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Secret Service Leads Federal Effort To Thwart Another January 6 Assault

Secret Service Leads Federal Effort To Thwart Another January 6 Assault

On Wednesday, the Secret Service announced its intention to beef up security around the Capitol on January 6, 2025. As The Washington Post reports, that day has been designated as “a National Special Security Event” by the Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service will coordinate with other agencies to provide security for the day.

The real genius of the United States—the feature that made the nation a wonder to others around the world in the 18th century—was the routine transfer of power. It’s something that the nation managed without having to impose this kind of security 45 times in the past.

Now, thanks to one man, a day reserved for a standard, almost ceremonial procedure, has become such a target that its defense places it on par with the most hazardous events, for good reason. Donald Trump has also been planning how he can get his supporters angry enough to attempt a second insurrection.

Meanwhile, the echoes of what happened on January 6, 2021, are far from over.

Earlier this week, former Capitol Hill Police Officer Harry Dunn tweeted his anger over how the Fraternal Order of Police decided to endorse Trump even though he had encouraged violence against law enforcement in the assault on the Capitol.

Dealing with what happened when Trump’s supporters tried to overthrow the government in 2021 isn’t over. On Tuesday, a man was arrested for having “repeatedly struck a police officer with a flagpole” on January 6. That man then went on Facebook to brag that the Trump insurrectionists “took our house back.”

In supporting Trump, the FOP embraced this man and all the others who assaulted their fellow officers—a twisted, pathetic decision.

The move to protect the Capitol this time around came after Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser sent a request and the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack approved resources to protect members of Congress during the electoral vote count.

However, that protection is not guaranteed. Funds still have to be allocated to the Secret Service for the plan to move forward, and with Republicans caught up in another internal war, those funds are far from a sure thing.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has been unable to move a funding bill forward. The last attempt was pulled from the floor on Wednesday after a group of Republicans rebelled against party leadership. There are reports the House will try again Thursday, but there’s no assurance that whatever legislation results will include provisions to fund protection of the Capitol.

According to the Post, a good deal of work has gone into preventing a repeat of what happened after the last election.

Across Washington and the country, lawmakers, aides, lawyers, activists, political strategists and law enforcement officers who aim to protect the peaceful transition of power next January have spent much of the past few years thinking through and preparing for a dizzying array of nightmare post-election scenarios.

Unfortunately, it’s easy to believe that there have also been groups preparing to defeat security measures and deliver those nightmares.

And it’s also easy to believe that instead of securing democracy, Republicans may still leave the doors unlocked and invite a fresh coup attempt.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Mike Johnson

House Republicans Revolting Against Their Speaker -- Again

Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is facing a revolt from inside his own party. Again.

This time, the subject of the uprising is a continuing resolution aimed at extending government funding past the end of September. While Republicans are always gleeful about holding a gun to the government’s head, bringing services to a halt just one month before the election seems to many like a bad idea. Even so, House Republicans thought this would be a great time to engage in a big political stunt by slipping into the funding legislation a poison pill aimed at addressing the nonexistent threat of noncitizen voting.

Now Johnson finds himself in a trap. A group of the most obstinate Republicans are trying to use this opportunity to force Johnson into cutting government funding. He can’t get his own party to go along with his leadership, and he can’t go begging to Democrats because the proof-of-citizenship stunt makes this legislation untouchable.

Somewhere, ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy is smiling.

While Fox News presents the revolt as coming from House conservatives, those who have said they would vote against the bill range from extremists in the House Freedom Caucus to more moderate Republicans who have voted with Johnson in the past.

Johnson’s plans began falling apart almost the moment the House returned from its August recess. The Republican speaker had proposed a six-month extension of government funding. To get the support of hard-liners in his party, Johnson decorated the legislation with proof-of-citizenship requirements. The plan was endorsed by Donald Trump.

But even though the scheme had Trump’s blessing, Republicans began to splinter away by insisting that Johnson go for a longer period of funding. The reason isn’t that these Republicans have a concern over six months being too short. It’s because earlier legislation included a requirement that any funding period longer than six months would automatically trigger a cut in government funding.

However, there are already House members who have made it clear that they don’t want this because, among other things, it would represent a cut to the military. So giving in on this point would gain Johnson some votes but cost him others.

By Monday, at least five Republicans had now come out against the six-month resolution. Given Republicans’ majority in the House, that’s more than Johnson can afford to lose. Five House Democrats earlier voted to require proof of citizenship when voting as part of the SAVE Act. But it seems unlikely any of those Democrats would step forward to save Johnson now, not when Republicans have put themselves in such an effective trap.

However, things got worse on Tuesday. Johnson said he was sticking to this plan (six-month funding, poison pill included), even though the number of Republicans in opposition has now grown to at least six.

As Punchbowl News reports, “Every move Johnson makes to pick up votes in one place loses him votes somewhere else.”

Democrats have bailed out Johnson when his fractious caucus threatened to disrupt vital government functions. But in putting a poison pill in the funding legislation, Johnson may have made that impossible. Democratic leadership in the House is whipping against the bill as Johnson’s brilliant idea to unite his party turns out to be another story of Republicans in disarray.

Even if by some miracle Johnson managed to get the bill out of the House, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has made it clear the resolution won’t stand a chance in his chamber. Still, that could give Republicans the chance to avoid taking the full blame for going into Election Day with a government shutdown. President Joe Biden has already said he would veto the measure if it comes to his desk (it won’t).


But the growing revolt among Republicans leaves Johnson searching for votes in the House. If he expects those votes to come from Democrats, it will mean removing the proof-of-citizenship requirements. However, another group of Republicans expressed that they are voting for the continuing resolution only because they want those requirements.

So if Johnson were to cut this portion of the legislation, it would make him even more dependent on Democrats to get the funding passed.

Add to this a high rate of absenteeism as legislators sneak away to campaign back home—and with more missing Republicans than Democrats—and Johnson’s real margin to get something passed may be only two votes. Or less.

If Johnson wants to keep from being the proud owner of a highly visible shutdown—like Trump is gunning for—he’s going to either have to find new skills of persuasion or come up with a bill that doesn’t make it an automatic no for Democrats.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Trump Campaign Can't Defend His Absurd Lie About Schools and Trans Surgeries

Trump Campaign Can't Defend His Absurd Lie About Schools and Trans Surgeries

Donald Trump recently joined the Hitler-quoting book-banners at Moms for Liberty for their “Joyful Warriors” summit in Washington, D.C., and in addition to him admitting he lost the 2020 election “by a whisker” and a good dash of overt racism, one particular claim of Trump’s stood out for its over-the-top mixture of delusion and conspiracy.

“The transgender thing is an incredible thing,” said a slouching, low-energy Trump. “Your kid goes to school and comes home a few days later with an operation. The school decides what’s going to happen with your child, and you know many of these childs [sic] 15 years later say ‘What the hell happened? Who did this to me?’”

The moment was so ludicrous that it’d be easy for the media to just ignore the comment, like it does with so many of Trump’s outrageous statements. However, CNN didn’t just shake its head and move on. The outlet thoroughly fact-checked Trump’s lie and followed up with both his campaign and various conservative groups.

For the record, this is what CNN found when they asked education and health experts about Trump’s lie:

Trump’s claim is false. There is no evidence that US schools have sent children into gender-affirming surgeries without their parents knowing or performed gender-affirming surgeries on site; Trump’s own presidential campaign could not provide a single example of this ever happening. Even in states where gender-affirming surgery is legal for people under age 18, parental consent is required before a minor can undergo such a procedure.

As Dr. Landon Hughes, a fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, made clear to CNN in an email, “There are no instances of children receiving surgeries or access to surgeries from their schools,” adding, “No provider in the US would perform surgery on a minor under the direction of a school, let alone without parental consent.”

While Hughes was speaking about gender-affirming surgery, the same is true if the question was a tonsillectomy—because grade schools and high schools don’t do surgery. You’d be hard-pressed to find a school nurse willing to hand a kid an aspirin without a parent’s permission, much less break out a scalpel.

Little Jimmy is not getting secretly shuffled off for gender-related surgery on his way to history class.

And when CNN asked Trump’s campaign for examples of the “transgender thing” their candidate was pushing, the outlet didn’t receive any. Instead, a Trump spokesperson insisted that she had personally talked to parents who were upset after learning that their children were “being called entirely different names” at school.

Somehow, that doesn’t seem like the same thing.

CNN even followed up with four conservative groups, allowing them to take their best shot at showing this “thing” Trump talked about had ever happened. Despite right-wing claims that make it seem as if every child in America is only days away from a gender switch, the groups didn’t produce a single case even vaguely related to Trump’s claims.

However, Tiffany Justice, the Moms for Liberty co-founder who interviewed Trump at her group’s summit, was smitten with Trump’s lie.

“It grabbed your attention,” she said, “and we’re talking about it now, and that makes me very happy.”

As with the myth about litter boxes in schools, the right doesn’t care if Trump’s statement has an ounce of truth to it. His lie is one that Republicans can now repeat to audiences who will nod along with the hoax. Another log to throw on the trans-panic bonfire.

CNN did an admirable job of following up on every aspect of this lie and showing ... it's a lie, only a lie, and nothing but a lie. Now, expect Trump to repeat it. Often.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Donald Trump

Afraid To Debate? As Harris Surges, Trump Offers Excuses, Not Dates

Two days after Vice President Kamala Harris entered the race for the White House, Donald Trump said that he would “absolutely” face her in a debate. In fact, he told reporters he was “willing to do more than one debate actually.”

But that attitude didn’t survive a week in which Harris hit the ground running, raising huge amounts of funds and enthusiastic volunteers. Only two days after Trump said “absolutely,” he produced excuses for why he wouldn’t debate Harris. He wouldn’t, he said, because former President Barack Obama was “holding out for someone ‘better.’” But that excuse came less than a day before both Barack and Michelle Obama gave their full endorsements to Harris.

Harris then challenged Trump again, telling him to “say it to my face” by joining her in a debate. But Trump’s campaign only redrew the line, saying he wouldn’t agree to debate her because she wasn’t the Democratic nominee. It was a ridiculous argument then, and it’s even more ridiculous now that Harris has officially secured the delegates to be the nominee.

But on Friday, Trump went on Fox Business Network to give an excuse so twisted that just reading it may cause brain damage.

Speaking with host Maria Bartiromo, Trump first claimed that he wanted to debate Harris—only that’s when it gets weird.

“Well, I want to. And we’re leading in the polls it seems by quite a bit still,” Trump claimed. “She’s better than he is, but I think ultimately she’ll be worse than him.”

Presumably, this means that Harris is both better and worse than President Joe Biden in some way known only to Trump. But that’s far from the worst of what he had to say. Noting that Biden’s team had challenged him to an earlier debate, Trump made an astute observation.

“If I didn’t do the debate, they’d say, ‘Oh Trump’s not doing the debate.’ It’s the same thing they’ll say now,” Trump said.

When he’s right, he’s right: If he doesn’t do the debate, people will say he’s not doing the debate. You know, because he will not be doing the debate. But Trump at least seems to be done providing any excuse except that he doesn’t think a debate would be good for him,

“I mean right now I say, why should I do a debate?” Trump said. “I’m leading in the polls. And, everybody knows her, everybody knows me.”

He wants to debate. Except … why should he? That might be a valid response for someone miles ahead, but that’s not where things stand now.

The latest Civiqs poll for Daily Kos puts Harris ahead of Trump 49 to 45 percent among registered voters nationwide. A new Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll shows Harris surging to a massive lead in Michigan. Harris has even taken the lead over Trump on the online betting platform PredictIt. And currently, 538’s national polling average has Harris marginally ahead of Trump, with her at 45.0 percent and him at 43.6 percent. All the momentum is in her direction.

Whatever polls Trump’s handlers are showing him are no doubt cherry-picked, because out in the real world, he is no longer enjoying a comfortable lead. What’s left when all the excuses are wiped away is the simple truth: Trump is afraid.

As Reuters reports, the Democratic National Committee is launching new ads that are holding Trump’s cowardice up for all to see. Those ads, which launched on Friday, taunt Trump over his refusal to debate. The digital ads are targeted at homepages of news outlets in states where Trump has planned upcoming rallies, so voters in the area will get a fresh reminder that he’s afraid to face off with Harris. They deliver a simple message: "the convicted felon is afraid to debate.”

Because, after all, he is.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

How Kamala Harris Played A Key Role In Russia Prisoner Swap

How Kamala Harris Played A Key Role In Russia Prisoner Swap

Thursday’s prisoner swap with Russia was the largest since the fall of the Soviet Union and required years of work behind the scenes involving a variety of world leaders.

That included Vice President Kamala Harris, who conducted a pair of low-profile meetings at the Munich Security Conference in February with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob. Germany was holding Russian hitman Vadim Krasikov and Slovenia had two other Russian prisoners that Russia wanted as part of any deal.

When President Joe Biden needed someone to conduct these critical, secretive, high-level negotiations, he knew he could count on Harris to get it done.

The deal that led to the release of multiple political prisoners being held by Russia was enormously complex. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, corporate security executive Paul Whelan, and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Vladimir Kara-Murza were all released along with 11 Russian dissidents, including supporters of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Harris' involvement in the swap shows that she's already an experienced and trusted figure in dealing with America's allies. In fact, her encounter with Golob marked the highest-level meeting between America and Slovenia in history.

Rebuilding alliances, strengthening and expanding NATO, and restoring international faith in the United States as a reliable ally and thoughtful partner are some of Biden’s most critical accomplishments during his term in office. While he was president, Donald Trump went out of his way to weaken NATO, diminish American leadership, and weaken support for the United States around the world. Biden reversed that damage.

NATO is now stronger and larger than ever, with the recent addition of both Finland and Sweden to the alliance of countries. That renewed sense of unity and purpose has helped NATO allies provide vital supplies and assistance to Ukraine in its fight against an illegal, unprovoked invasion by Russia.

Harris is uniquely positioned to build on what Biden accomplished. She’s already a familiar and trusted presence among America’s allies, and she and all of her potential running mates are strong supporters of Ukraine.

Donald Trump had attempted to free Whelan, a Trump supporter, after his 2018 arrest in Russia. But in 2022, Trump claimed he had turned down a deal to free Whelan while criticizing Biden’s deal to free WNBA star Brittney Griner.

Trump claimed that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin would only release Gershkovich if Trump was elected to a second term. To no one’s surprise, that turned out to be a lie.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

'You Won't Need To Vote': Trump's Explanation Somehow Makes It Worse

'You Won't Need To Vote': Trump's Explanation Somehow Makes It Worse

Last Friday night, Donald Trump appeared at the Turning Point Action’s “Believers Summit” to tell a crowd of conservative Christians that this was the last time they’d have to bother with voting.

"You won’t have to do it anymore,” said Trump. “Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.”

Since Trump made this statement, right-wing pundits and Republican politicians have pulled out their Trump translators and tried to find a way to pass Trump’s words off as something other than a confession that he intends to do away with democracy. That includes telling everyone that there’s nothing to see here because Trump’s statement was “clearly a joke” according to Sen. Tom Cotton.

Then on Monday night, Trump got the chance to sit down with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham and explain what he meant … and he made it so much worse.

In this interview, Trump made a lot of excuses. Once again he refused to debate Kamala Harris even though his previous excuse that Barack Obama had not yet endorsed her was no longer applicable. He once again demonstrated that he had no better line of attack on Harris than to complain about what he called her “crazy person” laugh.

Trump also tried to brush off JD Vance’s creepy focus on right-wing natalism in a way that doesn’t make it one bit less creepy.

Before giving Trump an opportunity to extract himself from the autocracy hole he dug at the “Believers Summit,” Ingraham primed Trump by saying that Democrats were attacking him for “ridiculous reasons.” Ridiculous reasons like repeating exactly what he said.

