The October Surprise: Media agrees he's racist

My Sunday viewing was a couple of videos about Leonard Bernstein. The first was his 19 minute segment at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1980. As is done of each honoree they do a 10 minute summary of his life, then performances by people he inspired. In this case it was conductor Michael Tilson Thomas and his daughter Jamie Bernstein, who did a touching song thanking her father. The narrator was Lauren Bacall and in part of her introduction call him a “generous volcano.” The second was a 50 minute interview with Bernstein. I think the Kennedy Center does an extended interview with each honoree (which I didn’t know they did). In this one Bernstein talks about his influences. The woman he studied piano with at the Curtis Institute. Serge Koussevitzky at Tanglewood who became like a father. Arturo Toscanini. And from there he talked about his experiences with many of the great conductors of the mid 20th century when he was still quite young and they were getting old. He said about several of them, “He was my greatest friend.” And that he was friends with all of them, even those that hated each other. He played piano duets with this one. He made an appointment with that one over a trivial question so they could spend hours together. I am familiar with most of the names and enjoyed the stories. If you aren’t a classical music fan or a Bernstein fan this video may not mean much. Kos of Daily Kos described the rally the nasty guy held at Madison Square Garden last Sunday. A way to summarize it: “He let out his MAGA movement’s ugly all-out bigotry.” Yeah, the news has been full of comedian Tony Hinchcliffe and his comments of the “floating island of garbage” saying it is Puerto Rico. The nasty guy campaign has tried to say that’s not us, but the campaign loaded that joke into the teleprompter and refused to include another. Lots of artists and politicians of Puerto Rican ancestry are condemning the comment and the general racist tone of the event. The tone was so bad even newspaper headlines were using the term “racist” which they usually avoid.

This is the October surprise: everyone, including the media, finally realizing what the MAGA movement truly is and being unafraid to state it. The “comedian” himself sure as heck sees nothing wrong with his racism and bigotry. And Gimenez, despite criticizing Hinchcliffe, sure went out of his way to praise Trump, the guy whose operation hired Hinchcliffe for the act. This is who they are.

Oliver Willis of Kos reported that Fox News is annoyed with all the other media outlets using the term “racist.” Willis pointed out that Hinchcliffe was not the only speaker to use racist language. Emily Singer of Kos listed thirteen news outlets that used the word “racist” or “racism” in the headlines for their stories describing the event. The conservative Wall Street Journal settled for described the event as having a “dark tone.” Again, Singer’s point is the media is finally calling the nasty guy’s campaign what it is and always has been. In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev posted quotes discussing a variety of topics, including the Madison Square Garden event. The first is from Greg Sargent of the New Republic saying the event was the nasty guy’s actual closing argument. He has clearly told you who he is.

For many months, Trump and his top allies have been engaged in a two-step. Trump has been running on an explicit platform of ramped-up racism, vows of a mass purging of the nation’s internal enemies, and open threats of cleansing retribution and authoritarian violence. Again and again, as Trump has laid all this bare, his spinners and advisers have insisted that he doesn’t really mean what he’s saying, he’s being taken out of context, he’s not actually threatening to do what he’s telling us he’ll do in his own words. The rally at Madison Square Garden is best understood as the final coming-out party, the ultimate declaration that, yes, he has indeed meant every word of it all along.

Darrell West of Brookings Institute warned that in Pennsylvania mail in ballots can’t be tabulated until after the polls close. Since Democrats tend to vote by mail and Republicans in person it will appear the nasty guy will be in the lead early, then perhaps overtaken by Harris. And in 2020 the nasty guy declared that meant ballot fraud and a stolen election. Pennsylvania is the most important, but not the only, state that may have a slow count. And slow counts will be interpreted as suspicious. And there will be an avalanche of fake claims. The time to start debunking those claims is now. I suggest Republican legislatures passed laws to slow down the count (as was done with mail ballots in PA) to allow conspiracy theories to have time to flourish. Daniel Nichanian of Bolts discussed a proposed constitution amendment in Ohio that would ban gerrymandering by turning redistricting over to citizens and away from politicians. Good to see Ohio try to do what Michigan did six years ago. One problem: A Republican got to write the ballot description. Proposition proponents immediately complained it was misleading. Dhruv Khullar of The New Yorker discussed a study by Thomas Bollyky, published in The Lancet that correlates the health of a country’s citizens with the strength of its democracy. Within a decade of throwing off a dictator the life expectancy can increase by more than two years.

Democratic governments are accountable to people, and people like to be healthy. Health care is what economists call a superior good, meaning that as societies get richer they want more of it. Democracies, accordingly, spend more on health than autocracies do, and are likely to preserve access to care even when the economy tanks. Meanwhile, a free press keeps people informed; the rule of law fuels innovation, by curbing corruption and protecting intellectual property; and independent agencies check power and implement regulations to promote clean water, breathable air, and safe food.

So don’t entrust your health to the nasty guy. Josh Clinton of Good Authority discussed how polls are conducted. A big part of a poll is “weighting” the raw data. Those willing to respond to polls will rarely “match the electorate demographically in terms of sex, age, education, race, etc.” this was why 2016 polls didn’t match the actual vote. After that first weighting, pollsters then ask do the respondents match the politics of the electorate? That was the problem in 2020. And the third question is whether the respondents will actually vote. In another pundit roundup Greg Dworkin of Kos also quoted Clinton’s study and included an example. He presents data from 1,718 respondents (where they’re from is not stated) and weighted the data according to different demographics:

Raw data +6.0 Harris Weighted to 2016 demographics +7.3 Weighted to 2020 demographics +9.0 Weighted to 2022 demographics +8.8

No one knows the right weighting for 2024. Down in the comments are a few cartoons showing the nasty guy as the Pied Piper. Kos wrote according to Pew Research there is a big difference in how married and unmarried women vote. The married women are more Republican. “That suggests men might have something to do with women’s voting patterns.”

Now, up front, Pew doesn’t draw a causal link between marriage and changes in a woman’s politics. We don't know whether marriage makes women more Republican or whether Republican women are more likely to get and stay married. On top of that, age matters. Older people are more Republican and more likely to be married. Geography also matters, with people in the conservative states marrying younger than people in liberal states.

There is a campaign in conservative areas, including an ad voiced by Julia Roberts, of women leaving notes to other women in women’s spaces that are variations on “Your vote is secret. Your husband doesn’t have to know.” Commenters disputed the last statement. If a woman votes by mail her husband may demand she fill out the ballot in his presence. And even while voting in person a woman may say she needs “help” to fill out the ballot and the husband may then “help” her. And a husband my threaten her if she doesn’t ask for that “help.” I learned about this through a post on Kos by Walter Einenkel. However, I think a better description is in a post by Andi Ortiz for The Wrap. I’ll work from both. For quite a while now naturalization ceremonies for US immigrants end with the song “God Bless the USA” by Lee Greenwood. When Greenwood found the USCIS is using his song he forced them into paying him $700 a year. Because Greenwood created the Bible the nasty guy sells and because he allowed the same song, with minimal tweaking, be used in Canadian naturalization ceremonies, John Oliver, also an immigrant, decided the USCIS needed a new song. And he got Will Farrell to sing it. Oliver says the USCIS should never use Greenwood’s song and instead use his. He’ll even pay the USCIS $701 a year for the privilege. The song begins:

You studied hard. You did your best. Filled out the forms, and passed the test. Now you’re part of a land that’s so God blessed, and starting today, you’re American.

Since this is Farrell and Oliver the song veers into unexpected directions. Now that you’re an American we’ve got some really big problems we could use your help to solve. Like student debt, metal detectors in schools, private prisons, the war on drugs, fossil fuels, and Ted Cruz. And now they’re your problems too. You did volunteer to join us. Of course, the video of Farrell singing is delightfully over the top. Both articles include the video.

Billionaires killed presidential endorsements

Yesterday NPR host Juana Summers talked to reporter David Folkenflik about the Washington Post deciding not to endorse anyone for president this year. The Post’s publisher and CEO William Lewis says the reason is they are returning to their roots as an independent paper that equips readers to think, not tell them what to think. But the lack of endorsement and the wimpy reason isn’t building a lot of trust. Instead there are a lot of anger in the newsroom. Editor-at-large Robert Kagan resigned from the editorial board. That board and the editorial page editor had approved they would endorse Harris. What happened? Owner Jeff Bezos killed any endorsement. The Post has repeatedly reported on the improprieties and illegalities of the nasty guy and its editorial page has said he is unfit for service. Other people are considering resignations. At least 1,600 people have canceled their digital subscriptions, a far higher rate than is usual. This comes only a day after the Los Angeles Times announced it was not endorsing anyone. The reason is the same. The Times is owned by billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong. He made his money through medical inventions and has patents and other issues in front of federal regulators. Bezos of Amazon and Blue Origin has a lot of big contracts with the government. And the nasty guy has been threatening media companies he claims have wronged him (by publishing the truth). So many of these outlets are wary of punching hard against him. Oliver Willis of Daily Kos covers much of the same story, though adds a few things. Shortly after the nasty guy took office in 2017 the Post changed its slogan to “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” So much for that. Lewis justified the decision by claiming:

We see it as consistent with the values The Post has always stood for and what we hope for in a leader: character and courage in service to the American ethic, veneration for the rule of law, and respect for human freedom in all its aspects.

