Today was the opening ceremonies of the 2024 Summer Olympics, from Paris. C’est magnifique; vraiment. I would like to think that I will do next to no political blogging over the coming two weeks, as I juggle work with watching the Olympics, but we’ll see what events hold.

This morning President Obama and his wife became the last members of the Democratic political establishment to endorse Vice-President Harris for President. On Sunday evening Obama had put out a release commending Biden and his decision to leave the race, but he did not mention Harris at all and expressed “confidence that the leaders of our party will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges.” Ever since there has been all kinds of chatter about why Obama hadn’t endorsed Harris, from rumors that he would save his endorsement for the convention stage, to speculation in right-leaning newspapers that he was really trying to rig things behind the scenes in favor of Senator Kelly (?) and Biden’s quick endorsement of Harris was intended as a snub to Obama, to the more mundane suggestion that he simply didn’t want to put his thumb on the scales.

A new New York Times nationwide poll, conducted in its entirety after Sunday, indicated that an astonishing 87% of Americans (91% of Democrats, 85% of Republicans, 86% of independents) agreed with Biden’s decision to leave the race.

In other news, yesterday the state of New York filed its brief in response to Trump’s post-trial motions to Judge Merchan that the guilty verdict in New York v. Trump should be thrown out in light of the SCOTUS decision in Trump v. U.S. Merchan had previously indicated he wouldn’t rule on the motions until early September.

Also, the 11th Circuit set a schedule for Special Counsel Smith’s impending appeal of Judge Cannon’s motion dismissing the Mar-a-Lago documents case that would suggest oral arguments are unlikely to occur before the election. I find myself wondering what would happen, procedurally, if Trump wins and then the 11th Circuit rules in favor of the government before Trump takes office. Possibly Trump would appeal to SCOTUS, and then on appeal the Trump DOJ would change its position and refuse to defend the appellate decision that the DOJ had won below, which would likely lead to SCOTUS appointing an amicus to argue in favor of the appellate court’s decision. However, perhaps it is possible for the Trump DOJ to instead dismiss the underlying indictment in the Mar-a-Lago documents case immediately, rather than waiting for the appeal to resolve itself and then dismiss the indictment if & when the mandate returns to the district court level. I guess the path chosen might depend on how badly the Trump DOJ, on general principles as opposed to specific instances, wanted to set a torch to the special counsel concept.

Finally, I wanted to point out that tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of what I still consider to be the greatest political moment of my adult life: State Senator Obama’s keynote speech at the 2004 DNC. “This year, in this election, we are called to reaffirm our values and commitments, to hold them against a hard reality and see how we are measuring up, to the legacy of our forbearers, and the promise of future generations. … Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?” We’ll find out in about 100 days.