Moms for Liberty gets “a bit carried away” When Donald Trump is not campaigning in a string of sundown towns, he’s rubbing elbows with Moms for Liberty. * The New York Times has the full story: The Moms For Liberty can get a bit carried away — one of their local chapters once accidentally quoted Adolf Hitler (“He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future”) and then issued an apology disavowing the Führer (“We should not have quoted him in our newsletter”) — but still, their summit on Friday made for a good case study. It was packed with the sort of voters Mr. Trump hopes can help him win in November: fired-up suburban women. How in the world does this get past editors? [image or embed] — Sarah Posner (@sarahposner.bsky.social) Sep 1, 2024 at 9:56 AM Don’t get mad and don’t get complacent. It ain’t over until all the votes are counted. Do something! * Okay, there are so many sundown towns in swing states (and blue states) that it’s almost hard not to end up campaigning in one, but still.
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Look at that mess. That’s not some blog post written by me after a few drinks at 2 in the morning. It’s the NY Times! For reasons that are obscure they, and much of the mainstream media, is engaged in insane gymnastics trying to keep from accurately describing Donald Trump’s disintegration. It’s profound and it’s alarming. Media critic Margaret Sullivan has a newsletter aptly called American Crisis in which she addresses the problem. She names former Timesman James Risen as one of the journalists she most respects (I agree!) and relays a communication she received from him this week: “At first, I thought this was a parody,” Risen told me. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. Even more unfortunately, the lack of judgment it displays is all too common in the Times and throughout Big Journalism as mainstream media covers Donald Trump’s campaign for president. “Harris and Trump Have Housing Ideas. Economists Have Doubts,” is the headline of the story he was angered by.
Dana Bash asked some stupid questions. Surprise. Why must these candidate interviews be masturbatory efforts designed more to boost the journalist’s profile, reinforce media-created narratives, sell ads, and provide filler for the 24-hour news cycle than to, you know, actually inform the voters? Jamelle Bouie has thoughts. @jamellebouie some thoughts on the spectacle ♬ original sound – b-boy bouiebaisse ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.
You can see why his team is so desperate to keep his mic muted as much as possible during the debate. By the way, note that in his comparison to Lincoln, Jefferson and Jackson he says “I even got shot.” I think we can all see the ignorance and insanity in that comment, can’t we?
Calling women whores is always good fun, everyone knows that. And when you’re trying to get every vote in a close election it’s especially entertaining — to the incel community anyway. (I do believe that despite his marital status he is a true incel at heart.) Keep it up JD, the women are loving it.
Labor Day weekend is here Most Americans are not political geeks. They don’t spend their mornings writing things like this, or reading things like this. They don’t stay up late at night generating charts trying to get politicos higher up the food chain to address turnout anomalies that could help them win up and down the ballot. (UNA stands for UNAffiliated voter.) Most Americans don’t really pay attention to the fall elections until after Labor Day. Nor do they pay attention to crucial downballot races that have much more impact on their daily lives than the presidential contest. LOLGOP suggests they do, and you do: 🚨IT’S TIME TO THROW EVERYTHING YOU’VE GOT DOWNBALLOT🚨 This is part of our Downballot for Democracy mission. It’s basically Labor Day. That means Election Season for most Americans, who avoid politics better than they do COVID, has finally begun. Of course, this particular election—with its 34 felony convictions, Republican-on-Republican shooting, and miraculous elevation of Kamala Harris to the top of the ticket—has attracted more attention than most presidential races.
It was normal. How refreshing. Ah, the lazy, crazy days of August during a presidential election year are upon us. That’s when the political press decides that the Democratic candidate is not being accessible enough to them so they spend weeks badgering them for interviews and demanding press conferences always insinuating that he or she much be hiding something. I’m reminds me of the 2016 cycle when, during the month of August, the press had a collective tantrum when HIllary Clinton’s people roped her off as she walked in a parade in order to keep reporters and photographers from turning the event into a paparazzi style scrum. I wrote at the time: Aaron Blake recounted the event in all its chilling detail and then rather sheepishly admitted that nobody in America really gives a damn about how Hillary Clinton treats the press. (A point I made a month ago.) After all, the press is held in only slightly higher esteem by the public than loan sharks and puppy mill operators.
Some more good news. Are people starting to hear it? The Federal Reserve’s go-to inflation gauge held at 2.5% in July, Commerce Department data showed Friday. That’s better than anticipated and shows progress — but still underscores the bumpy process for inflation’s descent. Friday’s report also reaffirmed that the backbone of the US economy — the consumer — is still holding strong, although their piggy banks are getting lighter. Spending was up by 0.5%, or 0.4% when adjusted for inflation, landing above expectations for the month when car dealerships were back in gear after a massive software outage in June and when Amazon puts on its annual Prime Day sales event. The Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, which the Fed uses for its 2% target rate, was 2.5% for the year ended in July, unchanged from June. On a monthly basis, prices increased 0.2% versus 0.1% the prior month. The latest inflation reading, which served as further confirmation that the pace of price hikes is sustainably cooling, comes just weeks before the Fed is expected to start easing monetary policy and cutting interest rates.
What? I honestly don’t know what to say about the NY Times anymore. It just gets worse and worse. There are obviously some great reporters there and they do some incredible work. But this kind of stuff is just killing their credibility. America’s gaping shortage of affordable housing has rocketed to the top of voter worry lists and to the forefront of campaign promises, as both the Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, and the Republican candidate, Donald J. Trump, promise to fix the problem if they are elected. Their two visions of how to solve America’s affordable housing shortage have little in common, and Ms. Harris’s plan is far more detailed. But they do share one quality: Both have drawn skepticism from outside economists. NY Times Pitchbot couldn’t have said it better. In fact, only one of them is an actual policy while the other one is a xenophobic wet dream disguised as one. To even compare them is absurd, Ms. Harris is promising a cocktail of tax cuts meant to spur home construction — which several economists said could help create supply.
You probably have to be Jewish to appreciate the full and bitter irony of this sentence: Nearly 11 months into a devastating war, a serious new challenge has emerged in Gaza: polio. Growing up, there were two uncontested heroes in the Jewish-American pantheon: Sandy Koufax and Jonas Salk. If you were really in the know, you’d add a third: Albert Sabin. Salk invented the polio vaccine, Sabin invented the oral polio vaccine. Now Israel has contributed an entirely new entry to the history of polio. It almost reads like a fable from Jewish literature. Except it’s not.