ARA: the Presidents

undeniable

Kelly, that guy from western New York, asked several questions, two about the Presidents.

One scenario I had in mind when Biden was elected was that he would serve two years–essentially steward the country through the worst of COVID and get the economic recovery going–and then step down, making Harris President. Should he have done so? Would Harris have done better as an incumbent?

One thing I know about Joe Biden is that he is a traditionalist regarding the presidency. Barring extraordinary circumstances, such as severe illness, he would never serve two years and then resign. Only one president in our history resigned from office: Richard Nixon in 1974, less than two years after Joe became the US senator from Delaware.

Moreover, if he had announced too early that he would quit after two, any chance of his agenda being acted upon would have been almost impossible to achieve. I suppose he could have done it secretly and then announced it after the midterms of 2022.

However, completing a president’s agenda in the best situations takes time. There are negotiations to be had, and much of what he achieved was in the latter half of his term. I noticed that FOTUS felt entitled to do everything on Day One, but he didn’t even have his cabinet in place on January 21st.

Secondly, I don’t think he would have ceded the presidency to Kamala Harris in 2022. Many people, including me, thought she was a terrible candidate when she ran for president in 2020. Heck, her campaign didn’t even make it to the election year; she started it in 2019 and ended it in 2019.

HHH redux

Moreover, in 2022, she would have been burdened by immigration and inflation worse than in 2024. Conversely, the Biden support for Israel in the Gaza war harmed her greatly. It would have been like Hubert Humphrey running against LBJ’s Vietnam War in 1968; it would have been even more difficult for Kamala to separate herself from Joe.

She was a much better candidate than I anticipated when she ran in 2024. Still, many people hated the process of her becoming the Democratic nominee; even people I know IRL, who probably voted for her, were appalled by the manner in which she became the pick.

I have intimated before that it would have been a better choice for Joe to decide to be a one-term president much earlier. There have been willing, “successful” one-term presidents before. The most noteworthy in terms of his agenda was James Knox Polk (1845-1849), who managed to win the Mexican War and expand our manifest destiny. I’m not saying this is good, merely that he was triumphant at it.

His inner circle ultimately served him poorly by trying to manage his physical decline. As Dean Phillips suggested, Biden should have stepped down around July 2023. Then, there would have been a primary process that most Democrats would have embraced.

(BTW,  my candidate would have probably been Pete Buttigieg because he spoke so well to the rightwing news crowd, going on their shows regularly; he was like the “FOX whisperer.”)

All that said, I’m not sure that ANYONE could have beaten FOTUS unless the man were indicted shortly after January 2021. Jack Smith’s much-too-late report proves clearly that he was the felon we all knew he was. “But for [his] election and imminent return to the presidency, the office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial,” the report states.

AotD

On November 22, 2024, Senator John Fetterman told ABC This Week’s Jon Karl: “You have a singular political talent [in FOTUS]. It’s undeniable. …if you’re not afraid to say all of those things, or, and after you survived an assassination, you literally were shot in your head and had the presence of mind to respond, ‘fight, fight, fight.’

“I was driving home from Indiana County (PA) at nine o’clock, and there was a Trump superstore on the side of a road, nine o’clock on Friday night, and people are buying swag. And that really crystallized in, at the assassination [attempt]… the day or two later, you start seeing people wearing shirts with that iconic picture. And, you know, the energy and the anger and, it’s like, wow, I really thought — in fact, I thought that might be ball game.'”

So, FOTUS has mastered the Art of the Deal, in which January 6, 2021, was a stroll through the Capitol. His pardon of the J6 insurrectionists was the final nail in the gaslighting coffin.

“They’re eating their cats” is merely Orange hyperbole. Yet I read how he picks out the lies and errors of others. Joe LIED about not pardoning Hunter. He was wrong about the fact that the Afghan Taliban wouldn’t take over Afghanistan that quickly.

