Trump, Orbán and Useful Idiots

By Todd Lassa

Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump leads Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris 48% to 47% in Sunday’s New York Times/Siena College Poll. Rather, we should say they’re in another “statistical tie,” which has been the case in most major polls for Trump v. Harris in the last month.

Democrats and anti-MAGA Republicans worry that at this point in the 2016 and 2020 election campaigns, Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden, respectively, were ahead of Trump by more than statistical ties.

Nate Cohn notes in his NYT newsletter The Tilt that almost 30% of voters surveyed say they need to learn more about Harris – as they should Tuesday evening – and that there haven’t been many “high-quality” polls taken since the vice president’s Democratic National Convention bump.

According to Cohn the poll points to four distinct advantages Trump enjoys at this point in the race:

•At 46%, Trump’s favorability rating is higher than ever; convictions and indictments be damned.

•He holds an advantage with voters on the issues.

•The former president “occupies the center.” Apparently, the “Comrade Kamala” insults are working, misplaced syllable accent and all.

•He is considered the “change candidate” in a nation that wants “change” (apparently the “incumbent advantage” goes away when the incumbent drops out in favor of his veep).

It seems that as of the post-Labor Day presidential campaign kick-off, Trump as a politician has been “normalized” in a way he could never achieve in 2020, let alone 2016. His odd campaign rally tangents seem to have been normalized, too.

In the opening remarks of his “town hall-style” rally on Fox News with Sean Hannity last Tuesday, Trump pumped up his crowd by quoting Hungary’s authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán; “Bring Trump back and we won’t have these problems.”

The next day, the Justice Department charged two employees of the global network Russian Television, Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act and with money laundering in what is described as a covert operation to influence the November election. About $9.7 million was funneled to Tenet Media, according to the DOJ. Tenet, run by Canadians Lauren Chen and Liam Donovan – who as of Monday have not been charged – in turn allegedly paid for hundreds of videos about election fraud, COVID-19, immigration and Russia’s war with Ukraine by such conservative media stars as Benny Johnson, Tim Pool and Dave Rubin, according to The New York Times.

These “useful idiots” posted their “Kremlin-friendly messages” on such social media as YouTube, TikTok, X-Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Rumble.

It’s difficult to escape the conclusion that as in 2016, the Kremlin’s efforts to influence the 2024 presidential election might be working. Trump continues to buddy up with Orbán, NATO’s sole anti-Ukraine leader and a close friend of Vladimir Putin, and their relationship and their antipathy for Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his country’s efforts to remain independent has long been normalized by the MAGA wing controlling the GOP – but pointedly not the traditional wing, including former Reps. Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, as well as Dick Cheney and John Bolton.

How will ABC News’ Linsey Davis or David Muir raise these issues about Putin, Orbán and the useful idiots in Tuesday evening’s debate? Will they raise it? And how will Vice President Harris react to the biggest issue in this election that at least half of voters do not care about?

MONDAY-TUESDAY 9/9-10/24

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

This Is Governance?

By Stephen Macaulay

It is somewhat like the dog in the Sherlock Holmes story Silver Blaze: it doesn’t bark.

The absence brings up presence. What should have happened doesn’t.

Which brings us to Mitch McConnell, who is still the leader of the Republicans in the Senate.

Back in February McConnell pushed a bipartisan immigration and foreign aid bill.

Donald Trump had posted this on Truth Social about the bill that was to both tighten asylum standards and shut down the border if there was an influx of an unmanageable number of illegal crossings, both the sort of thing that would provide the “border security” that so many Trump and Trump-PAC ads are now shrieking about: “Only a fool, or a Radical Left Democrat, would vote for this horrendous Border Bill, which only gives Shutdown Authority after 5000 Encounters a day, when we already have the right to CLOSE THE BORDER NOW, which must be done.”

The bill was written, in part, by Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), not a fool nor a “Radical Left Democrat.”

Lankford wrote of the bill, “Americans are not opposed to legal and orderly immigration, but they are tired of the chaos and abuse at our border.”

No one should argue against that. Or maybe people need to be reminded that we are a nation of immigrants.

Lankford went on to write:

“The border security bill will put a huge number of new enforcement tools in the hands of a future administration and push the current Administration to finally stop the illegal flow. The bill provides funding to build the wall, increase technology at the border, and add more detention beds, more agents, and more deportation flights. The border security bill ends the abuse of parole on our southwest border that has waived in over a million people. It dramatically changes our ambiguous asylum laws by conducting fast screenings at a higher standard of evidence, limited appeals, and fast deportation.

