A good piece above. Meanwhile, back at Semafor the gossip train goes where it can:

A moment of clarity with TomI(!!):

The repeated rounds of deranged longtime right-wing operators, bigots and weirdos (Rove, Vivek, now this) all lining up to beg the Trump campaign on TV to stop talking about race and get serious for days, only to watch them continue to fúck up is absolutely hysterical to me.

Edited August 3, 20241 yr by Vee

Vladimir Kara-Murza, a journalist, activist and filmmaker, was one of the men freed whose family was at the WH in those videos - his wife and two children speak to him in the clips. I'm not sure he was present in the video at the tarmac the other night but he has been released. He was a protege of the late Boris Nemtsov, and like Nemtsov Putin attempted to assassinate him - twice, with poison.

I'd love to believe he's right.

 

Hilarious:

 

8 hours ago, Vee said:

I know what DRW will say, but there is no way Trump is up that far in PA. This is Nate skewing himself.

Thanks for the Enten clip. The attempts at pushback were amusing. He is just a fundamentally awkward and deeply unlikeable person. His newest line about how Harris has a social media team who were bullied in school tells you how malevolent and insecure he is.

I wouldn't claim he is up that much in PA. I do think it will be very tight in all those states and I won't be surprised if he wins them, but it won't be by more than a point or two. I just hope that type of polling doesn't influence a Shapiro choice, which seems like more and more of a bad bet.

13 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

I wouldn't claim he is up that much in PA. I do think it will be very tight in all those states and I won't be surprised if he wins them, but it won't be by more than a point or two. I just hope that type of polling doesn't influence a Shapiro choice, which seems like more and more of a bad bet.

I don't think he will win most of them, if any. And I still think Shapiro is a very solid choice and impressive voice with normie non-online voters, but I would still probably prefer one of the others. But we'll see.

I didn't see this up, so here's the very in-depth WSJ story on the prisoner swap. Non-paywalled.

1 hour ago, Vee said:

I don't think he will win most of them, if any. And I still think Shapiro is a very solid choice and impressive voice with normie non-online voters, but I would still probably prefer one of the others. But we'll see.

I don't know what will happen but since you seemed to suggest I thought he was going to win big in PA, I was saying I think if he does it will just be by a few points. 

There's just too much for me surrounding Shapiro - the cover up stuff stinks of a lot of the Clinton era baggage which rightly or wrongly will overshadow him.

5 hours ago, Vee said:

I didn't see this up, so here's the very in-depth WSJ story on the prisoner swap. Non-paywalled.

Thank you for sharing the non-paywall link. Lately I've been struggling to read anything that is not behind a pay wall.

Dovere is often a gossip, but the story is worthwhile:

 

 

"And that is Dallas."

I'll say this much for VP Harris and her campaign team: at least they've learned to take off their proverbial gloves.  All that that "we go high" business was doing for Democrats was putting them on a bridge to nowhere.

Edited August 3, 20241 yr by Khan

Trump and Vance are the perfect cringe-duet of triggering the worst from one-another. Trump made the biggest mistake in picking someone even more narcissistic than him. Every time Vance opens his mouth, Trump's chances are slimming. 

1 hour ago, Khan said:

"And that is Dallas."

I'll say this much for VP Harris and her campaign team: at least they've learned to take off their proverbial gloves.  All that that "we go high" business was doing for Democrats was putting them on a bridge to nowhere.

Taking the high road only works if your opponent has an ounce of decency and morals, and I think it's painfully obvious to everyone now that the GOP has thrown all that overboard a long time ago.

 

Reuters on Harris making a play for the Sun Belt state path, which is totally doable IMO.

Walz has also cleared his schedule and will allegedly be meeting with Harris tomorrow. But that goes for most of them this weekend.