“They’re saying that you said to a crowd of Christians that they won’t have to vote in the future,” Ingraham said.

Trump first responded by claiming that Christians, and particularly Catholics were “persecuted” by the administration of Catholic Christian Joe Biden. Then he rambled into how any Jewish person voting for Harris—or “whoever is gonna run”—should “have their head examined.”

Finally, he got down to explaining his statement about Christians not voting.

“That statement is very simple,” Trump said. “I said vote for me, you’re not going to have to do it ever again. It’s true, because we have to get the vote out. Christians are not known as a big voting group.”

“This time vote. I’ll straighten out the country. You won’t have to vote anymore. I won’t need your vote. You can go back to not voting,” he added.

This does not make things better.

Ingraham was clearly frustrated by how she handed Trump a ladder and he only used it to dig the hole deeper. So she skipped right past allowing Trump to tell her what he meant and tried to get him to just repeat after her.

“You meant you won’t have to vote for you because you have four years in office,” Ingraham said. “Is that what you meant?”

Trump refused to pick up the lifeline and started talking about gun owners. So Ingraham broke out a full-sized life raft and paddled hard to rescue Trump from his babble.

“Just to be clear–” she began. But by this point, Ingraham was clearly struggling to find a way to get Trump back to safety. “It’s being interpreted, you’ll be surprised to hear, by the left as ‘well, they’re never going to have another election.’”

Ingraham put on her best mocking-the-left tone so that Trump would understand this is supposed to be a bad thing. But as she tried to bring it home, she was obviously concerned that Trump still may not understand what he was supposed to say. And she couldn’t think of how to say it any more clearly.

“He’s saying … he’s saying there’s a … he’s …” she tried before giving up. “So. So can you even just respond to that?”

“I said Christians,” Trump began. Then he gathered himself for another go. “I started off by saying ‘Just so you understand, you never vote.’ Christians do not vote well. They vote in very small percentages. Why, I don’t know. Maybe they’re disappointed in things that are happening, but for a long time—I’m saying, ‘You don’t vote. Go out. You must vote. November 5 is going to be the most important election in the history of our country. Whether you vote early or not …’”

At this point, Trump wandered into talking about restrictions on voting like voter ID and the need for paper ballots. He finally came back around to the neighborhood of the original question.

“I said to the Christians in the room, thousands of them, I said typically Christians don’t vote. Why it is, I don’t know. They’re rebellious. Something’s going on. Don’t worry about the future, vote, you have to vote on November 5. After that, you don’t have to worry about voting anymore. Because we’re going to fix it. The country will be fixed and we won’t even need your vote anymore. Because frankly, we will have such love if you don’t want to vote anymore, that’s okay,” Trump said.

Love. It was love all along. Love and an end to pesky voting.

Then Trump put a cherry on top of all this by finishing with, “And I think everyone understood it.”

Despite what Republicans tried to claim, Trump clearly wasn’t making a joke. And despite Ingraham’s best efforts, he could not be dragged into saying something other than embracing what sure sounds like the death knell of democracy. Also, Trump’s claim that Christians vote in “very small percentages” is simply not true.

None of this will stop the Trump whisperers from suggesting alternative interpretations. And honestly, one set of tea leaves makes sense: Trump could be telling voters not to bother voting again in four years because he won’t be on the ballot.

Republicans don’t want to provide that interpretation, because it implies that Trump is concerned about no one other than himself and doesn’t care if the party ever wins a race again once he’s not at the top of the ticket. In fact, Trump would probably find it hugely pleasing to see that the party he had shaped into a worshipful mob could not survive without him.

Selfishness uber alles is not exactly the kind of motto that wins elections.

But even that interpretation beats the obvious conclusion: Trump is telling people not to worry about voting in four years because if he gets back in the White House, voting will never again be an issue.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

JD Vance

Many Republicans Now Wish They Could Dump Vance (Except Don Jr.)

Another day, another skeleton dancing from the seemingly bottomless closet of Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance.

As ABC News reported on Friday, Vance proposed in 2021 that Americans who don’t have children should pay higher taxes. According to Vance, this is because the government should "punish the things that we think are bad." Like, you know, people who either can’t have or don’t want kids.

That skeleton will have to step around the pile of bones left by Thursday’s revelation that, also in 2021, Vance insisted people with more children should get more votes. (This is just another aspect of Vance’s deep obsessions with creepy far-right natalism.)

And that skeleton tripped on the remains of the recent revelation that, in 2022, Vance called for a “federal response” in dealing with women who tried to seek out-of-state abortions—which he wrapped up in a disgusting fantasy about Black people and George Soros, a Jewish billionaire and Democratic donor.

Don’t worry. There are surely more skeletons where those came from. I’m telling you, Vance is perfect. And he’s also profoundly weird. Not in a good way.

It’s been under two weeks since Donald Trump picked the guy who “liked me more than anybody liked me” to be his running mate.

The morning after the pick was announced at the Republican National Convention, our own Kos put it clearly: Trump had picked “the worst possible running mate,” a man who underperformed in his Ohio Senate election, didn’t expand Trump’s base, and brought nothing to the ticket that would make Trump’s election more likely. Really, Vance seemed to bring nothing to the table except a history of hating Trump.

Oddly enough, some Republicans seem to agree. Reports that Vance would be a drag on the Republican ticket began almost as soon as he was chosen. And those calls are continuing as the GOP desperately seeks a way to unload the loser that they feted in Milwaukee.

Because Vance is simply a dud:

“He’s the first vice presidential nominee of either party since 1980 to begin underwater in his approval ratings,” Paul Begala, a former advisor to President Bill Clinton, said Thursday on CNN. “And he’s not good on the stump.” Trump may have a form of charisma but Vance is “just dull,” Begala added.

On Friday, The Hill reported that House Republicans are bashing Vance behind the scenes, worrying about his pro-Russian foreign policy and fretting over his lack of expertise. According to one source, 9 out of 10 congressional Republicans think Vance is the wrong pick.

But really, how can they do without a man who makes politics seem this glamorous?

Does your candidate give you “a ton of crap”? Trump and Vance will! It takes real skill to make a presidential campaign seem less organized and inviting than signing up for the rules committee at your local Little League.

If that doesn’t seem off-putting enough, this little trip into Vance’s recently resurfaced posting history should make things a little … ickier.

That’s Vance, in February of this year, posting an image of a video in which a woman is purportedly “violated by a dolphin.” Maybe it’s not couches that he has the hots for after all. Or maybe it’s not just couches.

Vance’s deep allegiance to the idea that spreading your personal genetic blueprint is all that matters in life has led to a long obsession with calling anyone who isn’t knee-deep in toddlers a “childless cat lad[y].” And that includes applying the term to men. Whether it’s having a cat or being a lady that Vance believes makes this such a great insult isn’t clear … but it’s sure not earning him any fans.

But the biggest problem that Republicans are facing is that awareness of Vance’s radical ideas isn’t restricted to political circles and his billionaire tech-bro friends. This stuff is going mainstream.

Vance’s call to up the taxes on the childless is getting showcased on Good Morning America, while Taylor Swift fans are lit over his cat-lady schtick. That’s a combination that could turn Vance’s “underwater” ratings into “just how deep is the Mariana Trench”?

Sen. JD Vance is perfect. Not in the sense that he helps Donald Trump. He’s perfect in illustrating what a disorganized, radical, shit-fest of a personality cult the Republican Party has become.

He’s also the perfect scapegoat for a Trump campaign that has foundered since Kamala Harris became the apparent Democratic nominee.

The pull of blaming it all on Vance and moving on to Trump Vice President No. 3 is likely to be irresistible. Don’t be surprised if Vance gets to go home soon so he can fantasize about couches and marine mammals while plotting how to punish people who don’t have children. No doubt, though, that he’ll miss getting first dibs at “a ton of crap.”

Supposedly, Donald Trump Jr. was one of those who pushed for Vance and helped in vetting him as Trump’s running mate. So what went wrong?