Part of the reason is that many Americans, especially men, preferred Ben Shapiro, “Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson, YouTube, and X over the mainstream media,” where Biden and Harris largely operated.  

Perhaps it’s a function of what author Jianwei Xun, in his book about FOTUS and Musk, calls Hypnocracy, a “new form of social control… that… induces a permanent functional trance through algorithmic modulation of collective consciousness… In the era of post-truth and artificial intelligence, power no longer operates through repression but through the manipulation of reality perception.” 

When this question came in, my daughter and I watched the 2005 Charlie the Chocolate Factory movie with Johnny Depp. She suggested that the children that Willy Wonka selected were like FOTUS. Much of the American public was like the indulgent parents who capitulated to their noisy brats.

BHO

What WERE 45 and Obama saying to one another at President Carter’s funeral, anyway?!

“Donald, you know that I think you’re a dipwad. But you’re gonna be president again, much to my consternation. [FOTUS laughs]. So you’re in ‘the club.’ Let’s get together and have a rational conversation somewhere about why you shouldn’t undermine the Panama Canal treaty or blow up NATO by seizing  Greenland and threatening Canada. Hey, if these actions don’t happen, people will think all of this is bluster and that you’ve ‘grown’ into the presidency. This could help your historical reputation!”

A ‘Jezebel spirit’?

djt – “an impetuous child”

I saw this AP story, “What’s a ‘Jezebel spirit’? Some Christians use the term to paint Kamala Harris with a demonic brush.” And you wonder why many people steer clear of “some Christians.”

“Christian nationalist leaders are telling followers that Vice President Kamala Harris is under the influence of a ‘Jezebel spirit,’ using a term with deeply racist and misogynistic roots that is setting off alarm bells for religious and political scholars.

“The concept is inspired by the biblical story of the evil Queen Jezebel, who persecuted prophets and was punished with a horrible death. The word ‘Jezebel’ was used during slavery and throughout U.S. history to describe Black women, casting them as overtly sexual and untrustworthy.”

Never underestimate the power of misogynoir.

“In the context of ‘Jezebel spirit,’ the term has sinister connotations, suggesting the person is under the influence of demons in a spiritual battle between good and evil. People who have studied the Jan. 6 insurrection warn that similar rhetoric on spiritual warfare drove many to the U.S. Capitol that day.”

If you want to hear more about The Dangerous Reality of White Christian Nationalism, watch Kat Abu here.

djt keeps prompting Christians to go out and vote. I’m planning to do so THIS week (not for him), in the unlikely event that by doing so, I will stop feeling anxious about the contest.

Arnold Palmer and Mickey D’s

Of course, the election is a dead heat, despite rational reasons not to vote for the guy, not just over policy. The Weekly Sift guy has the right attitude, which I wish I could replicate. “I can’t help but learn from headlines that the race is still close. How much more do I need to know? I know who I’m voting for, and I’ve already written my check to the Harris campaign. I could spend all day fretting about whether the likelihood of Harris winning is 55% or 45%, but what’s the point?”

He also notes about djt, “Father Time is undefeated, and he gets us all eventually. What we’re seeing here is exactly how dementia works: It takes our little quirks and exaggerates them until they become serious dysfunctions.” He needs to release his medical records. 

From A Word A Day: “Whenever [djt] trains his blunderbuss…it’s difficult to decipher whether he’s deadly serious, merely trying to generate instant outrage, or just heading off on a senescent ramble.” – Irish Times (Dublin); Aug 9, 2024.

(The number of people who’ve told me that JD Vance and the cabinet are going to 25th amendment djt is astonishing. Even they believe that Orange is not up to the task.) 

Turn the entire machinery of the government to his whims.

But Ezra Klein takes a different view in the New York Times; djt is not diminished, just more himself. “It is Trump’s absence of inhibition that makes him a great entertainer. [Entertainer? Meh.] It is Trump’s absence of inhibition that makes him feel, to so many, like not a politician — the fact that he was already the U.S. president notwithstanding. It is why the people who want to be like him — the mini-Trumps… — can’t pull it off. What makes Trump Trump isn’t his views on immigration, though they are part of it. It’s the manic charisma born of his disinhibition.

