The Republicans have ramped up their attack ads, digging up anything that they can embellish to try to make Walz look bad. Walz grew up in small town middle America, served his country in the National Guard for 24 years, became an educator and later on an elected official first in Congress and then as Governor of Minnesota. He’s a regular guy who has had years of experience in government and years of giving back to his country.
What I find rather fascinating is that the town and area where he grew up in Nebraska is very supportive of Donald Trump. Very red. Yet Walz went on to enact more “liberal” policies and laws in Minnesota, which many in my state support. Some people where he grew up seem rather confused as to why. Perhaps it’s because those policies and the people who support them are not really evil as they have been characterized by Trump and his followers. Perhaps it is because those policies are an effort to give people a little better life. Maybe caring for people, all people, was something Walz learned in those small towns. It’s sad that people don’t recognize their own merit.
Perhaps we all need to shut out the negative voices and remember our humanity. I know this isn't Nebraska or Minnesota, but it's a really good song.
58 comments:
Little bit of an editing error I think:
"Walz grew up in small town middle America, served his
country in the National Guard for 24 years and after that
became an educator…"
Makes it sound like Walz' education career post-dated his 24 years in the National Guard. But he joined the National Guard in
'82 I think (while living in Texas) and then got his first teaching job '89. They were mostly concurrent endeavors, not consecutive. Wikipedia
Yup, you're right. You can still serve in the National Guard while going to school or working in civilian life. Fixed.
Does this comments section look weird to you? I can't preview anymore and it seems to be missing a border or something. Plus the "no gratuitous cussing" line is missing.
It looks like Russia is still using those long convoys of trucks and soldiers. Still losing them too.
I think Ukraine has actually managed to get the attention of Russians who have avoided noticing the war in the past.
In a Russian vlog's comments section:
"The Russian military is now the second strongest military in Russia."
I wouldn't even know how to change the comments section "view" mode. I hope they fix it soon. I don't like it.
The "delete" option is missing as well.
No, wait, the "delete" option is back. (Maybe it was there all the time and I was just looking in the wrong place.)
Ah… The "delete" shows on one browser, but not on another. Well, I'm not going to worry 'bout why that is.
Well I've looked all over the place and can't find where any of my settings might be causing the wonky comments section. I have found that other people have had this problem in the past. Maybe it is like the italics problem and it will be fixed eventually.
Just poor quality control on the part of Blogger.
Meanwhile it looks like Putin may have a serious problem. The Ukrainians are still in Russia and aren't looking as If they are going anywhere anytime soon. In fact they seem to have snatched some of the Ahmat Battalion. Oops. And those guys come well armed, so I would imagine the AFU has acquired some nice equipment as well as bargaining chips.
The Russian authorities are saying around 76,000 Russians have been evacuated, but local officials are putting the number at 121,000. The locals say that the total number that should be evacuated should be more around 181,000.
Putin has moved some forces from the Kharkiv region to try to reinforce the Kursk region.
Yes, indeed. I've long thought that long Russian border would be a tempting target after Putin moved so many troops to Ukraine.
Yes, there are plenty of nice targets for them to go after.
I notice that Ukrainian authorities are beginning to talk openly about establishing a 'buffer zone' in Russia's Kursk region (and, by my projection, perhaps to other Russian oblasts to the south and west--depending on how this one works out). I don't believe I've seen any official government word on the subject, but it's been coming up.
I've heard the same. Sounds kind of like what Putin was saying about Kharkiv. Perhaps that's where they got the idea?
Or perhaps Ukraine just realized that they could.
It looks like the Biden administration is considering sending long range cruise missiles to Ukraine.
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), Chairman of the House Oversight Committee has officially put aside his long-standing efforts to impeach Joe Biden and has launched in its place an investigation of Governor Tim Walz's 'suspicious' associations with the Communist Chinese. WaPo
Lol!
Clearly House Republicans have too much time on their hands. Perhaps we need to give them more to do, such as address real issues that affect all of us.
It seems Trump has been playing fast and loose with Taylor Swift, implying support from her that may not exist.
Possibly a mistake.
