NATIONAL PIEROGI DAY UPDATES
And Remember: Any Pierogi That Is NOT Pan-Fried is an Abomination Unto God and Your Grandmas ...
-We begin with what is shaping up to be a history-maker: Hurricane Milton. Yesterday the recorded winds of the already-Cat5 storm were the fourth fastest since such information was firts recorded; today, 51 Florida counties have been told to evacuate, with the Tampa Mayor Jane Caster coldly but sternly warning that anyone that chooses to stay in the city inside of what is believed will be a record 15-foot high tide "will die." Reports are now circulating that gas stations are running out of gas and airports are closing ahead of what is anticipated will be a Wednesday evening landfall as a Cat3 storm.
-Sadly, it must also be reported that as news continues to circulate, lies about what is happening with Milton - on the heels of lies that are continuing to circulate about Hurricane Helene and its aftermath - are also needing to be attacked. It was just announced that President Biden (who has cancelled an overseas trip to stay informed) and still-working Vice President Harris will be posting NOAA and FEMA notices on Reddit in an effort to quash misinformation being circulated. That misinformation includes everything from claims that Democrats are and have manipulated the track of both Helene and Milton to false claims that they are not contacting local officials, depriving localities of Federal resources, and diverting resources from disaster relief to immigrants.
-If you get the sense that a ton of these lies are coming out of the mouths of Republicans and MAGAts, well, at least this Substack will not bothside it, because that is the case. Simpering FL Gov. Ron DeSantis has been on the record reporting that he did not return a call from Vice President Harris, vomitously claiming he was doing so to deprive Harris of an election issue (though he has grudgingly also said there has been no problem whatsoever with FEMA's response). MAGA Party Leader Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Z-Q-R, GA) has continued her moronic claims that the "hur-ruh-caynes" are being moved around because Democrats "control the weather - and yew awhl know thaht!" (in between also promoting the drinking of raw unpasteurized milk, which is actually quite hazardous but a great way to OWN DA LIBZ!).
-Of course, when we talk about misinformation of any kind, there is but one and one lone center of all of that on the MAGAGOP side, and that, as we can all guess, is from the anus mouth hole of Republican Presidential Nominee Old Weird Ex-President Trump (R-apist). Trump has been on his failed social media site Truth Social continuing to blatantly lie about the White House (and by extension Harris) response to the previous hurricane as being "the WORST ever!" despite numerous Republicans on the ground in states throughout the South insisting that based on actual phone calls and actual people on the ground and actual FACTS, that TRUMP IS LYING ABOUT THE FEDERAL HURRICANE RESPONSE, and further worry that Trump's lies as amplified by cult members like Greene are putting people in deep physical danger, both with Milton coming and with the recovery from Helene. The warnings have not chastised Trump, because nothing does.
-The hurricane news, amazingly, did not suppress yet another news item that the world should have known years ago but was held back for book sales purposes by yet another member of "the press" - the connections Trump continues to nurture with the single person he has never once criticized or joked about in public, Russian President and Trump role model Vladimir Putin. A new book by one-time actual journalist turned insider cataloguist Bob Woodward revealed that at the height of the Covid lockdown in 2020, while Trump publicly advised followers to use infrared rays and horse dewormers and bleach injections to fight the virus without masking, Trump somehow found a way to send a number of at-the-time rare Covid tests to his BFF Pootie-Poo for Putin's personal use.
-On top of that, Woodward also reported Trump and Putin have had at least seven telephone conversations after Trump left office. Speculation is already running wild about just what they could have had conversations about, though if one remembers all those stolen super-classified documents Trump took (ALLEGEDLY) (eyeroll) it may not take too much time to conclude they weren't necessarily taking bets on which country would win the most Olympics medals (though Trump betting on Russia is probably a good bet).
-But at least there's a little potential bit of schadenfreude possibly heading Trump's way, for while Mar-a-Lago is not in the direct line of Milton, the headquarters and servers of Trump social media network Truth Social is. With tons of the overvalued stock being sold, what may happen to that site as Milton rolls in may be worth popping popcorn over.
-Anyway, on to other news, and if you haven't caught an interview with Kamala Harris lately, it's because you simply haven't tried hard enough. Harris has been EVERYWHERE in the last few hours, as her interviews on The View and Howard Stern have aired, her interview with Stephen Colbert will air tonight, and the interview with the mega-huge podcast CALL ME DADDY has dropped. With national polls continuing to show at worst steady numbers favoring Kamala and the first wave of early voting ballots and submissions leaning strongly pro-Democratic, the chat blitz shows the pivot going on to get out the vote ahead of November 5.
