Friday, August 09, 2024

Summer hiatus

See you next weekend, loyal readers.




3 comments:

Anonymous said...

NY Times:
That time Trump nearly died in a helicopter crash? Didn’t happen.


Former President Donald J. Trump told a jaw-dropping story on Thursday about nearly dying in a helicopter ride with Willie Brown, the former California politician and ex-boyfriend of his rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.

There was only one problem with the story. Or maybe two. Or maybe three.

It wasn’t the famous former San Francisco mayor on the helicopter flight at all. It was Gov. Jerry Brown, the former governor of California, who bears little resemblance to Willie Brown.

There was also no emergency landing, and the helicopter’s passengers were never in any danger at all, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was also on the flight.

“I call complete B.S.,” Mr. Newsom said, laughing out loud.

“I was on a helicopter with Jerry Brown and Trump, and it didn’t go down,” Mr. Newsom said in an interview. He said that Mr. Trump had, however, repeatedly brought up the possibility of crashing.

Jerry Brown, who left office in January 2019, said through a spokesman, “There was no emergency landing and no discussion of Kamala Harris.”

Mr. Trump’s errant account, delivered during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, came in response to a reporter who asked a leading question about Ms. Harris’s past relationship with Willie Brown, and whether Mr. Trump thought it might have had something to do with her career trajectory.

“Well, I know Willie Brown very well,” Mr. Trump responded. “In fact, I went down in a helicopter with him.”

He went on to tell a cinematic tale of a close call with death — and of politically advantageous gossip on death’s door:

“We thought maybe this was the end,” Mr. Trump said. “We were in a helicopter, going to a certain location together, and there was an emergency landing. This was not a pleasant landing.
“And Willie was — he was a little concerned,” Mr. Trump continued. “So I know him, but I know him pretty well. I mean, I haven’t seen him in years. But he told me terrible things about her. But this is what you’re telling me, anyway, I guess. But he had a big part in what happened with Kamala. But he — he, I don’t know, maybe he’s changed his tune. But he — he was not a fan of hers very much, at that point.”

Both Jerry Brown, left, and Willie Brown, refuted Mr. Trump's story of a helicopter ride gone wrong.

Reached on his cellphone just after Mr. Trump’s news conference — at his regular lunch spot at Sam’s Grill in downtown San Francisco — Mr. Brown, 90, said the whole story was false. He had never ridden in a helicopter with Mr. Trump, he said. He had never nearly perished in any helicopter ride. And he remained an avid supporter of Ms. Harris’s.



The helicopter ride that Mr. Trump took in 2018 with Gov. Jerry Brown, 86, and with Mr. Newsom, then the governor-elect of California, was to survey damage wrought by the deadly Camp Fire in the town of Paradise, in the Sierra Nevada foothills north of Sacramento.

Mr. Trump’s visit to the burned forest with then-Governor Brown and Mr. Newsom did generate headlines, but not because of anything that occurred on their helicopter ride. Rather, it was because, during a news conference after landing at the scene, Mr. Trump, 78, attributed the wildfire to too many fallen, dead tree branches and said the answer to solving California’s wildfire crisis was to rake the forest floors.

“It was back when we were making raking the forest great again,” Mr. Newsom said.



Trump repeatedly called the town “Pleasure” instead of “Paradise.”

Anonymous said...

This cut-and paste job has the feel of compulsive self-management from the shock of VP's plan to take a week off. Don't worry, it will seem short compared to your own recent hiatus. During the coming week, feel free to put your obsessive comments under any past posts without caring if you're adding anything relevant to them. In other words, just carry on as usual.

Anonymous said...

Paul Simon with the Party song of the summer:

Slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away

My love for you's so overpowering
I'm afraid that I will disappear

A bad day's when I lie in bed
And think of things that might have been

Believe we're gliding down the highway
When in fact we're slip slidin' away

Slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away