle East and maybe a third world war” if he didn’t win the election. As things stand, he further said, “You are closer to a third world war” than ever “because we have incompetent people running our country.”
Netanyahu should be ashamed but, of course, he isn’t.
J.D. Vance’s long correspondence with a transgender friend who attended his wedding has been revealed—including how he spoke about hating cops and disparaged Donald Trump and conservative icon Antonin Scalia.
Sofia Nelson, a Yale Law School contemporary of Trump’s running mate, revealed how they corresponded by text and email for years until falling out over his support for a ban on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors.
The dossier of his emails and texts was revealed by the New York Times Saturday, with Nelson telling the paper the release was to highlight Vance’s shapeshifting from anti-Trump moderate Republican to MAGA culture warrior, accusing him of using his old position to amass money and his new one to amass power.
It is the latest example of a former friend of Vance releasing their correspondence and comes after his Yale roommate revealed the now-running mate once compared Trump to “Hitler.”
Nelson, now a public defender in Detroit, also shed new light on Vance’s wife Usha’s political views with the release, revealing a message from Vance in which he said she had no “ideological chops” and had been offered a Supreme Court clerkship by Democratic appointee Elena Kagan.
Vance’s rapid conversion from anti-Trump to all in-on the former president has been widely reported and the dossier shows him calling then-Republican primary contender Trump “a demagogue” in 2015. But the emails and texts show that he was not just anti-Trump in private: he also voiced views which are almost impossible to reconcile with any Republican orthodoxy.
In October 2014, after the police killing that summer of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old Black man in Ferguson, Missouri, caused widespread protests and violence, Vance wrote to Nelson: “I hate the police. Given the number of negative experiences I’ve had in the past few years, I can’t imagine what a Black guy goes through.”
He backed compensation for Black victims of “redlining,” the practice of withholding financial services from minority areas although he said he stopped short of reparations for African Americans for slavery.
He also attacked the Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia before his death, in an exchange when he told Nelson that Scalia had interviewed Usha Vance about clerkship. Nelson wrote to Vance that Scalia was “homophobic” and Vance replied: “He’s become a very shrill old man. I used to really like him, and I used to believe all of his stuff about judicial minimalism was sincere. Now I see it as a political charade.”
This is what comes of allowing Tucker Carlson, your defective spawn and greed to dictate your choices. Clearly nobody vetted this guy. He’s obviously a total opportunist with serious mental health issues who was once woker than woke and is not putting himself out there as a MAGA wingnut. Who knows what he is?
But sure let this weirdo VP to an ancient president be one step away from the nuclear codes. Sounds like a great idea.
JV Last at the Bulwark explains what all this “single cat ladies” stuff is all about:
Watching the JD Vance / New Right obsession with natalism, I’m struck by how racially coded it is. Because while Vance and his confederates are super-duper concerned about childless people who “have no stake in America’s future” I have also heard many conservatives/Republicans express a great deal of concern about brown people having too many babies.
Unless the life chances of children raised by single mothers suddenly improve, the explosive growth of the U.S. Hispanic population over the next couple of decades does not bode well for American social stability.
The dimensions of the Hispanic baby boom are startling. The Hispanic birthrate is twice as high as that of the rest of the American population. That high fertility rate—even more than unbounded levels of immigration—will fuel the rapid Hispanic population boom in the coming decades.
By 2050, the Latino population will have tripled, the Census Bureau projects. One in four Americans will be Hispanic by midcentury, twice the current ratio.
Pretty obvious what her problem is there, isn’t it?
You may have forgotten, but back in the 1990s, conservatives were worried about African-American women having too many babies, so they pushed for a welfare “family cap” which denied extra benefits for low-income women (translation: African-American women) who had children while on public assistance.
Sometimes the Republican pro-natalists let the mask slip. Last year in Texas Republicans pushed a bill that would give large propertytax credits to households with four or more children.
As Last notes, the law only applies to couples who own their houses which favors whites people. Natch.
So remember: When you hear JD Vance & Co. talk about the importance of having babies because parenthood gives you some sort of special stake in the country, sure, that’s a batshirt idea.
But this batshirt idea isn’t even on the level. They mean something very different. Here’s what they actually mean: They are threatened by the fertility patterns of minorities and view white women who don’t have babies as race-traitors.
All you have to do is look at their great love of Viktor Orban whose natalist policies were explictly designed to boost their white population in the face of what he saw as the threat from immigrants. White women need to make babies, damn it! Get back in the kitchen and the bedroom!
During her rise through America’s most prestigious schools, law firms and judicial clerkships, Usha Vance rarely— if ever — volunteered her opinions on the nation’s bitterly partisan politics to friends and colleagues. But she did express revulsion at former president Donald Trump’s actionson Jan. 6, 2021.
Vance told friends she was outraged by Trump’s incitementofthe deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol and lamented the social breakdown that fueled his political support, according to one friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitiveconversations. Her view at the timecontrasts with the later pronouncements of her husband and Trump’s newly minted running mate, JD Vance, who has downplayed the storming of the Capitoland called participants who were jailed “political prisoners.”
“Usha found the incursion on the Capitol and Trump’s role in it to be deeply disturbing,” the friend recalled. “She was generally appalled by Trump, from the moment of his first election.”Speaking the morning after Usha Vance introduced her husbandat the Republican National Conventionand watched his speech from the same VIP box as Trump, the friend added, “It was surreal to see her sitting next to him last night.”
She didn’t have to do the speech. Melania didn’t. She either did it because she has not core beliefs or because her creepy husband insisted. Either way, it’s not very admirable. She knows what Trump is.
The US economy is on the verge of an extremely rare achievement.
Economic growth in the first half of the year was solid, with the economy expanding a robust 2.8% annualized rate in the second quarter, according to fresh Commerce Department figures released Thursday, which are adjusted for inflation and seasonal swings.
Stocks surged in the morning after the economy’s powerful show of resilience, but later lost steam and closed the day mixed. The Dow rose 81points, or 0.2%, after jumping more than 500 points earlier in the session. The S&P 500 fell 0.5% and the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.9%. That comes after the benchmark index and tech-heavy Nasdaq on Wednesday logged their worst day since 2022.
Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic output, was much stronger in the second quarter than economists had predicted. The GDP report showed that businesses are continuing to invest and that consumers are still opening their wallets. That’s key, because consumer spending is America’s economic engine, accounting for about two-thirds of US economic output.
As the economy continued to expand from April through June, inflation resumed a downward trend and seems to be on track to slowing further toward the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.
America’s economy is about to stick what’s called a “soft landing,” which is when inflation returns to the Fed’s target without a recession — a feat that’s only happened once, during the 1990s, according to some economists.
The latest GDP report showed that a key gauge of consumer demand picked up in the second quarter to an annual rate of 2.9%, matching the rate in the fourth quarter of 2023 for the strongest pace in two years. A measure of business investment also strengthened in the April-through-June period.
The current health of the American economy shows that the Fed, with Jerome Powell at the helm as chair, has successfully handled inflation so far, with the finish line coming into clear view. The Fed beginning to cut interest rates indicates that central bank officials feel confident that inflation is under control just enough.
The economy’s enduring strength is also a boon for the Biden administration. Despite the Fed aggressively raising interest rates to tamp down inflation, which have been perched at a 23-year high since last July, the economy has so far avoided a recession. Last year, the resilience of the US consumer shocked economists who widely expected an economic downturn to ensue.
“Today’s GDP report makes clear we now have the strongest economy in the world,” President Joe Biden said in a statement Thursday. “The Vice President and I will keep fighting for America’s future — a future of promise and possibilities, of ordinary Americans doing extraordinary things.”
Naturally, the article goes on to note that the “vibe”is still bad but… well, anyway.
This is astonishing. I would never have believed that we could have such a strong economy and nobody would give a damn. So much for economic determinism …
“FWIW I think this is gibberish, rather than a vow to end democracy. But the fact that I’m not sure speaks volumes,” tweeted media critic Dan Froomkin Friday night.
Donald Trump told the Turning Point USA Believers Summit on Friday that if only they would vote for him this time they would never have to vote again. He’d see to it, Trump promised. “We’ll have it fixed so good your not gonna have to vote.”
Trump: “Get out and vote just this time. You won't have to do it anymore. Four more years it will be fixed. It'll be fine. You won't have to vote anymore…In four years you don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good your not gonna have to vote.” pic.twitter.com/Ig91KpOeCl
— Republican Voters Against Trump (@AccountableGOP) July 27, 2024
Even if there are still elections, there will be no point to voting. That’s how his dictator buddies do it. They will be “fixed” for good after he’s implemented Project 2025.
How many times must normal Americans hear Trump and his MAGA cult make their intentions plain before taking them seriously?
It’s bad enough that there is an informal Caste system in this unperfected land with “created equal” in its charter. Republicans have long sought to restructure the United States as government by hereditary royalty and landed gentry, the kind Americans shed blood to cast off in the Revolutionary War. But even that oh-so British model is too genteel for a MAGA Republican Party aroused by strongman Vladimir Putin’s Russian autocracy.
