King Charles and Queen Camilla’s tour of Australia and Samoa ended over the weekend on a sour note. During their final events in Samoa, Camilla made an ass out of herself by openly laughing at Samoan performers and by staggering up the plane’s stairs before the formal farewell was over. There was also a bummer end on Charles’s part, when he said, in his farewell speech: “I shall always remain devoted to this part of the world and hope that I survive long enough to come back again and see you.” As soon as Charles and Camilla left Samoa, their staff began briefing the Times about Charles and Camilla’s happiness that the tour had gone so well (??) and that 2025 would see a return to a normal touring schedule. Well, about that – the Mail’s Ephraim Hardcastle column led with this short item:

I hear there’s concern among the King’s medical team after an anonymous palace briefing that he will be returning to a full programme of overseas tours in 2025.

Having skipped his cancer treatment regime to make the latest tour – and with no one certain how his body has coped – it was planned that he would take time off on his return, allowing him to recover and for doctors to carry out a full assessment of his wellbeing.

[From The Daily Mail]

Basically, Buckingham Palace was way too eager to declare victory and business-as-usual in the wake of an ambivalently-received royal tour, and now the doctors are like “hold your horses, and not just Camilla.” Speaking of, the Daily Beast’s Royalist also got a tip that Camilla is concerned about her husband’s health post-tour:

Friends of Queen Camilla have told the Daily Beast that she is “terrified” and “fearful” cancer-hit King Charles’ is “rushing” his recovery after palace aides briefed newspapers this weekend that his office had told the British Government he was again available for long haul travel. Aides raced to declare his recent trip to Australia and Samoa a great success, despite the fact that any medium-term impact on his health self-evidently has yet to be established.

There have also been question marks around how the queen has coped mentally with the trip. She spent a week before it at a private and exclusive Ayurvedic retreat in India, yet seemed rather unsettled during the trip.

On the final day of the tour, she had what one friend called an “emotional reaction,” seemingly cycling between giggles and tears, after Charles made, in a rather off-hand fashion, a telling remark at a farewell ceremony in Samoa, telling dignitaries: “I shall always remain devoted to this part of the world and hope that I survive long enough to come back again and see you.”

Friends of the king have brushed off any suggestion that the king was, in fact, saying a final farewell or suggesting he might die soon, despite the fact that, prima facie, that seemed to be exactly what he was saying.

But a friend of Camila’s told the Daily Beast: “It was a strange thing to say, and I think Camilla had an emotional reaction. Of course it would. She is terrified. They have had a horrendous year. Now with this return to work, she is understandably fearful her husband is rushing it. She just wants him to slow down and prioritize his health.”

British media have generally portrayed the incident as a fit of giggles due to a non-operational microphone, but this characterization has been questioned online.

[From The Daily Beast]

This days-long effort to rewrite Camilla’s rudeness as she laughed at the Samoan performers is pretty awful. It was clear that she was being rude and racist. It was clear that she was laughing at her hosts. It was clear that Camilla didn’t want to be there. Camilla hates to travel, hates to go on tours and she was desperately trying to have this tour canceled. Part of me wonders if all of this back-and-forth in the press is a reflection of Charles and Camilla fighting behind the scenes, or some kind of next-level maneuvering because this really was Charles’s last tour and no one wants to say that outloud.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

This situation with the Washington Post has become THE media train-wreck story of the year. Last Friday, the Washington Post announced that they would not make an endorsement for president of the United States. The Post, like many other media outlets, rode a wave of “support journalism” during the Trump years, because people genuinely believed that the fourth estate could hold Donald Trump to some kind of account. Instead, WaPo and so many other newspapers have become corrupted in the past decade of Trump and Trumpism, failing to hold him to account. Then Jeff Bezos, owner of WaPo, hired one of Rupert Murdoch’s lackeys as CEO of the Post and everything has gone steadily to the depths of hell ever since, culminating in Bezos and Will Lewis killing the Post’s planned Kamala Harris endorsement. In the immediate wake of the killed endorsement, WaPo lost 200,000 subscribers, 8% of their business. Jeff Bezos responded by writing a mealy-mouthed op-ed explaining why he’s too chickensh-t to stand against literal fascism. Well, long story short, Bezos made it worse:

Deterioration of the Washington Post’s subscriber base continued on Tuesday, hours after its proprietor, Jeff Bezos, defended the decision to forgo formally endorsing a presidential candidate as part of an effort to restore trust in the media.