The nasty guy has shown none of those traits. Harris has made all of them central. Which makes Lewis’ statement rather silly. Former Post executive editor Martin Baron wrote the decision is “cowardice” and that the nasty guy will “celebrate this as an invitation to further intimidate The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos (and other media owners).” Various people, including some with other media outlets, are posting photos to show they had unsubscribed from the Post. Mariel Garza, editorial editor of the Times resigned in protest. And the Philadelphia Inquirer endorsed Harris. Emily Singer of Kos reported:

A new ABC News/Ipsos poll released Friday found that 49% of registered voters view Trump as a fascist, which the pollsters described to respondents as "a political extremist who seeks to act as a dictator, disregards individual rights and threatens or uses force against their opponents.”

Only 49%. This could be a problem. Or it could be good news that almost half of voters recognize the nasty guy for what he is. The poll was conducted before the story of John Kelly, the nasty guy’s chief of staff, saying the nasty guy admired Hitler made the news. Singer’s story then list several ways we know the nasty guy is fascist. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin had a few good quotes. First, from NBC is the story that election workers in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania were investigating 2,500 fraudulent voter registration applications. The fraudulent forms came from paid canvassers and were submitted right before the registration deadline. The county leans Republican. The workers have confirmed election and criminal violations and are working with detectives. My main though is: They were caught. Our election system is secure. Some of these quotes are about the nasty guy’s praise of Hitler’s generals. From Jonathan Chait of New York magazine:

The reactions I’m collecting here are representative of the conservative movement’s impulse to dismiss or deflect from the overwhelming evidence that Trump is considered dangerous by many officials he appointed to office.

From Susan Glasser of The New Yorker, commenting that Harris has said she considers the nasty guy a fascist:

For years, something held Harris and Biden back from embracing the F-word for Trump. Perhaps they considered it too inflammatory or merely ineffective at making the case against Trump. Or maybe they feared exactly the moment we are now in, in which credible, on-the-record reports about Trump’s admiration for Hitler and his plans to dismantle key democratic institutions have apparently done little to dissuade Republicans from voting for him. Now that the fascist label is out there, a significant part of the G.O.P. has predictably gone ahead and normalized it, as they have with all Trump’s previous outrages.

In the comments there are, of course, several cartoons about the Post failure to endorse. A cartoon from Clay Bennett has the Post's slogan as a caption “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” It shows a candle, labeled Presidential Endorsement, that is not lit. Tjeerd Royaards posted a cartoon showing the word “Democracy” made up of light bulbs and the nasty guy, along with the leaders of Italy, Russia, China, North Korea, and Belarus (they are identified by their flags and I had to look that one up) are throwing rocks at those light bulbs. Royaards added, “I was always proud when a cartoon of mine was published in the Post, but I won't be sending in my work anymore.” Quite a ways down in the comments is one by Kyle Bravo posted by The New Yorker Humor. It shows two men at a baseball game and one says, “I wish the election were this boring.”

Erasing tools to recognize prejudice & prevent atrocity

I renewed my conversation with Comcast this morning, continuing what I posted yesterday. They had blocked allowing me pay my bill because I didn’t give them a non-Comcast email address, which I don’t have. Each round of today’s chat discussion took 20-30 minutes. Since they needed verification from me and then needed screenshots of the error message, this took over two hours. Eventually a person explained that they changed their policies and now need to be able to do two-factor authentication that needs two email addresses. They need the second in case I can’t access my Comcast email. I replied: Their two-factor authentication is more complicated than what my bank requires. Needing a second email in case I can’t access their email really doesn’t make sense. If I’m required to create a second email address I might as well take that as the first step in switching all my various online accounts to the new addy and leave Comcast behind. The response was they have changed their security steps and the support team has no way to avoid them. So. I can pay by phone app, which I rejected (and am puzzled why the account then doesn’t need the second email). I can pay at an Xfinity store, which I did, and waited a half hour once I got there. The support person said I can pay by check by printing out the bill I get online and cutting off the payment coupon. I have a big project of how to convert the files from my old music program to something readable by the new. It looks like I have another big project to establish a second email address, go through my dozens of online accounts to convert to that address, and choose a new internet provider. I didn’t need another big project. I have a few other big projects this will keep me from getting to. Emily Singer of Daily Kos reviewed various news sources to get an idea of what the nasty guy plans to do on election day. NBC News reported he’ll quickly declare himself the winner well before networks call it. Yeah, he did that last time. He’s spreading the same lie that voting machines are stealing his vote, the same lie that cost Fox News $787 million in a defamation suit. In several states Republicans have already files various suits trying to block various kinds of voters such as families of overseas military (as was filed and tossed in Michigan).

“We have known for some time that Donald Trump uses the legal system not to adjudicate things on the merits but rather to make a point,” Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias said in an interview on MSNBC. “In the election context, we know he has used it to try to further a false narrative, the big lie, that serves as a permission structure for him and his supporters to deny the reality that he lost in 2020 and that he will almost certainly lose the popular vote and probably the election in 2024,” Elias continued. “But we have to be clear, those lawsuits are not succeeding.

Oliver Willis of Kos reported it isn’t just the nasty guy spouting election disinformation. The Washington Post listed statements of Republicans running for office at various levels and found 230 of them have said they have doubts about the 2024 election. That is influencing Republican voters. WaPo said this disinformation will have a “pervasive effort within the GOP to undermine public trust in the vote ahead of Nov. 5.” According to the Brennan Center for Justice many candidates are pushing conspiracies of noncitizens voting, when that was 0.0001% of votes cast out of 23.5 million votes in the 2016 election (was that the number of votes in the swing states?). Many candidates are also claiming Biden dropping out and being replaced by Harris is somehow undemocratic, though Harris was on the ballot with him through the primaries. Election fraud is rare. Voter suppression and disinformation isn’t and is an ongoing tactic by Republicans. Singer wrote that the nasty guy is reportedly considering Judge Aileen Cannon to be his attorney general. It would certainly be payment for all the good she has done for him and gives a clear idea of what he intends for his Department of Justice. Cannon is the judge in his classified documents case who did all she could to slow down the case, then absurdly dismissed the case by saying special counsel Jack Smith wasn’t legally appointed. A couple other rumored appointments are just as bad. Sen. Lindsey Graham was on NBC’s Meet the Press and Kos of Kos discussed what he said. Graham complained that Republicans are endorsing Harris and that Democrats want to to “pack” the Supreme Court, eliminate the Electoral College, and make D.C. and Puerto Rico states. Wrote Kos:

None of it is crazy, other than it would dilute the institutional power that Republicans have built for themselves in direct contradiction to the nation’s electorate. Remember, Republicans have lost the popular vote for the last 20 years.

If we get rid of the Electoral College then conservative voters matter in California and South Carolina (where Graham is from), and not just is six or seven states. But Republicans well know they they don’t have a national majority, so they need the contrivance of the EC to win. Graham has various other lies he hoped would make Harris look bad. Kos debunked them.

Graham was clearly on air to make Trump happy. But despite all the angry bluster, his real fear is a Democratic majority that would undo the GOP’s ill-gotten institutional advantages. And that should sound pretty awesome to us.

Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos has several quotes from people born in October. One of them is worth sharing:

"There’s a reason white supremacy attacks history. Opposition to teaching bigotry’s history and where it leads—from the slave trade to the Holocaust—is about erasing society’s tools to recognize prejudice & prevent atrocity. Holocaust denial has no place in our society. None." —Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY)

Another way to say that is they want to deny something because they want to be able to do it again. They deny racism because they want societal permission to be racist. In another Cheers and Jeers column Bill quoted late night commentary. One of them:

“In a new interview, former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly said that former President Trump spoke positively about Adolf Hitler more than once, and added he wanted ‘the kind of generals Hitler had.’ You know what? I’m starting to think that Trump doesn’t watch the ends of documentaries.” —Seth Meyers

In the comments of a pundit roundup on Kos there are cartoons and memes that are variations of the image of a man and woman walking together. He turns and looks appreciatively at another woman while his partner is annoyed at what he is doing. In these cartoons each of the three characters are usually labeled. The first example is by Mike Luckovich and shows the nasty guy admiring Hitler while Lady Liberty looks annoyed. In one posted by Hugh Jim Bissell the passing woman is replaced by the nasty guy, the man is labeled “Conservative Christians” and the woman is labeled “Jesus.” Also featuring Jesus, exlrrp posted an image of Jesus driving the money lenders out of the temple (told in all four Gospels in the Bible) though in this image one of them is the nasty guy and others are labeled JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Goldman Sachs. The caption says, “Dear Conservatives: This is what Jesus would have done.” Below it is an image of Jesus with a child in his lap talking to people. He says, “You think turning water into wine is cool? 2,000 years ago, I wasn’t even white!” An Associated Press article posted on Kos warns that though abortion protection provisions may win (they’re on the ballot in ten states) the legal battle over abortion won’t end right away. That’s because the laws or constitutional amendments don’t actually repeal the abortion bans. Passing the provisions only mean the courts will be very busy, though the pro-choice side will have the wind at their backs. The delay will also mean Republicans will have time to craft a proposal to ask voters to undo what they do this year (though I’m puzzled why they think they’ll get a different result – oh, yeah, they’re Republicans). Morgan Stephens of Kos included and discussed a two minute video of Walz explaining Project 2025 as a playbook for a football game. His description includes raising penalty flags on unchecked power and plays that rely on misdirection. He ends by saying, “This linebacker is you, getting to the polls, voting; you got a chance to stop this, let’s play defense, folks.”

