Althouse

It's obvious. Just look at the lineup (at WaPo): 

"What was weird was [Vance] joking about racism today and then talking about diet Mountain Dew. Who drinks diet Mountain Dew? But in all seriousness, he ain't from here. He is not from Kentucky. This is a guy who would come maybe in the summers for some period of time, or to weddings or funerals."

Writes Nell — commenting on  a TikTok video — and it's "extremely validating" to the man who was treated as though he'd done something hopelessly weird.

Writes Sean Davis, who'd had the gall/wit to ask, last Monday, "Do we have any evidence that Biden is even alive right now?"

"... leaving her and her siblings to be cared for by their mother or by nannies even though Musk had joint custody, and she said Musk berated her when he was present. 'He was cold,' she said. 'He’s very quick to anger. He is uncaring and narcissistic.' Wilson said that, when she was a child, Musk would harass her for exhibiting feminine traits and pressure her to appear more masculine, including by pushing her to deepen her voice as early as elementary school. 'I was in fourth grade. We went on this road trip that I didn’t know was actually just an advertisement for one of the cars — I don’t remember which one — and he was constantly yelling at me viciously because my voice was too high,' she said. 'It was cruel.'... 'I would like to emphasize one thing: I am an adult. I am 20 years old. I am not a child,” she said. “My life should be defined by my own choices.'... 'He doesn’t know what I was like as a child because he quite simply wasn’t there.... And in the little time that he was I was relentlessly harassed for my femininity and queerness.'"

From "Elon Musk's transgender daughter, in first interview, says he berated her for being queer as a child/In an exclusive interview, Vivian Jenna Wilson said her father’s recent statements, including that she is 'not a girl,' inspired her to speak out: 'I’m not just gonna let that slide'" (NBC News).

Here's what Elon Musk said in that conversation with Jordan Peterson:

"It happened to one of my older boys.... I was essentially tricked into signing documents for one of my older boys, Xavier. This is before I had really any understanding of what was going on.... I was told oh you know Xavier might commit suicide.... It wasn't explained to me that puberty blockers are actually just sterilization drugs... and so I lost my son essentially uh so you know they uh they call it dead naming for a reason.... the reason it's called dead naming is because uh your son is dead. So my son is dead, killed by the woke mind virus...."

It's hard to believe Elon Musk was "tricked into signing documents." Wilson doesn't believe Musk was tricked. You can see that Musk is very angry, and Wilson depicts Musk as a person who gets angry — "constantly yelling at me viciously." But this supports the position Jordan Peterson is taking, that there are deeper personal and family issues at play in these cases of transgenderism. 

I thought the antagonism to "Kamala" was a bad idea, and I said so here.

But I switched to the "Harris" approach, as you can see in the previous post.

Then somebody asked me where I got the idea that to use the first name alone would make me look as though I were declaring my opposition to her. My aim is neutrality, cruel neutrality.

So I googled and found "'Harris' or 'Kamala'? Inside the debate over calling women by their first or last name/The vice president has enough support from delegates to assure her the Democratic nomination, but what name does Kamala Harris want to go by?" (Yahoo). Excerpt:

There's that "brat" crap again, with the fuzzy font and the intentionally repulsive green color.

Harris murmurs into the phone to Obama and Obama:

Earlier this week, Michelle and I called our friend @KamalaHarris. We told her we think she’ll make a fantastic President of the United States, and that she has our full support. At this critical moment for our country, we’re going to do everything we can to make sure she wins in… pic.twitter.com/0UIS0doIbA

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) July 26, 2024

I call her "Harris." I was going to call her "my girl Kamala" — because that's what Mrs. Obama calls her in that phone call — but the powers that be have warned us not to call her "Kamala" and of course you can't say "girl" — unless you can — and "my" is a terrible problem, perhaps insinuating a perverse sense of ownership. So I'll keep my distance. "Harris" is it. Don't harass me.

"In a few short days, supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, memed chartreuse into an unusually potent political symbol.... 'I will aspire to be Brat,' Jake Tapper said on CNN to one of his correspondents, who had been holding up a slime-green meme printed out on a sheet of paper."

From "You Can’t Escape This Color/'This is not millennial pink. The energy behind it is alive'" (NYT)(free-access link). From the golden moment before the collapse of "groovy":

... you can talk about whatever you want.

"... the nation’s most sweeping response to a recent Supreme Court ruling that gave governments greater authority to remove homeless people from their streets....  His executive order could divide Democratic local leaders in California, some of whom have already begun to clear encampments while others have denounced the decision from conservative justices as opening the door to inhumane measures to solve a complex crisis. The order also comes as Democrats are uniting around Vice President Kamala Harris, a former senator and prosecutor from California.... Republicans have frequently pointed to homelessness in California as an example of the state’s purported decline.... In his executive order, Mr. Newsom advised California cities and counties on how best to ramp up enforcement on a signature issue of his administration. He cannot force them to take action, but can exert political pressure through billions of dollars the state controls for municipalities to address homelessness...."

From "Newsom Orders California Officials to Remove Homeless Encampments/The directive from Gov. Gavin Newsom is the nation’s most sweeping response to a Supreme Court decision last month that gave local leaders greater authority to remove homeless campers" (NYT).

Screen capture from Axios: ADDED: Speaking of fist pumps caught in iconic photographs, I just noticed this, in The Daily Beast, published July 12th, one day before Trump was shot:

"Those 2021 comments are resurfacing on social media now.... [M]any... are embracing and owning the 'childless cat lady' label as a point of pride.... 'There’s a movement,” declared Nikki Barnes, a previous member of the Democratic National Committee from Florida, accompanied by a 'Childless cat ladies for Harris 2024' image quickly amassing nearly 2 million views. On TikTok, people are snapping up 'Cat ladies for Harris 2024' stickers."

From "‘Childless cat ladies,’ Jennifer Aniston, and Swifties take on JD Vance/Celebrities including Jennifer Aniston and Whoopi Goldberg cite many reasons women don’t have kids. Others are embracing being a childless cat lady like Taylor Swift" (WaPo).

Said Donald Trump.

That's the new episode of the "Advisory Opinions" podcast (audio and transcript, here). 

Is the legal question too abstruse to think about? I'd say yes, but one thing jumped out at me. I'll put it in boldface:

A discussion at English Language Usage, which I arrived at after reading the Orlando Sentinel headline "Joe Biden’s selfless act alters the arc of history."

Nothing brings out my skepticism like everyone using the same word: