Sen. Kamala Harris, who was announced as presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s running mate, once said that she believed women who accused Biden of inappropriate touching.

“I believe them, and I respect them being able to tell their story and having the courage to do it,” the California senator told reporters in April 2019.

Biden had been accused by a number of women of inappropriate touching and kissing, including by a Nevada politician who said he came up behind her at a 2014 campaign stop and kissed her on the back of her head.

“He’s going to have to make that decision for himself,” Harris said when asked if Biden, who hadn’t announced a presidential bid at the point, should still run. “I wouldn’t tell him what to do.”

Biden released a video addressing the allegations at the time, in which he said, “Social norms are changing. I understand that, and I’ve heard what these women are saying. Politics to me has always been about making connections, but I will be more mindful about respecting personal space in the future. 

Authoritarianism...

When I think of Kamala Harris, a comment about her by an African American voter in Michigan sticks: "She's fake. She's phony. She's not one of us. She built a political career by over-prosecuting Black kids," Brandi Neal, an employee at Detroit City Hall, told Politico.

That sentiment may explain why Senator Harris' presidential campaign was a short ride.

Several primary rivals like Bernie Sanders outlasted her because their authenticity was perceived to be far greater. But winning the vote of one person - Joe Biden, in this case - was easier than winning the millions of votes necessary to be the nominee herself.

The Biden camp thinks it is sitting on a lead so it took the safest route - a basically vetted person who will neither help nor hurt the Democratic campaign.

Most research shows that VP choices rarely make a difference. Harris probably won't, either. Her home state is safely Democratic. Her primary campaign shows she's not a great fundraiser. Her politics - liberal with more than a hint of authoritarianism (think of her attempts to get Donald Trump banned from Twitter) sprinkled in for good measure - fit well on a national ticket trending hard towards both.       Scott Jennings.

Nigh...

 

 

Sex-tortion...

 

A number of people targeted by bitcoin sextortion scams in 2020 has increased rapidly. According to an analysis by British security company Sophos, millions of people recently received sextortion scam emails in the week it analyzed.

“In fact, the number was probably more like tens or even hundreds of millions,” Sophos senior threat analyst Paul Ducklin wrote, adding that some people received between two and five different varieties of this scam. He explained, “The scams exploited global botnets on compromised PCs to dispatch millions of spam emails to recipients around the world,” elaborating

However, Ducklin advised that these passwords are often old ones you used before in the past. “In truth, the passwords sent out in these scams have typically been dredged up from old data breaches,” he opined. “Although the password you see may have been your password once, the crooks didn’t get it from your computer recently.”

Zona Norte..

 

"I'm so scared for my health," said a sex worker in Tijuana, "I don't know if the person I'm with has the disease or not."

Tijuana, Mexico's famed red-light district, called Zona Norte, sits a stone's throw from the US-Mexico border. Called Coahuila, the area's main strip, is normally teeming with a frenetic action bathed in neon light.

Women in short dresses and the highest of high heels stand along the sidewalks, beckoning groups of men to spend some time and money with them. Massive strip clubs, some with hotels attached, act as de facto brothels.

Many specifically cater to the thousands of Americans who cross the border from California each month, looking for a kind of fun that can't be found legally in the United States.

Called Zona Norte, and it sits a stone's throw from the US-Mexico border.  Just a thought.

Polling...

 

“The narrative from the Beltway is not accurate,” said Joe Bush, chairman of the Republican Party in Muskegon County, Mich., which Trump lost narrowly in 2016. “Here in the heartland, everybody is still very confident, more than ever.”

At the center of the disconnect between Trump loyalists’ assessment of the state of the race and the one based on public opinion polls is a distrust of polling itself. 

Republicans see an industry that maliciously oversamples Democrats or under-samples the white, non-college educated voters who are most likely to support Trump. They say it is hard to know who likely voters are this far from the election. And like many Democrats, they suspect Trump supporters disproportionately hang up on pollsters, under-counting his level of support.

Ted Lovdahl, chairman of the Republican Party in Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District, said he has friends who will tell pollsters “just exactly the opposite of what they feel.” “I don’t like some of their questions. It’s none of their business what I do.”