The publication has now shed 250,000 subscribers, or 10% of the 2.5 million customers it had before the decision was made public on Friday, according to the NPR reporter David Folkenflik.

A day earlier, 200,000 had left according to the same outlet.

The numbers are based on the number of cancellation emails that have been sent out, according to a source at the paper, though the subscriber dashboard is no longer viewable to employees.

The Washington Post has not commented on the reported numbers. The famed Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward said on Tuesday he disagreed with the paper’s decision, adding that the outlet was “an institution reporting about Donald Trump and what he’s done and supported by the editorial page”.

[From The Guardian]

NPR’s David Folkenflik has been doing outstanding reporting around all of this, and several Washington Post journalists are leaking information to him about the situation within the Post’s newsroom. Here’s some of what Folkenflik told NPR yesterday:

A historic moment for the Post: “This is, you know, pretty much perceived by everybody I’ve talked to in the Post as something that will go down as a historic moment – a kind of debacle. The numbers that I reported came from two people with direct knowledge. I must say I’ve gone to the Post a number of times to give them a chance to shoot it down. They have not done so. They said, we’re a privately held company, and we’re not going to give out that figure publicly. But that would be about 10% of their paid subscribers – all digital and paper paid subscribers – right now. It’s something of a calamity for them. It’s a collapse of many millions of dollars in revenue, although not all cancellations take effect instantaneously.

The all-staff meeting: “This afternoon, not very long ago, Matt Murray, the executive editor of The Washington Post, had an all-staff meeting with his newsroom of hundreds of journalists and was pressed on this question a number of times. He said he didn’t know the figures and didn’t really want to know them. And he specifically didn’t want to know them in part because he thought they would leak out.

Whether WaPo staff believe Bezos’ explanation, that an endorsement would fester perception of bias. “They’re finding it very hard to swallow. You know, he’s looking at the fact that we are at a time of historic lows, as you say, of trust in the media. But had this been done, you know, early this year, when the new publisher, Will Lewis, took over, or next year, after the elections and a new president took over, it would be viewed very differently. The staff, you know, posted their own dissents online in a column embraced by about 19 of his opinion editors. Several people resigned from the staff entirely. A couple stepped down from the editorial board. And they point to Bezos’ myriad business interests that you’ve mentioned. Many of them have myriad multibillion-dollar questions before the federal government, which may, once again, be run by Trump.

[From NPR]

I don’t really have an answer for what should happen next, but I hope someone gets through to Bezos and at least tries to convince him that his current path is unsustainable. Perhaps he’ll change tack once the election is over – it would be hard to maintain this “business as usual” approach if (and hopefully when) Kamala Harris wins. The first item on the agenda should be sh-tcanning Will Lewis and making a big, public show of listening to the newsroom and bringing back endorsements. But I really don’t have the answer to “how can trust be regained after all of this?”

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Quick: who is Donald Trump’s least favorite child? I would argue that it’s Eric Trump, just because Donald doesn’t remember that Tiffany is his daughter. Eric is nominally “running” Trump Org and supposedly has very little to do with the Trump campaign, although you know the Trump family loves nothing more than criminal conspiracy, felonious behavior and the flouting of ethics. Eric has been regularly giving campaign-flavored interviews to the British media for some reason, and British outlets love asking the dumbest Trump son about (you guessed it) the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Back in August, Eric was asked if his father really planned to deport Prince Harry from America, and Eric said that the monarchy is “a sacred institution. You can happily have those two [Meghan and Harry], we might not want them anymore, it feels like they’re on an island of their own. You can always have bad actors in everything. You can have spoiled apples in every orchard.”

Well, Eric has opened his mouth again, this time giving a lengthy interview to the Daily Mail. He spoke about whether his father will “prosecute” Hillary Clinton, whether he knows why people keep trying to shoot his father, and whether the Deep State is lining up a state-controlled hurricane to disrupt the Trump family. I’m only half joking. Obviously, Eric was once again asked about the Sussexes and the entire sad Windsor clan:

Eric Trump has suggested that Prince Harry’s visa is safe because ‘no one cares’ about the Duke or his ‘unpopular’ wife Meghan. The ex-president’s second son, 40, told the Daily Mail that his father Donald ‘loved the Queen’ and lamented how Harry had done a ‘huge detriment’ to the royal family after turning his back on the UK. But Eric said that Harry shouldn’t have to worry about being deported if Donald Trump is re-elected on November 5 despite the Duke of Sussex facing allegations he may have lied about his drug use when he applied for his US visa.

