Sunday Issues of the Week-September 1, 2024
The election enters its final stretch.
Happy Labor Day weekend, and welcome to Sunday Issues, my take on what to watch for in the week ahead. Today’s Sunday Issues is brief because this week is short. Many of us will be on holiday tomorrow.
I expect little in the way of important news this week. Harris will campaign and prepare for the upcoming September 10 debate with Donald Trump. Trump also will campaign, but he will spend his free time posting on Truth Social and X. Don’t expect anything new other than perhaps another nickname for Comrade Kamala, more mud-slinging over “Cemeterygate,” and possibly questions about whether Harris ever worked at McDonald’s.
Over the weekend, I read several of Elon Musk’s X tweets. Musk has gone full MAGA, no doubt sacrificing Tesla car sales to offer what I think Musk sees as help for Trump. I wonder. People who once admired Musk believe he is now on drugs or simply depressed because it is increasingly obvious that he will never make it to Mars. Musk tweeted that he’ll be dead when the first humans land there.
Musk has joined the Trump weird club, which includes J.D., Kari Lake, Don, Jr., Lara Trump, Eric Trump, Melania Trump and even Baron Trump. I shook my head this morning when I read an article that commented that nobody knows where Baron is attending college. I guess we’ll find out this week.
I won’t comment on the current round of Trump controversies other than to say they were avoidable. The Trump campaign is adrift, which is why team members toss mud against walls and hope some of it sticks.
The Harris campaign bears more watching. I did not like Harris’ CNN interview. Some of Dana Bash’s questions were unfair—traps to get Harris to express disagreement with President Biden or admit she is a flip-flopper. But I was less than thrilled by Harris’ performance. She appeared nervous. At one point, I thought she looked at Tim Walz as if to say, “How did I do on that one?”
I gave Harris a flat “C” on the interview—it was no disaster but a reminder that Harris is less than a perfect candidate. She will get better, but let’s hope Trump doesn’t regain his mojo.
Harris will undoubtedly sit for additional interviews in coming weeks. If I were advising her, I would suggest she spend less time memorizing talking points and more time learning how to listen carefully to questions before starting an answer. Harris has a smart, tough personality. I think she should go unscripted.
Other things.
This morning, I read about the prevalence of “forever chemicals” in farmland sprayed with sewage sludge. The New York Times story reports that the federal government has been encouraging the practice “for decades” to avoid more landfills. Maine has now banned the practice. The NYT story may start an important dialog and lead more states to rethink what to do with sewage sludge.
I also read with interest that Trump supporters and conservative media are questioning Kamala Harris’ claim that she worked at McDonald’s while in college. Apparently, she did not include the job on her resume.
I do not know whether Harris worked at McDonald’s. If she didn’t, you will read a lot more about the story. My guess is that she did. I stopped reporting summer jobs, including one at a fast-food restaurant called “Hot Shoppes Junior,” even before I graduated from college.
Finally, Nature reports that Elon Musk’s Starship rocket may be seriously damaging the atmosphere. The story reads:
The huge explosions that destroyed SpaceX’s Starship mega-rocket last year also blew one of the biggest ‘holes’ ever detected in the ionosphere, a layer of thin air in the upper atmosphere. The hole stretched for thousands of kilometres and persisted for nearly an hour.
Hopefully, there will not be a similar high-altitude explosion of another Starship, but the story is scary. With the cadence of rocket launches increasing dramatically in recent years, is the atmosphere being permanently damaged?
Happy Labor Day.
That is it for now. Today is a day when we should all appreciate the contributions of working women and men. That is what the holiday is supposed to be about. Thank you for reading.