Five things to know about Tim Walz (details in the link below):
I vote to rebuke the House of Representatives for refusing to pass the border law that THEY WROTE, just because Trump wanted to have the border as an issue during the election!
“Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said the resolution was ‘fake and fraudulent’ and that Harris was never appointed ‘border czar,’ as the measure stated.
“Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, who is the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said Harris ‘was narrowly tasked with developing agreements that could help bring government and private sector investments to those countries that are sending migrants to the United States.'” That’s a far cry from being a “border czar.”
Source: “House Republicans vote to rebuke Kamala Harris over administration’s handling of border policy” https://apnews.com/article/border-kamala-harris-congress-1825185b8bb82144d726d09f2d255643
Source: “Senate Republicans block bipartisan border package, then scramble to find support for Ukraine aid” https://apnews.com/article/congress-ukraine-aid-border-security-386dcc54b29a5491f8bd87b727a284f8
Source: “Broken Congress: It can’t fix the border, fund allies or impeach Mayorkas as GOP revolts” https://apnews.com/article/congress-fails-mayorkas-impeachment-border-bill-3bb2de710406cd5c5314e855c75efbef
The BBC has a weekly newsletter focusing on the U.S. elections and how they are perceived and affected by the rest of the world.
“Each week, they’ll send you takeaways of what you really need to know from the election race and help you see the bigger global picture.
“They will also suggest articles for essential further reading to help you feel well-informed.
“As you probably know, American politics can be serious, amusing and downright absurd, and sometimes all three at once, so they’ll try to cover the lighter aspects too.”
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68093155
It’s always a mixed bag when we agree to prisoner exchanges. Especially when we know that Russia (why is it always Russia?) made up accusations of espionage that were unfounded and untrue.
Well, at least these Americans (and Germans) are home again.
“The 24 people — some prominent, some not — included a collection of journalists and political dissidents, suspected spies, a computer hacker and a fraudster. Even a man convicted of murder.
“Russia released 16 people, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, a corporate security executive from Michigan. Both were facing long prison sentences after being convicted in Russia’s heavily politicized legal system of espionage charges that the U.S. government called baseless.
“Also freed by Moscow was Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, a dual U.S.-Russian citizen convicted in July of spreading false information about the Russian military — accusations her family and employer have rejected.”
Source: https://apnews.com/article/russia-gershkovich-whelan-prisoner-swap-354df585ad321ecdbea4c0f2c557f0aa
There are many true believers working as county election officials who have denied that Biden won in 2020 and are poised to refrain from certifying the elections this fall.
“At least 70 pro–Donald Trump election denialists are working as election officials in key swing states, according to a report published Monday from Rolling Stone and the right-wing extremism research newsletter American Doom.
“Officials who had promoted election conspiracy theories were identified in at least 16 counties in six swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.
“These individuals were identified through scouring coverage of refusals to certify 2020 election results and other denialist behavior, as well as sifting through the social media profiles of election officials in these states.
“Across these swing states, Trump loyalists stand ready to disrupt the results of democratically held elections—at least 22 of them have already refused or delayed certification in recent years, indicating likely chaos in November.”
Source: https://newrepublic.com/post/184340/trump-election-deniers-power-swing-states
Interview with the author: https://youtu.be/cojKYPWoUyE?si=ApUDdMHsGu9M6KvN
“The Kremlin is turning to unwitting Americans and commercial public relations firms in Russia to spread disinformation about the U.S. presidential race, top intelligence officials said Monday, detailing the latest efforts by America’s adversaries to shape public opinion ahead of the 2024 election.
“Groups linked to the Kremlin are increasingly using private public relations firms or unwitting social media users to spread their false claims as a way to hide their tracks.
“The warning comes after a tumultuous few weeks in U.S. politics that have forced Russia, Iran and China to revise some of the details of their propaganda playbook. What hasn’t changed, intelligence officials said, is the determination of these nations to seed the internet with false and incendiary claims about American democracy to undermine faith in the election.
