October 30, 2024

Wednesday, October 30, 2024. Annette’s News Roundup.

Kamala is always busy.

The highpoint of yesterday was the closing argument made by the Vice President at the Ellipse in Washington, DC. Last night.

An enthusiastic crowd of 75,000 welcomed and supported the Democratic nominee, as she reconsecrated that sacred ground, bloodied and violated by Trump and his January 6 insurrection.

Those in attendance or watching by new or old technology were focused on the future. We long for January 20,2025, when we hope again to see the Vice President return to the Ellipse, as President Elect of the United States, ready to be inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States.

Kamala Harris’s historic speech was all encompassing and inspiring. Watch it here. 31 minutes.👇

Ads.

FYI, in NC and Texas, husbands and wives may be sharing a booth.

This is the ad all the dollars discussed above are spent on. 👇

The vice President’s Campaign is the first political campaign to advertise on the Las Vegas Sphere.

Touch to activate. 👇

About those checks.

With his signature on stimulus checks, Trump sent a gushing letter to 90 million people during the pandemic. Many people think the checks they got were from Trump’s own bank account.

Disavow this lie.

Watch the Vice President on this issue. 👇

Watch President Obama. 👇

Amplify what the Vice President and President Obama say.

Share it on your social media. Talk about it to people you meet in your daily life. You may create new Kamala voters.

The “Closing Argument” speech at the Ellipse.

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Joe is always busy.

The President voted.

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“Gaza will not benefit if Trump wins.”

“Extreme Danger”: Harris Earns a Stunning Endorsement Over Trump | The New Republic

“Extreme Danger”: Harris Earns a Stunning Endorsement Over Trump | The New Republic

Kamala Harris has earned an eleventh-hour show of support from Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim community leaders.

More than 100 Arizona Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and progressive Democrats and community leaders have signed a letter making the case for those reluctant to support Kamala Harris against Donald Trump.

“We know that many in our communities are resistant to vote for Kamala Harris because of the Biden administration’s complicity in the genocide,” the letter, published Thursday night, reads.

“Some of us have lost many family members in Gaza and Lebanon. We respect those who feel they simply can’t vote for a member of the administration that sent the bombs that may have killed their loved ones,” the letter continued. “As we consider the full situation carefully, however, we conclude that voting for Kamala Harris is the best option for the Palestinian cause and all of our communities.”

The letter describes an “awful situation where only flawed choices are available.”

“In our view, it is crystal clear that allowing the fascist Donald Trump to become President again would be the worst possible outcome for the Palestinian people. A Trump win would be an extreme danger to Muslims in our country, all immigrants, and the American pro-Palestine movement,” the letter states.

The letter includes several reasons why the coalition believes Trump would be far worse for Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, and all those organizing for Palestinians. The writers cite Trump’s bloodthirsty remark last week about how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should “go further” in Gaza, while criticizing President Joe Biden for “holding him back.” At the time, Trump hailed Netanyahu for doing a “good job” and voiced his support for expanding military operations into Lebanon, where Israel has killed at least 1,800 people in the past five weeks alone.

The letter also notes Trump’s ties to Zionist Republican megadonor Miriam Adelson, who is pushing for Trump to allow Israel to illegally annex the West Bank. Israel has killed 165 children in the occupied West Bank in the last year.

“Voting for Harris is not a personal endorsement of her or of the policy decisions of the administration in which she served. It’s an assessment of the best possible option to continue fighting for an end to the genocide, a free Palestine, and all else that we hold dear,” the letter says, asking others to place the immediate needs of their communities over their dissatisfaction with Harris. The group dismissed third-party candidates such as Jill Stein, saying that voting for them could only “make Donald Trump president.” (The New Republic)

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When Misogyny comes out in full glory, so too does love.

Elon Musk created America PAC to help Donald Trump win the presidential election. Through the end of September, Musk spent $75 million to fund the PAC's activities. More recently, Musk began giving away $1 million per day to registered voters who signed a petition sponsored by America PAC — even though such an offer likely violated federal law. The total amount Musk will spend on America PAC will almost certainly reach nine figures.

Musk seized the handle @America on X to promote America PAC's activities supporting Trump and has repeatedly amplified the account.

