The Trump troglodytes have no concept of the power of the Tsunami about to hit.

Taylor Swift’s exquisitely timed endorsement of Kamala Harris & Tim Walz immediately after Harris led Trump to immolate himself in front of 67 million viewers during the ABC-TV debate on September 10, 2024, was only the beginning of watching the torch being passed to a new generation of Americans.

Sure, Swift’s Instagram account has 230 million followers, and as soon as she issued an excellently worded endorsement (reprinted below), the non-MAGA mega Rock Star’s announcement became almost as a big a story as how Harris hog-tied the mendacious, mean and felonious swine on the other side of the stage from her.

Swift-fictionados would have immediately recognized the striking similarities between the vicious music critic who called the performer “young and dumb,” in 2010, prompting the artist to write the song “Mean” on her Third Album, “Speak Now,” and Donald Trump, who called Kamala Harris “dumb as a rock,” before Harris brilliantly demolished him during the debate.

Like Harris, Swift masterfully dismantled the miserable misogynist who called her “dumb,” in the Song “Mean.”  Here are some of the lyrics:

“Someday, I’ll be big enough, so you can’t hit me
And all you’re ever gonna be is mean
Why you gotta be so mean?

And I can see you years from now in a bar
Talking over a football game
With that same big loud opinion, but nobody’s listening
Washed up and ranting about the same old bitter things
Drunk and grumbling on about how I can’t sing
All you are is mean
All you are is mean
And a liar, and pathetic, and alone in life
And mean, and mean, and mean, and mean

But someday, I’ll be living in a big old city
And all you’re ever gonna be is mean, yeah
Someday, I’ll be big enough, so you can’t hit me
And all you’re ever gonna be is mean
Why you gotta be so mean?

And all you’re ever gonna be is mean
(Why you gotta be so mean?)
Someday, I’ll be big enough, so you can’t hit me (why you gotta be so mean?)
And all you’re ever gonna be is mean
Why you gotta be so mean?”

(Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Taylor Swift

Mean lyrics © Sony/atv Tree Publishing, Taylor Swift Music)

Not only did the mean, mendacious men underestimate Taylor Swift and Kamala Harris, but they woefully miscalculated the call to direct action and change that these two powerful women represent.  During Swift’s brief Instagram endorsement, she shared a link to Vote.gov, where her fans could find info on where to register to vote or update their voter registration.   Vote.gov is the official government website run by the US General Services Administration (GSA), an independent government agency.

As NPR reported:

“In the 24-hour window that Swift’s story was live on Instagram, a GSA spokesperson told NPR that there had been 405,999 visitors to the Vote.gov website via her unique link.  That’s more than 13 times more visitors than a typical day on the site…

“Vote.org, a separate voter group that provides registration information and guidance, told NPR that more than 52,000 people registered to vote from its’ platform, and more than 144,000 checked their registration status in the period shortly after Swift’s endorsement on Tuesday night through midday Thursday, September 12, 2004.”

CBS National News reported on September 12, that:

“Harris’ campaign quickly embraced the support of one of the world’s most influential pop stars.  The campaign soon began selling Harris/Walz friendship bracelets, the fashion accessory that millions of Swift fans have worn to her Eras Tour around the world.  The bracelets sold out by Wednesday.”

As anticipated, the avalanche of “SwiftVoting” already being heaped upon Harris & Walz is driving Trump & his troglodytes into tongue-tied tirades.  Trump bitterly barked out that “she will pay a price in the marketplace,” and that—in true Trump teenaged tantrum style—nyah, nyahed that he liked “Brittany Mahomes,” better. 

JD Vance, Trump’s mini-me, who owes his entire political career to weirdo billionaire Peter Thiel (who believes democracy and freedom are not compatible), whined that “I don’t think most Americans, whether they like her music or are fans of hers or not, are going to be influenced by a billionaire celebrity who I think is fundamentally disconnected from the interests and the problems of most Americans.”

Ha.  So much for what JD knows, who continues to demonstrate that his initials stand for “Just Dumb.”  Like Trump, JD is completely clueless to the power of “SwiftVoting.”

Reprinted below is the full endorsement of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz by Taylor Swift, as it appeared on Instagram, on the evening of September 10, 2024:

“Like many of you, I watched the debate tonight. If you haven’t already, now is a great time to do your research on the issues at hand and the stances these candidates take on the topics that matter to you the most. As a voter, I make sure to watch and read everything I can about their proposed policies and plans for this country.

Recently I was made aware that AI of ‘me’ falsely endorsing Donald Trump’s presidential run was posted to his site. It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation. It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter. The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth.

