With all the political games that have been playing out over the last few weeks, I genuinely lost track of the fact that the Paris Olympics begin on Friday. But they are indeed upon us! I unabashedly admit that I’m a total sucker for the opening ceremonies. The pageantry! The storytelling! Well, Paris is really out to dazzle us this year with a certain je ne sais quoi, as their ceremony will be held outside across the city and in a flotilla on the Seine. How avant garde! I hope it doesn’t rain on the parade! (And I really hope they got that bed bug situation under control.) As per usual, most of the production is being kept under wraps. But the world could not ignore when two icons landed in the city of light, in this of all weeks. So now everyone is asking: are Lady Gaga and Celine Dion part of the big show?! C’est magnifique!

Is Lady Gaga going to perform at the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony in Paris on July 26?

Just days before the biggest sporting event in the world kicks off, Gaga was seen arriving in the French capital. The award-winning singer, who famously sang Edith Piaf’s La Vie en Rose in “A Star is Born,” and performed the song during her Las Vegas residency Jazz and Piano, is rumored to be rehearsing her performance for the Opening Ceremony. R&B star Aya Nakamura and Celine Dion are also rumored to be performing.

For the first time in history, the Opening Ceremony is set to take place outside of a stadium and will be held along the Seine River that runs through the city. The nautical show will be following 85 boats carrying athletes from each Olympic delegation on a four-mile parade. Kicking off from the Pont d’Austerlitz and culminating at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, the ceremony will showcase the city’s historical landmarks and will bring together 3,500 actors, dancers and musical performers.

The show has been designed by theatre director Thomas Jolly, best known for hit rock-opera musical “Starmania”. In an interview with the Associated Press, Jolly remained tight-lipped about the performers saying, “All I can tell you is that it will be very meaningful for the artists that will perform.”

[From Variety]

And then Variety reported on Celine’s arrival:

Celine Dion looks set to make her return to the stage at the Olympic Games, and it’s rumored to be during the opening ceremony on Friday. It will mark the pop legend’s first performance since halting her touring schedule and stepping away from the spotlight after being diagnosed with Stiff Person Syndrome in December 2022.

Dion arrived in Paris on Monday at the Royal Monceau hotel near the Champs-Élysées, where Lady Gaga, another potential opening ceremony headliner, is also staying. Specific details about Dion’s performance are being kept under wraps.

[From Variety]

Celine performed at the Atlanta opening ceremony in 1996, but this appearance would be no less significant, if the rumors are true. As noted by Variety, Celine hasn’t performed in two years due to her SPS diagnosis, which was part of why her fans and colleagues gave her such a warm reception when she presented at the Grammys this year. But to mark her return to singing at the Olympic Games? Now that’s a power move worthy of the Queen of Power Ballads. My prediction: Celine will be stationed at the Eiffel Tower, while Gaga will perform on one or more boats (and yeah, my sources gave me the nod that the Lady is in the lineup!). I love Gaga, but I actually hope she doesn’t sing “La Vie en Rose.” I don’t think the French would take kindly to an American performing that on French soil, non? Why not instead treat us to some of the new music she’s been cooking up? And while I’m here throwing out suggestions for free, I beseech the IOC to put a moratorium on John Lennon’s “Imagine.” It’s a stunning, singular song. But it’s been more than overused at Olympic ceremonies. Give it a rest, let it be! (I know, I know; just watch Celine and/or Gaga sing “Imagine” come Friday, le sigh…)

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Photos credit: Jasmine Aissaoui/INSTARimages, Aissaoui Nacer/Backgrid and Getty

My fellow Americans, the last three weeks have been quite a year, #amirite? But now that we’re falling out of that coconut tree and into the KHive, LFG! While this moment in history may be unprecedented, it was not unpredicted! In fact, after the news broke on Sunday afternoon, it didn’t take long for people to point out an eerie similarity between Vice President Harris’ attire from the January 2021 inauguration and an episode of The Simpsons from 2000. The episode is called “Bart to the Future” and in it, Lisa Simpson becomes America’s first female president. She’s dressed in a purple pants suit, pearl necklace, and earrings, which is a look that we’ve all come to associate with Madam Vice President. It’s so uncanny that Simpsons writer Al Jean chimed in, Tweeting that he was “proud” to be a part of this potential prophecy.

