The Associated Press had already called the presidential race for Barack Obama that night in November 2008. One state they had not called was mine. After the celebration at our watch party subsided, the TV still showed Sen. John McCain up by 3,000 votes in North Carolina. There was only one county of the handful left to report with any quantity of votes in it. Again, mine.
Where was Buncombe?
A friend, a precinct election judge, pushed through the crowd and slid up on my right. He’d just arrived from the Board of Elections office where they’d had a data upload glitch. He shoved a sheaf of printouts into my hand. The tally read 17,000 net votes for Obama. North Carolina just went blue.
That’s a feeling we haven’t revisited since then. Maybe this year.
President Biden’s campaign declared in its earliest days that he had a strong chance of winning North Carolina, even though no Democrat had captured the state since Barack Obama’s victory in 2008.
Now the party has a brand-new candidate in Vice President Kamala Harris and with her, an energized voting base and reshuffled political map. As she visits North Carolina on Friday to lay out her economic agenda, Democrats there are feeling hopeful again about delivering her a state where success has eluded them for 16 years — and where it is unclear if energy will be enough.
The news has omitted N.C. from the list of swing states for months, but Kamala Harris has not ignored it. She’s visited over a half dozen times just this year. She visited again on Friday to roll out her economic vision. Harris has a long history of working with Gov. Roy Cooper. Democrats’ Gen Z state chair, Anderson Clayton, 26, worked rural Iowa for Harris in 2019 before Harris withdrew from the primary. They’ve … met.
There is a definite 2008 vibe in the air here.
Mr. Cooper, a two-term governor who was a contender to serve as Ms. Harris’s running mate, said in an interview that he had not “felt this much excitement” since Mr. Obama’s first White House run, particularly among young people.
“People were concerned about the age of both President Biden and Donald Trump, and now that issue is off the table for Vice President Harris and more squarely on the shoulders of Donald Trump,” said Mr. Cooper, before comparing the race to a basketball game: “We were 12 points behind, and now we’ve made a fast, strong run, and we’ve tied the score.”
Interviews with nearly a dozen other North Carolina leaders and strategists showed that he is far from alone. They pointed to a wave of new volunteers, increased spending on the airwaves and tightening poll numbers across the battlegrounds.
Polls since Harris’s ascendance show N.C. is in play. The Cook Political Report on Wednesday found Harris in a statistical tie with Trump.
Republicans cited by the Times suggest Harris has a steep hill to climb with independent voters in the state (38%). They’re not wrong. Statewide, independents vote against Democrats by about 58%. But they vote less, 6.5 percent less. Should Democrats turn out more left-leaning independents this year in hundreds of blue, city precincts, they could shave Republicans’ advantage.
Plus the state’s governor’s race is the most closely watched ion the nation:
Josh Stein, the state’s Democratic attorney general, is running against Mark Robinson, the state’s Republican lieutenant governor. Democrats have aimed to connect Mr. Robinson, who has a history of offensive and incendiary remarks, to Mr. Trump.
Dan Kanninen, the battleground states director for the Harris campaign, said the views of candidates like Mr. Robinson would energize Democrats and alienate suburban voters, independents and moderate Republicans up and down the ticket.
A recent poll by Carolina Forward shows Stein up by a full 10 points. Harris could benefit from Stein’s coattails.
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Veteran campaign operative Thomas Mills cautions against trusting polls, but watches trends. He believes Mark “some people need killing” Robinson’s campaign is collapsing. Ads attacking him use his own words:
He tells voters, on video and in writing, that he’s extreme, that he’s divisive, that he lacks respect for certain people he’s supposed to represent, and that he lacks the temperament to serve as governor. I suspect he’ll join the list of Republicans too extreme to win competitive races, people like Christine “I am not a witch” O’Donnell and Todd “legitimate rape” Akins whose own words sank their campaigns.
May Trump be so lucky.
It’s MAGA weirdness all the way down ballot here. Rep. Dan Bishop, the Republican running for attorney general sponsored North Carolina’s infamous “bathroom bill.” Michele Morrow, the GOP’s home-schooling candidate for superintendent of public instruction, attended Trump’s Jan. 6 Stop the Steal rally. She called for the mass arrest “of anyone who helped certify the 2020 election.” And if the police and the Department of Justice refused, Trump should invoke the Insurrection Act which, Morrow said, ”completely puts the Constitution to the side and says, now the military rules all.”
As far as their love for the Constitution goes, these candidates have adopted an abusive spouse’s definition. Whether they are gifts that keep on giving we’ll know on November 5.
Not that you necessarily asked me for it, but since we’re nearly a quarter of the way through the 2000s, I thought I might offer up my picks for (tympani roll, please) the Top 25 films of the 21st Century (so far). So here for your consideration, edification, or (most likely reaction) eternal damnation, is my list, subjective as hell (you might want to bookmark this one for movie night ideas). As per usual, they are presented in alphabetical order, not by preference.
Amelie -I know this one has its haters (?!), but Jean-Pierre Juenet’s beautifully realized film stole this reviewer’s heart. Audrey Tautou lights up the screen as a gregarious loner who decides to become a guardian angel (and benign devil) and commit random, anonymous acts of kindness. The plight of Amelie’s “people in need” is suspiciously similar to her own-those who need that little push to come out of self-imposed exiles and revel in life’s simple pleasures. Of course, our heroine is really in search of her own happiness and fulfillment. Does she find it? You’ll have to see for yourself. Whimsical, original, humanistic and life-affirming, Amelie will melt the most cynical of hearts.