Looking to Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, and Mao to understand Jesus

I had another problem with Comcast and encountered more customer disservice. In the last chapter I mentioned when I called the bot had me listen to a half-minute spiel about how the company needs certain information from me. I got that spiel every time I had to call, which for that issue was several calls. Today when I went to pay my bill online it inserted a page in the process saying they don’t have that information, my phone number and alternate email address. It was set up in such a way that I could not pay the bill without providing it. I could no longer bypass their request that has turned into a demand. So I entered my phone number – which they already have. I entered my email address. The system responded saying that is already associated with an account, we need a different one. I don’t have a different one. And I’m certainly not going to create one just to make Comcast happy, because I’ll never look at it. I think what Comcast is trying to do is have ways to contact me if their email system crashes. Well, OK, you have my phone number. So I called. The answer bot did its spiel again. Then after every answer I gave it would say I could sent you a link to our chat system; you’ll get faster service. I replied “no” each time. I didn’t want to do chat on my phone and needed to talk to a real person. It tried to direct me to chat about a half dozen times (I didn’t actually count). I didn’t get connected to a human. So on my computer I tried their virtual chat, the only kind they offer. It gave me choices for its questions. I quickly got to “none of these.” When I clicked on that it started its question tree over. No humans on the other end. I tried to call the local store, the place that actually worked to solve the previous problem. But the store’s number, while a different 800 number, connected me to the bot again. I signed up to the user forum and asked the question. It showed my predicament was posed two years ago. Notably, the person responding took the discussion to direct messaging, meaning the answer was not posted on the forum. So I posed it again. The available answers to some of the info it wanted made it sure the question was misclassified. People have seen the question but no one has given an answer. Five hours later I did get a response – they had reclassified my question. About a half hour after that Xfinity support found it. And they told me to use direct messaging with Xfinity support. So I did. That looks to be like chat, but with real people. They needed 20 minutes to respond. They asked for basic information and as of this writing have taken 15 minutes to respond to that. At this hour I can’t wait for many cycles of this chat. One of my tasks tomorrow may be to go to the Xfinity store to pay my bill. I saw a news article about people filing customer service complaints against companies with the Federal Trade Commission. Perhaps I should do that with Comcast. But I’d have to be more specific about the number of times it tried to direct me to chat. And I really don’t want to call again. Oliver Willis of Daily Kos reported that Obama, campaigning for Harris, had a few good lines.

Obama remarked that he often speaks to people about Trump, and they have remarked that the Republican presidential nominee is “kind of goofy” but that they remember better economic conditions during his presidency. “And I say, yeah it was good because it was my economy,” Obama said. “I spent eight years cleaning up the mess that the Republicans left me.” ... Obama added, “All [Trump] did was give a tax cut to people who didn’t need one, drove up the deficit in the process, now he wants to do it again. Do not fall for that okey doke, don’t be bamboozled.”

Morgan Stephens of Kos has a response for Ezra Klein’s opinion piece in the New York Times. Klein had asked, “If Donald Trump is so dangerous, then how come the consequences of his presidency weren’t worse? ... If Donald Trump is so bad, why were things so good? Why were they at least OK?” Stephens says Klein’s privilege is showing. Many people weren’t OK. And still aren’t. 352K people died of COVID in 2020, many through the nasty guy’s misinformation and neglect. People of color, people in poverty, and women are still feeling it. Then there’s the abortion ban he made possible in the way he stacked the Supreme Court. Klein ignored the rise of white supremacy the nasty guy normalized. There’s also the police officers killed in the Capitol attack. I’m sure Stephens could have added several other ways America is worse because of his time in the Oval Office. Stephens added she is one of those still suffering from long COVID and encountered people who scorned her use of a mask. Kos of Kos wrote about what should be the October surprise to end the nasty guy’s presidential bid, but won’t. The story comes from the book The Divider: Trump in the White House by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser. The nasty guy, in talking to John Kelly, his Chief of Staff, wanted American military generals to have the same loyalty as Hitler’s generals. Kelly’s response, recorded in the book:

Kelly admonished Trump: “I said, ‘Sir, you can never say anything good about the guy. Nothing.’”

That exchange was trumpeted in a big headline in The Atlantic: “TRUMP: ‘I NEED THE KIND OF GENERALS THAT HITLER HAD’” In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev had a couple good quotes. The first is from Heather Digby Parton of Salon who commented on high-ranking military leaders who are saying how unfit and how fascist the nasty guy is.

It's good that these former high-ranking military leaders are saying all this. But they really need to go on CBS News' "60 Minutes" or cut an ad so that people who aren't reading the Atlantic and the New York Times (or Salon, for that matter) will know about it. There's no reason for them not to do it at this point. If they fear retribution from Trump, I'm afraid that ship sailed. You can bet they are already on his list. If they simply don't want to be in the line of fire, it's a sad comment on the military ethos for which they claim to be speaking.

A while back I wrote about the term “sanewashing,” created by Parker Malloy. Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan of LitHub in an interview with The Family author Jeff Sharlet says that term doesn’t go far enough. Sharlet talked about the nasty guy and far right preachers talking about Christian Nationalism. And the press is ignoring this as an issue. They were stuck on the idea of how could such a profane man win the votes of the religious right?

I think Parker would agree with this; It’s fascist-washing. In the book, I call it “the F-word” because in an earlier book I wrote in 2008 called The Family, I wrote about a Christian Nationalist movement that explicitly looks to Hitler as a model for understanding Jesus. And they added in Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, and Mao for their common denominator: strength and power.

Looking to Hitler and Stalin to understand Jesus? That makes the head spin. Down in the comments is a meme posted by exlrrp with a quote by Pete Buttigieg:

It’s one thing for some leftist group to call you a fascist. Quite another when it’s a fellow Republican. And absolutely astonishing when it’s your own chief of staff.

Posted right below it is a meme with the words, “Strange, but my idea of ‘making America great again’ always seemed to involve seeing FEWER swastikas.” Further down in the comments is a discussion by Captain Frogbert. He starts with a video of monkeys where one is rewarded with cucumber and another is rewarded with much tastier grapes and the first shows its displeasure. The test has been done with other animals and had similar results. Frogbert wrote:

Trump voters have been deceived by Wall Street oligarchs and the media into thinking the problem is that “THOSE PEOPLE” are being unfairly rewarded by LIBERAL ELITES who give MY grapes to people who haven’t EARNED THEM the way I have. Of course this is absurd. What is happening is that the right-wing elites are KEEPING THE GRAPES for themselves and telling the right-wing masses that the grapes they should be getting are being unjustly given to people they don’t like who don’t deserve them, by people they don’t like who hate the GOOD PEOPLE LIKE YOU. Even though there is no evidence of this being true. It’s just that the Trump voters, knowing only that they don’t have what they think they are entitled to, think it ought to be true. The enemy is the oligarchy. Their racism drives the foolish right to act against their own interests because the oligarchs are also racists and the right-wingers think they will be exempt from oppression once all the people they hate have been summarily removed and punished. But that’s not how fascism works. Fascism runs on hate and enemies of the state. They can never “deal” with the enemies of the state without generating new enemies of the state to drive their campaigns of hate and social dominance (and stealing). As soon as the liberals, and the trans people, and the gays, and the people of color, and all the other targets of right-wing hate are dealt with, the fascist state will designate remaining members of the non-oligarch classes to replace them. No matter who you are, and how worshipfully you embrace Big Brother Donny Dum-Dum, you will EVENTUALLY be declared an enemy of the state. It is inevitable. The jaguars WILL always eat YOUR face. Fascism does NOT solve problems, it is a parasite on the body of the nation, stealing its wealth for itself until there is nothing left.

Frogbert included some of Martin Niemöller’s famous poem, then continued:

Everyone knows this quote, but few people actually understand it. Everyone empathizes with Niemöller because they want to believe they are the victim of uncontrollable and unaccountable forces arrayed against THEM PERSONALLY, and the want REVENGE for their oppression. So they cling to populist politicians who lie to them and promise that desired revenge, not understanding that it is the oligarchs who control the populist politicians who are their oppressors, not the liberals or the black/gay/trans/whatevers they have been taught to hate.

Frogbert ended with a quote from Winston Churchill: “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile hoping it will eat him last.” Frogbert added, “First or last, the crocodile WILL eat you.” HealthCarewatcher of the Kos community discussed the way Tim Walz is redefining masculinity. The author quoted an article in The American Prospect:

Trump offers young men a fantasy of manhood as an unapologetic assertion of dominance. It’s a vision that celebrates fame and power, aggression, and sex without obligations—the fantasy behind Trump’s taped Access Hollywood line, “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”

The author encountered that version of masculinity in high school and college as a runner. The scene was extremely homophobic, driven by coaches who wanted to be seen as manly. That culture was so hurtful the author stopped running.

