The Vice President's speech at the Ellipse

Vice President Harris delivered a superb speech tonight--described beforehand as her closing argument of the campaign--at the Ellipse in Washington, with The White House in the distance, behind her.

At the end of her speech, the Vice President said the following:

Nearly 250 years ago, America was born when we wrested freedom from a petty tyrant.

Across the generations, Americans have preserved that freedom, expanded it, and in so doing proved to the world that a government of, by, and for the people is strong and can endure.

And those who came before us--the patriots at Normandy, and Selma, Seneca Falls, and Stonewall, on farmlands and factory floors.  They did not struggle, sacrifice and lay down their lives only to see us cede our fundamental freedoms.  They didn't do that, only to see us submit to the will of another petty tyrant.

These United States of America, we are not a vessel for the schemes of wannabe dictators.  The United States of America is the greatest idea humanity ever devised.  A nation big enough to encompass all our dreams, strong enough to withstand any fracture or fissure between us.  And fearless enough to imagine a future of possibilities.

So America, let us reach for that future. Let us fight for this beautiful country we love.  And in seven days, we have the power, each of you  has the power, to turn the page, and start writing the next chapter in the most extraordinary story ever told. 

Here is a video of the full speech:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaE6FhbWVxM

Three photographs

In my previous post, I referred to the three featured singers on Kay Kyser's network TV show, the College of Musical Knowledge, when the program began airing on NBC in 1949.

Here, below, is a photo of the three singers (from left to right):  Michael (Mike) Douglas, my mother, Sue Bennett, and Liza Palmer.

Michael Douglas, Sue Bennett, and Liza Palmer

The three pictures in this post were part of a group of photographs--publicity photos for Kay Kyser's program--which I purchased several years ago on ebay.  Later, I saw one of the pictures in a newspaper story, published in advance of Mr. Kyser's December 1, 1949 premiere broadcast--a picture in which Michael Douglas, standing on stage with Mr. Kyser, is wearing the same sport coat and bow-tie seen in the above image.  And so I am guessing that many (and perhaps all) of the photos I purchased are from November of 1949, when the program was in rehearsals for its December debut.

I believe all of the pictures were taken at New York City's International Theatre, at Columbus Circle, from which the Kay Kyser program was broadcast. The theatre--which through the years had been, alternately, a legitimate theatre, and a movie house--had, in 1949, been refurbished by NBC to accommodate television productions.  In late February of 1950, a few months after the Kay Kyser program went on the air, Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows would begin its broadcasts from the theatre as well.

(The meaning of the above picture--clearly taken in some off-stage area of the theatre--is the following: the clock, which the three singers are looking at, indicates it is just prior to 9:00--which was the time the hour-long Kay Kyser program was telecast each Thursday night. The implication of the photo is that the singers were about to go on-the-air.)

The second photograph, below--in which my mother and Liza Palmer, I will note, are wearing the same outfits as in the first photograph, above)--is one I have posted before.  It appeared in a January 1950 issue of TeleVision Guide magazine (the precurser to TV Guide), and featured (left to right) my mother; Merwyn Bogue, better known by his stage name, Ish Kabibble (Kay Kyser's longtime comedian/"stooge"--as well as a cornetist, and sometimes-vocalist, in the Kay Kyser Orchestra); and Liza Palmer. 

Sue Bennett, Merwyn Bogue, and Liza Palmer

The last photo, below, is of three of the show's other performers.  At the center of the picture is Ben Grauer, the show's announcer during its first season.  Mr. Grauer had for years been one of radio's best-known announcers, reporters, and commentators--and he then moved into television in its early years. In 1948, the year presidential conventions were first seen on TV, Mr. Grauer and John Cameron Swayze anchored the telecasts on NBC.  

In addition to his role as the announcer on the Kay Kyser TV show, he also appeared in sketches on the program--and engaged in on-air interplay with Mr. Kyser:

"How you Ben, Grauer?," Mr. Kyser would ask.

"Okay, Kyser," Mr. Grauer would reply.

In the photograph seen here, Mr. Grauer is flanked by two singers from the five-member vocal group, The Honeydreamers; the group was featured each week during the first season of Mr. Kyser's TV show. At the left of the photo is Sylvia Textor; Marion Bye is at the right side of the picture.

