In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

n the wake of the Democrat convention, Alan Dershowitz, the most prominent living Jew, announced ( here and here ), specificially at the second link, "I am no longer a Democrat. I am an Independent." Also in ther wake of the convention, Bobby Kennedy Jr, the most prominent living Kennedy and namesake of his martyred father, endorsed a Republican candidate for president and reiterated his previous departure from the Democrats. “The Democrats stood against authoritarianism, against censorship, against colonialism, imperialism and unjust wars,” he went on. “We were the party of labor, of the working class. The Democrats were the party of government transparency and the champion of the environment. Our party was the full world against big money interests and corporate power. True to its name, it was the party of democracy.” As you know, I left that party in October because it had departed so dramatically from the core values that I grew up with. It had become ...

What strikes me about Bobby Kennedy Jr's endorsement of Trump is how prominent Democrats like David Axelrod view it as a betrayal of the Kennedy myth: Robert F. Kennedy was my political hero. He battled fiercely & eloquently against poverty, injustice and for economic fairness. Sadly RFK Jr, who made a rambling exit from the race today, proves that sometimes an apple DOES fall far from the tree...in this case, down a hill and… — David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) August 23, 2024 His siblings agree: I am sharing a personal statement that my family and I have made in response to my brother’s announcement. pic.twitter.com/j7vTTabNYZ — Kerry Kennedy (@KerryKennedyRFK) August 23, 2024 However, with John Jr dying with his cokehead wife and sister-in-law in an aircraft accident attributable to his own incompetence as a pilot and Caroline maintaining a low public profile, Bobby Jr is by far the most prominent Kennedy of his generation, and unliike John Jr, he's maintained...

According to Wikipedia , Empress Dowager is the English language translation of the title given to the mother or widow of a Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese monarch in the Chinese cultural sphere. An empress dowager wielded absolute power over the harem and imperial family and sometimes even for important issues that were necessary, the emperor or officials went to empress dowager to consult. Empress Dowager's position was second after the emperor, but she was ahead of him in respect, because the emperor lowered his head in front of her to show his respect and stood in front of her with respect and politeness, even was precise in the way he spoke and faced her. Numerous empress dowagers held regency during the reign of underage emperors. Many of the most prominent empress dowagers also extended their control for long periods after the emperor was old enough to govern. This was a source of political turmoil according to the traditional view of Chinese hi...

I keep saying that the closest historical parallel we have to this year's presidential campaign is 1972, when the Democrats were forced to swap out their vice presidential candidate only weeks after he'd been nominated. But even before that, another parallel is that year's Democrat convention, which is one of the few in modern history, either Democrat or Republican, that didn't produce a bounce in the polls, however brief it may have been. This site lists the respectrive poll bounces for each party following its nominating convention for each presidential election since 1964. The bounce for McGovern in 1972 was 0; the bounce for Nixon that year was 7. In fact, the Democrat bounce was bigger in other years that still turned out badly for them -- in 1980, Jimmy Carter got 10; in 1984, Walter Mondale got 9; in 1988, Michael Dukakis got 7. The only bounces that were worse for either party was John Kerry's -1 in 2004 and Mitt Romney's -1 in 2012. Wednesday...

For now, I don't know what to do with the information overload that's the DNC. I have an inchoate impression that there's no real plan for the campaign, and there are lots of signs that nobody competent is in charge, and we'll have to see how things shake out. But in the meantime, I want to focus on Tim Walz. For instance, what about whether he was really vetted? The best indication I can see is this: 🚨 BREAKING: I just confronted Eric Holder about why he didn’t vet Tim Walz over his Stolen Valor Holder: “F*CK YOU!!!” pic.twitter.com/6j1gzdkW2P — Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) August 21, 2024 It's hard to avoid thinking that if Holder is so determined to run away from questions about whether he vetted Walz, he may regret his role, or at least the public perception of it. Via Breitbart, According to the Associated Press, the process — managed by Holder — took 16 days, and ended with Walz being chosen. Since Walz was selected, he has been plagued...

I keep saying that the election cycle this year is closest to 1972, and another parallel is Joe's big farewell speech, which was pushed back almost to midnight Eastern time, reminiscent of McGovern in 1972 : The convention, which has been described as "a disastrous start to the general election campaign", . . . with sessions beginning in the early evening and lasting until sunrise the next morning. . . . A protracted vice presidential nominating process delayed McGovern's acceptance speech (which he considered "the best speech of his life") until 2:48 a.m.—after most television viewers had gone to bed. Last night, As the speakers leading up to Biden on the schedule began dragging on and on, speculation swirled about how and why the president had been shoved aside to speak when many Americans would already be asleep. “This is awful. He literally set up a campaign and handed it over to them — do they have to cut him out of prime time...

As I noted yesterday, although the Trump campaign focused attention early Sunday on the possibility that Kamala is impaired at many of her public events, the suggestion isn't new. I did a web search on "Kamala drunk" this morning, and I came up with the image above on Amazon, which was advertising this as just the tote bag you might want for this past July 4th. In fact, this could maybe make the right ladies look hip on the beach out in the Hamptons. The story hasn't hit all the alt aggregtators yet, but this one at Hot Air draws a reasonble inference : Is Kamala drunk most of the time? If you watch her talk with that possibility in mind, so much makes sense all of a sudden. All those word salads, the occasional slurring, the inappropriate laughs... These are all tells that her brain is fogged by something, and it may not be stupidity. Newsweek is already on the case : As Donald Trump grapples to combat the surge of support for Kamala Harris...