"Terms of Engagement" in the 2024 Election

A reporter asks Trump about his race with Harris, challenging him a little about his Arlington National Cemetery story, and he's doing his best goombah shuffle, 'Maybe it was someone I know, maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was the parents. Maybe somebody had a camera,' etc. And, as is often the case, buried in his ad libbed doggerel is some comic gold. "We’re so far above her on the Internet," for instance, her being Harris, cracked me up. 

Let's flesh out that Trump thought for him: 'Yeah, so far above her, as it should be, amirite? We got your Twitter locked-up. Turns out Musk is alright now, I like electric cars (as long as they don't stop our burn, baby, burn agenda). We might have a job for Elon in my government. Then we got this Thiel guy; Vance's sugar daddy. You know some people say he actually invented the internet. And that stuff about him being a Nazi is overblown. You know when you really look into it there were some very fine Nazis. And then there's my Truth Social, the only place on the internet that tells the truth. Let's be real: The lame-stream fake-news media are always witch hunting me but all the Tech Bros are mine. The Billionaires love me.' 

And why should the Tech Bros and Billionaires love him? Because he won't tax or regulate them or will most likely tax and regulate them less than the Dems. That's all it takes with our corporate rulers. You might expect some more sophisticated economic analysis from these guys but mainstream economic commentators only beclown themselves when they try to make the case. And the richies know Tump's a clown too. Actually, they know he's a ridiculous has-been caricature of them, rich business guys, Billionaires, self-serving and crooked as the day is long. But they think they can handle him and keep his culture warriors (Jan 6ers, militias, etc) from getting out of hand. And these costs of corporate rule they write-off as preferable to the threats that democratic reforms pose to profit margins. 

The moral corruption in this scenario is daunting, to say the least. And it does resemble quite a bit the story Timothy Ryback tells about the last year run-up by Hitler in his book Takeover. There are undeniable affinities between Nazis and MAGA. But perhaps one crucial difference. Hitler really was a veteran and really did think he spoke for the post-WW1 grievances and hopes of the German people and did eventually, if tragically and catastrophically, win popular support. Over half the American electorate have hated Trump, or suffered TDS, from day one. This stubborn fact really hasn't budged much in going on eight years and there is absolutely no reason to think it ever will. 

This doesn't mean the Repuglicans won't try whatever minority rule fuckery they can get away with; in fact, they're hard at it now, and have been at it since 2020: trying to suppress Dem voting and rig the certification process, SCOTUS rendering a ridiculously anti-Constitutional immunity decision placing POTUS above the law, and undoubtably other terrible stuff we don't know about yet. 

Harris responded [to a CNN question on Thursday from Dana Bash about Trump's accusation that she assumed her Black identity only to get ahead]: “Same old, tired playbook. Next question, please,” and she laughed. “That’s it?” Bash asked. “That’s it,” Harris answered. 

I didn't like Harris' response when I first heard it. Call the racist bastard out, I thought. Apparently, Bash and CNN didn't think it was racist to delegitimize culturally mixed identities. I'm just a poor retired school teacher but that sure sounds like a racist binary to me. At any rate, as HCR points out, by Harris refusing to answer the question she is refusing "to accept the MAGA terms of engagement." Trump wants Harris to turn it into some racist name-calling tit-for-tat, where ultimately he figures all the white people will side with him. But turns out, increasingly, only the dumb and crooked ones do. 

Letters from an American Historian

HCR remains optimistic that maybe the media, CNN, et al, are starting to challenge Trump's bigot troll "terms of engagement" but I remain skeptical. Trump's WWE kayfabe dumpster-fire politics are Reality TV gold, even if over half the country would like to see the show cancelled. Check out The Hartmann's Report for another angle on Harris/Walz's big media interview with Dana Bash and CNN on Thursday: 

"In an interview with Vice President Harris and Governor Walz Thursday night, CNN’s Dana Bash chose to repeat pathetic rightwing attacks on the candidates instead of engaging in issues of importance to a majority of Americans. Only four of the questions she asked during the entire interview were not rightwing talking points. She could have asked about their pledge to protect Social Security and Medicare after Trump proposed cuts to both programs every year for his 4 years in office, or the 90% of Americans who want weapons of war off our streets, or their efforts to revive labor unions in the face of GOP opposition, or how they feel about Republicans on the Supreme Court thwarting Biden’s efforts to cut student loan debt, or what they’d do about the severe ethics problem with bribed Supreme Court justices Alito, Roberts, and Thomas, or their support for the queer community in the face of unrelenting attacks by JD Vance and other rightwingers, but, no. Instead, she had to ask about a one-word misspeak by Walz five years ago, whether Harris identified as Black or Indian or what, and why Walz implicitly lied when he said he and his wife had undergone “IVF” treatment for infertility when, in fact, they’d undergone the similar “IUI” treatment. As if anybody, anywhere, gives a damn." 

The point being Trump/Vance are threatening fertility treatments and reproductive health care and Harris/Walz are talking about how to protect them and CNN and the major media must make sure the Dems are answering all the Repugs stupid bigot takes, or"terms of engagement." For the sake of fair and balanced reporting, of course. Now I think it was right that Harris blew off the question and right that she keep the major media at arms length for this reason: they cater too much to Trump's retrograde fascist "terms of engagement." And at this point the contrast between the two parties is so obvious and grotesque that most sentient humans can see the differences, no matter how hard the major media try to normalize them: 'Harris is for supporting workers and middle class people and wants to make stuff better, more affordable, and Trump hates a lot of people (women, immigrants, minorities, LGBTQ+, liberals, cat owners, etc), and wants to cut taxes again for his rich buddies, and wants to punish his enemies. Got it.'  

Harris/Walz can win, should win, but it won't be because of our "free democratic press" but in spite of it. But also not by battling it out with the talking heads over Trump's "terms of engagement" but by dismissing the bigot baiting and saying, repeating, and as clearly as possible what Harris proposes to do if elected, and what they've done the past four years, and contrasting it with what the Trump proposes to do, and what he did while in office, which is try to turn the country into a violent fascist dystopic nightmare, his guy Putin's fever dream to bring down American democracy and Pax Americana.  

The plausible deniability phase of Trump's political ascendency is long past but the major media haven't gotten the memo. They're nostalgic for the Trump media boom. Proceed accordingly. 

