NATIONAL IGUANA AWARENESS DAY UPDATES
My favorite: THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA, Tennessee Williams' Most Underrated Play
-In a country with a functional and truly fair media system that reported on facts as they lay regardless of political party, today's headlines would be screaming at the dual instances where Republican Nominee Old Weird Ex-President Trump (R-apist) became as publicly unhinged and desperate (if not also incoherent) as at any time in his political life. Big statement? Witness ...
-First, at a rally in Mosinee, a 7,000-person town in central Wisconsin, Trump absolutely went off on his vision of the state of the nation - and his vision of the state of the nation makes THE PURGE truly look like MARY POPPINS. At yesterday's event, Trump - in between referring to "Leon" Musk and blanking out the name of his reported favorite Vice Presidential pick, Doug Burgun (Some Dakota) - first insisted he was told in 2017 that the military "gave away" all their ammunition (uh ... no), insisted our NATO allies would not come to our aid (they were the first that did so in the wake of the September 11 attacks), promised to end the Department of Education so that people like WI Sen. Ron Johnson (a suspected Russian asset), again claimed Democrats execute babies after being born, and THEN, after being warmed up, went REALLY apocalyptic ...
-Repeating a line he first launched at an event with book-banning leaders Moms for Liberty, Trump insisted that in this country, right now, children can go to school in the morning and undergo a gender-changing operation to come home a different gender at the end of the day. QUOTE FROM TRUMP: "Can you imagine you're a parent and your son leaves the house and you say, Jimmy, I love you so much, go have a good day at school, and your son comes back with a brutal operation. ... What the hell is wrong with our country?"
-As if that wasn't depraved enough, Trump then went on to insist that people could literally not walk across the street safely out of fear of marauding hordes of murdering immigrants who are here at the behest of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris ("You're not safe even sitting here, to be honest with you") and promising to enforce his longstanding goal of physically capturing and removing immigrants on Day One of a new Trump term, adding for both emphasis and a selling point, "... getting (immigrants) out will be a bloody story."
-And just to put a button on the rant, Trump concluded "I will prevent World War III, and I am the only one that can do it ... Israel is doomed ... I better win ... and you gotta remember ... Trump is always right. I hate to be right. I'm always right." (Trump is almost always catastrophically if occasionally hysterically wrong.)
-THE FACTS: crime is at a historically low point since Biden took office, with the only gains in violent crime happening in Trump-supporting states. Also, immigration has gone down in the last several months thanks to Biden-implemented initiatives - while Trump personally blocked a bipartisan immigration reform bill for the specific purpose of preventing Biden (or now Harris) from taking political credit for the deal. And there are scholars who point to Trump's decision to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem as one of the provocations that spurred HAMAS to their October 7 terrorist attacks - and reports circulating that Trump is personally asking Benjamin Netanyahu to not come to terms on a cease-fire to, again, deny Biden a diplomatic win as the November 5 election approaches (that as Israeli citizens continue to turn out in the streets by the tens of thousands demanding Netanyahu cut a deal or resign).
-That ... was ONE of the stories that the mainstream media SHOULD be discussing on their various talk shows this morning. The SECOND story dropped thanks to Trump last night on his social media feed.
-In that message, Trump made the most direct threats against his political opponents heading into the 2024 election. Asserting he will win the election, he then rant/warned, "WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long-term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again. ... Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials." Judging by this, people who "CHEATED" are apparently anyone and everyone that does not support Trump, and it is hard to see the laundry list of alleged "legal exposure" is nothing if not a threat to campaign workers who will just count votes and not only count Trump votes. The threat was blown off in response by Marc Elias, the Democratic attorney who has been continually beating Trump and Republicans in the Courts on election matters since 2020, and who is helming a team of attorneys and operatives gearing up to fight Trump on behalf of fair counts and small-d democracy (and already is).
-As I said, in a healthy political media ecosystem, these two stories would be dominating the discourse ... but we are not in a healthy political media ecosystem. The New York Times, already on the record as being anti-Joe Biden thanks to Biden's refusal to grant an interview with him and upset that Kamala Harris also refuses to talk to them, does not mention either story anywhere on the front page of their web site. Instead, they blare a new poll that attempts to claim that every bit of positive momentum Harris has experienced has slammed to a cold halt - and that it is actually Donald Trump that holds a 48%-47% polling edge heading into Tuesday's debate.
-Needless to say, that poll is today's Democratic Pha-REEK!-Out of the day - but as is always the case in a media environment where known entities are flooding the media zone with spurious polling designed to create a super-close race, the details of the polling matter. For example, in this poll Harris gets 55% of the Hispanic vote compared to 65% who voted for Biden, a number that appears to be lowballing Harris given reports of increased voter registration particularly in a state like Florida.
-More incredibly, this poll makes a case that Harris will get 7% less Black voters than Biden did - 78% for Harris, 85% for Biden. Given other trend lines and the aforementioned editorial lean against Harris, it seems fair to be skeptical about what this poll seems to say, other than to create more drama for this Tuesday's debate (and, yes, Harris and her campaign continues to insist they are the underdogs, so they will certainly use this poll to drive more fundraising and voter engagement numbers) - and, again, choosing to lead with this story over Trump's two appearances last night is ... a choice being made by certain media powers.
