Bright sunshine and gathering heat just past the noon hour Sunday here in California’s Central Valley — we’re in for a heat spell quickly coming up as the middle of the week is forecast for triple-digit temperatures.
As I’ve whined before: Won’t summer just end?
And in a flash, won’t the T-Rump end?
In the light of a nation seemingly caught a neck-in-neck election — Eugene Robinson this morning at The Washington Post:
It is absolutely, completely, totally ridiculous that this election is even close. But here we are.
The choice between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump should not be a tough call. Harris is a former prosecutor; Trump, a felon. Harris gives campaign speeches about her civic values; Trump rants endlessly about his personal grievances, interrupting himself with asides about sharks and Hannibal Lecter. Harris has outlined a detailed set of policy proposals for the economy; Trump nonsensically offers tariffs as a panacea, describing this fantasy in terms that make it clear he doesn’t understand how tariffs work.
Robinson seems to think it’s mainly because Harris is female, but actually, it’s come down to who all actually votes: ‘And this week? Harris is now up 55% to Trump’s 45% as of Thursday. To hear Silver say it, Harris’ chance of winning has shifted up 14 percentage points in the past two weeks. But nothing has changed in that time frame. So today’s theme is just that: Ignore people claiming things are up and down. The number of undecided voters is extremely low. No one’s minds are being changed. This is now a turnout election.‘
In my mind, it’s T-Rump lying, nasty shit, going against stuff like this from Kamala’s camp:
Nothing beats a stop at Primanti Bros https://t.co/OvpcYLIO69 pic.twitter.com/lfYzVzgF6Y
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) September 29, 2024
Plus this morning:
The next cover of The New Yorker, by Malika Favre, in which the magazine endorses Vice President Harris. pic.twitter.com/ensnCT73AM
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 29, 2024
Despite it all, the hate is there and leaks shitty fluids:
Former President Donald J. Trump is speaking in a bellwether county in Pennsylvania, a day after leveling a series of demeaning insults at Vice President Kamala Harris, calling her “mentally impaired” and “mentally disabled,” that drew rebukes from Republicans and Democrats alike.
Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said on CNN that he thought “the better course to take is to prosecute the case that her policies are destroying the country.” Former Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, an anti-Trump Republican running for Senate there, called the remarks “insulting” both to Ms. Harris and to “people that actually do have mental disabilities.” Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois, a Democrat, decried Mr. Trump’s “name-calling” and added, “Whenever he says things like that, he’s talking about himself but trying to project it.”
The country knows, however, especially SNL‘s Weekend Update (I’m sure you’ve seen this already, but it’s that good, starting with the opening routine):
Close election, or not, yet here we are once again…
(Illustration out front: Pablo Picasso’s ‘Seated Pierrot,’ found here.)