Rally - Harris introduces Walz

6Aug2024

empty seats
Temple University's Liacouras Center. Took awhile to fill all the seats, but it was eventually filled to capacity.

Interestingly, one big difference between the Kamala Harris campaign and the Hillary Clinton campaign is that Clinton talked about herself as a woman, while Harris has refused to do so. During her first mainstream media interview with CNN, Harris was asked about her being a Black person and she just responded: "Same old, tired playbook" and that was the end of that. She had no intention of making any sort of argument about her status as either a woman or as a Black person.

in back of speakers
Hmm, they fill up in back of the speakers first, so as to get the most enthusiastic background, I guess.

For Donald Trump to "deport millions" of undocumented immigrats means that all of those people who were paying taxes will all of the sudden not be paying taxes. In addition, Trump plans to have another tax break for the wealthy, just like in 2017. How does he intend to do all this and not just add massively to the deficit or reduce the already-shrunken middle class to complete nonexistence? Reporters haven't asked him. There are a number of reasons why they haven't, but they all add up to eithe a massive dereliction of duty or a desire to have a fascist dictatorship.

speaker
A warm-up speaker. I don't do many long-range photos, so I was pleased to see that the pictures came out sharper than they appeared when looking through the camera lens.

The cartoonist Tom Tomorrow portrays Senator and Trump running mate JD Vance as not-as-interesting as Robert Kennedy Jr. As Vance is simply not as crazy as Kennedy Jr. is, Trump just finds Vance less interesting!

Vance's "chidless cat ladies" comment* was in addition to his complaint that "...we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it” was not helped by his follow-up comment that liberals can have a "1,200 sq ft apartment in New York" and not be happy because they're childless. He then asserted that this explains why liberals are so concerned about racial and gender justice,

* But hey, the story drove out the joke that Vance did it with a couch! So it's done him some good!

Mayor of Philly
Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker spoke.

So Biden is old, even though I saw a campaign speech just a little while ago that he put out right before introducing VP Harris, okay, sure, he's old. He clearly hasn't lost any his ability to focus and to give a good speech. Trump, on the other hand, has taken to describing his speeches as a "weave," where he takes several seemingly unrelated ideas and "weaves" them together into a coherent whole. Ehh, nice try! Actually, he just sort of rambles and jumps from idea to idea without any overall point that he's trying to make.

Trump also has an extremely serious problem of admitting, out loud and in front of cameras and/or witnesses, things he really shouldn't admit to. His latest admission was that he was “'indicted for interfering with a presidential election,' which he added he had 'every right to do.'" As his January 6th trial is starting up again, this was an extremely unwise admission to make.

Governor Shapiro
Well, generally the pictures came out well. Just need to take multiple shots, I guess. Governor of Pennsylvania Josh Shapiro.

Video

Looks like it's the week to beat up on Jill Stein. Representative AOC took point on this, accusing the Green Pary under Jill Stein as being stuck. Their head keeps appearing on the presidential ballot, but the party isn't really moving anywhere. Stein's answer was that her voters were people who would not have voted at all, so the accusation that she's robbing Democrats was untrue. Trump is quoted in the piece as saying that "I like [Stein] very much. You know why? She takes 100 percent [of her voters] from [Democrats]." The Democratic National Committee followed up by claiming that Stein is a  "useful idiot" for Russia. Stein is scheduled to honor "three members of a black leftist group federally charged for allegedly acting as malign foreign agents of Vladimir Putin’s government." Which kinda seems to justify the DNC's accusation. Notably, "the DNC this cycle has decided to target third-party challengers." As the margins are very slim, this seems to be a sensible strategy.

VP Harris
Our Next President!

Arlington National Cemetery, built on the estate of Robert E. Lee, the general who commanded the largest Army of the Confederacy, the Army of Northern Virginia, has been sacred ground in the US for quite a while. There are very clear and specific rules about what you can and cannot do there. One thing you're not allowed to do is to shoot campaign commercials. If that were okay, the cemetery would be a very popular place to shoot them. So Trump and his people, including several people who had lost loved ones on the field of battle, shot a commercal using footage taken from an area where it isn't allowed. Unfortunately, the Army is very skittish about being seen as attacking Trump, so
The Army is currently sitting on the police report filed by the cemetery staffer recounting her version of the incident where she was reportedly verbally abused and shoved aside by two Trump campaign staffers when she tried to enforce cemetery rules against political activities.
Also, Democratic Representatives can't seem to get any answers from the Army.

introduces Walz
VP Harris introduces Governor Walz.

Russian state TV is very displeased with Walz. Not only is he pro-Ukraine, he's also pro-gay!

Fair amount of stuff going on between Russia and Ukraine. Big stories at the moment are that Ukraine has invaded Russia and has occupied several hundred square miles of territory, but Russia's offensive to the South, in the Ukrainian town of Pokrovsk is still making small, but steady gsins. Ukrainians are infuriated that the US is forbidding them to use long-range missiles against targets in Russia as Biden's NatSec people fear escalation of the war.

Governor Tim Walz
Governor and future VP Tim Walz!

Showing that the movement to gift the Supreme Court with an enforceable code of ethics is far from dead, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson expresses support for such a code, adding that other Justices disagree. Among those who disagree is Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. She had great praise for First Liberty Institute, a group that has fought against such a code. Acording to First Liberty, Justice Kagan is "treasonous" and "disloyal" for supporting a code of ethics for the court.

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