Tampon Tim?
Is that because he stops red waves?
One of my cousins back in MN has been re-purposing Biden/Harris signs and leaving them out on his boulevard. They all keep disappearing and showing up in people’s yards! 🙂
Wisconsin voters reject GOP-written ballot measures, US Senate race set with Hovde’s primary win
By SCOTT BAUER Updated 5:49 AM CDT, August 14, 2024
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin voters on Tuesday rejected Republican-authored ballot questions that would have limited the governor’s power to spend federal money that comes to the state for such things as disaster relief, a big win for Democrats who mobilized against them.
In Wisconsin’s closely watched U.S. Senate race, Republican businessman Eric Hovde, who was endorsed by Donald Trump, easily won the primary. He advances to face Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin in a race that could determine majority control of the chamber.
And in two competitive congressional primaries, Trump-backed Republican Tony Wied defeated a current and former state lawmaker in northeast Wisconsin, and Democrat Rebecca Cooke beat a state lawmaker in western Wisconsin.
Wied will face Democrat Kristin Lyerly, a doctor who sued to protect abortion rights, in the race for the open 8th Congressional District seat. Cooke will try to knock off incumbent Rep. Derrick Van Orden, a former Navy SEAL who is one of Trump’s loudest backers, in the 3rd District. (snip)
Rejection of the ballot measures was a huge win for liberals.
Democrats, including Gov. Tony Evers, and a host of liberal groups and others organized against the amendments. They had argued adopting them would slow down the distribution of money when it needs to be spent quickly.
“This was a referendum on our administration’s work and the future for Wisconsin we’ve been working hard to build together, and the answer is reflected in the people’s vote tonight,” Evers said in a statement.
I initially wasn’t going to read this, but then I thought, well, let’s see if The Guardian is doing a little better on coverage parity than the other “big papers.” I think as far as exposing and telling news stories, The Guardian excels, but today I did not see what I’d hoped for, which is actual commentary or questions regarding the Don’s fitness for campaign and office, his ability to win, and if he should step down. I am disappointed, but at least the story of his campaign foundering is being told, unlike in other news media who try to behave as if the Don/Vance campaign is normal and not freakishly authoritarian and hateful. Anyway, here is this: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/15/trump-campaign-leadership
Senior aides see challenges from enemies real and perceived as the ex-president struggles against Harris
Donald Trump has privately expressed faith in his campaign leadership and no firings are currently expected, but senior advisers find themselves in the most vulnerable moment as they struggle to frame effective attacks against Kamala Harris, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.
The past month, starting with Joe Biden’s withdrawal and his endorsement of Harris to succeed him, which propelled her to draw roughly even in key swing state polls, has easily been the most unstable moment for the Trump campaign since its formal launch in late 2022.
In that period, Trump has often committed one unforced error after another as he tries to frame arguments against Harris, struggled to break through the news cycle hyping Democrats’ enthusiasm, and suddenly found himself on the defensive with a narrow window left until November.
The sudden difficulty for the Trump campaign to lay a glove on Harris has led to Trump’s allies seeing an opening for the first time to openly challenge decision-making by senior aides and privately challenge whether some advisers should remain in their positions or be sidelined.
And the past month has been bad enough for the Trump campaign that advisers have taken those challenges – whether from enemies real or perceived – as serious threats or slights that necessitate devoting time and effort to slap down.
In a statement referring to the campaign chiefs Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, a Trump spokesperson said: “As President Trump said, he thinks Ms Wiles and Mr LaCivita are doing a phenomenal job and any rumors to the contrary are false and not rooted in reality.
“This campaign is focused on winning, and anyone not focused on electing President Trump and defeating Kamala Harris is doing nothing but hurting every American. Detractors and lobbyists are waging a destructive battle of rumor and innuendo, and they are well known and will be remembered.”
The anxiety principally stems from Trump’s recent meeting on 2 August with Lara Trump, his daughter in law whom he installed as head of the Republican National Convention, and Kellyanne Conway, who ran his 2016 presidential campaign.
Reached by phone, Conway said the meeting was focused on strategy and she told Trump that he defeated a female candidate in 2016 and could do so again in November. She said she never mentioned any names or titles of senior advisers on the campaign.
But the meeting raised hackles internally when Trump later relayed what Conway had said, which was interpreted by senior advisers as an incursion into their territory and an attempt to pitch herself to run the campaign, the people said.
The roller-coaster of anxiety diminished after senior aides felt reassured that Conway was unlikely to come aboard, at least for now, with Trump questioning her new lobbying for Ukraine and her suggestion in 2023 that Trump endorse a 15-week federal abortion ban.