Barack Obama still an amazing speaker.
I originally thought Michelle did every bit as good a job. I may have simply liked her speech better. (It was a bit more openly aggressive than his and that might have appealed to me.) But, I first ascribed that feeling to the fact that he was the professional politician, more practiced at giving just such a political speech. (Not losing sight of her long career as a Chicago lawyer.)
I think I missed the first part of Michelle's speech. Many of the commenters agreed with you. I will have to find it on YouTube. Doug Emhoff too. I missed all if his. I heard he was good as well.
I had actually listened to part of the roll call, which is usually not that interesting. But the delegates really got into it with enthusiasm.
I rather liked Obama's flannel joke about Walz.
Headline: Ukraine attacks Moscow in one of largest ever drone strikes on Russian capital
subcaption Air defenses shot down at least 11 drones.
Reuters
I was wanting to be there when Tim Walz came on, so I got on-air early. Walz got on stage late. It looked to me like it then developed as 'Black Night' at the convention. I think I understand that, but I'm not sure I agree with it, as purely political statement to Walz's White Middle America. Be that as it may…
It was my intro to Tim Walz. I thought he did good. Unlike JD Vance, he won't be an embarrassment to the ticket.
While not quite as eloquent as the Obama's Walz gave an impassioned pep talk that had the house roused up. Very much a normal guy who coached type of speech.
I listened to JD Vance respond to some of the comments about him and the DNC in general and found him slick and ready to say what he thinks will get him elected. His glowing recommendation for Trump was rather hypocritical given his earlier anti-Trump stance. It was obviously self-serving.
The arsonist is beginning to get uncomfortable in the face of some real heat from the fire he set.
"Former President Donald Trump responded Wednesday to the
Obamas’ heated criticism of him at the Democratic National
Convention, casting their 'personal' attacks as reason to justify
his own behavior.
"'Did you see Barack Hussein Obama last night taking little
shots? He was taking shots at your president and so was
Michelle,' Trump said at a campaign rally in Asheboro, North
Carolina. 'You know, they always say, “Sir, please stick to
policy, don’t get personal,” but they’re getting personal all
night, these people.'"
Politico
Roll! If you can't take the heat you should get out of the kitchen.
Good delivery.
∙ Intro to Kamala
∙ The Danger that is Trump
And then a pretty much standard-format acceptance speech,
much improved by her delivery. But it's standard-format for a reason, and her personalized revisions all seemed well done.
Given the nature of her rise to the nomination, probably just what she needed right now. And done well.
I cannot believe it! I fell asleep before she came on and woke up in the middle of it and so missed the majority of it. I will have to pull it up on YouTube. Dang! What I heard was good, though. That's what I get for staying up late last night listening to commentary.
CNBC has the core speech parred down to 38 minutes.
(You were especially interested in how your native governor played on his first national stage. It's understandable, a little pride of place.)
Kamala Harris' acceptance speech seems to have gotten under Trump's skin. ()NYT
RFK had dropped out and endorsed Trump. Two birds of a feather.
*sigh* That should read "has" dropped out.
I wish they would change this comments section back so I could at least preview. Sometimes those typos pop up better then.
She sounded like a president and if I hadn't already known I was going to vote for her I would have decided to do so after that speech. Now we just have to hope there are others in enough numbers who felt the same way.
"I wish they would change this comments section back…"
I'm eager for that as well, although I do think of it more along the lines of getting the damn thing fixed.
Trump has decided that he's now going to be a supporter of the women's abortion rights. NYT The Orange Man is going pro-choice. Maybe. Sorta. You know how he likes to obscure his meanings to avoid taking a solid policy position. (The Evangelicals may not allow for that this time. They may demand he stay the course on abortion. They may even bail on him if he doesn't stay the course. Probably won't, but some maybe. (I mean, what are they gonna do now, vote for Kamala, or just sit it out; damned unlikely.)
You were especially interested in how your native governor played on his first national stage.
Yes, I admit it, I was. He is our Mr. Smith.
"RFK ha[s] dropped out and endorsed Trump."