“New bars to asylum eligibility will stop the criminal cartels from exploiting our currently weak immigration laws. The bill also has new emergency authorities to shut down the border when the border is overrun, new hiring authorities to quickly increase officers, and new hearing authorities to quickly apply consequences for illegal crossings. It changes our border from catch and release to detain and deport.”

Remember: this is a conservative Republican (a real conservative, not the kind that have co-opted the ideology).

What’s not to like about that?

But Trump spoke, his acolytes listened, and McConnell, who had once been a force in the Senate — and in his party — wandered off in silence. Even though he is not running for reelection, even though he would have no political capital to lose by strongly voicing first his support then his concern, McConnell folded.

The reason Trump was against the bill was because if the border was at least somewhat “fixed,” he wouldn’t have one of his primary issues to rant, rave and inexplicably riff about.

So people fell into line and supported their liege.

Now arguably the bill has things in it that people don’t like, but the nature of developing legislation is — or it used to be — one of give-and-take and compromise. It is working to get the most of what you can get and to minimize the amount of what you don’t want, knowing full well that there are opposite numbers to your position trying to do the same thing from their points of view.

But at the end something — not nothing — results.

Or at least that used to be the way things worked before the House became not much more than something you might find on the grounds of a carnival and the Senate has gone from a “deliberative body” to one where people thinks the word “debate” is something that Herve Villechaize might have referenced in relation to fishing on Fantasy Island.

Now Trump has returned to directing Congress by saying that if the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act isn’t signed into law (it is essentially a law that says illegal aliens can’t vote in federal elections, which is actually something that noncitizens can’t do anyway, so if you’re all about reducing regulations and the size of government, enacting something that essentially repeats what’s already there is nothing but waste), then:

“I would shut down the government in a heartbeat if they don’t get it.”

Congress is going to have to actually do some work, or the government will be largely shut down on September 30.

What Trump is saying, in effect, is that if the SAVE Act isn’t passed, then Congress shouldn’t do its job to keep the government running.

Here is the man who wants to lead the government who is saying that it should be shut down.

How does that make any sense?

It is all about him and what he wants. Never mind the rest of the people in the country he wants to represent. If he doesn’t get his way, then it is no way.

And there is either silence (McConnell) or fist-pumping support (Hawley, Jordan).

Trump clearly doesn’t understand that it isn’t about him, in large part because there are so many who either keep quiet or tell him that it is and pretend that it has something to do with making America great again.

It isn’t. It is simply giving him what he wants.

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Your Thoughts on the Interview?

Whether you’re left or right, conservative or liberal, progressive or pro-Trump, your civil comments on Thursday night’s CNN interview with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are welcome here. We treat readers’ comments in the same manner that traditional newspapers handle letters to the editor, which means no false facts or personal attacks and none of the conspiracy theories or extremism that social media sites like X-Twitter, Telegraph and Facebook allow while hiding behind Section 230.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

‘My Values Have Not Changed’

By Todd Lassa

Vice President Kamala Harris has been in a precarious position since she became the Democratic Party’s last-minute presidential candidate in late July. It should not be a surprise or even a disappointment among her supporters, at least, that she waited a week after formally accepting that nomination at the Democratic National Convention before her sit-down interview along with her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, by CNN’s Dana Bash.

Democrats have been clamoring for an agenda that would be new and fresh and a departure of some sort from President Joe Biden’s. Republicans have wielded this alleged lack of clarity by the Harris/Walz campaign as a political weapon.

We learned this Thursday evening: The Harris/Walz campaign will not back off Bidenomics. It is, after all, not just the Harris/Walz agenda but also the Democratic Party agenda. Harris will not be distracted by Republican candidate Donald J. Trump’s often gender- and racially charged personal attacks.

The Harris/Walz campaign will continue to support and arm the Israeli government, but acknowledges the suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza, with constant, ongoing efforts to reach a ceasefire in the war. The desire for a ceasefire to happen during the Biden administration, before the November 5 election in order to secure support by Democrats threatening to withhold their votes over the war seems wishful thinking as negotiations between the Israeli government and Hamas continue to go nowhere.

The vice president made it clear she will continue to push back against Republicans’ attacks on her work as “border czar” (even the question of whether Harris had that designation is contentious) by calling out Trump for killing the bipartisan border bill. She said she would name a Republican to her cabinet, like Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama -- but not Donald J. Trump -- before her.