American Splendor– From the streets of Cleveland! Paul Giamatti was born to play underground comic writer Harvey Pekar, the misanthropic file clerk/armchair philosopher who became a cult figure through his collaborations with legendary illustrator R. Crumb. Co-directors Shari Berman and Robert Pulcini keep their biopic fresh and engaging via some unusual choices, like breaking down the fourth wall by having the real Pekar interacting with Giamatti in several scenes; it’s quite effective. Hope Davis is excellent as Pekar’s deadpan wife. Thoroughly engaging and unexpectedly moving.
Another Earth – Writer-director Mike Cahill’s auspicious 2011 narrative feature debut concerns an M.I.T.-bound young woman (co-scripter Brit Marling) who makes a fateful decision to get behind the wheel after a few belts. The resultant tragedy kills two people, and leaves the life of the survivor, a music composer (William Mapother) in shambles. After serving prison time, the guilt-wracked young woman, determined to do penance, ingratiates herself into the widower’s life (he doesn’t realize who she is). Complications ensue.
Another Earth is a “sci-fi” film mostly in the academic sense; don’t expect to see CGI aliens in 3-D. Orbiting somewhere in proximity of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris, its concerns are more metaphysical than astrophysical. And not unlike a Tarkovsky film, it demands your full and undivided attention.
Black KkKlansman – So what do you get if you cross Cyrano de Bergerac with Blazing Saddles? You might get Spike Lee’s Black KkKlansman. That is not to say that Lee’s film is a knee-slapping comedy; far from it. Lee takes the true story of Ron Stallworth (John David Washington), an African-American undercover cop who managed to infiltrate the KKK in Colorado in the early 70s and runs with it, in his inimitable fashion.
I think this is Lee’s most affecting and hard-hitting film since Do the Right Thing (1989). The screenplay (adapted by Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott and Lee from Stallworth’s eponymous memoir) is equal parts biopic, docudrama, police procedural and social commentary, finding a nice balance of drama, humor and suspense. (Full review)
Blade Runner: 2049– So many films passing themselves off as “sci-fi” these days are needlessly loud and jarringly flash-cut. Not this one. Which is to say that Blade Runner 2049 is leisurely paced. The story is not as deep or complex as the film makers want you to think. The narrative is essentially a 90-minute script (by original Blade Runner co-screenwriter Hampton Fancher and Michael Green), stretched to a 164-minute run time.
So why is it on my top 25 list? Well, for one thing, the “language” of film being two-fold (aural and visual), the visual language of Blade Runner 2049 is mesmerizing and immersive. I imagine the most burning question you have about Denis Villeneuve’s film is: “Are the ‘big’ questions that were left dangling at the end of Ridley Scott’s 1982 original answered?” Don’t ask me. I just do eyes. You may not find the answers you seek, but you may find yourself still thinking about this film long after the credits roll. (Full review)
The Brotherhood of the Wolf – If I told you one of the best martial arts films of the 2000s features an 18th-century French libertine/naturalist/philosopher and his enigmatic “blood-brother” (an Iroquois mystic played by future Iron Chef Mark Dacasos) who are on the prowl for a supernaturally huge, man-eating lupine creature terrorizing the countryside-would you avoid eye contact and scurry to the other side of the street?
Christophe Gans’ film defies category; Dangerous Liaisons meets Captain Kronos-Vampire Hunter by way of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is the best I can do. Artfully photographed, handsomely mounted and surprising at every turn.
Certified Copy – Just when you’re being lulled into thinking this is going to be one of those brainy, talky, yet pleasantly diverting romantic romps where you and your date can amuse yourselves by placing bets on “will they or won’t they-that is, if they can both shut up long enough to get down to business before the credits roll” propositions, Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami throws you a curve-ball.
Then again, maybe this film isn’t so much about “thinking”, as it is about “perceiving”. Because if it’s true that a “film” is merely (if I may quote Orson Welles) “a ribbon of dreams”-then Certified Copy, like any true work of art, is simply what you perceive it to be-nothing more, nothing less. Even if it leaves you scratching your head, you get to revel in the luminosity of Juliette Binoche’s amazing performance; there’s pure poetry in every glance, every gesture. (Full review)
Computer Chess – The most original sci-fi film of 2013 proved you don’t need a $300 million budget and 3-D technology to blow people’s minds. For his retro 80s-style mockumentary, Andrew Bujalski finds verisimilitude via a vintage B&W video camera (which makes it seem as if you’re watching events unfold on a slightly fuzzy closed-circuit TV), and “documents” a tournament where nerdy computer chess programmers from all over North America assemble once a year to match algorithmic prowess. Not unlike a Christopher Guest satire, Bujalski throws idiosyncratic characters into a jar, and then steps back to watch. Just when you think you’ve got the film sussed as a gentle satirical jab at computer geek culture, things get weird…then weirder. Dig that final shot! (Full review)
Driveways – There is beauty in simplicity. Korean American director Andrew Ahn and writers Hannah Bo and Paul Thureen fashion a beautiful, elegantly constructed drama from a simple setup.
