“Trash carried by at least one North Korean balloon fell on the South Korean presidential compound on Wednesday, raising worries about the security of key South Korean facilities during North Korean provocations.
“The rubbish that landed on the presidential compound in central Seoul contained no dangerous material and no one was hurt, South Korea’s presidential security service said. While North Korea likely lacks sophisticated technology to drop balloons on specific targets, some experts say South Korea should shoot down incoming North Korean balloons next time to protect major facilities because they might contain hazardous substances in the future.
“North Korea’s latest balloon launches came days after South Korea boosted its broadcasts of K-pop songs and propaganda messages across the two countries’ heavily armed border. Their tit-for-tat Cold War-style campaigns are inflaming tensions, with the rivals threatening stronger steps and warning of grave consequences.”
For the record, the Biden-Harris administration has added 16 million jobs, including 800,000 manufacturing jobs, overseen the lowest unemployment rate in half a century, presided over the strongest economy on Earth, and brought the murder rate down 25%!
Legislatively, the comparison between Harris and Trump cannot be greater. Trump’s only legislative accomplishment was a tax cut for millionaires and billionaires. That’s it. Biden and Harris’s legislative accomplishments include the American Rescue Plan, the Inflation Reduction Act, the PACT Act (expanding health care and benefits for veterans), the CHIPS Act, the Infrastructure Law, the Gun Safety Law, reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act (which Trump allowed to lapse), codifying marriage equality into federal law. They have also prohibited junk fees at banks, capped insulin and inhalers at $35, and ensured that airlines automatically reimburse passengers for canceled flights. All of these help regular Americans, not just the wealthy.
Sources are linked below, using Wikipedia rather than government websites to help ensure objectivity.
“Messages of gratitude and support for US President Joe Biden poured in following his stunning announcement Sunday that he is exiting the 2024 presidential race and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris as the next Democratic nominee.
“It was the second seismic moment in US politics in just over a week, following the assassination attempt against former president Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally on July 13, which saw global leaders rally around him as the Republican nominee.
“Pressure had mounted on Biden to pull out of the race since his disastrous performance at the CNN presidential debate last month, and on Sunday, he confirmed he would remain a one-term president, prompting a flood of tributes from US allies who thanked him for his leadership.”
See the link below to view the many statements by world leaders. The list was too long to include in the text of this post, so it is linked here:
This is an interesting new development. It’s no longer a referendum on someone’s age, but more about policies.
President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race for the White House on Sunday, ending his bid for reelection.
He has endorsed current Vice President Kamala Harris and encouraged his party to unite behind her. And it totally changes the dynamic of the election.
I wonder who will get the eventual nomination. Probably Harris, since she is the current VP and has been endorsed by Biden. I’d guess any other potential candidates will fall in line this late in the campaign.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.”
Republican VP Nominee J.D. Vance wrote a foreword for a book that the Heritage Foundation’s president wrote that echoed much of Project 2025’s mandate.
“While Project 2025’s coordinators previously told Newsweek that it ‘does not speak for any candidate or campaign,’ it was written in conjunction with a host of former Trump staffers, as many as 140, according to an analysis by CNN.
“Last month, Vance posted on X, formerly Twitter, about writing a foreword for Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts’ new book, Dawn’s Early Light: Burning Down Washington to Save America, saying he was ‘thrilled’ to have done so and that the book contained ‘a bold new vision for the future of conservatism in America.’
“Vance also contributed a review for the book ahead of its release in September, writing:
‘Never before has a figure with Roberts’s depth and stature within the American Right tried to articulate a genuinely new future for conservatism.’
‘We are now all realizing that it’s time to circle the wagons and load the muskets.’
‘In the fights that lay ahead, these ideas are an essential weapon.’
“There are topics from the blurb that echo Project 2025’s proposals. For example, Roberts writes that the Department of Education (DOE) and the FBI are ‘too corrupt to save.’ Project 2025 states that the DOE should be shut down and describes overhauling the FBI, calling it a ‘bloated, arrogant, increasingly lawless organization.'”
“Former President Donald Trump accepted the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday with the most dishonest speech of the four-day Republican National Convention, making more than 20 false claims by CNN’s count.
“Many of the false claims were ones Trump has made before, some of them for years. They spanned a wide variety of topics, including the economy, immigration, crime, foreign policy and elections. Some of them were wild lies, others smaller exaggerations. Some were in his prepared text (like the absurd claim that he left the Biden administration a world at peace), while he ad-libbed others (such as his usual lies that Democrats cheated in the 2020 election and that the US is experiencing the worst inflation it has ever had).”