Oh. Never mind.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Kamala Harris

Voter Registration Surging As Harris Inspires Young Americans

After President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign on Sunday and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the next Democratic nominee, Vote.org reportedly registered 38,500 new voters over the next 48 hours. This represents a 700 percent surge over the previous 48 hours, with most of those voters being ages 34 and younger.

That beats the previous best day of the 2024 cycle, which came on National Voter Registration Day in September when pop superstar Taylor Swift posted an Instagram story urging her followers to get registered. That message helped spur over 35,000 new voter registrations.

The latest surge in registrations comes as Harris and other Democratic candidates see a flood of donations. Since Harris entered the race, ActBlue has recorded $179 million in donations to Democratic candidates and causes. That's just part of a historic flood of over $250 million that poured in since Harris became the nominee-apparent.

It all reflects a genuine, pent-up demand for something new. And Harris is meeting that demand.

Even before it was clear there would be a Biden vs. Donald Trump rematch, voters were begging for something, anything, other than a Biden vs. Donald Trump rematch. In a December poll by the Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, over half of Americans said they would be dissatisfied if the race were a repeat of the 2020 matchup.

The lack of enthusiasm was notable at ActBlue, where contributions were not only running behind the 2020 election cycle but also trailing contributions during the 2022 midterm elections.

That big spike on the far right of the chart reflects the sharp increase in contributions since Harris started running for president. This article was written early Wednesday morning, and this week already rivals the top weeks at the very end of the 2020 presidential election cycle. That’s big.

Democrats are excited about Harris. That’s reflected in the contributions.

Young voters, who tend to be more Democratic than other age groups, are excited about Harris. That’s reflected in the registrations.

Those young voters are particularly energized and enthusiastic over the change in the ticket. As WGBH Boston reported on Sunday, some young Democrats were willing to turn up for Biden. But they’re willing to work for Harris.

“This is the most energized I have felt as a young Democratic voter in so long,” 22-year-old Democrat Audrey Grant told WGBH. “I think this is one of the first times that the Democratic Party has seized control of a media narrative and really changed the tide.”

That younger demographic—and in particular, younger voters of color—was critical to carrying Biden and Harris over the top in 2020. It could be even more critical this year.

That Harris could pull in the kind of registration numbers associated with someone like Swift is encouraging. But the real power that such cultural figures have to move the needle shouldn’t be ignored.

On Tuesday, Beyoncé gave Harris permission to use her popular 2016 song “Freedom" in her campaign. Harris made it her entrance song in her first campaign appearance in the swing state of Wisconsin.

Swift’s obvious political clout and concerns that she would endorse Biden drove Republicans to distraction earlier in the year, leading to a host of conspiracy theories. Since Harris kicked off her campaign, the surge of Democratic zeal is already generating speculation over what might happen if Swift publicly rallies around Harris.

If Swift did so, she’d be in good company among pop stars. British singer—and the summer’s it-girl—Charli XCX declared that “kamala IS brat,” referring to the title of her latest album, and the Harris campaign quickly adopted the album’s lime-green cover art as the backdrop on their X (formerly Twitter) account.

There’s plenty of room for more synergy between Harris and singers whose impact is great enough to shift economies. A 2018 post from Swift in which she endorsed two candidates in Tennessee helped propel a surge of roughly 65,000 new signups at Vote.org in just 24 hours.

Official endorsements from Swift, Beyoncé, and others might break the internet—and the will of Republicans who see the tide turning against them.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Harris Campaign Brings In Over $81M During First 24 Hours After Biden Nod

Harris Campaign Brings In Over $81M During First 24 Hours After Biden Nod

President Joe Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris at 2:13 PM ET on Sunday afternoon. Almost immediately, donations to the Democratic fundraising site ActBlue exploded, reportedly peaking at over $12 million an hour on Sunday night.

On Monday afternoon, the Harris campaign reported that it had collected $81 million in the first 24 hours after Biden’s endorsement. That number is the largest 24-hour haul in the 2024 race so far, greatly exceeding the $52.8 million that Donald Trump reportedly brought in following his conviction on 34 felony counts. Harris’ campaign added 43,000 new recurring donors, with over half signing up for weekly donations, the campaign said in a press release on Monday.

But the good news doesn’t stop there. Because the burst of money into Harris’ campaign may have also generated millions for Democrats up and down the ticket.

ObservableHQ tracks contributions to ActBlue by regularly checking the site’s overall ticker. (The operator of ObservableHQ does note that we shouldn’t assume the ticker is as reliable as ActBlue’s FEC reports, however.) It reported a daily total of over $66 million for Sunday. On Monday morning, that number swiftly passed $80 million, and as the clock counted down to the same time as Biden’s Sunday endorsement, the total for the 24-hour period hit: $97.99 million. So close. About 30 minutes later, it topped the $100 million line.

As of this writing, the estimated amount raised since the endorsement stands at $107.7 million, with contributions still coming in at a rate of about $3 million per hour. This is still only Monday afternoon, and this is already the biggest week that ActBlue has seen through this election cycle.

In fact, Sunday’s estimated $66,813,025 in contributions put it at the top of ActBlue’s all-time best days, barely beating out Sept. 19, 2020, when a wash of contributions followed the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. At 4:45 PM ET, Monday’s total stood at $40,924,752. That puts it in the top five days overall, with several hours of prime-time fundraising remaining.

The contributions being reported by ActBlue are not exclusively funds going to the Harris campaign. This is a compilation of all ActBlue candidate contributions over this period. Some part of these totals—hopefully millions—is sloshing over into Senate, House, and state government races.

In addition, Harris is certainly collecting money from other sources. ActBlue generally handles smaller contributions from individuals. It’s just one route for funds to reach Harris’ campaign. A single massive Zoom call on Sunday evening hosted by the organization Win With Black Women reportedly attracted so many participants that the COO of Zoom had to step in to raise the limits. That call alone raised approximately $1.5 million in grassroots contributions. When the final totals are in, the Harris team may have eclipsed their reported $81 million haul.

What’s clear is that Biden ending his campaign and endorsing Harris uncorked a flood of Democratic contributions. A lot of that money is going to Harris. Some of it is going elsewhere.

It’s all good.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Potential Challengers Unite Behind Harris After Biden Withdraws

Potential Challengers Unite Behind Harris After Biden Withdraws

Less than a half-hour after posting his announcement that he would not continue his campaign for a second term, President Joe Biden put out a second statement, in which he fully endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the next Democratic nominee.

However, several other names have been tossed around as potential contenders over the last few weeks. If some in the party get their wish for some form of open convention or “mini-primary,” those may be the names involved.

Whether Harris moves directly into the role of Democratic nominee or has to fight for that position could be as significant to the party’s chances in November as Biden’s decision to stand aside. Potential rivals to Harris’ position as nominee are largely the most common, traditional sort of presidential candidates—governors. But there are others in Congress—and even within the Biden administration—whose names are being suggested.

Here’s what we know about the decisions of some of the names that more frequently appear on the list of possible contenders.

WHO’S OUT

PennsylvaniaGov. Josh Shapiro: Endorsing Harris

Shortly before Biden’s bombshell announcement, Shapiro gave an interview where he was asked directly whether he would run as vice president on a ticket headed up by Harris.

"I'm not going to get into hypotheticals,” said Shapiro. “The president has made clear he is running, [and] I am proud to serve as Pennsylvania governor.”

But it was only a few hours after Biden’s withdrawal before Shapiro joined in endorsing the vice president.

I’ve known Kamala Harris for nearly two decades—we’ve both been prosecutors, we’ve both stood up for the rule of law, we’ve both fought for the people and delivered results. Kamala Harris is a patriot worthy of our support, and she will continue the work of generations of Americans who came before us to perfect our union, protect our democracy, and advance real freedom. She has served the country honorably as Vice President and she is ready to be President.The best path forward for the Democratic Party is to quickly unite behind Vice President Harris and refocus on winning the presidency. … I will do everything I can to help elect Kamala Harris as the 47th President of the United States.

