More from the article...

... Some Republican senators think former President Donald Trump should have seen the swap atop the Democrat ticket coming and crafted a messaging and political strategy weeks ago.

They see Trump's awkward discussion about Harris' racial heritage at the National Association of Black Journalists convention as a clear sign the Trump campaign hasn't yet hammered out a workable strategy for Harris.

GOP lawmakers also view Trump's selection of Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, as his running mate as evidence that Trump didn't expect Biden to drop out of the race. They worry Vance's outspoken views on restricting abortion and his claim that "childless cat ladies" run the country play right into the message that Harris and Democrats will center their campaign on in the fall.

One Republican senator who spoke to Trump before he announced Vance as his running mate said the former president expressed skepticism that Biden would drop out of the race.

"I think they were caught off guard. I think they were surprised," the senator said. "I think there was shock when the Democrats revived [their party] really quickly" and unified support behind Harris.

"I think she's more formidable than Republicans give her credit for. It's going to be a short election, that favors her. It's going to be sprint. We're used to these long elections. This one's going to end up being short. That helps her," the lawmaker said of Harris, who announced she had raised $310 million for her campaign in July.

The lawmaker said Trump's selection of Vance as his running mate to combat Biden's strength in Michigan and Pennsylvania, specifically, showed he expected Biden to be his opponent in the fall.

A second GOP senator in contact with Trump who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the campaign said the GOP nominee and his team weren't ready for the entire Democratic Party to rally behind Harris within a few days of Biden dropping his reelection bid.

"I think it was a surprise," said the lawmaker. "I wasn't surprised at all. I was already betting on a different nominee. What was impressive to me was how quickly they consolidated" behind Harris. ...

Without the blocker...

Another view...

More from the article...

... The decision by the justices came in response to a lawsuit by the state of Missouri claiming that the case against Trump infringed on the right of voters under the U.S. Constitution to hear from the Republican presidential nominee as he seeks to regain the White House.

The Supreme Court's order was unsigned. Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito indicated they would have heard Missouri's case. ...

More from the article...

... Why it matters: Thomas came under fire last year after several investigations revealed the close ties between him and Crow -- including that he'd failed to report luxury trips taken on Crow's dime -- that spurred greater scrutiny of Supreme Court justices' financial practices.

- - - Other reports showed that Crow had made private school tuition payments for Thomas' grandnephew, and that Thomas didn't properly disclose that he had sold property to Crow.

- - - Other justices, including Justices Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito, have also faced questions about their disclosures. ...

While Thomas has officially disclosed some of the previously unreported trips, neither man has "disclosed the full scale" of Thomas' use of Crow's private jet and yacht, Wyden wrote in a letter to Crow's lawyer Monday.

- - - International flight records reveal that in 2010, Thomas and his wife, Ginni Thomas, took an undisclosed round trip from Hawaii to New Zealand aboard Crow's private jet, Wyden wrote.

- - - Wyden added that Crow has failed to address the "simple question" of whether he claimed tax deductions as a result of these trips, noting that passing off "trips involving personal hospitality as business expenses is a run of the mill tax scam."

- - - In June, the Senate Judiciary Committee said it had discovered additional undisclosed private jet flights that Thomas had taken aboard Crow's jet.

The big picture: "I am deeply concerned that Mr. Crow may have been showering a public official with extravagant gifts, then writing off those gifts to lower his tax bill," Wyden wrote. ...

@#27 ... Even better: NONE of the polls are accounting for pissed off women, since there's no way to model it based on the prior electorate. ...

Along those lines...

... former Attorney General Bill Barr shut down a probe into whether the Egyptian government illegally funneled $10 million to former President Donald Trump's campaign in 2016. ...

Should fmr Pres Trump win the election in November, I suspect there will be more shutting down of probes and trials by his AG.

@#2 ... The UK security services previously linked rightwing arsonists in London to the Wagner Group. The Kremlin is up to something. ...

20-30" of rain possible for eastern South Carolina coast?

At what point does Mr Musk start running into election laws?

Fun tune...

@#59 ... They didn't. ...

I agree.

Drudge sold nothing.

To my eyes, the comment in #55 is little more than an admission that that current alias was not able to counter the comments that responded to it.

