-Since you last read this Substack, Republican Presidential nominee Old Weird Convicted Felon Ex-President Trump (R-apist) has been moving and speaking in front of people, continually displaying why his handlers are clearly working to keep him away from Kamala Harris and try to put him in relatively favorable circumstances so as to avoid the clearer-by-each-appearance cognitive decline he is experiencing.
-Sure, there are the bone-jarring gaffes that would kill the career of pretty much any other politician, such as when Trump “threatened” that Kamala Harris wanted to “turn the country into Detroit” – while speaking IN DETROIT – or the babbling idiocy of Trump claiming Harris wants to “no more cows and no more windows in buildings” as he said in a speech in Nevada, along with this actual verbatim quote from Nevada (there were several to pick from): “There’s something wrong with her where you can’t get up and do a speech normally.. She’ll speak so routinely and I hate the word— they had word salad, the words, I don’t like the sound of it but it’s sort of true. She just like— they’re just words put together.”
-There is the physical appearance of Trump. The bronzer is back to being amateurly applied – and the darker make-up was so thick and dark in his Detroit appearance that standups all over the country quipped that “Trump is going to have to deport himself!”
-There was also an appearance Trump made in, of all places, the site of the Coachella Music Festival in California – a state apparently only Trump thinks could be in play – which, while again promising he would withhold disaster relief from that state for political reasons while also lying about Harris and Joe Biden doing the same in North Carolina (which, again, they are NOT), led to thousands of Trump supporters being stranded at the site for hours as the 20 buses that were apparently leased to take followers from the parking lots to the site were not leased to return to take the followers back to the parking lots after the event. Trump officials insisted that they did have the concept of a plan to do so but it apparently only involved one bus. Trumpcella kinda sucked for those folks. Sad!
-All of that is true … BUT … lest we ever forget the true sinister side of what Trump would likely try do if given the chance to do so, there was a chilling reminder during a speech in Aurora, CO – a city picked not because CO is in play (it is solid blue) but it also has Haitian immigrants like Springfield, OH, which has been terrorized by Trump and JD Vance lies about eating pets that MAGAts have taken seriously. To continue to rile their base and depress any potential Harris voters, Trump delivered what some reporters called the darkest speech he has ever delivered, painting a violent and completely false picture of immigrants as a burning-as-we-read Hell hole – and proposing “Operation Aurora.”
-Operation Aurora is nothing more than unleashing the military (what Trump called “elite squads”) on immigrant communities to forcibly remove anyone they suspected as being illegal, throwing anyone believed to be an illegal into prison, and using the death penalty to execute anyone believed to have returned to the United States after being deported once. Trump promised to his CA throng that these squads would also go into blue states in the plan, likely penned by and (if given the chance) helmed by Trump’s right hand, the ghoulish Stephen Miller (who was inexplicably fluffed by Fox News’ Jesse Waters as being some kind of sex symbol to the MAGA land, apparently because painting your skull black is hot to some).
-SO, with all of the above happening in just the last 72 hours, a healthy political and news media would be thick with questions about Trump’s mental health, about Trump’s full embrace of actual literal Gestapo tactics, about why a campaign with internal cash problems and zero ground game outside of one being jerry-rigged by new Trump BFF Elon Musk, and about any number of other statements Trump made and demands about whether this man should even be allowed to run for President. Alas, we do not have the political and news media we want. The political and news media we have was on full display in an ad run last night during NBC’s Ohio State/Oregon game, in which MEET THE PRESS chair warmer Kristin Welker Todd breathlessly hyped “NEW POLLS!” instead – and lo and behold, this morning their NEW POLLS say DEADLOCKTIEDEVENTRUMPSURGEOHMYHOWCOMETRUMPISEVENNOWWATCH!
-I mention that not because of the poll itself (I anticipate the internals will reveal how they went from Kamala by 5% to even when no other national poll has had that kind of swing in the last week) (because polling and the NBC poll has been an outlier throughout the cycle), but as an example of one central reason why Trump still seems to have a puncher’s chance of winning with every bit of evidence manifest that he is unfit and unwell and one of the political parties in this country simply doesn’t care.
-As for Kamala, last week she completed a wave of interviews and will now embark on a barnstorming tour of live appearances through a number of swing states, including MI, NC, PA, and WI. It is time for the “closing arguments,” and while polling swings, early voting nationally continues to favor Democrats as it did in 2020 and subsequent cycles, with Trump’s attacks on early voting in particular and “RIGGED” elections in general make most MAGAts vote on Election Day itself. The Harris campaign has been pivoting to Get Out The Vote drives, which it believes will be a major advantage over the cash crunches of state parties and can be pressed from here through Election Day.