A single Korean American mom (Hong Chau) and her 8-year old son (Lucas Jaye) move into her deceased sister’s house. She discovers her estranged sis was a classic hoarder and it appears they will be there longer than she anticipated. In the interim, her shy son strikes up a friendship with a neighbor (Brian Dennehy), a kindly widower and Korean War vet.
I know…it sounds like “a show about nothing”, but it’s about everything-from racism to ageism and beyond. Humanistic and insightful. Wonderful performances by all, but the perennially underrated Dennehy is a standout.
The Fellowship of the Ring – Taken as a whole, Peter Jackson’s sprawling 3-part adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s revered Lord of the Rings trilogy is not without its flaws (and fanboy-lamented abridgements and revisions), but he damn near gets it all pitch-perfect in the first installment. Even though it is only the beginning of the epic tale, the first book has always been always my favorite. I think it’s because it sparks that joy of first discovering Tolkien’s wondrous fantasy world, and Jackson’s film does it proud. The two sequels (The Two Towers and The Return of the King) tend to go more over the top, but this film maintains a perfect blend of character, heart, and rousing heroics; not to mention an immersive sense of a mythic time and place.
The Grand Budapest Hotel – In the interest of upholding my credo to be forthright with my readers (all three of you), I will confess that, with the exception of his engaging 1996 directing debut, Bottle Rocket, and the fitfully amusing Rushmore, I have been somewhat immune to the charms of Wes Anderson.
I now have a second confession to make. I loved The Grand Budapest Hotel. The film is not dissimilar to his previous work; in that it is akin to a live action cartoon, drenched in whimsy, expressed in bold primary colors, populated by quirky characters (who would never exist outside of the strange Andersonian universe they live in) caught up in a quirky narrative with quirky twists and turns (I believe the operative word here, is “quirky”). So why did I like it? I cannot really say. My conundrum (if I may paraphrase one of my favorite lines from The Producers) would be this: “Where did he go so right?” (Full review)
The Irishman – If I didn’t know better, I’d wager Martin Scorsese’s epic crime drama was partially intended to be a black comedy. That’s because I thought a lot of it was so funny. “Funny” how? It’s funny, y’know, the …the story. OK, the story isn’t “ha-ha” funny; there’s all these mob guys, and there’s a lot of stealing and extorting and shooting and garroting. It’s just, y’know, it’s … the way Scorsese tells the story and everything.
I know this sounds weird, but there’s something oddly reassuring about tucking into a Scorsese film that features some of the most seasoned veterans of his “mob movie repertory” like Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel; akin to putting on your most well-worn pair of comfy slippers. And with the addition of Al Pacino …fuhgeddaboudit! (Full review)
Love and Mercy – Paul Dano’s Oscar-worthy performance as the 1960s era Brian Wilson is a revelation, capturing the duality of a troubled genius/sweet man-child to a tee. If this were a conventional biopic, this would be “good enough” as is. But director Bill Pohlad (and screenwriters Oren Moverman and Michael A. Lerner) make this one go to “11”, by interpolating Brian’s peak period with his bleak period…the Dr. Eugene Landy years (early 80s through the early 90s). This “version” of Brian is played by John Cusack, who has rarely been better; this is a real comeback performance for him. There are no bad performances in this film, down to the smallest parts. I usually try to avoid hyperbole, but I’ll say it: This is one of the best rock ’n’ roll biopics I’ve seen in years. (Full review)
The Man on the Train – There are a handful of films I have become emotionally attached to, usually for reasons I can’t completely fathom. This 2002 drama is one of them.
Best described as an “existential noir”, Patrice LeConte’s relatively simple tale of two men in their twilight years with disparate life paths (a retired poetry teacher and a career felon) forming an unexpected deep bond turns into a transcendent film experience. French pop star Johnny Hallyday and screen veteran Jean Rochefort deliver mesmerizing performances. There was a 2011 remake…but frankly, I don’t see the point, because this is a perfect film.
Man on Wire– Late in the summer of 1974, a diminutive Frenchman named Philippe Petit took a casual morning stroll across a ¾” steel cable, stretched between the two towers of the then-unfinished World Trade Center. On the surface, this may appear to be a straightforward documentary about this eccentric high wire artist who was either incredibly brave, or incredibly stupid. In actuality, it is one of the best suspense/heist movies of the decade, although no guns are drawn and nothing gets stolen. It is also very romantic, although it is not a traditional love story. Like Petit’s sky-high walk itself, James Marsh’s film is ultimately an act of pure aesthetic grace, and deeply profound. (Full review)
The Mayor of the Sunset Strip– This amazing rockumentary, an alternately exhilarating and melancholy portrait of L.A. music scene fixture Rodney Bingenheimer was directed by George Hickenlooper (Factory Girl). The diminutive, skittish and soft-spoken Rodney comes off like Andy Warhol’s west coast doppelganger. Although the film is ostensibly “about” Rodney, it is ultimately a whirlwind time trip through rock music’s evolution, filtered through a coked-out L.A. haze and informed by its subject’s Zelig-like propensity to have been photographed with seemingly everybody who was ever anybody in the business. So is he a true “rock impresario”, or just a glorified Rupert Pupkin? You decide.