In the 2000 episode of the comedy series, “Bart to the Future,” Lisa Simpson becomes the first female president of the United States. She sports the exact same purple ensemble that Harris rocked during the 2021 inauguration, including the pearl necklace and earrings.

The back-to-back images of Lisa and Harris, 59, went viral on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday after the huge shake-up to the Democratic presidential ticket.

“The Simpsons as Prophetic has become one of the most enduring mysteries of our times!” one fan tweeted.

“It’s unnerving how often these predictions have been spot on,” someone else said.

Al Jean, a screenwriter for the show, tweeted out the prescient photo as well.

“@TheSimpsons ‘prediction’ I’m proud to be a part of,” he wrote.

The Matt Groening-created show is notorious for predicting future events, including Donald Trump’s presidency. In the same episode, President Lisa remarks, “We’ve inherited quite a budget crunch from President Trump.”

Groening, 70, addressed the show foretelling Trump, 78, reaching the White House in a 2016 interview with the Guardian.

“We predicted that he would be president back in 2000 — but [Trump] was, of course, the most absurd placeholder joke name that we could think of at the time, and that’s still true. It’s beyond satire,” he said.

[From NY Post]

This isn’t the first time that The Simpsons has predicted the future, either. In the same episode, Lisa mentions inheriting a “budget crunch” from a “President Trump.” A 1996 episode predicted Trump’s January 6 insurrection, a 1997 episode alludes to 9/11, a 1999 episode predicted the pandemic, and a 2018 episode predicted the Game of Thrones finale (although, let’s be honest, that one was somewhat easy to predict). The Post has a compilation of other crazy Simpsons prophecies here.

Anyway, this is eerie, but you know what? The Universe works in mysterious ways. I don’t care if it comes from a crystal ball, tea leaves, a fortune cookie, or a cartoon show. The Simpsons thing isn’t the only potential cultural prediction, either. Biden’s announcement came on the one-year anniversary of Barbie’s release, which I have to think is also a good sign. We need Issa Rae to campaign with VP Harris as President Barbie! Ahh, pump some more of this President Harris sh-t into my veins and revitalize my frayed nerves. Now we just need to GOTV and make these prophecies a reality.

Photos credit: Avalon.red, Ting Shen/POOL via CNP/INSTARimages.com, Alex G. Perez/Pool/CNP/startraks/Cover Images, and via YouTube/The Simpsons

Here are some photos of Keanu Reeves this week in New York, and some pics of Keanu performing with his band, Dogstar, at the Rock im Park festival in Germany back in June. Keanu remains the coolest, and I have to admit, his hair is really working for me these days. I love scruffy men, but I love it even more when a scruffy guy cleans up his look just enough. Like, he still has a beard but he recently trimmed it. His hair is just the right length too. Anyway, Keanu is currently promoting his first novel! He collaborated with British sci-fi author China Mieville on The Book of Elsewhere. It’s based on the “hugely successful BRZRKR comic book series created by Reeves,” per the BBC, who interviewed Mieville and Reeves. Some highlights:

Keanu thinks about death: “I’m 59, so I’m thinking about death all the time.” That’s a good thing, he adds. “Hopefully it’s not crippling, but hopefully it’s sensitised [us] to an appreciation of the breath we have, and the relationships that we have the potential to have.”

Creating the BRZRKR comic book series: “I love the images. I love words and storytelling and I love the way that you can have this engagement that overlays. And so you can look at the art and then you can follow the story.” The actor plays down his role in the collaborative process though, insisting: “I didn’t write a novel. China wrote a novel.”

Whether he thinks writing about violence will lead to violence irl: “I hope if they read BRZRKR, that they don’t go out and start ripping people’s arms off and chopping their heads off. Because there’s also a love story in it. But if you do read it, I hope maybe you can find love if you don’t have it.”

Creation & pain: “Maybe ultimately the fantasy of building another world brings some kind of comfort in some way. There’s something ultimately about the creative gesture that comes from pain. Creating stuff is great. Just creating, sharing, and hopefully people like the stories that we tell.”

He doesn’t give away all of his stuff, despite reports to the contrary: “I love owning things, I love having stuff. I’m certainly not going to present myself as someone who gives everything away.”