-Anyhoo, Liz Cheney is doing interviews about the decision her and her father, Dick (R- Still Cheneys) to support Harris in November by casting their votes for her. This Substack will not applaud their decision given the damage they have done, but I am happy they are voting Harris' way, and it does lead to some speculation about whether some older-school Republicans who since 2016 have either allowed Trump to take power as a way to maintain some power themselves or were too terrified to oppose him now see him as a weakened leader whose time is up or that they are ready to engage MAGA in a now-necessary battle for control of the Republican Party and a brand of Conservatism that is not as openly ... well, MAGA ... as MAGA has been. (This sort of thing doesn't seem to have made the NY Times poll either, by the way.) Either way, it is one of the more unexpected but potentially roiling developments in an already wacky election season.
-In other election news, the apparently truly duly elected should-be President of Venezuela, Edmundo Gonzalez, has fled the country in exile. Aides say he is en route to Spain, where he will continue to gather support to get his election recognized. Meanwhile, the apparent electoral loser of the election, Nicolas Maduro, remains in power amid a crackdown of opposition leaders and demonstrations that are aimed at maintaining his power. The White House and the Carter Center have both condemned the elections and vote-counting as unfair and not meeting electoral standards of integrity. Maduro, for his part, is working to shore up his support in a rather novel way: NBC reports Maduro may move Christmas to October, and one figure that has congratulated Maduro on his "victory" is someone with intimate knowledge of such "victories," Vladimir Putin.
-Wrapping with Sportsball News, and the first wave of upsets in college football hit. It is a little difficult to know which one is more shocking - but both were fun! You have defending champions (at least until the NCAA really digs into the rot that was the Jim Harbaugh regime more) Michigan getting utterly dismantled and pounded by a now-intimidating-looking Texas team 31-12 - a win made more surprising since it happened at home in Ann Arbor. As if that wasn't crazy enough, a little further south in South Bend, the 28-1/2 point underdog Northern Illinois Huskies hit a 35-yard field goal in the closing seconds - and then blocked a would-have-been 62-yard try at the final gun - to score their first-ever win against a Top Ten opponent, the vaunted (at least until this week) Noter Dame Fighting Irish, 16-14. The ratings will be shaken up, and with a 12-team national playoff system in place, whether these losses doom MI or ND to outsiders for that tournament remain to be seen, but it does make the entire enterprise kind of fun!
-And yes, in case you hadn't guessed about my affiliations regarding my Michigan comments, all I can say in response is ... "O - H ...!" (IYKYK the rest!)
-On this date in 1429, Joan of Arc attacked Paris. On this date in 1664, New Amsterdam changed its name to New York. On this date in 1900, a deadly hurricane caused catastrophic damage in the Texas coastal city of Galveston. On this date in 1945, American troops entered the Korean Peninsula to receive the terms of Japan's surrender in World War II. On this date in 1974, Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon for Nixon's crimes in connection with the Watergate scandal. On this date in 1986, Oprah Winfrey's talk show began national syndication. On this date in 1998, Mark McGwire hit a steroid-assisted 62nd home run - all 70 of the home runs he hit that year were steroid-assisted. And on this date in 2003, record companies began suing individuals who shared MP3 music files without paying for them on charges of copyright infringement.
-Debuts on this date: Michelangelo's Statue of David (1504), transparent adhesive tape (1930), the Siege of Leningrad (1941), Alan Freed's Rock and Roll Party (1954), Chuck Berry's duck walk (1955), PSYCHO (1960), STAR TREK (1966), Miss Black American (1968), THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT (2015).
-Happy Birthday to Richard the Lionheart, Anton Dvorak, Alfred Jarry, Jimmie Rodgers, Frank Cady, Sid Caesar, Peter Sellers, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Patsy Cline, Michael Frayn, Sam Nunn, Guitar Shorty, Willy Tyler, Bernie Sanders, Lem Barney, Benjamin Orr, The Great Kabuki, Tim Gullikson, Anthony Davis, Ruby Bridges, Maurice Cheeks, Aimee Mann, Kimberly Peirce, Neko Case, Brooke Burke, David Arquette, Martin Freeman, P!nk, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Avicii, Wiz Khalifa, Gerrit Cole, Matthew Dellavedova, Za'Darius Smith and Gaten Matarazzo.
-Rest in Peace/Rest in Power to Adam Opel, Richard Strauss, Dorothy Dandridge, Zero Mostel, Jean Piaget, Roy Wilkins, Army Archerd, The Lady Chablis, Ronald Harwood, Art Metrano, and Queen Elizabeth II.
-Feed the Worms: Presidential assassin Charles Guiteau, hate-political barnacle Lyndon LaRouche, pervert texting Rep. Mark Foley and oligarch nepo baby Lachlan Murdoch entered Earth on this date. Nazi propogandist Leni Riefenstahl bought it on this date.
-MTV VJ turned Fox commentator Kennedy was born on this date. Huey Long was assassinated on this date. You decide if they get a Happy Birthday/Rest in Peace or Power or if they Feed the Worms.
-The Number One Movie in America on this date ... in 2024, BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE ... in 2014, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY ... in 2004, HERO ... in 1994, FORREST GUMP ... in 1984, TIGHTROPE ... and in 1974, CHINATOWN.