CaliforniaGov. Gavin Newsom: Endorsing Harris

In a statement made earlier this month, Newsom told the Los Angeles Times that he would not run against Harris if she became the nominee. CBS News’ sources indicated that was still the case following Biden’s withdrawal, saying that Newsom was "preparing to stand down," and that they did not believe he would challenge the vice president.

On Sunday afternoon, Newsom endorsed Harris writing, "With our democracy at stake and our future on the line, no one is better to prosecute the case against Donald Trump’s dark vision and guide our country in a healthier direction than America’s Vice President, Kamala Harris.”

Newsom is the only one of Harris’ potential challengers who is also not on the list of potential vice presidential candidates. Harris and Newsom are both from California, so the governor will likely have to wait out this cycle.

MarylandGov. Wes Moore: Will reportedly endorse Harris

Reports from both Axios and NOTUS indicate that Moore is expected to endorse Harris on Monday.

Moore’s statement on Biden’s stepping aside is probably the most personal and moving, noting that Biden is a man “deeply in love with his family, his country, and the promise of America.” It’s also the only message that extends thanks to first lady, Dr. Jill Biden.

MichiganGov. Gretchen Whitmer: Not running

Whitmer’s reaction to Biden stepping aside included this statement:

My job in this election will remain the same: doing everything I can to elect Democrats and stop Donald Trump, a convicted felon whose agenda of raising families’ costs, banning abortion nationwide, and abusing the power of the White House to settle his own scores is completely wrong for Michigan.

Whitmer certainly suggested that she would not be trying to take the lead role over the next three months, but her statement was far from definitive.

However, MichiganRep. Debbie Dingell appeared to confirm Whitmer’s position in a statement to MSNBC, in which she said that the governor was “not a candidate for any office this year.” That was backed up by a Bloomberg report in which a person close to Whitmer stated that Whitmer does not intend to challenge Harris for the nomination.

As of this writing, Whitmer has not formally endorsed Harris.

STILL IN FLUX

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear: Unknown

“President Biden will be remembered as a consequential president. Along with Vice President Harris, he led us through the aftermath of the January 6th attack on our Capitol and steadily steered us out of a global pandemic. … Now it is time for our nation to come together. We need to dial down the anger, rancor and noise, We have an opportunity to remember that we are taught to treat our neighbors as ourselves—and that we all each other’s neighbors.”

Beshear’s mention of Harris in his reaction to Biden ending his campaign would seem to suggest that he might be leaning toward an endorsement, but that’s not clear so far.

Beshear has managed to sustain high popularity while fighting against a Republican-dominated legislature in a deep red state, but compared to Whitmer or Shapiro, he may be less viable as a VP alternative simply because he may not been seen as boosting the ticket in a critical swing state.

Illinois Gov. J. B. Pritzker: Unknown

Pritzker offered one of the longest statements in reaction to Biden’s announcement. In it he praised Biden, but notably spent a good deal of space criticizing Donald Trump, noting his felony convictions, and saying, “I will work every day to ensure that [Trump] does not win in November.”

That could just mean Pritzker would work to support Harris. However, he’s one of the few potential candidates with deep enough pockets that starting a campaign with empty coffers might not be an issue.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg: Highly unlikely to run

That a member of Biden’s Cabinet would stand up against his endorsed vice president is on the very high end of highly unlikely. However, Buttigieg remains very popular and his name has been frequently mentioned a potential member of a Democratic ticket.

On Sunday evening, Buttigieg added his name to those officially endorsing Harris.

"Kamala Harris is now the right person to take up the torch, defeat Donald Trump, and succeed Joe Biden as president," he said in a statement.

WHO KNOWS?

Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips: Calling for a “straw poll”

Dean Phillips is going to Dean Phillips. In this case, that includes reacting to Biden’s statement by saying that he got into the race “in the spirit of Paul Revere, not George Washington,” and finishing his thoughts on what may be the most critical political moment in decades with “Giddy up!”

Phillips then offered what seemed like an endorsement of Harris, calling her “talented, experienced, and well-prepared to beat Donald Trump and serve as our President.”

But an hour later, Phillips appeared to go all-in on a hackneyed plan for a popularity contest at the Democratic National Convention.

Conduct a straw poll among Dem delegates of potential candidates. Invite [Kamala Harris] and the top three other vote getters to a series of four, televised town halls w/audiences of delegates before voting at the convention.

If you’re wondering what that would look like, the top three vote-getters after Biden were Phillips, Marianne Williamson, and Jason Palmer—though all three were outpolled by “uncommitted,” which drew only 4.25 percent.

The best thing about this plan is that people are already very practiced at ignoring Dean Phillips.

During a Sunday evening interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett, Phillips predicted that Harris would win his little town hall contest, and insisted that “I do not wish to run.”

So what is Phillips actually supporting? Whatever will get him another 15 minutes in front of the cameras.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Behind Vance's Appalachian Fairy Tale, A Less Uplifting Reality

Behind Vance's Appalachian Fairy Tale, A Less Uplifting Reality

America loves a poor-kid-makes-it-big story—and J.D. Vance told a whopper. The then-venture capitalist’s 2016 memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” presented Vance as an impoverished Appalachian kid who escaped a violent childhood overshadowed by a drug-addicted mother, fled to an Ivy League university, and eventually found wealth among the coastal elite as a high-rolling investment banker.

And his success didn’t stop there. The book was so well received that it spawned a big Hollywood film. Refreshed by wealth and fame, Vance returned to his home state of Ohio and began a nonprofit organization to “make it easier for disadvantaged children to achieve their dreams.” Then he ran for Senate—and won. Then, less than two years later, Vance was selected to be Donald Trump’s new running mate after his previous vice president was mysteriously unavailable.

Roll credits.

Only the story that Vance is telling has holes more than large enough to accommodate Trump’s private 757 jet. For starters, Vance isn’t from Appalachia. His book was riddled with broad negative stereotypes clearly written to appeal to exactly the cultural critics who welcomed its publication. And his nonprofit organization was a thinly veiled platform to launch Vance’s political career.

Most people are more than they seem at first glance. J.D. Vance is a whole lot less.

The Oscar-winning film “American Fiction,” based on the novel “Erasure” by Booker Prize-shortlisted author Percival Everett, tells the story of accomplished Black author Thelonious "Monk" Ellison. Frustrated by the market’s appetite for books that present Black culture only as a product of “da hood,” Ellison writes a fake autobiography titled “My Pafology” satirizing those works with an extreme story of a man whose life consists only of drugs, violence, and the worst stereotypes of inner-city life.

It’s hard to believe that Vance didn’t read Everett’s 2001 novel, because that’s exactly what he wrote. “Hillbilly Elegy” is the “My Pafology” of working-class, rural white people.

Both books are full of only the worst imaginable stereotypes. Both books are meant to specifically appeal to an audience that loves to extend false pity while indulging itself in feelings of superiority.

As Monk’s character said in the film, “I'm sure white people in the Hamptons will delight in it.” When it comes to Vance’s book, they certainly did.

For people who actually grew up in the region, the reaction to Vance’s book was somewhat different.

“I barely read 30 pages before I saw the book Hillbilly Elegy for what it was: a political platform masquerading as memoir,” wrote Appalachian native Neema Avashia. “Before I saw J.D. Vance for what he was: an opportunist. One willing to double down on stereotypes, to paint the people of Appalachia with a culture of poverty brush, rather than be honest about the ways in which both electoral politics and industry have failed our region.”

Only a few months after the book was published, Vance announced that he was leaving his posh job as an investment banker in San Francisco—the triumphant conclusion to the Horatio Alger story he told—to start a nonprofit organization in his home state of Ohio. In a fawning interview at NPR, where Vance was described as a “frequent guest,” he described how the opioid crisis was “obviously very personally important to me.”

Vance didn’t say what he was going to do to help beyond conducting a “listening tour.” However, even before that interview, Vance had filed the paperwork to start a nonprofit organization called Our Ohio Renewal.

Following that link now leads only to a blank page. Vance’s nonprofit no longer exists.

