The conventions are over. In less than two weeks, September 6, the first mail ballots will be sent to voters. The first (and likely only) presidential debate is four days later. Former President Donald Trump is scheduled to be sentenced in his New York hush money case on September 18. And early in-person voting will start as soon as September 20 in some states.
The estate of Isaac Hayes has successfully served Donald Trump with a subpoena to appear in person in court on September 3. There is a Wikipedia page listing the two dozen musicians/groups who have taken legal actions to demand that their music not be played at campaign events.
The Trump-Vance campaign plan for the immediate future includes trips to Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. At the end of the week, their candidate will stop in DC to address Moms for Liberty, the culture war’s book banning militia.
The Wall Street Journal reports the events will be smaller in scale, saving money and making it easier for Trump to focus. There’s no mention of the diminishing crowds in recent weeks.
Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will launch a bus tour of southern Georgia this week, culminating with a rally in Savannah previously postponed due to Tropical Storm Debby.
“The south Georgia region is a priority for the campaign: We have nearly 50 full time staff across seven offices in the area, including Valdosta. We have hosted more than 500 events in the region since May 31,” Georgia campaign spokesperson Adelaide Bullock told NBC News.
A Harris/Walz mobilization effort in the state now touts 174 staffers and 24 coordinated campaign offices sprawled across Georgia. The campaign refers to its ground game there as “the largest in-state operation of any democratic presidential campaign cycle ever in Georgia.”
Former President Donald Trump has apparently seen the light about Georgia, as a fraught relationship with popular Republican Governor Brian Kemp has been patched over.
RFK Jr’s endorsement of the GOP candidate didn’t surprise many people, given that the two men both have Billionaire Timothy Mellon as their single largest donor.
Kennedy hasn’t actually ended his campaign; he’s attempting to withdraw his name from 10 states considered battlegrounds. By keeping his name on 40 other states’ ballots, he’s embracing a batshit theory that a tie in the House of Representatives could somehow lead to his winning the presidency–without garnering a single electoral vote.
Social media outlets have been flooded with screenshots of prior RFK Jr statements denouncing the former president, evidence the one-time environmental activist has lost either his marbles or his integrity. Or both.
Having disowned the Project 2025 game plan thoughtfully provided by their billionaire friends, Republicans now have to follow the former president’s messaging on social media to have policy discussions.
While there’s plenty of press claiming momentum to be on candidate Kamala Harris’ side, there are also reports about the former president desperately seeking any kind of leverage to turn the tide. Cue to cornered rat metaphors…
The GOP candidate, who’s pushed back on advice that he lessen personal attacks, appears to have settled on a nickname (his trademark slur technique) for his opponent, calling her “Comrade Kamala, a radical-left Marxist.”
Trump’s minion’s have picked up on that theme, hoping to turn the clock back to the days where the mere mention of lefty associations could end careers.
Congressman James Comer is intent on reviving the McCarthyist approach. Having failed to drum up enough evidence to convince people outside his bubble to impeach President Joe Biden, the Kentucky Republican has persuaded the House Oversight committee to investigate Gov. Tim Walz purported “long standing connections to Chinese Communist Party (CCP) entities and officials.”
Comer wasn’t satisfied with insulting the VP candidate; he told Fox News to be suspicious of Walz’ home state:
"Minnesota is not your normal state ... you have a huge population of residents in Minnesota that have come from other countries and have very different ideologies that don't really respect capitalism."
Not to be outdone, Republican Senator Ron Johnson also went to Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business to attack VP candidate Tim Walz over his ties to China, claiming it’s a red flag that the “radical leftist” got married “on the anniversary of Tiananmen Square.”
The Senate Homeland Security Committee member to the TV audience: “She’s (Harris) a radical leftist. She chose another radical leftist. They’re just assuming the mainstream media is not going to cover his background.”
So there you have it. If you get a casserole delivered to your house by a Minnesotan, be sure to check for empathy-inducing drugs and a copy of Das Kapital under the serving dish.
