9.30 Unredacted, by Christopher Steele
9.30 Pete Rose dies at 83.
9.30 Dikembe Mutumbo dies at 58.
9.29 The Chicago White Sox conclude the season at 41-121, the worst in MLB history.
9.29 Kris Kristofferson dies at 88.
9.27 Maggie Smith dies at 89.
9.26 Hurricane Helene makes landfall as a powerful Category 4 storm, causing disastrous flooding and landslides that leave at least 225 dead in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.
9.26 Mayor Eric Adams is indicted on five federal charges of bribery, fraud and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations that prosecutors say began when he was a top elected official in Brooklyn and continued after he became mayor.
9.25 Thomas Edsall in the Times: “In “Popular Reactions to Donald Trump’s Indictments and Trials and Their Implications for the 2024 Election,” Gary C. Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego, argued that this denial — “motivated ignorance reinforced by right-wing pundits and social media entrepreneurs” — helps explain “the tenacious loyalty of Trump’s MAGA followers.” After an analysis of hundreds of surveys, Jacobson concluded:
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Republicans and Trump voters downplay the importance of the crimes charged, and large majorities refuse to admit that Trump committed such crimes anyway.
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In the abstract and before the fact, a conviction on any of the felony charges would be projected to devastate Trump’s support. But after Trump was convicted in that case, the share of Republicans and prospective Trump voters who said they would not vote for a felon fell sharply.
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Not only do a substantial majority of Republicans deny that Trump ever committed a serious crime as president, but an even larger majority of them also believe he should be immune from prosecution if he did.
Jacobson describes the logic of truth denial among MAGA supporters of Trump: “Motivated ignorance differs from the more familiar concept of rational ignorance in that ignorance is motivated by the anticipated costs of possessing knowledge, not acquiring it. That is, it is not simply that the benefits of accurate political knowledge may be less than the cost of attaining it and thus not worth pursuing but that the costs of having accurate information exceed the benefits. When expressed opinions and beliefs signal identification with a group, it is rational to stay ignorant of contradictory facts that, if acknowledged, would threaten to impose personal and social identity costs for the uncertain benefits of accurate knowledge. Only by remaining ignorant of such facts as those can Trump supporters avoid facing the painful possibility that they might have been wrong about him and their despised enemies, right? Such a realization could unsettle their self and social identities, estranging them from family and friends who remain within the MAGA fold. As Michael Patrick Lynch, a philosopher who studies political beliefs put it, “To be blunt, Trump supporters aren’t changing their minds because that change would require changing who they are, and they want to be that person.” Staying ignorant, deliberately or unconsciously, is thus rational. In fact, there appears to be a self-reinforcing feedback loop that rewards Trump for his incessant distortions of the truth.” Michael Bang Petersen, a political scientist at Denmark’s Aarhus University, responded by email to my inquiries, suggesting that “the paradox is that people who are fed up with the political system don’t support Trump despite Trump’s behavior and the charges against him but, to some extent, because of his behavior and the charges against him. . . .According to our research,” Petersen added, “people who feel anger and feel threatened reach out to dominant politicians who are willing to act in aggressive and transgressive ways. Such a personality is seen as attractive because people expect them to be able to prevail in conflicts against opponents, including, in this case, the overarching political system.”
9.25 The Restless Wave, by Adm. James Stavrides
9.22 Elon Musk on X: “While I have many concerns about a potential Kamala regime, my absolute showstopper is that the bureaucracy currently choking America to death is guaranteed to grow under a Democratic Party administration. This would destroy the Mars program and doom humanity. It cannot happen. . . .This is a fork, maybe the fork, in the road of human destiny.”
