Sarah Smarsh writes: Sometimes on our farm a nice car would roll up the gravel driveway and a man in a slick suit would get out. He would either be trying to sell us something overpriced that we’d never buy, because of our limited means and common sense, or trying to buy something we’d never sell — namely land, about which my grandfather said, “You don’t get rid of it, because they don’t make any more of it.” This man…
The Guardian reports: Representative Cori Bush has warned the pro-Israel lobby “to be afraid” after it poured millions of dollars into defeating the prominent member of the “Squad” of progressive Democrats in Tuesday’s primary election in St Louis. Bush said her loss to St Louis county prosecutor Wesley Bell after the hardline American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) targeted her for opposition to Israel’s attack on Gaza had freed her to openly challenge the powerful pressure group, which has vowed…
The Washington Post reports: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has repeatedly denied knowing about the Project 2025 policy blueprint or the people behind it. “Have no idea who is in charge of it,” he wrote in a social media post in July. But in April 2022, Trump shared a 45-minute private flight with Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, according to people familiar with the trip, plane-tracking data and a photograph from on board the plane, which has not been previously…
USA Today reports: Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., suffered a bruising defeat in her St. Louis district on Tuesday night, becoming the second member of the progressive group of House lawmakers known as “the Squad” to lose a Democratic primary to a more moderate opponent this year. Bush, a second-term lawmaker, was bested in the Democratic race for Missouri’s 1st District by St. Louis prosecuting attorney Wesley Bell, who was backed by a major pro-Israel group. The race was the second…
David Ignatius writes: President Biden may be leaving the White House soon. But over the past week, he has conducted an intense round of diplomacy and military preparation to stave off a catastrophic war in the Middle East. The White House effort has included back-channel talks with Iran to urge restraint, blunt warnings to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to obstruct a cease-fire in Gaza, and the dispatch of a U.S. naval and air armada to protect Israel and…
The Guardian reports: Thousands of anti-racism protesters gathered across England and formed human shields to protect asylum centres after police warned of unrest from more than 100 far right-led rallies. Holding placards saying “refugees welcome” and “reject racism, try therapy”, people took to the streets in towns and cities nine days after the country was shaken by the fatal stabbing of three girls in Merseyside and the rioting that followed. But there was little sign of the unrest seen over…
Politico reports: Kamala Harris loved Tim Walz’s governing record in Minnesota. His biography and record of winning tough races resonated with her. And most of all, she just really liked him. The Minnesota governor and vice president sat down for a one-on-one interview Sunday and connected, despite having little relationship prior to the vice presidential selection process, according to two people close to the process granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. But several other factors were important to Harris as…
Jill Lawrence writes: And the winner of the Democratic veepstakes is . . . Tim Walz, who makes perfect sense. He’s a popular, plainspoken, moderate Midwestern governor, a former teacher, a football coach, a gun owner who hunts pheasant and turkey, and a 24-year National Guard member who flipped a rural Republican congressional district in 2006 and won it six times. Also, here’s a photo of him holding a piglet. Vice President Kamala Harris chose the second-term Minnesota governor as…
Tim McDonnell writes: Vice President Kamala Harris’ choice of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate elevates a politician with one of the strongest state-level records on clean energy in the US. In 2023, Walz signed into law a target for Minnesota to get 100% of its power from zero-carbon sources, including nuclear, by 2040, and coal has fallen behind renewables and nuclear as the state’s top sources of power for the first time during his tenure. He set…
Politico reports: Donald Trump spent Monday morning labeling the turmoil in the global financial markets the “Kamala Crash,” giving Republicans hope that he might turn his focus to an economic message. It didn’t last. By midday, the former president was already back to re-litigating his controversial appearance in Chicago last week, where he questioned Kamala Harris’ Black identity and suggested a major network journalist should be fired — “I didn’t know who she was, she was nasty,” he told a…
The Associated Press reports: Russell Vought sounds like a general marshaling troops for combat when he talks about taming a “woke and weaponized” federal government. He recently described political opposition as “enemy fire that’s coming over the target,” while urging allies to be “fearless at the point of attack” and calling his policy proposals “battle plans.” If former President Donald Trump wins a second term in November, Vought may get the opportunity to go on the offensive. A chief architect…
George Monbiot writes: “Fight, fight, fight,” senior Tories urged for years. Now they express shock, and condemn the results, when people prove stupid enough to have taken them at their word. While racist thugs will always be with us, governments can create either an environment that curbs them, or one that encourages them. Across its 14 years in power, the Conservative government encouraged them. The story senior Conservatives kept telling was of “outsiders” threatening all we held dear. Overwhelmingly, but…
Molly Jong-Fast writes: Less than a week ago, in Atlanta, Vice President Kamala Harris stood in front of 10,000 people; I was told another 10,000 awaited outside the venue, unable to get in. The crowd was jubilant, filled with the kind of hope many Democrats thought had slipped through their fingers this election cycle. Megan Thee Stallion played a compilation of G-rated versions of her songs. A powerful and commanding Harris told the crowd, “Donald Trump is feeling it.” The…
CNBC reports: The North Carolina Attorney General’s Office said Monday that it is eyeing a political action committee created by billionaire Elon Musk following a complaint to the state election board over the PAC’s collection of personal data while failing to help users register to vote as promised. The North Carolina Board of Elections later Monday told CNBC that it has opened an investigation of Musk’s America PAC. “North Carolina law makes it a crime for someone to fail to…
The Washington Post reports: Five secretaries of state plan to send an open letter to billionaire Elon Musk on Monday, urging him to “immediately implement changes” to X’s AI chatbot Grok, after it shared with millions of users false information suggesting that Kamala Harris was not eligible to appear on the 2024 presidential ballot. The letter, spearheaded by Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon and signed by his counterparts Al Schmidt of Pennsylvania, Steve Hobbs of Washington, Jocelyn Benson of…
The Guardian reports: Violence, extreme hunger, humiliation and other abuse of Palestinian prisoners has been normalised across Israel’s jail system, according to Guardian interviews with released prisoners, with mistreatment now so systemic that rights group B’Tselem says it must be considered a policy of “institutionalised abuse”. Former detainees described abuse ranging from severe beatings and sexual violence to starvation rations, refusal of medical care, and deprivation of basic needs including water, daylight, electricity and sanitation, including soap and sanitary pads…