As The New York Times reported in 2022, Vance’s group “raised only about $220,000, hired only a handful of staff members, shrank drastically in 2018 and died for good in 2021.” Vance may say that he is “proud of the work we did,” but that work seems to have accomplished exactly nothing in addressing the problems Vance claimed to be fighting.

But it did do something else: It gave Vance a platform to publish op-eds and raised his visibility within Ohio.

The New York Times said Vance was “irked” by the idea that he was returning to Ohio to run for political office. But in 2018, as Our Ohio Renewal was shedding the staff that was supposed to help it address real problems, the nonprofit was also paying for a political consultant who advised Vance about entering the upcoming Senate race.

It’s hard to say it better than this ad for Vance’s Senate opponent in 2022: Vance created a bogus nonprofit to advance his political visibility. As the small business owner featured in the ad intoned, “J.D. Vance was in a position to really help people, but he only helped himself.”

Vance created a nonprofit to give himself a platform. He used that nonprofit to pay for a consultant to prepare him for a Senate campaign. Once that campaign was underway, Vance discarded the organization. It's not a surprise that Our Ohio Renewal is dead; its real job is over.

Now that he’s in Congress, how much does the issue of drug addiction in Ohio really matter to Vance? As the Ohio Capital Journal reports, Vance did cosponsor anti-fentanyl legislation written by Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. But when that bill came up for a vote, Vance voted against it.

Vance’s Senate office claimed that he voted against it because the bill had become attached to funding for Ukraine. The issue of drug addiction may be “very personal” to Vance. But apparently, it’s not as personal as his need to please Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

As Avashia wrote in her review of Vance’s book, “Folks outside Appalachia devoured Hillbilly Elegy because it reinforced what they already believed about us: that we were lazy, homogenous, and to blame for the unemployment, addiction and environmental disasters that plagued us. Vance’s description of a Jackson, Kentucky, where ‘people are hardworking, except of course for the many food stamp recipients who show little interest in honest work’, allowed liberals and conservatives alike to write Appalachia off as beyond saving, and its problems as self-created, and thus, deserved.”

Vance was smart enough to know that there was an audience eager to buy into that narrative. That doesn’t just apply to the Republican delegates meeting this week in Milwaukee, but to the media guilelessly reporting on Trump’s replacement for Mike Pence.

And … that’s about it. Vance is smart enough to know the narrative the media loves and hypocritical enough to say whatever it takes. That makes him a most appropriate sidekick for Trump.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Climate Change

Project 2025 Would Wreck Our Daily Lives -- Including Weather Forecasts

A lot of disaster is packed into the 900+ pages of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. Between the scheme to turn the federal government into the servant of an imperial president, and the plan to force Christian nationalism into every aspect of American life, it’s easy to get lost in the details.

One of those details is the plot to gut the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, including the National Weather Service. Project 2025 calls for that agency to “be dismantled and many of its functions eliminated, sent to other agencies, privatized, or placed under the control of states and territories.”

Why get rid of an agency providing such singularly useful information not only used by many Americans daily, but also the basis for forecasts that appear on most local radio and television stations? There are three reasons. One of these is profit. The other two are … also profit.

Project 2025 doesn’t hesitate to explain the primary reason why it has put such a vital agency in the crosshairs. According to Heritage, the various components of NOAA:

... form a colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity. This industry’s mission emphasis on prediction and management seems designed around the fatal conceit of planning for the unplannable. That is not to say NOAA is useless, but its current organization corrupts its useful functions. It should be broken up and downsized.

In other words, the problem with the weather service is that it tries to predict the weather. And all too often that involves making people aware that we are experiencing an unprecedented period of rising heat around the globe. That’s something Project 2025 means to stop.

Protecting the fossil fuel industry is a key feature of the plan. Blocking any expression of concern about the climate crisis is so important to Project 2025’s goals that it calls on the National Security Council to block the promotion of any military officer who expresses concern over climate change or “other polarizing policies.” (This is currently on page 52 of the plan, but page numbers have been altered several times since the plan’s first publication, making it more difficult to reference components of Project 2025.)

As The Atlanticreports, the NWS provides Americans with current weather conditions; short-term and long-term forecasts; and warnings for tornadoes, hurricanes, severe storms, floods, and excessive heat. It does all this at a cost of about $4 per person.

But Project 2025 wants to hand over these tasks to commercial services, specifically mentioning commercial firm AccuWeather. It admits that services like AccuWeather completely depend on data provided by NOAA, and wants that to continue; It just wants to hide the government service behind the commercial product, ensuring profit and keeping citizens from connecting their government with such a useful service.

That way commercial services get the profit, and the credit, while what remains of the government agency toils thanklessly in the background. Also, Americans don’t get exposed to the idea that government bureaucrats and scientists are doing something of value.

According to the actual report, Project 2025 also wants to eliminate most of the National Oceanic Service and National Marine Fisheries Service, turning over survey functions to the United States Geological Survey, and ending functions that are designed to protect large areas of the ocean from overfishing by commercial fleets. That includes weakening protections to seals, otters, and whales under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act.

The reduction of these offices would also limit NOAA’s ability to provide permits for offshore wind power. According to Project 2025, permitting wind facilities generates a “detriment of fisheries and other existing ocean-based industries.” In other words, your clean energy is getting in the way of our overfishing and oil platforms.

But the biggest target of the plan is the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research:

OAR is, however, the source of much of NOAA’s climate alarmism. The preponderance of its climate-change research should be disbanded.

Put it together and Project 2025 isn’t stealthy about what it wants to do:

  • Protect the profits of the fossil fuel industry by eliminating the ability of NOAA to research and report on the climate crisis and by restricting the permitting of wind farms.
  • Project the profit of commercial weather services by eliminating features that Americans get now from the National Weather Service and making Americans reliant on for-profit forecasts.
  • Protect the profit of commercial fishermen by eliminating offices that oversee protected areas and weakening rules around causing harm to the environment and endangered animals.

As Ben Jealous writing for the Sierra Club points out, not only is Project 2025 the product of one of the largest Republican think tanks, more than 100 other right-wing groups have signed on to the plan. This isn’t the design of one splinter group; This is a Republican effort spearheaded by a massive organization that is the primary sponsor of the RNC and employed dozens of former Trump staffers in Project 2025’s creation.

When talking about climate change, the parable of the boiling frog is often used. A frog, says the myth, if placed in a pot of cold water, will remain in that water even as it gets hotter and hotter, never escaping before being boiled alive.

Project 2025’s big plan for NOAA is designed to keep Americans in the pot until it boils. And make sure they never get a free look at the thermometer.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

A 'Sign Of Weakness'? Trump Sucks Up To RFK Jr. For Endorsement

Donald Trump placed a phone call to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and then met with him in Milwaukee in an apparent attempt to get Kennedy to drop his third-party presidential bid and endorse Trump at the Republican National Convention. A video of the call has now leaked online.

In the video, Trump appeals to the infamously anti-vaccine Kennedy by expressing skepticism about vaccines and claiming that he has seen infants “radically change” after being vaccinated. Then Trump calls on Kennedy to do something “big.” Trump reportedly followed up with a meeting in which he sought Kennedy’s endorsement.

The biggest takeaway is that, no matter what pundits are saying about how Trump’s victory is all but certain, he still thinks he needs more help to win in November. Selecting Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate was a play to Trump’s MAGA base. Getting Kennedy to endorse him may be the closest Trump can come to anything resembling national unity.

Kennedy has apologized for the release of the video, which was reportedly leaked online by his son, Bobby Kennedy III. In his apology, the elder Kennedy blames the recording on an unnamed “videographer” while saying that he is “mortified” by its release.

The video that has been made available is incomplete, clearly beginning after the conversation is underway and cutting off before it ends. Throughout the video, Kennedy listens while Trump speaks, trying but failing to interject.

At first, Trump tries to secure Kennedy’s cooperation by appearing to agree with him on the use of vaccines.

