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September 18, 2024
Rate Cut Would Cap Winning Streak for Biden and Harris
(Political Wire) New York Times: “Recent weeks have brought a run of good data on consumer prices and interest rates for the administration. The price of gasoline has fallen below $3 a gallon in much of the South and Midwest and is nearing a three-year low nationally. Spiking grocery prices have slowed to a crawl. Mortgage rates are down more than a percentage point from their recent peak. The Census Bureau reported last week that the typical household income rose faster than prices last year for the first time since the pandemic. The overall inflation rate has returned to near historically normal levels, and the Fed is poised to begin cutting interest rates from a two-decade high.”
Go to discussionHarris enthusiasm driving a surge in young Latino registration
(The Hill) Voter registration among young Hispanics jumped over the past two months, a change that the president and CEO of Voto Latino says is mostly driven by voter enthusiasm for Vice President Harris. María Teresa Kumar told The Hill that Harris is tapping into a cultural phenomenon with the under-40 crowd. "It was nuts. So we were registering roughly 60 to 100 voters a day on Friday. On Monday, it jumped to 3,000. By [the next] Friday, it was 8,000. It was super exciting. Night and day."
Go to discussionGOP NC Gov. candidate Mark Robinson tells women to "get this under control" while pointing to groin
(The Advocate) The Republican candidate for governor in North Carolina has gone viral yet again for his abhorrent comments — this time for remarks he made during a January 2022 appearance at Hilltop Baptist Church in Thomasville, N.C., in a video shared by Huffpost. Robinson mocked women's empowerment as well as educational programs that provide sex and contraception information. “Why don’t you use some of that building up of your mind and building up of empowerment to move down here, to this region down here,” he said, gesturing to his crotch. “Get this under control.”
Go to discussionPolice ARE Investigating Trump's Arlington Cemetery Fiasco
(TPM) Despite the Army declaring the “case closed,” a police investigation is underway into the Arlington National Cemetery fracas involving a cemetery staffer and two Trump campaign staffers, ABC News reports. The police department at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, where the cemetery staffer filed a report, is apparently conducting its own investigation that is technically outside of the Army chain of command.
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JD Vance defends pet-eating remarks: 'The media has a responsibility to fact-check'
(The Guardian) JD Vance defended his comments about Haitian immigrants eating pets during a Tuesday rally, saying that “the media has a responsibility to fact-check” stories – not him. The rally in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, came two days after the Ohio senator told CNN host Dana Bash it was OK “to create stories” to draw attention to issues his constituents care about, regarding inflammatory and unfounded claims that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, had eaten residents’ pets.
Go to discussion"It's shocking": Experts ring the alarm on a "kind of dissonance" following thwarted attack on Trump
(Salon) Even though the two would-be assassins were reportedly both former supporters of Donald Trump whose subsequent politics can be best described as murky, President Trump and his supporters are now blaming the Republican nominee's political opponents for the recent assassination attempts against him. Trump accused both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, of taking "politics in our Country to a whole new level of Hatred." By contrast, experts who spoke to Salon saw an ominous precedent in Trump's words — namely, an attempt to intimidate political dissenters by linking them to violence against state leaders.
Go to discussionVance warns calling a candidate a 'fascist' can lead to violence but doesn't mention that's what Trump calls Harris
(CNN) Vance said: “Look, we can disagree with one another, we can debate one another, but we cannot tell the American people that one candidate is a fascist and if he’s elected it is going to be the end of American democracy.” What Vance didn’t mention was that Trump has repeatedly told the American people that his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, is a fascist whose election would mean the end of the country itself. In fact, Trump called Harris a fascist at least twice last week alone.
Go to discussionTrump can't admit he lost the debate, so GOP calls for an investigation
(Daily Kos) Congressional Republicans, always eager to show that they put pleasing Donald Trump far ahead of doing anything productive for their constituents, are calling for an investigation into the debate between Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. Trump lost that debate badly. That loss is reflected in post-debate polls where Harris has seen a boost from a performance in which she was reassuringly calm while baiting Trump into dozens of unforced errors—including his baseless claims about immigrants eating pets.
Go to discussionKremlin slams Meta ban on Russian state media as 'unacceptable'
(AFP) Meta said it is banning Russian state media outlets from its apps around the world, prompting an angry reaction from the Kremlin on Tuesday. The ban comes after the United States accused RT and employees of the state-run outlet of funneling $10 million through shell entities to covertly fund influence campaigns on social media channels including TikTok, Instagram, X, and YouTube, according to an unsealed indictment.
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