“It is his great strength. It is also his terrible flaw…

“Trump’s disinhibition is yoked to a malignancy at his core. I do believe he’s a narcissist… Trump does not see beyond himself, what he thinks, what he wants, and how he’s feeling. He does not listen to other people. He does not take correction or direction. Wisdom is the ability to learn from experience, to learn from others. Donald Trump doesn’t really learn. He once told a biographer, ‘When I look at myself in the first grade, and I look at myself now, I’m basically the same. The temperament is not that different.”

Hit the brakes
Endorsements, or lack of the same
ITEM: Washington Post Says It Won’t Endorse Anyone for President. Will Lewis, the company’s chief executive, said the paper was “returning to our roots” of not endorsing presidential candidates. The Post has endorsed presidential candidates since 1976, when it gave its stamp of approval to Jimmy Carter, although it did endorse Dwight Eisenhower in 1952.

Robert Kagan, “editor-at-large of the Washington Post and a persistent neoconservative critic of [djt]… Members of the Post’s editorial board were surprised Friday when they learned about the decision not to endorse from top opinion editor David Shipley, Semafor reported. The board drafted an endorsement of Harris earlier this month, which was sent to the newspaper’s owner, billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who reportedly pressured publisher and CEO Will Lewis to not give an endorsement.”

The Borowitz Report, a satire column, noted: “Urging Prime customers not to miss out, on Friday Amazon founder Jeff Bezos offered to sell the Washington Post’s integrity as a ‘once-in-a-lifetime Black Friday Deal.’ Calling the Post’s integrity ‘a signature feature that made this former newspaper great,’ the product page for the item listed it at $4.99 with free shipping… Customers shopping for Bezos’s spine, soul, and human decency got an ‘Uh oh, something went wrong’ error message, indicating that the products did not exist.”

Also
ITEM : The Los Angeles Times opted not to endorse anyone for President. Per Columbia Journalism Review: “Mariel Garza, the editorials editor…, resigned on Wednesday after the newspaper’s owner blocked the editorial board’s plans to endorse… Harris for president. ‘I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent. In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.'” Two of its writers subsequently quit. “On October 11, Patrick Soon-Shiong, who bought the newspaper for $500 million in 2018, informed the paper’s editorial board that the Times would not be making an endorsement for president. The message was conveyed to Garza by Terry Tang, the paper’s editor.”
ITEM: The New York Times supported “The Only Patriotic Choice for President.” 
ITEM:  “Scientific American, the 179-year-old bedrock of American scientific publication, has endorsed Harris for President, only the second such endorsement in its long history.” Cory Doctorow notes, “Some institutions are getting over their discomfort with norm-breaking and standing up for democracy.”
FINALLY…
Expat Cole Haddon wrote on Medium: “All I can think about is the polls that continue to show Kamala Harris, a typically flawed Democratic candidate, polling neck-and-neck with a convicted felon, rapist, and accused insurrectionist currently running on throwing out the U.S. Constitution, punishing political enemies and whomever else he feels like, and mass-arresting and deporting millions of those he deems to be foreigners — and half of voters think this sounds like a great idea for their country’s future. In other words, nearly half of U.S. voters would prefer fascism over sharing what they perceive to be ‘their country.'”

Fear an orange win

xenophobia

I fear an Orange win. While it’s been brewing in my mind for a few weeks, it is epitomized in observations made by commenters on ABC This Week on October 13.

RACHAEL BADE, ABC NEWS CONTRIBUTING POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT:  ‘We’ve been talking about women this entire election, how they’re running away from Trump. Childless cat lady comments, abortion, just Trump’s temperament in general. But… in the final weeks of this election, we are really starting to see that Donald Trump has been very successful with turning out men or at least getting them excited to vote for him.