Harris told Bash she has opposed a fracking ban since 2020 (when she joined Joe Biden’s campaign – and after she signed on as senator from California to the New Green Deal in 2019, which included a ban on fracking) and she is “very proud of the work that we have done that has brought inflation down to less than 3%, the work that we have done to cap the cost of insulin at $35 a month for seniors,” adding that Trump said he would “do a number of things, including allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Never happened. We did it.”

A Harris/Walz administration would invest in small business, reinstate the $6,000 child tax credit and promote affordable housing, including with a tax credit for first time home buyers. This is essentially a modification of Bidenomics, the middle-up economic policy that for three-and-a-half years, with investment in clean energy and transportation and in the nation’s infrastructure has slowly been reversing the “trickle-down” supply side Reaganomics of the previous 40 years.

“My values have not changed,” Harris said Thursday night. Though if she and Walz prevail in November and they can advance some of these initiatives through Congress next year the term “Bidenomics” could transform into “Harrisnomics.”

-- FRIDAY, Aug. 30, 2024

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Warm Spit & Standards

By Stephen Macaulay

What did Mike Pence do while serving as vice president? There was the important act of obeying the law on January 6, 2021. But other than that?

[PLEASE SCROLL DOWN this column for reader comments on the interview --Ed.]

What did Joe Biden do except make a remark that resulted in President Obama having to come out an announce his support of same-sex marriage?

Arguably Dick Cheney did more while in office than even he would probably admit to.

Al Gore, of course, invented the Internet, but that was before he moved into Number One Observatory Circle.

And Dan Quayle’s contribution to the polity was making it clear that there needs to be greater support for elementary education, particularly when it comes to spelling skills.

The point is, vice presidents don’t do a whole lot outside of ceremonial activities. Yes, the Constitution has it that the vice president is the president of the Senate, “but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.” A tie-breaker. Swell.

Then there is the 25^th Amendment. Section 1 puts it tersely: “In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.”

Section 4 is a bit more robust as it says, in part, “Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”

While we’ve seen Section 1 in action since 1963, with Johnson succeeding Kennedy after the assassination, and in 1974, when Nixon resigned and Ford assumed the office, Section 4 hasn’t happened. Which is probably a good thing.

Which brings me to the Kamala Harris CNN interview. The observation about the vice presidency and warm spit comes to mind.

There are those who tie Biden’s policy to her, as though she had something to do with them.

In the early 1920s, when Warren Harding was president, there was a bit of a change for the vice president. As the White House Historical Association puts it: “As vice president to President Warren G. Harding, Coolidge had little to do aside from presiding over the Senate, although the gracious Harding invited him to regularly attend cabinet meetings.”

Presumably the vice president’s role in the cabinet is not unlike that of a tourist.

There are those who seem to think that Harris should break with Biden in a big way. But realize that she has to work with the man until noon on January 20, 2025 no matter who wins the 2024 election, so it is probably better to be civil.

Did she do well during the interview with Dana Bash. Yes.

But what is probably more to the point is to make a comparison between that press conference and, say, Donald Trump’s at Mar-a-Lago on August 12.

He opened, “Hello, everybody. Well, thank you very much. Appreciate your being here. Just a statement before I talk about debates.”

Then rolled into things including, “I think that our country is right now in the most dangerous position it’s ever been in from an economic standpoint, from a safety standpoint. Both gangs on the street and frankly gangs outside of our country in the form of other countries that are frankly very powerful. They’re very powerful countries and we don’t know what we’re doing.”

Gangs that are very powerful countries?

And: “We have a very, very sick country right now. You saw the other day with the stock market crash. That was just the beginning. That was just the beginning. It’s going to get worse. It’s going to get a lot worse in my opinion. . . .”

On the day of that press conference the Dow closed at 41,086.81. On the day of Harris’ press conference it closed at 41,577.97.

While past performance is not indicative of future results, a Dow that’s been over 40,000 since mid-May doesn’t seem sick.

He went on and on until he got to the debates.

“With all of that being said, I think it’s very important to have debates and we’ve agreed with Fox on a date of September 4th. We’ve agreed with NBC, fairly full agreement subject to them on September 10th, and we’ve agreed with ABC on September 25th.”

Turns out that the September 4 Fox debate was, for example, something that the “we” he used was inclusive of him and only him.

The point it, Trump gives a press conference and pretty much makes a whole lot of stuff up and the general response is a shrug and a “that’s just Trump.”

If we think press conferences from presidential candidates are important, shouldn’t we hold them to some standards?

Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings.

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On the Harris/Walz CNN Interview

In a country like ours, it is difficult to believe that the best and brightest that Democrats have to offer in 2024 is Kamala Harris. What happened to the party who produced presidents like Kennedy, Clinton, Obama and frankly even Joe Biden? A couple of them never missed a chance to talk to the press or explain their political positions and policies. As a Reagan conservative, I disagreed politically with the last three, but I never doubted their ability to serve as POTUS. Donald Trump and JD Vance face the media every day and are clear about their positions and policies. Like them or not, Americans know where they stand, and voters can at least be confident that Donald Trump knows how to serve as president at home and abroad.

After watching Kamala Harris uncomfortably struggle her way through “The First Interview” with Tim Walz filling in the gaps, there is little reason to be confident that she has a “clear” plan or positions that Americans can confidently believe. Just because Harris tells us that “she’s been very clear” … she has clearly flip-flopped on several positions. I’m left thinking it was just another word salad and filled with way too much chit-chat that covered little substance of importance to Americans.

--Rich Corbett

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Write to Us

Dear left and right, liberals and conservatives, pro-MAGA and progressives, we seek your opinions on our center-column political news aggregate and right- or left-column commentaries. Up for discussion most recently are…

•What questions are most important for CNN’s Dana Bash to ask Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in their first joint interview Thursday evening?

•Do you think the latest indictment filed against Donald J. Trump for alleged efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election will go anywhere? Should it?

•Mark Zuckerberg says the Biden administration “pressured” him to censor certain COVID pandemic content on his Facebook. What do you think?

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To submit your comments, use the Comment section in this column or the column on the right, or email editors@thehustings.newsand please indicate your political leanings in the subject line.

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…meanwhile…

TONIGHT – The Democratic Party presidential ticket of VP Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz sit for their first joint interview on CNN at 9 pm Eastern with chief political correspondent and anchor Dana Bash.

THURSDAY 8/29/24

Federal Violation? – It was a prime opportunity for the Trump/Vance campaign: Take the former president to Arlington National Cemetery for a wreath-laying ceremony that would highlight the third anniversary of the tragic withdrawal from Afghanistan by the Biden/Harris administration, that resulted in the killing of 13 US service members. The Trump/Vance campaign posted a 21-second TikTok video of the ceremony that “likely violates” federal law prohibiting the use of military cemeteries for campaigning purposes, NPR, which scooped the story of the wreath-laying on Monday’s All Things Considered.

A cemetery official or officials tried to prevent Trump staffers from filming and photographing in a section where recent US military casualties are buried, a source told NPR, but campaign staffers verbally abused and pushed an official aside.

Campaign spokesman Steven Cheung responded to the cemetery staffer’s statement, saying; “We are prepared to release footage if such defamatory claims are made.”

•••

Still a Tight Race – We hope you weren’t expecting to see any clarity in the Harris v. Trump presidential race after their parties’ conventions concluded. A new Emerson College/The Hill poll shows the two in a tight race, still, with Harris leading in three key states, but only within the margin of error.

In Georgia, Kamala Harris leads Donald J. Trump 49% to 48%; in Michigan, she leads 50% to 47% and in Nevada, she leads 49% to 48%.

Trump leads Harris in Arizona, 50% to 47%. He leads in North Carolina 49% to 48%, and in Wisconsin, 49% to 48%.

The two candidates are tied at 48% in Pennsylvania.

--TL

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WEDNESDAY 8/28/24

Reindicted, and We Knew You Would – After the Supreme Court granted the former president immunity for all official acts under his administration in a 6-3 ruling, a federal grand jury has reindicted Donald J. Trump on four felony charges connected to his efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election. The 36-page indictment issued by special counsel Jack Smith removes some specific allegations and removes those alleged co-conspirators from the original indictment, who were working in the administration at the time, according to Politico.

The original 45-page indictment issued in August 2023 was threatened by SCOTUS’ decision July 1.

The four counts of the new United States of America v. Donald J. Trump are…

Count 1: Conspiracy to defraud the United States.

Count 2: Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.

Count 3: Obstruction of an attempt to obstruct an official proceeding.

Count 4: Conspiracy against rights.

More to come from SCOTUS … Promoting her memoir, Lovely One in an interview Tuesday with Managing Editor Nora O’Donnell on CBS Evening News Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she’s as “prepared as anyone can be” for the November 5 presidential election to end up in the US Supreme Court.