‘Truthfully I don’t give a damn about Prince Harry and I don’t think this country does either,’ Eric said of the Duke, 40, who now lives in Montecito, California.

‘My father loved the Queen and I think the monarchy is an incredibly beautiful thing. The late Queen was amazing. The way she welcomed my father with open arms was, like, beyond,’ Eric said.

Donald’s second son said that his father was also fond of King Charles and that His Majesty had previously visited Mar-a-Lago, the Trump estate in Palm Beach, Florida. ‘We’ve known the King forever. In fact, I was just digging through a photo not too long ago and I came across a picture of him with my father, I’m six years old, in the lobby of Mar-a-Lago,’ Eric said.

He also praised William and Kate, stating that the future king had never ‘made a misstep’ while his wife ‘conducts herself so incredibly well and has been such a rock in the next generation of the family.’

On the other hand, Eric said that Harry let his family down when he quit the monarchy and moved to California with wife Meghan and son Archie in 2020.

‘You look at this one black sheep who doesn’t exactly know where he is, led by a wife that is pretty unpopular, both here and over where you are,’ Eric said. He added that Harry appeared to ‘have gone off the deep end and it’s sad to watch.’

However, people are ‘able to differentiate between the two sides,’ Eric said and described the royal family as a great symbol of Britain.

Returning to the Duke’s visa status, Eric said: ‘I don’t give a damn if he did drugs. It means nothing. I can tell you that our father and our entire family has tremendous respect for the monarchy.’

[From The Daily Mail]

I’m reminded of the fact that most of Donald Trump’s remarks about the Sussexes were both coaxed and coached out of him. Orangina usually only comments about them when asked specifically by some right-wing British commentator like Piers Morgan or Nigel Farage. I bet it’s the same with Eric – the Mail fed him the talking points and Eric just restated everything. As for what he said… Charles used to hang out at Mar-a-Lago? I know Prince Andrew spent time in Florida, with Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. Funny how no one asked Eric about that? “You look at this one black sheep who doesn’t exactly know where he is, led by a wife that is pretty unpopular, both here and over where you are… [Harry has] gone off the deep end and it’s sad to watch.” Harry was literally just at the Clinton Global Initiative, the United Nations and various conferences and meetings in Lesotho and South Africa. Meanwhile, Eric is dodging subpoenas and indictments. Eric is one to talk about someone being led around by their wife as well – he’s married to Lara Trump, arguably the worst of all the Trump wives and currently the co-chair of the Republican National Committee.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

Last night, Kamala Harris made her “closing argument” speech in Washington, DC. She spoke at the Ellipse, with the White House framed in the distance behind her. The staging was incredible, because on January 6, 2021, Donald Trump used this same location to address his cult and incite the insurrection, a violent attempted coup of the federal government. Kamala Harris has spent the past four months reclaiming America for Americans, and this was reclaiming the shining city on the hill. Kamala Harris’s speech was not only presidential, it felt inaugural – this was her list of policy priorities and her evocation of hope in America and Americans.

A really well-done speech. I got goosebumps. I watched this on MSNBC last night, and Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes made the point that VP Harris has really been flawless since July 21, when Joe Biden stepped out of the race and endorsed her. She has an amazing team around her, she has great speechwriters, she’s prepared for every moment, she’s not too rigid or rehearsed, and the vibes have been immaculate. Something I keep thinking about is how the Democratic Party and media intelligentsia had already written her off. They thought they had already boxed her in and done enough reputational harm to her, so much so that it was unthinkable to them that Biden would endorse her and that she would inherit Biden’s team and do THIS with that team.

It’s also worth noting that 75,000 people came to watch VP Harris’s speech last night. One, DC needs congressional representation. Two, Trump’s Madison Square Garden Nazi rally was at capacity, meaning 19,500 people came out for that racist sh-tshow. The MSG rally was Trump’s biggest of his campaign.

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Getty.