“And not just conservative men, but men who consider themselves to be…pro-abortion rights, socially liberal men, black men, Latino men. And, you know, I was interviewing one of the more famous focus group analysts, Sarah Longwell, at “The Bulwark,” and she was talking about why, and it sounds like a lot of these men, they don’t view Donald Trump as extreme.

“You might disagree with that. They like him. They think he’s somebody that they would want to hang out with, and he has just been sort of successful and leaning into the strongman mentality that right now, with, you know, all the chaos in the Middle East, with the issues with the hurricanes, she’s hearing more and more in focus groups not just from men but also some women who are reaching for that sort of strongman mentality and starting to second-guess Harris.”

Not extreme?

SUSAN GLASSER, THE NEW YORKER STAFF WRITER: “I think this conversation we’re having, it’s really a question of who, in the end is the election about, and if people’s gaze is focused on Donald Trump, his escalatory rhetoric, I mean, some of the things we’ve seen this week are the most nakedly racist and xenophobic things I’ve ever seen from a national candidate, and that includes Donald Trump in his previous two outings.”

The notion that djt is not an extreme candidate suggests that Americans are more ahistorical people than I had already feared.

Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is quoted in Bob Woodward’s new book, War. The general approaches the writer “in a state of panic about the prospect of a Trump revival. ‘No one has ever been as dangerous to this country,’ the general exclaimed. ‘I glimpsed it when I talked to you … for Peril [Woodward’s previous book], but I now know it, I now know it. … We have got to stop him! You have got to stop him! … He’s a total fascist. He is the most dangerous person to this country! … A fascist to the core!’”

Intuition

REP. MIKE JOHNSON, (R) SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: We all know intuitively that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections.

“Intuitively.”  The Speaker was on CBS’ Face The Nation. He must  “intuitively” know the 2020 election was “rigged” because he played a leading role in Trump’s legal effort to overturn it. He “has made statements in recent weeks suggesting that the certification of the election results is conditional.” 

How Harris Can Finish Strong

Meanwhile, New York Times columnist David Brooks notes that “Undecided voters in a Times Opinion focus group were recently asked to describe Kamala Harris’ efforts. They responded with phrases like: ‘honeymoon’s over,’ the paint is wearing off,’ ‘uninspired,’ ‘absent,’ and ‘scared to talk directly to the American people.’ Researchers who have been surveying voter sentiment as the campaign progresses found that there’s been a decline in how voters think about Harris, while sentiment toward Donald Trump has rebounded slightly since the September debate…

“The playwright David Mamet once wrote a memo to a group of fellow writers in which he reminded them that audiences ‘will not tune in to watch information.’ They will ‘only tune in and stay tuned to watch drama.’ What is drama? Mamet says it ‘is the quest of the hero to overcome those things which prevent him from achieving a specific, acute goal.’ The screenwriter Aaron Sorkin builds on that definition. He says that strong drama is built around intention and obstacle. The hero has to be seized by a strong, specific desire, and she needs to face a really big obstacle.”

Passion

“That suggests that Harris needs to show the American people her strongest, most acute, and controlling desire, the ruling passion of her soul. I know what Trump wants. He wants to dismantle the elites who he thinks have betrayed regular Americans. It’s unclear what Harris wants most deeply, other than the vague chance to do good and to be president…Candidates who are not driven by a single, specific, compelling desire become reactive. “

This aligns with what people, even those who are going to vote for her, have been saying to me about how they don’t know what she really thinks, believes, or values.

Yet she’s always working at a disadvantage. Harris’ responses to her battery of recent interviews are being scrutinized,  while djt ducked the 60 Minutes interview altogether. He hasn’t released his health records, as she has. Moreover, his supporters stand with him by ‘sussing out rhetoric from reality.’ In other words, many of his loyal fans don’t believe he’ll do what he says he’ll do. 

“What’s extraordinary… is the dire and graphic nature of his language.”