The Hartmann Report

P.S. Lots of folks with similar perplexing questions: What the hell is wrong with the mainstream media on Trump?! Just saw a reference to a NY Times Op-Ed titled, "Trump Can Win on Character." Try swishing that one around in your mouth for a second before spitting it out. And another one, also in the Times, where they compare, both, Harris' proposal to help people buy homes to Trump's proposal to deport millions of recent immigrants as their respective "affordable housing" plans. That's sick. And this wasn't a parody in The Onion but a story in the NY Times. 

The Election Story Nobody Wants to Talk About

 "We’re once again faced with a situation where a substantial bloc of American politics is talking about committing acts of violence and bringing down the government. We saw this before, in 2020, in the run-up to that election and the aftermath. A lot of us held back; obviously, these guys have a long history of blowing off a lot of steam, talking, and wildly exaggerating their actual ability to carry out a threat. But I think we saw on January 6th, that was probably not the wisest view to take. We should have been paying more attention to what these guys were saying amongst themselves online. And what they’re saying amongst themselves right now is probably disturbing. Because they’re talking about shooting their neighbors."

Q&A Rick Perlstein & David Neiwert, The American Prospect

Around the World the Robots Are Dancing!

 "Around the World," Daft Punk (1997): Yes, a lot of Daft Punk is fairly obviously a techno disco homage. If you already don't like disco or dance music this is an easy copout way to dismiss them. They can't sing. Their instruments are laptop computers. But if you like disco or dance music and Giorgio Moroder and Italo Disco and Romanthony then Daft Punk are '90s chart breakthrough for disco and goofy EDM genius, even if they get more broad and cliche as they go. Isn't that the way it often goes? And am I crazy or am I hearing some more "Good Times"? "Around the World" is the globalization of disco, although Madonna already did that. How about Daft Punk put the disco in electronica? Body music. Turn out the lights, turn on the disco ball. We're up all night to get lucky, even knowing already we won't, because we already are to feel this good. Thank the robots. The sex machines. Spin like a top, you can dance anyway you like. And "Get Lucky" (2013), much later, broader, more cliche, was a great dance song as well. Another bit of disco music keeping on keeping on. 

 

Republican Corruption Runs Deep

Historical origins of modern conservative movement:

"But the dominance rhetoric of the MAGA Republicans was never just about political power. Political power always went hand in hand with corruption. A new book by Joe Conason called The Longest Con notes that the modern right-wing movement has its roots in the promise of grifters after World War II to protect America against the communists they insisted were infiltrating the country. Their promises to defend true Americans against an enemy was always about getting cash out of the deal."

Modern conservative movement creed: 

"Since the 1950s, those determined to get rid of business regulation, social welfare programs, government infrastructure spending, and federal protection of civil rights have relied on a rhetorical structure that centers “real” Americans who allegedly want nothing from government and warns that un-American forces who want government handouts are undermining the country by bringing socialism or racial, gender, or religious equality."

Modern conservative movement as pure gaslighting fake news fascist grift: 

"Nothing better illustrates the grift at the center of today’s MAGA Republicans than Donald Trump’s Big Lie that he actually won the 2020 election and that it was stolen from him by those dangerous “others,” the Democrats. The Big Lie enabled the Trump team to continue soliciting donations in order to fight for the White House. According to Conason, Trump and his fellow election deniers pocketed $255.4 million between the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol to stop the counting of the electoral votes that would make Democratic candidate Joe Biden president."

Letters from an American Historian

 

The Seattle Reign Crown Megan Rapinoe

 

“When you look at [my jersey in the rafters], well I guess you’ll be thinking of me,” she said. “But just know that every time I look at that number, I’m gonna see you. I’m gonna see every pride flag, and every trans flag, and every Black Lives Matter flag, and every equal pay flag, and every ‘Fuck Portland’ flag. And I’m gonna see purple hair and pink hair and a short stint of blue hair. And I’m gonna see families that I feel like I grew up with…. So just know that when you’re looking up and thinking about me, I’m looking up and thinking about all of you, and all of the incredible moments that we shared.” 

I've never been and don't know much about soccer (other than that I find the Vuvuzela even more annoying than the baseball/football stadium Wave, which they probably do at soccer too) but salute, and a big Yay, for Megan Rapinoe! And also Sue Bird, right in pic, who played for the Storm, Seattle's most successful sports franchise this century, and who recently got a street named after her. 

The royal couple of Seattle sports. 

Hannah Murphy Winter at The Stranger

The Colossal Systemic Failure In The Mar-a-Lago Case

And the Jan 6 case, and fake electors case, and Ukraine extortion case, and Russian collusion case, etc. The failure of the judiciary has generated a constitutional crisis, which I keep saying even though those that know better than I won't.  

From David Kurtz's Morning Memo at Talking Points Memo: 

"It is highly likely that Smith prevails at the appeals court, but that victory will not mask the fundamental systemic and institutional failures to hold Trump to account under the rule of law for his crimes in a timely way that halts Trump’s ongoing threat to national security, gives voters a clear picture of who they’re voting for in November, and bolsters public confidence in the ability of the judicial branch to properly function in a crisis."

Also, see How MAGA Is Already Justifying The Use Of Military Force At Home If Trump Wins:

"In this MAGA fever dream, everyone has their part to play. They believe that they’ll be caught up in it; you might be, too. It goes something like this: If Donald Trump wins in November, people will protest. Riots will break out. The left, they theorize, will go all-out to stoke organized violence around the country, clearing the way for a newly inaugurated Trump administration to step in and make unprecedented, widespread use of the U.S. military to restore law and order."

The bitterest irony of this "fever dream" being if Trump is able to steal another election, after all his obvious and flagrant high crimes and treason against the country, there ought to be the biggest street protests ever. Hopefully, the electorate figures out our collective peril before it comes to this, chooses the better future promised by Harris/Walz and sends Trump to jail and his domestic terrorist minions back to their private militia compounds.

As if to underline my point, More than 200 former Republican staffers endorse Harris. 

P.S. We don't credit Antifa and the dirtbag left enough for NOT showing up on Jan 6. Part of Tump's sinister coup plotting was counting on it, preparing for Martial law and sicking the military on protesters, which is the ultimate violent revanchist fascist fantasy. 

In other words, Trump setup the Taliban threat and chaos of the final withdrawal. Biden had the courage and the fortitude to end a two decade military occupation that could not develop a sustainable, independent, non-terrorist regime or win over a majority of the Afghan population outside Kabul. And Trump was cutting bad deals with the bad guys, again, and then going neener-neener when it becomes a problem for his political opponents, like with the Border, and like with Gaza and Israel now, etc.  