Memories of Murder – Buoyed by its artful production and knockout performances, this visceral and ultimately haunting 2003 police procedural from director Joon-ho Bong (Parasite) really gets under your skin. Based on the true story of South Korea’s first known serial killer, it follows a pair of rural homicide investigators as they search for a prime suspect.
Initially, they seem bent on instilling more fear into the local citizenry than the lurking killer, as they proceed to violate every civil liberty known to man. Soon, however, the team’s dynamic is tempered by the addition of a more cool-headed detective from Seoul, who takes the profiler approach. The film doubles as a fascinating glimpse into modern South Korean society and culture.
Midnight in Paris – For this 2011 romantic fantasy, writer-director Woody Allen continued his European travelogue that began in England (Match Point, Scoop, Cassandra’s Dream), trekked to Spain (VickyCristina Barcelona) then after a respite in his home turf of N.Y.C. (Whatever Works) headed back to the U.K. (You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger) before settling in the City of Light.
Allen re-examines many of his signature themes-particularly regarding the mysteries of attraction and the flightiness of the Muse. He also offers keen insights about those who romanticize the past. Do we really believe in our hearts that everything was better “then”? Isn’t getting lost in nostalgia just another way to shirk responsibility for dealing with the present? Bolstered by a wonderful cast, Midnight in Paris is romantic, intelligent, perceptive, magical, and yes…very funny. (Full review)
Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always – Writer-director Eliza Hittman’s timely drama centers on 17-year old Autumn (Sidney Flanigan) , a young woman in a quandary over an unwanted pregnancy who has only one real confidant; her cousin, BFF and schoolmate Skylar (Talia Ryder). They both work part-time as grocery clerks in rural Pennsylvania (a state where the parent of a minor must consent before an abortion is provided). After a decidedly unhelpful visit to her local “crisis pregnancy center” and a harrowing failed attempt to self-induce an abortion, Autumn and Skylar scrape together funds and hop a bus to New York City.
Hittman really gets inside the heads of her two main characters; helped immensely by wonderful, naturalistic performances from Flanigan and Ryder. Hittman has made a film that is quietly observant, compassionate, and non-judgmental. She does not proselytize one way or the other about the ever-thorny right-to-life debate. This is not an allegory in the vein of The Handmaid’s Tale, because it doesn’t have to be; it is a straightforward and realistic story of one young woman’s personal journey. The reason it works so well on a personal level is because of its universality; it could easily be any young woman’s story in the here and now.(Full review)
No Country For Old Men – The bodies pile up faster than you can say Blood Simple in Joel and Ethan Coen’s masterfully constructed 2007 neo-noir (which earned them a shared Best Director trophy). The brothers’ Oscar-winning screenplay (adapted from the Cormac McCarthy novel) is rich in characterization and thankfully devoid of the self-conscious quirkiness that has left some of their latter-day films teetering on self-parody.
The story is set among the sagebrush and desert heat of the Tex-Mex border, where the deer and the antelope play. One day, good ol’ boy Llewelyn (Josh Brolin) is shootin’ at some food (the playful antelope) when he encounters a grievously wounded pit bull. The blood trail leads to discovery of the aftermath of a shootout. As this is Coen country…that twisty trail does lead to a twisty tale.
Tommy Lee Jones gives a wonderful low-key performance as an old-school, Gary Cooper-ish lawman who (you guessed it) comes from a long line of lawmen. Jones’ face is a craggy, world-weary road map of someone who has reluctantly borne witness to every inhumanity man is capable of, and is counting down the days to imminent retirement (‘cos it’s becoming no country for old men…).
The cast is outstanding. Javier Bardem picked up a Best Supporting Actor statue for his turn as a psychotic hit man. His performance is understated, yet menacing, made all the more unsettling by his Peter Tork haircut. Kelly McDonald and Woody Harrelson are standouts as well. Curiously, Roger Deakins wasn’t nominated for his cinematography, but his work on this film ranks among his best. (Full review)
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – “Surely (you’re thinking), a film involving the Manson Family and directed by Quentin Tarantino must feature a cathartic orgy of blood and viscera…amirite?” Sir or madam, all I can tell you is that I am unaware of any such activity or operation… nor would I be disposed to discuss such an operation if it did in fact exist, sir or madam.
What I am prepared to share is this: Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt have rarely been better, Margot Robbie is radiant and angelic as Sharon Tate, and 9-year-old moppet Julia Butters nearly steals the film. Los Angeles gives a fabulous and convincing performance as 1969 Los Angeles. Oh, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is now my favorite “grown-up” Quentin Tarantino film (after Jackie Brown). (Full review)
Skyfall – Assembled with great intelligence and verve by American Beauty director Sam Mendes, this tough, spare and relatively gadget-free 2012 Bond caper harkens back to the gritty, straightforward approach of FromRussia with Love (the best of the early films).
That being said, Mendes hasn’t forgotten his obligation to fulfill the franchise’s tradition of delivering a slam-bang, pull out all the stops opening sequence, which I daresay outdoes all previous. Interestingly, the film’s narrative owes more to Howard Hawks than it does to Ian Fleming; I gleaned a healthy infusion of Rio Bravo in Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan’s screenplay.