Something’s wrong with that whole system. And it’s the doctors, you find. Remember I said I want to do small doses? Small doses. When you feed a baby, Bobby, a vaccination that is like 38 different vaccines, and it looks like it’s meant for a horse, not a, you know, 10-pound or 20-pound baby. It looks like you’re giving … you should be giving a horse this. And do you ever see the size of it, right? You know, it’s just massive. And then you see the baby all of a sudden starting to change radically. I’ve seen it too many times.

Trump moves on to trying to talk Kennedy into doing something—which may have been discussed earlier in the call, based on the way Trump describes it at this point.

Anyway, I would love you to do stuff. And I think it would be so good for you, and so big for you. And we’re going to win. We’re going to win. We’re way ahead of the guy.

After that, Trump discusses Biden calling him following Saturday’s assassination attempt, including a section in which Trump implies that he literally dodged a bullet by “moving to the right.”

Based on the in-person meeting reported by Politico, the objective of Trump’s call was likely to secure Kennedy’s endorsement. The GOP nominee met with Kennedy on the sidelines of the RNC in Milwaukee, where Trump reportedly wanted him to announce an endorsement of Trump. A Kennedy spokesperson said that he intends to remain in the race as a third-party candidate, but did not address any potential endorsement.

Trump’s selection of Vance as his running mate has already drained any suspense from the Republican National Convention. And by selecting Vance—a radical conservative and one of his most hardcore supporters—Trump has discarded anything that might have looked like an effort to reach across the lines, even within the GOP. Vance does nothing to expand his base or bring more moderate voters to Trump.

The outreach to Kennedy may have been designed to address that shortfall, generating the so-called unity narrative that the national media seems so anxious to write. Both the call and the in-person meeting indicate that Trump is a lot less confident about his chances in November than he claims in rallies. A number of recent polls show that the race remains close despite the furor over Biden’s performance in the first debate.

Trump reportedly did not know that the call was being recorded. But his obsequiousness toward Kennedy and his efforts to solicit some “big” action together show how anxious Trump is to secure support from the anti-vaccine candidate whose most recent headlines have centered around his admitted brain worm, his denial of eating a dog, and accusations of sexual assault.

Kennedy’s son reportedly posted this video on X along with a message criticizing Trump for failing to pick his father for vice president. That since-deleted post contained more anti-vax claims, including calling for Dr. Anthony Fauci to be jailed and dismissing Vance’s selection as a surrender to drug company Pfizer.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Donald Trump

Mainstream Media Suddenly Remember Trump Is Crazy Dangerous

On Thursday, The New York Times published an editorial accurately noting that Donald Trump is "dangerous" and "unqualified" to be president.

“[Trump] has demonstrated an utter lack of respect for the Constitution, the rule of law and the American people,” the Times’ editorial board wrote. He is “animated by a thirst for political power: to use the levers of government to advance his interests, satisfy his impulses and exact retribution against those who he thinks have wronged him.”

That’s all true. And it would be better if it didn’t come several paragraphs into an editorial that starts off complaining about “the post-Covid era of stubborn inflation, high interest rates, social division and political stagnation.” Not to mention running it on the same morning that inflation dropped to three percent, raising the strong possibility of an interest rate cut, with the biggest concern being that unemployment rates are too low.

But at least the New York Times has taken a moment to notice that Trump still exists. It's a nice change after a week in which it, and every other media outlet, have been dominated by stories of anyone with a passing thought about President Joe Biden’s campaign.

Numerous papers have dropped editorials calling for Biden to drop out of the race following an unsteady debate performance. They are still at it. Before the Times ran their column on Thursday, only The Philadelphia Inquirer made a similar call for Trump to depart after his debate responses were filled with lies and fantasies about everything from immigration to the January 6 insurrection.

Thursday’s Times not only carries that editorial declaring that Trump is unqualified, but it also carries a front page notably less cluttered with thoughts on Biden’s viability as a candidate. That seems like a good sign ahead of the president’s press conference on Thursday.

Still, there seems to be more concern in the media over noting every entertainer who has a thought about Biden—or even those who might have a thought—than in the long list of former Trump officials who want nothing to do with their old boss. It might seem like the fact that Trump’s former vice president is refusing to endorse him might rate more attention than any actor. It should.

The challenge for the New York Times and others isn't whether they will give Trump’s nastiness an occasional mention, but whether they will provide the kind of sustained and focused coverage that has been devoted to Biden's status post-debate.

Because, believe it or not, there has been good news for the media over the last week.

Analysis shows that among Black voters who watched Biden’s debate performance, 21 percent had their view of Biden negatively impacted while 70 percent said the debate had made them more likely to vote for the president. However, 57 percent of Black voters who didn’t see the debate said they were now less likely to vote for Biden, with only 43 percent more likely.

The big negative effect for Biden came not from the debate, but from people talking about the debate.

How is that good news? It’s good news for the national media in the sense that shows how much power remains in their control. The sustained media coverage concerning Biden’s debate performance, and of Democrats dithering in response, has been much more impactful than Biden’s actual debate performance.

That may come as a surprise to Politico writer and MSNBC correspondent Sam Stein.

As it happens, there is a whole industry that is supposed to be telling voters about that good news. They could do that. They could explain that we’re not seeing “stubborn inflation” and that economic conditions have improved vastly following Trump’s departure. They might even point out that the Trump economy was absolutely awful, no matter what he claims.

They could give Trump’s lies the kind of intense, sustained scrutiny that they provided to Biden’s every stumble. They could provide the same breathless attention to every former Trump cabinet official who refuses to get near him today, as they’ve given to every Democrat worried about Biden’s prospects. They could talk about the lies Trump told at his debate and continues to tell at his rallies.

They could do that. And people would listen.

What the last week has demonstrated is that the media really can give concentrated attention to a single issue, and that attention can still sway the opinions of voters in an age where the role of the media is frequently in doubt. Good for them.

Now they just need to make it good for America—by pointing this power in the right direction.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

With Progressive Wins In UK And France, Liberal Democracy Is Far From Dead

With Progressive Wins In UK And France, Liberal Democracy Is Far From Dead

French voters defied the expectations of pollsters on Sunday as a progressive alliance soared to victory over right-wing nationalists in the country’s legislative elections. On Monday, President Emmanuel Macron, whose own centrist party came in second, refused the resignation of France’s prime minister. A new government is expected to emerge from a coalition of the progressive New Popular Front, which took the greatest number of seats, and Macron’s Ensemble alliance. Forming that coalition government may not go smoothly, but the nationalist National Rally was relegated to a third-place finish.

Marine Le Pen, the de facto leader of National Rally, had promised to curtail French support of Ukraine, end birthright citizenship, block immigrants from accessing social services, and align France with Russia. But on Monday, National Rally leaders found themselves complaining that progressive parties had cheated as they faced another cycle in the political wilderness.

The result follows a landslide victory for U.K.’s center-left Labour Party, which sent the Conservative Party packing after a 14-year hold on the British government. Labour leader Keir Starmer was sworn in as the new prime minister shortly thereafter, and the more progressive leadership promises to repair more than a decade of damage done to the national health care system, raise the minimum wage, provide free meals to schoolchildren, improve environmental protections and public transportation, and create a new, publicly owned energy company.

In other words, despite the rising threat against democracy in many places around the world (and at home), liberal democracy isn't dead just yet.

There has been story after story suggesting that liberal democracy is on its last legs. That’s been particularly true over the last few years when authoritarian populists celebrated and supported by Russia have dominated reports on election cycles, both in America and Europe.

Stories continue to herald the rise of a new authoritarian right in Europe, but the nationalist leaders who often dominate headlines share one thing in common: They usually lose. Nigel Farage, leader of the far-right Reform U.K. party, may have given a so-called “victory speech” following his country’s elections, but his party took just 14 percent of the vote. That’s more than Reform earned in previous elections, but the result earned them only five seats in the U.K.’s 650-seat House of Commons—five seats that are worth a lot less without a right-wing government in charge.

Germany’s far-right Alternatives for Germany party may have increased its support in the last round of elections, but it still earned less than 16 percent of the vote in the European Parliament elections held on June 9. That’s slightly below what polls showed a week from the election, and far below what they showed a few months earlier.