"the exchange of international thought is the only possible salvation for the world," Thomas Hardy

Sue Bridehead in Jude The Obscure (1895):  

Her eyes met his, and remained on him awhile. 

"We are rather a sad family, don't you think, Jude?" 

"She [their recently deceased aunt] said we made bad husbands and wives. Certainly we make unhappy ones. At all events, I do, for one!

Sue was silent. "Is it wrong, Jude," she said with a tentative tremor, "for a husband or wife to tell a third person that they are unhappy in their marriage? If a marriage ceremony is a religious thing, it is possibly wrong; but if it is only a sordid contract, based on material convenience in householding, rating, and taxing, and the inheritance of land and money by children, making it necessary that the male parent should be known-- which it seems to be-- why surely a person may say, even proclaim upon the housetops, that it grieves him or her?"

"I have said so, anyhow, to you."

The character of Sue Bridehead, her strength, her flashing brilliance, what Jude loves above all else, is the revelation here. Tess had her own mind but not like this. Otherwise, forgot how much I liked Hardy's doomed romanticism. His rural Wessex is indelible; my most lasting impression of the British Shire prior to the Lord of the Rings movies (yes I know they were really shot in New Zealand). Rolling hills with big territorial viewpoints, lush, green, a patchwork of woods and open fields and stone enclosures, a church steeple in the distance. Lots of walking, you can smell the wet grass and small peasant homesteads. Class divisions insult and demean in the towns but they are where all the work was. Hardy's characters, men, women, stoic, mysterious, or impulsive, all from the countryside, struggle with the ferocity of their emotions. There are two climactic romantic scenes that are as vivid and thrilling as your first or last kiss with someone you can't forget. Marriage, religion, and social conventions make people miserable in the Victorian 19th century. A longing and suffering for a love, something, unbounded by these conventions and strictures, and which always remains fleeting and beyond the grasp, if it does not lead in fact to self-destruction, suffuses all Hardy's novels, or the ones I've gotten to so far. Jude the Obscure is no exception and might be a peak. It was his last novel and he was hounded for it when it came out. For its disparaging depiction of marriage conventions and pompous religious piety. He vowed to never write another novel and only wrote poetry thereafter. 

"Toy Love Song," Toy Love (1980)

 The blare to the recording is harsh but grows into something. Toy Love were an early punk rock band from New Zealand. They originated from Dunedin and were active between 1978 and 1980; ofter referred to as progenitors of the Dunedin sound that Flying Nun Records began documenting in the 1980s. More Chris Knox, Alec Bathgate (later Tall Dwarfs), and Paul Kean (later The Bats). 

Lina Khan and Antitrust Enforcers: "The Rent Is Too Damn High!"

"In fact, there was no mystery behind the inflation that Americans were experiencing, inflation in everyday items paired with skyrocketing corporate profits. There was a conspiracy, orchestrated by some of the richest men in the country. Median asking rents had spiked by as much as 18% in the spring of 2022, and that was outrageous. Moreover, rents are just out of control more broadly. As the Antitrust Division notes, "the percentage of income spent on rent for Americans without a college degree increased from 30% in 2000 to 42% in 2017."

Matt Stoller at BIG

Sometimes You Just Have to Ignore the Economists

"Kamala Harris’s proposed price-gouging ban might irritate academics, but it makes sense to everyone else.

Here, regular people seem to understand a few things that economists don’t. During an emergency, such as a natural disaster, short-term demand cannot be met by short-term supply, setting the stage for sellers to exploit their position by raising prices on goods already in their inventory. The idealized law of supply and demand predicts that new investors would rush in, but the real world doesn’t work like that. A short-term price spike won’t always trigger the long-term investments needed to increase supply, because everyone knows that the situation is, by definition, abnormal; they can’t count on a continued revenue boom. During a rare blizzard, sellers might jack up the prices of snowblowers. But investors aren’t going to set up a new snowblower-manufacturing hub based on a blizzard, because by the time they had any inventory to sell, the snow would long be melted. So after the disruption, all goes back to normal—except with a big wealth transfer from the public to the company that raised prices."

Zephyr Teachout at The Atlantic

Exactly! With the economists it's always what is it about the laws of supply and demand and free markets you people do not understand? The natural supply and demand price mechanism is always economizing and expanding markets and maximizing economic growth but only if "free" and unfettered by government rules and regulations, like price-gouging bans, price controls, rent controls, and the like. It's a pipe dream and religion at this point. 

JK Galbraith had a hand in fashioning the successful and popular price controls implemented during WW2. He remarked of the experience afterwards that the first obstacle they had to overcome was trying to apply price controls to perfect competitive market models because it failed time and time again. There appeared to be nearly no such thing as a market with perfect competition in the real economy. But when they fashioned price controls to the specific power dynamics of particularly important markets they had way more success, effectively curbing price gouging and excessive profiteering while not only not impeding but in fact boosting production.  

By the way, Teachout wrote a book called Corruption in America: From Benjamin Franklin's Snuff Box to Citizens United (2014). From taking a snuff box as a gift from a foreign country costing you your office to judges taking millions in gifts and everyone knows it and they are untouchable, above the law. Stunning historical trajectory. Great anti-corruption history. 

JD Vance Is the Wrong Answer

"Men are in a crisis, for sure. But JD Vance is not the example of masculinity that those who are lost should follow. 

Op-ed after op-ed has acknowledged the crisis men are facing, whether it’s their declining rates of college enrollment, increasing suicide rates, lower life expectancy, dwindling levels of employment, or troubling levels of Joe Rogan podcast subscriptions. Solutions for the crisis abound, too: Josh Hawley says we need to ban pornography. Brad Wilcox says people need to get and stay married. Richard Reeves, who’s done an incredibly thoughtful analysis of the problem, recommends starting boys in school a year later because of research that suggests boys mature more slowly than girls do. Vance’s solution, so far, seems to be to rage against modernity—to stay mad until society regresses.