The vocal group was led by Ms. Textor's husband, singer and arranger Keith Textor. Marion Bye was married to another singer in the group, Bob Davis. 

Sylvia Textor, Ben Grauer, and Marion Bye

The fifth singer in The Honeydreamers was Lew Anderson--who, beginning in 1954, would play Clarabell the Clown on NBC's Howdy Doody Show. (Clarabell had previously been portrayed by Bob Keeshan--who would later become a television legend, as Captain Kangaroo--and by Bobby Nicholson.)  Mr. Anderson appeared as Clarabell until the Howdy Doody program went off the air in 1960. He never spoke on the program--until the show's final episode, in which he looked into the television camera and said, simply (and sadly), "Goodbye, kids."

When Liza Palmer left the Kay Kyser program in March of 1950, she was replaced, as a featured singer, by Sylvia Textor--who continued to sing, as well, with The Honeydreamers. 

Ms. Textor and The Honeydreamers, however, left the Kay Kyser show after the end of the program's first season.

(Pictures of NBC-TV's Kay Kyser's College of Musical Knowledge, © NBCUniversal, Inc.)

Commercials, and a March 1951 telecast of "Your Hit Parade"

I remember, in the 1960s, watching television programs whose sponsors figured prominently in the broadcasts--Kraft programs, for example, with Ed Herlihy as the announcer and product spokesman, and Hallmark-sponsored shows. 

On various shows, during the 1960s--and perhaps into the 1970s as well--you often heard that a certain program was "Brought to you by..." A sponsor--or multiple sponsors--would be mentioned.  

When watching television today, one rarely, if ever, knows what commercials will be seen during a given program.  

For many late 1940s and early 1950s TV shows, viewers knew, beforehand, which brands would be promoted during the shows--in that any number of early TV programs were sponsored by particular companies and products--shows such as the Kraft Television Theatre, the Philco Television Playhouse, the Texaco Star Theatre, the Colgate Comedy Hour, Inside U.S.A with Chevrolet, and others. There was also NBC's musical show Your Hit Parade (which I have written about frequently, here); it was known, more informally (for years, on radio, and then on television), as the Lucky Strike Hit Parade.

I recently came upon the following video, made from a kinescope, of the March 24, 1951 telecast of the Hit Parade.

The video is from the YouTube channel "Free the Kinescopes!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX0gZYAsXrc

The telecast took place the month after my mother, Sue Bennett, joined the program. She was, at the time, featured in the show's live production numbers for Lucky Strike, commercials which appeared near the middle of the program; they were referred to, behind-the-scenes, as the show's "extravaganza" commercials. The commercials aired only during the show's first season.

The commercials, each week, featured singers and dancers, and were, in essence, brief playlets.

The settings of the commercials changed each week--featuring, for example, seasonal subjects, holiday subjects, and the like.  The lyrics to a Lucky Strike song which was the focus of the commercials changed for each telecast. 

The commercial in the March 24, 1951 video referred--though, really, only minimally--to Easter.  Easter Sunday occurred the next day. 

The commercial begins at approximately 10 minutes and 50 seconds from the video's start; it lasts about 2 and 1/2 minutes.

There were several performers in the March 24th commercial. 

Singer Snooky Lanson introduced the commercial, speaking for about a minute about Lucky Strikes.

Snooky Lanson, March 1951 Lucky Strike commercial

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He concluded with: "And now neighbor, put on your Easter bonnet, and let's have a happy-go-lucky fling down Fifth Avenue, to the Fifth Avenue Parade."

Hit Parade dancer Bobby Trelease was dressed as the Easter bunny.  Dancer Lenny Claret appeared in top hat and tails.

My mother and singer Russell Arms were featured each week in the "extravaganza" commercials--and they were both also featured, at the time, in commercials on the weekly NBC Radio version of the show.

Liza Palmer, 1951 commercial

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A third performer was typically added to the TV show's extravaganza presentations.  I have a copy of a 1951 broadcast in which singer Betty Clooney was the third featured vocalist, and have seen at least a couple of broadcasts in which the third singer--as in this telecast--was Liza Palmer.  

My mother and Liza Palmer had performed together previously.  In December of 1949, when bandleader Kay Kyser's television show began airing on NBC, the program's featured male vocalist was Michael (Mike) Douglas, and its two featured female vocalists were Liza Palmer and my mother (Ms. Palmer, though, would leave the show in March of 1950). 