9.22 Matthew Karp in Harper’s: “In truth, the great reshuffling of class and party has lowered the ceiling on the Democratic coalition: its new social base, adults with bachelor’s degrees, makes up less than 40 percent of voters. With the class divide eroding older race-based party allegiances, Democrats are losing Latino and African-American support. Though liberals still inveigh against voting restrictions, disengaged and erratic voters, who struggle to clear these hurdles, now tend to vote Republican—so much so that Pennsylvania’s new automatic voter-registration system, implemented by Democratic governor Josh Shapiro last year, may help Trump in November. The chief irony is this: the same bourgeois virtues that have helped Democrats to dominate the technology sector and the education system, and to make new inroads into the security state, have become liabilities in mass political combat. An emphasis on process over outcome, policy over message, expertise over instinct, clean form over messy substance, and moral clarity over tactical intelligence: these are the characteristics of a class that has successfully indicted Trump for eighty-eight felonies but has failed to develop an effective political argument against him. These are the same inclinations that, in the liberal orbit, present every electoral cycle as a death battle with fascism—even as the “anti-fascist” forces lack direction, savvy, and often, it appears, a basic interest in winning the most votes. For all the talk of preserving democracy, this is not a combination well suited to democratic political power.”
9.22 Jayson Stark in The Athletic: “How are Judge and Soto are different from all the great duos? It’s the combination of power and on-base skills that makes them unlike any other set of teammates you can name. . . .There is no other teammate tag team that has hit this many balls over the fence, done this much extra-base damage, created this many runs, walked this many times, reached base this many times or seen this many pitches … at the same time, in the same season. Other than one pair: Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.”
9.22 The White Sox lose for the 120th time, tying the 1962 Mets for most defeats in one season.
9.21 John DeVore in The New Republic: “Fox News isn’t some sinister Ministry of Truth; it’s more like a really, really wealthy community theater that puts on plays specifically meant to offend Subaru owners. And Tucker [Carlson] was one of its brightest stars until he went so off-script and told such outrageous lies that his employer nearly got sued into oblivion.”
9.21 Becoming Madam Secretary, by Stephanie Dray.
9.19 Kamala Harris, to Oprah Winfrey: `If somebody breaks in my house, they’re getting shot.’
9.19 Diana Taurasi, after what appeared to be her final home game in Phoenix: “If it was the last time, it felt like the first time.”
9.19 In the Dodgers’ 20-4 beatdown of the Miami Marlins, Shohei Ohtani became the first player in MLB history to reach 50 home runs and 50 steals in the same season. Ohtani went 6-for-6 with 10 RBIs, three homers, two doubles, two steals and four runs. The Athletic: “No player in baseball history had hit three homers and stolen multiple bases in a game, until Ohtani did it on Thursday. No player had collected more total bases (17) in a multi-steal game, smashing the previous mark of 11 from the likes of Kirk Gibson and Braggo Roth. No player since at least 1901 had collected at least five hits, hit multiple home runs and stolen multiple bases in the same game. According to OptaSTATS, no player since 1920 has ever had a 10-RBI day, a six-hit day, a five extra-base hit day, a three-homer day, and a multi-steal day within their career. Ohtani crammed all that into a single Thursday afternoon.”
9.19 The Wall Street Journal reports thatAnna Kilgore, the Trump supporter who filed a complaint with police, blaming her Haitian neighbor for the disappearance of her cat Miss Sassy in late August, and alleging that they had killed and eaten the feline, has recently found her cat lurking in her basement. She has apologized.
9.18 W.H. Auden, September 1, 1939: “I and the public know/ What all schoolchildren learn/ Those to whom evil is done/ Do evil in return.”
9.18 Trump at rally on Long Island: “I’m the greatest of all time. Maybe greater even than Elvis. Elvis had a guitar, I don’t have a guitar. I don’t have the privilege of a guitar.”