Walz’s masculinity [by contrast] is positive. I mean that in the fullest sense of the term. Positive masculinity is more than just the absence of toxic masculinity: It’s about embracing what’s distinctly good about men. I can admit that in an effort to promote genders that have historically been marginalized, (some) liberals have failed to value men for their unique traits. There’s no contradiction between accepting that gender is a spectrum, and recognizing that somewhere along that spectrum lies cisgender men, who deserve to be respected for what they bring to the table. Positive masculinity is a man walking a female friend home at night if she feels unsafe. It’s moving furniture. It’s doing home repairs. It’s the joke circling the Internet that Walz is the kind of guy who would help you change your tire. It’s how Walz was the faculty adviser for the gay-straight alliance at a rural Minnesota high school 25 years ago because they needed a masculine figure like the football coach to lend legitimacy and safety to their organization. It’s using masculinity for good."

Ginny Hogan in The Nation

Social Media Trolling Vibes and Viral Online Political Meme-ing

"Dry policy messaging or warnings about threats to democracy are less likely to be widely shared than a good roast, as Walz discovered a month ago when he changed Democrats’ political strategy wholesale by labelling Trump and Vance “weird.” The Harris campaign has an account on Trump’s social-media platform Truth Social, where it follows only one account—Trump’s. It could have spent time disputing misinformation or trying to convert Trump-skeptical Republicans on Trump’s own turf. Instead, the Harris account has opted for mocking its opponent. When Trump complained that Harris was getting too much credit for the size of her crowds, Harris’s Truth Social account posted photos from the two candidates’ Philadelphia rallies in the same arena side by side (suggesting, of course, that hers was indeed larger). Such dunks, as Internet slang would put it, are primed to be shared gleefully beyond Truth Social, a performance directed at the whole of social media."

How Harris is Beating Trump Online, NY-er (sorry ab paywall)

Good to see Harris/Walz fighting fire with fire in digital native-landia and that they have some twenty-somethings on the job. Not comforting to realize that several of the biggest social media "dunk"-ing platforms are owned by Billionaires hostile to the Harris/Walz's democratic agenda. And not comforting when you think about how "dunking" is, in fact, Trump's only actual political skill and right up his WWE kayfabe alley. Now, on the other hand, if Harris/Walz can slay the beast, so to speak, in this fashion it will make her victory in the 2024 election, her retribution for women, HRC/2016, "Me Too," and Dobbs, all the sweeter poetic justice. 

Bring it on, Harris/Walz!

A Chicago Welcome to the DNC:

DNC Night 1: I've been following the TPM live blog, Kate Riga, for much of the evening, doing something else, refreshing the page, and crying like an spastically on-off sprinkler: Walz's wife crying over HRC (Breaking news: for Hilary and women this is a very big moment!), Jasmine Crockett, AOC (for potus 2044!), Fein's "Trump is a Scab" t-shirt, Pelosi's "We Love Joe" sign, ay yi yi, you'd think they were choreographing this thing for maximum waterworks. As Kate put it, "The first night of the convention had pathos baked in." Biden was emotional and full SOTU, blowing his horn and throwing his weight behind Kamala and now, all of a sudden, I'm noticing there is this Obama ring in saying Kamala that I hadn't noticed before. Harris/Walz are When We Fight We Win and at the same time a stealth version of Yes We Can, again! And again!

Maybe stuff can get better after all!

 

I was so excited by it all when Kate signed off I googled the DNC Convention and it was all bored boilerplate, contentless, and skeptical headlines. So I guess you had to be there. I got swept up in Kate reporting all the pathos. At minimum, she made it sound like a really good first night of the convention for all the Democrats in Chicago. Especially for women and those that support women's freedom. 

 

No idea what was happening with the protesters outside, though? Hopefully, no problems with the Chicago police and the Dems find some way to throw them a bone. AOC pointed out how hard Biden is working for a ceasefire but that's not what the protesters want to hear, I know. 

I don't blame the protesters but I can get impatient with the protests, nonetheless. For example, I heard Jill Stein's VP pick, Butch Ware, equivocating the two major parties over violence, they're both "war machines," which perhaps has never been very smart but in 2024?! If Trump wins may they rot in hell for eternity. 

 

At any rate, I knew the hot dog question was bound to come up this week. I usually do only mustard and onions, that's it. But that's because I'm lazy. I never say no to Chicago style hot dog should I find one offered, even if this might be as close as they get to a salad in Chicago, a hot dog all dressed up with tomatoes, peppers, a spear of cucumber pickle, and I even like the glow-green relish, but the secret ingredient is celery salt, amirite?  

DNC Night 2: Missed this one mostly on the road, although caught some on NPR in the car. Could have heard more but found the between-speech commentary tedious, as I usually do. Eventually got home and caught some speeches on youtube. What a Black power couple the Obamas have become. Michelle is a super professional mom, sister, a friend to lovers of freedom and uplift, and punctuates her clear, plainspoken speeches by dropping into the homie vernacular; "my girl"s and "yeah"s, etc. Her bearing alone fires up the crowd, roaring their support and breaking into one chant after another. One punchline, "Who is going to tell him the job he is currently seeking might be one of those 'Black jobs,'" brings down the house. The Obamas greet on stage before Barack's speech, and reaffirm immediately, iconically, where they first made their national impression in 2008: they are the most telegenically loving first couple of the modern TV era. The obvious peer respect between them is a political superpower. It probably makes some men, certainly Trump and his chauvinist bros, nervous but women and men who love women recognize it as a model of relationship strength right off. And as if to burnish this brand Barack makes a comparison of Michelle's recently deceased Black mother and his white Irish grandmother central to his speech. Otherwise, his performance is that old mesmerizingly meandering folksy eloquence of Obama, like the generational and professorial and secular progeny of MLK that he is. It's a comforting style, and to the consternation of racists, quintessentially American, making founding democratic values feel personal and inclusive, but maybe at points a bit of a yawner too, or there were moments where I was wondering where this was going. And then about two-thirds way in you notice this awesome quiet has overtaken the crowd, in that big arena rocking the rafters minutes before you could hear a pin drop. Everyone was listening to Obama telling us who we are, what binds us together, what we want and how with hard work and perseverance we can build a better future for all and we nod along to the obvious wisdom of his hopefulness. Yes we can, again! Why not? 

Obama was not a perfect president, by any stretch. But one of if not the best in my lifetime at translating traditional American ideals into inspiring contemporary speech. And Jon Favreau probably deserves a big assist. 