Speaking of grasping at straws, the National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA) has unanimously adopted the position that Kamala Harris is ineligible to be President based on... the Dred Scott decision.
I know the MAGA crowd wants to turn back the clock, but have always assumed that meant going as far as the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote. The slavery-affirming 1857 Supreme Court decision, they say, included the definition of “Natural Born Citizen” as a person born on US soil of parents who are both citizens at the time of birth.
The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, adopted in 1868, guarantees birthright citizenship to most people born in the United States. The amendment's first part, the Citizenship Clause, states that "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside". This applies regardless of the immigration or tax status of the person's parents.
Candidate Trump didn’t need any Supreme Court Decision from yesteryear to take to social media to challenge Harris’ candidacy:
Kamala Harris is the Weakest Presidential Candidate in History on Crime. She’s allowed millions of people to pour through our Borders, many from prisons, mental institutions and, indeed, terrorists, coming in at levels never seen before. What gives her the right to run for President?"
She got no votes to Biden’s 14 Million. She failed in her previous attempt, was the first one out of 22 people to quit, never made it to Iowa, and now she’s a Presidential Candidate?"
"This is a Threat to Democracy!"
***
Is Kamala Harris a lightweight? If one were to believe the mainstream media, the American people were pounding on the doors of the Democratic National Convention demanding substantive white papers on her policy positions.
This is, of course, bullshit, as Jordan Zakarin at Progress Report says:
If anything, this is an effort by the media to manufacture tension and conflict in a campaign that is getting away from Trump. In sports video games, the artificial intelligence is always calibrating to the skill level of different players, lending a hand to the losing team and making life difficult for the team with the lead. It’ll sometimes manifest in embarrassingly transparent manipulation, like a clear homer landing in an outfielder’s mitt or a perfectly executed pass going through the hands of a receiver. That’s what seems to be happening with campaign coverage, both because the press want a tight game and because they want to reel back control of a Harris campaign that has soared beyond anyone’s wildest expectations after so many years of Biden gasping for good PR.
Not only is this not being done in the public interest, Americans actually seem pretty clear on Harris’s economic proposals — and they largely support them. YouGov surveyed voters after the vice president laid out her economic plans, and none of the 17 policies they polled scored less than 50% approval. Some were far higher — increasing Medicare’s power to negotiate prices with drug companies had 82% support, capping annual out-of-pocket payments for prescription drugs had 72% support, and banning price-gouging on groceries was supported by 65% of respondents.
***
But what about Palestine? Critics are saying the biggest failure of the national Democratic gathering was it’s unwillingness to grant a pro-Palestinian speaker the opportunity to state the case against continuing atrocities in Gaza.
Party establishmentarians feared that any forceful denunciation of the Netanyahu regime’s war would cause a significant rift in the party, diverting energy away from its unity at all costs strategy. The party line on the subject was to denounce Hamas as terrorists and express regret at all the civilian casualties.
Promises of tens of thousands of demonstrators outside the DNC didn’t materialize. The most optimistic reports claimed 30,000 people participated in protests over the four days of the convention. The disappointing turnout certainly didn’t help the cause, especially since one of the largest expatriate Palestinian communities is located nearby.
Putting moral judgments aside (we shouldn’t, but here we are), the prevailing assessment was that more votes in the election would be lost than gained by incorporating denouncements of Israeli military actions and US arms shipments at the convention. It’s not a matter of polling; it’s the ability of anti-Palestine forces to frame politicians as being associated with extremists.
Ultimately, the plight of the Gazans amounts to a Greater Good argument. Does it mean Trump wins if Israel is decried? Will things ever get better for the people living in Gaza if the Dems denounce Netanyahu? And then there are the larger geo-political considerations based on Israel’s role as a surrogate for US interests in a dangerously unstable region.
These aren’t easy questions. In a more normal era, the choices would be much clearer.