Here’s some news worth noting:

NBC apologizes for the Don becoming our problem, AI audiobooks; well, are all books just AI now? and an orange hair in your fries. Enjoy! The AI one is long; it is of interest, though, and is important to authors and readers, and not only romance authors and readers. A great deal of work & lots of info went into the article.

======================

We Created a Monster: Trump Was a TV Fantasy Invented for ‘The Apprentice’

NBC’s former chief marketer regrets selling an illusion that has had dire consequences for the world.

By John D. Miller | ContributorOct. 16, 2024, at 5:35 p.m.

I want to apologize to America. I helped create a monster.

For nearly 25 years, I led marketing at NBC and NBCUniversal. I led the team that marketed “The Apprentice,” the reality show that made Donald Trump a household name outside of New York City, where he was better known for overextending his empire and appearing in celebrity gossip columns.

To sell the show, we created the narrative that Trump was a super-successful businessman who lived like royalty. That was the conceit of the show. At the very least, it was a substantial exaggeration; at worst, it created a false narrative by making him seem more successful than he was.

In fact, Trump declared business bankruptcy four times before the show went into production, and at least twice more during his 14 seasons hosting. The imposing board room where he famously fired contestants was a set, because his real boardroom was too old and shabby for TV.

Trump may have been the perfect choice to be the boss of this show, because more successful CEOs were too busy to get involved in reality TV and didn’t want to hire random game show winners onto their executive teams. Trump had no such concerns. He had plenty of time for filming, he loved the attention and it painted a positive picture of him that wasn’t true. (snip-MORE. And US News and World Report leans right, even. It’s a fine read.)

============

AI Audiobook Narrators in OverDrive and the Issue of Library AI Circulation Policy

by SB Sarah · Oct 21, 2024 at 6:00 am

OverDrive is the company that provides a lot of digital content to libraries. If you’ve borrowed an ebook or an audiobook in Libby, or read a magazine in Kanopy, that’s OverDrive.

It seems there is some AI weirdness with audiobook narration on OverDrive, and the narrator is only part of the story.

On Monday, October 14, librarian Robin Bradford posted on Bluesky that she’d purchased an AI audiobook for her library system and she was really upset about it: (the Bluesky post is embedded; I can’t get it here.)

Over 100 titles by AI “narrators” were in their catalog, and Robin was having trouble finding indications that the authors themselves are real?

Interesting. (snip-MORE)

=======================

This is fun, also full of info.

An orange hair in your fries

It’s Monday. There are 15 days until Election Day. Elon tries to buy America, the Central Park Five sue Trump and America loves Harris-Walz.

ADAM PARKHOMENKO AND SAM YOUNGMAN OCT 21, 2024

Be advised: This newsletter uses profanity like it just found a gross orange hair in its fries.

Note: Sexy Patriots! It’s so great to see you. We missed you yesterday, but it’s probably best that we took the day off. Otherwise we were gonna do one of our fake interviews with one of Arnold Palmer’s testicles (it was the left one), and nobody needs that. But can you really judge us for being a little goddamn loopy these days? This shit is intense! And dumb. So so dumb…

What the effing fuck?! Look, there are a million things that bothered us about Trump’s cheap stunt yesterday — the credulity of the media, his ducking questions about raising the minimum wage, the fact that his man boobs clearly dipped into the french fry grease — but we’re oddly stuck on this notion that Trump voters are so goddamn dumb that they had to practice going through the drive-thru…

Is this it? Am I doing it right?

No, Brenda. You’re talking to a trash can. Try talking to the box with the speaker.

This is so confusing! Am I doing it right?

No, Brenda. You just stuck a chicken McNugget in your ass.

Oh no! I’m going to starve to death!

Anyway, America, be smart and be healthy and just say no to Trump and McDonald’s. Y’all have a blessed day.

Note two: How’s everybody holding up? Yeah, we’re pretty freaked the eff out and fired the eff up too. It’s a weird and exhausting combination of emotions. The good news is we got one of those polls you should admire. It’s been a while since we’ve seen some high-quality polling, and today we got some swing state polls from the Washington Post that show Kamala Harris winning a tight race after taking Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. The poll has us tied in Nevada and losing in Arizona and North Carolina. Let’s run the table and end this fucker. More: Washington Post

Note three: Yikes! The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says that Trump’s proposals would drain Social Security in six years. It’s kind of amazing how all of Trump’s plans would be totally destructive. There aren’t even any that are like neutral. They’re just all dumb and dangerous. More: CRFB

Note four: VP Harris’ fundraising will be studied for years because she has just crushed it. Politico reported over the weekend that the VP outraised Trump 3-to-1 in September. Dayum. She brought in $222 million for the month while Trump limped to the barn with $63 million for the month. Hers is bigger. More: Politico (snip-MORE)

A Good Read, and some Manilow!

