Josh Shapiro

For years, Tim Walz has claimed that he and his wife Gwen used in-vitro fertilization to conceive their two children Hope, twenty-three, and Gus, seventeen. The Minnesota governor has weaponized his emotional journey to attack Republicans opposed to the procedure and used it to lockdown the VP slot on Kamala Harris’s protection of reproduction rights ticket.   But the New York Times reports — giving Walz the softest of soft landings — that in fact his wife had intrauterine insemination, or IUI, to conceive, not in vitro fertilization, or IVF.  There is a huge difference between the two procedures, as Walz knows. Principally that there are no moves by Republicans to use the overturning of Roe v. Wade to ban IUI.

OK, it’s August 6, the anniversary of the detonation of Little Boy over the city of Hiroshima in 1945. That marked the end of World War Two. (I know, it took one more bomb and a little more time, but August 6 was the gang plank to the signing of the act of surrender aboard the Missouri.)  Fast forward to August 6, 2024. As of 9:25 ante meridiem there have been no huge detonations. True, the market has yet to open. If we have a repeat of yesterday cautious folk will lock windows on the upper stories in the buildings where the financial experts congregate. But we do have a little whimper of news, a tiny pssst of a political crepitation. Kamala Harris has just chosen Tim Walz, tapioca progressive and governor of Minnesota as her running mate.

Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro is on the shortlist to be Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate and with his newfound national profile comes plenty of scrutiny. In addition to progressive furor over his stance on the Israel-Hamas war, Shapiro is also under fire for allegedly covering up a case of sexual harassment in his office.  National media organizations have acknowledged that Governor Shapiro’s office settled a sexual harassment complaint for nearly $295,000 just last year. Former cabinet secretary Mike Vereb, a top aide to Shapiro, was accused of repeatedly making sexual advances and inappropriate comments toward a female office employee.

It’s official. Kamala Harris has received the obligatory support of Beyoncé. The "kampaign" can finally begin in earnest. On Thursday morning, the vice president released her first campaign ad with an assist from the pop giant. Images of diverse Americans fly by as Beyoncé’s “Freedom” plays and Harris promises a utopian future free of poverty and violence. The campaign is undoubtedly hoping the choice ages better than Hillary Clinton’s overuse of “Fight Song.”  “In this election we each face a question. What kind of country do we want to live in? There are some people who think we should be a country of chaos. Of fear. Of hate,” Harris voices over in the ad. “But us. We choose something different. We choose freedom.

After Thursday’s disastrous excuse for a presidential debate, New York Times opinion columnist Thomas Friedman wrote that Joe Biden “has no business running for reelection.” Columnist Nicolas Kristof also said he hopes Biden “reviews his debate performance” and “withdraws from the race.” Johanna Maska, a Democratic consultant and former Barack Obama aide, wrote on X: “We cannot do this, Democrats. Joe Biden can’t put a sentence together.” Meanwhile, numerous other Democratic insiders and donors are in a state of panic. So if President Biden won’t make it to November, then who could step up?

President Biden has declared he’s running for a second term, but it’s far from certain he actually will. His infirmity and low poll numbers raise serious doubts. His physical decline shows when he walks or climbs the stairs of Air Force One. His cognitive decline shows when he refuses to hold press conferences or answer even the simplest questions, like how he feels about the devastating fires in Maui. His decline in the public’s estimation shows when pollsters ask Americans how they’re doing. Four out of five answer, “Not good. Not good at all.” Voters also say they don’t want another general election choice like the last one. So many votes in 2020 were negative ones “against the worse candidate,” not in favor of the better one.