Star Daniel Craig finally settled comfortably into the character with this entry; his Bond feels a little more “lived in” than in the previous installments, where he was a little stiff and unsure about where he should be at times.
This is one of the most beautifully photographed Bond films in recent memory, thanks to DP Roger Deakins (one particularly memorable fight scene, staged in a darkened high rise suite and silhouetted against the backdrop of Shanghai’s myriad neon lights, approaches high art). Bond geeks will be pleased; and anyone up for pure popcorn escapism will not be disappointed. Any way you look at it, this is a terrific entertainment. (Full review)
Samsara – Whether you see Ron Fricke’s film as a deep treatise on the cyclic nature of the Omniverse, or merely as an assemblage of pretty pictures, doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. The man who gave us the similar cinematic tone poems Chronos and Baraka drops a clue early on in his latest film, as we observe a group of Buddhist monks painstakingly creating a sand mandala (it must take days).
At the very end of the film, we revisit the artists, who now sit in silent contemplation of their lovely creation. This (literal) Moment of Zen turns out to be the preface to the monks’ next project-the ritualistic de-construction of the painting (which I assume must take an equal amount of time). Yes, it is a very simple metaphor for the transitory nature of beauty, life, the universe and everything. But, as they say, there’s beauty in simplicity. (Full review)
Spirited Away-Innovative Japanese anime master Hayao Miyazaki has made a lot of great films, but this 2001 stunner may well be his crowning achievement. A young girl and her parents inadvertently stumble into a resort spa reserved exclusively for traditional Japanese deities and other assorted denizens of the spirit world. Needless to say, this “security breach” throws the phantasmagorical residents into quite a tizzy; Mom and Dad are turned into barnyard animals and their daughter has to rely on her wits and previously untapped inner strength to save them. Visually stunning and imaginative beyond description, it also tells a beautiful story-funny, touching, exciting and empowering.
There Will Be Blood– What you see in the dialog-free prologue of Paul Thomas Andersons’ gripping epic may not be as seminal as Kubrick’s “dawn of man” sequence in 2001, but it does put the focus on something just as primordial. It is something that is buried deep within the capitalist DNA-the relentless drive to amass wealth and power through willful exploitation and opportunism. And this very American “ideal” (love it or loathe it) has never been so perfectly embodied as it is in Daniel Day Lewis’ magnificent performance as self-made oil man Daniel Plainview. In his worldview, you are either with him, or you are his “competitor”. And trust me-he WILL “…drink your milkshake”. (Full review)
I wrote below about the militias that are working up a froth over the possibility of Trump losing yet again. It’s pretty unnerving. But we should also be unnerved by what will happen if Trump wins, especially if his “win” is due to the courts validating some right wing scheme to invalidate the election results in his favor resulting in widespread protests. The NY Times reports (gift link):
During his time out of power, allies of Mr. Trump have worked on policy papers to provide legal justifications for the former president’s intent to use the military to enforce the law domestically. In public, they have talked about this in the context of border states and undocumented immigrants. But an internal email from a group closely aligned with Mr. Trump, obtained by The Times, shows that, privately, the group was also exploring using troops to “stop riots” by protesters.
While governors have latitude to use their states’ National Guards to respond to civil disorder or major disasters, a post-Civil War law called the Posse Comitatus Act generally makes it a crime to use regular federal troops for domestic policing purposes. However, an 1807 law called the Insurrection Act creates an exception to that ban. It grants presidents the emergency power to use federal troops on domestic soil to restore law and order when they believe a situation warrants it. Those federal troops could either be regular active-duty military or state National Guard soldiers the federal government has assumed control over.
The Insurrection Act was last invoked in 1992, when President George H.W. Bush sent troops to help suppress riots in Los Angeles following the acquittal of white police officers who had been videotaped beating a Black motorist, Rodney King. In that case, however, the governor of California, Pete Wilson, and the mayor of Los Angeles, Tom Bradley, had asked for federal assistance to restore order.
But partsof the Insurrection Act also allow presidents to send in troops without requiring the consent of a governor. Presidents last invoked the act to deploy troops without the consent of state authorities in the late 1950s and early 1960s during the civil rights movement, when some governors in the South resisted court-ordered school desegregation.
Mr. Trump has boasted that, if he returns to the White House, he will dispatch forces without any request for intervention by local authorities. At a campaign rally in Iowa last year, for example, he vowed to unilaterally use federal forces to “get crime out of our cities,” specifically naming New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco as “crime dens” he pointedly noted were run by Democrats.
“You look at what is happening to our country — we cannot let it happen any longer,” Mr. Trump said. “And one of the other things I’ll do — because you are not supposed to be involved in that, you just have to be asked by the governor or the mayor to come in — the next time, I am not waiting.”
This is not some Project 2025 wingnut wet dream. This is Trump all the way. He is dying to declare war on his political opponents and I mean that literally. He wants to use the military to deport millions of immigrants and he wants to use it against American citizens who refuse to bow down. This is fundamental. He will outsource most policies to his henchmen like Styephen Miller and Russell Vought. This is one he personally cares about.
