- Neo-fascist Charlie Kirk saying Republicans definitely aren't fascists(!!!) while on a Fox News panel with…Kurt Schlichter and Stephen Miller.
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“Sleepy Joe” who??? We’re not sure who at the White House switched President Biden’s decaf for espresso these past few weeks, but he’s been uncharacteristically *on it*. He’s returned to the campaign trail this week on the heels of legislative successes and a small bump in his poll numbers.
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Biden is set to make stops in Milwaukee and Pittsburgh on Labor Day to celebrate “the dignity of American Workers.” He will attend Pittsburgh’s annual Labor Day parade, as he did in 2015 and 2018 as rumors churned that he would run for president. These stops will also kick off his fall campaign ahead of the midterm elections. Spending Labor Day in two historic union towns is particularly important for Biden, who has vowed to be the “most pro-union president in the history of the United States.”
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Ahead of the November midterm elections, Biden will deliver a prime-time speech this Thursday regarding “the continued battle for the soul of the nation” and show how the president sees the central argument of his 2020 candidacy remains as relevant as ever. He will also highlight the progress his administration has made, the rights and freedoms at risk, and who are fighting for those rights (Democrats, for the most part). The speech will be held at the famed Independence Hall in Philadelphia.
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In more Joe Biden-themed news out of Pennsylvania, the president traveled to Wilkes-Barre, PA today where he discussed police funding, his efforts at crime prevention, and the bipartisan bill to combat gun violence which he signed into law in June, the first such measure in nearly three decades. The president’s rhetoric on policing is largely unchanged from years past, telling a crowd there today, “When it comes to public safety in this nation, the answer is not defund the police. It’s fund the police.” (It’s worth noting here that almost nowhere in the U.S. have police departments actually been defunded, and in many major cities across the country, police budgets have never been higher.)
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Off the campaign trail, there have been some interesting developments within the administration as well.
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The Biden Administration advised the Supreme Court yesterday not to take up a case about citizenship rights for American Samoa, Fitisemanu vs. U.S., even though advocates say it would give justices a chance to correct racist, imperialist precedent that some residents of U.S. territories are not entitled to full constitutional protections, also known as the “Insular Cases.” The reason for the administration’s referral appears to be based on the order of operations in which Congress makes determinations about birthright citizenship, not the Supreme Court.
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The Biden administration announced that students who attended the now-defunct Westwood College, a private, for-profit institution that closed in 2016, will receive full loan discharges because the college lied about the value of its credentials for attendees and graduate employment rates. It’s the latest action in an effort to help students defrauded by predatory for-profit colleges, many of whom were low-income and/or people of color. It has been an expressed goal of the administration to narrow the racial wealth gap, which last week’s announcement of up to $10,000 in federal student loan forgiveness—and $20,000 in forgiveness for Pell Grant recipients—will modestly advance. But as many advocacy groups have pointed out, generations of Black and Hispanic Americans were barred from receiving Pell Grants as part of the “war on drugs” which president Biden championed as a senator and resulted in an explosion in the incarceration of Black and Latino men in particular.
Despite improving forecasts for Democrats this midterm season (possibly a light thwapping rather than a full slaughter), it’s clear that the months ahead will nonetheless be an uphill battle, and Biden knows that. Here’s hoping he uses the wind currently at his back to help Dems keep delivering for the American people.
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Depressed by the prospect of turning 40 and losing his youthful optimism about politics, Lovett chases Pundit into Wonderland in an extremely experimental episode of Lovett or Leave It. Joined by many friends, Lovett gets lost in wonderland, survives the Unsurrection tea party and in the end Jon Favreau and Tommy Vietor give Lovett the advice he needs to survive until 2024.
Listen to this special episode and more Lovett or Leave It on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.