A key facet of Tim Walz' biography is that he was the football coach who walked into that culture and helped students form the straight-gay alliance. He preached tolerance and inclusion and actively tore down a homophobic and bigoted culture. There are LGBTQ running clubs, soccer teams and football teams in rec leagues around the country because guys like Tim Walz tore down a bigoted culture in the mid-2000s and 2010s. When I was watching Tim Walz' interview with Kate Mackz, I realized that he's selling a version of masculinity that is extremely dangerous to Trump. Instead of blaming transgender women for the problems of young men, the way Trump does, Walz is articulating an inclusive vision of masculinity. One where everyone has their place, and using his story to sell it. Struggling to pay for college? I did too, Walz says, I joined the National Guard. Having a hard time finding a job? Become a teacher, the way I did. Having a hard time staying in shape and feeling isolated? Yeah, I did too, I picked up running and met great people Walz says. Essentially he's showing men how they can lead normal lives without being a raving lunatic like Trump, and how that leads to happiness. ...Walz' quiet redefining of masculinity to be more inclusive exposed how Trump's hate and anger leads to the isolation and loneliness that many men are feeling and frustrated with, and how Trump wants to use this hate and anger to get elected but doesn't actually want to solve the underlying problems of income inequality and social isolation.

Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos included a remarkable video. The music was “Rey’s Theme” by John Williams (from one of the last three Star Wars movies?) arranged by Williams to feature astronaut Sarah Gillis playing her violin in a Dragon Crew Capsule in space while the orchestral accompaniment was played by orchestras, string ensembles, and brass ensembles in Boston, Brazil, Sweden, Uganda, and Haiti. I think the way it worked was that Gillis’ performance was beamed from (or recorded in) space and the rest of the groups played along with her image and then the recordings of the various groups were mixed together (the sound I heard with a string orchestra in view didn’t sound any different than when the brass ensemble was on screen). However they did it the images and the sound are pretty cool! Fall color is close to its peak in southeast Michigan right now. Since today was sunny, which adds extra brilliance to the leaves, I spent a chunk of my midday walking in a park and soaking in the color.

Where democracy has become a blood sport

My Sunday movie was Heartstopper, season 3, episodes 7 an 8, which are the end of the season. As before there are plot points (also known as spoilers) and my discussion. The start of episode 7 is a moment in sex ed class. Yeah, they’re teenagers and one thing on their minds. So we know where Nick and Charlie’s relationship is headed. In episode 5 both Charlie and transgender Elle have body image issues that get in the way of sex with their partners. Elle is also facing confidence issues from the interview that went wrong in episode 6. In these two episodes Nick is now looking at where he wants to go to University. One concern is how far he’ll be from Charlie, who has one more year of high school. Charlie is feeling more fully recovered from his eating disorder and more ready to get on with life. A big question about the series. There have been three seasons, yet there are six books. So I checked the later books in the series. The description of book 5 matches what happens in season 3. Will there be a season 4 with what happens when Nick leaves for University? Will it be filmed before the characters are too old to play the parts? I finished the book Pudd’nhead Wilson and the Extraordinary Twins by Mark Twain, published in 1894. The author explains that after writing the novel he saw that it wasn’t working and it took a while for him to realize that he had crammed together two stories, one a tragedy and one a comedy. He separated the two stories, though they are published together. They share the same setting – Dawson’s Landing, Missouri before the Civil War – and many of the same characters and even some of the same incidents, though told from a different point of view. The first story is Pudd’nhead Wilson. Though he’s the title character, he’s actually rather minor. He’s trained as a lawyer, but in his first day in town he makes a comment the locals think is stupid and they name him Pudd’nhead. The name sticks and there goes his efforts to be a lawyer. Beyond the odd jobs he does to get by he collects fingerprints of the locals. In the 1840s the uniqueness of fingerprints is not known, and not so much in 1894. It’s much later than that before fingerprints are used by police and the courts. So Twain was ahead of his time. Roxy is one of the main characters. Her single black ancestor is four generations back, but because of the laws of the time she is considered black though she could easily pass for white. Her son Chambers is born the same day as her master’s son Tom. The two boys look very much alike and she cares for them both. When the boys are just a few months old Roxy realizes her son could be sold “down the river” to a harsher owner. To protect him she swaps clothing and cradles and her son is now Tom. And he grows up to become the arrogant son of the estate. Yes, fingerprints play a major role. And Pudd’nhead does the lawyering. Roxy is one of Twain’s better black characters, perhaps even better than Jim in Huckleberry Finn. She is a driver of a great deal of the plot. She is quite annoyed at how arrogant her son has become. Each chapter begins with an excerpt from “Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar” – a witty saying for each day. A couple examples:

Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved. The true Southern watermelon is a boon apart, and not to be mentioned with commoner things. It is chief of the world’s luxuries, king by the grace of God over all the fruits of the earth. When one has tasted it, he knows what the angels eat. It was not a Southern watermelon that Eve took: we know it because she repented.

Now for the Extraordinary Twins. They are supposedly Italian Counts who come to town. Since nobility in Dawson’s Landing is rare they are fawned over. In Pudd’nhead Wilson they are portrayed as one expects twins to be portrayed. However, in Extraordinary Twins they are conjoined twins – two heads and four arms on one pair of legs. This gives Twain the chance to have a bit of fun with how absurd he can make the situation. Morgan Stephens of Daily Kos discussed several ways Republicans are trying to restrict free speech. Florida Gov. DeathSantis and Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo tried to block local TV stations from playing ads for the state abortion amendment on the ballot. The nasty guy threatens any news organization that tells the truth, which makes him look bad. He said he would talk to Fox founder Rupert Murdoch to ban negative commercials in the last three weeks of the campaign. There are also those who try to exploit free speech by running gruesome ads that displayed dead fetuses. ABC aired them, because they had to, though added a content warning. Stephens concluded:

The ultraconservative second Trump administration blueprint, Project 2025, created by 140 of Trump’s allies and colleagues, details plans to defund PBS, NPR, and any other public broadcasting. Trump’s ongoing threats to media networks and calls by those like DeSantis to cease and desist what they don’t like and revoke licenses, only reiterate the GOP’s broader strategy of controlling narratives and silencing any voice that does not placate their lies.

In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included quotes discussing the nasty guy’s appearance at the Al Smith dinner that raises money for Catholic charities. Jonathan Last of The Bulwark equated the whole thing to Japanese Kabuki theater.

Donald Trump has inverted this proposition. His presence at the Al Smith dinner last night turned the event itself into kabuki theater, in which everyone participating pretended that the man who attempted a coup, says he wants to be a dictator, calls his opponents “vermin” and “the enemy within,” and has raised the possibility of using the military against American citizens is normal. ... Trumpism corrupts. And Trumpism has turned events like the Al Smith dinner—which used to be balms for democracy—into weapons against it. The people running the dinner thought they were using Trump to raise money for Catholic Charities. The reality is that he was using them to normalize his authoritarian project.

The National Catholic Reporter commented that the problem wasn’t that Harris declined to attend but that the nasty guy did attend and spoke.

The real controversy is that an event that touts its history of raising funds for society's most needy is going to host someone who is one of the culture's greatest threats to that kind of caring. The real outrage is that Trump, given the public nature and extent of his repulsive record, should be invited to a fundraiser for an organization, Catholic Charities, that has long worked in the trenches to save and transform lives on society's farthest margins. It is tragic that the guest of honor this year will be someone whose personal example and policy wishes are in a collision course with the principles of Catholic social teaching.

Down in the comments are a couple of good cartoons. In the nasty guy’s trial for inciting the Capitol attack he tried to block some of the evidence from being made public. He said it would election interference. Judge Chutkan refused his request. A cartoon by Dave Whamond covers that moment. He has Judge Chutkan saying, as she points to an image of the attack, “Releasing evidence isn’t election interference, Mr. Trump... That’s election interference!” The second cartoon is by Bill Bramhall. It shows Harris wearing a shirt that says, “I went on Fox News and all I got was interrupted.” Oliver Willis of Kos reported that on Sunday the nasty guy pretended to work at a McDonald’s. As part of her life story Harris has been saying she worked at a McDonald’s for a while, so she knows what that kind of job is like and will help people in those jobs. The nasty guy has been claiming that she never worked there and somehow his stunt would reveal that. Or at least mock it. And yes, it was a stunt. The restaurant was closed. Those who came to the drive-through window were fans and screened by Secret Service. The fans didn’t order, they just took what he gave them. While there reporters asked about raising the minimum wage. He ducked the question. Willis reminded us of his other policies that help billionaires at the expense of the people who normally work at McDonald’s. Willis also reported the reaction to the stunt. Republicans were, of course, delighted. Republican Rep. Chuck Edwards of North Carolina gave the nasty guy a “French fry certification pin” while Hurricane Helene debris can be seen in the background. Democrats and many entertainers were scornful of the stunt, calling it “cosplay” and insulting. Emily Singer of Kos wrote that the nasty guy’s incoherence has increased over the last few weeks. She gives many examples. Media, such as the New York Times are starting to write articles about his mental fitness. And Harris is talking about his fitness during her campaign events. In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev included several good quotes. First, from Michael Tomasky of The New Republic:

How Republicans win presidential elections, according to the factual record: They cheat. This has been true in most elections in recent American history...

The full article listed many of the different ways they cheat. Lora Kelley and Elaine Godfrey of The Atlantic discuss one of those ways to cheat – disinformation and conspiracy theories that will continue to bombard us through Election Day. Laurie Roberts of the Arizona Republic wrote about security measures around the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center. A 7-foot high wrought iron fence, concrete barriers, armed guards, metal detectors, snipers on the roof, and drones.