“I was concerned about a system that appeared to provide immunity for one individual under one set of circumstances, when we have a criminal justice system that had ordinarily treated everyone the same,” she told O’Donnell.

•••

Zuckerberg Hedges His Bets – Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he was “pressured” by the Biden administration to censor some content around COVID-19 early during the pandemic. You know, the conspiracy theories, bleach-ingesting cures and “satirical content” allowed to run free in social media sites like his Facebook thanks to Section 230. The White House denies Zuckerberg’s claims.

“He knows it’s not true,” veteran tech journo Kara Swisher told CNN’s The Source Tuesday evening. Swisher says Zuckerberg is hedging his bets because Kamala Harris will forget about his assertion, but Donald J. Trump will not, and already has threatened him.

“I think he’s the most equivocating executive in tech,” Swisher said, noting he is ready to be “Trump adjacent” without going as far as X/Tesla/SpaceX chief Elon Musk if the ex-president wins the November election.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Questions About Media Relevancy

By Stephen Macaulay

One of the knocks against Kamala Harris thus far is that she hasn’t participated in interviews with legacy news organizations. Arguably she hasn’t participated in any interviews with new media organizations, either.

But the likes of the Times and the Post and NBC and ABC treat this like not merely an affront to the people’s need to know, but to their fundamental importance to the polity.

So Harris’ ghosting their conference rooms is something that they repeat. Just like Donald Trump.

They treat it like she doesn’t respect them. He clearly doesn’t respect her.

In the case of Them it is interesting that there was less angst and anguish over the fact that Trump didn’t give his first press conference this year until August 8, a couple weeks after Biden dropped out of the race.

The day Biden dropped out, July 21, Harris announced she was running. Trump announced he was running for president on November 15, 2022. So if we take the Trump metric of 633 days, Harris has until April 14, 2026.

This is not to say that I don’t think it is a good thing for her not to talk to the media. She should.

But it is to say that those legacy organizations need to understand that their editorial boards are not quite as influential as they once were. For example, about 36% of the U.S. population is between the ages of 18 and 44 and there are probably more than a few of them who never consult the legacies. Never.

According to a recent article in The Drum, a publication that follows the media (old and new), “During this election cycle, digital is expected to attract $3.46bn in spend, or about 28% of total spend in the cycle.”

That means, of course, that 72% is not being spent on digital.

But then The Drum goes on to point out this about the $3.46bn spend: “This represents a 156% uptick from 2020 levels.”

Few things go up 156% in four years. And if it scales that way, come 2028. . . .

Team Harris knows where the money should be directed. And, of course, Team Trump likes to keep things close, so there’s always lots of advertising space available on Truth Social.

This, of course, isn’t about ad spending. It is about communicating.

To what extent do politicians, especially those going for the highest offices, “owe” the public something more than “I’m _________________ and I approve this message”?

I’d submit a lot.

And not only during campaigns. And not only to accredited media.

Consider the Prime Minister’s Questions in the UK. Every Wednesday when the House of Commons is sitting the Prime Minister shows up at Westminster and takes questions for about 30 minutes. Not only does that show what the PM knows and thinks, but it also does the same for the House members.

But of course, this is after the people in question have been elected to office and the concern here is Harris’ so-far resistance to a sit-down interview with Lester Holt or Maggie Haberman or whomever.

While this will certainly happen between now and the election, its importance is in inverse relation to the concern expressed about it.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Talk to Us

Be sure to scroll down this page to read our coverage/news aggregate/analysis of the Democratic National Convention last week, on this page and go to Page 4 to read our coverage/news aggregate/analysis of the Republican National Convention.

•We’re especially interested in your opinions, for posting in the left and right columns, on what effect you think the Federal Reserve’s coming September interest rate cut, and the effect the once-again failed talks to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza will have on the November presidential race.

•This is also your chance to tell us why you agree or disagree with Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay’s latest commentary, “Who’s the Real Cheater?”

•Also, be sure to weigh in on what job you think Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would get in a second Trump administration.

Comment in the appropriate column, left or right, depending on your leanings. Or email us at editors@thehustings.news and indicate your leanings in subject line. Conservative on some issues and liberal on others? Use that subject line to tell us you are a “centrist” overall, but lean “right” or “left” on the issue in question.

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…meanwhile…

Donald J. Trump plans to name Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (pictured) and Tulsi Gabbard, who ran for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, as honorary presidential transition team co-chairs to help select Trump's policies and personnel, a Trump campaign senior advisor tells The New York Times.