[From BBC]

Is Keanu Reeves the perfect man, yes or no? I don’t think he’s perfect, actually, but I think he’s the best person to come out of the crazy 1980s/90s Hollywood scene. He survived, he stayed grounded, humble and compassionate, and he’s continued to do work which makes him happy. I think people miss the fact that he’s genuinely very artsy because he makes so many commercial films. He has all of these amazing side-projects and such a wide variety of interests and passions. Such a cool guy. And yes, as you get older, you just think about death a lot. Incidentally, did you know that Keanu and Kamala Harris are the same age? Their birthdays are about seven weeks apart (he’s a Virgo, she’s a Libra).

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

On July 2, actress Sydney Sweeny’s X account was hacked by crypto scammers who used it to promote one of those crypto meme scams. This is the second time this year that Syndey’s account was hacked. Back in January, her account was hijacked to promote a different crypto meme coin. Unfortunately, Sydney’s cell phone number was also hacked at the same time as her Twitter account. After a picture of a Verizon receipt in Sydney’s name was posted online, it was determined that she’s also a victim of SIM swapping. Essentially, SIM swapping is when hackers take control of someone’s phone number, meaning all their phone calls, text messages, etc. will move over to a new device that the hacker controls.

Sydney Sweeney’s cellphone number was hijacked the same day hackers took over her X account to promote a crypto meme coin scam, according to a new report. A copy of a Verizon Wireless receipt from July 2 was posted online and obtained by technology news site 404 Media, showing that someone made changes to the “Euphoria” star’s account.

“Hi SYDNEY SWEENEY, Thank you for your order,” the paper read. “If you have any question [sic], please feel free to contact me.”

An iPhone and its box were next to the receipt in the photo.

The outlet speculated that the Emmy nominee, 26, was “a victim of SIM swapping, where hackers take over a target’s phone number and reroute text messages and phone calls to a device that the attackers control.”

Page Six has reached out to Sweeney’s reps for comment.

A Verizon spokesperson, Richard Young, said in a statement to 404 Media that he could not “discuss a specific customer situation” but added, “Verizon takes customer privacy and account security very seriously. When an issue is brought to our attention, we work quickly to investigate and remediate the issue, and work to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”

The date listed on the receipt was the same day Sweeney’s X account was hacked by someone tweeting about cryptocurrency.

“Well I think it’s time $sweeney is now live 100mc incoming,” wrote the hackers on the actress’s account. “At 10mc, 10% of the supply will be burnt.”

The post also included a link that directed users to a newly created Pump.fun meme coin that the hackers claimed was from Sweeney.

The cyberterrorists also told the “Immaculate” star’s 1 million followers that she would be “going live on spaces soon” to show “what $sweeney can do.”

The hackers’s tweets didn’t stay up for long, as Sweeney reclaimed her account and deleted all traces of the crypto scams. In fact, the “Anyone But You” star’s X page shows that her last message was posted in May to promote her forthcoming film, in which she’ll be portraying boxer Christy Martin.

Sweeney is part of a long list of stars whose social media accounts have recently been hijacked by hackers. Rappers 50 Cent, Doja Cat and Rich the Kid and former wrestler Hulk Hogan were also victims of the hacks.

[From Page Six]

Ugh, I feel terrible for her. It’s such a gross invasion of privacy. I hope she doesn’t have any other problems, like them hacking into her iCloud Photos or Apple wallet. I would be beyond angry if someone did this to me. It makes me worried to know that AT&T was hacked a few weeks ago and the hackers got access to “nearly all” of their customers’ records. As an AT&T cellular customer, I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop on that one. I know it’s probably unlikely to track down who hacked her account and swapped SIM cards, but I hope there’s a way to do it. The crypto scams have gotten out-of-control on both Elon Musk’s platform and Instagram. Over the past few years, I’ve had a few people in my life whose Instagram accounts got hacked and it was hard to get them back. For a family member, whoever hacked their account still constantly posts those spammy things. I hope something can be done about it, with legislation or other official channels.

