I hate the idea of a “must-read,” because it assumes that the person giving the suggestions knows exactly what each individual person “must” read. I even think a “should-read” might be a little too presumptuous. But surely there are some “must-reads.” If you are making Spaghetti Carbonara, for instance, then you must read the recipe. But, if you are curious about the relationship between Barack Obama and Joe Biden, then maybe you should read this piece by Alex Thompson.
I walked away with a greater appreciation for Biden, mostly because Obama’s team comes off as snooty and arrogant to Grandpa Joe.
I know everyone is worried about the Trump Administration’s shenanigans with the Post Office. I think two things can be simultaneously true:
The Trump Administration is trying weaken the post office because they are afraid a giant mail-in ballot return would be great for Biden.
The Trump Administration is impressively incompetent, even when it comes to something like cheating, so it may not make a huge difference.
Generally, if you want to cheat in an election, your goal should be to do it about a month before, not in August. Congress will be holding a hearing on it this week, and it has been covered widely by the media.
Colorado Senator Michael Bennet has a good op-ed on it, and he puts a focus on the Trump’s campaign’s original acceptance of help from the Russians. It’s for that reason that I think one of the bigger and less-talked about stories of the past few weeks has been the Director of National Intelligence’s (DNI) mediocre press release on foreign interference in the 2020 election. The press release makes it clear that Russia is up to its old tricks, but it conflates that (illegal) campaign - which includes things like hacking and manipulation of social media - with China’s preference for Joe Biden.
Nation states make statements all the time about who their preferred election winner would be, which is part of normal international politicking. There is a stark difference between that and Russia’s attempts to manipulate voters. The DNI’s conflation of the two is an ominous sign for November, because it suggests heavily that even the intelligence community is becoming politicized by Trump. I presently think it’s more worrisome than Trump slashing the tires of Post Office trucks, although that could change. For one, imagine if there is interference by the Russians and Biden wins. What Trump’s DNI has shown us is that he could be willing to suggest that China assisted Joe Biden, which Trump will then tweet about incessantly and enrage his supporters.
Lastly, Kamala. In hindsight, she seems like kind of a no-brainer pick, right? She is a woman of color, smart, and has experience. Who else was on the list? Susan Rice? There was a lot of speculation about whether or not Democrats would be satisfied with Kamala the Cop being on the ticket, and the numbers are in: They like her very much, which suggests that the gap between the hardcore Bernie fans and the Biden/Harris ticket will not be as problematic as the one Hillary had in 2016.
Jim Geraghty has a good piece about how not only is Harris eligible to be the Vice-President (or President, for that matter), but also that the entire “Natural Born Citizen” debate needs to end.
This was in a response to an article by John Eastman, who argued that Kamala is ineligible to serve because she was born in California to two parents who were non-citizens at the time (her father is from Jamaica and her mother is from India).
Geraghty does a good job of debunking it using not only case law, but also by using the originalist interpretation at the time. The reason that virtually every legal scholar makes the case for birthright citizenship via the 14th Amendment is because the Senators who were drafting it at the time explicitly said it would bestow citizenship to anyone born in the United States. Senator John Conness even gave a specific example of someone born in (cough) California to parents were not citizens, and stated explicitly that the child born in California would gain citizenship.
Kamala is eligible to serve, it is not close, and there is no counter-argument, but we will not have true victory until we amend the Constitution and allow Arnold Schwarzenegger to serve as POTUS.
That is all my tea. I’ll try to come back with more next weekend. I hope everyone’s week starts off great, and as always, let us pray to the Lord and ask Him to help us live for His glory, to flex on our haters, and get that paper. Deuces.