DNC Night 3: 

"Full hearts, clear minds, can't lose." Public school teacher, high school, and social studies. Democratic candidate for Vice President. Represent, Mr. Walz! Coach. Veteran. Hunter. Rural small town roots. In other words, telegenic Republican identities but he's a dyed-in-the-flannel liberal public educator. And he doesn't mince his words. It's weird and wrong to deny women reproductive freedom. It's weird and wrong, and unneighborly, to persecute people over racial or religious or sexual differences. It's weird and wrong to always be punching down at those that are weaker, LGBTQ+ Americans, immigrants, homeless people. Instead of banning books and going on crusades against CRT, in Minnesota where Walz is Governor, all the kids in public schools get free breakfasts and lunches. In other words, he's obviously a godless communist and attacks will begin, if they haven't already, shortly. This is Trump's "radical Left" but of course it isn't radical at all (maybe echoes of an older prairie populism, or at least the midwestern roots of the Clintons and Obamas Big Tent we-the-people are all in this together). But there is a claim of sorts one can infer from Walz's candidacy: Public education is an essential government service, and a crucial investment in the future of our country. Attacking government is miserly elite panic and hateful bigotry, and it threatens the economic security of the middle classes and poor and, moreover, the very environmental sustainability of the planet. 

"The Republicans are the party that says the government doesn't work and then get elected and prove it," quips P.J. O'Rourke. Harris/Walz, like Biden, are Democrats, despite Republican obstruction, trying to make government work for families and workers and consumers and not just Billionaires and racists. 

Also of note I'm in awe of Walz's productive energies. As a retired high school teacher myself, who taught history and humanities in classrooms for 23 years, regularly putting in 60 hour work weeks during the school year and usually unable to get to anything else, Walz's family and community building industriousness is a wonder and obviously something we need more of in Democratic leadership. 

We need Democrats that will work in government to help solve problems for regular people and workers, women's rights, good jobs, costs of living, affordable health care, etc. And Walz's energy, the raucous energy of the DNC, reminds why I was never any good for those big music festivals. I don't have the energy and stamina. I need a nap. 

DNC Night 4: Maybe the Dems first misstep, or that's the way it's being reported anyway. The DNC rejected a request by a  representative of Palestinian Americans to speak at the convention. It's hard to know from here what the decision making was. Inside and outside the convention there were calls for a "ceasefire" but outside also loud calls for an "arms embargo," Rep Ilhan Omar made this point to press outside the convention with more than a little attitude. This appears to be the line of unity inside the convention that the DNC and Harris were not willing to cross: i.e., no calls for an arms embargo on Israel. But, meanwhile, Netanyahu and Israel's right wing continue to abuse this support. Not two, three months past blocking an Iranian retaliatory strike of over 200 missiles, Israel is executing bombing campaigns again in Lebanon and Iran, forcing the US to commit more weapons and missile defense to Israel, and acting as a cover for Israel's genocidal bombing campaign in GAZA and anti-Palestinian pogroms in the West Bank. It's the chickens coming home to roost on over two decades of Israeli bad faith towards a two-state solution and Palestinian claims for self-determination. And it creates a dilemma for the U.S. and the Western democracies, to say the least: How to defend Israel's right to exist without empowering Israel to greater extremes of militarized belligerence? Arms embargoes are off the table for now, apparently, but I hope backchannels are talking to Iran. Regime change in Israel would appear to be the most fervent wish, if spoken out loud cautiously. But, all the while, war criminal Netanyahu increasingly threatens a wider war and deepens the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Not good. 

Also, meanwhile, Kamala Harris gave her big nomination speech, calling again for a ceasefire in Gaza and affirming Palestinian rights to self-determination. Most impressive so far has been her unwavering commitment to the spirit of Bidenomics and a bottom-up hopefulness for the basic rights and opportunities of all Americans and democratic freedoms around the world against the top-down dumpster-fire bigot crazy that elements of entrenched elites would rather entertain and will haze her for until the election.

"When we fight we win!" That sounds right to me and, if nothing else, the determined and triumphant energy at the DNC sustained for four days would indicate the Democratic party is ready to bring that fight. For now, I need another nap. 

Sifting through journalist accounts of what seemed like one of the best DNCs in memory (admittedly a low bar for me), more highlights from the DNC: 

Democratic VP Candidate Tim Walz: 

"Freedom. When Republicans use the word freedom, they mean that the government should be free to invade your doctor’s office. Corporations—free to pollute your air and water. And banks—free to take advantage of customers. But when we Democrats talk about freedom, we mean the freedom to make a better life for yourself and the people that you love. Freedom to make your own health care decisions. And yeah, your kids’ freedom to go to school without worrying about being shot dead in the hall."

Former national security official Leon Panetta and respected Hawk itemizes Trump's serious threats to national security: 

James Fallows, Jimmy Carter's speechwriter, and longtime top-notch journalist, from his Breaking The News: 

"Guided by optimism and faith, to fight for this country we love, to fight for the ideals we cherish and to uphold the awesome responsibility that comes with the greatest privilege on Earth," Kamala Harris 

The privilege and pride of being an American.

I’ve never heard it put just that way before. But this is exactly right — I say as someone who has lived through some of America’s darkest chapters, and has spent a dozen years living outside its borders.

Trump’s GOP portrays the United States as a shithole-country in waiting. Harris’s convention portrayed it as the country we love, and want to improve.

From Letters from an American Historian: 

On Wednesday, former president Bill Clinton noted that since 1989, the U.S. has created 51 million new jobs. Fifty million of those jobs were created under Democratic presidents, while only 1 million were added under Republicans—a striking statistic that perhaps will put neoliberalism, or at least the tired trope that Democrats are worse for the economy than Republicans, to bed. 

We can still dream. 

Michelle Goldberg in the NY Times: 

Her [Harris] plan to combat price gouging features an aggressive role for the F.T.C [where Lina Khan is taking on the monopolists]. At the Democratic convention, especially on the opening night, “corporate greed” was a scourge, and speaker after speaker sought to link “freedom,” the central theme of Harris’s campaign, to programs that protect the middle class from the depredations of concentrated wealth. Even the ordinarily pro-business secretary of commerce, Gina Raimondo, blasted “monopolies that crush workers and small businesses and start-ups.” And as Lauren Feiner pointed out in The Verge, the Democratic platform mentions “competition” 18 times, twice as often as it did four years ago, and emphasized policies that Khan has been closely involved with. Suddenly, Khan seems more likely to be a linchpin of a potential Harris presidency than a casualty of it.