If you have time to read any long form piece this weekend, read this one from Pro Publica about the militia movement. They have been following one large national militia group that has avoided scrutiny up until now called APIII (American Patriots Three Percent) for several years and it’s enough to make the hair on your neck stand up. Perhaps the biggest threat comes from the fact that they have indoctrinated many members of law enforcement:
AP3 has expanded at a dramatic pace since Jan. 6, while keeping much of its activity out of view. This rise is documented in more than 100,000 internal messages obtained by ProPublica, spanning the run-up to Jan. 6 through early 2024. Along with extensive interviews with 22 current and former members of AP3, the records provide a uniquely detailed inside view of the militia movement at a crucial moment.
The messages reveal how AP3 leaders have forged alliances with law enforcement around the country and show the ways in which, despite an initial crackdown by social media, they have attracted a new wave of recruits. A change in the political climate has also helped: In a matter of months after Jan. 6, rioters went from pariahs to heroes in the rhetoric of prominent Republican politicians. By the summer of 2021, people were enlisting in AP3, saying that Jan. 6 inspired them to join.
A portrait emerges of a group alternating between focused action and self-destructive chaos and facing a schism over whether political engagement can still address our nation’s problems — or whether violence is the only option. It can be hard to discern the line between bluster and imminent threat in the messages, a perennial struggle for FBI agents who monitor paramilitary groups. But some senior AP3 members grew so alarmed that they quit, scared by the number of people, even high-level leaders, advocating acts of terror.
As I said, read the whole thing if you have the time. I wonder if the Trump cult will rise up en masse if he loses again. But these guys are another matter entirely. They worship Tim McVeigh. ‘Nuf said.
He added later that he “ran for president one time and won!”
I’m not sure why anyone ever thought Trump’s puerile nicknames were so clever to begin with but to the extent he has a real “nickname” talent, he’s certainly lost it now:
The former president, who rarely mentioned Harris until after President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance, tried out “Laffin’ Kamala” before pivoting to “Lyin’ Kamala,” then jettisoned that for “Crazy Kamala,” which he interspersed with misspellings of her name.
In the last few days, he has abandoned those monikers — even as he continues to use nicknames for other adversaries.
Demeaning nicknames have been core to Trump’s political brand since he first jumped into the political scene, a tool he has leveraged against both Republicans and Democrats to humiliate his opponents and rile up his supporters. But he’s struggled to adjust to run against Harris, even as he has leaned into personal attacks.
He’s been repurposing his insults from the very beginning. He re-used “crooked”, “lyin'” “li’l” and “crazy” several times and added some truly bizarre ones like “Coco” and “Peekaboo” which only left people scratching their heads. He apparently doesn’t know what a thesaurus is so he’s just stuck with a handful of words that he can’t seem to fit with “Kamala.”
This shouldn’t be surprising. He has the vocabulary of a 4th grader. I’m not kidding:
President Donald Trump—who boasted over the weekend that his success in life was a result of “being, like, really smart”—communicates at the lowest grade level of the last 15 presidents, according to a new analysis of the speech patterns of presidents going back to Herbert Hoover.
The analysis assessed the first 30,000 words each president spoke in office, and ranked them on the Flesch-Kincaid grade level scale and more than two dozen other common tests analyzing English-language difficulty levels. Trump clocked in around mid-fourth grade, the worst since Harry Truman, who spoke at nearly a sixth-grade level.
At the top of the list were Hoover and Jimmy Carter, who were basically at an 11th-grade level, and President Barack Obama, in third place with a high ninth-grade level of communicating with the American people.
The Flesch-Kincaid scale was developed in 1975 for the U.S. Navy to assess the relative difficulty of training manuals. A database of Trump’s words, compiled by the incomparable factba.se, ran the comparative analysis yesterday, in response to the president’s claim that he is “a genius.”
Factba.se has collected interviews, speeches and press conferences from previous presidents, using material publicly available from presidential libraries, and including the University of California, Santa Barbara’s American Presidency Project, which contains presidential press conferences going back to Hoover in 1929.
The website excluded communiques issued by the last two presidents on social media and limited the study to unscripted words uttered at press conferences and other public appearances.
The words were run through a variety of lexicological analyses, besides the Flesch-Kincaid, and the results were the same. In every one, Trump came in dead last. Trump also uses the fewest “unique words” (2,605) of any president—Obama was the best at 4,869—and uses words with the fewest average syllables, with 1.33 per word, compared to positively multi-syllabic president Hoover at 1.57.
“By every metric and methodology tested, Donald Trump’s vocabulary and grammatical structure is significantly more simple, and less diverse, than any President since Herbert Hoover, when measuring “off-script” words, that is, words far less likely to have been written in advance for the speaker,” Factba.se CEO Bill Frischling wrote. “The gap between Trump and the next closest president … is larger than any other gap using Flesch-Kincaid. Statistically speaking, there is a significant gap.”
Remember:
Trump’s National Economic Council chief Gary Cohn allegedly wrote in an email that the White House was in chaos. “It’s worse than you can imagine. An idiot surrounded by clowns,” Cohn wrote. “Trump won’t read anything—not one-page memos, not the brief policy papers; nothing. He gets up halfway through meetings with world leaders because he is bored. And his staff is no better.”
Vice President Kamala Harris has stormed into contention in the fast-growing and diverse states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina, not long after Donald J. Trump had seemed on the verge of runningaway with those states when President Biden was still the Democratic nominee.