I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election. I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them. I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos. I was so heartened and impressed by her selection of running mate @timwalz, who has been standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades.

I’ve done my research, and I’ve made my choice. Your research is all yours to do, and the choice is yours to make. I also want to say, especially to first time voters: Remember that in order to vote, you have to be registered! I also find it’s much easier to vote early. I’ll link where to register and find early voting dates and info in my story.

With love and hope,

Taylor Swift
Childless Cat Lady”

Liz Cheney, Darth Vader Dick Cheney, John McCain’s son, Republicans from Georgia, and even a decision to stay neutral in this election by George W. Bush, are all building the Pro-Democracy Movement.

---

I am a Liz Cheney Democrat.

I eat cowards for breakfast, 

And liars for lunch.

Traitors and terrorists, my brunch.

I am a Liz Cheney Democrat.

With a will of steel,

And a backbone to match.

To me, Trump & Vance are but a light snack

.

I am a Liz Cheney Democrat.

Democracy, integrity drive me.

Sedition, it’s my position,

Is a Capitol crime, you miserable slime.

On Putin, freedom & human rights,

Prosecuting justice & tax-fairness fights;

On working for the future & women’s choice,

I bite like Cheney, but Kamala’s my voice.

On defense of our nation, I am tenacious;

My appetite for battling bullies, voracious.

I am a Liz Cheney Democrat, with Kamala’s heart;

So, let THE FELON bring it—

We DARE him to start…

Journalists? Or Just Some Crass, Celebrity Comcast Salespeople, like Tom Selleck Selling Reverse Mortgages?

When I first spotted the advertisements—on MSNBC, of course—for NBC’s “all news” Cable network’s “Democracy 2024:  This Is Who We Are,” I passed it off as more election year self-promotion of a network news team, by a network.  Ho hum.

Then, I noted that MSNBC’s stable of “celebrity journalists,” were doing a live event in Brooklyn, N.Y., a short distance from where I was born.  How cool, I naively thought; fellow Brooklynites will be able to see and hear the MSNBC news team live on a Saturday in September of a Presidential election year. 

Having spent years working at the public Downstate Medical Center not far from the Brooklyn Academy of Music (scene of the MSNBC event) lamenting the Manhattan-centric news coverage of everything in New York except crime, I was delighted that MSNBC picked an “outer borough” and not Manhattan to show off their journalistic talent.    The “house” was in Brooklyn, and that was good.  The people would be heard.

When I saw them pushing tickets for the event, I figured it was being done as a public service by the liberal-leaning Cable news network—second only in viewership to Fox News– since MSNBC devotes so much air time to promoting democracy, ethics in government (particularly on the Supreme Court) and economic justice.  Mistakenly, I thought that since MSNBC was a progressive “news organization” the tickets would be free, to encourage public participation, regardless of income.  First come, first served. Equality.

I decided to go to the link for the “LIVE” event to see if there were any tickets still remaining.  For most of the MSNBC “LIVE” events there were…IF you had the personal resources of Rupert Murdoch, or at least of Rachel Maddow, who earns $30 million per year, or nearly three times as much as Gayle King at CBS and twice as much as ABC’s George Stephanopolous.

Turns out that the “THIS IS WHO WE ARE” tagline MSNBC used each night, multiple times per night, shamelessly hawking their own live event, had a one word definition:  RICH.   Much, much, much wealthier than the average Brooklyn resident.  I know.  I provided public heath services to that underserved population for five years, and all of our patients struggled to stretch their paychecks through the week.   In fact the cumulative cost for one person to buy one ticket to all of the MSNBC events in that ONE DAY, was approximately $1,100—enough to feed a Brooklyn family of four for a month. 

Prices to the MSNBC “Democracy 2024”, Saturday, September 7 event at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, were not on a progressive, sliding income scale.  In fact, the only thing “progressive” about the MSNBC “live event” ticket prices were that they got progressively steeper as the day wore on.

To make matters worse, there were no discounted tickets for student groups from NYC public schools, nor public colleges.  No reasons were given why there were no free or discounted tickets for people on a fixed income, considering that nearly 20% of Brooklyn’s 2.6 million residents live below the poverty level.  MSNBC would rather leave those pesky facts for someone else to sort through; there was real money to be made here off the faces of their “celebrity journalists.”

Here are some examples of the levels of MSNBC’s Taylor Swift-priced tickets:

1.  The Afternoon Session, from 1-3 pm, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House) has tickets starting at $98.50 each; 

2. From 5-7 pm, in the BAM Rose Cinema, is the “World Premier” of Executive Producer Rachel Maddow’s movie, “From Russia with LEV.”  Tickets for viewing the 91-minute documentary start at $43.50 for ALL ages.  There are no reduced prices for Senior Citizens, college students, public school students, teachers, nurses, firefighters, or people on a fixed or low-wage income. 

