Attention to the Unseen

An editorial in The Charlotte Observer: Western North Carolina is trying to pick up the pieces left behind by Hurricane Helene, which decimated the region, leaving communities destroyed and a death toll in the triple digits. This is not a situation to capitalize on for political gain. But former President Donald Trump has politicized the situation at every turn, spreading falsehoods and conspiracies that fracture the community instead of bringing it together. The worst example is a social media post…

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CNN reports: Neither aides in the Harris campaign nor the Biden White House would commit to another joint campaign event between now and the election. Harris wants to create space, top aides say, but not too much space. She wants to be loyal — but she also wants to win. She is still planning to lean on Biden, who is flying to Milwaukee on Tuesday for an event trumpeting more projects made possible by administration efforts, to buck up union…

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CNN reports: In a side room backstage at a Friday campaign rally in Flint, Michigan, Arab American advocates asked Vice President Kamala Harris to break from President Joe Biden’s Israel policy and push harder for an end to the war in Gaza. The conversation, scheduled to last 10 minutes, ended up going 20, according to Wa’el Alzayat, the CEO of Emgage Action, a group aimed at boosting the Muslim American vote. Harris did not make any promises, he said, but…

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The New York Times reports: President Biden urged members of Congress on Friday to provide emergency funding for the Small Business Administration, saying the agency is critically low on money needed to help people in communities devastated by Hurricane Helene. In a late-night letter addressed to the leadership of Congress, Mr. Biden wrote that the S.B.A.’s disaster relief program, which supports small-business owners in recovering from the storm, will run out of money in weeks, before Congress is set to…

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Politico reports: Hurricane Helene hit especially hard in heavily Republican areas of Georgia and North Carolina — a fact that could work to Donald Trump’s disadvantage in the two swing states. Research has shown that major disasters can influence both voter turnout and voter preference. And Helene has pushed this contest into novel territory: It’s the first catastrophic event in U.S. history to hit two critical swing states within six weeks of a presidential election, based on a POLITICO’s E&E…

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Politico reports: Democratic operatives, including some of Kamala Harris’ own staffers, are growing increasingly concerned about her relatively light campaign schedule, which has her holding fewer events than Donald Trump and avoiding unscripted interactions with voters and the press almost entirely. In interviews with POLITICO, nearly two dozen Democrats described Harris as running a do-no-harm, risk-averse approach to the race they fear could hamper her as the campaign enters its final 30-day stretch. With early voting by mail and in…

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