Sounds like overkill, but this is Arizona 2024, where democracy has become a blood sport and the red, white and blue has given way to the red, white and black and blue. ... Inside, election workers have been drilled on how to barricade themselves into a room or wield a fire hose to repel armed mobs. In the pursuit of democracy, everything has changed.

Down in the comments are several cartoons about the nasty guy at McDonald’s. One by Nick Anderson shows the nasty guy hanging out the drive-through window saying, “Want lies with that?” Beside him is Elon Musk saying, “Want bribes with that?” Further down exlrrp posted a meme with the same setting and the words, “Do you want crimes with that?” And a ways below that exlrrp posted another meme, “She worked at McDonald’s. He pretended to work at McDonald’s. ...Good analogy for how they’ll govern.” A tweet by Joe G shows a photo of Harris with the words, “Please don’t tell Donald that I also took ballet lessons.” Just below that posted by TruthPlease is an image of the nasty guy with a tutu wrapped around his suit. And exlrrp posted a meme with this question, “Why is it black people are told to get over slavery but white people always have Civil War reenactments?” Willis reported that in the nasty guy’s tax plan is the goal to eliminate taxation on Social Security benefits. Sounds good? Well, other than most of that benefit goes to the richest people, the ones with the biggest Social Security benefits. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget explains it this way. Those taxes on Social Security benefits go back into the SS fund. So not taxing benefits means a $2.3 trillion shortfall (time span not specified), causing a 33% benefit cut for everyone. And the ones most reliant on SS benefits would be the most hurt. Lisa Needham of Kos wrote about the nasty guy holding a rally in California (the one where he stranded his followers in the desert) and a big fundraiser in New York. He won’t win either state, so why campaign there?

It’s not just weird that nine days before the election, Trump is holding a rally in New York, which he lost by roughly 22 percentage points to Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 and then did even worse against President Joe Biden in 2020. It’s also weird that nine days before the election, Trump is doing a massive fundraiser instead of stumping for votes. But he’ll need that money if he plans to win the election via post-election litigation instead of, you know, votes.

Now that I’ve mentioned Musk... Eric Lipton of NYT tweeted:

Musk is simultaneously in fights with the FAA, DOJ, FCC, FTC, Interior, EEOC, NLRB, EPA, etc. Now Musk has nudged Trump to put him in charge of an effort to curb government rules. Why is Musk working so hard to get Trump elected?

Yeah, a huge conflict of interest. The tweet has a link to the NYT article and I think it’s not behind the paywall.

This new kind of angertainment

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos posted one of his occasional Ukraine updates. In the Kursk region of Russia, where Ukraine invaded their territory, Russian troops retook a major road, putting one area held by Ukraine in a precarious position. In the area west of the city of Donetsk Russia is gaining ground slowly but steadily. Sumner wrote:

Russia isn't walking freely into these areas. Drones and artillery are continuing to extract a high price for Russian advances. But the story of what's happening now near Pokrovsk is essentially the story of this war: Ukraine is extracting a lopsided cost from Russia at every advance, but that cost is not so lopsided that they can stop the Russian advance.

Sumner’s important message of the post is that Russia is getting help from China, Iran, and North Korea. Most of that is weaponry. Some of that is now soldiers. None of them are placing restrictions on how their gifts are used. They don’t fear being drawn into a wider war. That’s different than the US and NATO, who tell Ukraine there are certain things you can’t aim at, and are afraid of a wider war.

The Authoritarian Axis is growing stronger and more committed. And it's not hard to see why the authoritarian regimes are all in. They see Putin's invasion of Ukraine as a chance to defeat and humiliate the West, demonstrate the inferiority of liberal democracies, and open the door for the expansion of their own regimes through aggressive military action. For them, Ukraine is an experiment. If Putin can do this and get away with it, well then ... anything goes. They also see the war in Ukraine as the end of Pax Americana; as the point when the United States steps away from its role as the greatest among equals. If the end of the Cold War was supposed to be a repudiation of international communism, this open military conquest of Ukraine by a brutal dictatorial regime marks the end of stability, the end of democracy, and the end of the progress that's defined the last century. They are making the world safe for large-scale war again.

That’s while the nasty guy obviously sides with the authoritarians. On Fox News he argued the risk of stopping them is too high. That means he fears them too much to stand in their way. Or that’s an excuse. Ted Cruz is one of the worst of the far right senators. Since he is representing Texas one could see his job as secure. Kos of Kos reported that Cruz is only 1 percentage point ahead of his Democratic challenger Colin Allred. Cruz and Allred recently debated and Cruz didn’t fare well. Kos reported the highlights. Here is a bit of what Allred said:

If you don't like how things are going in Washington right now, well, you know what? He is singularly responsible for it. He has introduced this new kind of angertainment where you just get people upset and then you podcast about it and you write a book about it and you make some money on it, but you're not actually there when people need you. Like when the lights went out, when 30 million Texans were relying on a senator to spring into action, he went to Cancún.

Harris went on Fox News for an interview. Yeah, that’s like sticking your head in the mouth of a lion. But she did just fine. Kos discussed his thoughts after watching it.

My original plan was to write a reaction story immediately after the interview, and I’m glad I took the time to digest. That initial reaction was one of anger—Fox anchor Bret Baier was rude, sanctimonious, and wouldn’t let Harris finish her answers. He used right-wing Trumpian frames in every single one of his questions, and even tried to sanewash Donald Trump’s fascist “enemies within” rhetoric. After receiving relentless criticism from the conservative base for scheduling the interview, Baier had clearly decided to give them what they wanted—a rude, combative, red-themed show. In short, Baier did everything we expected a Fox News host on Fox News would do. F that guy!

On reflection Kos found eight ways in which Harris helped her campaign. + She easily refuted the nasty guy’s claim that she’s “slow and lethargic.” He won’t notice (some projection here?), but some of his fans may stop that line of attack. + She handled Baier’s rudeness, showing how tough she is. + Her performance allows squishy conservatives to consider her. + It silences the media claims that she does interviews with only friendly media. + Her performance has annoyed the nasty guy. + She showed she can remain on message in a hostile environment and turn most answers into an indictment of the nasty guy. + She did battle with the enemy and won, giving us more reason to work to get her elected. + Her performance reminded everyone the nasty guy is a coward. He’s done only friendly media. Oliver Willis of Kos wrote that the next morning Fox hosts were quite annoyed with how well Harris did. They complained that she kept talking about the nasty guy (well, he is her opponent). They complained that she was prepared (they’re used to their candidate, who isn’t) and her answers were substantive. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, mentioned the winners of the Nobel Prize in economics. Bill quoted from the Nobel committee’s announcement:

Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson [won] for research that explains why societies with poor rule of law and exploitative institutions do not generate sustainable growth. The three economists “have demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for a country’s prosperity,” the Nobel committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said at the announcement in Stockholm. ... “Reducing the vast differences in income between countries is one of our time’s greatest challenges. The laureates have demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for achieving this,” Jakob Svensson, Chair of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences, said. He said their research has provided "a much deeper understanding of the root causes of why countries fail or succeed.”

Some of the related questions explored in this finding (which I heard elsewhere): Was the country colonized for wealth extraction? They tend to remain poor. Was the country able to establish the rule of law after colonization? Those fare much better. An Associate Press article posted on Kos discussed why voter fraud is rare and that there are safeguards to catch it. Yes, it does happen and in 2020 across the six close states there were 475 problematic ballots out of the millions cast. Here are some of the reasons why it is so rare: + American elections are decentralized. The thousands of voting jurisdictions are independent. A large-scale operation to rig enough votes to change an election is almost impossible. + Lies associated with fraudulent voting have hefty fines and prison time. Non citizens are deported, so they won’t risk it. + Voter lists are updated based on death notices and citizens who move to another state (which is different that voter purges). + Absentee and mail ballots have verification protocols. Many states offer ballot tracking tools. + Ballot boxes have security protocols and have ways to prevent a lit match from burning the ballots. A lot of the alleged voting fraud isn’t true and investigations prove that. Even so, the nasty guy and his followers will amplify the claims. An example is a claim of many people registered at the same address. It was nuns who lived together. Another was a person who tried to vote twice who simply forgot they had voted by mail. Yes, there is some fraud in each election. But it is almost impossible to do on a large enough scale to flip an election. In the comments of a pundit roundup exlrrp posted a couple good memes. The first one is about school integration. “The people who threw rocks at Ruby Bridges for trying to go to school in 1960 now are upset their grandchildren might learn about them throwing rocks at Ruby Bridges for trying to go to school.” The second meme uses as its starting point an 18th century painting of two young women talking. They are given modern speech bubbles. One says, “I’ll keep observing Columbus Day. Thanks.” The other replies, “What do you do to ‘observe’ Columbus Day? Get lost in a grocery store looking for spices?”

