Another another another another another another another another another "another Humpday Shrapnel post" post post post post post post post post

News recaps in digestible bites, mid week

1. During an event with Liz Cheney yesterday, Kamala Harris made the kind of cryptic remark that chills me to my core. When a rapid partisan in her crowd called for Donald Trump to be locked up, Harris responded — as AP here tells us she often does, though this was my first time hearing it — “The courts will take care of that. We’ll take care of November.”

   Given the propensity of modern day Democrats to deploy lawfare — not only against political opponents, but against Republicans with selfie sticks who posed no actualy threat to anyone, yet whose incarcerations were useful as a show of ideological force post 2020’s contentious election — Harris’ remarks, punctuated with a laugh that differs in tone from her trademark insecure cackle, are worrisome.

   I have every reason in the world to believe that if Trump loses the election in less than two weeks, Democrats and a Deep State uniparty army who are somehow able to stem the populist momentum that has Trump the clear favorite (as of today) in order to pull an unpopular Harris over the finish line, will without hesitation put the former President in prison — and let him die there. And our great national experiment will be over in all but name.

2. In 1981, the baseball world was given a gift in the person of a 20-year-old Mexican-born Weeble, Fernando Valenzuela, whose odd windup and unhittable screwball took the Major Leagues by storm — propelling him to an 8-0 start with a 0.50 ERA on his way to winning the National League Rookie of the Year and Cy Young awards. To top off a magical season, his Los Angeles Dodgers won the World Series, and Valenzuela finished 3-1 in the post season. “Fernandomania” was a very real and very exciting thing, for those who were around to see it; and Fernando Valenzuela, who died Tuesday at the age of 63, will always have a place in the hearts of baseball fans because of it, and because of the respect he showed the game. Rest in peace, Fernando.

   

3. Dennis Prager takes us inside the mind (such as it is) of a Never Trumper. In this case, the Never Trumper is Bret Stephens of the New York Times, who as a “conservative” explains in a column with Gail Collins why he’ll be voting for Kamala Harris this year.

   The conservative case for Maoism!

   Prager does an excellent job of pointing out that Stephens — whom he says he respects, while I am under no such constraint — is engaging in the worst kind of narcissism, whereby he’s willing to allow the country (and potentially even the world) to devolve into total chaos just so he can show us all just how much he dislikes Donald Trump’s “character.”

   That is to say, Stephens — who, as a sinecured token dandy deployed to give the New York Times “bipartisan” cover, will likely remain unaffected by any continued downturn of the economy — is willing to vote for someone he knowingly admits will be a disaster for both the country and his fellow citizens, most of whom don’t share the luxury of his employment security, nor the luxury of his onanistic self-importance. But he doesn’t care. Trump to him is a crass class traitor, and Stephens is the kind of Republican who can forgive corporate malfeasance or the Chamber of Commerce’s unrelenting desire for imported low-cost labor; but what he will never accept is allowing himself to be actively and voluntarily represented by someone with a gold toilet and a taste for Big Macs.

   Trump is a Wharton grad. But he doesn’t always act like it. His “superiority” — such as it is — is festooned in bluster and often offered with a wink, not couched in the finest whiskeys or greater bed sheet thread counts. Trump may have come from money, but he isn’t really old money. Yet he’s no Silas Lapham, either. And because he appeals a little too much to the sensibilities of the filthies — unapologetically — when what he should be doing, and what I’m sure Stephens fancies himself as doing oftentimes, is pity the poor workaday beasts and try to teach them how to better invest in markets and set up tax shelters, the snobs in the Gatsby crowd will never forgive him.

   You really don’t hate these people enough. But trust me: they hate you plenty.

4. I’m not sure exactly when it will air, but Trump is going to appear on the Joe Rogan podcast, which a lot of political observers on the right side of the spectrum are touting as a huge coup — and the media get that is going to put Trump solidly over the top in this election.

   Rogan — an erstwhile Bernie Bro — has been red-pilled somewhat over the last four years, first by Covid but increasingly by the excesses of the left, especially as it pertains to its authoritarian impulse to control speech and thought; so he’s certainly open to Trump’s style of populism, and seems even to be a Trump leaner.

   That all said, Trump has the clear momentum. And Rogan’s longform show — he’ll often go 2-3 hours — will create the possibility for edited soundbites that may not work to the notoriously candid Trump’s advantage as he closes.

   It’s true that, historically, Trump has been a strong finisher. But here, is he Ted Williams playing both games of the double header on the season’s final day, upping his batting average to .406 instead of holding on to .400 as a rounding error (what legendary balls that guy had, by the way!); or is he Joe Pisarcik muffing a handoff to Larry Csonka, when all he had to do was take a knee and go have a hot shower?

   

5. So. We know Republicans are doing better than they do historically in early voting thus far, especially in key swing states. But we’re being cautioned not to take away too much from the numbers.

   Ok. Fine. But how does it all work? Is there nothing we can glean from the early GOP voter surge?

   Glad you asked! Take it away, Larry Schweikart! (Read the whole thread.)

6. Adam Kinzinger and guns don’t mix. Nor should they. What a fucking beta weenie. Seriously. Every time I think I can’t hold him in even more contempt, the guy is around to put some lead into a reporter.

   Incidentally, what does being “Never Trump” and a “true conservative,” as Kinzinger often fancies himself, have to do with campaigning for a Democratic Senate candidate.

   If I didn’t know better, I’d think Kinzinger’s whole shtick — like Liz Cheney’s — is just a show of how miserable is his character, especially with how poorly he handles rejection.

   The Federalist’s Sean Davis has thoughts:

   

7. The left is shopping oppo research on Trump — even after Jeffrey Goldberg’s latest effort was torn to shreds inside of an hour by everyone involved —and it’s likely that as the Democrats get increasingly desperate, they’ll find some low-character chode to print an unverified, salacious story that paints Trump in a very bad light. That story will then be “covered” by some of the major outlets, so that it can be laundered into the mainstream without being directly attributable to one of the news organizations supposedly worried about its reputation for journalistic integrity.

   This is a playbook we’ve seen before. Trump has been given the media equivalent of an ongoing invasive colonoscopy for about 9 years now, nonstop. There’s nothing new out there save new lies the Democrats will hope take a few weeks to fall apart and prove themselves hoaxes.

   Remember that. Don’t let them steal this one from you.

   ****

   Buy me a cup of coffee? Lunch? A sports car? Or buy me some beer. I avoid prescription opioids.