More to the point, as an opinion piece in the Boston Globe says: “He’s running a closing-days campaign fueled by falsehood – and it could work. After all, as he demonstrated with his Big Lie about the 2020 election, even his most far-fetched claims can race to the far corners of the country before fact-checkers are able to set off in persuasive pursuit.

“From last week’s assertion that Aurora, Colorado, and other towns have been ‘invaded and conquered’ by ‘vicious and bloodthirsty criminals‘ to his recent description of illegal immigrants as ‘savages,’ ‘predators,’ and ‘animals’ who want to ‘rape, pillage, thieve, plunder, and kill’ Americans, to his ominous warning that migrants ‘grab young girls and slice them up right in front of their parents…,’ it’s trademark Trump, a dark, roiling, racially-tinged rhetorical torrent, unlike anything we’ve seen in any presidential campaign in modern American history.

“That dystopian rhetoric is an obvious attempt to create fear sufficient to move voters beyond his enormous character faults and his well-documented assault on democracy and get them to conclude that however unsavory they find him, he’s the strongman the country needs to solve its supposed problems.”

For reasons involving his cult of personality, 45 is graded on a curve, and he could win in November—probably not the popular vote, but quite possibly the Electoral College. I’d SO love to be wrong.

Kamala and DonOLD

Nikki Haley in spring 2024: djt unhinged, unqualified to be president, diminished.

It should be no surprise to anyone who has read this blog more than three times that, in the Presidential race between Kamala and DonOLD, I’m voting for the South Asian woman who also knows she’s black. 

On ABC News’s This Week for Sunday, September 8, 2024, just before the  debate, former Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney chose between Kamala and DonOLD. She spoke with ABC’s Jonathan Karl. This is just some of the interview, which I recommend.

CHENEY: Not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but I will be voting for Kamala Harris. Donald Trump, if he is re-elected, will be far more dangerous than we have ever seen before. Dick Cheney [her father] will be voting for Kamala Harris.

KARL: The former vice president’s statement endorsing Harris offered an especially harsh view of Donald Trump. “In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He can never be trusted with power again.”

CHENEY: Donald Trump presents a challenge and fundamental threat to the republic. Somebody is willing to use violence to attempt to seize power and stay in power—someone who represents unrecoverable catastrophe. And we must do everything possible to ensure he’s not re-elected.

Harris as Reagan?

 CHENEY: I have never viewed this as a policy election. If you look at Vice President Harris’ speech at the Democratic Convention, it is a speech that Ronald Reagan could have given. It’s a speech that George Bush could have given. It’s an embrace and an understanding of the exceptional nature of this great nation. A love of America. A recognition that America is a special place. A recognition that we all have to work together to ensure that.

And you contrast that with what we hear from Donald Trump daily, that America is a failing nation, that America is a laughing stock. The trash-talking of the United States of America is very much part of the message that Donald Trump is pushing.

I think it’s important for people to recognize he’s not a conservative. Embracing global tariffs is fundamentally anti-conservative. It will choke off global trade and likely lead us down the path that we’ve seen before, a depression.

The important thing for people to remember is that he can do it alone. He does not need Congress if he were to be re-elected, to impose those massive tariffs that will kill the American and the global economy.

Kamala’s coalition

CHENEY: I think, from a policy perspective, it is very important to recognize that [Kamala] understands that this election is going to require a coalition of people from across the political spectrum supporting her, and that also necessitates an understanding that you’ve got to govern for all of those people. And on top of all of that, the Republicans have nominated somebody who you know is depraved. So, the choice, in my view, is not a close one.

When you look at national security policy, there are certainly areas where I disagree with the Biden administration. However, regarding fundamental alliances and the importance of NATO, for example, we’ve seen a sea change. We now have a Republican Party that is embracing isolationism, that is embracing Putin.