But an undercurrent of nervousness has persisted. At least one other faction in Trump world with ties to figures associated with the Trump 2016 campaign is weighing whether to appeal to the former president to shake up the leadership, according to a person involved in the discussions.
The summer months have historically been the time that Trump makes changes to his campaign chiefs, as he did in 2016 when he installed Conway and Steve Bannon and David Bossie to take the reins, as well as in 2020, when he replaced Brad Parscale with Bill Stepien.
The 2020 campaign in particular carries some scar tissue for advisers, who have privately recalled in recent weeks that criticism over decision-making led to Parscale’s ouster, even if in his case, it was over questionable spending rather than resetting attack lines against their opponent.
The anxiety over the palace intrigue comes as the Trump campaign continues to have a difficult time landing consistent attacks against Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, coming under fire for saying they intend to run the same playbook as against Biden.
The campaign’s bet is that the election will be defined on the same points as with Biden, the people said: the crisis on the US southern border, crime and inflation that has caused a rise in the cost of living.
Trump campaign advisers and external allies agree that Trump needs to attack Harris on her policy records, but the execution has often been poor.
At the heart of the problem is Trump’s annoyance at being managed, one of the people said. And even as Trump tries to keep on message – for instance, to focus on how Harris has shifted her positions to whatever she finds politically expedient – it can be unnatural or come out botched.
When Trump spoke at the National Association of Black Journalists’ conference this month, he falsely suggested Harris had only recently decided to identify as Black because it brought her political benefits, in remarks that were egregious even by Trump’s controversial standards.
Conway told Trump at their meeting, which came days after the NABJ conference, that he should stick to policy differences and not engage in personal attacks. Several campaign officials chafed at Conway’s advice when they learned of it, one of the people said, saying they had advised the same thing and saw her as stepping on their turf.
by Robert Reich Go Kamala! Read on Substack
Friends,
On Tuesday, I noted that food prices remain high because there’s little to no competition across the entire food supply chain, which has allowed big corporations to engage in a price gouging free-for-all. https://open.substack.com/pub/robertreich/p/kamalaconomics
Four companies control most food industries, allowing them to coordinate prices instead of compete on the basis of lower prices. I offered this graph to illustrate the problem:
I urged that Harris announce that as president she’ll bust up food monopolies.
Well, I have it on good authority that on Friday she’ll announce a plan to prevent corporations in the food and grocery industries from unfairly jacking up prices on consumers.
She’ll call for the first-ever federal ban on corporate price-gouging in these industries.
Go Kamala!
More cogent commentary!
https://vixenstrangelymakesuncommonsense.blogspot.com/2024/08/twgb-thrill-of-crowd.html
(snip-embedded tweet of photos from various people at Harris-Walz rallies, on page)
There are a handful of stories percolating around TrumpWorld that are pretty fascinating to me–for starters, yesterday, we found out that the Trump Campaign had been HACKED! Possibly by foreign actors hostile to the United States, with the intent of influencing the election!
To which my first reaction as a 2016 Clinton voter is:
<<<<HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA>>>>
But no, really, that is horrible. The details are a little funky, though. The hack seems to have been an exploit due to a phishing email–shouldn’t campaigns be totally training their people on how not to get “reeled in” by now? Also, Politico got a trove of docs from “Robert” from an AOL email address which included a dossier on JD Vance.
So, let me get this straight: a hacker using a basic scammer skillset, with an AOL account, dumps docs on a Trump-friendly outfit that includes info on the Appalachian-adjacent Yale albatross that rumor has it some Trump advisors want to deep-six? And of course, having learned their lesson from eight years ago (and Trump being Republican) the very scrupulous media will not lend our enemies aid and comfort by divulging wrongfully obtained materials?
I’m just saying you could be forgiven if a little part of you wanted to believe this was an inside job. I mean, I don’t doubt the campaign could have been exploited But there is exploited, and then there is….
Anyway– in other news Trump is obviously going batshit over Kamla Harris’ crowds: he’s claiming they aren’t real, but AI.
The “reflection of the mirror like finish” picture is something I saw on Twitter from D’Souza–obviously a recommended source for all your TrumpWorld bullshit needs. And cheating about CROWD SIZE is even worse than cheating about the ballot box, didn’t you know?
But of course, obliging Trump sheeple forwarded actual AI-generated crowd pictures they themselves created to get mad at.