Ms. Harris is now leading Mr. Trump among likely voters in Arizona, 50 percent to 45 percent, and has even edged ahead of Mr. Trump in North Carolina — a state Mr. Trump won four years ago — while narrowing his lead significantly in Georgia and Nevada.
[…]
That marks a significant improvement for Democrats compared with May, when Mr. Trump led Mr. Biden 50 percent to 41 percent across Arizona, Georgia and Nevada in the previous set of Times/Siena Sun Belt polls, which did not include North Carolina. The new polls provide more evidence that Ms. Harris is successfully consolidating parts of the Democratic base that had been waffling over supporting Mr. Biden for months, particularly younger, nonwhite and female voters.
Last week, Times/Siena polling showed that Ms. Harris had pulled ahead of Mr. Trump by a narrow margin in the three northern battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Those states are generally considered the linchpin of any Democratic path to the White House. The Sun Belt represents an essential set of states for Mr. Trump while offering a potential second route for Ms. Harris to the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win.
In the new surveys, Mr. Trump is ahead in Georgia 50 percent to 46 percent, and, in Nevada, he has 48 percent compared to 47 percent for Ms. Harris. She has 49 percent of likely voters to Mr. Trump’s 47 percent in North Carolina, the only one of the seven core battleground states that he carried in 2020.
Trump is very weird too and he gets weirder by the day. It’s taking its toll.
The Times poll has been the toughest poll on the Democrats of the cycle so unless they’ve drastically changed their model this trend is positive. We’ll see if it continues but putting those other swing states back in play is good news,
Now that both parties have agreed to jettison the presidential debate commission that handled them in the past, this is what we’re dealing with:
On Thursday, it seemed like the dust had finally settled. “The debate about debates is over,” said Michael Tyler, the Harris campaign communications director, in a statement. “Donald Trump’s campaign accepted our proposal for three debates—two presidential and a vice presidential debate.”
“Assuming Donald Trump actually shows up on September 10 to debate Vice President Harris, then Governor Walz will see JD Vance on October 1 and the American people will have another opportunity to see the vice president and Donald Trump on the debate stage in October,” the Harris campaign continued.
But now, Trump’s team claims that the Democrat lied when she said the two sides reached a debate agreement. At the moment, there is only one confirmed debate between the presidential nominees, to be held September 10 by ABC News.
Nevertheless, the Trump campaign’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Daily Caller Friday that Trump will be doing three debates and Vance will be doing two.
“Let’s be clear: President Trump will be on the debate stage THREE times with Fox News, ABC, and NBC/Telemundo. Likewise, Senator Vance will show up to debate Tim Walz on TWO occasions, on September 18 with CNN and October 1 with CBS. If Harris and Walz don’t show up, an empty podium can stand in their place, proving to the American people just how weak they are,” Leavitt told the Caller.
Trump had waffled for months on whether he would debate Harris, finally announcing he wanted to debate her three times on ABC, CBS, and Fox News. Harris accepted the invitations for the ABC and CBS debates but not for the one hosted by the Trump-adoring Fox.
There is no reason for Harris to agree to debate Trump on Fox, especially since CNN already did one like it earlier.
Trump is the one who wants debates because he’s convinced himself that he can dominate the weak little Black lady and win the election with a knock-out punch. He’s also losing and he knows it.
Meanwhile, the weirdo pulls this:
Vance, confusingly, proposed two vice presidential debates as opposed to the traditional one. One of his proposed dates is the same day Trump is due to be sentenced for his hush-money trial.
Nice try… I feel very confident that Tim Walz will not be attending that one. Lol.
Rebecca Traister, writer-at-large for New York magazine, is a treasure. Appearing last night on “The Daily Show,” Traister embraced the uncertainty and exhilaration of electing a woman president. That feeling is appropriately driving people to action. Shared anger at the demise of Roe is bringing people together. And it’s a joyful fight.
The right-wing manosphere’s inability to hide their loathing for women and scorn for woman is stunning, Traister offers. The RNC convention was an ickier, grosser pageant of misogyny.
As stunning is Democratic men’s embrace of women’s issues, she continued, “in a way I have rarely seen Democratic men be comfortable before.” They’ve made women’s reproductive freedom and “full civic participation a clarion, moral call of the Democratic Party.” Traister calls it a remarkable phenomenon on the left.
"What is fascinating to me is [Republicans'] inability to hide their loathing of women." New York Magazine writer RebeccaTraister (@rtraister) talks about the right's apparent disdain for women in this election. pic.twitter.com/SNy0y6tDRi
It’s like watching Rocky’s rematch with Clubber Lang. Clubber is suffering a flurry of jabs from the fitter, faster, more-skilled Rocky. He’s throwing punches and missing, breathing hard, wearing himself out. In his American flag trunks, Rocky taunts him, “My mother hits harder than that!”
HAHAHA! The Harris Walz campaign just put out THIS statement in preparation for Trump’s press conference today and it is scathing! This is how it’s done. Share this everywhere! pic.twitter.com/KBpAZyNxZY
Announcer: “I don’t think Lang knew what hit him yet in this whole first round.”