He did it again! Our favorite chaos gremlin who likes to meddle in foreign bird competitions, fire sale restaurant equipment, and ethically-challenged Supreme Court justices, just delivered with another one of his zany and elaborate interventions into unsuspecting institutions. But I’m getting ahead of myself. John Oliver spent the latest episode of Last Week Tonight focusing on immigration. This discussion took a detour with a brief history of Lee Greenwood’s song “God Bless the USA,” the 80s anthem that’s balls-to-the-walls patriotism (if a little light on artistry). The song has been played for years during naturalization ceremonies for newly-minted US citizens — including at Oliver’s ceremony five years ago. When Greenwood learned the government was playing his song regularly, he demanded payment and worked out a deal where he gets $700 a year. Enter Oliver, who is now offering to pay the government $701 a year to use a new song he commissioned and made a full-production music video for, starring none other than a cowboy-costumed Will Ferrell. You’re welcome, America!

To close out his show on Sunday night, Oliver reflected on his own immigration process to the U.S., which indeed ended with a music video for Greenwood’s song. The presence of it got Oliver curious, so he dug into the details of how it came to be a piece of the ceremony.

As it turns out, the government began using it on their own, and when Greenwood found out, his team forced the USCIS into a settlement deal that now sees the singer get $700 a year for use of the song. Naturally, Oliver mocked the move, and most of Greenwood’s attempts to monetize, well, everything, including attempting to trademark the phrase “God Bless the USA.”

Oliver was particularly amused by Greenwood releasing a version of the song for Canada, in which he didn’t really change any lyrics of the song beyond the ones that referenced America.

“All of this is to say, for multiple reasons, I’d argue Lee Greenwood’s song should never again be played at citizenship ceremonies, because they deserve one genuinely unique to this country,” Oliver said.

“A song that celebrates the nation new Americans are about to join, and the process that they’ve been through, while also not soft-pedaling some hard truths about it.”

The good news is, Oliver had a song at the ready, and promised not to charge $700 for it — in fact, he offered to pay the government $701 to replace Greenwood’s song with it. And Will Ferrell lent his voice to it.

“You studied hard,” Ferrell sings. “You did your best. Filled out the forms, and passed the test. Now you’re part of a land that’s so God blessed, and starting today, you’re American.”

As the song continues, Ferrell sings of corn dogs and apple pie, but also of the country’s “real big problems,” like televangelists, fossil fuels “and Ted f–kin’ Cruz.”

[From The Wrap]

Bravo to whomever Oliver tapped to write this song! It namechecks everything from Big Gulp to Chuck E. Cheese to L.L. Bean to Scientology. It’s honest, but still celebratory! And after Oliver thoroughly exposes Greenwood as one of those right-wingers with a fuzzy understanding of separation of church and state (who’s also peddled in bible-selling, sound familiar?), you’ll be voting to have “God Bless the USA” replaced too. Plus, Greenwood had the nerve to deride “Purple Rain” and “Margaritaville” as inferior to his work. Anyway, thank you John Oliver, for giving us another gem that will likely earn you another Emmy. I sincerely hope our government takes you up on this fine offer.

As for Will Ferrell, it was a big surprise and treat to see him pop up! I watched his new documentary, Will & Harper, on Netflix a few weeks ago and really enjoyed it. He and his good friend Harper Steele take a road trip after her transition, and Will very kindly asks her about, well, her whole life experience. (Sidenote: Harper attended the Academy Museum Gala recently and looked stunning, still with a quirky flair I adore.) I don’t want to spoil anything, but the gesture Will makes at the end was so touching. Both Will and Harper have commented on how it was important to them that the documentary be released before the election, and I see this music video appearance as an extension of Will wanting to show up more for his friend, politically speaking. In that vein, he also just did a fabulous stint on Billy on the Street with Billy Eichner, where they represented “Loud White Men for Kamala!” and it was hilarious. In that pairing, Will was actually the quieter one!

John Oliver is sick of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” being played at U.S. naturalization ceremonies, so he created an alternative—with help from Will Ferrell. pic.twitter.com/UnW7hFBVoS

— LateNighter (@latenightercom) October 28, 2024

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Photos via Instagram/Last Week Tonight and credit Getty

Shawn Mendes is still figuring out his sexuality. [JustJared]
Lil Nas X clapped back hard on Azealia Banks. [OMG Blog]
Armie Hammer is launching a podcast called Hammertime. The cannibal/abuser-to-podbro pipeline needs to be stopped. [Socialite Life]
Jennifer Lopez is campaigning for awards & for Kamala Harris. [LaineyGossip]
A pro-Trump PAC claims Ruth Bader Ginsberg was anti-abortion. [Jezebel]
I watched some of Seth Meyers’ stand-up special, it was fine. [Pajiba]
Can y’all please not choose offensive Halloween costumes? [Buzzfeed]
Tom Hanks & Robin Wright’s new movie looks awful. [Hollywood Life]
David Beckham hangs out with some Ted Lasso stars. [Seriously OMG]
Zoey Deutch wore Oscar de la Renta. [RCFA]

“The real truth about my life and sexuality is that, man I’m just figuring it out like everyone. I don’t really know sometimes and I know other times. It feels really scary because we live in a society that has a lot to say about that.”