The Bernie/Hillary Divide Closed, Zackary D. Carter in Slate:

Harris may or may not disappoint AOC on Gaza. She will first have to defeat Trump, and the election remains close. But on Monday night, at least, her Democratic Party looked like a juggernaut of joy, enraptured with the prospect of a leader who has spent more than a third of her life in the 21st century. On a night organized as a send-off for the Clinton–Biden generation of Democratic leaders, it was tellingly poignant that Hillary Clinton’s most powerful note—framed within one of the most emotionally powerful speeches of the evening—was an overture to the future: “I want my grandchildren and their grandchildren to know I was here at this moment, that we were here.”

Corporate Rule Bias in Major Media

Evidence of Corporate Rule Bias at WaPo/NYT all the way down to the local Sinclair news outlets and Chambers of Commerce: recent poll conducted by WaPo found that people trust Trump over Harris on the economy 46% to 37% and inflation 45% to 39%. 

Sorry but that's insane. Trump has filed bankruptcy four times. His economic model is hyping his own Brand and financial fraud. He stiffs workers and was backslapping Musk just last week for breaking up union organizing efforts at Tesla. Sixteen Nobel economists, based on his Project 2025 plans, predict a Trump inflation bomb should he be re-elected. Democratic administrations have beat Republican administrations on jobs, inflation, and growth since WW2 and, even more strikingly, since the 1980s. Bidenomics, despite Republican obstruction, outperforms Trump's term in office by a huge margin, even if you only want to count his pre-pandemic years, and has outperformed nearly any other developed country in the world going through the similar global economic disruptions of Covid-19 and inflation. Prices are frustratingly higher and in as much as they are so because of corporate price gouging Harris promises to do something about that. According to Judd Legum's Popular Information, in 2020 and 2021, "corporate profits accounted for more than 50% of food price increases, whereas they accounted for only 11% of increases in the four decades prior." Meanwhile, price gouging or "sellers inflation" or greedflation, under the Corporate Rule Bias, do not and cannot  exist. 

Corporations or those that are for Trump and the Republicans on economic grounds, despite the avalanche of evidence against their position, are so for a simple reason: Trump will lower their taxes and reduce the regulations they have to contend with, or at minimum Republicans present less risk either will be increased than the Democrats. Some hack economists will tell you these are pro growth measures but, again, the economic record for this approach going back the '80s says mostly otherwise. As it turns out, lowering taxes and reducing regulations on wealth is in fact a recipe for the massive transfer of wealth from the working classes and middle classes to super rich Billionaires and obstructs the ability of government to address climate change or the costs of living or health care, etc. 

People trusting Trump over Harris, Repubs over Dems, on the economy is a collective reflex to keep the boss and our corporate overlords happy, which is precisely the aim of the Corporate Rule Bias in major media. 

Jazz Dance: The Story Of American Vernacular Dance

By Marshall & Jean Stearns (1966)

"Describing an incident at the Savoy [dance ballroom in Harlem NYC] in 1937, Leon James [Lindy Hop dancer] remarks: 'Dizzy Gillespie was featured in the brass section of Teddy Hill's screaming band. A lot of people had him pegged as a clown, but we loved him. Every time he played a crazy lick, we cut a crazy step to go with it. And he dug us and blew even crazier stuff to see if we could dance to it, a kind of game, with the musicians and dancers challenging each other. 

One of the reasons for the early development of great big-band jazz at the Savoy was the presence of great dancers" Jazz Dance, page 325 

Largely written by suit & tie Ivy Leaguer Marshall Stearns, but when the writer died suddenly before finishing Jazz Dance, Jean Stearns, also a recognized jazz buff, and Marshall's wife, finishes and publishes his historical opus. I can't even recall for sure where I got the reference but the title definitely came up in one of my turtle-slow reading projects investigating, in this case, the roots of 20th c music in 19th c music. Going in I expected a snobby ballroom dancing take. And wasn't entirely disappointed when Stearns dismisses all rock & roll dancing as sloppy ripoffs of the great dance crazes of the Jazz Age (1920s) and Swing Eras (1930s and 1940s). But by the end of the book I've fully forgiven him. Jazz Dance is a rich history, largely first person (from copious interviews); a history of Black song and dance entertainers and their contributions to Jazz music, going all the way back to the minstrel music performers of the 1830s and 1840s. Actually, Black stars rarely appear on Broadway or in Hollywood up to the 1950s but by the 1920s, despite the racism and segregation, Black music is stylistically dominant in popular music. If it's not Black people playing and performing the music then it's white people trying to play like them. Hot Jazz and the Swing Era were a pinnacle for tap dancing, and another American invention. Few dancers could keep up with the frantic changes in Bebop in the 1950s, though. And tellingly one of the few that could, Cholly Atkins, of Atkins & Coles tap fame in the 1940s and '50s, went on to become the house choreographer for Motown and coached the dancing of such rock & roll stars as the Cadillacs, Shirelles, Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers, Little Anthony & the Imperials, all the way up to the O'Jays and the Sylvers in the disco 1970s. Curiously, there is a chapter devoted to Fred Astaire, who is given his due as a first rate "hoofer" with his own style. But barely a mention in the book of Gene Kelly, maybe because by the 1950s jazz music isn't scoring the big musicals the way it was in Astaire's 1930s? The ending feels abrupt, not surprisingly, given Marshall's premature death. And all the dance crazes while curious wash over me, leaving few to memory. But the power of Black music and dance in the social history of America, overcoming racism to dominate the Jazz Age and Swing Era is a heck of a story and told here with unassuming legibility and dedicated enthusiasm.  

Norma Miller tells the story of how she came to dance at the Savoy when she was 12 years old. 

Bill "Bojangles" Robinson does his "sand dance" on a river boat loaded with cotton bales, transcending his shuffling minstrel image of the happy slave with his own irrepressibly joyful dancing and, coincidentally, the invention of the pogo or pogoing dance style. A 1940s version of Ska-Punkers Fishbone provide backup. From Cabin in the Sky (1943):  

Fats Waller's "Ain't Misbehavin" in peak form but sadly he dies shortly after the release of Stormy Weather (1943). This version of his hoary classic is a long sly blues windup, Fats mugging for the camera, and then an all out boogie-woogie and '20s hot jazz blowout. A living legend at likely his most florid on film: "The joint is jumpin'." 

Fred Astaire says the Nicholas Brothers "Jumpin' Jive" dance with Cab Calloway in Stormy Weather is "the greatest movie musical number he'd ever seen." 