3. The Evening session, also from 5-7 pm, held in the Gilman Opera House (a separate event from the Maddow movie) has tickets starting from $168.50 each;

4. The Dinner & Reception (with ALL the MSNBC stars, with whom you can schmooze and booze) held at the Peter Jay Sharp Building, starts at $808.50 per ticket, AND IS ALREADY SOLD OUT.  Yes, you read that correctly:  over $800 per ticket to ask a journalist questions about the news, and have a bite to eat. 

All together, if you are rich (“This Is Who We Are”), and decide to participate in ALL of MSNBC’s  “Windfall 2024”–cashing in on their “journalists” celebrity–it would cost you approximately $1,100 for the entire day and night. And, not even your Brooklyn Academy of Museum membership entitled you to any discount.  Did anyone say Mar-A-Lago-like chutzpah?

Did anyone at MSNBC (Steve Kornacki, where are you?) give a thought to scheduling such an expensive day long extravaganza a mere 60-days before the 2024 elections, when $1,100 per wealthy contributor might be better spent re-electing Sherrod Brown in Ohio, or John Tester in Montana, or even, just maybe, Kamala Harris as President of the United States?  How dare Lawrence O’Donnell be silent on this? 

Surely, in keeping with the egalitarian image cultivated by MSNBC and its well-compensated “celebrity journalists” (Ari Melber, $5 million; Lawrence O’Donnell, $4-7 million; Chris Hayes, $2 million; Joy Reid, $1.5 millon) the profits from “Democracy 2024” are being donated to some of the well-deserving charities right in Brooklyn, that provide housing or healthcare services to a community with a 20% poverty rate?  The proceeds from that “democratic,” progressive event couldn’t possibly be going to MSNBC’s parent company, Comcast which racked up Gross Profits of $45.362 Billion as of July 1, 2024?

Well, guess again.

The June 24 issue of Variety perfectly labeled the MSNBC event as “Bravo-Con”, kind of a gussied-up TV industry “upfront” (where networks show their talent ‘upfront’ for advertising support), aimed at milking the public’s thirst (not just advertisers) of being in the same room with “celebrities”—even if those celebrities are supposed to have a journalist’s responsibility to bring us the news, for nothing more than the price of a Cable TV subscription, already too damn high, which is why so many paying Comcast subscribers (478,000 this year, to be exact) are “cutting the cord.”

But wait, Variety’s description of “Democracy 2024” gets even better:

“The event has all the trappings of another gathering held under the auspices of the parent company, NBC Universal…BravoCon, a weekend confab that started in 2019 and features panels with the Network’s reality stars and opportunity to buy related merchandise.  The extravaganza became so noteworthy that NBCU began to tout it during its presentations to advertisers in the industry’s annual “upfront” selling season.”

But isn’t this supposed to be News?  Aren’t these supposed to be journalists?  Guess again, viewers.

Here’s what all this money-chasing cheerleading means to Rebecca Kutler, MSNBC’s Senior Vice President of Content Strategy (there’s such a title in journalism?)”

“Our colleagues at Bravo have created a really magical experience for their audience, and we have learned a lot and been inspired by what they have created.” 

Namely, a cash cow.

Of course, the President of MSNBC, Rashida Jones, perhaps recoiling just a touch from renting out Maddow and company to make more money for Comcast, tried to paste a few streaks of red, white and blue over all that gold:

“In the midst of a critical and unprecedented election year, there’s never been a better time to further deepen that connection with the MSNBC audience to help them understand more of what is happening here in the U.S. and across the globe.”

Yes, but for cash, Rashida?

She could have just as easily added, “to use our “celebrity journalists” to grab an easy $1,100 from our wealthiest and most fervent fans before they open their checkbooks to candidates for the House and Senate, or to the Harris/Walz campaign.  And that’s not even including all the MSNBC Merch they’ll purch!”

Journalism, anyone?  Or, MSNBC-Con?

(Netanyahu sits on a US-brokered cease-fire deal while Hamas terrorists murder six more hostages, including American citizen, Hersh Goldberg-Polin.)

When Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s parents addressed the Democratic National Convention during the third week of August, 2024, their 23 year old son—an American/Israeli citizen, born in Berkeley, California—was still alive. So were cease fire talks being pushed relentlessly by the Biden/Harris Administration, despite stops and starts from both Hamas and the Netanyahu government.

Hamas’ terrorist leaders were inching closer to agreement to free some hostages—Goldberg-Polin rumored to be among them—when Israeli Prime Minister BiBi Netanyahu, at odds with his own Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, threw a last-minute monkey-wrench into the promising cease-fire talks.