-On top of this, Harris announced a new campaign promise: that if/when elected, Medicare would support at-home care for families with an aging relative or rehabbing relative in their home. So, there's that too!
-(STANDS ON SOAPBOX)
-With early voting now underway, it's good to remind people that turnout numbers are easier to track and potentially more of an indicator of what will happen than polling. The big early turnout numbers are coming from PA (source: Christopher Bouzy), and overall the early indicators are that Democrats who tend to vote all the time are 'banking' those votes, which will allow the Harris campaign to devote their now-rich resources to voting cohorts who often need more prodding (younger voters, newly-registered voters) and to do so earlier in the cycle (read: now!) to boost turnout ahead of Election Day, which thanks to Trump's attacks on early voting, continued insistence that Trump was the real winner in 2020 (nope - you're thinking of Biden!), and worries from Republicans about having no official national get-out-the-vote apparatus and hard spending decisions to make (reports are that the MAGAGOP spent more than it took in for two consecutive months now) (AAAAAWWWW!) may be a huge hurdle for the Trump campaign, such as it is, to match the Dems.
-Watch those voting numbers to see whose theory about early voting is the right one - the theories being more early votes will help Democrats and more Election Day voting will help MAGAts - as results continue to flow.
-(STEPS OFF SOAPBOX)
-All this and we didn't even get to Trump's hermetically sealed nurse-him-through-this-so-he-doesn't-have-to-debate-Kamala-again "interviews" that included Trump channeling his inner Joseph Mengele and claim to Lipless Hugh Hewitt that America must keep "bad genes" out of America by mass deporations (no word on how that explains Eric "Eric" Trump), or even Trump having to get fact-checked by Laura Ingraham that residents that got hit by Hurricane Helene are only getting $750 (they can get that amount immediately for much-needed supplies like diapers and formula but are eligible for MUCH more as FEMA bring in aid), so as you work to get to Election Day perhaps it's best to ask you to watch the MLB baseball playoffs, where for the first time since 1995 all four best-of-five divisional series are tied at 1-1 with lots of fun matchups to pick from (GO GUARDIANS!). There will be plenty to catch up on later this week.
-And Godspeed and good vibes to the good folks of Tampa and Florida that aren't centered around a cheesy golf club around West Palm Beach ... now for the history!
-On this date in 1871, dry weather combined with a supposed clumsy cow to start the Great Chicago Fire - we kid, but over 300 died and tens of thousands were made homeless once the fire spent itself two days later. Another fire killed over 1,100 people in Peshtigo, WI, in 1871. On this date in 1956, Don Larson pitched what is still the only perfect game in World Series history. On this date in 1967, Che Guevara was captured in Bolivia, later to be executed. On this date in 1982, Solidarity went underground as the Polish government "dissolved" the trade union. On this date in1990, Eddie Vedder started recording what would become TEN with the classic Pearl Jam lineup. And on this date in 2014, the first person in the United States diagnosed with Ebola passed away.
-Debuts on this date: Laurel and Hardy (1927), Abbott and Costello (1942), the microwave oven (patented in 1945), "Great Balls of Fire" (recorded in 1957), IMAGINE (1971), DIRTY MIND (1980), REMAIN IN LIGHT (1980), the U.S. Office of Homeland Security (2001).
-Happy Birthday to John Hay, Eddie Rickenbacker, Bill Hewitt, Billy Conn, Danny Murtaugh, Frank Herbert, Rona Barrett, Harvey Pekar, Paul Hogan, Jesse Jackson, R.L. Stine, Jean-Jacques Beineix, Paul Splittorff, Johnny Ramone, Sarah Purcell, Sigourney Weaver, Edward Zwick, Bill Elliott, Darrell Hammond, Stephanie Zimbalist, Reed Hastings, CeCe Winans, C.J. Ramone, Emily Procter, Matt Damon, Sadiq Khan, Soon-Yi Previn, Monty Williams, Rashaan Salaam, Michael "The Miz" Mizanin, Bruno Mars, and Bubba Wallace.
-Rest in Peace/Rest in Power to John Hancock, Franklin Pierce, Wendell Wilkie, Felix Salten, Clement Attlee, Fernando Lamas, Joan Hackett, Leon Klinghoffer, Willy Brandt, Bertrand Goldberg, Al Davis, Roger Williams, Andy Pafko, Hugh Scully, Paul Prudhomme, Y.A. Tittle, Whitey Ford, and Burt Young.
-Juan Peron, Gus Hall, Chevy Chase, Dennis Kucinich and Nick Cannon were born on this date. You decide if they get a Happy Birthday or if they Feed the Worms.