Voting for Others: Beyond Personal Beliefs in Elections

Peace & Justice History for 10/21:

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryoctober.htm#october21

Peace & Justice History for 10/20:

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryoctober.htm#october20

Agenda 47

Thank you, Ten Bears! I keep pointing out that Project 2024, Agenda 47, and the Republican National Party Platform are all cut from the same whole cloth. It’s important to be aware, even though one need not read each document separately.

Agenda 47: Cities and Transportation …

Peace & Justice History for 10/19:

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryoctober.htm#october19

‘Madonna, please. It’s only a film. Be happy!’ The star of Emilia Pérez on transitioning at 46 and making icons cry

Ryan Gilbey

(She makes a lot of good points about differences in how one must navigate the world.-A)

Karla Sofía Gascón is the first openly trans actor to win best actress at Cannes for her role in Jacques Audiard’s audacious musical. She talks about awful corsets, riding motorbikes and suing her critics

Fri 18 Oct 2024 00.00 EDT

When Madonna posted an image of the Spanish actor Karla Sofía Gascón on Instagram recently, the word she scrawled above it in vivid pink letters captured what most viewers will think after seeing her in the award-winning noir-musical Emilia Pérez: “WOW”. The 52-year-old Gascón, who was born and raised near Madrid and has spent the bulk of her career acting in Mexican telenovelas, plays the drugs kingpin Manitas, who fakes his death, transitions from male to female and reinvents herself as Pérez, a socially conscious activist. Emilia Pérez the movie, like Emilia Pérez the character, is a one-off. After all, there can’t be many films that feature brutal Mexican drug cartels and a singalong about vaginoplasties.

As befits a project that began life as a libretto, the movie is operatic in its emotions. “Madonna was crying so much after the screening in New York,” says Gascón, perched demurely on the edge of a chaise longue in a London hotel room. Her thick chestnut hair brushes the shoulders of her black dress, which has white collars and white-trimmed short sleeves. “She told me: ‘You’re amazing!’ She was crying and crying. I said: ‘Madonna, please. It’s only a film. Be happy!’”

Gascón has shed her fair share of tears, not least when the movie’s quartet of female stars were jointly named best actress at Cannes, where the picture also took home the jury prize. Her fellow recipients were Zoe Saldana, who plays Emilia’s attorney and fixer; Selena Gomez, who stars as Manitas’s widow, who is persuaded that Emilia is her late husband’s cousin; and Adriana Paz, who plays the new love of Emilia’s life. It was Gascón, though, who delivered the moving six-minute acceptance speech at Cannes. Trans people, she told the audience, had “been insulted, denigrated, subjected to a lot of violence”.

Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldana and Adriana Paz at the Emilia Perez UK premiere, at the 68th BFI London film festival, 11 October — Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldana and Adriana Paz at the Emilia Perez UK premiere at the 68th BFI London film festival, 11 October. Photograph: StillMoving.Net/REX/Shutterstock

Not that approbation precludes abuse. The morning after Gascón’s triumph, the French far-right MEP Marion Maréchal tweeted: “So a man has won best actress.” Six LGBTQ+ organisations filed complaints against Maréchal. Gascón has personally sued her.

Today, the actor cuts a more composed figure than she did at Cannes. She is casually affectionate – a kiss on each cheek when you arrive, a grateful hug on departure – and playful in her interactions with the interpreter. She talks at such length that the poor scribe is soon writing on the back of her pad. “You have more paper?” asks Gascón. “Or will you use your …?” She mimes scribbling frantically on her own arm.

Madonna and Greta Gerwig, the president of this year’s Cannes jury, are not the only ones convinced of Gascón’s greatness. The industry bible Variety has predicted that she will be one of the five best actress Oscar contenders next year, alongside the likes of Angelina Jolie (for Maria) and Tilda Swinton (The Room Next Door). That would make her the first openly transgender performer to be recognised in one of the Academy’s acting categories.

Hers is a performance of immense stillness and gravitas, which must also contain and occasionally exhibit the volatility that enabled Emilia to dominate the drug trade, and to assert herself now in a radically different life. Living openly as a woman, Emilia is still hiding, most obviously from her wife and children. Toggling between these contradictory layers, Gascón does her subtlest work.