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As of today, more than 150,000 people were without access to safe drinking water in Jackson, MS. Jackson, the state capital and its largest city, has had a water supply in crisis for years, crippled by aging and inadequate infrastructure and lack of public resources to fix it. Residents have long contended with disruptions in service and frequent boil-water notices because of cloudiness and impurities found in water samples. But the situation deteriorated this week when the city’s largest water treatment plant began failing. “Until it is fixed, it means we do not have reliable running water at scale,” Gov. Tate Reeves (R-MS) said during an emergency briefing last night. “It means the city cannot produce enough water to fight fires, to reliably flush toilets, and to meet other critical needs.” This has been exacerbated by days of torrential rain raising the threat of flooding in Jackson via the engorged Pearl River. The water level rose high enough to affect water treatment operations. But the city’s water system was at a breaking point before the flooding began. Emergency management officials began mobilizing a response strategy, including gathering thousands of bottles of water to distribute at the city’s fire stations, with the government encouraging residents of greater means to buy their own water. A number of state legislators urged Reeves to call a special legislative session with the express purpose of fixing Jackson’s water system. Republicans love to urge people “not to politicize” tragedies when they are clearly at fault, but this level of devastation in Jackson is a direct result of the pure conservative economic ideology that governs Mississippi. When businesses and people of means pay nothing or almost nothing in taxes, public programs and utilities cannot function, and the consequences are dire.
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Elon Musk has filed a motion to amend his lawsuit against Twitter following new allegations of security liabilities published by a whistleblower last week, which he believes will strengthen his case to back out of the deal to buy the company. Just admit you did a stock pump-and-dump scheme already, Elon!
Chinese Communist Party officials have announced the starting date of their next party Congress, October 16th, at which point they are expected to reelect President Xi Jinping as leader for another five years.
The violent deforestation of the Amazon rainforest is one of the world’s greatest environmental crime stories, and Brazil is letting people get away with it.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shebaz Sharif pleaded for aid today as the country is rocked by “apocalyptic” flooding, and particularly singled out developed nations, which bear chief responsibility for climate change, for help.
A new Emerson College poll shows Georgia Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker edging out incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), which is not great! Have these voters heard Herschel Walker speak??
Arizona Senate GOP candidate Blake Masters suggested in a tweet that the Federal Reserve is hurting the economy because it has diversified its staff.
At least four people were killed in severe storms yesterday spanning from the Southern Plains to the Great Lakes.
Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the former Soviet Union who took down the Iron Curtain, died today at 91.
Disgraced former president Trump has hired Chris Kise, the former solicitor general of Florida who served on Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R-FL) transition team, to represent him in the criminal investigation he faces related to mishandling classified documents.
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Disgraced former president Trump took to Truth Social once again today and had a meltdown even more batshit than usual. He shared multiple posts from followers that made completely unfounded claims about the FBI, the January 6 insurrection, and Covid vaccines. He boosted old QAnon conspiracy theory posts by sharing them with his followers on the site. Another post said that the “FBI colluded with Antifa” to carry out January 6 (lol). Relatedly: a former Proud Boy who stormed the Capitol was sentenced to 55 months in federal prison yesterday, and still believes Trump won the election. Sure sounds like Antifa to me. But one of the weirdest posts Trump shared today included an image of a fake tweet ascribed to his daughter Ivanka Trump criticizing the Biden administration and “useless” vaccines . All of those reposts have since been deleted, but he kept up many others attacking president Biden’s domestic policies, the media, and one meme depicting Attorney General Merrick Garland wearing a Communist hammer and sickle pin. Trump has boosted or reposted QAnon conspiracy theories on Truth Social more than 65 times just since April of this year. The man is not busy.
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Crooked x Cariuma: Double the brands, double the impact.
A limited-edition collab with our favorite shoe brand is here.
You know we’re all about voting: doing it, registering people to do it, and of course giving a portion of the proceeds from the Crooked Store to VoteRiders to help inform citizens of their state’s voter ID requirements and secure them the documents they may need to vote.
Why not add wearing shoes that support voting to that list?
Just in time for canvassing season, we’re excited to announce that Crooked and Cariuma have collaborated to launch our own co-branded OCA low-tops, in two designs that we think you’ll really love.
Choose from a clean white sneaker with the words “No Steps Back,” or our patented “I voted” sticker print. They’re both perfect for peaceful protests, voter registration drives, and/or grabbing bagels (heroes have to eat, too).
These shoes don’t just support VoteRiders (and your arches). Like all Cariuma shoes, they’re ethically and sustainably made from organic cotton canvas, natural rubber, cork, and recycled plastics, and your pair plants two trees in the Brazilian rainforest through Cariuma’s in-house Ecological Restoration program.
Be sure to snag your pair now before they sell out!
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