Nikki voters

KARL: There was a lot of talk during the primaries of the Nikki Haley voters, and some states seemed like even when she stopped running, almost a third of Republican voters were looking for an alternative to Trump and voting for Nikki Haley. She’s now saying she is “on standby” to campaign for Donald Trump to help him get reelected.

She’s also, of course, called him unhinged, unqualified to be president, diminished. What do you make of Nikki Haley’s position on this?

CHENEY: I can’t understand her position on this in any principled way. I think the things she said while running in the primary are true.

And those of us who are conservative, those of us who believe in fidelity to the Constitution, have a responsibility and a duty to recognize that this is not about partisan politics, and the country is going to need to rebuild a true conservative movement when we’re through this election cycle…

But this November, casting a vote for Donald Trump or writing someone in means that you’ve decided in too many instances what so many elected Republicans have made, which is to abandon the Constitution, to tell yourself that this is just simply a partisan choice. That’s not what we’re facing this time around.

No guardrails

CHENEY: It’s personal to me when I listen to fellow Republicans in the past say things to me like, it’s fine, there are guardrails. He can’t do that much damage. It’s just simply not true. 

KARL: Well, on those guardrails, we had the Supreme Court declare essentially that a president has immunity for anything that can be in any way defined as an official act. What does it mean to the possibility of a second Trump administration?

CHENEY: Well, it obviously makes the danger even greater. But when you look at what Donald Trump could do with the levers of power, the extent to which he’s already said he will not abide by the rulings of the courts. Our courts can’t enforce their own rulings. If a president won’t abide by the rulings of the courts, the rule of law disintegrates immediately. He’s made clear that he will, for example, pardon the January 6th rioters.

And now, a few links

Let’s check his references. The Dangers of djt, From Those
Who Know Him

Judge Unseals New Evidence in Federal Election Case Against djt

Questions for djt

Project 2025, Etc. — What’s Really Going On

Remember the women who accused djt? They call themselves the Sisterhood of the Strange Sorority

He’s Jumped the Shark

djt Promised to Release His Medical Records. He Still Won’t Do It.

If elected again, he would become the oldest president by the end of his term. Yet he is refusing to disclose even basic health information.

’60 Minutes’ Sets Presidential Candidates Interview Special, Only For djt to Bail

djt’s “Vastly Overpriced” $100,000 “Swiss Watch” Is Probably Made in China, Experts Say

I Learned So Much I Didn’t Know From Vance in the Debate. Did you know that President Trump saved Obamacare? (Ha!)

Blank Space (Donald’s Version) – A Randy Rainbow Song Parody

August rambling: Corporate Bullsh*t

Alice Green

Cory Doctorow reviews Corporate Bullsh*t: Exposing the Lies and Half-Truths That Protect Profit, Power, and Wealth in America, Nick Hanauer, Joan Walsh, and Donald Cohen’s 2023 book on the history of corporate apologetics. “The authors’ thesis is that the business world has a well-worn playbook that they roll out whenever anything that might cause industry to behave even slightly less destructively is proposed. What’s more, we keep falling for it.” Oh, the last stage in their playbook is ‘this is socialism.'” Or communism.

‘A different level than 2020’: djt’s plan to steal the 2024 election is taking shape

djt made $300k from selling Bibles – but owes $100m

Republican group cites notorious Dred Scott ruling as reason Kamala Harris can’t be president

The Convention That Ate Republicans’ Lunch

Harris, djt, and Our Broken News Media

I Put Him on Death Row. He Shouldn’t Die.

Hospice: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Hollywood’s 20 Best Political Movies, Ranked

Very demure is very trendy.

Why Schools Are Racing to Ban Student Phones

How to Escape From the Russian Army

Everyone Is Judging AI by These Tests. But Experts Say They’re Close to Meaningless

Pew (2023): 32% of Americans have a tattoo, including 22% who have more than one

Everything You Need To Know About Saturday Night Live, season by season

My favorite Progressive ad is the first 30 seconds-“Practicing gratitude, manifesting abundance.”