9.18 Grand jury duty concluded. Twenty-two jurors voted on 222 counts leveled in various combinations against about 25 suspects. Every count resulted in an indictment. Only about six jurors voted against indictment on any count; only one count received as many as five no votes. I voted no on somewhere between 7 and 10 counts, and I believe I was ranked second in that number; one woman seemed to refuse on thirty counts, maybe more. There was no deliberation; I would have been interested to have heard her reasoning. Prosecutor Mike Sharp told us that every defendant would be offered plea bargaining. The small fish would be offered a misdemeanor charge and probation and rehab; the ringleader would be offered something like a fifteen year sentence. All jurors were white, except one or two who might have been Latino. The prosecutor and his two staff members were white. The 6-8 law enforcement investigators were white. About three-quarters of the defendants were black, including all the top people. US Deaths annually involving tobacco: 480,000; from alcohol: 178,000; narcotics: 81,806 (2022); from guns 48,204 (2022).
9.17 Sean “Diddy” Combs was indicted on three counts of sex trafficking and racketeering. Prosecutors say Combs used his business empire to transport women, as well as male sex workers, across state lines to take part in recorded sexual performances called “Freak Offs.”
9.16 Grand jury
9.15 A gunman with an automatic weapon was spotted lurking outside a golf course in Florida where Trump was playing. Secret Service agents fired on the gunman, who fled before being arrested. The Secret Service is calling it an assassination attempt.
9.15 Trump on X: “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT”
9.14 Russell Moore in The Atlantic: “When we are willing to see children terrorized rather than stop telling lies about their families, we should step back, forget about our dogs and cats for a moment, and ask who abducted our consciences. That’s especially true for those of us who, like me, claim to be followers of Jesus of Nazareth, who told us that on the Day of Judgment, “people will give account for every careless word they speak” (Mt 12:36). The Bible’s Book of James tells us, “How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness” (Jas 3:5). The Bible goes on to say that the words we use for other people are not just rhetoric to be deployed against our would-be opponents. The words themselves reveal the moral state of our soul. Of our capacity for words, James wrote: “It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so” (Jas 3:8–10).
9.13 The Psychology of Social Status: Status differences aren’t just about wealth—they affect our thoughts every day. Neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga explains, “When you wake up, you don’t think about abstract concepts. You think about where you stand compared to others.” Whether it’s between a CEO and an employee, a quarterback and a receiver, or between spouses, status plays a significant role. Recent studies by social scientists have explored the behavioral differences between people of varying social standing, revealing how those with lower status sometimes navigate their way up. Psychologist PJ Henry at DePaul University recently explored this topic, showing that people with lower social status may be more prone to aggressive behavior. He explained this through the lens of “low-status compensation theory.” Henry’s research started with the observation that regions with a history of herding tended to have higher murder rates than farming areas, aligning with previous research on how herding cultures developed a “culture of honor.” Herders, who were often at economic risk due to the vulnerability of their livestock, had to develop quicker reactions to threats. In contrast, farming economies, being more stable, didn’t require this same level of aggression. Henry challenged the traditional “culture of honor” explanation, suggesting instead that these violent tendencies stemmed from status differences. He found that individuals from lower-status groups are often more defensive and sensitive to rejection. This heightened sensitivity makes them quicker to react aggressively when they feel threatened. In his study of counties across the American South, Henry found that, from 1972 to 2006, murder rates were consistently higher in areas suited for herding, even when accounting for wealth. This pattern was seen across 92 countries, where regions with greater status disparities had higher levels of violence. Henry also analyzed survey data from over 1,500 Americans and found that those from lower socio-economic backgrounds were more likely to be psychologically defensive, feeling more vulnerable to being taken advantage of and showing lower levels of trust.”