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A post shared by Sydney Sweeney (@sydney_sweeney)

photos credit: IMAGO/RW / Avalon, Jeffrey Mayer / Avalon and via Instagram

Donald Trump has been funneling campaign cash to his extensive legal bills for several years now. The Trump campaign is facing FEC inquiries and it will probably take years to untangle the financial mess. This is why Trump chose JD Vance as his running mate: Vance came with built-in financing from Peter Thiel and the Nazi tech bros. Vance was not Trump’s top choice whatsoever, and I absolutely believe that the Trump campaign did the bare minimum when it came to vetting Vance in the first place. They just did whatever would get them the most money. Of course, their choices were also predicated on President Biden staying in the race. Now that he’s dropped out and Trump is facing off against a brilliant and tough prosecutor named Kamala Harris, suddenly MAGA world has figured out that their goose is cooked. Hilariously, they’re now wondering if there’s any way to drop Vance.

Republicans may be starting to second-guess their party’s pick for vice president. Much of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, including the decision to tap Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate, was structured around attacks on President Joe Biden. But then Biden announced Sunday that he was withdrawing from the presidential race altogether.

Trump campaign officials acknowledged that Trump selected the inexperienced Vance, charged with all his techno-authoritarian ideas, to boost support among their own base, not extend a hand to swing voters, according to The Atlantic. Vance was a symbol of the Trump team’s assuredness that they would win in 2024. Come Sunday, that assuredness appears to be shrinking.

“Most striking thing I heard from Trump allies yesterday was the second-guessing of JD Vance—a selection, they acknowledged, that was [born] of cockiness, meant to run up margins with the base in a blowout rather than persuade swing voters in a nail-biter,” Atlantic staff writer Tim Alberta, who had written the piece about the panicking Trump campaign, posted on X (formerly Twitter).

Trump decried Biden’s decision to drop out in a post on Truth Social, writing that his team would have to “start all over again” and asking to be reimbursed for the cost. At the same time, Vance has set straight to work, calling for Biden to resign from the presidency.

[From The New Republic]

I will give Vance credit for one very small thing – last week, when he became Trump’s running mate, VP Harris’s office made some statement about how Harris is looking forward to debating Vance, and Vance’s reply was something like “bold of you to assume that we’ll debate each other given the disarray in your party.” Dude was right. He won’t debate VP Harris. He’ll debate whatever white dude gets chosen by Kamala Harris as her running mate. As for Trump world rethinking their Vance pick… lmao. They really are stuck with him. That being said, Thiel and the tech Nazis have Trump’s cojones in a vice grip and there really won’t be a serious effort to push Vance off the ticket.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

Barack Obama’s former staffers played a big role in the intraparty coup to oust President Biden from the 2024 race. It reminds me a bit of how many of Obama’s former staffers talked out of both sides of their mouths about Hillary Clinton in 2016, only it feels like President Biden and President Obama’s relationship is not in a good place and may never recover. Many sources have said outright that Biden feels betrayed by party leaders and by Obama. Many sources have indicated that Obama has barely been in communication with Biden or his people in recent months. When President Biden withdrew from the race on Sunday, Obama offered a tribute to Biden’s decades of public service but Obama did not endorse VP Kamala Harris. That too has irritated a lot of Democrats and Dem activists, who wonder about the extent of Obama’s role in the party coup.

NewsNation’s Kellie Meyer tweeted yesterday that Obama will not endorse anyone before the nominee is chosen, and he did not endorse Kamala Harris or anyone else because “Obama believes he will be uniquely positioned to help unite the party once we have a nominee, lift-up that candidate, and do everything he can to get that candidate elected in November.” I recognize this as an effort to turn down the temperature on the ratf–king allegations, and I’m sure Obama has been getting some calls too, especially as the party has already enthusiastically coalesced around VP Kamala Harris. Suddenly, Obama and his people are very chatty about Obama’s perspective, and they even contacted the New York Times:

Many of the marquee names in Democratic politics began quickly lining up behind Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday, but one towering presence in the party held back: Barack Obama. The former president has not yet endorsed Ms. Harris; in fact, he did not mention her once in an affectionate — if tautly written — tribute to President Biden that was posted on Medium shortly after he decided to bow out on Sunday.

Republicans interpreted that as a snub. But people close to Mr. Obama, who has positioned himself as an impartial elder statesman above intraparty machinations, said not to read too much into it — and had no alternate candidate in mind when he made the decision not to immediately endorse Ms. Harris.