— Shawn Mendes pic.twitter.com/SSHkK19fS4

— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) October 29, 2024

One week to go! Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound excited or happy. *Solemn voice* one week to go until Election Day. I’m actually thrilled that I get to cast my ballot for Kamala Harris and my plan is to vote on Election Day at my local polling station. Tens of millions of Americans have already cast their votes through mail-in ballots and early voting, and those numbers will increase over the next week as well. What’s your plan to vote? I prefer going on Election Day because it honestly makes me feel so patriotic and special. It feels more “real” to me to vote in person, but I’m not judging how other people vote! I am really f–king worried about the MAGA cult setting fires to ballot drop-boxes though.

One of the quieter election stories has been the storyline about all of Republican and Democratic presidents and first families endorsing Kamala Harris. All except one former president: George W. Bush. Dubya has stayed silent as the grave for the past three or four presidential elections, although he did make a point of attending Joe Biden’s 2020 inauguration and putting up a unified front with the Democrats post-insurrection. Still, Bush hasn’t said a word, hasn’t endorsed anyone and hasn’t authorized his former staffers to speak about anything. So this surprised me – Dubya’s daughter Barbara is campaigning for Kamala Harris.

Barbara Pierce Bush, the daughter of former President George W. Bush and granddaughter of former President George H.W. Bush, spent part of her weekend in Pennsylvania campaigning for Vice President Kamala Harris with just days to go before the 2024 presidential election.

“It was inspiring to join friends and meet voters with the Harris-Walz campaign in Pennsylvania this weekend,” Barbara, 42, shares in an exclusive statement to PEOPLE on Tuesday, Oct. 29. “I’m hopeful they’ll move our country forward and protect women’s rights.”

In March 2017, Barbara rallied for Planned Parenthood, speaking at a fundraiser for the women’s health nonprofit. “I am proud to stand with Planned Parenthood not only because women, regardless of where they are from, deserve to live dignified, healthy lives, [but] … because it’s a really good investment,” she said at the event, according to The Texas Tribune. “We know that when women are healthy, their families and their children are healthier, too.”

Barbara, now a mother of two, told PEOPLE in 2010 that she does not identify with either major political party, and has since been described as an independent.

[From People]

I’m honestly sort of proud of Barbara for this? I don’t mean to sound patronizing at all, but she could have done what her father is doing, stayed silent and not get involved. Instead, she flew to Pennsylvania and came out strong for Kamala Harris. There’s been a lot of talk about “permission structures” and how Republicans can be persuaded to do the right thing. I do feel like Liz Cheney’s extremely vocal endorsement of Harris has given a permission structure for a lot of white women and traditionally Republican women to do more and say more to support Harris. Incidentally, Gerald Ford’s daughter Susan Ford Bales endorsed Harris too.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

Mehdi Hasan is a British author and political commentator who has worked in the American media for about five years. He had a show on Peacock, he had a show on MSNBC, and he regularly pops into cable news round-table discussions. His background: his parents were Indian immigrants in Britain, and he was born and raised Muslim, and I believe he is still practicing. He’s gotten a lot of attention this year for his commentary on Israel and Palestine, especially within the context of the American presidential race.

Well, Hasan was asked to appear on a crowded CNN panel to discuss Donald Trump’s Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden. As Hasan was trying to make the point of “if you don’t want to be called a Nazi, stop doing Nazi sh-t” (I’m paraphrasing), a man on the panel said something absolutely shocking to Hasan. The man? Ryan James Girdusky, who was trying to defend the Nazi rally. Girdusky called Hasan an antisemite and within the cross-talk, Hasan said, “I am in support of the Palestinians, so I am used to it.” Girdusky replied, “I hope your beeper doesn’t go off.” That was a reference to the Israeli operation to weaponize Hezbollah members’ beepers. As in, supporting Palestinians = Hezbollah. Hasan asked, “Did you guest just say I should be killed on live TV?”