Ms. Palmer and Russell Arms had married in 1949.  The two were featured on a weekly ABC-TV quiz program, Chance of a Lifetime, which aired from 1950 to 1951.  The show's host was John Reed King; authors Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, in their well-known television encyclopedia, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present, note that singers Palmer and Arms provided musical clues to the show's contestants.

Ms. Palmer appeared as the first featured singer in the March 24th commercial.  Mr. Arms appeared as the second singer, portraying a press photographer.  My mother was the commercial's third singer.

Russell Arms, "photographing" Liza Palmer, 1951 commercial

 

 

 

 

 

Sue Bennett, 1951 commercial

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The extravaganza production numbers were not, to be sure, the only Lucky Strike commercials on the Hit Parade.  

The program's popular "Be Happy, Go Lucky" jingle (written by the show's orchestra leader Raymond Scott) was sung by a group of unseen vocalists, during the program's (pre-recorded, I am sure) introduction; the jingle was then played instrumentally, by the show's orchestra, as the introduction continued. 

Dorothy Collins in the Lucky Strike bull's-eye, March 1951

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was followed by a live Lucky Strike commercial featuring singer Dorothy Collins, who stood within the program's Lucky Strike "bull's-eye"; the bull's-eye was an enlarged likeness of the center of the Lucky Strike cigarette pack. Ms. Collins appeared again within the bull's-eye near the end of each telecast, speaking about Lucky Strike (and singing briefly, with off-camera vocalists, the conclusion to the "Be Happy, Go Lucky" jingle).   

The "Be Happy, Go Lucky" jingle was also heard during the mid-show extravaganza numbers, sung by off-camera vocalists.

Later in the 1950-1951 season, in addition to performing in the Lucky Strike commercials, my mother began singing in some of the show's regular musical production numbers.  

With the start of the 1951-1952 season, the extravaganza presentations were replaced by standard filmed commercials.  Dorothy Collins, Snooky Lanson, and Eileen Wilson remained the show's primary singing stars. With the new season, my mother became, officially, a featured singer on the program;  Russell Arms, likewise, sang regularly that season in the show's musical numbers. Eileen Wilson, and my mother, left the program at the close of the 1951-1952 season.

During the 1952-1953 season, Mr. Arms would become one of the Hit Parade's primary stars, along with Ms. Collins, Mr. Lanson, and newly-added singer June Valli. Ms. Valli was replaced, the following season, by singer Gisele MacKenzie. 

Ms. MacKenzie, Mr. Lanson, Ms. Collins, and Mr. Arms starred together, on the show, from 1953 until 1957. This foursome became, certainly, the best-remembered cast in the TV show's history.

(Images from 1951 Your Hit Parade commercial, © Lost Gold Entertainment, Inc.)

The whirlwind of lies

In September, at a rally in Wisconsin, Donald Trump said:  "Trump is never wrong. I am never, ever wrong."

It was a remarkable statement, from the former president:  I am never, ever wrong.

Yet Trump, of course, tells lies all the time.  

It's an unending whirlwind of falsehoods.

He recently said, for example, that Vice President Harris "wants to legalize fentanyl."  

This was two days after the Vice President had called fentanyl a "scourge on our country," and pledged that as president she would "make it a top priority to disrupt the flow of fentanyl coming into the United States." 

Earlier this year, Trump claimed that he hadn't ever called for the "locking up" of Hillary Clinton.

He said: "I didn't say 'lock her up,' but the people would all say 'lock her up, lock her up.'"

CNN's fact-checker Daniel Dale, to whom I referred in a recent post--and who wrote a piece which is cited later in this post as well--set the record straight on Trump's absurd claim:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/02/politics/fact-check-trump-false-claim-lock-up-hillary-clinton/index.html

And there are, of course, Trump's particularly dangerous lies.

His compulsive falsehoods about the 2020 election led to the violence of January 6th.

Various administration officials and aides, Trump confidants, campaign staff members, and his Attorney General, William Barr--whose office investigated allegations of vote fraud--told him he had lost the election. 

Shortly after the election, Trump's campaign hired an outside expert, Ken Block, to investigate claims of fraud. Mr. Block, who was paid some $750,000 by the campaign, told The Washington Post in 2023: "Every fraud claim I was asked to investigate was false."

