Music: Emil Brandqvist Trio — ‘Under the Starry Sky’
Can Biden run out the clock?
Politico reports: As Democrats frantically debate whether President Joe Biden should be the party’s nominee, they’re racing against an uncomfortable — and uncertain — deadline. Democratic National Committee members are expected to meet next Friday to determine a date to nominate Biden in a virtual roll call, which could come as soon as the end of this month, weeks before the party’s convention in Chicago, which begins on Aug. 19. Officially giving Biden the nomination would effectively blunt some calls…
GOP pollster: VP Harris is the strongest Democratic candidate
President Joe Biden remains under intense scrutiny as the 75th NATO summit draws to a close. Amid all this uncertainty and calls for him to drop out of the presidential race, Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson joins Walter Isaacson to discuss her latest essay, “No Poll Can Tell Biden What He Needs to Hear.”
UAW considering next steps on worries Trump could beat Biden
“We’re speaking truth to those who need to hear it most and that’s the Democrat Party,” Shawn Fain said at Netroots Nation conference, urging people not to put “our heads in the sand and hide from reality — we tried that in 2016 and it didn’t work.” https://t.co/VNVrbaCtuF https://t.co/8RewtWC1rS — Josh Eidelson (@josheidelson) July 13, 2024 Reuters reports: United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain met with the union’s executive board late on Thursday to discuss his deep concerns with President…
Inside Ziklag, the secret organization of wealthy Christians trying to sway the election and change the country
By Andy Kroll, ProPublica, and Nick Surgey, Documented This story was originally published by ProPublica. A network of ultrawealthy Christian donors is spending nearly $12 million to mobilize Republican-leaning voters and purge more than a million people from the rolls in key swing states, aiming to tilt the 2024 election in favor of former President Donald Trump. These previously unreported plans are the work of a group named Ziklag, a little-known charity whose donors have included some of the wealthiest…
Mustafa Barghouti: Israel’s goal is total ethnic cleansing
A panel of United Nations independent experts has accused Israel of engaging in a campaign of starvation and genocide in Gaza as the effects of the famine are being felt across Gaza. Palestinian physician and activist Mustafa Barghouti says “what we see today is a purposeful act of starvation” and that the real intention of the Israeli government has never changed. “Their main goal is the total ethnic cleansing of all of Gaza people and all of the Gaza…
U.S. and Germany foiled Russian plot to assassinate CEO of arms manufacturer sending weapons to Ukraine
CNN reports: US intelligence discovered earlier this year that the Russian government planned to assassinate the chief executive of a powerful German arms manufacturer that has been producing artillery shells and military vehicles for Ukraine, according to five US and western officials familiar with the episode. The plot was one of a series of Russian plans to assassinate defense industry executives across Europe who were supporting Ukraine’s war effort, these sources said. The plan to kill Armin Papperger, a white-haired…
Study finds life on Earth emerged 4.2 billion years ago, soon after the planet came into existence
Science Alert reports: Once upon a time, Earth was barren. Everything changed when, somehow, out of the chemistry available early in our planet’s history, something started squirming – processing available matter to survive, to breed, to thrive. What that something was, and when it first squirmed, have been burning questions that have puzzled humanity probably for as long as we’ve been able to ask “what am I?” Now, a new study has found some answers – and life emerged surprisingly…
Music: Arooj Aftab — ‘Lullaby’
Biden’s path to re-election has all but vanished
Doug Sosnik writes: Unless the basic contours of the race change and some of the Sun Belt battleground states become more competitive (which is unlikely), Mr. Biden’s only viable path for winning is to carry Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Each of the three states poses particular challenges for Mr. Biden. Current polling shows him trailing Mr. Trump by as many as five points in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and more narrowly in Michigan. The deficit in Pennsylvania must be particularly disconcerting…
Obama aides on Democratic consensus: Biden likely to bring down the House and the Senate with him
Dan Pfeiffer, who was a senior advisor to President Barack Obama, in conversation with Jon Favreau, who was Obama’s former director of speechwriting.
Donors freeze roughly $90 million as long as Biden stays in race
The New York Times reports: Some major Democratic donors have told the largest pro-Biden super PAC, Future Forward, that pledges worth roughly $90 million are now on hold if President Biden remains atop the ticket, according to two people who have been briefed on the conversations. The frozen contributions include multiple eight-figure commitments, according to the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation. The decision to withhold such enormous sums of money…
Kamala Harris is ready for Trump
John Hendrickson writes: Vice President Kamala Harris seemed to have one goal at a campaign rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, yesterday: Prove she’s ready to square up to Donald Trump. Harris said Trump’s name 15 times in fewer than 20 minutes, and you could hear the disdain in her voice each time. “As Trump bows down to dictators, he makes America weak,” she told the crowd. She scoffed that Trump has “embraced” Russian President Vladimir Putin. She warned of Trump’s…
Biden’s access to information appears tightly controlled by sycophantic loyalists
Axios reports: Current and former Biden aides are worried that the president is surrounded by a shrinking group of “yes” men and women who block negative information from getting to him. Why it matters: Biden’s already small inner circle has shrunk further since the June 27 debate that has jeopardized Biden’s re-election campaign. Democrats inside and outside the White House tell Axios they’re worried that Biden isn’t receiving a 360-degree view of his — and his party’s — perilous political situation. In the two weeks since Biden’s disastrous debate,…
Sunrise, powerful youth climate group, calls for Biden to drop out
Politico reports: The influential youth green group Sunrise Movement is calling on President Joe Biden to drop his reelection bid to “protect” his climate legacy. Sunrise’s Executive Director Aru Shiney-Ajay on Friday cited low enthusiasm for Biden among young people, which she said in a statement has continued to drop since his disastrous debate performance last month, and urged the president to “pass the torch to a new nominee.” “Another Trump presidency would cause catastrophic and irreversible damage to our…
We need new metaphors that put life at the center of biology
Philip Ball writes: You could be forgiven for thinking that the turn of the millennium was a golden age for the life sciences. After the halcyon days of the 1950s and ’60s when the structure of DNA, the true nature of genes and the genetic code itself were discovered, the Human Genome Project, launched in 1990 and culminating with a preliminary announcement of the entire genome sequence in 2000, looked like – and was presented as – a comparably dramatic…