There’s something dark here, of course: Trump always cared about crowd size. It’s the first humiliating lie he made Sean Spicer insist on–the Trump inauguration was the biggest, Period. It’s not the mere showman’s desire for grandiosity with him–it’s the narcissistic/strongman complex. The crowd size is one way to visually demonstrate strength. It’s a way of saying his is the voice of the people because the people are with him. This is why he now references that his crowd on 1/6 was so great. Compared to the historic March on Washington.
But by casting uncertainty on his opponent’s crowd size, he is making the game interesting again: it’s a conspiracy against him! The impeachments, the “STOLLEN” election, the various criminal indictments and other court cases, the attempted assassination by “them” (Crooks and who else, it is never clear and never going to be), a hack and now the media are conspiring to make his crowds look SMALL! (They always did–he always insisted they never panned their cameras to show his true crowd size. The lying press!)
Appalling lies are his crutch. He claims no one knows Kamala Harris’ last name. She has been Kamala Devi Harris her whole life. Her last name comes from her Jamaican-born father of African descent. Maybe he is thinking of Shady Vance, his running mate, who is the real one with some authenticity questions. After all, he was never Trump, and called him “Hitler” and now he’s lovey-dovey?
Maybe I should just let everyone know that now that Vance is going out to parking lots and doing uncomfortable interviews like this Sunday, some MAGAs wonder how he would do at the top of the ticket. (Don’t worry Boss, he will get Fuentes back! But for whom?)
I’m just saying. People do wonder that. Since Trump doesn’t want to get his ass out there, I guess the crowds will decide.
Doesn’t that make things interesting? (Watch for Trump to lie about the ballot box too. I hear he does that.)
DISCLAIMER: While I don’t claim any psychological expertise, Trump seems to me to be a person with a severe psychopathology with respects to his self-esteem, and is not just a sufferer, but a carrier. As Trump descends in fortune or feels cornered, he will encourage “his people” to feel the same way. It is not a healthy dynamic for our country. This is why his loss this time around needs to be fairly thorough.
Traditional news outlets flagellate themselves when inaccurate. But the rightwing instigators of last week’s riots aren’t restricted by concepts such as truth
(Seems like good commentary.)
Let’s get ready to rhumble! As heroic locals and beleaguered police battle to stop cocaine-fuelled hard-right rioters burning people to death, the laughing faces of ITV’s Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly hang suspended in the smoke shrouding buildings in Rotherham and Tamworth. Watch us wreck the mike!! Psyche!!!
The greatest trick Nigel Farage ever pulled, appearing in December’s I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!, was looking normal to the ITV millions by eating a pizza covered with some penises. How Ant and Dec laughed as Nigel’s EU views were left un-factchecked by current affairs titans such as Britney Spears’s sister and a man from JLS. Psyche!
And now Britain burns in Farage-flavoured flames, minorities prepare escape packs, policemen are battered by cokehead patriots with swastika tattoos, and sausage rolls are looted from Greggs because blah blah blah Muslims. Are Ant and Dec proud? Straight up proovin’ we can getcha groovin’. This track’s boomin’! It ain’t no hype!
A 17-year-old boy, born and raised in Wales to parents from the safe country of Rwanda (which is largely Christian), has now been charged for last week’s horrendous murders. However, hysterical social media accounts had already claimed the perpetrator was a cross-channel Muslim from Syria, called Ali Al-Shakati, which translates as “I Have to Go to My Apartment”. I don’t know Arabic but I assume “Apartment” was his surname and “I Have to Go to My” was a string of unnecessary first names, like what those foreigners have.
Señor Apartment’s guilt was amplified online by Farage, bypassing the tedious opportunity of asking questions in the parliament he is paid to attend, who wondered, “Was this guy being monitored by the security services? … I just wonder whether the truth is being withheld from us,” having got his information from Andrew Tate, a misogynist influencer currently facing charges of human trafficking, and valid news source.
Farage works to the same schematic as lucratively rewarded libertarian Netflix standups. He’s not making a definitive statement that could get him in trouble. No. He’s just sayin’, just puttin’ it out there. And then he drops the mic and leaves his fans to get arrested. Ka-booom!
Stoking tension with speculation is stupid. But Farage isn’t stupid. Once broadcasters redubbed the barking of Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams because he was considered too charismatic. But today Ant and Dec invite Farage to eat penises in a clearing, and he has his own show on GB News, which is the same thing. Let’s get ready to rhumble!
