INVITE AN ALIEN TO LIVE WITH YOU DAY UPDATES
This Holiday Is Homage to MORK AND MINDY and not THE X-FILES or even THIRD ROCK FROM THE SUN - and You Will See Why In The Update
-We must start today’s update with the back breakers, the clincher, the absolute nails in the coffin of the Biden re-election campaign, as THIS JUST IN: CNN and NBC both announce via news bulletin that West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin (No Longer a D but Still a D) has asked for Biden to “Pass the Torch” and withdraw from the 2024 race. Please take a moment to process your grief and doom before reading on – and perhaps soothe yourself with this morning’s guest New York Times column by Aaron Sorkin, in which he does his WEST WING thing to imagine a scenario where Biden steps aside and is replaced … by the Democratic Party … in 2024 … with Mitt Romney.
-Okay, done laughing yet? Good. Let’s continue …
-The only interesting thing about Manchin’s statement was his use of the phrase “Pass the Torch.” That phrase was being used by many of the 30+ elected Congressional Democrats (most white representatives in safe blue districts, by the way) as a way to convince Biden to leave following the June 27 debate. But the phrase has now also turned into a Political Action Committee whose expressed goal is to get Biden to leave the race. They have gone so far as to announce they will be running ads (which political press reports breathlessly describe as “BLISTERING!”) on MSNBC’s MORNING JOE tomorrow, which Biden watches and has called in on just last week, to try to get Biden to end his campaign. So it is now more than fair game to ask who Pass the Torch PAC is and what other reasons they might be doing this …
-The public faces of Pass the Torch PAC are: Dean Phillips, the MN Congressman who ran against Biden and won all of five delegates (Biden, in contrast, won 3,904); and Steve Schmidt, the Republican strategist who convinced John McCain to choose Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential pick and, in his Never Trump zeal, has been looking for ways to oust Biden for well over a year. As for where they get their money, multiple reports point to one Tom Strickler as the man who has floated most of the $1.4 M in the Pass the Torch kitty – something to remember if other outlets follow The Hill in claiming Pass the Torch PAC is “grass roots.”
-Back to Mr. Strickler, as several reports point to him as the driver behind the roster of Democrats coming out calling for Biden to step down. His method is not exactly subtle. Politico reports Strickler told NM Senate candidate Martin Heinrich “If you don’t publicly call for Biden to step aside, you are not getting a dime from me.” He has reportedly told at least six other candidates – including incumbents Jon Tester and Sherrod Brown – to do the same, which they all have.
-Further, Strickler’s source of his fortune as co-founder of the mega-powerful William Morris talent agency, provides a lovely flow chart of connections between certain podcasters, reporters (WMA allegedly represents a number of MSNBC reporters including Rachel Maddow), and the infamous Emanuel brothers (Ari is a co-CEO of WMA and we all know who Rahm is), whose ties to Biden bashers like David Axelrod (last seen yukking it up with Hulk Hogan after the RNC on Thursday) and the Pod Save America crowd. (YES this is wild speculation on my part - but it’s MY Substack, so I’m’a gonna do it, neener neener!)
-All of the efforts, however, do not seem to be budging Biden’s resolve to stay in the race. The campaign has announced two new fundraisers for this weekend, one in Chicago (which would seem to imply Barack Obama is, at the very least, neutral in the entire dispute despite many of his media allies working to push Biden out) and another on Martha’s Vineyard to be hosted by David Letterman with HI Gov. Josh Green, presumably non-WMA represented Hollywood luminaries attending.
-With CNN reporting that despite everything Biden still raised more money in June than Republican nominee Convicted Felon Ex-President Trump (R-apist), with a fundraiser helmed by Vice President Harris and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigeg doublings its fundraising goal last night ($2M raised), and with yet another push to try to foist the asinine “blitz primary” onto the Democrats (which DNC Chair Jaimie Harrison rejected by curtly saying the rules don’t allow “mini-primaries”), there does seem to be … and I’m not fond of this phrase, but dang it if it doesn’t fit here … a tipping point in the dump-Biden movement.
-I write that because, in this morning’s openly Biden-hostile New York Times, an article about the work of these mega-donors seem to acknowledge that they may be out of moves. Times reporter Theodore Schlefler, noting in his lead that “For ultrarich Democrats, this is the golden age of political scheming,” further reports that “For all their riches and ambitions, many Democratic contributors and their big-money advisers have become resigned to the notion that their influence is fairly limited, and are trying not to be naïve. A sense of powerlessness pervades … After all, Mr. Biden is not, as one major Democratic donor put it, subject to a vote by the wealthy. And he and his team have bristled against wealthy “elites” who are trying to force him out of a Democratic nomination that he won democratically, heightening concerns from major donors who are already nervous about their efforts backfiring if they are seen as bullies.”
-Thoughts and Prayers to the mega-wealthy Democratic donors apparently not getting their way because they approached Biden with less “Pass the Torch” and more “Pass the Car Keys, Grandpa.” At least for today …
-As for the GOP nominee, Trump and his new pet Vice Presidential candidate, J.D. Vance (or, as he reportedly called him yesterday in public, “J.D. Wentworth”) appeared in their first post-convention rally, and Trump’s ‘speech’ continued on in making the political press shocked and sad that he did not actually turn a corner because of his assassination attempt but instead returned to his themes of sharks and batteries and claiming he knows nothing about Project 2025 while lauding many of the authors of Project 2025 he promises would be in a second Trump regime and singing praises to strong men around the world and, well, being the Trump he is now and not the Trump of 2016 or 2020.
-The assassination attempt allows us to discuss Candidate Medical News. President Biden has tested negative for Covid, and the latest report from the White House doctors reported on the number of Paxlovid doses he has taken (six) and even the specific strain of Covid the President had (the KP 2.3 variant, now the dominant – and growing – strain in the U.S. and worldwide #CovidIsNotOver).
