Garbage in, Garbage Out

Have a Gaffe, Scotus Offers a Preview

Last night in Washington, DC, Kamala Harris (and 72,000 guests) returned to the scene of Donald's Trump's Jan 6 crime, where she delivered her closing argument in the case for the 2024 election. You can watch the whole speech here. Broadly, the vibe is captured by this line: "Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I’ll give them a seat at my table. And I pledge to be a president for all Americans. To always put country above party and above self." If you missed the speech in real time, you may have missed it altogether. That's because by this morning, most above the fold election news was focused not on Kamala's speech, but rather on an obvious (and quickly corrected) gaffe by Joe Biden. The coverage is captured in headlines like these from NPR: Harris urged unity in her closing argument. Biden's 'garbage' line undercut that, Reuters: Harris vows to serve 'all Americans,' trying to limit damage from Biden comment, and AP: Harris promises to ‘represent all Americans’ after Biden’s remark on Trump supporters and ‘garbage.' These headlines are representative of what I saw across the internet this morning. I'm not leading with this because I think Biden's gaffe is remotely important. Nor do I think the mainstream media's fixation on his slip will matter at the polls (at this point in the election cycle, I'm not convinced anything in this campaign, or life, matters). I'm leading with it because it is a clear example of what I've been seeing across my tabs since 2015: A media seemingly incapable of covering the Trump era in a reasonable way and that has shown little if any improvement during that timeframe. I'm also leading with this as a reminder of the inanity and insanity of most of our political coverage. For your mental health, you might want to skip all of it—including mine—for the next week. When Michelle Obama encouraged you to "do something," she didn't mean to refresh tabs and drive yourself crazy on your living room couch. Don't be like me. I refreshed a few tabs between that last sentence and this one.

+ If anything matters at this point in the election, it's probably the good old fashioned ground game. Dana Milbank in WaPo: So, what did you think of Harris’s October surprise? "It’s all a reminder of the timeless maxim: Campaigns matter. Many Harris supporters are biting their nails as polls show a dead heat just a week from Election Day. But one thing the polls can’t reflect is that the Harris campaign has a field operation that is beyond anything seen before in presidential elections, while the Trump effort is subpar. This is no guarantee of victory, but in a close election, it can make the difference."

2

Cringe and Purge

You're still here? OK, then here's something else to worry about. In a small preview to what we can expect after the election if Trump loses, the GOP has launched dozens of lawsuits across the country during lead-up to the election. Just about every court has rejected these efforts to limit voting during the weeks before the election. Except one. The Supreme Court. "Just six days before Election Day, the Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed Virginia to continue its purge of more than 1,600 individuals from the state's voter rolls." Yes, as you'd assume, it was 6-3. Will it matter in Virginia? Nah. Should this precursor to what we might expect if this is election comes down to legal challenges worry you? Bigly.

+ "Pennsylvania is cheating, and getting caught, at large scale levels rarely seen before." Trump Files First Election Lawsuit in Chilling Sign of What’s to Come.

3

Vexed By Text

Teachers: The most distracting thing in our classrooms is that students cannot seem to stop checking their phones. Parents: Yes! Let's do something about it. Teachers: The main thing the kids are doing on their phones is texting with you. Parents: Oh. ‘Mom Is Texting': Teachers Say Parents Are a Daily Distraction During Class. (I just texted this to my daughter to show her how out of control other parents are.)

4

Left to Our Own Devices

"For years, humans have relished opportunities to kick, punch, trip, crush, and run over anything remotely resembling a robot. This penchant for machine violence could move from funny to potentially concerning as a new wave of humanoid robots is being built to work alongside people in manufacturing facilities. But a growing body of research suggests we may be more likely to feel bad for our mechanical assistants and even take it easy on them if they express sounds of human-like pain." Researchers tortured robots to test the limits of human empathy. (Instead of expressing sounds of pain, the robots might just want to play a scene from RoboCop or Terminator.)

5

Extra, Extra

Trans Am: If you've been watching the World Series or NFL games lately, you've probably seen a lot of those Trump anti-trans ads. They're so idiotic that you might be tempted to laugh them off. But imagine watching the World Series if you're trans. The cruel truth behind Trump’s new attacks on trans people.

+ Maybe It's Not The Economy, Stupid? "Despite there being a slight slowdown from the prior quarter's 3% rate, the figures released by the Commerce Department showed the US is on track for one of the strongest economic performances of any major economy this year."

+ Subsidiary Subsidiaries: "In recent years, Bezos’s interests in Washington have expanded, with the federal government now contracting billions not just to Amazon’s cloud-computing subsidiary but also to Blue Origin, which is locked in a fierce competition with SpaceX, the rocket company founded by Trump ally Elon Musk. Another Republican megadonor, Larry Ellison, is executive chairman of Oracle, the software company that jockeys with Amazon for major technology contracts." (Notably) from WaPo (Gift Article): For Jeff Bezos and his businesses, Washington has become more important.

+ Bad Travel Deal: "The thousands of young soldiers North Korea has sent to Russia, reportedly to help fight against Ukraine, include many elite special forces, but that hasn’t stopped speculation they’ll be slaughtered because they have no combat experience, no familiarity with the terrain and will likely be dropped onto the most ferocious battlefields." Yet, North Korean troops sent to Russia may be pleased to be there, even as they face ferocious fighting.

+ Spain Floods: "At least 95 people have died in eastern, central and southern Spain after torrential rains triggered the country’s deadliest floods in three decades, unleashing torrents of muddy water that surged through cities, towns and villages, trapping people in their homes, bringing down trees, and cutting off roads and railway lines." At least 95 people dead in Spain’s worst floods in three decades.

+ Glove Affair: "Two fans at Yankee Stadium were ejected from Game 4 of the World Series after one pried a foul ball out of the glove of Los Angeles Dodgers right fielder Mookie Betts on Tuesday night." It was truly nuts, as is the fact that these idiots seem pretty happy with their behavior (and this is coming from a Giants fan).

+ Too Hotline to Handle: "In 2023, Lily Lantz started a full-time job as a crisis counselor at PATH Crisis Center in Bloomington, Illinois. It’s part of the national network known as the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline ... But there was a job hazard she never expected: almost every shift, she said, she spoke to people who would masturbate on the call." NPR: 988 crisis hotline counselors are sometimes targeted by sexually abusive callers.

+ Don't Moines if I Do: "Forecasted storms are forcing a one-day delay of 'Beggars' Night,' the annual tradition that children in Iowa's capital city participate in that replaces the Oct. 31 observation of All Hallows' Eve held widely across the rest of the country." Kids in Iowa's capital will trick-or-treat on Halloween for the 1st time since 1938.

6

Bottom of the News

"It wasn’t love at first sight, but the home checked most of the young family’s boxes. With four finished stories and four bedrooms, it was spacious enough for their future. The white-shingled house was picturesque, albeit dated. It sat on the top of a hill surrounded by pine trees and Spanish moss. Almost every window had a view of either the old-growth forest or Puget Sound." Skip the horror movies this Halloween and just read this instead. WaPo (Gift Article): They thought they found their dream home — so did thousands of bats. (I mean hundreds of bats, OK, that's a fixer upper. But thousands!?)

+ Clear eyes, blocked views, bad seats: Meet the fan who exposes stadium view obstructions.

+ The Highest-Paid Dead Celebrities Of 2024. (Great... I'll be failing to live up to my potential even after I'm dead.)