A compendium of the best reporting and commentary surrounding 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. What you will find are links, with brief commentary, 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.)
Cheney’s daughter, former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, first revealed earlier in the day that her father would be voting for the Democratic ticket during remarks at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin, Texas. The former Republican congresswoman said Wednesday that she would be voting for Harris, citing “the danger that Donald Trump poses.” In her remarks Friday, Cheney unleashed a torrent of criticism against the Republican presidential ticket, calling Trump “a depraved human being” and labeling him and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, “misogynistic pigs.”
Former Vice President Cheney and his daughter are perhaps the highest-profile Republicans to denounce Trump and support Harris this year. It's been widely reported that countless other Republican former holders of high office are planning their votes the same way but lack the courage to say so publicly. Such is Trump's hold on his violence-prone cult, and his vow of vengeance for those who cross him, that people who could make a real difference are too timid to do it. Which raises an obvious question: Where is George W. Bush hiding?
One of the most sweeping applications of the Supreme Court’s landmark case clipping the executive branch’s power took direct aim at Joe Biden’s pro-labor legacy. The ruling could foreshadow more to come, union leaders say.
The most pro-labor administration since Franklin D. Roosevelt was president has done an enormous amount to help workers organize to defend their rights and counter corporate power. But recent decisions by the Supreme Court have been an invitation for appeals courts (and some judges who can be relied on to take extremist stances) to give big business whatever it wants. This article is about one right-wing appeals court's ruling in a case about restaurant tips – unsurprisingly, it came down on the industry's side – but it is a harbinger of much more to come.
Expect this “voter fraud” Big Lie 2.0 to burst onto the scene over the next few weeks with much Sturm und Drang—and pontificating Republicans on Sunday shows trying to act like Very Serious People as they wring their hands about noncitizens voting—as the media will almost certainly give Trump and the GOP another pass on this monstrous lie when they threaten to shut down our government if they don’t get their anti–voter fraud rider in the budget legislation.
What the Republicans are doing here – under orders from Trump – is vile. It also may work. One reason, as Hartmann explains in this commentary, is that they've told the "rampant voter fraud" lie for so long that it's gained more currency than it remotely deserves. Now, using the even bigger lie that non-citizens are voting in droves, the House Republicans are planning to hold the economy hostage. Let's hope that our news media act responsibly this time and tell the American people that this is a con game of the worst kind.
It’s hard to gloat over the decline of these dinosaurs of American media, when a free press and a well-informed electorate are both crucial to democracy. The alternatives to the major news outlets simply don’t reach enough readers and listeners, though the non-profit investigative outfit ProPublica and progressive magazines such as the New Republic and Mother Jones, are doing a lot of the best reporting and commentary.
I don't want to belabor this issue – and I won't post any more of these in the near future. But I'm doing it today to show that it's becoming almost conventional wisdom that Big Journalism is, as Solnit writes in the Guardian, "failing America" – again. I also have to acknowledge that the people who own and run America's biggest newsrooms don't care at all about these criticisms. And even if our major news organizations decided today to change their ways, let's face the dismal reality that it's probably too late to make even a tiny difference. They should give it a try anyway, because it's never too late to do the right thing.
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.
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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.
Veronica Stracqualursi, Piper Hudspeth Blackburn
Claire Heddles
Thom Hartmann
Rebecca Solnit