A BBC reporter described one riot as a ‘pro-British march’, which is like saying the Viking raid on Lindisfarne was a pro-Norse cruise
The Tory party blamed the incoming Labour administration for the fire they set. Their own adviser Dame Sara Khan said Tories’ “inflammatory language” had “undermined social cohesion”. The right spent 15 years training a fat dog to shit in our house and now that it’s finally done loads of massive shits everywhere, they tell us it’s Labour’s fault for not killing the shitting dog five weeks ago. Or something.
Gaza ceasefire demonstrations, none of which ended in attempted mass murder, were “hate marches”, but the commentariat initially called the current would-be pogroms “protests”. The Tory Hampshire police and crime commissioner Donna Jones said the riots were “upholding British values”. Do these include making toddlers chant the word “paki”, and stealing sausage rolls? A BBC reporter even went as far as to describe one riot as a “pro-British march”, which is a bit like saying the Viking raid on Lindisfarne was a pro-Norse cruise.
On Monday’s Good Morning Britain, a load of old white men, including the home secretary’s embarrassing husband Ed Balls and the Daily Mail hate-gonk Andrew Pierce, source of endless fudged front pages, repeatedly shouted down Zarah Sultana’s attempts to explain the Legitimate Grievance Riots as a British Asian. And then Jeremy Vine, the monstrous Belial from Basket Case to his benign brother Tim, invited Farage’s Reform sidekick Richard Tice, of all people, on to his show to explain the violence, as a bin full of entrails and flies was unavailable.
Farage’s falsehoods threaten lives. We have to do better. Liberal legacy media flagellates itself when inaccurate. The reason my last column didn’t mention the Legitimate Grievance Riots was because I’m now filing six days early so the legal department can protect me, and the paper, from my incoherent “jokes”, having recently received a request for correction from a former Tufton Street commentator, and wrangled over the wording of a complaint from Mumsnet. It’s only Monday. By the time you read this you might be on fire.
My main job is comedy on stage, and I can’t afford to be banned for my carelessness in print from every venue in the world, a fate that recently befell two comedians I admire enormously, neither of whom are Ricky Gervais, Dave Chappelle or Jerry Seinfeld. Two months back I wanted to quit this column, done in by dramas, but a chance encounter with the 70s actor Judy Matheson of The Flesh and Blood Show fame, declaring herself an avid reader in a King’s Cross cafe, appealed to my vanity.
But the rightwing instigators of the Legitimate Grievance Riots aren’t restricted by factchecking. Farage choses online agitation over parliamentary presence. The evil Elon Musk declared “civil war is inevitable”, and recently allowed the worst offenders back on his now lawless X. This is handy if you are black because Tommy Robinson announces the towns chosen for next week’s riots on Musk’s platform so you can avoid them.
In 2020, Farage broadcast himself entering identifiable hotels used to house unprocessed migrants on social media. Earlier this year, the newsreader Geeta Guru-Murthy, someone Farage fans would want deported, casually called the hard-right figurehead’s language “inflammatory”. The enfeebled BBC demanded her apology. Now those hotels are on fire. Is that inflammatory enough for you? Let’s get ready to rhumble!
Stewart Lee’s Basic Lee is streaming on Now TV. He previews 40 minutes of new material in Stewart Lee Introduces Legends of Indie at the Lexington, London, in August with guests the mysterious Connie Planque (12), Swansea Sound (13) and David Lance Callahan (14)
Singer jabs at ex-president for playing My Heart Will Go On at campaign rally in Bozeman, Montana, on Friday
(I may not care for all of Celine Dion’s music as much as many people do, but I’ve seen over time that she’s an excellent human, and she has wonderful talent. I saw this story in the Guardian, and had to bring it here.)
https://www.theguardian.com/music/article/2024/aug/10/celine-dion-trump-music
Nina Lakhani Sat 10 Aug 2024 16.19 EDT
Celine Dion, the Canadian pop icon, has rebuked and mocked the Donald Trump campaign for unauthorized use of her hit song about the sinking Titanic as a musical interlude during a recent rally.
Dion, beloved by millions of people for her tear-jerking ballads, issued a strong and somewhat tongue-in-cheek statement on Saturday, a day after Trump played a video clip of My Heart Will Go On from the film Titanic at a campaign event in Bozeman, Montana.
A statement published on X and on Dion’s Instagram account, which has more than 8m followers, said: “Celine Dion’s management team and her record label, Sony Music Entertainment Canada Inc, became aware of the unauthorized usage of the video, recording, musical performance, and likeness of Celine Dion singing My Heart Will Go On at a Donald Trump/JD Vance campaign rally in Montana.
