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

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

FRIDAY 8/23/24

There was much familiar in Vice President Kamala Harris’ acceptance speech for her nomination as Democratic presidential candidate. And yet, there was much new in its execution. As a former prosecutor and San Francisco district attorney, Harris no doubt has made countless closing arguments. But her national performances as a speaker have heretofore been less than engaging, until now. 

Harris began, as many politicians do, with anecdotes about her late mother and her family’s humble middle-class upbringing in the flats of the San Francisco area’s East Bay.

“She taught us to never complain about injustice, but to do something about it. Do something about it.”

And … “And never do anything half-assed.”

Her speech was not the least bit half-assed, even as she riffed on familiar themes. Much of the Harris/Walz campaign is about preventing a “tyrant,” ex-President Trump, from returning to power, though she did outline some specific agenda items.

“In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious,” she said.

Harris continued, “we are not going back … And we are charting a new way forward, with a way forward for the middle-class,” a defining goal of her presidency. 

As president, Harris intends to “create an opportunity economy,” she said, offering labor, small enterprise and businesses “the chance to compete and the chance to succeed,” with a federal program to provide capital for entrepreneurs and small businesses. 

Her plans for a middle-class tax cut contrasts with “another (Trump) tax break that will add $5 billion to the national deficit.” 

There’s also legislation restoring Roe v. Wade that a President Harris would sign, along with the bipartisan border bill that Trump killed because he wanted to keep the issue for his campaign.

But it’s on the international issues that must have been terra infirma for her.

“Five days before Russia attacked Ukraine, I met with President Zelenskyy to warn him about Russia’s plans to invade,” Harris said. “I helped mobilize a global response – over 50 countries – to defend against Putin’s aggression. And as president, I will stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies.”

Then she tried to make up some ground lost to “uncommitted” Democratic voters on the issue of a ceasefire in Gaza, saying “now is the time to get a hostage deal and a ceasefire deal done,” adding that she always stands for Israel’s right to defend and arm itself, while acknowledging “so many innocent lives lost” in Gaza, filled with hungry, desperate people. “President Biden and I are working to end this war.”

--Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

By Charles Dervarics

The speeches ran long again Wednesday on a celebrity-filled night in Chicago, but fortunately for Democrats, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz showed he’s a former football coach who knows the value of a powerful pep talk.

In a folksy 18-minute address, Walz introduced himself to the nation as a farm boy, veteran, teacher, and (by the way) a politician whose humble roots will serve him well as Kamala Harris’ Vice President. He also highlighted his background as a high school football coach, with members of his state championship team — in their team jerseys — coming out on stage.

That was just the start of the football analogies. Of the tight presidential race, he said, “It’s the fourth quarter, we’re down a field goal but we have the ball and we’re driving downfield. Our job is to get into the trenches and do the blocking and tackling.”

Of the Republicans’ Project 2025, he said not to take the GOP’s word that they are abandoning this governing blueprint. “When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’ll use it.”

He also drew wide applause by proclaiming “never underestimate a teacher” when citing his gubernatorial accomplishments such as paid family leave and free meals for school-age children. “While other schools were banning books from their schools, we were eliminating hunger at ours.”

With shouts of “Coach, Coach” from the crowd, he also offered his takes on these hot-button issues:

•On Abortion: Regarding reproductive rights, he said Minnesotans have a rule: “Mind your own damn business.”

•On Guns: He described himself as a hunter who’s “a better shot” than many Republicans in Congress. Still, he has signed gun safety laws as it’s “our first responsibility is to keep our kids safe.”

With Walz’ nomination complete, the last remaining task for Democrats is Harris’ speech Thursday where she will accept the nomination for president. 

•••

Oprah Winfrey, Stevie Wonder and John Legend were among the celebrities on stage Wednesday for speeches and music. Winfrey noted that she’s not a registered Democrat but urged fellow independents to support Harris. She said character and values “matter most of all.”

•••

The night’s speakers also included Republicans critical of Trump, including Geoff Duncan, lieutenant governor of Georgia from 2019 to 2023. Duncan talked about Trump’s detailed efforts to undermine Georgia’s 2020 election tally, which led to Republicans repeatedly protesting at Duncan’s home when he did not want to alter the results. 

“These days our party acts more like a cult — a cult worshipping a felonious thug,” he said. “If you vote for Kamala Harris in 2024, you’re not a Democrat. You’re a patriot.”