Having cast her as Emilia, the director Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, Rust and Bone) was sceptical about her playing the character pre-transition. She convinced him by sending videos of herself with TikTok filters, and by changing her voice. It’s something she does for pleasure anyway. “I turn down the volume on the TV, and I do the voices for all the people on screen,” she says. “Just for fun when I’m bored at home. So this was easy for me. I know my …” She consults with the interpreter, then announces the word triumphantly: “Virtues!”

Why was she so determined to play Manitas? “I love roles that are far from who I am,” she says. “And I didn’t want to miss out on this character in all her dimensions. If there had been flashback scenes, I would have pushed to play those, too.”

Karla Sofía Gascón as Emilia Pérez and Adriana Paz as Epifanía in Emilia Pérez — Karla Sofía Gascón as Emilia and Adriana Paz as Epifanía in Emilia Pérez. Photograph: Shanna Besson/PAGE 114/WHY NOT PRODUCTIONS/PATHÉ FILMS/FRANCE 2 CINÉMA/PAGE 114 – WHY NOT PRODUCTIONS – PATHÉ FILMS – FRANCE 2 CINÉMA

Emilia sounds like more of a challenge. “It is difficult to do someone close to me,” she says. The role highlighted distinctions she already feels between the demands placed on women and men. “I’m convinced that the masculine is freer physically and more confined mentally. When you are a woman, you are freer mentally but less so with your body. As a woman, you need to have your hair great, your makeup great. When you are a man, you just wake up and go to work. With a woman, there is the perfection mentality.”

She sits bolt upright, clasping her torso. “Right now, I’m wearing a corset,” she says. “And I can barely breathe!” I notice she has also kicked off her shoes; the shiny black heels lie next to her stockinged feet. “Society sees you as more beautiful like this. As Emilia, I had to be more feminine than I usually am.”

Gascón transitioned at the age of 46. Back then, she told herself: “I do it now, or I never do it.” She continues to have the support of her wife, whom she has known since they were teenagers, and their daughter, who is now 13. But there were other hurdles, even after transitioning. “I have been criticised for how I look. I ride a motorbike. I don’t usually wear makeup. People say: ‘Why become a woman if you’re not going to wear makeup?’ But there’s a big confusion in society about what a woman is.” All this has been conveyed in Spanish via the interpreter, who now reads sheepishly from her own shorthand notes: “And I’d just like the translator to confirm what I have said about being a woman in society.” She nods, we laugh, and Gascón gestures at her as if to say: “See?”

The criticisms of her lipstick-free, motorbike-riding lifestyle come from all corners. “Including the minority I represent,” she points out. There is something she tells herself in that situation: “You can be LGBTQ+. You can be a man, a woman, an astronaut, an electrician. But if you are stupid, you are stupid.” More laughter.

Part of the message of Emilia Pérez, she thinks, is that power lies not in using violence but in renouncing it. “With violence, you can control a lot of people and impose your will. It is a form of imposition that has led us to women being made to do the household chores, or people of colour working in the cotton fields, or gay people not being allowed to marry. There has always been an explicit violence toward others in parts of male heterosexuality, and that has also been taken up by a part of women’s feminism to crush a certain section of the population.”

Where does the solution lie? “Education,” she says. “For instance, I’ve taught my daughter to respect herself and others, and to not let anyone treat her as if she is inferior. Women can feel now that they don’t need any man to solve their problems.” That’s the vibe coming from the rest of the cast. Saldana has said that she, Gomez and Paz were focused on “making sure that [Gascón] had what she needed”. Which prompts the question: what did she need? “I don’t know,” she says now, startled by that quote. “I was hoping you were going to tell me.” Then she arrives at an answer. “All I needed from my colleagues was for them to do the best job of their fucking lives.”

With any luck, their collective effort will help seal her Oscar nomination. Has she written her acceptance speech? “I wrote it on the first day of shooting,” she says, then roars with laughter. “No, no! It is just in the clouds, not reality. If it happens, I will be the happiest actress in the world. If not, it doesn’t matter. All I could do – all I did – was to put my entire soul into the film. And I believe it is the best work of my life. Whenever I see myself on screen, I always have criticisms. I think, ‘Why did I do this or that?’”

Not so with Emilia Pérez. “I searched but I couldn’t find one thing I wasn’t happy with,” she says. “And that is my Oscar.”

