☕️ BUMPED ☙ Friday, August 23, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

DNC mercifully ends; lackluster Kamala speech; Kennedy prepares for big announcement; RFJ also gets Supreme Court okay for lawsuit; super yacht news; FBI raids disinformers; more great election news.

Good morning, C&C, it’s finally Friday! Your essential news roundup includes: the DNC is finally over and the real campaign can begin; you didn’t miss anything except a bad concert and democrat pep rally; Plan B prepares for ‘close’ race and unenthusiastic swing-state voters; Act III kicks off with bump-deleting Kennedy endorsement (maybe); RFK’s censorship lawsuit gets Supreme Court green light; baffling super yacht sinking becomes more mysterious; FBI is on a raid spree to stop Russian election disinformation in the form of criticism of U.S. government foreign policy; and more good election security news as Supreme Court green lights Arizona proof-of-citizenship law.

🗞💬 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 💬🗞

🔥🔥 Thank goodness, it’s finally over. Last night’s DNC delighted corporate media, presumably since presidential selectee “Plan B” successfully read her teleprompter speech without getting wedged into one of her notorious, psychedelic verbal death loops, such as rambling about how time always passes the present, but the present is also part of time, so time and the present pass, together, in the present sense of time, hahahaha!, and so forth.

On the plus side, the evening was the most patriotic Democrats have been in decades. They played “Born in the USA” and sang along with the Dixie Chicks belting out the National Anthem, while the party’s compliant Democrat partisans frenziedly waved little American flags till sweat poured down their well-fed faces.

The most impressive aspect of last night’s show —and it was fairly described as a show, give all the celebrity appearances— was how seamlessly Democrats have pivoted from the oppressive Dark Brandon saves Democracy theme to the voter-friendly Kamala’s Ode to Joy. I think the shift means the Democrats are pitching the entire 2024 campaign at independents, who at this point would rather watch silly-kitten TikToks than hear any more about how democracy is in hospice care.

It boiled down to one clear objective: Try not to look crazy!

Kamala’s telepromptered speech was as insubstantial and smelly as methane gas. Corporate media’s many articles struggled to describe her main points, apart from generalities like something about how abortion rights are directly connected to the country’s economic prosperity. Perhaps sacrificially. She didn’t say.

Curiously, VP Cackle was most specific when discussing the Israel/Gaza war. She delivered a vigorous defense of Israel and its right to defend itself from barbarism and chaos at its border (the irony evaporated before anyone noticed), and pledged unlimited military support.

But she also tried to thread the pro-Palestine needle by gushing over the plight of the Gazans, promising them a peace deal and some self-determination. The audience was delirious, but it would be, since it’s all activists, partisans, and conservative moles pretending to be zany liberals.

Never was the critical importance of the independent voter more starkly highlighted. Democrat voters will literally vote for anyone on the ticket, they don’t care (“it’s not Trump!”). They don’t need campaigning. The campaign is now aimed at the middle, and more specifically, aimed at seven tossup states: Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and possibly Michigan.

🔥 The balloons have dropped and the show has ended. Now the real campaign starts. Politico ran a story this morning headlined, “‘The honeymoon’s inevitably going to end’: Harris dives into a critical stretch of the election.” The sub-headline added, “Democrats recognize that the election remains far too close for comfort.”

Party officials know there is a gap between the gushing enthusiasm at their political convention and how unenthusiastic normal people are feeling about the Selectee-in-Chief:

Don’t expect to ever get any details about a Kamala Administration. As Politico explained, many Democrats believe that Harris “need not define her policy positions,” because swing votes aren’t based on platforms. Don’t call them low-information. Instead, Politico unsurprisingly explained, “the remaining 74 days of the campaign may hinge more on drawing sharp contrasts with Trump.”

Don’t act crazy, and call Trump ‘weird.’ That’s the whole plan.

🔥🔥 Act III begins. The New York Times ran a story yesterday headined, “Kennedy Withdraws From Presidential Contest in Arizona.” Yesterday, right after qualifying for the Arizona ballot, Kennedy sent them a “nevermind.” The Times petulantly noted that Arizona’s Secretary of State’s office had worked over the weekend to count his signatures. So it’s more or less official—Kennedy is out. But now what?

Yesterday, Trump’s campaign teased a “special guest” who will attend the President’s Glendale, Arizona rally today. Might that special guest’s name rhyme with “Mennedy?” Dems are worried it will. CNN, this morning:

The Wall Street Journal:

The Daily Beast:

We shall see whether RFK’s endorsement, assuming it happens, changes the electoral calculus. But either way, it will change the narrative, stomping on whatever post-Convention bounce Kamala might have expected.

I have my doubts whether the timing of Kennedy’s departure was completely coincidental.

🔥 In more good RFK news, MSN (citing the Daily Caller) ran an op-ed about a story completely ignored by corporate media, headlined “Judge Finds RFK Jr. Can Bring Censorship Lawsuit Against Biden Admin After Supreme Court Rejects States' Challenge.”

The Supreme Court disappointed many folks earlier this year by vacating an anti-censorship preliminary injunction, because the plaintiffs in Missouri v. Biden failed to show direct censorship, instead of sneaky government euphemisms and official “suggestions” to take down posts that weren’t really suggestions.