“In no way is this use authorized, and Celine Dion does not endorse this or any similar use.
“… And really, THAT song?”
(snip-capture of the X, on the page)
The song is featured in the 1997 Oscar-winning film about the 1912 shipwreck, though is more about love, loss and resilience than a large ship crashing into an iceberg.
The response on social media was mostly mocking. (snip-More)
Ten Bears posted this yesterday, and it’s great. Earlier yesterday, I saw the video linked below, also great. Morning cheer!
(Saturday’s post on Sunday. Saturday was National Lazy Day. I actually got my Inbox clean and organized, along with other areas in my actual house. But slowly and peacefully! Some might say lazily? Anyway, maybe that’s why news was slow. Or, could it be, Satan? I mean, the US news media?)
“This clip is the Harris/Walz crowd in Arizona yesterday. It’s big, and these people are turned up to eleven.
“Now, I understand the news media like to cover Donald Trump–if it bleeds, it leads, and there’s probably money riding on his having a big old red-faced aneurism on stage one day or of course, he just spews his usual ‘American carnage’-flavored rant–it’s a lurid carnival where both the observers and the observed are the freak show.
“But what if there was a thirst for something different and better? Maybe instead of hearing for the hundredth time about low water pressure and whales being driven mad by windmills, insults against journalists, other politicians, immigrants, wide swaths of the American people, and of course, lying about every little thing under the sun and a few beyond it, we could have a conversation about something more constructive than that.
“I think this is the podium to train the cameras on–not the empty one that stays empty even when a late, sweaty, angry old man finally lumbers behind it. Take a look at this crowd, and what had happened to those poll numbers over the last two-three weeks, and ask yourself ‘What are these people seeing now that they weren’t before?’
“This looks like news to me. What if we just want some good news for a change? What if people are tired of being mad and just want nice things for a change? What if they want some truth? For a change?
“You know, I could go with that. I think a lot of people could.”
https://vixenstrangelymakesuncommonsense.blogspot.com/2024/08/this-looks-like-news.html
by: Spencer Humphrey/KFOR Posted: Aug 8, 2024 / 10:00 PM CDT, Updated: Aug 9, 2024 / 06:06 PM CDT
(I sent this to me to post a couple of days ago; I lost it in the Inbox. But it’s been updated, anyway, so here it is. I suppose this is another thing, like the taxpayer-funded trips, that Walters, et al. were doing while everyone was looking at the Bibles in the classroom thing. In addition, most of the links included here go to yet more stories about Walters and his crew.)
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — The Oklahoma State Department of Education is attempting to take away certain funds the state legislature allotted school districts to make security enhancements after the Uvalde shooting, even though OSDE’s website said districts would be able to keep the money—until lawmakers began asking questions.
Now, numerous Republican lawmakers are calling for State Superintendent Ryan Walters to be held accountable, with at least one of them calling for Walters to be impeached for the first time.
OSDE no longer has lawyers on staff according to department’s website
In 2023, Oklahoma legislators overwhelmingly passed House Bill 2904. The bill provided Oklahoma schools with $150 million to make security enhancements to campuses and hire school resource officers in the wake of the 2022 shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, which left 21 people dead.
HB2904 created a three year revolving fund, in which every school district in the state would receive approximately $96,000 per year for three years to make the improvements.
Several superintendents from mostly rural districts across Oklahoma told News 4 it was their understanding that they would be allowed to roll over any unused funds from one year to the next.
They told News 4 they planned to let their ‘Year One’ funds roll over to the following years until they saved enough to pay for improvements that would cost more than $96,000.
OSDE paying Texas-based company $50k+ to make social media videos
But now, those superintendents—who spoke to News 4 anonymously—say the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) denied them access to leftover ‘Year One’ funds they had not yet spent.
The superintendents say, without the leftover Year One funds available, they will have to cut the security improvements they planned to make, including additional school resource officers, secure entry vestibules, bulletproof windows, and more.
OSDE’s lawyers are now telling lawmakers they believe HB2904 did not allow for funds to rollover each year.
This bill’s authors say that is not, and never was the case.
Several republican lawmakers spoke out to News 4 about the issue, and how they feel about Walters’ role in it all.
“It gets me upset,” State Rep. Eddy Dempsey (R-Valliant) said.
“It just seems like it’s getting untenable at this point,” State Sen. Adam Pugh (R-Edmond) said.
“[Walters] answers to the legislature,” State Representative Mark McBride (R-Moore) said. “And it’s time to stop.”
Scottie's Playtime 