I guess I should say something like "better luck next time" to that current alias?

Japan is an interesting country.

They seem to have a different opinion of the ocean and its creatures than the US does.

Can you say, sushi?

I knew you could.

So, I guess what I am asking is, (all the angst aside), how does the US-based view apply to Japan?

@#18 ... Rasmussen is normally 5-10% slanted to the GOP. ...

Yeah, that's one reason why I tend towards the RCP rolling average.

And, for the record, the RCP Electoral College display has not changed recently...

@#11 ... It turned into fire like you might see in a huge bomb explosion outside when that lightning hit.

Yeah, ya don't f!!k with lightning.

If you try, you are likely to lose, big time.

@#2

My view, in two parts...

1) ... My first wife did not want kids, and since I didn't care one way or the other, I was okay with it.

Great, it is what you (plural) agreed to.

2) please consider paragraphs in your comments.

:)

@#16 ... they include a lot of trash Reichwing polls intended to puff up Dotard's numbers. ...

That also raises another question or two or three ...

I guess my first question might be, why do you seem to think that poll results you disagree with are inherently incorrect?

And then...

Would you be happier if all the polls agreed with your opinion? Is that the result you desire?

@#16 ... I don't trust RCP; they include a lot of trash Reichwing polls intended to puff up Dotard's numbers. ...

That's your choice. I will not argue that.

... is the inability of pollsters to poll Gen-Z, a group notoriously unwilling to answer a call from any number they don't recognize ...

Not just Gen-Z, but anyone who has had Caller-ID over the years. For instance, me.

Yesterday I got a call from GM Polling. I let it go to voice mail.

But yeah, and the pollsters realize that. They realized that two decades ago when I worked in the industry (not in a policy position, but in an IT position).

But to the gist of your comment...

Yeah, pollsters are in a bind lately.

They can only report what people tell them.

So, maybe another question to add to your text wall is along the lines of, why might people lie to pollsters?

@#5 ... I feel sorry for her VP pick. ...

Yeah, after fmr Pres trump choosing Sen Vance, a born-again Trump clone, and the [rightful, imo] criticism that generated....

Any candidate VP Harris chooses is going to be, I'll say, scruntinized.

And, rightfully so, so long as such scrutiny is factually-based.

But such a basis seems to be foreign to the MAGA cult, a.k.a.the GOP, of late.

So, I'll proffer that the next three months may not be something I might want to experience.

One candidate (Trump) sowing the seeds of division, splitting the Country apart for his political and egotistical gain.

While the other candidate (Harris) wants to unite the Country for the benefit of the Country..

@#13 ... IOW, he's still fishing. ...

Yeah.

My view is that fmr Pres Trump and his campaign have still not yet figured out how to respond to Pres Biden stepping down.

The disastrous (I'm being kind) "Trump being Trump" appearance at the NABJ shows that.

@#3 ... All the momentum is behind VPOTUS. ...

Yup.

She now needs to work to continue that momentum. ...

... turn it into voter turnout, and votes for Democrats on Election Day.

Can she do that?

More from the OpEd ...

... People do still have personal preferences. It's now considered a niche market.

Others, presumably those realists we've all heard about, can't afford kids. That charming cost of living insanity we all adore so much apparently does affect people other than billionaires.

(Are there people other than billionaires? Really? Why? Nothing better to do? You'd never guess.)

Declining birth rates are another ongoing suffocating factor. That's also been going on for years. It's getting so critical that it's even being mentioned on the political news in between propaganda sessions.

However -- None of this information has translated into anything resembling a response to the fact that kids are simply too expensive to have. Like housing, health education, and other commodities, it's just too hard. ...

@#11 ... Their data has been skewed considerably towards republicans candidates in a manner that is not consistent with real world results. ...

And the evidence you have to support that assertion is....?

thx.

@#10 ... Did you actually click the link I posted? ...

I did.

I clicked on it, and followed it to abcnews.go.com.

Once there, I read the entire article, and then backtracked to click on the "average of national polls" link in the first paragraph.

@#15 ... He didn't know about the hostages, just like he didn't know about this plea deal. ...

Yeah, go with that.

What else yer current alias got?