On Friday afternoon, America PAC posted a video ad attacking Trump's opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. "America really can't afford a 'C-Word' in the White House right now," America PAC posted, adding a laughing emoji. "Kamala Harris is a ‘C word,’" the narrator of the ad says. "You heard that right. A big ole ‘C word.’"

The "joke" of the ad is that Harris is a "communist." Of course, Harris is not a communist. And the ad makes no effort to show she is a communist. The line is only included as a pretext to repeatedly use a crass, misogynistic slur against Harris.

The ad had no apparent impact on the relationship between Musk and the Trump campaign, which coordinates directly with America PAC. On Sunday night, Musk was featured at Trump's high-profile rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

The event featured more sexist attacks on Harris. Businessman Grant Cardone appeared before Trump and described Harris as a prostitute. Cardone said that Harris "and her pimp handlers will destroy our country."

Trump has used a variety of gendered insults to attack Harris during the campaign. On Fox News, Trump said that world leaders would "look at" Harris and use her "like a play toy," adding "I don’t want to say as to why. But a lot of people understand it." On Truth Social, Trump has targeted Harris with crude sexual insults, suggesting her career is based on sexual favors. In August, the Associated Press reported that Trump refers to Harris as a "bitch" in private, citing two sources.

On Monday, America PAC deleted the ad attacking Harris from X. Neither America PAC nor Musk explained — or even acknowledged — the ad's removal from the platform. As of Monday afternoon, the ad remains available on America PAC's Facebook account.

Trump called on Samantha Bee to be fired for using the C-word

In 2018, comedian Samantha Bee used the C-word on her TBS show to describe Ivanka Trump and her complicity in the Trump administration's child separation policy. Bee acknowledged that her words were inappropriate and apologized. Trump nevertheless called on Bee to be fired.

Over the years, several women have accused Trump of verbally attacking them with the C-word. In 2016, former Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Jennifer Lin said that, after she wrote an article about Trump's Atlantic City business dealings in 1988, Trump called her and told her she had "shit for brains." After that call, Lin alleges that Trump called her editor and "referred to me as the c-word." Lin's editor, Craig Stock, confirmed Lin's story to CNN.

In 2023, Jessica Leeds, who alleges Trump assaulted her on an airplane in the 1970s, testified under oath in a defamation trial against Trump that, two years after the alleged assault, Trump recognized her and called her "that c*** from the airplane."

Roberta Kaplan, an attorney, said that "Donald Trump used a coded expression to call her the C-word" at the conclusion of a deposition. "See you next Tuesday," Trump said, using a thinly veiled code for the C-word.

Musk's ad concludes with a similar code: "See you nationwide, Tuesday."

Media largely ignores Musk's ad

Unlike Musk, Bee was not spending tens of millions of dollars supporting a presidential candidate, did not have billions of dollars in federal contracts, and was not the CEO of a public company. Nevertheless, within 24 hours, her comments were covered by nearly every major media outlet, including the Associated Press, the LA Times, CNN, CNBC, and many others.

Days after Musk launched his crude attack on Harris, none of those outlets has covered the story. The repeated use of the C-word by Musk's PAC has received almost no coverage, meriting only brief items from ABC News, the Washington Post, and a few online outlets. Late Monday, the New York Times mentioned the ad as part of a larger story, incorrectly reporting that it was no longer available online. (Judd Legum, Popular Information, Substack).

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There are at least two silent votes happening in this election: one comes from voters who bark, “Not that woman.” Sometimes they are less polite too. The C-word Crowd.

But there are these voters too. 👇

I bet we outnumber the haters.

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The Bezos effect.

'Washington Post' flooded by cancellations after Bezos' non-endorsement decision : NPR

'Washington Post' flooded by cancellations after Bezos' non-endorsement decision : NPR

Over 200,000 people canceled their subscriptions in the first few days following news that The Washington Post would not endorse any presidential candidate.

The hard truth: Americans don’t trust the news media.

Opinion piece by Jeff Bezos, owner of The Washington Post.

In the annual public surveys about trust and reputation, journalists and the media have regularly fallen near the very bottom, often just above Congress. But in this year’s Gallup poll, we have managed to fall below Congress. Our profession is now the least trusted of all. Something we are doing is clearly not working.