And. They. Vote. I’m not saying they shouldn’t. It’s their right in a country in which the consent of the governed matters. It’s just that if more of them vote than those of us committed to preserving our freedoms, it won’t.
‘The endgame of election denial is that we shouldn’t have elections’: Authoritarianism expertReaderAR pointed this out, so I went to C-Span to check the closed captioning. Welp, that IS what the closed captioining captured.
The first week of Harris for President has been, as they say, lit.
“DAMN. This is how you slam Donald Trump,” tweeted Victor Shi, a Gen Z phenom from the Harris Youth Engagement Team. Shi boosted a campaign statement on Trump’s remarks to Turning Point USA Believers Summit on Friday in West Palm Beach, Florida.
“Tonight, Donald Trump couldn’t pronounce words, insulted the faith of Jewish and Catholic Americans, lied about the election (again), lied about other stuff, bragged about repealing Roe, proposed cutting billions in education funding, announced he would appoint more extremist judges, revealed he planned to fill a second Trump term with more criminals like himself, attacked lawful voting, went on and on and on, and generally sounded like someone you wouldn’t want to sit near at a restaurant — let alone be President of the United States,” said James Singer.
“Someone you wouldn’t want to sit near at a restaurant” is evocative in a way seldom seen in Democratic statements. “Criminals like himself” too. The gloves are off.
Shi had more:
Earlier this week, they announced that they saw a 700% increase in voter registration, higher than when Taylor Swift urged her Instagram register to vote. Can't underestimate how big of a deal this is & how young people are fired up more than ever before. This is just incredible.
As lit as the Harris team is, the Trump campaign is creepy and weird. A J.D. Vance-inspired meme as taken off as well. Senators Chris Murphy (CT) and Brian Schatz (HI) picked up that fumble and ran with it, spotlighting a “super weird” 2021 statement from Vance about Americans who have babies getting more votes.
Is there an embarrassing photo of Vance in weird, white boots?
No representation without procreation!
The ReidOut blog noticed this Vance-ism on Thursday:
The clip is from a 2021 speech that Vance gave to a conservative organization called the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. At one point, Vance offered up an unusual idea about voting:
Let’s give votes to all children in this country, but let’s give control over those votes to the parents of those children. When you go to the polls in this country as a parent, you should have more power — you should have more of an ability to speak your voice in our democratic republic — than people who don’t have kids. Let’s face the consequences and the reality: If you don’t have as much of an investment in the future of this country, maybe you shouldn’t get nearly the same voice.
The reason I said there’s more to the story than Vance’s disdain for childless people is this proposal also epitomizes the Republican Party’s growing embrace of openly antidemocratic policies.
“No representation without procreation!” snarked X user Abracadabrian.
In 2011, as Republicans systematically gerrymandered U.S. districts to concentrate their power and promoted voter suppression legislation aimed depressing the votes of youth and minorities, The Guardian noted this idea’s origins:
Szájer said he was inspired by the work of the American demographer Paul Demeny, who developed the concept in 1986. Under Demeny Voting, each parent is given half a vote for each child, permitting a split vote in the event that the parents have differing political loyalties.
However, to counter concerns about the Roma winning more votes, Szájer said in the Hungarian case, the move would have “permitted the passage of a law giving mothers the vote on behalf of a maximum of one child”.
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others,” wrote George Orwell in 1945 in satirizing Stalin’s Russia. Can’t have undesirables sharing power on an equal footing with white Europeans now, can we?
Better yet, Trump suggested last night that voting itself will go away if he gets one more chance in the White House: “Four more years it will be fixed. It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore.”
Trump: “Get out and vote just this time. You won't have to do it anymore. Four more years it will be fixed. It'll be fine. You won't have to vote anymore…In four years you don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good your not gonna have to vote.” pic.twitter.com/Ig91KpOeCl
— Republican Voters Against Trump (@AccountableGOP) July 27, 2024
MAGA is not flying American flags upside down as a sign of distress. They are flying them to promote their plans for turning the very idea of America on its head.
Don’t sit back and let that happen to you. Don’t let them take your freedoms. Get busy. Harris has knocked Trump back on his heels. Don’t let him recover. Register. Vote Volunteer.
And meme the hell out of them.
BREAKING: Watch the exact moment Fox News reveals to their audience that Vice President Kamala Harris has completely eliminated Donald Trump’s lead in the polls. This has the Trump campaign in pure panic. Retweet so all Americans see this. pic.twitter.com/ctUVQQdw5j