That's been expected every since it became clear that Kennedy's campaign was drawing more from Trump than from Biden (now Harris).
Kennedy has long been viewed as a stalking horse candidate for Trump's benefit. When it began instead to clearly benefit Harris, the game was dissolved.
Of course, now that the plan's been exposed, that might lose Trump some small support among voters who viewed him as at least a 'straight shooter', but who otherwise don't appreciate what they see as merely his 'antics'.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
♫♪The Devil went down to Georgia
He was lookin' for a soul to steal…♫♪
Trump unilaterally reignited his feud with Geo. Gov. Kemp the first week of August, going on a 10 minute rant over the 2020 'stolen' election and blaming Kemp for not saving Georgia's electoral votes for the Trump campaign. (The talking heads clucked their tongues about how stupid this was when Trump so obviously needs use of Kemp's local 'machine' to boost his turnout this time.)
Today, almost precisely three weeks later, Trump has unilaterally switched the nature of their relationship, declaring Kemp to be "GREAT" and the two of them to be good buddies. (AssociatedPress) And, of course, Trump will have full access to Kemp's highly rated turnout machine. No word yet from Kemp about having acquired a brand new good buddy, but he had said they were turning it on for Trump even after the early August insults. (But, what else is he gonna say for public consumption?)
Looks to me like Trump's getting spooked. A spooked Trump will start making mistakes. Arguably, some of his moves these past two weeks or so are evidence of just that.
Our State Fair just started on Thursday. I went there today. I was rather curious to see what, if any, political references I might find.
The first was at a T-Shirt shop where I found a shirt that read: VOTE Like Your DEMOCRACY DEPENDS on it
The words vote and democracy are in blue and the rest is in red. I bought it. I suppose it could appeal to people on both sides.
The second thing I noted was a booth with a "Never Walz" sign on it, which was apparently giving away fans with that message on them. The line wasn't very long, relatively speaking. I did see a few people with the fans walking around. But, again, in comparison to the crowds there weren't that many.
The third incident was when I was in line to spin the wheel at one of the radio stations, which was giving away swag. The lady in front of me was wearing a shirt that read: Cat Ladies for Harris. I told her I liked her shirt. We chatted a bit about the DNC (she liked the Obama's too).
The last was a truck parked in the worker's lot which had a "Trump 2024" sign on it.
For the most part what I saw was just a very, very large group of people having a nice day, enjoying the food and the festivities. But the Fair is young yet. It goes on for 2 weeks. We shall see.
oday, almost precisely three weeks later, Trump has unilaterally switched the nature of their relationship, declaring Kemp to be "GREAT" and the two of them to be good buddies.
Trump will tie himself in knots in order to gain some political advantage.
The DOJ is appealing to the 11th Circuit Court Judge Cannon's decision throwing out the concealed documents case. We'll see, will justice prevail?
Huh! Classified documents case. But they were concealed. Badly, it's true, but concealed nevertheless.
It seems France has detained Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, on various charges.
Russia is not happy. Not happy at all. Telegram is quite popular in Russia with various people, including the Russia military.
Now that the Trump v Harris has hit its autumn stretch I can see that Trump isn't reaching for anything new. He's merely returned to the insult campaign of 2016 and resurrected his greatest hits pretty much wholesale, lies that they were, (they worked once) and then tacked on his favorite crowd pleasers from 2020 and 2022.
He's still doing 'rally politics' (it worked once), and is now working in a new set of lies to update to 2024 (á la mode 2016 et al.) Nothing much new, but perhaps effective enough to win. It won once against Hillary and then lost once against Biden.
♪♫Two outta three ain't bad♫♪
Ukraine as well has settled back into an old and (fairly) stable pattern. Russia thinks they can win a brutal, slogging, war of attrition. Ukraine has no choice but to fight or die as an independent nation.
Have you heard about a trip Putin took to Mongolia, but wasn't arrested?
I had read 'bout that. But Mongolia has a population of 3.4 million people hanging on the outer edge of Russia; China on the other border. There's no damn way they're gonna arrest Putin. It was foolish to expect it.
