NATIONAL TOFU DAY UPDATES
Protein Without Meat, and You Can Flavor It Any Which Way You Want! YAY, TOFU!
-Momentum continues to build for the now-presumptive (but not yet official) new Democratic Presidential nominee, Kamala Harris. Besides this morning’s double-endorsement of Barack and Michelle Obama, another Zoom call to organize supporters and fundraising – this one to bring white women together for Kamala – broke a record with over 160,000 people on the call. This one included Sue Bird, Lynda Carter, P!nk and Megan Rapinoe, and ActBlue estimated the call was raising $20,000 a minute at its height, and with two more days to go the campaign reports over $100M raised, as well as over 100,000 volunteers, prompting one Democratic official to note, “It’s not a campaign anymore. It’s a movement.”
-With that support continuing to surge, the campaign kicked into a high gear taking the fight to Republican nominee Convicted Felon Ex-President Trump (R-apist). After going on Fox and Friends to repeat tired old names towards Kamala he has reused before over since first running for President (“radical left … nasty … not very smart person … zzzzz”), the Harris campaign immediately issued a press release in response to “a 78-year-old convicted criminal’s Fox News appearance” which it labelled “bizarre” and then asked “Is Donald Trump ok?”
-We know the answer to that – and the answer was re-enforced late last night when, after Harris agreed to debate Trump on September 10 (the last date when Trump and Joe Biden were to debate), Trump tripped over himself to say that blah blah unfair blah blah dumb blah blah blah blah he could no longer debate on that date. Harris again is taunting Trump, noting that he once said he would debate “ANYTIME, ANYWHERE, ANYPLACE!” but now noting that “Many people are asking” whether “Trump is backing out. Cancelling. Withdrawing.”
-Much of Trump’s resistance comes from the campaign continuing to not know how to respond to Harris. Oh, they have thrown some things against the wall. Republicans have attempted to attack Harris for her “cackl(ing) laugh,” tried to dust off the “Hollywood San Francisco liberal” trope, came up with an absurd quasi-slam (claiming Harris will take away your drinking straws!), and again misspeaking (in an appearance at North Carolina, warning his crowd that “Lyin’ KahMAHluh is also a total radical on a word called imboten – you know this, right? A word called what? Abortion”) – but for a side claiming they would always be “on the offensive,” Trump continues to be hidden while he tries to come up with some kind of response … any kind of response … to Harris.
-Especially because Trump’s Veep choice of the moment, J.D. “Butthair” Vance, continues to actually make the choices of Sarah Palin and Dan Quayle look like Lyndon Johnson and Kamala Harris. For days, Vance has had to try to talk down an interview he did with Tucker Carlson, the heir to a frozen dinner fortune who once hosted a Fox News program, in which Vance accused what he called “childless cat ladies” of bearing much of the blame for the ills of the United States. The remark has been circulating with fury and derision since, with Jennifer Aniston attacking the disrespect in the comment, “Cat Ladies for Harris” memes erupting online, and the invocation of The Ultimate Childless Cat Lady of our cultural moment … say it with me … TAYLOR SWIFT.
-Even more hilarious than that, however, is the meme in which the world continues to try to figure out whether an alleged story in Vance’s work of fiction mislabeled as a memoir, HILLBILLY ELEGY, was true. The story? A claim that when Vance was a lad, he would attempt to … work off his nascent sexual urges … by … well, this is Substack so we can just say it: whether Vance masturbated in between sofa cushions or not. Most reports claim it is more urban legend than fact, but it is also a fact that this question is one of the most Googled questions in the week since Harris became the quasi-Democratic challenger, and the fact that Harris and Vance have been dominant in the news cycle and not Trump is never, EVER, something Trump is ever happy with.
-The news also continues to build buzz and pressure that Vance may be dumped as Trump’s Veep choice. Vance’s unfavorable polling numbers – even among Republicans – are at historic lows for Vice Presidential nominees, and his performance does not come close to allaying fears that staying on the ballot will be helpful. (Gee, this sounds familiar …) Whether the campaign, whose polling is starting to take on water, would make this choice will be worth keeping an eye on amid Harris’ Vice Presidential candidate search.
-The Olympics Opening Ceremony continues as of the writing of this update. Despite being the first Opening Ceremony being conducted in rainy weather since 1952, the unique ceremony – featuring athletes riding down the Seine River in barges amid Paris cultural iconography ranging from the art to the red carpet fashion and the Eifel Tower – builds towards the lighting of the Olympic torch.
-With many of these updates being so long with the events, let’s take a little break and wrap the updates here to get ready for the torch to be lit. (Can you tell I’m an Olympic-phile?)
-On this date in 1948, Harry Truman ended segregation in the U.S. military. On this date in 1956, Egypt seized the Suez Canal. On this date in 1968, Motown Records signed The Jackson 5. On this date in 2016, Hillary Clinton became the first woman to be nominated for President by a major American political party.
-Debuts on this date: the U.S. Postal Service (1775), movie theatre (1896), the F.B.I. (1908), A smog alert (1943, in Los Angeles), the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990), the Maldives (1965), EQUUS (1973), Black Lives Matter protests (2015).
-Happy Birthday to George Bernard Shaw, Carl Jung, Aldous Huxley, Gracie Allen, Vivian Vance, Marjorie Lord, Blake Edwards, Hoyt Wilhelm, Jason Robards, Jan Berenstain, Stanley Kubrick, Dobie Gray, Mary Jo Kopechne, Darlene Love, Mick Jagger, Peter Hyams, Kiel Martin, Helen Mirren, Roger Taylor, Susan George, Vitas Gerulaitis, Dorothy Hamill, Gary Cherone, Sandra Bullock, Jeremy Piven, Jason Statham, Kate Beckinsale, Jacinda Ardern, and Delonte West.
-Rest in Peace/Rest in Power to William Jennings Bryan, Robert Todd Lincoln, Diane Arbus, Karac Plant, George Gallup, Mary Wells, George Romney, Skip Prosser, Merce Cunningham, J.J. Cale, Bobbi Kristina Brown, Forrest E. Mars, Miss Cleo, June Foray, Olivia de Havilland, Rick Aiello, Randy Meisner, and Sinead O’Connor.
-Feed the Worms: sexual predator Kevin Spacey and couldn’t-beat-a-head-of-lettuce Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss entered Earth on this date. Serial killer Ed Gein bought it on this date.
-Sam Houston and Eva Peron died on this date. You decide if they Rest in Peace/Power or if they Feed the Worms.