•••

Former President Bill Clinton left the Oval Office in 2001, but last night he noted that he’s still younger than Donald Trump. It’s one of the ways the presidential race has changed in the past month, with Trump now facing questions about his ability to serve as president as he nears age 80. 

Clinton returned to familiar territory though, by claiming the GOP nominee cares more about himself than the country. “The next time you listen to him, don’t count the lies. Count the I’s.” 

Clinton was known to be a fast-food aficionado — satirized on Saturday Night Live among others — and he leaned into this Wednesday night. Noting that Kamala Harris worked at McDonald’s when she was young, the former president was glad that a President Harris would set one new mark: “She will break my record for the president who spent the most time at McDonald’s.”

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

By Todd Lassa

Lines for entry into a rally for the Democratic presidential ticket wrapped a couple of blocks around the Fiserv Forum Tuesday evening, leading one man in one line to wonder whether we would make it inside before the program was to start at 7 pm. The Fiserv Forum’s capacity is 17,341 when configured for Milwaukee Bucks NBA games, so let there be no doubt that about 17,000 supporters (and this reporter) shlepped out to see the presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz, a number that must have rivaled attendance at the very same venue a month earlier for the Republican National Convention. 

One of the charged-up supporters to see Harris and Walz divert 90 miles or so north from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago was Milwaukeean Joyce Fowler, who says she would not have made the same effort for a Joe Biden rally.

“I think he made the right decision,” she said of Biden, “and Kamala ought to make a good president.”

Fowler did not single out any issue that binds her vote to Harris, though she added that it is “crucial” that Donald J. Trump be defeated in November. Fowler, who is Black, lamented that her son plans to vote for the Republican rival.

Nathanial Brown of Brown Deer, Wisconsin, said he would have come out for a Biden/Harris rally. For him, the big issue is what he described as Trump’s threat to American democracy.

Retired teacher Edward Croke, of Milwaukee, said; “I feel we need more progressive people. Like (Sen.) Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and (Rep. Alexandria-Ocasio) Cortez (D-NY), and these older people, they shouldn’t be there.

“I like Biden. I think he was given, excuse my language, a big fucking mess from Trump, and he had to deal with it. And he did.”

Inside, the program began at 7 pm with the big, ceiling-mounted Bucks video scoreboard broadcasting the ceremonial convention roll call (Harris was officially nominated August 7) from Chicago. 

You can see from our photograph that the Editorial We ended up just short of the very last row. Acoustics were such that it often was hard to make out what anyone was saying. 

Walz came out solo about halfway through the roll call and declared the Democratic crowd more enthusiastic than the Republican crowd in July.

Back to the Chicago video feed, the Fiserv crowd cheered especially for the Democratic superstars as they rattled off delegate counts – Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. Some of the states had small numbers of delegates – often just one – vote “present” or “absent” in protest of the Biden/Harris administration’s support of the Israeli government in its execution of the war in Gaza.

The Fiserv crowd erupted loudly when the Wisconsin delegation came on the scoreboard-screen, drowning out apparent flubs by Gov. Tony Evers. Then Wyoming, and then Minnesota and California in honor of their favorite son and daughter, and then, finally, Vice President Harris came out to speak. 

She warned it’s “going to be a tight race” … 

“It’s going to be a lot of hard work,” Harris said, adding her side will win “because we’re going to put a lot of hard work into the next 77 days.”

A disruption several sections over appeared to be from a pro-Palestinian protester; all that could be made out of a crumpled banner he or she had previously held was the word, “genocide.”

Meanwhile, Harris emphasized the parts of her agenda that could be most important in the remaining 76 days. These include her $6,000 child tax credit, calling out the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 (even as Trump denies any serious knowledge of plans to take over the federal bureaucracy) and, of course, women’s reproductive rights remain important. 

Harris’ brief pause to get help from medics for someone who apparently had collapsed behind the nylon cordon a few feet from her stage drew admiring cheers from the audience. 

The vice president concluded with one of her campaign’s recurring slogans, “We’re not going back.” (Blue rectangular cards with the word “Freedom” printed on it also were handed out to the audience.)

“Just like the Wisconsin state motto tells us,” Harris concluded; “Forward.”

It’s going to be a long 76 days forward to the presidential election.

Posted WEDNESDAY 8/21/24

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news