Mr. Obama adopted an identical stance four years ago when Mr. Biden’s aides pressured him to endorse early in the Democratic primaries before Senator Bernie Sanders dropped out. (Mr. Obama’s favored phrase back then was “I don’t want to thumb the scale.”) Endorsing too early now would also be a political mistake — fueling criticism that Ms. Harris’s nomination, should it come, was a coronation rather than the best possible consensus under rushed circumstances, they said.

Instead, Mr. Obama sees his role as helping to quickly “unite the party once we have a nominee,” a person familiar with his thinking said.

But there are other more personal considerations, exacerbating Mr. Obama’s innate caution. Mr. Biden is a deeply prideful man, and he has never fully forgiven Mr. Obama for quietly backing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the 2016 campaign. Mr. Biden still believes he could have beaten former President Donald J. Trump that year if given the chance. Nor was Mr. Biden pleased when Mr. Obama told him that he should consider sitting out 2020, too, people in his circle have said. Mr. Obama wanted Sunday to be about Mr. Biden, a celebration of his accomplishments — and does not feel pressured to act hastily, according to a former White House official who speaks with the former president regularly.

[From The NY Times]

This reads to me like Obama is in damage-control mode because he’s realized that his public reticence and private maneuvers have not gone down well with the party. As I’ve been saying, this whole episode has left a bad taste in a lot of Democrats’ mouths. Even if you make the argument that President Biden had to be convinced to drop out, did the Obama allies, ratf–kers and Dem Congressional leaders really believe that the best way to achieve that goal was torching a sitting Democratic president publicly and spending three weeks advocating for the disenfranchisement of Democratic voters at the behest of big-money donors?

The fact that Obama is making his endorsement all about his own importance is the wrong move too – the party is quickly coalescing behind VP Harris, it’s July, there are only 104 days until the election. Instead of unifying quickly and ensuring that Democrats look like they’re more than ready to take on Trump and the MAGA cult (after literally overshadowing the Republican National Convention with their party coup bullsh-t), Obama is navel-gazing and dithering.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.

VP Kamala Harris is a stepmother to her husband’s two kids (who are now adults). She is also an attractive woman who dated men before she married Doug Emhoff in 2014. This is the big character assassination plot of the Republican Party: Kamala Harris dated men, she was hot stuff in the 1990s and she’s a stepmother. Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance has been particularly focused on Kamala Harris’s lack of biological children for several years now, and he’s referred to her as a “childless cat lady” several times.

Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, said in 2021 that Vice President Kamala Harris is one of the “childless cat ladies” who is “miserable” with her life and has no direct stake in America because she is not a mom.

In a speech at an Intercollegiate Studies Institute conference, Vance specifically named Harris in a tirade against the “childless left” who have “no physical commitment to the future of this country.” He lumped the vice president in with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

“Why is this just a normal fact of … life, for the leaders of our country to be people who don’t have a personal and direct stake in it via their own offspring?” Vance said.

Days later, the Ohio Republican doubled down on his attacks on childless Democrats in an interview with then-Fox News’ Tucker Carlson.

“We’re effectively run in this country, via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too,” Vance said.

“It’s just a basic fact: You look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC, the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children,” he said. “And how does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people that don’t have a direct stake in it.”

[From HuffPo]

There are millions of Americans, both men and women, who are childfree by choice or by circumstance and we vote. We have the time to vote. We have the disposable income to donate to the Democratic Party. As a childfree woman with cats, I loathe the suggestion that I don’t have a “personal stake” in the future of the country. I have fewer rights as a woman than my mother, and that’s because of Donald Trump and his MAGA cult, and as a woman… I want to ensure that girls and women have their reproductive rights restored so they are not handmaidens in the Confederacy of Trumplandia. And again, arguing that stepparents are NOT parents is kind of wild. It’s a crazy stance to take for Republicans.

JD Vance says women who haven’t given birth like Kamala Harris are “childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives,” and have “no direct stake” in America. pic.twitter.com/3DJY3pQTGe

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) July 22, 2024

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

While there’s mixed reporting on how it went down exactly, I 100% believe that the Democrats organizing the effort to push President Biden out of the race had zero plans for what would happen next if they were successful, with a little over 100 days before the election. This was one of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s big issues too: if you force out President Biden, what’s the plan, how will the party coalesce in such a short amount of time? I strongly believe that once President Biden made the decision to step aside, he only did so if he could endorse Kamala Harris on his own terms and signal to the party that VP Harris is his heiress, that she inherits his entire campaign apparatus, that he was always a bridge to an eventual President Kamala Harris. That was never what the Dem ratf–kers wanted, as we quickly witnessed in real time.

