
2023-08-26 02640-tod-019439 Acorn
NIKON D7100 – ƒ/5.6 1/400 140mm ISO400 – Mission, MN

2023-08-26 02640-tod-019439 Acorn
NIKON D7100 – ƒ/5.6 1/400 140mm ISO400 – Mission, MN

2024-08-26 03006-tod-039148 River
NIKON D7500 – ƒ/5.6 1/500 150mm ISO220 – Cross Lake, MN
This was an absolutely great thread.
The Editorial Board (@johnastoehr) posted at 7:25 AM on Wed, Aug 14, 2024:
Kamala Harris is taking power back from the press corps. She learned from Biden’s fatal error. A THREAD.
1. The first thing you need to know about the vice president’s approach to the Washington press corps is look how well she’s doing as a result. Kamala Harris is now leading Donald Trump in some national polling averages as well as in some swing-state polls.
2. True, her lead is within the margin of error in most cases, but that’s an improvement from where the Democrats were before Joe Biden dropped out of the running and orchestrated instantaneous unification around his second-in-command.
3. I don’t think I’m overstating things. Her lead, the millions she’s bringing in, the thousands who are signing up to help, the big big mo’ – I think all of it comes directly from her campaign’s decision not to give the press corps too much access too fast.
4. I think that decision comes directly from the fact that Harris saw firsthand what the press corps did to Joe Biden’s campaign.
5. Some members of the press corps have noticed how well Harris is doing without them, and apparently, it doesn’t sit right. Here’s Chris Cillizza with a representative sampling.
6. The former Post writer said the vice president has been “almost entirely” ignoring the media since she launched her campaign, and that’s bad, he said.
7. Cillizza: It “bypasses the argument that the media is a critical part of our political system and any candidate who wants to be president — whether they are winning or losing — should be regularly subjected to scrutiny from the press.”
8. Even if I agreed that candidates who want to be president should be regularly subjected to media scrutiny, I don’t think this press corps, as it is currently organized, is able to.
9. There are exceptions, of course, but this press corps is generally not equipped to scrutinize candidates on matters of fact and substance. I say this because this press corps has conspicuously traded matters of fact and substance for vibes.
10. It didn’t matter what Joe Biden did – pull the country out of a pandemic, dodge a recession, tame inflation, grow jobs, revive every single one of the “left behind” counties that voted for Trump in 2016 because of “economic anxiety” – it *didn’t matter* what Joe Biden did.
11. The press corps decided nothing was more important than his age, and lo! 2024 became an election about vibes and vibes ended his candidacy.
12. Vibes are this press corps’ forte, not fact and substance. If fact and substance were its strength, there would have been a different reaction to The Disaster Debate during which Biden talked about policy and issues while Trump didn’t bother.
13. Trump was incoherent and false, but he came off as confident and strong, and he came off as that way, because the press corps’ forte isn’t fact and substance.
14. If fact and substance were important, there would also have been a different reaction to Biden’s NATO press conference last month. He did it after the Disaster Debate to show he still had what it takes. He talked for an hour about foreign affairs, international laws and war.
15. But this press corps didn’t hear any of that after Biden said “Vice President Trump” by mistake. There’s no grace for the old in Washington, nor is there interest in anything but vibes in the Washington press corps.
16. There was a time when liberals and Democrats would have nodded in agreement with Chris Cillizza on the merit of candidates being regularly subjected to scrutiny.
17. But after this press corps made a fetish of Biden’s age, I don’t see any more room for the benefit of the doubt – and there’s no going back.
18. This press corps made the election about vibes and it’s going to remain an election about vibes, and if those vibes now grind against the instincts of this press corps, tough shit.
You reap what you sow.
19. In the future, we might look back and see the most important difference between the Biden and Harris campaigns is their level of trust in the press corps.
20. The president believed voters would reward him for the substantial things he has done, and he trusted – indeed, he depended on – the press corps to inform voters, as it’s supposed to.
21. But where he saw fact and substance, the press corps saw only vibes. And in depending on the press corps to get his message across to voters, Biden effectively handed over power that was rightfully his.
22. He allowed the press corps to be the principal arbiters of his reality, rather than reserving that right for himself. You could say Biden was waiting for power to be given to him and he suffered gravely for it.
23. By contrast, the Harris campaign is not letting the press corps wedge itself between her and voters. She is not allowing the news media to mediate her message. She’s preventing the press corps from speaking for her and she’s preventing it from exercising a veto on her speech.
24. In that, she is *taking power* – defining her campaign as well as Trump’s. She is turning the narrative about Biden’s age (81) back against Trump’s (78), such that whatever he says in self-defense is seen as proof of the allegations against him.
25. This decision leaves the press corps on the outside looking in. She’s sustaining a conversation with voters directly, on her own terms, and she’s doing well as a direct consequence of that decision.
26. But being on the outside looking in feels bad to people who see themselves as the adjudicators of American politics. They have incentive to turn attention back to where they think it belongs.
27. That’s why some are busy manufacturing a phony moral standard by which to scam Harris into playing by their rules. That phony moral standard goes something like this, courtesy today of Chris Cillizza:
28. He’s being coy but, in essence, he’s saying that Harris is violating some kind of taboo, or worse, that she’s hiding something of great importance from voters. This, of course, is favorable to her opponents, but let’s be clear: she’s violating *nothing*.
29. There is no lawbook declaring that candidates shall talk to reporters. There is a playbook, if that’s what you mean, but not a lawbook. The vice president could go the whole time without talking to one reporter and she would not have done anything morally wrong.
30. I will repeat myself till I burst. This is a democracy. Harris is obliged to talk to Americans. That’s the end of her obligation. She’s not obliged to talk to the press corps, as if it were a constituency. If she stopped talking to voters, that would be disqualifying.
31. This is not to say she shouldn’t, but that’s a different question, isn’t it? If Harris decides to talk to the press corps about matters of fact and substance relevant to her, it will be her decision made out of concern for tactics and strategy for her campaign.
32. Reporters like Cillizza have a bad habit of presenting themselves to voters as if they operated in their interest and we know nothing could be further from the truth. We should not only stop tolerating this bad habit. We should be hostile towards it.
33. The most powerful thing Harris has done – a game changing decision, if you want to call it that – was to learn from Biden’s fatal error.
34. He tried to meet the press corps’ phony moral standard, only to have it move around, beyond his reach, thus surrendering his power. In the end, his dependence on the press corps made it so he had to ask for permission to campaign.
Harris isn’t asking.
/end
(https://x.com/johnastoehr/status/1823701999956722074?t=Tcx-GHKEY1vfYlB_zz_iPg&s=03)
That was an entire sermon, and ICAM.
Source: Open Thread | Vice President Harris and the MSM | 3CHICSPOLITICO
Do trees cry when you chop them?
Do trees cry when you cut them down?
Do they feel the pain when the axe falls?
Do they bleed when you put a blade through their bark?
I wonder what happens to their roots?
I wonder how they feel when uprooted?
Do they weep when they are gutted?
Are their screams and cries for help lost in the burning pain
when fires light up their unheard screams
Like an unseen bloodstain
by YASSY
Source: GUEST POST // Do Trees Cry? by yassy | unbolt me