It’s a joy to watch, says Michael Tomasky in The New Republic, now that Donald Trump is the target and VP Kamala Harris is throwing punches. It’s still the first round, but Trump is tossing around “bananas” accusations and visibly flailing:
But wait. These are just the appetizers! Then he called Harris a “communist” and said the country under her leadership would devolve into a commie dystopia in which “everyone gets health care” (the horror!). And then, the piece de resistance: At the Jewish event, he praised Miriam Adelson, the huge Trump donor and widow of Sheldon Adelson, mentioning that he’d given her a Presidential Medal of Freedom, which he noted was the civilian equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor (given to military veterans) but was “actually much better” because people who receive the latter medal are “either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets, or they’re dead.”
You know how they say in sports that an opponent has gotten inside the other team’s head? Well, Harris and Tim Walz have certainly gotten inside Trump’s head. Walz’s “weird” comment, which Trump has also responded to in a, well, sort of weird way, was just the start. Harris has also smartly refused to take the GOP campaign’s bait, like when Trump attacked her race and J.D. Vance tried to make her childlessness an issue. Meanwhile, the Harris-Walz campaign trolls Trump in its press releases with snarky language I don’t recall Joe Biden’s or Hillary Clinton’s campaigns using. It sends the message, which must drive him nuts, that they don’t fear him at all.
Meanwhile, what else is Harris doing? Starting to unveil an economic package that, so far anyway, looks pretty great. It’s aimed straight at middle-class voters and focused on housing and grocery prices. You can’t get more kitchen table than that. And the bit about going after corporate price gougers is great. It sends a nice populist signal that she’s willing to make some enemies.
HA! The Harris Walz campaign just released this amazing statement in response to Trump’s unhinged press conference today. This is how it’s done! Share this everywhere! pic.twitter.com/qzJtQtmcHI
Trump is “a hot mess.” He’s facing someone the right hasn’t been trained to hate for 25 years. To his chagrin (horror?), Americans like her. And Gov. Tim Walz from “Minnesota nice” country.
Tomasky concludes, “He can’t understand this, and he simply can’t stand it. Trump’s like a predatory animal in a literal sense. Since he has no conscience, he’s all instinct, and his instinct is to find his prey’s weakness and go after it over and over.” He hasn’t found hers.
More to the point, Trump and his MAGA followers were blindsided by the hand-off to Harris because they cannot fathom Joe Biden (or anyone) giving up power for the good of the country and his party. In the might-make-right MAGA universe, that does not compute.
There are few certainties in life, but alongside death, taxes, and the arrival of hot weather in July, at least one other thing is inarguable: baby penguins are almost impossibly cute.
Guests visiting the Tennessee Aquarium during the Fourth of July holiday can join Aquarium staffers in excitedly welcoming the newest addition to the Penguins’ Rock gallery — a fluffy (and shockingly fast-growing) Macaroni Penguin chick.
The chick hatched on June 2 from an egg laid in late April by parents Bacon and Merlin. This baby bird is the first offspring ever produced by Bacon, who hatched in 2015 to two other Aquarium penguins, Hercules and Little Debbie. Though Little Debbie now lives at another facility, the newest chick’s grandsire, Hercules, still calls Penguins’ Rock home. With this latest arrival, the Aquarium is home for the first time ever to three generations of Macaroni Penguins.
The new chick is the Aquarium’s first hatchling since the 2021 arrival of Carla, a Gentoo Penguin. This latest baby is the first Macaroni Penguin chick since Pedro hatched in 2019. The Aquarium’s colony now has 23 birds: 9 Macaronis and 14 Gentoos.
The Aquarium’s keen-eyed penguin care team first noticed the egg pipping — that’s the cracking that occurs when a baby bird begins to chip away at its shell from the inside — on a Friday afternoon when they spotted a dime-sized hole with a tiny beak moving around inside. The new chick seemed to get cold feet on Saturday with little progress. However, by Sunday morning, the chick had fully emerged with an unusual level of precision that surprised even its veteran caregivers.
“It seems like it has a little type A personality,” says Assistant Curator of Forests Loribeth Lee. “It cracked the egg perfectly, straight down the middle. We’ve never really seen that.”
When Lee discovered the emerged hatchling, it was sitting in the center of its stacked shell, which was broken neatly around the side in an almost perfect circle.
The chick’s precocious attitude didn’t end there. So far, it has displayed confidence and fearlessness both in its nest and around caregivers when briefly removed for tri-weekly weigh-ins to monitor its health and rate of growth.
“We’ve seen it pick up rocks multiple times in the nest, which is very impressive that it can do that at its size,” Lee says. “It’s been throwing them around, so it’s a strong, tough little bird.”
Speaking of size, the chick has been growing at an astronomical rate, thanks largely to its parents’ diligence. A day after hatching, it weighed just 145 grams (5.1 ounces, or a little less than an iPhone 15). Three weeks later, it had ballooned to a whopping 1,592 grams (3.5 pounds). To put that in perspective, that’s the same as a 7-pound human infant weighing 77 pounds before it was a month old.
Lee credits those gains to the skillful parentage of Bacon and Merlin, who has fathered several previous chicks and kept the chick well fed. A penguin growing quickly isn’t all that unusual, though. Macaroni Penguin chicks must mature quickly to be ready for the harsh winters in their native Antarctic climates, where they reach adult size in just two and a half months.