The Flagstones and The Flintstones

Tulsa dog starts house fire after chewing on lithium-ion battery

Kellogg’s Corn Flakes ad (Huck and Yogi)

Duff, another meaning

Mark Evanier: My Ten Favorite Cartoon Show Openings From My Youth and Ten More

How to Mug Yourself?

OBITS

Local civil rights activist Alice Green would describe a formative episode from her teenage years when she and a white friend were hired to work at a small summer resort. I heard her tell this story in one of her books, We Who Believe In Freedom. She was a 2018 FFAPL literary Legend. Some of her work shone a light on the struggles of Black Adirondackers. 

Phil Donahue, Who Died at 88, Transformed Daytime Television

Peter Marshall, Host of ‘The Hollywood Squares,’ Dies at 98

Wally Amos, R.I.P. He was “Famous”

Alain Delon, Seductive Star of European Cinema, Dies at 88

MUSIC

How Will I Know – Peter Sprague, featuring Rebecca Jade

Yo Me Estreso – The Linda Lindas, feat. “Weird Al” Yankovic

Look Through My Window – The Mamas & The Papas

Favorite Songs By Favorite Artists: The Black Angels

Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture

Coverville 1498: The Counting Crows Cover Story III and  1499: The Phoebe Bridgers Cover Story

Die With A Smile – Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars

The Cedar and the Palm by Vasily Kalinnikov

Ghostbusters – Ray Parker, Jr.

Kellogg’s Rice Krispies ad – I LOVED this song as a kid

Million Dollar Baby – Tommy Richman.  “It holds the record for most weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s new TikTok Top 50 chart.” I did not know that existed.

The main theme for Once Upon A Time In The West by Ennio Morricone

The Love You Save – Jackson Five

Big Man On Mulberry Street – Billy Joel;  Bruce Willis in Moonlighting, Maddie´s Dream episode.

I Had Some Help – Post Malone featuring Morgan Wallen

Badge – Peter Sprague featuring Leonard Patton

I Can Do It With A Broken Heart– Taylor Swift

Apple – Charli xcx. I understand my iPhone cover is BRAT; Bill Maher is confused by the term.

Stay – Maurice Williams & the Zodiacs; Maurice recently died at 86

Greg Kihn, Pop Star Who Had a Big Hit With “Jeopardy,” Dies at 75 (the song and the parody included)

A Mel-dey — a medley of songs from all the musicals written by Mel Brooks — both of them…

MUSIC (political section)

KAMALA!– A Randy Rainbow Song Parody (2020)

The Lawyer or the Conman and JD, JD… . (Married Lady) – Randy Rainbow Song Parodies (2024)

Childless Cat Ladies – Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer

DNC 2024 roll call and playlist, including:

Arizona — Edge of Seventeen by Stevie Nicks, a native of Phoenix.

Arkansas — Don’t Stop by Fleetwood Mac, the 1992 campaign song for Bill Clinton, the former governor of Arkansas. (I remember that well.)

Colorado — September by Earth, Wind & Fire. Philip Bailey, one of the band’s two lead singers, hails from Denver.

Connecticut — Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours by Stevie Wonder. Connecticut is known as the Constitution State.

Democrats Abroad — Love Train by the O’Jays. (“People around the world, join hands,” the lyrics say.)

Delaware — Higher Love by Kygo and Whitney Houston. President Biden, Delaware’s favorite son, has played this song regularly at his events, including after his acceptance speech in 2020.

(I’ll probably do this again. This is fun!)

What Kamala Harris and djt’s Music Choices Reveal About Each Campaign

Used by Kamala: All American – Mickey Guyton; Something More Than Free – Jason Isbell

The songs below were among those used by the djt campaign, to the disdain, and sometimes threat of legal action, by the artist and/or songwriter family:

Freedom – Beyoncé

Hold On, I’m Coming – Sam & Dave

My Heart Will Go On -Celine Dion

Ramblin' with Roger
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