Recalling that polls four years ago failed to predict the outcome, Jack Brill, acting chairman of the local Republican Party in Sarasota County, Fla., said, “I used to be an avid poll watcher until 2016 … Guess what? I’m not watching polls.”

Instead, as they prepare for a post-lockdown summer of party picnics and parades, Republican Party organizers sense the beginnings of an economic recovery that, if sustained, is likely to power Trump to a second term.  

Gaffe..

 

 

Joe Biden is 77, four years older than Reagan was during the 1984 campaign. If Biden is elected, he’ll be older on the day he takes office than Reagan was on the day he left office. So yes, his mental fitness is a legitimate issue.

There is plenty of cause for concern. Biden recently announced “I think we can win back the House” and promised to ban the “AR-14.” He mistook Super Tuesday for “Super Thursday,” and forgot the words of the Declaration of Independence, saying “We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women are created, by the, you know, you know the thing.” 

In South Carolina, he misstated what office he was running for, declaring “My name’s Joe Biden. I’m a Democratic candidate for the United States Senate.” On three occasions, Biden declared he was arrested in South Africa trying to visit Nelson Mandela in prison  an incident his campaign later admitted never happened.

He earlier described meeting a Navy captain in Afghanistan, but The Post reported that “almost every detail in the story appears to be incorrect.” He claimed to have worked with Chinese leader “Deng Xiaoping” on the Paris Climate Accord (Deng died in 1997)/.

He claimed during a debate that “150 million people have been killed [by guns] since 2007” (which would be nearly half the U.S. population). He said he met with Parkland victims while he was vice president even though the shooting took place after he left office. 

He has declared that Democrats should "choose truth over facts” and that “poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids.” He pledged to use biofuels to power “steamships.” He repeatedly gets confused about what state he is in; called “Fox News Sunday” anchor Chris Wallace “Chuck”; said his late son Beau “was the attorney general of the United States”; and confused former British prime minister Theresa May with the late British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

Any one of these gaffes in isolation would be nothing more than that. But taken together they form a pattern – and raise questions about whether Biden has experienced a cognitive decline. Biden’s defenders say this is unfair, and some have even suggested raising it is ageism. No, it’s not. 

His socialist rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is 78 — almost a year older than Biden — yet no one is questioning his mental fitness. On Monday night, Sanders spent an hour at a Fox News town hall where he was challenged to defend his policies and answered in great detail and without any gaffes or senior moments. Could Biden do the same?

Loneliness...

 

Marriage has become a trophy.

In his majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, “Marriage responds to the universal fear that a lonely person might call out only to find no one there. 

It offers the hope of companionship and understanding and assurance that while both still live there will be someone to care for the other.” This notion that marriage is the best answer to the deep human desire for connection and belonging is incredibly seductive. When I think about getting married, I can feel its undertow. But research suggests that, whatever its benefits, marriage also comes with a cost.

As Chekhov put it, “If you’re afraid of loneliness, don’t marry.” He might have been on to something. In a review of two national surveys, the sociologists Natalia Sarkisian of Boston College and Naomi Gerstel of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst found that marriage actually weakens other social ties. 

Compared with those who stay single, married folks are less likely to visit or call parents and siblings and less inclined to offer them emotional support or pragmatic help with things such as chores and transportation. They are also less likely to hang out with friends and neighbors.

Lens...

 

Most of the popular advice books adopt a psychological lens. These books start with the premise that getting married is a daunting prospect. Forty-five percent of marriages end in divorce; 10 percent of couples separate but do not divorce. 

The psychologists want you to think analytically as well as romantically about whom to marry. Pay attention to traits.   

Marry someone who scores high in “agreeableness,”  has a high concern for social harmony, good at empathy, who is nice. You want to avoid people who score high in neuroticism  who are emotionally unstable or prone to anger.  

Don’t think negative traits will change over time, they are constant across a lifetime. Don’t focus on irrelevant factors. Don’t filter out or rationalize away negative information about a partner or relationship.