Media isn't reporting Helene hit Tennessee too

My Sunday movie was Heartstopper season 3, episodes 4-6. I’ll write about the plot, which could be a spoiler. Then I’ll write about my thoughts on what I saw. At the end of episode 3 Charlie admitted he needed help with an eating disorder. So episode 4 is about the start of treatment. But there are delays and his mood gets worse. Charlie does get into a residential program for two months. We see that time first through Nick’s eyes. He’s lonely without his boyfriend, especially at Halloween. Then we see the two months through Charlie’s eyes, working with a therapist, getting a care package from friends, and a visit from family and Nick. In episode 5 Charlie is home in time for Christmas. And it is his first big test. His extended family is there – including the people that are invited out of obligation. And some of them pull out the mental illness stereotypes. After a while Charlie escapes to Nick’s house because Nick doesn’t treat him as mentally ill. Nick is doing a good job incorporating all that his aunt taught him about how to be supportive. In episode 6 it is now spring. Charlie’s therapy is progressing well and his relationship with Nick deepens. Part of that is Charlie has more mental space to devote to his love. Ellie is doing well in art school and her art is getting noticed. She is offered a radio interview. The host wants to draw her into the controversies of being trans. Then the story shifts to Charlie’s 16th birthday party. Now my thoughts: This circle of friends is quite supportive in all the right ways. When I was a teen I didn’t know how to be supportive like that. Perhaps the author used the stories as a guide to teens in how to be supportive. Through the first two seasons most of the emotions were pretty happy. The actors had it rather easy. In season three we see much more difficult situations. And I can see the actors are quite good. The characters are supposed to be 15 and 16 but act more like they’re older than 18, and I’m sure the actors are well into their 20s. There is way too much alcohol for kids who are 16 (probably too much for kids who are 18). And it wasn’t just Charlie’s birthday party – there was too much alcohol at the Halloween party, which Nick attended alone, and at the New Year’s Eve party when Charlie was 15. For characters and intended audience this young I wish the book author and show writers had come up with a different way for them to party. Observers have noticed that over the last few months people have been leaving the nasty guy’s rallies before they were over. Kos of Daily Kos reported his campaign has found a way to make them stay. And, of course, it didn’t turn out well. The nasty guy held a rally in the desert in Coachella, California. This is the town of the famous music festival that draws a quarter million fans. But the nasty guy didn’t use that venue. He held it at a private ranch. A question I won’t bother answering: With California absolutely going for Harris why is the nasty guy wasting campaign time there? But onward. For this rally attendees parked in three designated locations and shuttled to the venue by bus. Some started showing up at 6am. The rally ended at 7pm, meaning the crowd, limited to 15K, had spent the day in the hot sun. Well after 10pm thousands of people were still waiting for buses to take them back to their cars. At the venue there is no longer food or water or restroom facilities. A walk to the parking lot would take two hours and many elderly can’t walk that far. Some said the busses ran out of fuel. Even if they did Kos showed several gas stations just a couple miles from the site. Kos said the crowd response got weird. Some posting about the situation blamed the mayor, who had nothing to do with the event. Others posted and felt they had to delete the posts because they were “causing drama” – they were making the nasty guy look bad and devotees objected. Kos wrote:

Having stranded thousands in the hot desert, Trump and his campaign can’t even be bothered to issue an apology to their own people. They were used, abused, and tossed aside.

But they didn’t leave the rally early. Oliver Willis of Kos reported:

On Saturday, federal agencies were forced to move employees assisting with hurricane recovery efforts in North Carolina following reports of a militia threat against the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The incident follows days of Donald Trump and his allies in conservative media promoting lies about Hurricane Helene and the federal response. ... “FEMA has advised all federal responders Rutherford County, NC, to stand down and evacuate the county immediately,” the Post quoted from the email, adding that recipients were advised that the National Guard “had come across x2 trucks of armed militia saying there were out hunting FEMA” and that the agency was “coordinating the evacuation of all assigned personnel in that county.”

Willis also reported Jake Tapper, host of The Lead on CNN, did a segment on the definition of fascism and that the nasty guy fit that description. Tapper quoted Merriam-Webster:

a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition

Tapper’s evidence included: + Declaring there is “the enemy from within” and that he said he would consider using the US military or National Guard to go after opponents. + Gen. Mark Milley, who had been chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the nasty guy, was quoted in Bob Woodward’s interview of saying the nasty guy was “fascist to the core.” + The Capitol attack. + His verbal attacks on FEMA leading to threats of physical attacks. In the comments of a pundit roundup is a meme posted by Ridin’ With Kamala: “All I want for Christmas is to never hear his voice again.” In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted David Faris of Slate, who would like to get rid of the Electoral College. The EC is bad in more than distorting democracy, but also the distribution of federal aid and even distorting news.

While it appears the Biden administration is treating the impact of this season’s hurricanes as it should, the media’s focus on the almost unfathomable catastrophe in the western mountains of swing state North Carolina is a stark contrast to the near-total absence of attention to what’s going on just over the state line in deep-red Tennessee—complete with the obligatory analyses of how the hurricane’s aftermath might impact the outcome in the Tar Heel State. As for the electoral impact of Helene in Tennessee, no one is asking and no one cares. That kind of coverage disparity is an almost inevitable consequence of swing-state mania, and we shouldn’t be surprised when it seeps into policy decisions.

Down in the comments are several cartoons noting Columbus Day. In the comments of another pundit roundup are several cartoons making the repurposing of Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples Day. Mark Fiore posted one of his cartoons from two years ago. It shows a girl writing a poem for class:

In 1492 Columbus Sailed the ocean blue. He tortured & killed the people he found, Brought slavery & genocide all the world around. An inept explorer who left thousands dead, it’s why we celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day instead.

A meme posted by Hugh Jim Bissell shows a native chief saying, “Let me get this straight. You’re afraid of refugees coming to America, killing you, and taking your property?” Bissel also posted a meme showing the Capitol attack and saying, “Catching people sneaking across the border won’t make us safer when these people are already here.” Sharon Lerner and Andy Kroll, in an article for ProPublica posted on Kos, reported:

Three investigators for the Heritage Foundation have deluged federal agencies with thousands of Freedom of Information Act requests over the past year, requesting a wide range of information on government employees, including communications that could be seen as a political liability by conservatives. Among the documents they’ve sought are lists of agency personnel and messages sent by individual government workers that mention, among other things, “climate equity,” “voting” or “SOGIE,” an acronym for sexual orientation, gender identity and expression. The Heritage team filed these requests even as the think tank’s Project 2025 was promoting a controversial plan to remove job protections for tens of thousands of career civil servants so they could be identified and fired if Donald Trump wins the presidential election.

There may be as many as 50,000 requests submitted over the past two years. They are asking for calendar dumps, team messages that include the designated phrases, and communications with civil rights and voting rights groups. The requests, which sometimes “come in at a rate of one a second,” do indeed interfere with the ability to do the regular job. Gumming up government functions may be a secondary goal. The primary goal is to identify the government employees that should be purged if the nasty guy gets back in the Oval Office and begins to implement Project 2025, giving him space to install loyalists throughout the government. Michael Harriot, in a thread now in Threadreader, wrote about the importance of black barbershops. They’re a combination of church, political headquarters, secret hideout, and gathering spot. They are one of “the most important, most revolutionary institutions in Black history.” Their history is as old as America. When a slave was about to be sold they needed cleaning up. A white barber wouldn’t do it, so they hired a black “barber boy.” They could earn enough to buy their freedom and open their own business. The barbershop was one of the few places where black people could talk freely without white people around. Black barbers were held in high esteem, which meant they could fund and be a part of the Underground Railroad. Having a barber in the effort meant a slave’s appearance could be altered before they were passed along the route. Black barbers also taught black people how to read. They could also become quite rich and important to a community. In the early 1880s Philadelphia was at the center of the Abolition movement. Black people built schools and the first HBCUs. The AME church was founded there. There was also an abolitionist newspaper. When a delegate was chosen fot the first National Negro Convention they didn’t send a leader of any of those institutions, they sent a black barber, Joseph Cassey, who was also the second richest man in the city. He had funded some of those institutions. Also during that time a black man was the barber to the president (which one is not named). He is reported to have influence over his customer. A network of barbers organized a National Slave Revolt. By 1860 they had 42,000 people trained and ready. The revolt didn’t happen because the Civil War happened instead. Barbers were instrumental during the Civil Rights era. If you are trying to influence the black community or want to get elected you need to visit a black barbershop.