Yet Trump continues to cling to the election lies, like a security blanket.

Trump's (and his running mate JD Vance's) barbaric and hateful falsehoods about Haitian immigrants and pets, in Springfield, Ohio, led to bomb threats in Springfield, closing schools and government offices. 

Yet Trump played dumb when asked about the bomb threats.

"I don't know what happened with the bomb threats," he said. 

Senator Vance, an Ohioan, had promoted the claims about the migrants, prior to Trump, and Trump then seized upon them--most notably, in his debate with Vice President Harris.

The Republican Governor of Ohio, and city and police officials in Springfield, said Trump's and Vance's claims were false.

Yet the claims continued to be made--and Trump now says he'll deport the Springfield migrants, if elected. 

The migrants are in America legally, under the government's Temporary Protected Status program, Yet Trump said on Tuesday that they are "illegal immigrants as far as I'm concerned."

Trump has also recently told a number of alarming, malignant lies about Hurricane Helene--claims echoed by supporters.

Here are two stories, from CNN.com.  The first, from this Monday, is by Daniel Dale, and is titled: "Fact check: Six days of Trump lies about the Hurricane Helene response."

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/06/politics/fact-check-trump-helene-response-north-carolina/index.html

The headline of the second story, from Wednesday, is: "Republicans in Congress call out hurricane misinformation coming from within their own party."

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/09/politics/republicans-congress-hurricane-misinformation/index.html

Today, President Biden spoke of Trump's Hurricane-related falsehoods.  From an Associated Press story:

Speaking at the White House on the government’s work to address Hurricanes Milton and Helene, Biden condemned the “reckless, irresponsible and relentless disinformation and outright lies that continue to flow.”

President Biden said that Trump should "get a life, man." 

October 7th

Today is of course the one-year anniversary of the Hamas terror attacks in Israel, during which some 1200 people were murdered; approximately 800 of those killed were civilians.  Some 250 hostages were taken to Gaza. 

Ninety-seven hostages remain in Gaza, including four Americans.  It is believed that at least 35 of the remaining hostages are dead. 

In a statement today, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted that the remaining hostages "include men, women, young boys, young girls, two babies, and elderly people from more than 25 nations."

The October 7th attacks by Hamas (and members of other Palestinian terror groups, including Islamic Jihad) were medieval: the hunting down of victims at the Nova music festival, the kibbutzim massacres, including the burning of homes, and the people within them; the rapes, including gang rape, and the reported acts of sexual mutilation of some of the murder victims.

So, on this day, one thinks of those who died on October 7th, and their families; those wounded (both physically, and emotionally); and one thinks, with sadness and hope, concerning the remaining hostages, and their families.

One also keeps in mind the suffering of the Palestinian civilians in Gaza--though their suffering, Hamas has made cruelly apparent over time, is not the terror group's priority. (I will have more to say about this in an upcoming post.)  

While at the moment a resolution of the Israel/Hamas war seems tragically out of reach, one hopes, deeply, that the war will come to its end soon.

Lastly, I was moved, today, by a ceremony at the Vice Presidential home in Washington. Vice President Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, planted a memorial tree on the grounds of the residence, in honor of the victims of October 7th.  

In addition to speaking of the terrible events of last October, Ms. Harris, as she has often done, also addressed "the immense suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.”    

Here is a story about the ceremony, from the Jewish newspaper the Forward.

https://forward.com/fast-forward/661693/kamala-harris-doug-emhoff-october-7-gaza-pomegranate-tree/

Kneeling

(Please note: some edits were made to the piece below, in the hours after its posting.)

One of the words Donald Trump uses often, as others have noted, is "Sir."  He routinely tells stories in which people called him "Sir."   

He obviously needs to let people know that he is treated with deference (whether people in fact called him "Sir" or not; I suspect he regularly adds "Sir" for effect).

Another word Trump has used often is "begged."  He has made many public comments about those he regards as enemies--people, he has claimed, who had "begged" him for a job, for his endorsement, etc. 

I am guessing Trump has made up--or imagined--most of these claims.  It is, it seems, another manifestation of his need to show people how powerful he is--that people routinely beg him for favors.

CNN's fact-checker, Daniel Dale, wrote a piece in 2020 about a number of the people who, according to Trump, had resorted to such begging. 

