A daily compendium of the best coverage and commentary about the pivotal 2024 elections in the United States. You won't find horse race coverage here, or the standard "both sides" BS that passes so often for political journalism. The future of democracy – and so much more – is at stake. Sharing encouraged!
Of all the Trump flailing over the past 10 days, nothing was quite as comical, nonsensical, and ineffectual as yesterday’s big push to try to shove Project 2025 – the centerpiece of MAGA world’s planning for a Trump II presidency – down the memory hole.
Unfortunately, Big Journalism has done what it usually does, which makes small, focused sites like Talking Points Memo so valuable. With their usual "he said it so we'll write it down and publish" mode, the big operations mostly fell for Trump's supposed shelving of the notorious "Project 2025" planning document, reporting it without a shred of context. The document – written and endorsed by a host of Trump world people – is a detailed outline for dictatorship, and there is every reason to believe that it's alive and well.
“Usually you can’t just look at one month for a climate trend but it is right in line with what models predict,” Dukes added. “In Antarctica generally that kind of warming in the winter and continuing in to summer months can lead to collapsing of the ice sheets.”
Trump and the Republican Party are hell-bent on eviscerating the (already inadequate) policies aimed at tackling climate change, while the Biden administration has persuaded Congress (Democrats only) to enact modest but helpful measures to slow down the dangerous trends. This news from the Antarctic is a reminder that human civilization may well be on the November ballot.
The acquisition will put Trump’s company in a business relationship with someone with numerous interests before the federal government. Davison, for example, owns a major stake in Genesis Energy, a large oil pipeline and mining firm. A trade group representing Genesis and other publicly traded pipeline firms previously lobbied the Trump administration and lawmakers for a tax break and on environmental issues. Davison’s family also has a stake in a regional bank and owns a small defense contractor. And Davison could benefit if the 2017 Trump tax cut provisions, which expire after next year, are extended.
This ProPublica story is only the latest reminder that it's all corruption, all the time in Trump's orbit. Unfortunately, thanks in large part to our media's short attention span, most Americans don't remember how deep and wide the corruption has run throughout his career – or that no president in history has had a more corrupt administration (with the possible exception of Harding a century ago). Even now, journalists – including the otherwise brilliant ProPublica – can't be bothered to pull it all together to show the breadth and depth of the sleaze. They notice some of the fires breaking out. But they never explain that the entire forest is ablaze.
For the first time since 2017, when millions put themselves in motion to try to block the Trump Administration’s initiatives, and certainly for the first time since 2008, when the Obama campaign built a grassroots organizing machine of more than two million volunteers, Democratic activists are astir. A muscle is being (re)built in real time.
Micah Sifry is one of the most astute and eloquent commentators on today's political scene (and a friend). I wish he wasn't using the odious Substack platform for his work, but that's an issue for another day.
It's official - Joe Biden is not running for re-election. Joe weighs in on his historic Oval Office address - and why it should remind all of us why we elected him in the first place. And now that the torch has been passed - what does Joe make of the enthusiasm so far? How can the Harris campaign capitalize on their momentum - and what do they need in a VP pick? Plus - what Joe's seeing in the data that should have Trump and MAGA very worried about Project 2025. And speaking of VP picks, is JD Vance ok?
Joe Trippi has been involved in Democratic politics for decades. (I met him when he was running the Howard Dean presidential campaign in, yikes, 1984, and he is a friend.) He is a partisan, but is a realist, too. His podcast is called "That Trippi Show" and is always worth a listen. This is the most recent one, and came in the wake of Biden's withdrawal and the ascendance of Harris as the all-but-certain nominee.
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Damien Gayle
Richard A. Webster
Micah L. Sifry