Let me give an analogy. Voting machines must meet two requirements. They must count the vote accurately, and people must believe they count the vote accurately. The second requirement is distinct from and just as important as the first.

Likewise with newspapers. We must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement. Most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn’t see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose. Reality is an undefeated champion. It would be easy to blame others for our long and continuing fall in credibility (and, therefore, decline in impact), but a victim mentality will not help. Complaining is not a strategy. We must work harder to control what we can control to increase our credibility.

Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election. No undecided voters in Pennsylvania are going to say, “I’m going with Newspaper A’s endorsement.” None.

What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence.

Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one.

Eugene Meyer, publisher of The Washington Post from 1933 to 1946, thought the same, and he was right. By itself, declining to endorse presidential candidates is not enough to move us very far up the trust scale, but it’s a meaningful step in the right direction.

I wish we had made the change earlier than we did, in a moment further from the election and the emotions around it. That was inadequate planning, and not some intentional strategy.

I would also like to be clear that no quid pro quo of any kind is at work here. Neither campaign nor candidate was consulted or informed at any level or in any way about this decision. It was made entirely internally.

Dave Limp, the chief executive of one of my companies, Blue Origin, met with former president Donald Trump on the day of our announcement. I sighed when I found out, because I knew it would provide ammunition to those who would like to frame this as anything other than a principled decision. But the fact is, I didn’t know about the meeting beforehand. Even Limp didn’t know about it in advance; the meeting was scheduled quickly that morning. There is no connection between it and our decision on presidential endorsements, and any suggestion otherwise is false.

When it comes to the appearance of conflict, I am not an ideal owner of The Post.

Every day, somewhere, some Amazon executive or Blue Origin executive or someone from the other philanthropies and companies I own or invest in is meeting with government officials. I once wrote that The Post is a “complexifier” for me. It is, but it turns out I’m also a complexifier for The Post.

You can see my wealth and business interests as a bulwark against intimidation, or you can see them as a web of conflicting interests. Only my own principles can tip the balance from one to the other.

I assure you that my views here are, in fact, principled, and I believe my track record as owner of The Post since 2013 backs this up. You are of course free to make your own determination, but I challenge you to find one instance in those 11 years where I have prevailed upon anyone at The Post in favor of my own interests. It hasn’t happened.

Lack of credibility isn’t unique to The Post. Our brethren newspapers have the same issue. And it’s a problem not only for media, but also for the nation. Many people are turning to off-the-cuff podcasts, inaccurate social media posts and other unverified news sources, which can quickly spread misinformation and deepen divisions.

The Washington Post and the New York Times win prizes, but increasingly we talk only to a certain elite. More and more, we talk to ourselves. (It wasn’t always this way — in the 1990s we achieved 80 percent household penetration in the D.C. metro area.)

While I do not and will not push my personal interest, I will also not allow this paper to stay on autopilot and fade into irrelevance — overtaken by unresearched podcasts and social media barbs — not without a fight. It’s too important. The stakes are too high.

Now more than ever the world needs a credible, trusted, independent voice, and where better for that voice to originate than the capital city of the most important country in the world? To win this fight, we will have to exercise new muscles. Some changes will be a return to the past, and some will be new inventions. Criticism will be part and parcel of anything new, of course. This is the way of the world.

None of this will be easy, but it will be worth it. I am so grateful to be part of this endeavor.

Many of the finest journalists you’ll find anywhere work at The Washington Post, and they work painstakingly every day to get to the truth. They deserve to be believed. (Published in The Washington Post).

Washington Post Editorial Board Member Molly Roberts in her resignation letter.

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Endorsements.

Musk daughter.

Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, Democratic candidate for Senator from Florida, was born in Ecuador.

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Trump is always crazy.

Trump is deranged and dangerous.

As expected. So many people Trump doesn’t know.

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Your Daily Reminder.

Trump is a convicted felon.

On May 30th, he was found guilty on 34 felony counts by the unanimous vote of 12 ordinary citizens.

The Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump was scheduled to be sentenced on July 11th and September 18th. He will now be sentenced on November 26.

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One of our key team leaders says it will be all right.