TUESDAY 8/27/24

To Trial or Not to Trial – Once considered the strongest of myriad cases against ex-President Trump, The New York Times uses the word “moribund” to describe the Justice Department’s classified documents case since Federal Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed it in July under the argument that Jack Smith was not approved by Congress to be its special counsel. Smith on Monday filed with the US Court of Appeals for the 11^th Circuit, in Atlanta to overturn Cannon’s ruling, which came like a MAGA celebration on the first day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

Smith is unlikely to be able to bring the case to trial before the November 5 presidential election, and many expect the case to end up in the Supreme Court anyway, where justices already ruled prior to Cannon’s ruling that a president has absolute immunity for all official acts.

If he wins a second term, Donald J. Trump certainly will fire Smith and close the case. But since President Biden stepped down from his re-election bid the chances that Trump will not have his own Justice Department in place next January have evened out, making it a bit more likely he could face trial for holding boxes of classified documents in Mar-a-Lago storage rooms and bathrooms.

--TL

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MONDAY 8/26/24

After the DNC – The Harris campaign has raised more than $540 million in the month or so since the vice president became the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, Al Jazeera reports. Meanwhile, NPR senior political editor/correspondent Domenico Montenaro says Vice President Kamala Harris has the edge over former President Donald J. Trump in the Electoral College race, based on current polling, with leads in the crucial swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin and ties in Georgia, North Carolina and Nevada.

That’s based on Montenaro’s analysis of polling by FiveThirtyEight and The Hill/DDHQ.

No ceasefire… But this comes as negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza ended in Cairo Sunday with no deal, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. Israel has since launched a “pre-emptive” strike against Hezbollah targets early Monday after Israeli military officials warned Iran-backed militants were about to strike. Hamas, which did not participate in the Cairo talks, has objected to changes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu keeps making to July’s framework agreement.

And so it goes… A week after the Democratic National Convention refused to allow critics of Israel's war on Gaza to speak, the Harris campaign is stuck with the Biden administration’s refusal to use arms sanctions to force the Israeli government into an agreement with Hamas for release of hostages and a ceasefire in Gaza.

Then there’s the economy… The Consumer Price Index dropped below 3% last month, leading Wall Street and especially, the Biden-Harris administration, to anticipate next month’s meeting of the Federal Reserve as it is expected to finally lower interest rates.

At the Kansas City Federal Reserve’s annual Jackson Hole, Wyoming, conference last Friday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said, finally, “The time has come for policy to adjust,” (per The New York Times).

“The direction of travel is clear, and the timing and pace of rate cuts will depend on incoming data, the evolving outlook and the balance of risks. We will do everything we can to support a strong labor market as we make further progress toward price stability.”

That “further progress” was accompanied last week by a discouraging Labor Department report that it had overestimated the number of jobs added in the year ending in March by 818,000 (during the previous decade, such annual updates added or subtracted, on average, 173,000 jobs, the NYT says).

Does this help Harris?... A Fed rate cut will be no “October surprise” but will be a potential September boost to the Harris campaign. That’s if voters feel the rate cut, which is expected to be between a quarter- and a half-point, and whether they associate any such good vibes to the current administration.

The current Fed rate ranges between 5.25% and 5.5%.

This good economic news has translated to an ever-steady bull market on Wall Street, but Donald J. Trump – who wants to grab control of the Fed if he wins a second term – has claimed he not only deserves credit for the bull market under his administration, but also that the current bull market is the result of Wall Street anticipating his win again in November.

•••

RFK Jr.’s Prez Bid – Now that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has pulled out of the presidential race in swing states so he could endorse Donald J. Trump, the question is; What does he get from Trump in return? Kennedy’s withdrawal as an independent candidate answers the question, of course, of whether he was more a threat to Trump or to Kamala Harris.

It’s a question only pundits and pollsters who were trying to maintain some balance made – we have known for months that anti-vaxxer RFK Jr. would pull votes from Trump and not Biden-Harris.

Place your bets… Our prediction: RFK Jr. is US Surgeon General under a second Trump administration. Of course, if Kennedy’s endorsement of Trump doesn’t result in a win, we will never find out.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Who’s the Real Cheater?

By Stephen Macaulay

In 2016 no one, it seems, reportedly not even the campaign itself, thought that Donald Trump would win the election.

But he did. But that didn’t make him entirely happy.