Outside of Europe, Mexico celebrated a substantial progressive victory last month, when Claudia Sheinbaum and her left-wing Morena party took the highest percentage of the vote in that nation’s democratic history. In India, parties on the left overperformed expectations, though they failed to displace a right-wing leader.

The pundits ready to play taps for democracy in Europe need to take off their funeral suits because it doesn’t seem like liberal democracy is going anywhere this week. If anything, it’s the right-wing parties that have emerged from recent elections rattled by voters who moved to install more progressive leadership. It seems like nationalists may have had their big moment in 2016 with the unexpected victory of Donald Trump in the United States and the shocking vote for “Brexit” in the U.K.

Since then, Brexit has been recognized as a mistake, with recent polling showing that most Britons want to rejoin the European Union's single market, and now voters in the U.K. have kicked out the Tories, who were responsible for the Brexit vote. And in the U.S., voters held up their end in 2020.

Now we just have to do it again.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Kevin Roberts

Meet The Outfit Behind Trump's Fascist 2025 Agenda

The large red fingerprints of the Heritage Foundation seem to be everywhere in the news. The group authored Project 2025, which would empty the federal government, populate it with MAGA loyalists, and, in its own words, “deconstruct the administrative state.” As The New Republicputs it, Project 2025 is “a remarkably detailed guide to turning the United States into a fascist’s paradise.”

They’re thrilled by the Supreme Court’s recent immunity ruling, deeply involved in attacks on diversity and equity initiatives, and obsessed over strange things like Prince Harry’s visa.

And they promise not to kill all leftists—as long as we sit quietly and acquiesce to their dominion over the nation.

The Heritage Foundation so kindly offering to let us have our lives in exchange for our freedom is a malignancy that has festered in the group for decades. Though it benefits from a name and a network of donors stretching back five decades, today’s Heritage Foundation is a much more dangerous beast.

It has wealth. It has connections. And it has democracy in its sights.

The Heritage Foundation was founded in 1973 by the founder of Coors Brewing and conservative strategists Paul Weyrich and Ed Feulner. They thought that President Richard Nixon had moved too far to the left and that other Republican organizations were too timid. They promoted a strong anti-communist message and a social conservatism that didn’t recognize a wall between church and state, and pushed for a smaller government.

The group quickly gained power under President Ronald Reagan, who embraced its “Mandate for Leadership”—a 1,100-page document of policies—and distributed it among his staff. Much of what came to be known as “the Reagan doctrine,” both domestically and internationally, was a repackaging of this product from the Heritage Foundation.

Having established deep inroads in the Republican Party, Heritage maintained that position through both Democratic and Republican administrations. They were largely responsible for shaping Republican positions to oppose the universal health care plan offered by President Bill Clinton. The Heritage plan, "Assuring Affordable Health Care for All Americans," would go on to be the basis of then-Gov. Mitt Romeny's health care plan for Massachusetts and eventually form the core of the Affordable Care Act. By this time, the Heritage Foundation was attacking it.

Like many organizations, Heritage has seen turnovers in leadership, staff purges, shifts in philosophy, and difficulties in maintaining its place in a changing political environment. But the Heritage Foundation that exists today is practically a toddler. With a razor blade.

This iteration of the Heritage Foundation dates to the pandemic, when the group's previous leader, Kay Coles James, made the mistake of trying to follow safety guidelines, including closing the group’s offices for an extended period and putting up signs that encouraged masking. That led to her replacement by conspiracy theorist Kevin Roberts, who had been on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's COVID-19 task force and immediately pushed Heritage into suing to stop any vaccine mandate.

Under Roberts, the group moved swiftly away from its traditional conservative positions—and into Christian nationalism. It retained its funding and deep roots in the Republican Party, but it began pushing for the ouster of existing Republican leadership and for the historically hawkish organization to oppose military aid to Ukraine.

The organization also switched from supporting former Vice President Mike Pence in the months after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection to condemning Pence for his failure to go along with Trump’s plans and ordering members to take down posts opposing Jan. 6 violence.

If the MAGA movement is the red-hatted equivalent of “brownshirts,” Heritage is now the SS—the real power behind the throne. It does the plotting and planning, so Trump can stand around and rail against wet batteries.

Anyone on the right who is currently amused by Roberts’ none-too-subtle hints about killing progressives who oppose Trump might want to think again. When the long knives come out, Heritage will be there for them, as well.

Because whatever heritage this group stands for, it definitely isn’t American democracy.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Joe Biden

What Should King Joe Do With New Power Bestowed By High Court?

No one seems to be worried that President Joe Biden will jump on the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity to call out SEALTeam Six to do some housekeeping. Or to introduce the six conservative members of the court to their new offices at McMurdo Station in Antarctica. Or, frankly, to do any of the things that Donald Trump seems to dream about every day.

That’s because Biden is a fundamentally decent person. He doesn’t need a court to keep him from stealing from charity, scamming people out of their life savings in the name of education, or laundering money for Russian mobsters. Somehow, even without the promise that he would never face prosecution, Biden has made it through over three years as president without once calling on the military to shoot people in the streets or trying to blackmail a foreign government into helping with the election.

The Supreme Court didn’t give the presidency any new powers. It only shielded the president from being prosecuted for almost anything that could be construed as related to their official duties. On the other hand, if that freedom from prosecution extends to assassinating your opponents, and you control the most powerful government on the planet, then what isn’t possible?

Here are a few suggestions for Biden. Please add to the list.

  • Nationalize Trump golf courses, turn them into national parks, and offer free access to all Americans. Skip that $300,000 membership fee and come on in. It’s not like Trump didn’t already put “national” right there in the name of most of his courses. Speaking of which, renaming all the courses seems like a good idea. The E. Jean Carroll National Golf Park seems like a good place to start.
  • Requisition Trump hotels to provide housing for the homeless. Now that the court has ruled it’s illegal to sleep while poor, a lot more shelter space is needed. Conveniently, there are already Trump towers sitting in several locations where they could be put to use, including Las Vegas, Chicago, and New York. Special floors should be set aside in case Texas Gov. Greg Abbott or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis send any immigrants to town.
  • Cap CEO salaries at 10x the lowest employee, and make Elon Musk distribute his $50 billion bonus to his workers. Corporate executives make ridiculous amounts of money, corporate workers don’t. Let corporations settle that either way they want, by cutting the salary of the person at the top of the pyramid or raising the salaries at the base. And no funny it’s-not-a-salary-it’s-a-bonus malarkey. King Joe is not amused.
  • Take Clarence Thomas’ RV and ban him from Walmart parking lots. Most of these suggestions are designed to do some active good while also providing a soupcon of justice. This one is all justice. A guy who has taken $4,000,000 in bribes can afford to shell out for his own transport. And for God’s sake, Clarence, spring for the $20 to rent a spot at the nearest state park and stop lurking at the edge of the parking lot like a giant murder van.
  • Trains, trains, trains. How many miles of train track can be laid between now and the end of the year? King Joe has at least four more years to make the map of passenger rail in the United States look more like Europe and Asia. And when you have the whole Army to clear the way and level the ground, things can go much more quickly.
  • Immediate citizenship to anyone who tags a Republican senator. Want to jump the lines at immigration and avoid those endless hearings? Chase down Ted Cruz and put a big slap on his back. Bonus points if you tag Josh Hawley. He runs fast.
  • Replace Fox News with actual foxes. Foxes hunting. Tiny fox kits being cute. Arctic foxes bouncing through the snow and desert foxes prowling across the dunes. It would not only be much more interesting, but the national IQ would immediately rebound.
  • Put a shark-filled moat around the White House. How do you make sure that Trump never comes near the Oval Office? Surround it with the most fearsome predator this side of a wet battery.
  • Turn Mar-a-Lago into the new Ellis Island, welcoming immigrants into the nation with daily flights from the border on the former Trump jet. Also, immigrants get to enjoy the endless shrimp bar.

Don’t forget to add your own suggestions!

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.