The V.P.

Not Speaking Truth To Power: our leaders owe it to their leader — and the country — to tell him what they think.

If not Joe, who?  According to this ranked-choice poll, Kamala.

Passed over for VP:

> Gov. Doug Burgum, who said he wouldn’t do business with Trump.

> Marco Rubio, who called Trump a con artist.

Chosen:

> J.D. Vance, a never-Trumper who compared Trump to Hitler.

(In fairness, what Republican hasn’t said unflattering things about Trump? Two minutes worth sharing.)

And much more — read the oppo research memo Steve Schmidt shared yesterday.

Now Vance says he got it wrong; having seen the results Trump got as president, he’s become a big fan.

In fact, the economy Trump was handed was much better than the economy he handed off.

Trump will blame that on the pandemic — and who could have predicted a pandemic?

Trump slashed CDC staff inside China prior to COVID.  The program in China specifically charged with spotting new infectious diseases went from having four American staff in 2017 to none by 2019.

Even without those cuts, it’s not clear COVID could have been averted the way Obama averted Ebola.  But the contrast between competence and bluster seems clear.  Same with providing affordable health care.  And bringing manufacturing jobs home.  And revitalizing our infrastructure.  And working out a truly bipartisan solution to the border crisis that “he alone” prevented from becoming law.  Read the bill.  It would have ended the crisis.  Trump insisted the crisis continue.

But I digress.

THE SHOOTER

In 2021, he sent $15 to a progressive group, but he later registered as a Republican — so maybe he was just a hopeless loner . . . bullied every day in school . . . obsessed with guns, rejected by the rifle team, who wanted to prove he was a good shot after all.  Too early to know.

Kristina M.: “Whether or not it was politically motivated, ‘mass’ shootings happen on average more than once a day in the U.S.  This one is shocking only because the venue was so highly secured.  Either all mass shootings are tragedies that demand we do something to prevent them; or, as Republicans repeatedly tell us, they are ‘the price of freedom’ and we just have to live with them.”