One of instances cited by Daniel Dale involved both the use of "begged," and "Sir."  Mr. Dale wrote:

After the New York Times reported that former national security adviser John Bolton’s unpublished book alleges Trump said he wanted to withhold aid to Ukraine until Ukraine helped with investigations into Democrats, Trump tweeted – among other jabs – that Bolton had “‘begged’ me for a non-Senate approved job, which I gave him despite many saying ‘Don’t do it, sir.’”

Yet there are other instances of Trump's invocation of begging, not part of Mr. Dale's report, that have involved an additional detail.  This additional detail reveals a great deal about Trump.  

The stories involve not simply begging--but kneeling.  There is a deep ugliness to the stories.

In March of 2016, Mitt Romney delivered a speech highly critical of then-candidate Trump.  He spoke of "the bullying, the greed, the showing off, the misogyny, the absurd third-grade theatrics." He said: "We have long referred to him as 'The Donald.' He is the only person in America to whom we have added an article before his name. It wasn't because he had attributes we admired."

Trump, as part of his response to Mr. Romney, called him a "choke artist," concerning Mr. Romney's 2012 presidential campaign.  But the most self-revelatory thing he said about Mr. Romney was this:

"I don't know what happened to him," Trump said. "You can see how loyal he is. He was begging for my endorsement.  I could have said, 'Mitt, drop to your knees.'  He would have dropped to his knees." (Italics added.) 

A former aide to Mr. Romney wrote at the time, on Twitter: "I was with Mitt every time he saw @realDonaldTrump, and guarantee Mitt never begged Trump. Wish I could have recorded Trump kissing Mitt's ass."

There is also the following, about Elon Musk, and Trump. While Mr. Musk is today a vocal supporter of Trump--and who, like Trump, routinely spreads falsehoods and conspiracy theories (in Mr. Musk's case, on X, the platform he owns)--they were not always as friendly. (Anderson Cooper referred to the following story on one of his weeknight programs on CNN last week.) 

In 2022, Mr. Musk said, online, that it was "time for Trump to hang up his hat and sail into the sunset."

As reported by The Hill, Trump, in a caustic reply, posted the following on his social media site Truth Social:

“When Elon Musk came to the White House asking me for help on all of his many subsidized projects, whether it’s electric cars that don’t drive long enough, driverless cars that crash, or rocketships to nowhere, without which subsidies he’d be worthless, and telling me how he was a big Trump fan and Republican, I could have said, ‘drop to your knees and beg,’ and he would have done it,” Trump asserted. 

In December of 2020, the month after the presidential election, and not long before he left the Trump administration, Attorney General William Barr, in an Associated Press interview, disputed Trump's claims of election fraud. He said that "to date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”

According to Michael Wolff's book,  Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency, as reported by Business Insider, Trump was (not surprisingly) infuriated by Mr. Barr's comments. The Business Insider story included a quote from Trump which appeared in Mr. Wolff's book: 

Trump [wrote Business Insider] also appeared to acknowledge at one point that he had lost the election to Joe Biden, saying, "If I had won ... Barr would have licked the floor if I asked him to. What a phony!"

"Licked the floor": a variant of Trump's assertion that people would have dropped to their knees and begged.

In July 2022, Trump gave a speech to the conservative group Turning Point USA, in which he said that "Americans kneel to God, and God alone." 

Unless, of course, they're kneeling to him.

In October of 2023, after Kevin McCarthy was removed as Speaker of the House, Republican Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota was nominated for the post by the House Republican conference.

Trump objected, and made phone calls to House members. He criticized Mr. Emmer on Truth Social, calling him a "Globalist RINO." In a January, 2024 piece, David A. Graham of The Atlantic wrote: "Among the complaints: Emmer had voted to certify the 2020 election of Joe Biden, and he had not yet endorsed Trump's 2024 race.  Emmer quickly realized he couldn't win and decided to drop out." Mr. Graham cited a Politico story which reported that Trump told a confidant: "He's done. It's over. I killed him.'" Mr. Emmer later endorsed Trump's candidacy.

A January, 2024 New York Times story (also cited by Mr. Graham) said this: 

“They always bend the knee,” Mr. Trump said privately of Mr. Emmer’s endorsement, according to a person who spoke to him.