Dear Everybody:
The big news today is that Trump canceled two of his weekend rallies (he kept the one in Florida), and then, when everybody started talking about how he did it because he’s exhausted, sick, thin-skinned, and a coward who was scared off by a few hecklers, he rescheduled them:
Here are the kinds of things people said about his cancelling:
–Dan Pfeiffer: “Is Trump quiet quitting the midterms?”
–randym77: “The Jonestown clip on Fox News might have been the last straw.”
–Mrs. Betty Bowers on the hecklers and Trump’s canceling the rallies: “Trump’s got to be melting down. I mean, more than he otherwise would have been.”
–Jonathan Martin: “(Trump) hates standing with losers and the spin about being able to do more telerallies gets him off the hook from another round of rallies with folks about to take losses.”
–Bluesky commenter: “The multiple protesters at his hate rallies have really bothered Trump because he can’t handle the truth. He now needs to be coddled in his safe space.”
–Eric Sprachler: “Either they naively think Trump calling in on Zoom will have the same imprint as him showing up in person or they are just throwing in the towel completely. Optics here are not good.”
–Front Toward Enemy: “Remember all the jokes the right made about Joe Biden hiding in his basement when there was a pandemic going on? Throw that back in MAGA’s faces and fling it hard, because the only pandemic Trump’s hiding from is he’s getting laughter. Weak, scared old twerp, hiding in his ballroom…”
And now that he’s back to doing the rallies, the reaction isn’t any better:
–Raw Story: “Trump’s Canceled Rallies Now Back On in Potential Panic Move.”
–Dan K: “Tr4ump was scared off by the hecklers and then was scared of seeming to be scared.”
–rinocollins: “lol, as if the optics of canceling, uncancelling is better!”
–Buttfayce: “LOL got bullied online into doing rallies again.”
–mikepdecker: “Translation: The jokes about making the cancellations in the first place got back to him. Can’t have that.”
–S Robertson Women’s Rights: “He is a very wishy-washy, thin-skinned politician right now. Can’t stick with any plans.”
–Democracy_Rising: “Oh, the optics of canceling all your rallies only a few days before the most consequential election in modern times and they’re still on!”
–Amy Suskind: “They are imploding. VOTE VOTE VOTE.”
Meanwhile, there are people worried that there is something in the works militarily:
–Dem Senator Chris Murphy, who attended a classified briefing on the Iran War as part of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, warned in a statement today: “Trump is reportedly planning to restart war with Iran after the election. Some of us have been briefed on the war plan. And while I cannot disclose any details, I can say this: the plan is insane. It will not achieve objectives and will set off a new cycle of escalation.”
–At the Middle East Institute yesterday, he said the plan “will lead to devastating escalation and the likely destruction of our commitment to the rule of law.” He said the plan involves destruction of civilian infrastructure–power plants, bridges, etc.–all of which would be war crimes.
–According to Heather Delaney Reese, the Pentagon is reportedly enforcing missile defenses, repositioning troops,and preparing additional warships and aircraft.
–The military has moved a barge of surface-to-air missile systems to the waterway outside Mar-a-lago.
–On October 21, the US Army conducted a mass battlefield burial exercise at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, digging burial trenches and practicing conducting burial services under combat conditions. The military said it was preparation for “large-scale combat operations.”
–European countries are telling their citizens to stockpile supplies and prepare for the possibility of armed aggression.
–The Pentagon is instructing military bases to prepare to survive 90 days of self-sufficiency.
Trump has no business talking anywhere:
–Trump: “These are telephonic rallies.” (???)
–Trump said he was excited that a congressman had complimented him on his beautiful blue eyes.
–Trump claimed the billion plus dollars he’s spending on White House renovations is “peanuts.”
–Trump on gas prices: “It was $1.85 on the top of the jigger.”
–The Comely Lads: “For one, no, it wasn’t. For another, what?”
–When asked about General Sylvia, whom Hegseth just fired, he said, “She’s got problems. She’s gonna have big problems.” (General Sylvia is a man, plus, Trump had NO idea what they were talking about.)
In The Grift Goes On news:
–A company that owned a private prison in Appleton, Minnesota, offered to sell it to Minnesota for $75 million dollars. A year later Trump agreed to use taxpayer money to buy it from CoreCivic for $495.6 million dollars. This is straight-up money laundering.