-In contrast, after a week of no reporting whatsoever about the injury Trump sustained after being shot at and being ridiculed for wearing “a maxi-pad” on his ear during the RNC (which is now the coolest bit of couture in MAGAWorld), a report was finally released by Trump’s former “Doctor,” the disgraced pill-mill-runnig (ALLEGEDLY) (EYEROLL) Ronnie Jackson, who claimed an injury to the ear that at least one independent doctor said would be more consistent with what happened when Mike Tyson bit Evander Holyfield’s ear during a fight than what by all appearances Trump’s ear actually does look like.
-In case anyone wants to compare what being a President looks like with what would happen if under the rule of an addled Putin wannabe …
-While all of this has been going on, there have been some military developments in Ukraine that are worth noting – and they seem to be good news for Ukraine. Multiple reports claim Russia has moved its naval forces out of the Black Sea near Crimea – a stunning development in that Ukraine does not have a navy, but was able to use drones and missiles to wreak enough damage to make the retreat occur. Further, there are other reports that Russia has told its citizens not to travel to Crimea because of what may be a move by Ukraine to retake the island, which was seized in 2014 and which, if successful, would signal a major defeat by Russia, who at this point is trying to string the conflict out long enough for Trump to win and allow Putin to be gifted the country.
-SLAVA UKRAINI!
-CORRECTIONS FROM THE PREVIOUS UPDATE …
-In Friday’s update, I wrote that the jacket of PA firefighter Corey Comperatore was misspelled as a result of incompetence by the Trump campaign. That was incorrect. The jacket was Comperatore’s and the misspelling was left on the jacket with his full knowledge. While one can criticize the use of the uniform by Trump as if it was a prop - and I, for one, do - the uniform itself was authentic.
-I also grotesquely misspelled one of the Emmy nominees for Best Comedy that was announced last week – the correct spelling of the show, and the nominee, is RESERVATION DOGS.
-Let’s wrap with Olympic Basketball News, where both Teams USA (Team USAs?) did not have the best games in preparation for the start of the tournament in Paris this week. The men’s team – arguably even more talented and loaded than the vaunted 1992 Dream Team – needed a layup from LeBron James with 8 seconds left and a defensive scramble to eke out a 101-100 win against South Sudan, which is literally the newest country on Earth and has a team assembled by former Chicago Bull Luol Deng with no current NBA players on it.
-Meanwhile, the WNBA held its All-Star game as a pre-NBA tuneup for the women’s Team USA in Phoenix last night, only to have that team lose 117-109 to a WNBA all-star team led by stellar rookies Caitlin Clark (10 assists) and Angel Reese (12 points and 11 assists) and game MVP Arike Ogunbowale, who set a WNBA All-Star record 34 points - all in the second half. The game ended with the WNBA team exultant and Team USA – who pointedly did not include Clark on the team – clearly angry and frustrated about their showing.
-Both teams face German teams tomorrow as their final pre-Olympic tuneups. U?S?A? U?S?A?
-Shaping up to be a lovely day in Chicago today – hope yours is too after wrapping up today’s Update!
-On this date in 1925, John Scopes was convicted by a Tennessee court of teaching the theory of evolution in his classroom. On this date in 1954, the Geneva Accords split Vietnam into Northern and Southern countries. On this date in 1983, Antartica registered a temperature of -128.6 degrees – the lowest temperature recorded in human history. And on this date in 2011, the space shuttle Atlantis landed at Cape Canaveral, formally ending the program.
-Debuts on this date: The Romanov dynasty (1613), a shootout in the American West (1865), a female Prime Minister (Ceylon/Sri Lanka’s Sirimavo Bandaranaike, 1960), The Aswan Dam (1970), APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION (1987), THE DAILY SHOW (1996), MP3.com (1999), HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS (2007).
-Happy Birthday to Louise Bethune, Johnny Evers, Sara Carter, Ernest Hemingway, Hart Crane, Marshall McLuhan, Isaac Stern, Kay Starr, Don Knotts, Nrman Jewison, Cowboy Bob Orton, Moe Drabowsky, Janet Reno, Kim Fowley, James Clyburn, Edward Hermann, Paul Wellstone, Cat Stevens, Garry Trudeau, John Hart, Al Hrabosky, Robin Williams (see Today’s Holiday above), Howie Epstein, Jon Lovitz, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Ali Landry, Cori Bush, Damian Marley, Josh Hartnett, Tamika Catchings, CC Sabathia, Betty Gilpin, DeAndre Jordan, Juno Temple, Rory Culkin, and Erling Haaland.
-Rest in Peace/Rest in Power to Robert Burns, Basil Rathbone, Jimmie Foxx, Dave Garroway, Alan Shepard, David Ogilvy, Jerry Goldsmith, Long John Baldry, Lord Alfred Hayes, Ralph Houk, Alexander Cockburn, E.L. Doctorow, Theodore Bikel, John Heard, Paul Krassner, Taurean Blacque, and Tony Bennett.
-Feed the Worms: Pervy Clinton investigator and rape hider (while at Baylor) Ken Starr and nepo baby pseudo-journalist Peter Doocy entered Earth on this date. Actor and abuser Robert Young bought it on this date.
-The Number One Nonfiction Book In America On This Date … in 2024, THE ANXIOUS GENERATION by Jonathan Haidt … in 2014, UNBROKEN by Laura Hillenbrand … in 2004, MY LIFE by Bill Clinton … in 1994, THE AGENDA by Bob Woodward … in 1984, THE KENNEDYS: AN AMERICAN DRAMA by Peter Collier and David Horowitz … and in 1974, ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.