Because he thought Hillary Clinton received too many votes (while she lost in the Electoral College, she actually had some 2.9-million more Americans vote for her; he claimed that was a result of “large scale voter fraud”), in May 2017 he signed an executive order creating the “Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.” It included noted voter-fraud-claiming enthusiast Kris Kobach and Hans von Spakovsky of the outfit that brings you “Project 2025,” The Heritage Foundation.

What did this fair-and-balanced investigatory commission find? Well, evidently nothing. So Trump disbanded it in January 2018.

However, then-press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders maintained the commission ended because many states didn’t provide the requested data. And that there is some “substantial evidence of voter fraud” although no evidence of the evidence was provided.

We all know what happened regarding the 2020 presidential election results.

Long before the election Trump claimed that it was going to be “fixed.” Which is somewhat odd when you think about it. That is, he held the levers of power and wasn’t afraid to use them. If the election was going to be “fixed,” wouldn’t it have been fixed in his favor?

Be that as it may, Biden trounced Trump in terms of the popular vote, garnering some 7-million more than Trump.

You can understand why the man may have blown a gasket seeing a number like that.

Clearly there had to be massive cheating involved . . . but cheating only as it related to the top of the ticket because down-ballot Republicans generally did well, thank you very much.

The Heritage Foundation swung into action. And discovered, for example, four cases of fraud in the Arizona 2020 election — one of which was a Republican casting a Republican vote for her deceased mother. (And you thought only corpses in Chicago vote.)

When the Republican-hired Cyber Ninjas reviewed the results of the 2020 election in Arizona it found . . . 360 more votes for Biden. Clearly that was a team of stealthy ninjas because no one saw that coming.

Despite Trump’s request to the Georgia Secretary of State for the discovery of 11,780 votes that would shift the results from Biden to Trump — a.k.a., “fixing” the results — Heritage found no election fraud in the 2020 Georgia election.

So were there to have been fraud at any scale in Georgia, it would have been the result of Trump requesting it.

Not surprisingly, even when it seemed to be a Biden-Trump rematch in 2024 Trump started warning of “cheating” in the forthcoming election. Now, with Kamala Harris showing significant signs of strength he has significantly amped up his claims of cheating. (It is well known that when people get older their ability to sleep soundly through the night decreases. Not only is Trump 78, but on those sleepless nights he must be vexed by the 306 to 232 Electoral College votes Biden won and the 81,283,501 popular votes Sleepy Joe got to his 74,223,975.)

Claims like Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ “substantial evidence of voter fraud” are simply unfounded. There is no evidence.

Which brings us to the whole issue of cheating, which Trump claims will be rife. Although this could be construed as him thinking he won’t win, if he does and he doesn’t get the numbers that his pal Vladimir Putin got in his last election — 88% -- then that will only be because of cheating.

But there is something to be considered here. Just as it seems odd that Trump was claiming the fix was in against him during the 2020 election — when he was in charge — it is also odd that there is sufficient evidence — evidence beyond a reasonable doubt — that he is a man for whom cheating is not out of the question when it comes to personal benefit.

Remember: Last May he was convicted in New York on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

“Falsifying” — like what he and his associates claim has been done regarding vote totals.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

What’s Left

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…meanwhile…

Ukraine's military says it controls nearly 400 square miles of Russia, in and around the Kursk region, NPR's Morning Edition reports. Scroll down for details.

TUE 8/13/24

Details -- Up to 1,000 soldiers, at least 11 tanks and 20 armored vehicles have crossed the Ukraine border into Russia since its counteroffensive a week ago, the Kyiv Post reports. Alexei Smirnov, governor of Kursk Oblast reports at least 12 civilians dead and 121 injured. About 121,000 residents of the region have fled or evacuated, and the governor of the neighboring Belgorod region also has evacuated civilians from its border region, according to the Post.

As Western pundits debate over why Ukraine chose to invade a week ago, The Kyiv Independent says the move into Kursk Oblast is meant to divert Russian tanks and protect Ukraine's border regions, Kyiv says. But the Kyiv Post also reports that residents of the small town of Sudzha have appealed to Russian leader Vladimir Putin for help and that many there worry that family members were unable to evacuate. Sudzha has just 5,000 residents, but it also is the last major transit point for Russian pipeline gas heading to Europe via Ukraine.

•••

Both Campaigns Hacked, FBI Says -- Computer hackers in Iran have tried to hack a Trump associate and advisors to the Biden-Harris campaign, people "familiar with the matter" tell The Washington Post. Three Biden-Harris staffers also received spear-phishing emails, according to the report.

