2024 Presidential Election: A Smorgasbord of News Clips, Starting in the Big Apple

Trump: I don't think anybody has ever seen anything like what happened the other night at Madison Square Garden. The love in that room… It was like a love fest and it was my honor to be involved.--Press Conference 10/29/2024

From Portland to Palestine to Puerto Rico to the Washington Post, legacy media has had difficulty keeping up with election-related news over the past few days. 

Social media has become an almost endless scroll of repeating video snips with little-to-no context to offer. I don’t know how many times I can watch snippets from Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally.

So today’s column (and likely most of what I’ll write in the coming week) will be a linked up harvest of stories aimed at keeping readers up-to-date and aware of context.

After promising a big rally in New York in prior campaigns, Trumpalooza took place. 

The campaign invited 29 speakers, each of whom submitted written versions of their presentations to be transcribed for teleprompter use. At various points in the day, the entire spectrum of ‘otherized’ groups was disparaged from the dais. This ‘wall of hate’ sound was intended to energize supporters and intimidate opponents and be the apex of the Trump campaign.

Edgy comedian Tony Hinchcliffe had one bit describing VP Kamala Harris with the C-word excised, but still managed to steal the show with a crack about Puerto Rico being “a floating island of garbage.”

The Trump campaign has tried to back away from the racist slur in its usual disorganized fashion, with a spokesperson saying it did not represent the views of their candidate and then their Vice Presidential nominee joined the fray. 

•  “We’re not going to restore the greatness of American civilization if we get offended at every little thing,” JD Vance said, telling reporters that “maybe it’s a stupid racist joke” or “maybe it’s not.”

So the high point of the Donald J Trump campaign may have proved to be its Waterloo. 

How bad is it? Forget about the Democrats’ ads. Nevermind the growing list of Latino luminaries rushing to endorse the Harris campaign. The Archbishop of Puerto Rico and the President of the Puerto Rican Republican Party demands for apologies, are just posturing.

You can tell when you’re having a bad day when your campaign stepping in it gets more searches than Taylor Swift on Google. It doesn’t help either that Trump failed to fill the arena for his Monday night rally in Georgia.

Trump booster billionaire Elon Musk’s PAC posted a social media video on Friday saying “Kamala Harris is a C word.” They’d like you to think they meant communist, but felt sufficiently chastened by negative feedback to remove it from their Xitter feed. (It’s still on the PAC @America Facebook page)

Donald Trump is holding a campaign event on Tuesday (today) in Allentown, Pennsylvania –a majority Latino city with lots of Puerto Ricans. Schools are closed and protests are expected.

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On Monday night CNN featured a panel of pundits and wannabes that were supposed to be discussing fallout from Sunday’s rally. 

Jay Quo:

• Something similar to the Puerto Rico fiasco played out yesterday on CNN. MAGA commentator Ryan Girdusky is pals with the likes of neo-Nazi Richard Spencer and Proud Boy founder Gavin McInnes, on whose show Girdusky has appeared. Girdusky was invited onto a panel along with progressive commentator Mehdi Hasan. Hasan speaks often about the plight of the Palestinians and against the war while accusing fascists in the U.S. of acting like Nazis.

• That didn’t sit well with Girdusky, who quipped, “Well, I hope your beeper doesn’t go off.” That’s right, Girdusky labeled Hasan a Hezbollah terrorist while “joking” about him being blown to bits. 

You can read the whole conversation here. I would have posted a video clip, but CNN thinks that people yelling over each other is “conversation,” so it’s really hard to make out.

CNN NewsNight With Abby Phillip host heard it clearly enough. The show went to commercial break and when it returned Phillip was apologizing and Gidursky was gone. Apparently he’s been banned from the network, which probably means we’ll see him as a host on Fox Infotainment.

The incident has been widely shared on social media, with some activists saying it will shift Arab-American votes from Trump to Harris.

Commentator and author Jill Filipovic has penned a column making the case for supporters of Palestine to cast their votes for Harris.

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While we’re talking about the Middle East, the New York Times reports that, while negotiations for a cease fire have resumed, any progress will have to wait until the US election is decided:

• While Mr. Netanyahu could still compromise, he is most likely waiting to see whether Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald J. Trump will lead the United States for the next four years. That will help him assess how much leeway he will have from America, Israel’s main benefactor and ally, officials and analysts said.

• “The perception is that Trump will do more for Netanyahu,” said Nadav Shtrauchler, a political analyst and former strategist for Mr. Netanyahu. “So I don’t see Netanyahu making major moves when in a week he will know more about where the U.S. is going.”

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Presidential candidate Kamala Harris is holding a rally on the Ellipse Tuesday evening, the exact spot where, on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump encouraged his followers to take their protests to the Capitol, essentially triggering the deadly riot.

This morning the Harris/Walz campaign amended their permit request for the rally, raising the expected attendance from 20,000 to 40,000. DC police say they are expecting an overflow crowd of 10,000.

Via Politico:

• The campaign believes the symbolic nature of the venue will bolster Harris’ closing message. Just as her team did with a stop in Houston last week to elevate abortion rights, they’re using Tuesday night’s location to telegraph a larger, national message: By returning to a site where Trump infamously delivered his speech on Jan. 6, 2021, in which he urged his followers to “fight like hell,” Harris aides say she has the perfect place to deliver a contrasting message about how she plans to govern.

• The tone of the speech is expected to be optimistic and forward-looking, as she works to outline what her presidency will look like and calls for Americans to “turn the page” on the Trump era — a line that has become a hallmark of her short campaign. She will vow to put the country first, above party and herself, and to serve for both Republicans and Democrats.

