On Friday, Kamala Harris secured enough votes in the DNCâs âvirtual roll callâ of delegates to secure the Democratic nomination for President. Sheâs was only a candidate for ten days in July, but she raised $310 million, the largest single fundraising month for any presidential candidate ever. Importantly, two million donors gave for the first time to the presidential race.
And Harris dominated the news cycle for two weeks, something that hasnât happened for Democrats in a long time. That is, until Trump played the race card against Harris at the National Association of Black Journalists in Chicago, saying in his tone-deaf way that she turned âBlackâ. That will haunt him throughout the election cycle.
But Harris returned to a prominent place in the news cycle with the prisoner exchange with Russia. That deal was brought together by multiple countries over two years. The WSJ has a detailed story.
Itâs interesting that on the very Sunday Biden announced that he was withdrawing his candidacy for President and endorsing Harris, the negotiations on the prisoner swap were coming to a head. We wonât know exactly how involved Biden was for several years, but we do know that Kamala Harris also played a part. She made the final pitch to Germanyâs Olaf Schultz to release his prisoner, a Russian hitman Vadim Krasikov, who was jailed in Germany, and without whom, the deal would have fallen apart. She also briefed the Slovenian officials regarding the deal at the Munich Security Conference.
Overall, prisoners from the US, Germany, Slovenia, Norway, and Poland were sent to Russia. The dealâs done, and Trump is grumpy. This is a huge improvement over where we were before Biden pulled out of the race. On to cartoons.
Thereâs good news and bad news for the Russians heading home:
The âWeirdoâ charge seems to be sticking:
Orange is the new weird:
Painting a happy face on the Trump train is about all thatâs possible:
Their words show the disconnect from the rest of us:
MAGA has been reduced to a fairy tale:
Finally, an interesting piece of music played on an instrument that is rarely heard. Take a few minutes to watch and listen to Brandon Acker performing the early 17th-century piece “Canario” by G.G. Kapsberger (1580-1651). The instrument is called the Theorbo, a type of lute:
Love the large lute. Clearly made to create a rich sound (hence the strings that resonate) and in a relatively small room with stone walls and a hard floor – so the room will echo a bit. As much as the digital world makes so much possible, we lose the preciousness of sounds like this.