But Kennedy separately filed a companion case, and the evidence in his case is clearer than was the evidence in Missouri. Kennedy’s emails show the government being much more obvious about wanting his anti-vaccine posts deleted.

Yesterday, Louisiana Judge Terry Doughty found that Kennedy’s case meets the new Supreme Court “direct censorship”’ standard and may move forward toward a new injunction. Progress.

⛵ The manufacturer of that sunken superyacht isn’t buying the freak waterspout theory. Fox News reported yesterday, “Yacht maker says 'indescribable' crew errors led to fatal Sicily shipwreck.”

Bodies of five of the six missing folks have so far been recovered, including the British billionaire’s, quieting speculation he staged his own death for some reason. But the mysterious sinking remains unexplained, and the CEO of the yacht building company has weighed in. The ‘freak waterspout’ theory looks much less likely now, too.

In short, the yachtmaker said the ship was already tried and true though worse weather than the quick thunderstorm during which the Bayesian sank. He doesn’t know, of course, but he assumed that the crew did everything possible wrong: left the keel up, left the boat anchored, and left all the doors and hatches open, in spite of clear weather reports ahead of the storm.

The builder’s suggestion, I think, is that a strong gust pushed the Bayesian against its anchor just the right way so that it heeled over without benefit of the keel’s stability. It started taking on water, and that was that. Glub.

It’s only a theory and still requires inexplicable and equally mysterious amounts of crew error. Meaning it remains a baffling, 2024-style conundrum.

🔥🔥 Yesterday, amidst all the fireworks from Britain as its government cracks down on insults and mean language, the New York Times ran a troubling domestic story headlined, “U.S. Investigating Americans Who Worked With Russian State Television.” By “investigating,” the Times meant “raided the homes of,” and I’ll give you one guess which three-letter agency pulled off the raids.

This month, F.B.I. agents raided the homes of Scott Ritter, a former United Nations weapons inspector and vocal critic of American foreign policy, especially on Ukraine, and Dimitri K. Simes, one of President Trump’s 2016 campaign advisors.

No charges were announced against either man.

Citing an anonymous DOJ official, the Times promised more raids are expected soon, and criminal charges “are also possible.” According to the source, the government is considering potential violations of Russian sanctions laws and FARA violations. FARA is a law requiring disclosure of any lobbying for foreign governments, which is only ever charged against conservatives and definitely not people whose first name rhymes with ‘Bunter.’

Proof of lobbying requires proving the defendant got paid. Presumably, evidence of payment is what the FBI is looking for to make its FARA claims stick. Mr. Simes said not only was his home raided, but all his bank accounts except where he gets his Social Security have been frozen. He also said the FBI confiscated all his Russian artwork.

Viewed in the best light, the FBI plans to argue Simes got artwork as payment for criticizing the U.S. government, or something.

For his part, Ritter said he’s only ever been paid for articles he wrote for Russia Today, receiving between $150 and $300 apiece, which he said was the going rate for all contributors. That’s probably why they invoked the specter of sanctions violations as a backup theory.

Just like during the pandemic, it’s more censorship. Two weeks ago, the Director of National Intelligence publicly accused some American citizens of purposely helping Russia influence the elections, by “posting content on social media, writing for various websites with overt and covert ties to the Russian government, and conducting other media efforts.”

But don’t worry! They are only after disinformers:

The only specific disinformation that the Times identified as being allegedly spread by Russian-influenced Americans were posts “depicting the United States and its allies as a hegemonic power bent on world domination.”

That broad disinformation definition puts C&C right in the crosshairs too. But I will stop accusing the government when it stops being a hegemonic power bent on world domination. Please note that nobody’s paying me for posts, I have no Russian artwork, I don’t have Putin’s cell phone number, and I have never been to Moscow. No need to raid me.

🔥 NPR ran some more great election security news yesterday headlined, “Supreme Court grants GOP bid to require citizenship proof for some Arizona voters.” You’ll recall that Arizona is one of the tossup states.

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court granted part of Arizona’s appeal, allowing the state to enforce — for now — a law requiring state voter registration forms lacking proof of U.S. citizenship to be rejected.

RNC Chairman Michael Whatley called the Supreme Court’s ruling “a major victory for election integrity that upholds a simple principle: American elections must be decided by American citizens.” Seems reasonable.

The lawsuit is part of a long legal battle that started in 2013, when the pre-Trump Supreme Court required Arizona to use, as an alternative, the federal voter registration form, which only requires checking a citizenship box under penalty of perjury.

To my knowledge, no one has ever been prosecuted for falsely checking that box.

Anyway, in 2022, Arizona’s Republican-majority legislature passed a new law, requiring documentation of citizenship even when using the federal form, and even though the citizenship box was checked. Liberals and Biden’s DOJ sued Arizona faster than you can say “joyful and weird.” The federal district court sided with the liberals and stayed the law.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court unstayed the law, or at least the part of the law requiring proof of citizenship. I call it, “proof of life at the Supreme Court.”

Onwards!

Have a fantastic Friday! Tomorrow we’ll discuss whatever Kennedy decided to do, along with all the other essential news you need to know, so that you can safely ignore lying corporate media.

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