Could also be that she’s looking for a chance to say “I’m speaking” again.

I was around: it was a depressing time (and I even liked Carter):

• The Iran hostage situation was ever-present. It was nightly news, to the point that all the major broadcasts started out with “this is day #X of the hostage situation”.

• Carter tried to rescue the hostages, and failed badly - 8 servicemen died, and this was just a few months before the election.

• Carter pissed off a lot of people by boycotting the 1980 Olympics (boycotting USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan - Ironic in that the US eventually did 20 as well years later). Lots of atheletes spoke out, their only or last time to make it to the Olympics. Turning the Olympics into a political weapon left a bad taste in general.

• Inflation rates were incredibly high, I think 12%-ish.

• Housing interest was through the roof, heading towards 13% (it eventually hit 18% under Reagan, I think)

• We were in the beginnings of a severe recession.

• Carter was never very charismatic - he was smart guy, but gave pretty boring speeches (IMO)

And then you have Reagan show up… optimistic, charismatic, and people just wanted change.

I think the commentor is setting up a false problem.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/15/politics/tim-walz-2006-campaign-falsely-described-dwi-kfile/index.html

"According to court and police records connected to the incident, Walz admitted in court that he had been drinking when he was pulled over for driving 96 mph in a 55 mph zone in Nebraska. Walz was then transported by a state trooper to a local hospital for a blood test, showing he had a blood alcohol level of .128

[…] in 2006, his campaign repeatedly told the press that he had not been drinking that night, claiming that his failed field sobriety test was due to a misunderstanding related to hearing loss from his time in the National Guard. The campaign also claimed that Walz was allowed to drive himself to jail that night."

I don’t think this is the smear that Republicans are hoping for.

I truly hope not. But they’re grasping at straws, they’ll try and use anything they can get.

I dunno, these debates scare me. Harris/Walz is surging right now, and Trump/Vance is tanking: this gives Trump/Vance a chance to inject their brand of FUD by throwing shit against the wall and seeing if anything sticks.

For example, I suspect Vance is going to try and nail Walz with Walz’s 1995 DUI. That’ll be a hard one for him to talk his way out of, it’s ugly and then later his campaign lied about it.

I have a high-end turntable and playback system (very nice speakers, as well as planar magnetic headphones), and I listen to my vinyl both directly and vinyl-ripped-to-digital (i.e. a CD). I do like what vinyl does to the sound, often combined with the better mastering that was done back in the day, as compared to the brick-wall mastering most albums are put through nowadays.

I have done a few experiments in the past where I play vinyl “live” and switch (a/b/x) to a a vinyl->CD rip, and I cannot tell the difference. Nor can my friends.

I consider myself an audiophile.

Cynical me thinks they did this exactly because there’s a pretty good chance Trump will be re-elected in the near future, and they’re a-ok with Trump squeezing social media companies. Don’t want to prematurely take away King Trump’s power!

This answer is from Kagi’s search summary: I don’t know how accurate it may or may not be:

As of 2024, the specific U.S. states that only define rape as requiring penis insertion are:

• Alabama
• Florida
• Idaho
• Kansas
• Louisiana
• Mississippi
• North Carolina
• Oklahoma
• South Carolina
• Texas

These states have not updated their legal definitions of rape to include other forms of sexual penetration or oral sex, which can lead to underreporting and inadequate prosecution of sexual assault cases. It is important to note that federal law and many other states have broader definitions of rape that encompass various forms of non-consensual sexual contact.