“The American public should know that content that they read online — especially on social media — could be foreign propaganda, even if it appears to be coming from fellow Americans or originating in the United States,” said an official from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity under rules set by the office of the director.”
I’ve been noticing that people tend to refer to Kamala Harris as “Kamala” but use other politicians’ last names. It made me wonder if this was a kind of discrimination, not showing the same respect for her as for the men, or maybe it was an attempt to make her seem more relatable or approachable.
In video clips I’ve seen, people in the crowd behind her when she’s giving a speech have signs that say KAMALA and the crowd has chanted her first name. If they’re printing up signs, that’s pretty intentional.
Below is a link to an interview on NPR this week that discusses this very phenomenon. Here are a couple quotes from the interview:
“Strategically, politicians often try to seem relatable, which a first name can help achieve. And at the same time, they try to present themselves as leadership figures of authority, which a last name can help achieve.”
“I do actually think it is a sign of disrespect in an environment where you have multiple candidates, and you’re referring to one by her first name and then all of the men by their last name. You are making her the exception and not giving her that very small piece of respect that we give people in positions of power.”
“I do think that this election provides an environment where this might be more positive than negative for Harris. And that’s because we’re looking at an election where almost all the major issues are domestic policy issues. These are things that voters might actually think women are going to be better at handling.”
Contrary to news from the NY Post, Obama has indeed endorsed Kamala Harris for president. So has the entire Democratic party. And even some Republicans who are brave enough to oppose Trump.
During the first 24 hours of Harris’s campaign, she raised $126 million! A record! And what’s more informative is that 896,000 of those donors were making their first donations during this election. That means they weren’t giving anything when it was Biden vs Trump, but when Harris became the candidate, they were motivated to give and get involved.
Trump posted yesterday that Obama thinks that “Kamala Harris is a Marxist fraud who cannot beat President Trump.” He is so full of excrement! And that was the reason he put forward as to why he wouldn’t schedule a debate for Harris. He’s actually just afraid.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/26/politics/barack-michelle-obama-kamala-harris-endorsement/index.html
Source: https://youtu.be/EDD3mJcfb5g?si=6qlWuZD_D8sqnbm5
As we move closer and closer to the election, we will be hearing tons of conflicting, biased, and even false stories. It is important to get your news from an unbiased, reliable source.
Using the rating system of Media Bias / Fact Check, I have created a list of the 13 least-biased news sources that have been given a Very High rating for factual reporting.
“These sources have minimal bias and use very few loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes). The reporting is factual and usually sourced. These are the most credible media sources, and they use proper sourcing and have a clean fact check record.”
There are many that have a High rating for factual reporting, but I kept this list to the Very High.
Source: https://www.listobsession.com/news-sources/
These surveys don’t mean much at this point in time — only the vote matters — and they say there is a 3-point margin of error. But it’s a swing of 4 percent toward Harris in just a week or so.
“Vice President Kamala Harris opened up a marginal two-percentage-point lead over Republican Donald Trump after President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign and passed the torch to her, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.
“That compares with a marginal two-point deficit Biden faced against Trump in last week’s poll before his Sunday exit from the race.
“The new poll, conducted on Monday and Tuesday, followed both the Republican National Convention where Trump on Thursday formally accepted the nomination and Biden’s announcement on Sunday he was leaving the race and endorsing Harris.
“Harris, whose campaign says she has secured the Democratic nomination, led Trump 44% to 42% in the national poll, a difference within the 3-percentage-point margin of error.
“Harris and Trump were tied at 44% in a July 15-16 poll, and Trump led by one percentage point in a July 1-2 poll, both within the same margin of error.
“While nationwide surveys give important signals of American support for political candidates, a handful of competitive states typically tilt the balance in the U.S. Electoral College, which ultimately decides who wins a presidential election.”