Girdusky to Hasan: I hope your beeper doesn’t go off pic.twitter.com/YmHhYnkDZ3

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 29, 2024

This was Abby Phillip’s show on CNN, and she quickly tried to handle the situation. She apparently invited Hasan to stay on the show but he walked off, and Girdusky has now been banned:

CNN says commentator Ryan Girdusky will no longer be welcome on the network after his offensive remark to fellow guest Mehdi Hasan tonight.

“There is zero room for racism or bigotry at CNN or on our air,” the network said in a statement shared by host Abby Phillip tonight.

Earlier tonight on NewsNight with Abby Phillip, Girdusky was ushered off the show during a commercial break after making a crass comment suggesting Hasan was a member of a terrorist organization. In a video accompanying CNN’s statement, Philip apologized again for the incident just as she did earlier on her show.

Phillip also says in her video message that, although Hasan did not reappear after the commercial break, CNN did not ask him to leave as it had with Girdusky, and that the choice was Hasan’s. “In fact we really wanted him to come back and finish the show,” she said, adding that she hopes he’ll return to the show soon.

[From Deadline]

I have no issue with the way CNN handled this and Girdusky should absolutely be banned from CNN and other networks. He should also lose his other jobs and I hope that happens by the end of the day. Where I will blame CNN is that no political commentary or debate should have been staged this way, with a half-dozen people sitting at a table talking over one another. Stop with the both-sidesism and stop platforming known bigots, racists and insurrectionists just because “the other side should have a voice too.”

Phillip: I want to apologize to Mehdi Hasan for what was said at this table. It was completely unacceptable when we get this discussion started, you’ll see that Ryan is not at the table… I want to apologize to the viewers at home pic.twitter.com/wyPaStHUex

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 29, 2024

Photo courtesy of The Daily Show.

Last Friday, the Washington Post announced that they would not make a presidential endorsement. WaPo CEO Will Lewis, who spent the bulk of his career working for Rupert Murdoch, claimed that it was his decision to dump the Post’s editors planned endorsement because Lewis doesn’t believe in newspaper endorsements. Lewis’s words meant nothing because everyone else, including WaPo’s editors, confirmed that WaPo owner Jeff Bezos gave the order to kill the endorsement. Bezos’ Blue Origin team met with Donald Trump on the very same day that the announcement came. In the wake of the non-endorsement, several WaPo editors resigned and WaPo is hemorrhaging subscribers (more than 200K at last count). So Bezos decided to address his reasons for ordering the Post to kill the Harris endorsement in a new column called “The hard truth: Americans don’t trust the news media.” Some highlights:

In the annual public surveys about trust and reputation, journalists and the media have regularly fallen near the very bottom, often just above Congress. But in this year’s Gallup poll, we have managed to fall below Congress. Our profession is now the least trusted of all. Something we are doing is clearly not working.

Let me give an analogy. Voting machines must meet two requirements. They must count the vote accurately, and people must believe they count the vote accurately. The second requirement is distinct from and just as important as the first.

Likewise with newspapers. We must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement. Most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn’t see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose. Reality is an undefeated champion. It would be easy to blame others for our long and continuing fall in credibility (and, therefore, decline in impact), but a victim mentality will not help. Complaining is not a strategy. We must work harder to control what we can control to increase our credibility.

Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election. No undecided voters in Pennsylvania are going to say, “I’m going with Newspaper A’s endorsement.” None. What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one. Eugene Meyer, publisher of The Washington Post from 1933 to 1946, thought the same, and he was right. By itself, declining to endorse presidential candidates is not enough to move us very far up the trust scale, but it’s a meaningful step in the right direction. I wish we had made the change earlier than we did, in a moment further from the election and the emotions around it. That was inadequate planning, and not some intentional strategy.

I would also like to be clear that no quid pro quo of any kind is at work here. Neither campaign nor candidate was consulted or informed at any level or in any way about this decision. It was made entirely internally. Dave Limp, the chief executive of one of my companies, Blue Origin, met with former president Donald Trump on the day of our announcement. I sighed when I found out, because I knew it would provide ammunition to those who would like to frame this as anything other than a principled decision. But the fact is, I didn’t know about the meeting beforehand. Even Limp didn’t know about it in advance; the meeting was scheduled quickly that morning. There is no connection between it and our decision on presidential endorsements, and any suggestion otherwise is false.