"We can confirm the FBI is investigating this matter," the agency said in a prepared statement. According to the WaPo the FBI began investigating the hacking in June, contacting Google and other companies.

--TL

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MON 8/12/24

More – Ukraine pushed at least 10 miles into Russia’s Kursk Oblast, NPR’s Morning Edition reports, adding that unconfirmed reports say the counteroffensive went as much as 20 miles past the border, with locals fleeing and complaining there was a lack of warning from Russia’s government, which is offering them 10,000 rubles (about US$115) compensation.

The incursion has strained Ukraine’s defensive forces in the Kharkiv region, according to NPR, while Russian reinforcements are expected to push back Ukrainian troops in Kursk soon and reclaim the border.

The debate: Allowing Ukraine to strike Russia with US arms once raised worries Vladimir Putin would give him excuse to engage with the US and NATO. In May, the US allowed Ukraine to use its missiles to counter-strike Russia’s attack on the Kharkiv region. Of the further push across the border, Business Ukraine magazine tweeted this Monday morning: “Now that Ukraine has crossed the reddest of Putin’s red lines and invaded Russia without sparking World War III, there are no excuses for restricting Kyiv’s ability to defend itself or denying Ukraine the weapons it needs to win the war.”

Agree? Disagree? – Read the left or right column for how to add your comments to this page.

•••

‘Final’ Ceasefire Proposal This Week (?) – It all comes to a head, again, this week when President Biden, Egyptian President Abdul Fattah el-Sisi and Qatar Sheikh Tamin bin Hamad al-Thani are to present a “final” ceasefire proposal to end Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza (per The New York Times). The US, Egypt and Qatar last Thursday called on Israel and Hamas to return to the negotiations table. Then on Saturday, at least 93 people were killed in a school sheltering Palestinian refugees in Gaza, The Washington Post reports. Israel said its military forces were targeting Hamas fighters.

On Monday, according to Haaretz, leaders of the UK, France and Germany called on Iran to refrain from attacks on Israel that would jeopardize truce talks, with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz asking Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, to “do everything possible to prevent further military escalation.”

•••

On Biden’s Exit Interview – President Biden spoke about his proposal for an Israeli-Hamas ceasefire in his interview with Robert Costa for CBS Sunday Morning over the weekend.

“The plan I put together, endorsed by the G7, endorsed by the UN Security Council, etc., is still viable,” Biden said. “And I’m working literally every single day – and my whole term – to see to it that it doesn’t escalate into a regional war. But it easily can.”

Huge turnouts supporting Harris’ campaign have included some demonstrators opposed to continued funding and support for Israel in its war on Hamas in Gaza.

CBS News released a clip of the Sunday Morning interview last week, in which Biden warns that he believes Donald J. Trump will not accept a loss in the November election. Trump has said he will accept results of a free and fair election, but his campaign also is floating the notion that the Democratic Party’s switch to Vice President Harris as his opponent is not “constitutional.”

Biden told Costa he made his decision to withdraw from the presidential race with a “small circle” of people including First Lady Jill Biden at his Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, vacation home as he recovered from a case of COVID.

•••

Harris Trumps Trump, Biden, on Economy – This one, frankly, is a bit confounding. An FT Michigan Ross poll finds that 42% trust Vice President Kamala Harris to handle the economy while 41% trust ex-President Trump. … And Harris’ score tops the most recent score for President Biden by seven points. Never mind that the Federal Reserve has more to do with interest rates and trying to control inflation than does any president, though Trump has indicated his second presidential term would seize some or all control from the Fed. In her nascent presidential campaign, there is no indication Harris would abandon Biden’s reversal of “trickle-down” supply side Reaganomics.

And yet, “The fact that voters were more positive on Harris than on Biden … says as much about how badly Biden was doing as it does about how well Harris is doing,” University of Michigan Professor Erik Golden said, according to the Financial Times.

Presumably, the professor was speaking about the Harris v. the Biden campaign, not the Harris v. the Biden economy.

•••

Musk Interviews Trump – X-Twitter owner Elon Musk will interview Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump on X-Twitter, 8 pm Eastern/5 pm Pacific, on X-Twitter.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

What’s Right

•Go to the Comments section in this column, or the column on the left if you lean liberal rather than conservative, to comment on Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk Oblast, or on other political news issues.

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In the coming weeks we’ll be looking at the reported Elon Musk-Donald J. Trump interview that is to take place Monday, August 12. We’ll also be talking about the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which begins a week later, on August 19.

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