KAMALA: Vice President Kamala Harris used her speech at the Democratic Convention to introduce herself to a country that doesn’t know her very well and cast her opponent as a throwback to the past and danger to the future.

  “With this election, our nation has a precious, fleeting opportunity to move past the bitterness, cynicism and divisive battles of the past,” she said. “A chance to chart a new way forward. Not as members of any one party or faction, but as Americans.”

  It was the most critical speech of Harris’s career. She has moved up in the polls but in most of them she’s still within the margin for error against Donald Trump. “In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man,” Harris said. “But the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.”

  Referring to the Supreme Court decision granting Trump near-complete immunity from prosecution for acts in office, Harris said, “Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails, and how he would use the immense powers of the presidency of the United States.”

  She called Trump “easy to manipulate with flattery and favors.” She cited “his explicit intent to jail journalists, political opponents and anyone he sees as the enemy” and “his explicit intent to deploy our active-duty military against our own citizens.”

  Speaking confidently and forcefully for 40 minutes, Harris re-capped her biography, telling the story of her parents’ marriage, divorce, and growing up in a small apartment. It has become a standard of presidential politics that you have to come from humble roots.

  Harris warned that if elected Trump might sign a nationwide ban on abortion. She said that she would “proudly” sign legislation protecting abortion rights. 

  Harris got some of her biggest applause when she tackled the difficult topic of the war in Gaza.  She said, “President Biden and I are working to end this war such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination.” 

  In a 10-minute call to Fox News last night, Trump said, “All of these things that she talked about — ‘We are going to do this, we are going to do that, we are going to do everything’ — but she didn’t do any of it!” 

  Harris is the vice president, not the president.

IT’S POLITICAL: Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. withdrew from the Arizona ballot last night and is expected to abandon the race entirely, possibly today.

  Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz, meanwhile, has made headlines labelling his Republican opponents “weird.”

  Wednesday night, Walz’s 17-year-old son Gus was seen on national television weeping as his father delivered his nomination acceptance speech. You can tell something seems a little different about him. Right wing hate monger Ann Coulter took little time before posting online a picture of Gus Walz crying with the caption “Talk about weird …”

  The Walz family has been open about Gus having a nonverbal learning disorder, ADHD, and an anxiety disorder. Gus can speak but has trouble processing non-verbal or visual information. Coulter has disorders of another kind.

  Donald Trump is campaigning against Kamala Harris as though she has been President the past 3 ½ years calling the shots for the Biden administration while labelling her a “communist.” Trump tweeted: “Kamala implemented policies that put prices through the roof. Then when inflation got out of control, she sat by and did nothing to stop it. If she wins the Presidency, the middle class will be priced out of existence. #ComradeKamala: We can’t afford her as President.”

  Trump is also announced to be hosting a fundraiser for January 6th rioters convicted or still facing charges of assaulting police officers. The event is scheduled for September 5th at his Bedminster, New Jersey country club and is being staged by The America Project, a pro-Trump outfit that is calling the reception and dinner “the J6 Awards Gala.”

MANSPLAINED: Police in Romania this week raided the compound of “manosphere” influencer Andrew Tate and arrested him on charges including child trafficking and sex with a minor.  Investigators are reported to have raided the Tate brothers’ fortified compound, scaling the walls and arresting brother Tristian along with Andrew. 

  Andrew Tate, 37, is a British/American citizen. He’s a former professional kick boxer and now a social media influencer who’s been dubbed “the king of toxic masculinity.”

  The brothers are already awaiting trial on separate charges of human trafficking, rape, and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women.

THE SPIN RACK:  Divers located the sixth and final missing person on the sunken mega yacht off the coast of Sicily. The body is believed to be that of Hannah Lynch, 18, the daughter of British tech executive Mike Lynch, whose body was recovered earlier in the week. — The Supreme Court let stand a lower court ruling that bars enforcement of an Arizona law that would require voters to prove their US citizenship before voting in this year’s presidential election, but allowed the state to enforce a requirement that people must document their citizenship before registering to vote. — The Justice Department is reported to be close to filing an antitrust lawsuit against the real estate software company RealPage charging that the company’s software enables landlords to collude to raise rents. — A volcano in the rural Reykjanes region of Iceland has erupted for the sixth time in eight months, spewing rivers of lava.

BELOW THE FOLD: The maker of Jack Daniel’s whiskey said it will moderate its DEI initiatives, buckling to “anti-woke” social media pressure. But Jack Daniel’s is still gluten free.

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