The Lindy Hop scene in Hellzapoppin' (1941): A mini jazz history lesson culminating and amalgamating in a dance craze at or near at the pinnacle of the Swing Era. 

* To be honest, I can't whole heartedly recommend any of these movies. Stormy Weather comes closest, for its sheer volume of strong musical performances. But these are big moments in the story Stearns tells. 

"Up," Tall Dwarfs (1996)

I was thinking listening to the album this song comes from, Stumpy, that maybe by 1996 the Dwarfs have lost a step but actually the music, rather than their own as on previous releases, is their curation and editing of music made by sixteen home tapers from all around the world. Chris Knox and Alec Bathgate wrote the songs but then put the music together from these home cassette recordings they collected from other lo-fi home tapers like themselves. That's why they call themselves on this album the International Tall Dwarfs. And maybe why this one has the ghostly cast of the Velvet's "Heroin," slowed down and stretched out for all its spiritual-emotional worth. This is also Galaxy 500 territory, although not sure they have any song quite 19-minutes long. Epic lo-fi. Bloodletting indie rock; an uplifting dirge. Hummable. Rock-a-bye Baby, Up. 

Trump's Second or Third Coup Plot

From Heather Cox Richardson: 

Almost exactly a year ago, on August 1, 2023, a grand jury in Washington, D.C., indicted former president Donald J. Trump for conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to disenfranchise voters, and conspiring and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding. The charges stemmed from Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election. A grand jury is made up of 23 ordinary citizens who weigh evidence of criminal activity and produce an indictment if 12 or more of them vote in favor. 

The grand jury indicted Trump for “conspiracy to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit to impair, obstruct, and defeat the lawful federal government function by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted, and certified by the government”; “conspiracy to corruptly obstruct and impede the January 6 congressional proceeding at which the collected results of the presidential election are counted and certified”; and “conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted.” 

“Each of these conspiracies,” the indictment reads, “targeted a bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election.” “This federal government function…is foundational to the United States’ democratic process, and until 2021, had operated in a peaceful and orderly manner for more than 130 years.” 

The case of the United States of America v. Donald J. Trump was randomly assigned to Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who was appointed by President Obama in 2014 and confirmed 95–0 in the Senate. Trump pleaded not guilty on August 3, after which his lawyers repeatedly delayed their pretrial motions until, on December 7, Trump asked the Washington, D.C., Circuit Court of Appeals to decide whether he was immune from prosecution. Chutkan had to put off her initial trial date of March 4, 2024, and said she would not reschedule until the court decided the question of Trump’s immunity. 

In February the appeals court decided he was not immune. Trump appealed to the Supreme Court, which waited until July 1, 2024, to decide that Trump enjoys broad immunity from prosecution for crimes committed as part of his official acts. Today the Washington, D.C., Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to Chutkan, almost exactly a year after it was first brought.

Letters from an American Historian, HCR

I can't get past this story. We are right now in Trump's second or third coup attempt. We can pretend otherwise, but that won't make it not so. Another coup plot backed by murderous dictators and dirty global oligarchs and violent white supremacists and Maga Repugs and Billionaires and police unions and now SCOTUS, backing a candidate for potus so ridiculously and obviously violent, criminal, and treasonous that damning evidence for several of his highest crimes were recorded or on TV! 

I know, he still may not win. Democracy can still prevail, hopefully. But, meanwhile, all his people on the ground in government positions and in the red states are doing everything they can to rig the election for him and the mainstream media, NY Times/WaPo et al, pretend Trump and the GOP have legitimate support on issues like crime or economics, meaning presumably more tax cuts for the rich and financial fraud?!

Again, this is not serious and at the same time will mean only more serious ruin for the country. Trump, the candidate for law and order?! Come on! Even if you hate all the people he hates you gotta have a better sense of self-preservation than this nuclear meltdown of a political movement.  

Bidenomics for the Green New Deal

"Biden’s economic program looks less like a deliberate attempt to move beyond neoliberalism and more like an ongoing commitment to political pragmatism over any particular economic ideology. That it worked is a testament not to Biden’s profound economic foresight, but to the limits of economic analysis. Economists often disagree with one another over important issues, which means that on any given question, a lot of them are just wrong. The Federal Reserve, for instance, spent the past two years trying to generate mass layoffs in order to cure inflation. Those layoffs never materialized—economists aren’t really sure why—and inflation came down anyway, because the Fed had misdiagnosed its cause. The country had been suffering not from an excess of household wealth, but from a pandemic-induced supply crunch."

Full-employment is Biden's True Legacy, by Zachary D. Carter, Slate

Go Joe! And Harris/Walz will be his legacy! Of note, however, the Fed's misdiagnosis is in fact pure neoliberalism. The market, or supply shocks, in this instance, which were obvious at the time to everyone paying attention, and historically expected after any global disruption in normal economic operations, were ignored by the Fed. Like the role of "seller's inflation," in the subsequent surge of inflation, is ignored to this day by the Fed and elite journalists and economic experts. According to these people, unfettered market and corporate behavior cannot be the problem; and should never be regulated or reformed, this is the neoliberal default position. And it's the position of the Fed and mainstream economics and so the mainstream media, coincidentally all owned and paid for by corporate oligarchs. Biden's genius, attributable probably to spending decades in the special interest scrum that is congress, is in calling out and going after the failings of the neoliberal order-- yeah, pragmatically-- while not getting tied up in soapboxing ideological battles with the chattering class, where he'd have to explain to the public via corporate owned media that so-called "free markets" are in fact not very free at all-- as he's already noted after all, "trickle-down economics don't work"-- but are actually costly for workers, the environment, and when you get down to it not even the most pro-growth or not the kind of economic growth that promotes sustainability and the shared general prosperity of all Americans, anyway.  

"Clam Shells and Roller Skates"-- The Triumph of Chic's Good Times

I really don't follow what's happening with the rock & roll hall of fame much. I visited the place once in Cleveland. Lots of fun rock & roll trivia. I wore a baseball cap with a yellow 7" record insert symbol I picked up in the Hall merch store until it was threadbare and falling apart. The annual ballot for new inductees into the Hall usually turns up in one of my news feeds and at least half the lists, it's been my impression, look like no-brainers to me. 

