The Agony And Joy Of Defeat. You really thought I’d miss this story?:
French athlete Anthony Ammiratiwas getting in his own way at the Summer 2024 Olympics.
The 21-year-old pole vaulter missed out on the chance to win an Olympic medal on Saturday, Aug. 3, after he missed his target height when his crotch got caught on the crossbar.
As seen in the now-viral video circulating on X (formerly Twitter), the bulge in Ammirati’s shorts stopped him from making it over the bar, and he fell to the ground in defeat instead.
The unexpected issue caused him to finish in 12th place, disqualifying him for the next round and squashing his chances of competing for a medal.
Former president Donald Trump unleashed a fusillade of personal and sometimes false attacks against the popular governor of Georgia on Saturday night, reigniting an intraparty feud three months ahead of the presidential election in this battleground state.Trump mocked him sarcastically and called him “Little Brian”; repeatedly called him “disloyal”; blamed Kemp for Trump being charged in Georgia by a prosecutor whom Kemp has criticized; suggested Kemp wanted Republicans to lose elections; and argued Georgia would have better crime and economic numbers if Kemp were no longer governor.
One person familiar with Georgia politics said Republican elected officials were frustrated because they believe the remarks will hurt Trump and could cost him the state. “Republicans were lined up to give positive comments tonight, and now some of them are scared to,” the person said.
“Makes absolutely no sense at all,” a second person involved in Georgia politics said. “Unless Trump wants to lose the state.”
I can’t even…except to say, “Keep it up.” No, not a reference to the French pole vaulter. (Further proof, as if required, that sophomoric humor is not the sole province of sophomores. Been skating on it for decades.)
Don’t Think Trump’s Debate Dodge Is Gonna Work. Pretty sure his ‘agreement’ with Fox News for a debate before an audience of his rabid supporters is a non-starter:
Trump:
Harris:
Harris has consistently said she plans on attending the Sept. 10 debate hosted by ABC News that has been on the calendar for months.
“We’re happy to discuss further debates after the one both campaigns have already agreed to,” Michael Tyler, her campaign communications director, said in a statement on Saturday.
“Mr. Anytime, anywhere, anyplace should have no problem with that unless he’s too scared to show up on the 10th,” Tyler added.
Double-Down On ‘Weird’. It works, and it’s what Trump has done from the very beginning:
Going low is a new tactic for the civility-obsessed Democrats. But Trump has always understood the power of an on-the-nose insult. Coming up with nasty nicknames for his detractors is a longstanding strategy of his, one that has proved effective in the past. I mean, remember Jeb Bush? Or perhaps you don’t – which proves the point. Back in 2015 Bush, the second son of former president George HW Bush and a younger brother of former president George W Bush, decided to run in the Republican primaries. His name alone would have taken him far were it not for the fact that Trump labelled him “low energy Jeb”. Trump managed to capture Bush’s off-putting essence in that phrase and the insult repeatedly came up in focus groups as an example of why people didn’t like him. His campaign basically became a futile attempt to shed the low-energy label. Eventually he ran out of energy entirely and dropped out.
In the same way that Trump managed to boil down Bush’s biggest weakness into a pithy attack line, “weird” perfectly encapsulates the modern Republican party. “I don’t know who came up with the message, but I salute them,” David Karpf, a strategic communication professor at George Washington University, told the Associated Press. Not only is it a concise summation of the general off-putting Republican vibe, “it frustrates opponents, leading them to further amplify it through off-balance responses”.
In other words: being called a bunch of weirdos has driven Republicans stark raving mad. Honestly, if you want a quick pick-me-up, just take a look at some of the videos of them melting down about it. Their overwhelming response has been to shout WE’RE NOT WEIRD, YOU’RE WEIRD at the top of their lungs. JD Vance, for example, in something of an own goal, tweeted a video of Harris telling everyone her pronouns with the caption “JD Vance is weird”.
While politicians trading silly insults may seem like a step back for US politics, Democrats emphasizing how weird Republicans are is actually progress. For far too long Democrats have made the mistake of treating fanatics on the right like they’re reasonable people who want to have good-faith debates. But there is no way to have a good-faith debate with people who call their opponents “childless cat ladies”, defend 12-year-olds getting married and think 10-year-old rape victims should be forced to give birth.
Can I get an ‘Amen’?
What do you want to talk about?