We are not in this together

I didn’t post over the previous two days because my computer did not have internet access. The reason is also a customer service rant. If you have no interest in my travails, jump to the next section of this post. My friend and debate partner describe sessions like this as “customer disservice.” When I bought this new computer I also bought a new modem and router, so I didn’t have to keep making rental payments on the one from Comcast/Xfinity. I think I calculated the replacements will hit break even in less than a year. Two days ago I decided was a good day to actually install the new hardware. Yeah, it’s been about seven weeks, but switching to and learning the new music program was a higher priority. The first problem was that the modem and router had transformers in their power plugs. They had to go at the ends of the surge protector. The house is sixty years old, of course there aren’t enough electrical outlets. Also, the cases around the transformers are bulky enough they don’t allow enough room for the neighboring plug. I found an extender and a narrow plug and managed. I connected all the wires and turned them all on. The modem booted. The lights on the router came on. But the computer said I had no internet. I called the modem company. The answer bot said I needed to call the internet provider to have the modem “provisioned.” So I called Comcast. The answer bot gave me a half minute message saying Comcast needed my updated contact info. They occasionally ask that when I’m on their website and they want an email address not through them (which I don’t have) and they already had my phone number. The answer bot required I specify the problem. My answer prompted the bot assume their modem was the problem and demanded I do a modem test. They could send a link to my phone or I could do it online. For an internet company Comcast seems pretty ignorant of how the internet works. I can’t do it online because the modem doesn’t work. The bot had hung up. I called again, waiting through the half-minute message again. The same scenario played out. I thought of calling the nearby Xfinity store. But I didn’t have a number and no internet to look it up. I called a third time. This time I accepted the text message on my phone. The bot hung up. I tapped the link. My phone said “No internet.” I called a fourth time. Yeah, that half-minute message a fourth time. This time I tried saying I wanted to change my internet service rather than saying I had an internet problem. A few questions later I was connected to a real person. I told him what I wanted to do. He asked for the MAC number of the modem. Then he complained the number didn’t match the Xfinity modem I had. Well, of course not! He finally understood what I wanted and he entered the new number. He said that since returning the modem meant a change in my billing I had to confirm it. He sent me another text with another link. Still no internet on the phone. He switched to verbal confirmation with the voice coming from the computer and reply to go to it, not him. The computer said if I agreed I was to enter “1” – but it didn’t recognize it. We went round on this several times and it did not recognize the “1” from my phone keypad. I asked him to enter the 1 for me – he had heard I confirmed. He wasn’t allowed to do that. I asked for a supervisor. The agent said a supervisor had no more capability than he had. Besides, a supervisor would not be available for two hours. In the meantime he could schedule an appointment with a technician. I had him confirm whether a tech guy would charge because it wasn’t their modem. He scheduled it just in case. I asked if the Xfinity store could resolve this problem. I had to return their modem anyway. He said they could. So I went to the store. I think the person waiting on me was transgender or nonbinary, though it would have been rude to ask. I’ll use nonbinary pronouns. They received my modem, used its ID to pull up my account, and gave me a receipt for the return. Then they said they could do no more because having a technician appointment locked the store people out of the system. After I expressed my astonishment they said they could delete the appointment. I quickly agreed. Soon they said all was in order, the new modem registered and ready, though one more confirmation step needed to be done and they at the store could not do it. I could reschedule a technician or call the 800 number again. I said a bit about how bad online service was and they agreed – as company agents they have to go through the same nonsense every time. This sounds like really bad use of agent time (as it is bad use of customer time). They said there is a way around it. They gave me a phrase to text to a different number and a tech person would call me. That different number turned out to be the number that was used to text me before. Alas, by the time I was able to use it the time was after 5:00. I thought perhaps their staff didn’t work or didn’t respond to these texts in the evening. During the evening I texted Niece, who is much better with phones than I am, about why my phone didn’t have internet service. She had me try various things and finally gave up. A bit later I thought to reboot my phone. That worked. I had internet again. I knew it was separate from the modem that wasn’t working Yeah, my phone can go wonky at the worst times. The next morning I called Comcast and their answer bot didn’t answer. I tried several times. I spent a lovely afternoon with Niece. She and I enjoyed the Detroit Institute of Arts. Back at it during the evening. Called Comcast. Other than repeating the half-minute message again it was rather quick to connect me to a human. He said he could see the modem. He had no idea what second thing the store person said was necessary. Shortly after that we were disconnected. So another call and another chance to ignore the message. This human had me unplug and replug the modem so that it would reboot. From his end things looked “100%” but I still didn’t have internet access. I should call the modem company. I did. This guy had me reset the modem. Then he had me connect the computer straight to the modem without the router. After another reboot a tab opened on my browser saying “Welcome to Xfinity! Download the Xfinity app on your mobile phone to activate your internet in minutes.” Nope, not letting them on my phone. This customer agent actually gave me decent service. He confirmed the router is only necessary when I need WiFi and most of the time I don’t. So I’ll leave it out for now. Called Xfinity again (and listened to the message again) and was connected to a human promptly. Yes, there was indeed one more step Xfinity needed to do. They needed to send a provisioning file to the modem. The modem answer bot was right. The store person was right and the two earlier people this evening were not. Sending the file rebooted the modem. When it was done I had internet! Web pages loaded. Two dozen emails downloaded! Things are better. Before this call ended the agent said she could tell when I started talking I was extremely frustrated. She was accurate. She was glad things were all straightened out and I felt better. One might think after so much hassle (and this not the first time) I would drop Comcast for another company. There are two reasons why I haven’t yet. First, my email address is through Comcast. With standard practice being to make one’s email addy one’s account identifier I would have go to a great many websites to change it. Second, various comparisons of the companies in my area rate them all equally bad at customer service. One wonders why they are all so bad. If you skipped the rant please resume reading here. How does one tell the difference between a prophet and someone just making stuff up? I’ve heard the distinction is that some of the prophet’s predictions have come true, so there is a decent chance the rest of them will too. Keep that thought in mind. Of course, some people say foretelling the future is not possible, so there is no such thing as a prophet. Reinvented Daddy of the Daily Kos community discussed what he thought was the reason why the MAGA people, meaning also the Republican Party and conservative evangelicals, are so cruel. He believes the answer, and I think he’s on to something, is the central position of the Bible’s book of Revelations in their beliefs.

Jesus of revelations is a horribly mean and spiteful creature requiring constant praise and supplication. Most of what is understood of Revelations is misinformed myth since few, even among the religiously educated, can understand it’s ridiculously bad writing. It was penned 60 years after the death of Jesus purely from the imagination of a hermit who lived in a cave on a desert island off Turkey. He despised the churches of St Paul. A raving lunatic, he wrote like one but the book survived because people liked apocalypse porn as much in the first century as they do in the 21st century.

For those who don’t know (which includes most Christians) Revelations is about the End Times, in which Jesus comes back to earth, heads an army that defeats all the forces of evil (interpreted to be all those who don’t believe in Jesus), and brings about a new heaven and new earth where there is no longer a reason for crying. The last couple of chapters portray a world that sounds lovely. The readers at the time, under the domination of Rome, would have appreciated this vision. But one must go through some twenty chapters of mayhem to get there. Then again, causing mayhem against Rome sounded pretty good too. After the Roman era Revelations was mostly ignored until after the American Civil War when the South, stinging from defeat, decided it spoke to them. Yeah, a just defeated society that considers itself highly Christian, is going to latch on to a story that says Jesus will come back and defeat their enemy. Richard Nixon, in his Southern Strategy, understood that Democrat presidents Kennedy and Johnson were seen as betrayers for their racial and economic reforms of the Civil Rights Act. Since then (according to Reinvented Daddy) Republicans have been making promises to the evangelicals they had no intention of keeping. And now we have a majority on the Supreme Court that believes the righteous ass-kicking portrayed in Revelations supersedes the Constitution. They are now keeping those promises. So is that hermit who wrote those words nearly two thousand years ago a prophet or did he make stuff up? In those two thousand years none of it has come to pass. You decide. John Stoehr, through his Editorial Board, wrote about a related ideology. During a national emergency, such as two destructive hurricanes just a couple weeks apart, many people reach out to those in distress, saying we’re all in this together. Yet, the words of politicians on the far right imply no, we’re not in this together. We see that as a betrayal of core beliefs and call them hypocrites. That’s easier that believing their core beliefs are vastly different from our own.

Rightwingers are not hypocrites, though. They believe American society is divided into ingroups and outgroups. The former is good, right and deserving. The latter is bad, wrong and undeserving. When there’s a national emergency, the federal government should help the ingroup, because it’s the only group that constitutes a “real nation.” Meanwhile, the outgroup can take care of itself. Or die trying. Not only do they believe American society is divided into ingroups and outgroups, they believe it ought to be. The orders of power should be vertical and hierarchical. That is the ideal, because that is “natural.” For this reason, liberal efforts to flatten the orders of power, so that the outgroup has as many rights and privileges as the ingroup, are seen by rightwingers as a perversion of the natural order of things. To them, we are not all in this together, because we can’t be. If we were, that would be in defiance of God. And that’s why they lie.

That is why they say America needs to become great again. That is why they claim Biden and Harris are destroying America. We ask them to put nation above politics. In their eyes they already are. We don’t recognize their definition of nation is different. They believe when the federal government hands out money after a disaster it should go to the ingroup and not to the outgroup. So vetoing FEMA funding (because much of its money goes to the outgroup), then demanding FEMA funding (for the ingroup) is not a contradiction in their thinking. They spread so many lies about the nature of these hurricanes because they oppose the idea of all people being in it together and want to discredit it. They support Russia because they see the same top-down society they want for themselves. With that understanding Speaker Johnson’s refusal to reconvene the House to pass more FEMA funding makes sense. I have long recognized correspondingly there are two definitions of freedom. Some want freedom from oppression. The others want freedom to oppress. They want that freedom so that they can maintain the social hierarchy with themselves on top. And the social hierarchy is maintained through oppression. An aspect of that national view is on display in this article by Morgan Stephens of Kos that begins:

So it’s come to this. On Wednesday, President Joe Biden was forced to address the bonkers right-wing conspiracy that the government is controlling the weather, steering catastrophic hurricanes into conservative communities in an effort to influence the 2024 election. "Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene … is now saying the federal government is literally controlling the weather,” he said during a briefing on the federal response to Hurricane Helene and preparations for Hurricane Milton. “We're controlling the weather? It's beyond ridiculous. It’s got to stop.”

