IT’S POLITICAL: Former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, one of the most Republican of Republicans, appeared at a rally in Ripon, Wisconsin to give Kamala Harris an enthusiastic endorsement for president while condemning Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

  “Our republic faces a threat unlike any we have faced before,” Cheney said about the prospect of Trump returning to The White House. She called on the country to reject the “depraved cruelty” of Donald Trump.

  Cheney is the daughter of former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney, who has also endorsed Harris.

  “I have never voted for a Democrat, but this year I am proudly casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris,” Cheney told the audience which at times chanted, “Thank you Liz! Thank you Liz!”Cheney said, “As a conservative, as a patriot, as a mother, as someone who reveres our Constitution, I am honored to join her in this urgent cause.”

  Even while Cheney was appearing with Harris, Trump was in Saginaw, Michigan still telling a crowd that he won the 2020 election. “We did win,” he said, “It was a rigged election. It was a rigged election.” Polls show that two-thirds of Republicans believe Trump that the 2020 election was stolen for Joe Biden.

UNION RULES: The Longshoreman’s union has won a 62 percent raise in pay and agreed to go back to work in East Coast ports while continuing to negotiate other issues.  The deal came on the third day of the strike, heading off longer-term port closures that could have put a torpedo in the economy.

  The Biden administration got involved in the talks, emphasizing the need to keep ports open to help the South recover from Hurricane Helene.

  The International Longshoremen’s Association walked out demanding a substantial increase in pay but also a stop to the introduction of more automation at 36 East and Gulf coast ports that could put a lot of union members out of work. The wage increase for which they have an interim agreement amounts to a raise of $24-an-hour in the top rate over six years.

AFTERMATH: The bodies of a South Carolina couple killed by a falling tree during Hurricane Helene were found hugging each other in their bedroom. The number of hurricane dead is now up to 215. 

  The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is investigating reports by employees of a plastics factory who say they were not allowed to leave work until floodwaters were entering the industrial park, killing several fellow workers and leaving others missing.

  The president of Impact Plastics says no one was threatened with firing if they left early and workers were dismissed 45 minutes before the flood hit. 

THE PRICE OF SNAKE OIL: Tina Peters, the former clerk of Mesa County, Colorado, was sentenced yesterday to nine years in prison for tampering with voting machines in a failed attempt to prove that they had been used to rig the 2020 election against former President Donald Trump.

  In one television interview the 69-year-old Peters had laughed off the possibility of being sent to prison. And even in the minutes before she was sentenced, Peters continued her claim that machines made by Dominion Voting Systems were used to cheat Trump out of the presidency in 2020. As she went on with a rambling tangent about a plot by the district attorney to get her ailing husband to divorce her, the judge cut her off.

  Judge Matthew Barrett called Peters “a charlatan” who “is still using your prior position in office to peddle a snake oil.” Barrett said he imposed the severe penalty because Peters repeatedly spouted false claims about the election and in doing that become a celebrity among election deniers. Judge Barrett said, “You cannot help but lie as easy as you breathe.”

THE WAR ROOM: Israeli jets overnight struck targets south of Beirut where the military said they believed senior leaders of Hezbollah were meeting in an underground bunker. Explosions rocked the densely populated area known as the Dahiya.

  Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned today that his country might carry out further attacks against Israel in support of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. Israel has yet to retaliate for Tuesday’s missile barrage fired by Iran.

SECOND CHANCES: The notorious Menendez brothers who massacred their parents with shotguns in 1989 as the couple watched television in their Beverly Hills home may get a new chance at a second trial or even freedom.

  The judge in the brothers’ 1996 trial had ruled out testimony about the two having been sexually abused by their father, which they claimed was the motive for killing him and their mother who they say had done nothing to stop it.

  Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón now says he will investigate new evidence related to the molestation claims. If Gascón finds enough to take action it could result in a reduction of the brothers’ life sentences or a new trial.

THE SPIN RACK: Three former Memphis police officers were found guilty yesterday in federal court of obstruction of justice and witness tampering in the 2023 beating death of motorist Tyre Nichols. The three were found not guilty of depriving Nichols of his civil rights resulting in death. — Country music star Garth Brooks is being sued by a woman accusing him of rape and sexual assault in a lawsuit filed yesterday. The unnamed woman who worked as his makeup artist said Brooks raped her in 2019. — The 51-year-old rapper Eminem … “Slim Shady” …  is going to become a grandfather. His 28-year-old daughter is pregnant. 

BELOW THE FOLD: Tesla billionaire Elon Musk posted on his dying Twitter/X platform that, “Trump/Vance MUST win. I can’t handle 4 years of seeing and hearing Kamala/Walz. That would be cruel and unusual punishment!”

  Evidently he never listens to Donald Trump.

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