Do you ever pay attention to where your mind ‘is’ instead of where it should be in the present moment?
Inhale Mindfulness, Exhale MindFULLness

Ahmed Nour, Abdirahim Saeed, Lamees Altalebi & Paul Cusiac, BBC Arabic The waters on parts Gaza’s Mediterranean coastline have started turning brown …
Diseases spread in Gaza as sewage contaminates camps and coast

Hi all My latest post for Cee’s FOTD. Everlasting Flower
Everlasting Flower #1– FOTD Aug 26

Good Monday morn, dear friends … again already. I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and are ready to face yet another week of political chaos and…
It’s Time For … Another Jolly Monday!

Title: Ragazza in abito di Meana Location: Meana Sardo, Sardinia, Italy Artist: Mauro Patta (Italy) For: Comitato delle leve ’70/’95 Size: 60mq Year:…
Streetart – Mauro Patta @ Meana Sardo, Italy
"Luce di parole, ombra di sogni."
Living on the Edge of the Sagebrush Ocean
Spiritual Insights & Personal Empowerment
Love life
Artist & Art Blogger
Furnicraft, woodwork, and art
reveries and rants
Bem Vindos a este espaço onde compartilhamos um pouco da realidade do Japão à todos aqueles que desejam visitar ou morar no Japão. Aqui neste espaço, mostramos a realidade do Japão e dos imigrantes. O nosso compromisso é com a realidade. Fique por dentro do noticiário dos principais jornais japoneses, tutoriais de Faça você mesmo no Japão e acompanhe a Série Histórias de Imigrantes no Japão. Esperamos que goste de nossos conteúdos, deixe seu like, seu comentário, compartilhe e nos ajudar você e à outras pessoas. Grande abraço, gratidão e volte sempre!
Willkommen auf Elke´s Glücks-Blog
- Specializing in the great outdoors, capturing nature at its finest!
A site to discuss education and democracy
Seu Guia de Inspirações e Reflexões Diárias
my-health-and-beauty.com/
Benim Gezegenime Hoş geldiniz !!!
Blog de viajes y lugares
The official blog of Ed Mooney Photography. Dad of 3, Photographer, Blogger, Powerlifter. Exploring the historical sites of Ireland.
It has new aidias,news, about education , motivation, social, historical, culture, marketing creation new aidias education of language science culture and history
L'unico modo sensato di vivere è senza regole
by Anuran (A) & Sayoni (S)
Fun for the Brain
An exemplary learning community.
Loves, lamentation, and life through prose, stories, passions, and essays.
public tantrums by a non-two-year-old
Public, street and urban art worldwide
all the rules of free form
<script async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-2937106805202763" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>
Lapsed Painter, Occasional Photographer, Compulsive Writer
Health Blogs
Exploring the hidden architectural heritage of Budapest
Yaşamdan
The third incarnation...
More than a thought less than a question
"بوصلة الحياة: مدونة متعددة المجالات، من السياسة إلى الرومانسية، ومن تطوير الذات إلى الأدب وأكثر!" بقلم مشاعر بنت عبدالرحمن
The view from here ... Or here!
Bringer and seeker of joy
The One Where She Stumbled Through Her 40's and Faced Her Demons
Baw wit da baw. Just sayin'.
Website storys
Welcome to the Anglo Swiss World
Querbeet und ohne Gewähr
KINDNESS IS FREE, sprinkle it all over the world, and 😁 smile
Nuestra ética de todos los días...
Fiction Writer in Poet's Clothing
You must be logged in to post a comment.