-Recovery efforts after Hurricanes Helene and Milton continue, with estimates that most power in FL will be restored this week and relief flowing in. Officials on the ground from both political parties verify that the White House and FEMA are doing the work and doing it well, despite the vile and utterly false attacks Trump has made and continues to make in an effort to drive voters to him and away from Harris. FEMA is under stress, and a number of officials have asked Congress to reconvene this week in an emergency session to make sure they have the funds. But Trump puppet House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Jay-EE-Zuz!, LA) has categorically refused to do so, as much because it is election season as it is not wanting to cross Dear Leader.
-With meteorologists watching two tropical systems that could form into more storms, the potential for more nonsense is still something to montor. What nonsense, you ask? Nonsense like MAGAts insisting hurricanes are now more powerful because liberals can make storms stronger – yes, that is a belief spread through rumor and social media sites like TwiX (which is also actively throttling pro-Harris content) even though the same MAGAts refuse to accept climate change as a reality. Because of course they do. (And did we remind everyone that Project 2025 would eliminate FEMA, NOAA, the National Weather Service, AND federal help for disaster aid? Because it would.)
-THIS JUST IN: JD Vance, in an appearance on CBS this morning and interviews and campaign appearances, continues to refuse to admit that Trump lost the 2020 election. Because he is a simp and he believes he may be President by March 2025 if Peter Thiel has anything to say about it.
-Let’s wrap with Sportsball News! The Final Four are set for Major League Baseball, and it is no shock that three of the four teams working to get to the World Series are the top thre teams in payroll. The National League Championship series begins tonight at Dodger Stadium where Los Angeles plays the New York Mets – and it’s actually the Mets that have the higher payroll, $350M to $340M, Then the American League Championship Series begins tomorrow with the team at number three, the evil dynasty that has won enough titles for three lifetimes, the New York Yankees at $314M.
-That leaves the plucky understudies with the most modest payroll at a “mere” $140M – 21st on the list – the Cleveland Guardians, who are looking to win their first Series title since 1948. So I’m not telling anyone who they should or should not root for, but honestly if you have any sense of decency and fair play and morality all you should be saying is what I will be saying – LET’S! GO! GUARDIANS!!!!!!!!!
-On this date in 1792, construction began on The White House. On this date in 1844, Greenwich, England was established as the international date line for Earth. On this date in 1903, the Boston Americans (later Red Sox) defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates to win what then became The World Series (LET’S! GO! GUARDIANS!!!!!). On this date in 1972, a plane carrying a soccer team crashed in the Andes Mountains, which became notorious after it was revealed survivors had to resort to cannibalism to survive. On this date in 2010, the last of 69 men trapped in a mine in Chile were rescued. And on this date in 2021, William Shatner took a Hflight into space on Jeff Bezos’ space dildo.
-Debuts on this date: B’nai B’rith (1843), ALL ABOUT EVE (1950), WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (1962), the Jimi Hendrix Experience (1966), the American Basketball Association (1967), BADLANDS (1973), The Prince Album Named After The Glyph (1992).
-Happy Birthday to Herblock, Art Tatum, Cornel Wilde, Burr Tillstrom, Yves Montand, Frank D. Gilroy, Lenny Bruce, Eddie Matthews, Nana Mouskouri, Cliff Gorman, Melinda Dillon, Pharaoh Sanders, Paul Simon, Mike Barnicle, Robert Lamm, Demond Wilson, Sammy Hagar, John Ford Coley, Tom Mees, Pat Day, Chris Carter, Jamal Khashoggi, Marie Osmond, Doc Rivers, Jerry Rice, Javier Sotomayor, Trevor Hoffman, Nancy Kerrigan, Sasha Baron Cohen, Summer Sanders, Paul Pierce, Jermaine O’Neal, Ian Thorpe, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jimin, and Caleb McLaughin.
-Rest in Peace/Rest in Power to The Emperor Claudius, Milton S. Hershey, Clifton Webb, Bea Benaderet, Ed Sullivan, Le Duc Tho, Hughes Rudd, Keene Curtis, Stephen E. Ambrose, Al Martino, Dario Fo, Conchata Ferrell, Ray Fosse, and Bruce Sutter.
-Feed the Worms: Margaret Thatcher, Jerry Jones and Ari Fleischer entered Earth on this date.
-Billy Bush and Tiffany Trump were born on this date. You decide if they get a Happy Birthday or if they Feeds the Worms.
-LET’S! GO! GUARDIANS!!
-The Number One Movie in America on this date … in 2024, TERRIFIER 3 … in 2014, GONE GIRL … in 2004, SHARK TALE … in 1994, PULP FICTION … in 1984, TEACHERS … and in 1974, CABARET (a reissue).
-LET’S! GO! GUARIDANS!!!!!!!!!!!