Attention to the Unseen

NBC News reports: A group of imams endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in an open letter shared first with NBC News on Sunday, a critical boost as she steps up her efforts to win back disaffected Muslim voters amid the Israel-Hamas war. Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, has faced widespread anger from Muslim and Arab voters over the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza, and the community could be critical some battleground states, like Michigan. The 25 Islamic…

Read More Read More

HuffPost reports: During an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Monday, Donald Trump said immigrants were filling the country with “bad genes” and used lies about decades-old crime statistics to make his point. Trump has long been obsessed with the idea that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of America — echoing Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler’s rhetoric. For years, he has lied that other countries are purposefully sending criminals to the United States. As part of his recent weekslong…

Read More Read More

The Washington Post reports: Republicans backing Donald Trump are threatening Deloitte, a consulting firm that is one of the federal government’s largest business partners, with the loss of billions of dollars in contracts because an employee shared messages from 2020 in which JD Vance, now the GOP vice-presidential nominee, criticized the then-president’s record. On Sept. 27, Donald Trump Jr. exposed the employee’s name and photograph to millions of people on social media, writing, “Maybe it’s time for the GOP to…

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More