Crooked Media - The pick is (almost) in!

Monday, August 5, 2024 BY CROOKED MEDIA

Harris Zeroes In on a Running Mate

Vice President Kamala Harris is just hours away from announcing who she’ll pick for the VP nomination. The latest reporting is that the campaign will release a video tomorrow, just before Harris and the lucky winner take the stage in Philadelphia. All signs are pointing to a race that’s come down to two contenders: Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.

The reasoning behind these two picks is, by now, familiar: Shapiro, 51, is the well-liked governor of arguably the most critical battleground state. He would bring an additional measure of youth and charisma to the ticket, and would help cement the idea that Harris represents the future, while Trump represents the past.
Shapiro, a former congressional staffer, state rep, and county commissioner, was elected attorney general of Pennsylvania in 2016 and governor in 2022. His approval rating is north of 60 percent, which is almost unheard of in today’s hyperpolarized world.

Walz, 60, has rocketed to internet stardom in the last few weeks as he’s taken the wood to JD Vance and Donald Trump with his signature mixture of midwestern folksiness and razor wit. It was Walz who, more than anyone, came up with the idea of attacking the Republican ticket simply as “weird”—an approach so understated and effective that the VP herself picked it up in short order.
Walz, who grew up in a tiny town in Nebraska, became a high school teacher and football coach in southern Minnesota and spent years in the national guard before running for congress in 2006. He was elected governor of Minnesota in 2018 and was reelected in 2022. He’s governed as a progressive, outlawing book bans and enshrining trans rights.

As the speculation about Harris’s running mate selection has dragged on, opposition to Shapiro has bubbled to the surface, mostly from progressives who view him as overly critical of students protesting the war in Gaza, and who disagree with his stance on school vouchers. In that sense, Walz could be seen as the safer bet, and less likely to divide Democrats—even if he can’t help deliver a particular battleground.
Regardless of whether Shapiro gets the nod, it’s worth remembering that VP picks from swing states do not always deliver them. Mitt Romney lost Wisconsin in 2012 with Paul Ryan on the ticket. John Kerry lost North Carolina in 2004 with John Edwards on the ticket. Hillary Clinton won Virginia in 2016 with Tim Kaine as her running mate, but—well, you know the rest.

Disgraced former President Trump, of course, has shown what can happen when a veep pick goes sideways.

Trump’s choice, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), has been making headlines primarily for his poor poll numbers, lack of charisma, draconian views on abortion, “weird” vibes, and curious repeated references to Diet Mountain Dew. “He is historically unpopular, even more so than V.P. nominees who of course went on to infamy,” CNN pollster Harry Enten recently said of Vance. “It’s the worst vice presidential pick of my lifetime.”
Vance has been catching flak for deriding Democrats as “childless cat ladies” and calling for people with biological children to get more votes while paying lower taxes. Even Trump seems disappointed with the guy he picked. Asked whether Vance would be ready to be president, Trump replied that, “historically, the vice president, in terms of the election, does not have any impact.” Which, of course, wasn’t the question.

But now, both tickets are complete, and it’s on to November.

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Justice Neil Gorsuch is clapping back at President Biden’s proposed Supreme Court reforms. In an interview on Fox News Sunday, the Trump appointee warned Biden to “be careful.” Gorsuch did not specifically address the Biden reforms—which VP Harris has endorsed, and which include 18-year term limits and an enforceable ethics code—but said that reform in general could undercut the independence of the judiciary, which, Gorsuch said, is what guarantees that even when “you’re unpopular, you can get a fair hearing.” He didn’t say why forcing justices to retire after 18 years would undercut that independence.

What is clear is that the status quo can open the door to abuse—or what sure looks like it. Just today, we learned that Justice Clarence Thomas failed to disclose yet more travel paid for by gajillionaire donor Harlan Crow. On this particular junket in 2010, disclosed in a letter from Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) to Crow’s attorney, Thomas and his wife traveled on Crow’s jet between Hawaii and New Zealand. Thomas did not list that trip on his 2010 financial disclosure form, as required. This is a theme with Thomas. In April of last year, ProPublica reported that Thomas regularly sailed on Crow’s luxury yacht, flew on his plane, and hung out at his "private resort," all without disclosing the gifts. In June of this year, Congressional investigators found that Thomas had taken three other undisclosed trips paid for by Crow. Thomas has said that he believed these trips weren’t subject to disclosure because the Crows are longtime friends, and they didn’t at the time have business directly before the Court. Even if he had disclosed them, though, it’s not clear that there would have been consequences, or any change to business as usual: Thomas has refused to recuse himself from Capitol Riot-related cases even though his wife, Ginni, was a leader in the “Stop the Steal” effort.

The Biden/Harris reforms, if Congress adopted them, would require that recusal, along with disclosure of all gifts, and would ban the justices from participating in “public political activity.” Emphasis on if Congress adopted them. You know where this is going: Speaker Mike Johnson has said the reforms are “dead on arrival” in the House. The swamp festers on.

It was a rough day on Wall Street, and in financial markets around the world, as traders fretted about a slowdown in American economic growth. All three of the major American indexes closed down more than 2 percent, according to The Wall Street Journal, in the worst day for markets in almost two years. We’ll see about tomorrow, though. Capitalists have a way of getting their money back quickly.

A federal judge ruled today that Google illegally disadvantaged its competition to maintain its stranglehold in the search market. Google had spent huge amounts of cash to get phone manufacturers and web browser developers to make Google the default search option, acts that the Justice Department said were illegal. Judge Amit Mehta agreed. “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Mehta wrote. The ruling could have big consequences for the future of search, according to a Google search about today’s ruling.

On Sunday evening, presidential contender and antivax crusader RFK Jr. tweeted out a video in which he tells Roseanne Barr that in 2014 he placed a dead bear cub in Central Park after he ran out of time to eat it. Yes, eat it. According to Kennedy, the whole caper started when he was en route to a falconing excursion in the Hudson Valley—yes, falconing—when he saw another driver hit and kill the cub. Kennedy collected the body because he thought it would be good eating. But after a fancy steak dinner (cow, we assume) at the famous Peter Luger Steak House in Brooklyn, Kennedy realized he had a flight to catch and wouldn’t have time to harvest the bear meat. So, he said, he dumped the body in Central Park, along with an old bicycle, in an effort to make it look like a hit-and-run, person-on-bear traffic death. Kennedy said in the video he thought “it would be funny for people.” Kennedy apparently shared the story in an effort to get out ahead of an unflattering New Yorker profile that published today. In the profile, which features a photo of Kennedy with his hand in the dead cub’s mouth, Kennedy tells the writer, “Maybe that’s where I got my brain worm.”

Hurricane Debby made landfall along Florida’s west coast today as a Category 1 hurricane, and has since been downgraded to a tropical storm. Debby appears to have caused four deaths so far, and caused the usual power outages and travel messes. Storm-fueled winds also blew $1 million worth of cocaine onto a beach in the Keys on Sunday. Aspiring screenwriters: there’s your prompt.

Simone Biles, the greatest gymnast ever, wrapped up her stint in Paris with a silver medal in the floor exercise, narrowly missing gold to Brazilian phenom Rebecca Andrade after stepping out of bounds twice on her tumbling passes. Earlier in the day, Biles failed to medal in the balance beam final. It’s all good, though: Biles leaves Paris with three gold medals and a silver, for a total of 11 Olympic medals. At age 27, that may be her final tally.

“I accomplished way more than my wildest dreams, not just at this Olympics, but in the sport,” Biles said, according to the Associated Press. “So I can’t be mad at the performances. ... Competing then walking away with four medals. I’m not mad about it.”

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