There's a lot of great rock & roll, why be stingy about it? The Hall ought to celebrate the immense diversity of rock & roll. Not narrowcast it as another classic rock only format. I've heard Chic have been nominated and failed eleven times to get inducted into the rock & roll hall of fame. That's ridiculous, and should be a shaming embarrassment to the music writers who vote. Chic should be in the rock & roll hall of fame for one song alone, "Good Times," and its' tremendous pop influence. 

 If one song isn't enough, which sounds weirdly anti-rock & roll to me, Chic have at least two other classic disco hits and turned into solid album artists. But, again, for "Good Times" alone, Chic belong in the Hall, easy. See/hear below. 

Anyway, they call the place the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame but seem unfortunately hung-up on Rock and the rock stars era. To my mind rock & roll takes off in 1954 or 1955. It's Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Fats Domino, Bo Diddley, The Coasters, The Shirelles, Ronnettes, Everly Brothers, Sun Records, Atlantic Records (including LaVern Baker, Bobbettes, Ruth Brown), Etta James, The Fleetwoods, the rest of the 1950s and, really, expands exponentially from there til possibly the end of the Century and the collapse of the record industry or why not all the way to the present? Rock & roll is more a mixed race/multicultural, by now vastly complex, constellation of sounds than any classic guitar rock cliche, not that there's anything wrong with the Beatles or Led Zeppelin. My point is Hiphop is as much Rock & Roll as Classic Rock as is Folk Rock as is EDM as is Punk Rock as is Disco, etc. 

And maybe it's all only rock & roll but I like it. 

"Good Times," Chic: Number one on Hot 100 in 1979. 

"Rapper's Delight,' Sugarhill Gang: Reached 36 on Hot 100 same year. 

"Rapture," Blondie: Number one in 1981.  

The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steal: Also from 1981 a live DJ mix of Flash cutting, scratching, and mixing a bunch of records, including "Good Times," "Rapture," Sugarhill Gang, Queen, Spoonie Gee, and Mr. Rogers. It's an ultramagnetic party mix based musically on Niles Rodgers' funky guitar and Bernard Edwards' super fat bass. And, Flash, winningly, DJ'ing for a bunch of kids whooping it up getting down to his fresh beats and cartoon wit. It's disco and New Wave and Flash's cutting stabs of proto-hiphop turntable hooks.  

Oh yeah, and another one: Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust." Spent 15 weeks on the Billboard Top 10 in 1980. In all, "Good Times" is a dominant force on the charts for three years running, helps launch Hiphop, and has been sampled by over 200 pop songs since coming out in 1979. 

Americans want to rein in Supreme Court justices, poll finds

 Last month, the court’s conservative majority granted Republican nominee Donald Trump and future presidents broad immunity from prosecution for acts committed in office, potentially sinking Trump’s historic New York hush money conviction and pending cases stemming from his attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat.

In the wake of the immunity decision, some 70% of Americans favor a constitutional amendment stating that no person – including the president – is above the law, according to the poll, with 54% of Republicans joining 72% of independents and 89% of Democrats. 

More good numbers at: USA Today

Twenty-six former Officials Say Trump Unfit to be POTUS

"They’ve expressed their concerns about his character, his leadership, his impulsiveness, and his narcissism, among other traits. The opposition from so many former close aides is unprecedented in the annals of American politics."

Many Trump Alum Never Trumpers, TPM 

“Weird” Is a Rebuke to Republican Dominance Politics

"Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, when she had to explain the phenomenon [that Trump/Vance and Maga are "weird"] to Vivek Ramaswamy, is a far cry from the sadism we’ve come to expect from Trumpworld: “Trying to watch what LGBTQ+ people do all the time is abnormal. Punishing people who don’t have biological offspring is creepy,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote crisply, as if annoyed to have to spell it out.

Are you weird? According to Democrats—who have made “weird” a new term of art for Republicans—you’re weird if you get overexercised about the genitalia of Olympic athletes, think childless people shouldn’t have the right to vote, and generally fixate on controlling women, families, gender, and sexuality for reasons that seem transparently bound up in your own embattled masculinity and deep shame. You’re weird if you yell in public about sharks, or about “Joe Biden’s border bloodbath,” especially while your hands dance to music only you can hear. You’re weird if you want to track strangers’ menstrual cycles but are mad that people know you Googled “dolphin porn.” You’re weird if you campaign vigorously on issues that fly against common sense, such as getting rid of library books, abolishing the Department of Education, and giving the President dictatorial powers. “Weird” is multipurpose, a catchall designation for extreme or intense things that Republicans do or say. Its capaciousness is part of its appeal."

Go Katy Waldman! (another reason to subscribe to the NY-er)

I can't find this meme/photo that made the rounds in the middle of the pandemic. It's two people sitting next to each other on a public bus. A little old lady in a big overcoat and a nonbinary kid with fuchsia hair. The caption reads: Urban nightmare! I might be adding the exclamation point but I loved that photo. Nothing is more bullshit and nothing riles me up more than Trump and his outer-exurbia Maga country minions hating on cities as "living in hell." I've lived in Seattle since the late 1980s, and lived in Portland and the Bay Area (San Jose) in the early '80s; so I've lived in cities for going on half a century. They've had their problems but their problems are NOT women making reproductive health care decisions for themselves or LGBTQ+ people or immigrants or people of color or minorities or even protesters. Never have been. 

Repuglicans right now are weirdly obsessed with punching down at marginalized groups, women, people in drag, people speaking in a different language or with an accent, people protesting state violence in the streets. They maybe always have been bad but they at least haven't been this bad about it in a long time; since America was "great" in their way of thinking, I guess. Project 2025 really is a Handmaid's Tale dystopian nightmare. And despite Trump's denials Project 2025 is in fact a perfect distillation of Trumpism, with the fingerprints of over 200 former officials of the Trump admin all over it. 

The biggest problems in the city of Seattle, from my humble perch in the peanut gallery, are living wages, homelessness, and the rich do not want to pony up (with taxes) for obvious infrastructural needs like public housing and green sustainability reforms, and the mayor and political establishment are for some inexplicable reason intimidated by the fascist Trump-endorsing police union. 

I'm usually a passive supporter of those "Keep Portland/City X weird" campaigns. So the crucial qualifier here, made by Walz at their Michigan rally, is "creepy" weird. Trump/Vance are creepy weird on steroids. You don't want to hear them talking about your family or anybody else's families. Let's put this creepy weird stuff behind us. We really do have better, more pressing, things to do.