Speaking of ratf–kers, even before President Biden dropped out of the race, former speaker Nancy Pelosi made comments to other California Democrats that if and when Biden dropped out, there should be a “competitive process” in an open primary… in July and August. Like, that was Pelosi’s big political instinct at work, that Dems should be in disarray for weeks ahead of the DNC and likely during the whole convention. Pres. Biden announced his withdrawal on Sunday (with Pelosi’s knife still in his back) and in the same breath, he endorsed VP Harris. Pelosi didn’t expect that. Her first statement on Biden’s withdrawal did not offer any endorsement for VP Harris or anyone else. Then, 24 hours after Biden’s withdrawal, suddenly Pelosi no longer favors a “competitive process.”

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday endorsed Kamala Harris to replace President Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket, calling her “brilliantly astute” and saying that she is the best person to defeat former President Donald J. Trump in the fall.

“It is with immense pride and limitless optimism for our country’s future that I endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for president of the United States,” Ms. Pelosi wrote in a statement. “My enthusiastic support for Kamala Harris for president is official, personal and political.”

The statement by Ms. Pelosi, who had earlier said she would favor a competitive process rather than a coronation of Ms. Harris, was the most significant in a rapidly growing number of high-profile endorsements as Ms. Harris moved swiftly to cement her position as the new face of her party. Ms. Pelosi urged her colleagues to get behind Ms. Harris, saying “we must unify and charge forward to resoundingly defeat Donald Trump.”

Ms. Harris’s campaign announced on Monday that it had raised $81 million in her first 24 hours as a presidential candidate. And she made her first public appearance since Mr. Biden dropped his re-election bid and endorsed her, praising Mr. Biden’s “deep love of our country” during a morning event at the White House.

She has so far scooped up endorsements from would-be challengers, including Governors JB Pritzker of Illinois, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Wes Moore of Maryland, Tim Walz of Minnesota and Tony Evers of Wisconsin. Several of them have been talked about as possible running mates.

[From The NY Times]

It sounds like Pelosi has been doing a lot of math lately. She must have realized that the ratf–king coalition left her holding the bag (a bag with a bloody knife in it) and that her legacy was on the line as well. This is something Pelosi, Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, and the Obama staffers/podbros didn’t understand: that it means a lot to Democrats that Biden threw his full support to VP Harris, and that she is the one chosen as Biden’s heiress. The fact that a steady stream of would-be Democratic presidential candidates actually said “no, we’re supporting Kamala Harris” ruined the ratf–king fantasy of an “open primary” in July and August. That being said, as of this writing, Obama, Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries still have not endorsed VP Harris. Almost every other elected Democrat has though, including almost every Dem governor in the country? She’ll likely choose one of those Dem governors as her running mate.

With immense pride and limitless optimism for our country’s future, I endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for President of the United States. I have full confidence that she will lead us to victory in November.
-NP pic.twitter.com/vBwv602GuR

— Nancy Pelosi (@TeamPelosi) July 22, 2024

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

When I posted the new birthday portrait of Prince George yesterday, I grabbed what turned out to be the cropped image on Prince William and Kate’s Instagram account. The image on the Kensington Palace Twitter account wasn’t cropped as tightly, and you can see both of George’s hands and wrists. Look there, the eleven-year-old kid is wearing what appears to be a friendship bracelet or some kind of woven bracelet of some variety.

People Magazine suggests that George has possibly gotten into friendship bracelets via Princess Charlotte, because Charlotte is a major Swiftie. Notably, Prince William took George and Charlotte to one of Taylor Swift’s London concerts, and while they were ensconced in a VIP balcony area, I bet somewhere along the line, there were some friendship bracelets swapped with some of the other youths. So, maybe. Or maybe Charlotte just gave her brother one of her bracelets, or maybe one of George’s school friends made it for him. Who knows? One thing I will say is that the bracelet reminded me of Prince Harry, who wore bracelets and necklaces from his teenage years through adulthood. Harry loves some casual, cool accessories. So of course the Daily Beast’s Royalist column invoked Harry… but in the weirdest way possible: “Prince George’s Elegant Rebuke to Critics (Harry) of a Royal Childhood.”