–I told you last week about Alina Habba getting a $50 million dollar a year job in return for getting the company’s head a pardon from Trump (which he got.) Trump is now furious about it–because she got the money and he didn’t. The New York Times is reporting that Trump is angry about the deal and thinks Habba should have donated the money to his presidential library or another Trump related entity.
–The Times says multiple sources confirm that in calls with allies, “Trump raged about the scale of the contract and said he wanted Habba to give a portion of the money to one of his causes.”
–Jon Ossoff: “He’s saying he wants his cut. The Don wants his cut. I mean, it’s a racket.”
Reasons #13,496 and 13,497 to Despise JD Vance:
–Reason #13,496: At JD Vance’s rally yesterday, a young woman asked, “How do you expect us to start families young when the average price of a home feels out of reach?” Vance’s reply: “I want to point out that I’ve only gotten one question about Jon Husted’s ass.”
–Jeff Herr: “The real funny part is that he THINKS he’s nailing all of this.”
–DianaMac: “They are tone-deaf.”
–Ahmed Baba: “A young woman asks a sincere question about unaffordable homes, and Jd Vance decides this was the moment to joke about Jon Husted’s ass. The political instincts of a gnat. The charisma of a concrete slab. The saucelessness of an unseasoned chicken. Unprecedented levels of lameness.”
–Reason #13,497: JD Vance whined about having translators in the hospital and asked, “How about if everyone just spoke English?”
–Eunicecycle: “How would JD like to go to another country, become ill or injured, and have to go to a hospital where no one speaks English?”
–(Note: This one really hit home for me. I remember being in Finland (where luckily everybody I came in contact with spoke English) for a convention and getting really sick. It was pneumonia, and I was terrified I’d end up in the hospital and that the doctor might not speak English and how on earth would I explain that I was allergic to penicillin? There is nothing scarier than being in a place where you can’t speak the language. You would have to be a MONSTER not to think translators in a hospital were a good idea!)’
–Get up, stand up: “How about if everyone just be a human being? That’s a bar JD can’t reach.”
–Dave Troy: “It barely needs to be said, but history will show that JD Vance, or whatever the hell his name actually is, is among the most spineless, cowardly, and odious characters in American history–possibly in human history.”
In What We’re Up Against news:
–The IRS sent an email to everybody touting Trump and all the wonderful things he has done for Americans tax-wise and ending with, “Hard Working Americans like you are keeping more of what they earn because of President Trump’s historic tax cuts.” (This is TOTALLY ILLEGAL and in violation of the Hatch Act.)
–Trump’s DOJ announced they were sending 1000 observers to Adams County, Colorado polling places.
–Colorado’s Attorney General, Jenna Griswold, told them she will appoint observers who will accompany them at all times. She told the DOJ they could not enter without permission, that their observers are personally prohibited from speaking to voters, and that they can’t bring any video equipment.
–the DOJ refused to accept those terms and said they will come and stand outside the polling places.
–AG Jenna Griswold then told them it is illegal for anyone, including the DOJ, to intimidate or interfere with voters outside of voter centers.
In promising news:
–Trump isn’t the only one canceling rallies. JD Vance canceled one of his rallies (in Montana), too. And so did Ken Paxton.
— James Talarico: “Ken Paxton is canceling rallies because nobody is showing up. He can’t recruit volunteers, so he uses AI bots. he doesn’t have any grassroots donors, so he’s relying on the richest man in the world to fund his campaign.”
–Republicans are sounding more and more frantic. A Texas Republican at a Paxton rally pleaded with attendees: “Please don’t leave. And the reason why that is, I don’t want the media to turn it into ‘people don’t like Ken Paxton,’ (even though people don’t like Ken Paxton.)
–Arizona’s Attorney General announced that Maricopa County will restore the registrations of 25 voters after they were falsely flagged as non-citizens after the AG sued the Maricopa County City Recorder for removing them.
–In Harris County, Pennsylvania, 90,576 people have voted early, smashing the 2022 record of 74,672, and there’s still today to go.
–Black voter turnout in Louisiana for early voting is more than than the entire early-voting period in 2022. White early voting remains flat.
–Greg Dworkin: “Keep in mind undecideds tend to break with the wave.”
