Newsies

 It's mid-August and I assume most of the country's political reporters are on vacation.  At least I hope so.

There is no other good explanation for all the juicy stories waiting to be covered.  Why have we not seen the Roger Stone emails supposedly hacked by AOL "Robert" of Iran?  They have been delivered to the New York Times, the Washington Post and other outlets, but as the Post explains, they all "took a deep breath and paused, and thought about who was likely to be leaking the documents, what the motives of the hacker might have been."  Something they spectacularly failed to do eight years ago, when Russia and Wikileaks were running amok with Hillary Clinton's emails.  It's almost as if they wanted her to lose.  

Why would we want to see, for example, the 271-page document listing J.D. Vance's liabilities as a candidate?  Apart from all the misogyny and racism, is there a chapter about AppHarvest, the company he helped to start which was going to revolutionize agriculture in eastern Kentucky?  It was also going to provide employment for this long-depressed region.  The working conditions were diabolical, the stockholders sued over alleged fraud, and before it went completely bust the majority of workers were from Mexico and Central America.  Hillbilly eulogy.  

Also out of bounds, evidently, is "the most serious allegation of a bribe in White House history," according to the Post's Carol Leonnig, the ten million dollars that found its way from the Egyptian intelligence service to the Trump campaign in time to affect the 2016 election, and the subsequent billions of dollars' worth of military aid reaped by the Egyptian dictatorship.  Not to mention the FBI investigation shut down by then-attorney general Barr.  Not important enough to merit round-the-clock coverage like Monica Lewinsky or the cocaine found in the White House last year, I guess.  

Did you know that Kamala Harris has been coasting on her looks?  The editorial board of the Washington Post thinks so, or why would she refuse them an interview?  "Without her beauty, Harris might be joining Biden in retirement."  (I thought the problem was his age, not his lack of sex appeal.)  "All you have to do is imagine her spoken words coming from a less-attractive package.  Or put her on radio."  Less-attractive package?  Radio?  What century is this?  And check out this photo:

Caption:  "Vice President Kamala Harris reads from a teleprompter in Detroit on Wednesday."  The implication is clear -- she's not a natural like Trump, she's just reading somebody else's words.  

"The media and the public have legitimate questions, and she should face them."  Why do you belong to a radical pastor's church?  What's your plan to end the war in Gaza?  Why didn't you choose Josh Shapiro?  Katheen Parker says you're "a sometimes bumbling beauty with a stride that conveys confidence if not precisely competence."  What's your response?  Did you leave cocaine in the White House?  Why did you decide not to have children?  Do you feel more Indian or Black?  Sure, let's have interviews.  When is Sean Hannity free?  Karine Jean-Pierre gets paid specifically to deal with doocy questions every weekday.  She's very good at it.  Like Harris and every other Black woman who isn't a Republican, she regularly has her intelligence questioned.  Let her handle them.

OT:  Trump, who loves the poorly educated, promises to abolish the Department of Education, a promise every Republican has made since it began in the Carter administration.  I mention it only because I wanted to use this picture again.