He had Vladimir Putin on speed dial

My Sunday movie was Heartstopper, season 3, episodes 1-3. I’ll be viewing the rest of the eight episodes over the next couple weeks. I’ve seen seasons 1 and 2. So if you haven’t there will be spoilers here. The story is about a circle of high school friends in England. Before this season Charlie and Nick have become boyfriends, Tara and Darcy are girlfriends, and Tao and transgender Ellie are dating. Their friend circle includes a few other people, including Isaac, who has come to realize he is asexual and aromantic. As others in the group form pairs he feels left out. Also in the previous season two of the male teachers began to feel an attraction and start dating. One of them is the art teacher that provided a refuge for Charlie back at the start of season 1. They must be careful to not show affection while at school. And here are spoilers about this season. Tao is feeling insecure because Ellie is switching to an art school and he’s afraid she’ll leave him. Darcy has moved out of her mother’s home because Mom refuses to allow her to be a lesbian. Darcy discovers Grandma is quite accepting. The major theme of this season was introduced at the end of season 2. Charlie has an eating disorder and in general his mental health is poor. So a good part of these three episodes are getting Charlie to see he has a problem and to ask for help. This season starts with summer break. As part of it Nick spends three weeks with his aunt and uncle in Mallorca. It is during this time away from Charlie that Charlie’s sister begins to suspect the problem and texts Nick, a problem Nick has already noticed. Nick has an important discussion with his aunt, a psychiatrist. She tells Nick he can’t fix Charlie, as much as he might want to and think he is supposed to. Several people will be needed to help Charlie. The aunt has specific guidance for Nick on how to support his lover in a way that helps Charlie get the help he needs. I’ve been watching the weather map showing what Hurricane Milton is doing. For much of the day, well before Milton came ashore (meaning Milton’s eye came ashore) rain, some of it severe, has covered most of the state. Tallahassee and Miami have stayed dry and that’s about it. As I’m getting ready to post this Milton’s eye has come ashore between Tampa and Cape Coral and the most intense rain is between St. Pete and Orlando. Since Milton is just two weeks after Helene (and the names suggest that between them there were three storms strong enough to get names) there is still a lot of discussion of Helene and the great deal of disinformation from the nasty guy and other Republicans. Brynn Tannehill wrote in ThreadReader:

I suspect many of the blue-check comments dumping on the National Guard are either Russian disinformation, or getting their information from their outlets.

She then wrote about all the difficult and heroic things the North Carolina National Guard has been doing for Helene recovery while working with old equipment because they don’t have enough money. An Associated Press article posted on Daily Kos discusses what Federal Emergency Management Agency does, and doesn’t. FEMA has a disaster relief fund, replenished by Congress every year. This year the fund is getting low and Congress, due to budgetary theatrics, has not yet acted to fill it again. Most of the money goes to immediate relief. The rest goes for rebuilding from past disasters and helping communities protect from future calamities. When the fund gets low rebuilding and the protection work gets put on hold. But the nasty guy’s claim the fund is being used elsewhere is false. FEMA coordinates disaster response, though it is not the boss. It sends money to state and local governments to pay for their work to help people and to start cleanup. It also gives money to individuals for emergency needs, such as paying for a trailer when a home is lost. While FEMA will help an individual get through the crisis they will not make the person whole. For that, rely on insurance. If there is no insurance FEMA can give up to $42.5K, which is not enough to rebuild a house. I mentioned that the nasty guy is complaining about how bad Biden is handling the crises. Walter Einenkel of Kos reminds us how bad the nasty guy was at handling disasters, which means his criticism of Biden is projection. Here is Einenkel’s list: + He was slow in staffing FEMA and NOAA, the parent agency of the National Weather Service. + He initially refused to send wildfire aid to California because it is a blue state. + He obstructed aid to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. + He tried to use flooding in Michigan to stop absentee voting. + And COVID. On Monday Morgan Stephens of Kos posted:

It’s textbook hypocrisy: House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Sunday that he won’t commit to reconvening his chamber to pass additional disaster-relief funding, yet he criticizes the federal government’s response as lacking.

Now that I’m on the topic of the nasty guy and Republicans... Stephens reported the Oklahoma State Board of Education has put out a request for bid to supply the Board and schools across the state with Bibles. The bid asks for 55,000 of them. But they can’t be just any Bible. It must be the King James Version, have both the Old and New Testaments, and must include copies of the Pledge of Allegiance, Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Since those US documents normally don’t appear in a religious book one might be getting a bit suspicious. And with good reason. The only edition of the Bible that fits all those requirements is the one endorsed by the nasty guy and of which he gets a cut. The whole purchase is $3.3 million. I don’t know how much that cut is. The Attorney General says the bid might violate state law. Not because putting Bibles in public school classrooms is a violation of the separation of Church and State. But because the specs of the bid unnecessarily exclude most bidders. Besides, paperback versions of the KJV can be had for $2.99, not $60. Lisa Needham of Kos adds that this is part of a larger push by conservatives to cause the collapse of public education.

First, conservatives very much want that public education money to go to their favorite private interests, such as lining the pockets of Trump. Next, they also very much want to force a very narrow version of Christianity on everyone, a move that just so happens to require public school money to go to private religious schools.

Needham concluded with what’s going on in Arizona, an effort praised by the guy who was the author of the education section of Project 2025. Arizona gave tax credits to donors of School Tuition Organizations that give scholarships to private schools. That cost the state $700 million. That starved public schools of funding and blew a hole in the state budget. In a post at the end of September Needham discussed some of the nasty guy grifts. Truth Social going public and losing money and value. Trump Hotel in Washington DC to which Republicans flocked – until it was sold. And membership at Mar-a-Lago at $1 million. And now he’s getting into the crypto market. That’s perfect for him because it is unregulated. In contrast to some of his other scams – Trump steaks, for example – this one is geared to a particular group of people, the crypto bros who are looking for as little regulation as possible. It would also line his pockets with unregulated crypto cash while in the White House.

Ordinary people can see the obvious problems here. Trump shouldn’t have private business interests while in the White House, period, but all of that went out the window in his first administration. Trump certainly shouldn’t have a private business in a regulated industry like securities when he would have the power to weaken regulations over his own business. But Trump fans love giving Trump’s businesses money and increasing his personal bottom line. They understand very well that Trump looks favorably at their efforts to funnel him cash. If he wins in November and his nonsense crypto project stays afloat until he takes office in 2025, conservatives—and hucksters and grifters—will have a very easy way to buy off the president with no fear of oversight.

At the start of October Stephens wrote about the various trinkets the nasty guy family is selling to the faithful. There are several of them. Even Melania is getting in on it through selling necklaces and a new memoir. The details come from financial disclosures mandated by the Office of Government Ethics and filed in August. Most of his money (not as much as he says he has) comes from this golf clubs and resorts, including foreign business ventures.

As a businessman who has filed for bankruptcy six times, Trump found a way to use his political brand to make money off the backs of his MAGA faithful. And what good is a brand for if you don’t use it to make a sale?

In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included a tweet from Jonathan Martin that quoted a tweet from Acyn with a video of the nasty guy at a rally claiming Biden and Harris stole FEMA money to give to illegal immigrants so they could vote.

One of two political parties fine w a nominee telling flat lies, demagoguing immigrants in the worst tradition of American politics and hustling every possible buck he can. Total acquiescence from most every elected Republican.

In the comments is a cartoon by Ann Telnaes with the nasty guy saying these things and a few more:

So what if I use the office of the presidency to enrich myself and my family? So what if I break my oath of office? So what if I incite my followers to attack the U.S. Capitol? So what if I undermine democracy?

A tweet by An Ignorant Troll asks “How did a nation of idiots get to be the world leader?” It shows a guy up to his thighs in water during a rainstorm with a tornado coming. He says, “I’ll believe in climate change when I see it.” That is followed by a tweet by the New York Times Pitchbot which goes for the sarcasm. This one is based on a recent claim by Marjorie Taylor Greene that Helene happened because Democrats can control the weather. The Pitchbot has:

There is no way that something like climate change can be caused by humans. But it's clear that the government can control the weather.

In a second pundit roundup Dworkin quoted David Rothkopf of the Daily Beast.

So, let me get this straight, according to Bob Woodward’s new book War, Donald Trump was sitting in Mar-a-Lago on a trove of stolen U.S. national secrets and while there, had Vladimir Putin on speed dial for regular private chats? After he tried to overthrow our government? And Putin is helping his campaign now by flooding our electorate with toxic disinformation? And there are people who would actually vote for this guy?

And Dworkin quoted JV Last of The Bulwark talking about the unchanging poll numbers.

But what I want you to focus on is the extent to which this race has been locked in place for a month and a half. Because as good a campaign as Harris has run—and I think she’s run an excellent campaign—she’s only gained 3 total points since she entered the race in late July. She went from 46 percent to 49 percent. Which leads us to the second story: During the same period, all of the other numbers for Harris specifically and Democrats generally have been fantastic. ... But what I want to hammer home is that something is going on in the numbers and it is hard to understand how both trends—Dems and Harris showing across the board gains with Harris-Trump stuck at near parity—can be right.

Down in the comments, and after a few cartoons about hurricanes and their cause, are a couple memes posted by exlrrp. The first says, “You know, removing the words ‘climate change’ from Florida textbooks doesn’t seem to be working.” The second one is by M. Padellan and says, “100% proof that Democrats do not control the weather: Mar-a-Lago is still standing!”