In historical news:
–Tonight in 1938 was the historic airing of Orson Welles’s radio play of H.G. Wells’s WAR OF THE WORLDS on the radio. Welles specifically states upfront that that’s what they’re doing, and anybody who listens more than a few minutes can tell it’s a play, but that didn’t stop people from tuning in a couple of minutes late, thinking they were listening to a real reporter describing aliens invading in Grover’s Mill, New Jersey, and panicking. A REAL Halloween scar. You can listen to it here:
–And speaking of Halloween scares, Saturday night is the fall time change to Standard Time. (I know your car’s clocks, your smartphone, etc. all change automatically, but sometimes we still don’t get the message. Luckily, the time is getting set back an hour so people will not likely be late for things. Unlike in the spring, where one of my church choir’s favorite pasttimes was watching people come in ten minutes before the end of the service, do a double-take, and then slink to a pew in the back row just in time to stand up again for the closing hymn.
In other news:
–Vivek Ramaswamy finally responded to furious voters and pulled his ad calling Amy Acton a liar for saying she was raped by her stepfather as a child. He pretended he wasn’t, though, that it had just “reached the end of its cycle” and it was time for new ads.
–Samuel Sey, an Evangelical preacher from Ghana, who preaches that ICE is only doing what the Bible demands (it doesn’t) was arrested by ICE and is being deported.
–Jared Kushner’s hacked phone revealed $700 million dollars in transfers to him and his companies as he “negotiated” a peace deal in Iran.
In good news:
–A bipartisan group of 174 former federal and state judges wrote an open letter urging the 8th Circuit Chief Judge Collston to immediately dismiss the DOJ’s misconduct complaint against federal judges who ruled against ICE.
–A Travis County, Texas judge granted Gina Hinojosa’s request to inspect Greg Abbott’s unredacted emails between him and Elon Musk.
–The Pope (an American citizen and a legal resident of Illinois) voted by mail from the Vatican even though he just got out of the hospital.
And finally, I was just about to report on the death of Walter Koenig (Chekhov on the original STAR TREK, when I got the news about Patrick Stewart having died. What a terrible week for science-fiction fans (and everybody else):
–Although he was most famous for his roles as Captain Picard STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION and as Dr. Xavier in the X-MEN movies, he was also beloved for his other wonderful work both on-stage and in films, including DUNE and THE SHEEP DETECTIVES, and for his one-man A CHRISTMAS CAROL, especially his portrayal as Ebenezer Scrooge He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth the Second in 2010.
–He started his career as a member of the Royal Shakespeare Theater and played many great Shakespearean roles, including Macbeth, about which he said, “The only still center of my life is Macbeth. To go back to doing this bloody, crazed, insane mass murderer is a huge relief after trying to get my cell phone replaced.” (He’d dropped his phone in the bathtub.)
–Stewart was 86. He was knighted by the Queen in 2010. His family said he died after a “brief and poignant journey” with Alzheimer’s and Lewy’s Body Dementia, so I suppose we should be grateful if it was in fact short. But he will be sorely missed.
–George Takei said this about Patrick Stewart’s passing: “Fans across the world mourn the passing of a true and irreplaceable legend. As Captain Jean-Luc Picard,Patrick Stewart took the starship Enterprise to places it had never gone before. He inspired a whole next generation of stargazers who looked longingly ahead to a brighter future for all humanity. Our hearts are heavy, indeed. Rest in the heavens, Captain.”
–George Takei also told about being on a plane seated across the aisle from each other. “I looked over and saw a familiar bald pate and furrowed brow. ‘Aren’t you…?’ I asked him. He looked over and his face lit up with delight. then he spoke to me in that unmistakable manner of his. ‘Well, aren’t YOU?’ he responded, his eyes twinkling. We had a good laugh. Rest in power–warp power–Sir Patrick Stewart.”
–George Takei wrote about his good friend Walter Koenig, too, who died this week at the age of 96: “Walter and I met on the bridge of the Enterprise in the 1960s, and we stayed friends for nearly 6 decades. When Brad and I married in 2008, Walter stood beside us as our best man…Walter was more than Chekhov. he was a writer, a teacher, a thoughtful man, and a loyal friend. To the fans who loved him for so many years, thank you. He loved you, too. Rest well, my friend. Keep navigating a steady course.”
–Jean-Luc Picard and Chekhov were indeed both loved. Tributes and messages are pouring in from all over the world. Such lovely people.
Best comment of the day, from Patrick Stewart: “If is what you do from now on that will either move our civilization forward a few tiny steps, or else…begin to march us steadily backward.”
Keep calm and carry on,
Connie Willis