The six hostages, including Goldberg-Polin, were murdered by Hamas point blank in the back of their heads, just days after Netanyahu overruled his Defense Minister on a compromise solution that might have saved the hostages lives. Multiple media reports are that Hamas assassinated the hostages on either Thursday, August 29, or Friday, August 30—a full week after Goldberg-Polin’s parents pleaded for his life before a world-wide audience.

As the New York Times, David Sanger reported on Sunday, September 2, 2024, :

“Hamas has demanded that all Israeli forces be withdrawn from the Philadelphi Corridor, a narrow strip of land, less than 9 miles long, on the border between Gaza and Egypt. Mr. Netanyahu has said Israeli troops must remain in the corridor to prevent the movement of weapons and ammunition to Hamas.

The draft agreement calls for a major reduction in Israeli forces in the corridor during the first phase of the cease-fire, and full withdrawal thereafter. Israeli government negotiators have agreed to the phased withdrawal, but Mr. Netanyahu has backed away from that part of the deal, triggering an open dispute with his own defense minister, Yoav Gallant.

“It is too late for the hostages who were murdered in cold blood,” Mr. Gallant said on Sunday, declaring that Mr. Netanyahu had to drop his insistence on the presence of troops in the corridor. “We must bring back the hostages that are still being held by Hamas.”

Biden and Gallant weren’t the only top government officials angry over Bibi’s blatant blowing up of the cease-fire talks, despite the lives of over 100 hostages hanging in the balance. British Government officials, following the Democratic Party’s failure to call for the cut-off of some military assistance to Israel at the Democratic National Convention, decided to act unilaterally this week to do just that.

President Biden, who had previously greenlighted another delivery of military weapons to Israel when he could have withheld them until a ceasefire was in place, was outraged with Netanyahu’s stalling tactics. When Biden learned of the murder of the six new hostages by Hamas, he blasted Bibi. When asked by reporters whether he thought Netanyahu was doing enough to free the hostages in Gaza, Biden gave a terse one word answer: “NO.”

The Times of India (9/3/2024) framed Biden’s response this way: “Biden Slams Bibi for Sabotaging Gaza Hostage Deal.”

The New York Times (9/2/2024) reported the disagreement between Washington and London this way:

‘The British decision puts its government and Washington at odds on the tactics for dealing with Mr. Netanyahu. Washington suspended export of 2,000-pound bombs earlier this year, saying their use could lead to wide civilian casualties and were not needed by the Israelis. But Britain has gone further. David Lammy, Britain’s foreign secretary, said that a legal review concluded there was “clear risk” that a number of weapons would be used in ways that would breach international law. Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris have not reached a similar conclusion.’

Hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens stormed the streets of Tel Aviv over Labor Day Weekend, while labor unions called for a nationwide work-stoppage to increase pressure on the Netanyahu government to agree to a ceasefire to free the hostages, still alive. Hand-made signs stating “Bibi What Have You Done?” could be seen throughout the massive crowd.

In the United States, some 80% of American Jews are demanding a cease-fire to free the hostages, while some sixty percent of the American public favor cutting off military support to Israel.

Many of us who support both of those goals, while also consistently condemning the brutal October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks killing 1200 innocent Israelis, and the murder of hostages by Hamas, have been condemned by fellow Jews as “undermining” Israel, and feeding into the hands of anti-Semites worldwide, and at home.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Just this week, I was asked by the Social Action Committee of my Congregation in Sonoma County, California, to re-post the series of articles I’ve published since October 7, 2023, making clear our condemnation of the inhumanity of the terrorist organization of Hamas, and of the devastating and disproportionate response of the extremist Netanyahu Government upon tens of thousands of innocent non-Hamas Palestinians, in direct contravention of the IDF’s own Code of Ethics.

Here is that series of one poem and three articles below:

1.  https://open.substack.com/pub/villano/p/i-stand-with-humanity?r=cveu&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web.

2. https://open.substack.com/pub/villano/p/does-my-judaism-still-exist?r=cveu&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web;

3. https://open.substack.com/pub/villano/p/two-rabbis-and-a-senator-cry-out?r=cveu&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

4.. https://open.substack.com/pub/villano/p/shimon-peres-yitzhak-rabin-and-the?r=cveu&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

Again, in the aftermath of the inhumane murder of the last six hostages by Hamas, and the continued sabotaging of a cease-fire deal by Hamas and by Bibi Netanyahu, my message is the same today as it was one year ago when I published my first piece on this horrific tragedy: “I Stand With Humanity.”