Chances are that, like David Sedaris, you're perplexed by those unsure who to vote for in 2024. Here's how he describes the undecided voter: "To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. 'Can I interest you in the chicken?' she asks. 'Or would you prefer the platter of sh-t with bits of broken glass in it?' To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked." Maybe the method of chicken preparation is a determining factor for some, but political operatives from the two campaigns are a lot less focused on the dwindling (and yes, perplexing) number of those who are undecided between Trump and Harris and more focused on the bigger prize: Winning over those who are undecided about voting at all. Ron Brownstein explains in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Undecided Voters Are Not Who You Think They Are. "Persuadable voters get the most attention from the media, but campaigns recognize that irregular voters can loom much larger in the outcome—especially in presidential elections when more of them ultimately participate." These aren't the voters the media tends to focus on. They're not the ones we see interviewed in small town diners. They might not even have decided whether they want to go to the diner in the first place. (If they do, I'd recommend the chicken.) 2Manhattan TransferIf you know an FBI agent in NYC, try to be as supportive as possible. Chances are they've been extremely overworked lately. Well, specifically the FBI units focused on NYC Mayor Eric Adams and his administration. (Probably known around the office as The Adams Crime Family.) Those investigations have gone to the top as "New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been indicted on five federal charges related to bribery, wire fraud, conspiracy and soliciting campaign contributions from foreign nationals." Adams insists he did nothing wrong and won't resign. I imagine pressure might alter that stance, and in New York, the governor can remove a mayor from office when criminal charges are brought. Gothamist: What happens if Mayor Adams resigns – or refuses to leave City Hall? 3Ready, Willing, and Enabled"Like many of the women who say they were assaulted while working for the luxury department store, she recalls the doctors who carried out intimate medical examinations on staff. Others describe the personal assistants who summoned them to Fayed and the security guards who protected the apartment where he carried out many of the attacks. 'There was a whole system to facilitate this,' says Dean Armstrong KC, one of the barristers representing some of the alleged victims." Harrods' Mohamed Al Fayed is accused of being serial sexual predator. Like other high profile monsters, he couldn't have done it alone. BBC: How Fayed built a corrupt system of enablers to carry out his sexual abuse. 4The Ring of Firefights"The immediate trigger and goal of the war was a Hamas-Iranian interest to scuttle the Biden team’s diplomatic initiative to forge Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Saudi Arabia into a ring of peace. The Iranian-Hamas counterstrategy was to ignite a ring of fire around Israel, using Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, pro-Iranian Shiite militias in Iraq and West Bank militants armed by Iran with weapons smuggled through Jordan. The Iranian strategy is exquisite from Tehran’s point of view: Destroy Israel by sacrificing as many Palestinians and Lebanese as necessary but never risk a single Iranian life. The Iranians are ready to die to the last Lebanese, the last Palestinian, the last Syrian and the last Yemeni to eliminate Israel (and distract the world from the Iranian regime’s abuses of its own people and imperialist control over Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria)." The question is not really whether Iran (and its backers) are responsible for the chaos in the Middle East. The question is how Israel should respond. "The problem for Israelis and the Jewish people is that while the Netanyahu government was right in its diagnosis that this was a war of annihilation, it refused to conduct it in the only way that could hope to bring success." Tom Friedman in the NYT (Gift Article): Why Everything Is Suddenly Spiraling for Israel. One could argue that things are spiraling for Hamas and Hezbollah (and even Iran) as well. They're certainly spiraling for Hezbollah's leadership. But they're also spiraling for innocent civilians caught in the crossfire. Here's the latest from BBC. 5Extra, ExtraHelene: The eye of Hurricane Helene is expected to make landfall Thursday night. The storm is both strong an extremely large. Here's the latest from CNN. 6Bottom of the NewsEverything is political. Even dessert. A Pennsylvania bakery known for its election cookie poll is swamped with orders. (If I lived in a swing state and had to put up with the nonstop ads, I'd probably need to eat about hundred of these a day to cope...)
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