Third night of protests in Israel. Netanyahu's gotta be feeling that pressure. That's worthy of note.
Polling here shows a very tight race between Harris and Trump. There are still too many people who think this is a normal election.
So if it ends up a tie at 269 each and goes to the House for a decision is Trump a shoe in because the House is controlled by Republicans?
As things stand now, that'd be my guess. But, the new House is sworn in on the 3ʳᵈ. Three days before the President/Veep get their electoral votes accepted. If the Democrats can take back the House, may come out Harris wins a House vote (not bloody likely, and Harris/Walz are spending beaucoup bucks on down ballot House races)
Blech!!!
Well, as I said the Harris/Walz campaign is spending beaucoup bucks on House races to try to change that 'blech' result. I ain't holdin' my breath on that one, but the Trump campaign doesn't have the bucks to spend there, not currently anyway. (No tellin' what money might flow in to them later.)
Liz Cheney is endorsing Harris and intends to vote for her. I don't know if that will make any difference.
I watched Kamala's first TV interview of her campaign. While dyed-in-the-wool Dems may have found it adequate, I thought it was spectacularly awful. Although I find in general she has the charisma of a damp rag, I was hoping she wouldn't sound especially dumb. Unfortunately that was a hope too far. On the question of what she would do on her first day in office she appeared to not understand the words "first day in office", or else had been instructed to trot out her bland campaign messaging in response to any question, no matter the relevance.
Why is it that no American presidential candidate seems to have a lot going on upstairs? Kamala is better than her barely alive predecessor, but that's not saying much. (Despite ole' Lee stickin' to his guns that Biden stepped down for the good of the country after careful consultation with his trusted advisors [lol], he was basically run out of town on a rail so the fact of Kamala being the new candidate is not exactly because of her glowing credentials).
On the other hand, Trump looks more embarrassing by the day. And to be honest, from my far remove it's telling that he simply doesn't get that much air time or column inches over here at the moment. Winning the presidency this time is going to take more than being a loud mouthed dick. In the internet age that sort of talent only gets eyeballs for a limited time before you need a fresh approach.
I find myself still wishing they both could lose, with the sole exception of the issue of support for Ukraine. On that score I am a Kamala supporter every day of the week. As far as I can see, Trump support goes hand in hand with indifference if not antagonism toward the Ukrainian cause. If any more evidence was needed, the DoJ indictment last week against Tenet Media makes it pretty clear that elements of right wing social media are being bought and paid for by Russia to promote an anti-Ukrainian narrative. That's enough for me to (at least temporarily) don some partisan blinkers ... Trump bad, Kamala good!
I am utterly amazed at how persistently stupid you can be once you decide to be stupid.
Biden withdrew because his own polling (and his most trusted advisors) convinced him he was gonna lose to Trump. He wasn't gonna turn around his trailing numbers after that disaster of an interview.
That's what I said would convince him, and only that. And that's what did it.
Editing error ↑↑; should read as "disaster of a debate performance".
Trump bad, Kamala good!
As one voter said, Kamala Harris' main advantage is that she is not Donald Trump.
Unfortunately, there are still too many American's who really think that this election should be decided upon policy issues. If it were a normal election, yes, that would be true, but it is not. Donald Trump has shown he is a real threat to our system of government. The very fact that you have people like the Cheney's coming out and endorsing and declaring they will vote for Harris has to say something.
On review of the morning headlines, it appears that a debate is expected between Trump and Harris this evening.
I believe I may try to watch that.
Harris' ‛surge’ in the polls, her honeymoon period, seems to over. She's kept the support she picked up those first few weeks (over Biden's ratings); she's not lost any of that back to Trump, yet. But she's more or less steady now, virtually tied with Trump. (Assuming the polls can be trusted this time--often when Trump's in the mix the polls don't votes that follow.) Tonight may move the needle either for her or against her, maybe measurably; maybe for real.
(I said early on the only thing I required of the Democrats this election cycle was that they nominate a candidate who could beat Trump in the general election. Tonight's debate will go a long way to telling us whether or not they've done that.)
Kid needs more coffee. ↑↑
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