A compendium of solid reporting, commentary, and direct-from-the-source information surrounding the pivotal 2024 elections in the United States. You won't find horse race coverage here, or the standard "both sides" (even when one is lying) BS that passes so often for political journalism. What you will find are links – with brief quotes from the coverage and short commentary from me – to work that I believe advances the conversation we should be having about America's, and the world's, future. Remember: Everything is at stake this year. (Unfortunately, some of the work I point to is behind paywalls.)
Chicago I
The video above is two speeches, not one – Michelle Obama followed by Barak Obama. Each is remarkable, and you should listen to both.
On Monday night, DNC delegates voted, without any serious debate, for a platform that was hashed out before most of them had even arrived in Chicago, that doesn’t address any of the protesters’ concerns. Such a debate might spoil the reality show of preapproved TV speechifying, which has become the only function of what used to be conventions. That’s not democracy. What is democracy is what 6,000 angry citizens did here Monday afternoon: exercising their First Amendment rights to speak freely, to assemble, and to air their grievances with a government that isn’t listening.
This commentary is a dissenting view from the Democratic convention. It's important to understand clearly what protesters are saying, and Bunch gets it directly from them.
When might this “crash into the wall of reality” happen and the Brittleness Bubble pop? Politicians are working extremely hard to keep their jobs by delaying this day of reckoning, artificially limiting insurance rate rises and offering state-run insurance plans of last resort. This approach — the equivalent of giving a blood transfusion to the injured, without stopping the bleeding — does not fix the underlying problem and all but guarantees that the pain of the eventual national reckoning will be much larger. Insurance is designed to transfer risk, but risk is rising everywhere.
This is an extraordinary piece of work. It describes in practical terms the scary-to-existential crisis we face with climate change, with clarity and depth. Our society faces profound choices, to put it mildly. One of those choices is the one we make in November. Trump has made it clear – and so has his party – that doing something to prevent the worst effects of climate change is not on the agenda; in fact, the Republican agenda is to expand the power of the fossil fuel industry (among others) that works and spends hard every day to make things worse. The Democrats could, and we need them to, do much better. But they made a start with the first real legislation that could give us some of the tools to slow and eventually stop our reckless race toward catastrophe.
Trump judges running amok
Reuters headline: "US judge strikes down Biden administration ban on worker 'noncompete' agreements"
A federal judge in Texas on Tuesday barred a U.S. Federal Trade Commission rule from taking effect that would ban agreements commonly signed by workers not to join their employers' rivals or launch competing businesses. U.S. District Judge Ada Brown in Dallas said the FTC, which enforces federal antitrust laws, does not have the authority to ban practices it deems unfair methods of competition by adopting broad rules.
This Reuters report is a reminder that Trump's right-wing judicial appointments hold enormous power, and that another term would cement that power for decades to come even if democracy somehow survived along the way. In this case, it's arguable that the judge is right, that the FTC really did go too far. But a Biden-appointed judge ruled the other way, and the right-wing, business-can-do-anything supermajority on the Supreme Court will surely side with Big Business against workers. As the saying goes, elections have consequences.
[L]ook at what reporters asked about when they did get access to Harris: her plans to debate Trump, and what she thought of Trump’s criticisms of herself or Tim Walz. Not a word about taxes or inflation or competing with China or climate change or abortion.
This is a classic example of a must-read weekly blog post from Doug Muder. He's connected a lot of dots to make some of the best sense yet of Big Journalism's selfish motivations and how they don't coincide with what the Harris campaign is trying to do. Trump gets an essentially free ride from the press, which loves his so-called "availability" – characterized by his PR-stunt "press conferences" that contain almost nothing but lies that journalists chalk up to there-he-goes-again.
Where I'm watching the convention
I've chosen C-Span for my convention viewing. No commercials, no annoying pundits – just what's going on inside the convention hall.
Voting is just part of democracy, but it's the essential place to start. Make sure you're registered. Doublecheck in the fall, well before Election Day, because in some states Republican officials are removing people, mostly those who tend to vote for Democrats, from voting rolls.
Please send your suggestions
I spend a lot of time looking for essential coverage, and hope you'll help me by letting me know about the good stuff you find. Let me know.
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Jeff Masters
The Weekly Sift