Emilia Pérez is in cinemas from 25 October and streaming on Netflix from 13 November.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/oct/18/madonna-please-its-only-a-film-be-happy-the-star-of-emilia-perez-on-transitioning-at-46-and-making-icons-cry

Oklahoma families, teachers and faith leaders file lawsuit to block Superintendent Ryan Walters’ Bible-education mandate

October 17, 2024

Oklahoma families, teachers and faith leaders file lawsuit to block Superintendent Ryan Walters’ Bible-education mandate

Snippet:

OKLAHOMA CITY – More than 30 Oklahomans – including parents and children, public school teachers and faith leaders – today filed a lawsuit urging the Oklahoma Supreme Court to block state Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters’ mandate that all public schools incorporate the Bible into their curricula. The lawsuit, Rev. Lori Walke v. Ryan Walters, also asks the court to stop the state from spending millions of taxpayer dollars on Bibles to support the mandate.

The 32 plaintiffs include 14 public school parents, four public school teachers and three faith leaders who object to Walters’ extremist agenda that imposes his personal religious beliefs on other people’s children – in violation of Oklahomans’ religious freedom and the separation of church and state. The plaintiffs come from a variety of faith traditions, including Baptist, Catholic, Presbyterian (U.S.A.) and United Church of Christ, and some identify as atheist, agnostic or nonreligious. Some are of Indigenous heritage, and some have family situations – such as LGBTQ+ members or children with special educational needs – that cause particular concerns around teaching the Bible in public schools, especially around bullying.

The plaintiffs are represented by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Oklahoma Foundation, the Freedom From Religion Foundation and Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law & Justice.

Plaintiff the Rev. Lori Walke, senior minister of Mayflower Congregational United Church of Christ in Oklahoma City: “I am a faith leader who cares deeply about our country’s promise of religious freedom and ensuring that everyone is able to choose their own spiritual path. The state mandating that one particular religious text be taught in our schools violates the religious freedom of parents and children, teachers, and taxpayers. The government has no business weighing in on such theological decisions. I’m proud to join this lawsuit because I believe Superintendent Walters’ plan to use taxpayer money to buy Bibles and force public schools to teach from them is illegal and unconstitutional.”

Plaintiff the Rev. Mitch Randall of Cleveland County, a Baptist pastor and CEO of Good Faith Media: “As a Christian, I’m appalled by the use of the Bible – a sacred text – for Superintendent Walters’ political grandstanding. As a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, I’m alarmed by the parallels between this Bible mandate and the religious proselytization and forced assimilation my relatives faced in government boarding schools. As a taxpayer, I object to the state spending public funds on religious texts. The separation of church and state is a bedrock principle protecting religious liberty for every citizen; I urge the court to uphold this principle and strike down this mandate.

Plaintiff Erika Wright of Cleveland County, the founder and leader of the Oklahoma Rural Schools Coalition and a parent of two children who attend public schools: “As parents, my husband and I have sole responsibility to decide how and when our children learn about the Bible and religious teachings. We are devout Christians, but different Christian denominations have differenttheological beliefs and practices. It is not the role of any politician or public school official to intervene in these personal matters. Oklahoma’s education system is already struggling, ranking nearly last in national standings. Mandating a Bible curriculum will not address our educational shortcomings. Superintendent Walters should focus on providing our children and teachers with the resources they need; our families can handle religious education at home.”

Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United: “The separation of church and state guarantees that families and students – not politicians – get to decide if, when and how to engage with religion. Superintendent Ryan Walters is abusing the power of his office to advance a Christian Nationalist agenda and impose his personal religious beliefs on other people’s children. Not on our watch. We’re proud to defend the religious freedom of all Oklahomans, from Christians to the nonreligious.”

Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief: “This Bible mandate is a blatant power grab that violates state law and tramples the separation of church and state. Public-school students, families, and teachers – and the taxpayers who support them – deserve better.”

Tamya Cox-Touré, Executive Director of the ACLU of Oklahoma: “By filing this lawsuit, Oklahomans have come together in a common fight to reject the State Board of Education’s use of religion as a cover for repression. All families and students should feel welcome in our public schools and we must protect the individual right of students and families to choose their own faith or no faith at all. The separation of church and state is a bedrock of our nation’s founding principles.”

Annie Laurie Gaylor, Co-President of the Freedom From Religion Foundation: “Superintendent Ryan Walters cannot be allowed to employ the machinery of the state to indoctrinate Oklahoma’s students in his religion. Thankfully, Oklahoma law protects families and taxpayers from his unconstitutional scheme to force public schools to adopt his preferred holy book.”

