TGIF 9/4/20

Because of the Blue and Red conventions, the schedule here at veritable pastiche has been a little off, but I'm doing what I can to get us back on track. Let's dive into this week's roundup of random good and bad weeks.

Right off the bat, let's update on the primaries I mentioned in Tuesday's Knock Knock post. Remarkably, a Kennedy lost a state-wide race in Massachusetts for the first time ever.  Joe Kennedy III gave up his congressional seat to run for the Senate against Sen. Ed Markey, but fell short. In the other race, which was the focus of the post, incumbent Rep. Richard Neal, the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee fended off his opponent, Alex Morse.

So, did the results tell us anything about the fickle Dems, that they kept a 70-something progressive in the Senate and kept a 70-something traditional Dem in the House?  Honestly, your guess is as good as mine. But we do know that the professor who apologized 'in case he made anyone feel uncomfortable' will not be going to Washington, and in the end that's probably a good thing. 

Moving on to national stuff, no surprise that the president's trip to Kenosha caused some stir, right?  It seems that our fearless leader wanted the owner of a burned-out business to appear on TV with him, and so he found one. Trouble is, the guy who appeared with Trump was the former owner of the business, according to the man who bought it from him several years ago. There might be a semantics issue here - property owner vs. business owner - but honestly, did anyone not expect something like this to happen?

Trump's visit was followed by Joe Biden's, which was described by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, as being "worlds apart - in substance and style - from" the president's.

Biden wore a mask when he spoke. Trump did not.  Biden spoke by phone with Jacob Blake, the Black man who was shot seven times by a white Kenosha police officer, and met with Blake's family. Trump did not. Law enforcement was a central presence and theme of Trump's visit, but not Biden's. Trump spent a lot of time decrying violent unrest and rioting and looting. Biden spent a lot of time discussing inequality and racism and poverty and heard impassioned pleas from Black residents about the way African Americans are treated by the criminal justice system.

Worlds apart, indeed. In polling done after the end of the RNC, Biden held onto his lead in Wisconsin; we'll have to see if anything changes after these two visits. 

Speaking of Biden and Trump, I've got a question for you:  How long did you live in your childhood home? And if your family moved from your childhood home, did you have any input in that decision?  I'm asking because I actually crack up every time Trump tries to sell the tale that Biden "abandoned Scranton" for Delaware. It's comical, it really is. And ridiculous, as this article in the Philadelphia Inquirer points out. Here's an example of Trump's 'abandonment' claim, from remarks he made in Old Forge, PA.

He keeps talking about, ‘I was born in Scranton. I lived in Scranton.’ Yeah, for a few years, and then he left for another state. You know the state. But this Scranton stuff. That’s why I figured I’d come here and explain to you one thing. But I think you people know it better than I do. He left! He abandoned Pennsylvania. He abandoned Scranton.

The claim is insane - Biden's family moved to Delaware, and they took 10-year-old Joe with them when they moved. Should he have stayed behind? Fended for himself like a feral cat on the streets?  And that the comment is coming from the man who actually just abandoned New York to move to Florida, giving (perhaps not-quite-legally) Mar-a-Lago as his permanent residence. Seriously, is there anything Trump won't say, won't lie about?

Well, here's one that we're kind of thinking might be totally made up: the rioters and looter and vandals dressed in black on a plane that is either leaving DC heading out to the great city of Wherever, or it's coming to DC for the convention. I'm not sure which direction the plane was flying, because he's told the story with it going in both directions., And, of course,  I can't determine how fast the train was going in the opposite direction after leaving he station some moments later than the plane took off, because of course we don't even think the plane existed. Well, it probably did because "a person" as on board and it's all being investigated (by Scully and Mulder? By Snitty Snitty Bill Bar? Who actually knows?)

What else? Oh -- 

• Nancy Pelosi's hair appointment. 
• A congressman being shut up by Facebook for purposefully misinterpreting CDC data on coronavirus deaths.
• Peter Navarro's lousy coronavirus deals.
• More concerns about the census - from inside the Census Bureau.

Hope that's enough for you. There was more, of course - there's always more.

TGIF, everyone.