In this news article from Reuters, “The World Court, the United Nations’ highest court, said on Friday that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and settlements there is illegal and should be withdrawn as soon as possible, in its strongest findings to date on the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
“The advisory opinion by judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), known as the World Court, was not binding but carries weight under international law and may weaken support for Israel.
“‘Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the regime associated with them, have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law,’ President Nawaf Salam said, reading the findings of a 15-judge panel.
“The court said Israel’s obligations include paying restitution for harm and ‘the evacuation of all settlers from existing settlements’. In a swift reaction, Israel’s foreign ministry rejected the opinion as ‘fundamentally wrong’ and one-sided, and repeated its stance that a political settlement in the region can only be reached by negotiations.
“‘The Jewish nation cannot be an occupier in its own land,’ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement. Israel Gantz, head of the Binyamin Regional Council, one of the largest settler councils, said the ICJ opinion was ‘contrary to the Bible, morality, and international law’.
“The ICJ opinion also found that the U.N. Security Council, the General Assembly and all states have an obligation not to recognize the occupation as legal nor “render aid or assistance” toward maintaining Israel’s presence in the occupied territories.”
Reuters takes a look at how the Republican party has been trying to rebrand Trump and how long that lasted (about a half hour).
“For four nights at Donald Trump’s nominating convention in Milwaukee, a roster of speakers attempted to give one of the most divisive politicians in recent U.S. history a makeover, describing him as a loving and caring family man whose near-assassination at a rally on Saturday had changed him.
“Early in his speech on Thursday night, as he accepted his party’s presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, it seemed Trump had bought into the carefully orchestrated effort to repackage him as a humbler, unifying figure, more palatable to swing voters who will be crucial to winning the Nov. 5 election.
“In an age when our politics too often divide us, now is the time to remember that we are all fellow citizens,” Trump said.
“That new version of Trump lasted barely half an hour.
“Then the Trump more familiar to Americans – the bombastic thrower of insults who revels in demonizing his opponents – re-emerged, trampling over the message of unity so painstakingly choreographed by the Republican National Committee this week.
“In a rambling 92-minute address that broke the record for the longest convention speech in history, Trump called Democratic President Joe Biden the worst president in U.S. history and the former Democratic House Speaker “crazy Nancy Pelosi,” and accused Democrats of launching judicial witch hunts against him and creating a “planet of war.”
“The Democrat Party should immediately stop weaponizing the justice system and labeling their political opponent as an enemy of democracy, especially since that is not true,” Trump said.
“Using familiar hyperbolic and divisive language, he said illegal immigration to the United States was “the greatest invasion in history” and was leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans every year, though neither claim is supported by any data.
“He painted a dark picture of a crumbling America, a nation in decline, its cities crime-ridden and economically depressed, a staple image of his stump speech in which he presents himself as the country’s savior.
“We had been told this was going to be a different Trump, a softer side,” Mary Anna Mancuso, a Republican strategist and Trump critic, said afterward. “Trump’s speech was not about unifying the nation. It was the same Trump that we’ve seen and there was no difference.”
“It seemed at first that Trump was trying to embody a less partisan version of himself. Yet as quickly as he called for an end to the “demonization of political enemies,” he turned the issue exclusively toward Democrats, reprising his accusations that the justice system was weaponized against him.
“Trump tried to humanize his image by telling of the assassination attempt. The former president spoke in vivid detail of his experience being injured and nearly killed on Saturday. On stage was the uniform of the retired fire chief, Corey Comperatore, who was killed behind Trump.
“Trump made sweeping promises to end inflation and secure the border, but he didn’t outline any plans and mostly used crowd-pleasing talking points. The most specific he got was promising to roll back Biden administration efforts to combat climate change, redirect infrastructure spending and impose steep tariffs.”
“Donald Trump and his allies have spent years amplifying a conspiracy theory that Democratic officials are intentionally letting people into the country illegally to ‘replace’ the voting population.
“But lately, the former president has been claiming that the ‘invasion’ is specifically coming after Black Americans.” In his typical fearmongering, evidence-lacking style.
“He now claims that ‘the Black population is going to die’ without his violent immigration agenda in place, pitching his anti-immigration platform as a way to attract Black voters.
“’The Black people are going to be decimated by the millions of people that are coming into the country,’ he told Bloomberg in an interview published on July 16.
“’There will never be a decimation like this, and they’re already feeling it,’ he added. ‘Their wages have gone way down. Their jobs are being taken by the migrants coming in illegally into the country.’
“His language then turned apocalyptic.
“’The Black population in this country is going to die because of what’s happened, what’s going to happen to their jobs — their jobs, their housing, everything,’ he said. ‘I want to stop that. … They’re taking everything.’
“He then suggested that he believes President Joe Biden wants people who live in the country illegally to take Black Americans’ jobs from them.”