Colleen McCarty, Executive Director of Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice: “The constant use of Oklahoma as a testing ground for religious extremism is growing tiresome. Oklahoma families deserve a public school system devoted to the education of their children, and instead we get flash-bulb political stunts and attempted erosion of the Constitution. The buck stops here. We will defend the principles our nation is built on, starting with the separation of church and state.” (snip-MORE)

Things to Remind People in the Grocery Line

or wherever mentions of prices, and whatever else has improved since Pres. Biden took office. I post this because my own US Rep is campaigning about how bad everything is, with facts from the Don’s admin when they’re facts at all. I’m certain he’s not the only “safe” (I voted for the Dem-we actually have a Dem running!) Republican running for the US House, as they’re all up for election every two years. Anyway, he makes the claims that things are bad under Biden-Harris, and how he’s just focusing on improving those very things that have improved thanks to Biden-Harris and the legislators who managed to get things passed (most Republicans are not among those legislators, btw.) Anyway, here’s Heather Cox Richardson:

October 17, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Oct 18, 2024

In a new rule released yesterday, the Federal Trade Commission requires sellers to make it as easy to cancel a subscription to a gym or a service as it is to sign up for one. In a statement, FTC chair Lina Khan explained the reasoning behind the “click-to-cancel” rule: “Too often, businesses make people jump through endless hoops just to cancel a subscription,” she said. “Nobody should be stuck paying for a service they no longer want.” Although most of the new requirements won’t take effect for about six months, David Dayen of The American Prospect noted that the stock price of Planet Fitness fell 8% after the announcement.

When he took office in January 2021, with democracy under siege from autocratic governments abroad and an authoritarian movement at home, President Joe Biden set out to prove that democracy could deliver for the ordinary people who had lost faith in it. The click-to-cancel rule is an illustration of an obvious and long-overdue protection, but it is only one of many ways—$35 insulin, new bridges, loan forgiveness, higher wages, good jobs—in which policies designed to benefit ordinary people have demonstrated that a democratic government can improve lives.

When Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen spoke to the Council on Foreign Relations yesterday, she noted that the administration “has driven a historic economic recovery” with strong growth, very low unemployment rates, and inflation returning to normal. Now it is focused on lowering costs for families and expanding the economy while reducing inequality. That strong economy at home is helping to power the global economy, Yellen noted, and the U.S. has been working to strengthen that economy by reinforcing global policies, investments, and institutions that reinforce economic stability.

“Over the past four years, the world has been through a lot,” Yellen said, “from a once-in-a-century pandemic, to the largest land war in Europe since World War II, to increasingly frequent and severe climate disasters. This has only underlined that we are all in it together. America’s economic well-being depends on the world’s, and America’s economic leadership is key to global prosperity and security.” She warned against isolationism that would undermine such prosperity both at home and abroad.

The numbers behind the proven experience that government protection of ordinary people is good for economic growth got the blessing of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Monday, when it awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences to Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, both of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and to James Robinson of the University of Chicago. Their research explains why “[s]ocieties with a poor rule of law and institutions that exploit the population do not generate growth or change for the better,” while democracies do.

Although democracy has been delivering for Americans, Donald Trump and MAGAs rose to power by convincing those left behind by 40 years of supply-side economics that their problem was not the people in charge of the government, but rather the government itself.

Trump wants to get rid of the current government so that he can enrich himself, do whatever he wants to his enemies, and avoid answering to the law. The Christian nationalists who wrote Project 2025 want to destroy the federal government so they can put in place an authoritarian who will force Americans to live under religious rule. Tech elites like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel want to get rid of the federal government so they can control the future without having to worry about regulations.

In place of what they insist is a democratic system that has failed, they are offering a strongman who, they claim, will take care of people more efficiently than a democratic government can. The focus on masculinity and portrayals of Trump as a muscled hero‚ much as Russian president Vladimir Putin portrays himself, fit the mold of an authoritarian leader.

But the argument that Americans need a strongman depends on the argument that democracy does not work. In the last three-and-a-half years, Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and the Democrats have proved that it can, so long as it operates with the best interests of ordinary people in mind. Trump and Vance’s outlandish lies about the federal response to Hurricane Helene are designed to override the reality of a competent administration addressing a crisis with all the tools it has. In its place, the lies provide a false narrative of federal officials ignoring people and trying to steal their property.