[From WaPo]

There are so many fundamental mistakes being made here, and it’s being wrapped up in Bezos’ sanctimony about bias and credibility. Bezos’ perspective is that a presidential endorsement would exhibit “bias” and lessen the Post’s credibility. He fails to see that the lack of an endorsement for Kamala Harris is what looks biased and unreasonable. One candidate is arguing that America is only for white people, that he will overthrow democracy to get power, that millions of immigrants will be rounded up and sent into camps, that women’s pregnancies will be monitored by the state and that women will be blocked from leaving states to receive medical treatment. The other candidate is Kamala Harris. If journalists are not free to say “these two candidates are not the same and here’s why,” THAT is what’s destroying journalism, THAT is what’s ruining the Post’s credibility.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.

2008 was the first election I was old enough to vote in, and I was so excited. I sent in an absentee ballot so that I could vote against California’s Prop 8 (an anti LGBTQ+ bill) and watched the results come in live from my dorm room in NYC. When it was called for Obama, everyone in our hall threw coats on over our pajamas and ran out to celebrate at Union Square Park, where someone had brought a HUGE American flag that we all danced under. It was a simpler time. Looking back on that hippie dippie scene, I guess I was channeling my inner Stevie Nicks, which is somehow cosmically fitting since Stevie recently revealed that she never voted in her youth. In fact, she didn’t vote at all until she was 70! But, how, Stevie?! She’s disclosing this now, what she calls “a big regret,” as part of her appeal to women to vote in this election. It’s one of many topics covered in a sprawling, really great interview from Rolling Stone. A few highlights:

Still so much left to do! I haven’t been able to do a lot of the creative things that I love in many, many years. I draw, I write songs, and I write poetry. I’d like to make a perfume because I actually have a smell that I love. I like to design blankets. Cashmere blankets are my favorite thing. That is what I buy for my friends if there’s a special occasion. I bought Travis Kelce a blanket.

She regrets not voting until she was 70: I’m going to reach out to women and say, ‘You have to vote.” You have to. I never voted until I was 70 years old because I wasn’t at all political. I was incredibly busy, I was having a fitting, and I didn’t want to do jury duty. It’s a big regret.

The meaning behind “The Lighthouse,” the song she wrote in reaction to Roe v. Wade being overturned: So I am the lighthouse, because I am the wisdom and I have the stories.” We are the women that can tell all these young women from 15 up to 45. We are the light that goes out, and we bring the ships in so they don’t crash. We save lives every day. The way I feel about this upcoming election is that Kamala Harris is the lighthouse, too.

That time she told Katy Perry to get off the internet: About 10 years ago, Katy Perry was talking to me about the internet armies of all the girl singers, and how cruel and rancid they were. I said, “Well, I wouldn’t know because I’m not on the internet.” She said, “So, who are your rivals?” I just looked at her. It was my steely look. I said, “Katy, I don’t have rivals. I have friends. All the other women singers that I know are friends. Nobody’s competing. Get off the internet and you won’t have rivals either.”

Her secret talent: It’s a silly thing to say, but I do my own nails. This is the first time they’ve been white in 20 years — I didn’t have time to put the gold on them before the last show. People say, “Who did your nails?” And I go, “Me, because I’m the best manicurist in the world.” Nobody does them as good as me, so why would I let anybody else do them?

[From Rolling Stone]

Reader, please do some math with me. “Cashmere blankets are my favorite thing. That is what I buy for my friends if there is a special occasion.” + “I bought Travis Kelce a blanket.” = A special occasion Stevie bought Travis a blanket for, right? Why’d you buy Travis the blanket, Stevie?! Taylor Swift and the Kelces actually make a few appearances in this article. Aside from Stevie totally shipping the couple and wanting them to have a happily ever after, Stevie also just recorded a Christmas song with Jason Kelce. I wonder how Taylor feels about her possible future brother-in-law horning in on her turf? It’d be pretty smooth if she posted a pic of herself sleeping while listening to the song. And speaking of smooth, that Katy Perry interaction was flawless, as is being noted on the internet, ironically.

Anyway, there is so much more in this interview, I highly recommend giving the whole piece a read. She says she’s gonna call producers so she can record another version of “Crystal” for the Practical Magic sequel, and of course she wants to jump off the roof like a groovy witch. And if you thought the excitement of getting the Barbie treatment had waned in a year, well, she has two displayed in her bedroom: the Rhiannon prototype and the final Gold Dust Woman doll. This Barbie says, VOTE!

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