9.13 Grand jury
9.12 Grand jury
9.11 Grand jury
9.11 Linda Ronstadt on Facebook, on Trump‘s appearance in Tucson: “Donald Trump is holding a rally on Thursday in a rented hall in my hometown, Tucson. I would prefer to ignore that sad fact. But since the building has my name on it, I need to say something. It saddens me to see the former President bring his hate show to Tucson, a town with deep Mexican-American roots and a joyful, tolerant spirit. I don’t just deplore his toxic politics, his hatred of women, immigrants and people of color, his criminality, dishonesty and ignorance — although there’s that. For me it comes down to this: In Nogales and across the southern border, the Trump Administration systematically ripped apart migrant families seeking asylum. Family separation made orphans of thousands of little children and babies, and brutalized their desperate mothers and fathers. It remains a humanitarian catastrophe that Physicians for Human Rights said met the criteria for torture. There is no forgiving or forgetting the heartbreak he caused. Trump first ran for President warning about rapists coming in from Mexico. I’m worried about keeping the rapist out of the White House
9.11 Frank Luntz on Piers Morgan: “I think that — that he loses because of this debate performance.”
9.11 Peter Wehner in The Atlantic: “Harris did to Donald Trump what Donald Trump had done to Joe Biden: She broke her opponent on a debate stage. . . .The night, for Harris supporters, went better than even the most optimistic among them could have hoped. For Trump supporters, it was not just a defeat but a public humiliation, the crushing comeuppance they probably secretly feared might one day arrive but, until now, never quite had.
9.11 Kelly Dittmar, director of research and a scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics at the Eagleton Institute of Politics, quoted in the Times: “She was asserting a level of power and control that are often seen as traits desired in executive leaders, in presidents, but also questioned in women. She was very calm, and rational, in contrast to tropes that women would be somehow too emotional or less stable than male leaders.”
9.11 Jessica Karl on Bloomberg: “Harris was correct in saying that Putin would eat Trump for lunch. But she failed to mention that she’s equally capable of cooking and eating him for lunch, too. Her debate performance was proof of that.”
9.10 Childless Cat Lady Taylor Swift endorses Harris.
9.10 Van Jones on CNN: “She whooped him. She got up there and she put him in his place. She baited him and then she spanked him. She baited him and then she spanked him. Not only did she pass the commander in chief test, he failed it.”
9.10 Heather Cox Richardson on X: Dear heavens. She is walking him like a poodle.
9.10 Harris creams Trump in their presidential debate. Trump: “They’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there, and this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame.”
9.9 James Earl Jones dies at 93.
9.9 Nick Cave: I have a full life. A privileged life. An unendangered life. But sometimes the simple joys escape me. Joy is not always a feeling that is freely bestowed upon us, often it is something we must actively seek. In a way, joy is a decision, an action, even a practised method of being. It is an earned thing brought into focus by what we have lost — at least, it can seem that way.
9.9 Grand jury
9.7 David Fickling on Bloomberg: “[Y]ou could keep all of America’s coal boilers and blast furnaces going until Thanksgiving in 2025 with the reserves of solid fuel that Chinese industries have built up in the last couple of years. … China has accounted for about 97% of the world’s increase in coal production since 2018. Now, however, it has been left with a vast and slowly deteriorating pile of solid fuel. … There’s little reason for climate advocates to celebrate the fact that this inventory isn’t being burned. Coal that’s oxidized in a stockpile will produce carbon dioxide just as surely as the stuff that’s incinerated in a power plant — it just won’t produce any useful energy, a worst-of-both-worlds situation.”
9.6 Sergio Mendes dies at 83.
9.5 Trump, on whether he would support funding for child care: “Well, I would do that. And we’re sitting down — you know, I was somebody — we had Senator Marco Rubio and my daughter Ivanka was so impactful on that issue. It’s a very important issue. But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about that — because the child care is, child care, it’s, couldn’t, you know, there’s something, you have to have it. In this country, you have to have it. But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about, by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to, but they’ll get used to it very quickly — and it’s not going to stop them from doing business with us, but they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country. Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about, including child care, that it’s going to take care.”
9.4 Linda Sun, a former aid to Gov. Cuomo and former deputy Chief of Staff to Gov. Hochul, is charged with acting as an agent of the Chinese government. According to a federal indictment, Sun “acted at the order, direction, or request” of Beijing in return for millions of dollars in kickbacks and special home deliveries of salted duck. I did not know her, never heard of her, do not recognize her face.