Their attack on democracy has another problem, as well. In addition to the reality that democracy has been delivering for Americans for more than three years now—and pretty dramatically—Trump is no longer a strongman. Vice President Kamala Harris is outperforming him in the theater of political dominance. And as she does so, his image is crumbling.

In an article in US News and World Report yesterday, NBC’s former chief marketer John D. Miller apologized to America for helping to “create a monster.” Miller led the team that marketed The Apprentice, the reality TV show that made Trump a household name. “To sell the show,” Miller wrote, “we created the narrative that Trump was a super-successful businessman who lived like royalty.” But the truth was that he declared bankruptcy six times, and “[t]he imposing board room where he famously fired contestants was a set, because his real boardroom was too old and shabby for TV,” Miller wrote. While Trump loved the attention the show provided, “more successful CEOs were too busy to get involved in reality TV.”

Miller says they “promoted the show relentlessly,” blanketing the country with a “highly exaggerated” image of Trump as a successful businessman “like a heavy snowstorm.” “[W]e…did irreparable harm by creating the false image of Trump as a successful leader,” Miller wrote. “I deeply regret that. And I regret that it has taken me so long to go public.”

Speaking as a “born-and-bred Republican,” Miller warned: “If you believe that Trump will be better for you or better for the country, that is an illusion, much like The Apprentice was.” He strongly urged people to vote for Kamala Harris. “The country will be better off and so will you.”

A new video shown last night on Jimmy Kimmel Live even more powerfully illustrated the collapse of Trump’s tough guy image. Written by Jesse Joyce of Comedy Central, the two-minute video featured actor and retired professional wrestler Dave Bautista dominating his sparring partner in a boxing ring and then telling those who think Trump is “some sort of tough guy” that “he’s not.”

Working out in a gym, Bautista insults Trump’s heavy makeup, out-of-shape body, draft dodging, and physical weakness, and notes that “he sells imaginary baseball cards pretending to be a cowboy fireman” when “he’s barely strong enough to hold an umbrella.” Bautista says Trump’s two-handed method of drinking water looks “like a little pink chickadee,” and goes on to make a raunchy observation about Trump’s stage dancing. “He’s moody, he pouts, he throws tantrums,” Bautista goes on. “He’s cattier on social media than a middle-school mean girl.”

Bautista ends by listing Trump’s fears of rain, dogs, windmills…and being laughed at.” “And mostly,” Bautista concludes, “he’s terrified that real, red-blooded American men will find out that he’s a weak, tubby toddler.” Calling Trump a “whiny b*tch,” Bautista walks away from the camera.

The sketch was billed as comedy, but it was deadly serious in its takedown of the key element of Trump’s political power.

And he seems vulnerable. Forbes and Newsweek have recently questioned his mental health; yesterday the Boston Globe ran an op-ed saying, “Trump’s decline is too dangerous to ignore. We can see the decline in the former president’s ability to hold a train of thought, speak coherently, or demonstrate a command of the English language, to say nothing of policy.”

Trump’s Fox News Channel town hall yesterday got 2.9 million viewers; Harris’s interview got 7.1 million. Today, Trump canceled yet another appearance, this one with the National Rifle Association in Savannah, Georgia, scheduled for October 22, where he was supposed to be the keynote speaker.

Meanwhile, Vice President Harris today held rallies in Milwaukee, Green Bay, and La Crosse, Wisconsin. In La Crosse, MAGA hecklers tried to interrupt her while she was speaking about the centrality of the three Trump-appointed Supreme Court justices to the overturning of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that recognized the constitutional right to abortion.

“Oh, you guys are at the wrong rally,” Harris called to them with a smile and a wave. As the crowd roared with approval, she added: “No, I think you meant to go to the smaller one down the street.”

—

Notes:

https://www.npr.org/2024/10/16/nx-s1-5154814/click-to-cancel-subscriptions-memberships-ftc-rule

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/10/federal-trade-commission-announces-final-click-cancel-rule-making-it-easier-consumers-end-recurring

https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-blog/dave-bautista-trump-jimmy-kimmel-masculinity-rcna175963

https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2654

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/03/29/remarks-by-president-biden-at-the-summit-for-democracy-virtual-plenary-on-democracy-delivering-on-global-challenges/

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2024/press-release/

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2024/popular-information/

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-ditches-nra-event-latest-cancellation-1970902

https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2024-10-16/we-created-a-tv-illusion-for-the-apprentice-but-the-real-trump-threatens-america

https://www.newsweek.com/kamala-harris-fox-news-interview-ratings-donald-trump-1970906