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Stories about major American newspapers bowing out of endorsing presidential candidates continue to appear.

USA Today and Gannett Newspaper have joined the parade of cowards by announcing that they would join the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times just before an election by not endorsing in the race for president.

David Folkenflik at NPR says sources have told him that over 200,000 subscribers have canceled their subscription in the wake of the Washington Post owner pulling the plug on presidential endorsements. That’s about 8% of the paper’s total digital and dead tree circulation.

The Post’s Guild has been urging readers to send letters of protest, and says they passed the 10,000 mark yesterday.

Does anybody think WAPO owner Jeff Bezos really cares about all this sentiment? Naw.

Bezos sent in an op ed defending his controversial decision not to endorse a candidate in the presidential election as a "meaningful step in the right direction" to regain Americans' lost trust in news media.

• "I wish we had made the change earlier than we did, in a moment further from the election and the emotions around it."

• "That was inadequate planning, and not some intentional strategy."

What’s done is done. I agree with Bezo that editorial endorsements have little to no pull these days. And I even agree that endorsements suggest bias. So what? Have we forgotten the post-9/11 slogan: “If you see something, say something”? 

Exactly nobody believes that news organizations are “objective” these days. We’ve all learned that not seeing something (like racism) IS bias. A better path than trying to sell non-commitment, given all we’ve learned about the media in recent years, is simply being honest.

Before I forget, the insider info on the LA Times subscription cancellations says they’re over 7000, just under 2% of the readership.

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While the Department of Homeland security says right wing extremists have been chatting up ideas for destruction of ballots since last summer, it took a Russian made video to get that party started.

Fires have been set in ballot drop boxes in Oregon, Washington, and Arizona in recent days. I suspect we’ll see a bunch more vandalism coming from the manly men of the MAGA persuasion in the coming days.

Votes are cast exclusively using vote-by-mail in Washington and Oregon, with police calling this arson investigation in response "A direct attack on democracy."

Voters are mailed their ballots a few weeks before elections, and then return them by mail or by placing them in ballot drop boxes just like the ones that were set on fire. Political scientists say the vote-by-mail system contributes to the Pacific Northwest's highest-in-the-nation rate of voter turnout.

The police published photos of the culprits’ Volvo in the Northwestern arsons. I expect an arrest soon.

BREAKING: Police in Arizona have nabbed that state’s ballot box burner.

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I saved some good news for last.  A coalition of legal and advocacy groups aligned with Democrats is launching a Congressional Election Certification War Room, meant to coordinate key players, provide messaging guidance and mobilize the public to ensure electoral votes are counted fairly and peacefully on January 6, 2025. 

Involved with the effort are Indivisible, the Center for American Progress and the League of Conservation Voters, among others. They have a multimillion dollar budget to get word out on the media and are backed by Rep. Joe Morelle, top Democrat on the elections-focused House Administration Committee.

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Here are the links for my 2024 Voting Guides

• Candidates

• Propositions and Measures

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Tuesday’s Other News to Think About

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Subway sandwiches are short on meat, lawsuit claims by Johnathan Stempel at Reuters:

• According to a proposed class action filed on Monday in federal court in Brooklyn, Subway ads for its Steak & Cheese sandwich show layers of meat piled high, reaching about as high as the surrounding hero bread.

• In reality, according to several photos in the complaint, the fast-food chain's sandwiches are far more bread than filling. This is especially concerning, the complaint said, because of inflation and high food prices, and because many lower-income consumers are struggling financially.

• Anna Tollison of the New York City borough of Queens said she paid $7.61 for a Steak & Cheese sandwich at a local Subway, not realizing Subway's ads showed a sandwich containing at least 200% more meat than she and other consumers would receive.

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A vote for Donald Trump is a vote for school shootings and measles By Nilay Patel, Editor, The Verge

• In many ways, the ecstatic reaction to Harris is simply a reflection of the fact that she is so clearly trying. She is trying to govern America the way it’s designed to be governed, with consensus and conversation and effort. With data and accountability, ideas and persuasion. Legislatures and courts are not deterministic systems with predictable outputs based on a set of inputs — you have to guide the process of lawmaking all the way to the outcomes, over and over again, each time, and Harris seems not only aware of that reality but energized by it. More than anything, that is the change a Harris administration will bring to a country exhausted by decades of fights about whether government can or should do anything at all.

• It is time to stop denying the essential nature of the problems America faces. It is time to insist that we use the power of our democracy the way it’s intended to be used. And it is far past time to move beyond Donald Trump.

• A vote for Harris is a vote for the future. It is a vote for solving collective action problems. It is a vote for working together, instead of tearing our world to shreds

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We have emotions too’: Climate scientists respond to attacks on objectivity via Damian Carrington at The Guardian

• The three experts have published a comment article in the journal Nature Climate Change, titled Scientists have emotional responses to climate change too. They said that, at a point when the climate crisis has already arrived and the key questions are how to limit and survive it, their aim in speaking out was to start a discussion about how climate experts across all disciplines can best communicate the urgency needed with the public.

• retending to be a “robot” is bad science, said Dr Shobha Maharaj, an author of the Nature article from the University of Fiji. “The basic definition of science is to take all parameters into consideration. If you pretend your emotions don’t exist, then you’re not looking at the big picture.”

• She added: “Scientists have generally been very cautious with how they communicate, and where has that gotten us right now. I’m not saying that we should just flare up into a frenzy and say ‘Oh my God, this is the end’. But being honest and candid about the truth should never be hidden.”