Gone are the scalloped collars, short trousers, and knee-length socks that characterized so many of his childhood photographs. Instead, George, his hair neatly pushed to one side, wears a chic dark suit and a white shirt open at the neck.

However, in an unprecedentedly casual touch for a formal portrait, George is also seen wearing that perennial adolescent and pre-adolescent favorite, a handwoven bracelet on his left arm.

The telling personal detail shows photographer Princess Kate’s effortless mastery of the casual, common touch, the simple beach-side favorite of so many children eloquently pushing back against narratives arguing that the Windsor children are being brought up under unacceptable pressure.

Chief among those who have made the case that growing up in the royal bubble is harmful to children is Prince William’s estranged brother, Prince Harry. In his memoir, Spare, Harry said: “William and I have talked about it once or twice, and he has made it very clear to me that his kids are not my responsibility.”

[From The Daily Beast]

Yeah, as I said, the visual of George embracing the same kind of accessory his Uncle Harry wears is not giving “take that, Harry!” It actually looks like someone wanted to draw a visual comparison TO Harry. That’s all I’ll say.

Photos courtesy of the Princess of Wales/Kensington Palace, KP’s social media and Taylor Swift’s social media.

Here are some photos of Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House on Monday. This was her first public appearance since President Biden dropped his re-election bid and threw his support and endorsement to her. It cannot be overstated that the “palace coup” to ratf–k Joe Biden did not anticipate Pres. Biden endorsing VP Harris and Harris quickly emerging as a fundraising powerhouse and consensus Democratic nominee.

VP Harris’s first public appearance since all of that was at a reception/event for the 2023-2024 NCAA Championship teams. After that event, VP Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff traveled to Delaware, to the Biden Campaign Headquarters, which Harris has now inherited. Those are her people, her campaign staffers now. She and Doug gave wonderful speeches, and President Biden called in to give her support once again. Which is how this happened:

President Biden to VP Harris: “I’m watching you, kid. I’m watching you. I love you”
pic.twitter.com/q61AUBAi7L

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) July 22, 2024

“I’m watching you, kid. I love you.” Y’all, I have cried too many times in the past week. President Biden is an American hero and everything that is happening with and around VP Kamala Harris is incredible. Speaking of, you know how President Biden held a huge delegate count, enough to ensure that he would be the Democratic presidential nominee at the convention? When he bowed out, there could have been a delegate free-for-all. There was not. VP Harris quickly worked the phones, and I imagine President Biden did too. Less than 48 hours after Pres. Biden’s withdrawal, Kamala Harris has the delegates to become the Dem nominee:

Vice President Kamala Harris moved swiftly to assert herself as the de facto Democratic nominee for president on Monday, her first full day as a candidate, as virtually every potential remaining rival bowed out and she clinched the support of enough delegates to win the nomination.

The Associated Press said late Monday that Ms. Harris had secured the backing of more than the 1,976 delegates needed to capture the nomination in the first round of voting. The pledged support is not binding until the delegates cast their votes, which party officials said would take place between Aug. 1 and Aug. 7.

“When I announced my campaign for president, I said I intended to go out and earn this nomination,” Ms. Harris said in a statement. “Tonight, I am proud to have secured the broad support needed to become our party’s nominee.” She added, “I look forward to formally accepting the nomination soon.”

[From The NY Times]

This is amazing and once again, this was not guaranteed. Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, those douchebag podbros, they all wanted Dems-in-disarray, they wanted a fight over delegates and a messy convention. VP Harris said nope, we’re going to finish this in 48 hours. Something else which should not be underestimated is how many Democrats are impressed by VP Harris’s immediate fundraising successes. In one day, the Harris campaign raised over $100 million. That is record-breaking. As is the sudden influx of support for VP Harris. She’s not only the presumptive nominee, she already has coattails.

This needs to be a campaign ad:

VP: I was a courtroom prosecutor. In those roles I took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women. Fraudsters who ripped off consumers. Cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type. pic.twitter.com/eRpjxwJlOc

— Acyn (@Acyn) July 22, 2024

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.