Nancy Pelosi has been notably tepid on green legislation – so are the Democrats serious about fighting climate change?
With hundreds of thousands of Americans forced to evacuate their homes in the western US, Donald Trump hasn’t said a word about the wildfires blazing across multiple states in nearly three weeks.
Related: Oregon fires force hundreds of thousands to flee as deaths rise
Continue reading...The president has shown a lifelong penchant for inflaming racist hatreds and fears – expect much more of this before November
Six months into the coronavirus pandemic, Donald Trump tweeted a rare statement of condolences, as the confirmed death toll in the US climbed past 183,000.
Related: Biden to accuse Trump of stoking violence in US after Portland clashes
Continue reading...In Forest county, Wisconsin – which backed Obama before Trump – voters voice doubts about both major candidates
Joe Biden has blown his chance to win over Kristen, to be found selling home-baked cakes and pies at a farmer’s market in Forest county, northern Wisconsin.
The 46-year-old was once a fan of Barack Obama, voting for him twice before switching her allegiance to Donald Trump four years ago. Kristen, who doesn’t want her last name used, was minded to back Trump again in November but was holding off to see who Biden chose as his vice-presidential running mate.
Continue reading...The Democratic and Republican national conventions offered two radically different diagnoses of the problems confronting America
One version told of a president who is callous and cruel. “My dad was a healthy 65-year-old,” said Kristin Urquiza, whose father voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and died from Covid-19 in June. “His only pre-existing condition was trusting Donald Trump – and for that he paid with his life.”
The other spoke of a president blessed with compassion. Kayleigh McEnany recalled taking a phone call as she recovered from a preventative mastectomy. “It was President Trump, calling to check on me,” she said. “I was blown away. Here was the leader of the free world caring about me.”
Continue reading...Film-maker says enthusiasm for president in swing states is ‘off the charts’ and urges everyone to commit to getting 100 people to vote
The documentary film-maker Michael Moore has warned that Donald Trump appears to have such momentum in some battleground states that liberals risk a repeat of 2016 when so many wrote off Trump only to see him grab the White House.
“Sorry to have to provide the reality check again,” he said.
Continue reading...The Movement for a People’s Party believes Democrats and Republicans will always choose profits over people, and 12,000 have signed up to hear more
Joe Biden’s acceptance speech at the virtual Democratic national convention made one reference to “middle class” and one to “working families”. It never mentioned the word “poverty”.
Related: Biden feared 'ideological jihad' from Sanders after primary win
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Here’s a rundown of Sunday’s events. We’ll be back tomorrow for all Monday’s news.
More a campaign-style press announcement than traditional news conference, Trump abruptly ends the proceedings after taking only three questions, including one from One America News Network.
The US president insisted today’s announcement, which comes one day after he accused “the deep state, or whoever, over at” the FDA of deliberately slowing coronavirus vaccine and therapy development, “has nothing to do with politics” despite its conspicuous timing on the eve of the Republican national convention.
Continue reading...Presidential frontrunner quotes Irish wordsmith in his nomination acceptance speech
Joe Biden is not the first nor is he likely to be the last politician to summon political spirits with poetry, but choosing verse from The Cure at Troy, Seamus Heaney’s free translation of Sophocles’ Philoctetes, for his Democratic party nomination acceptance speech on Thursday had scholars of the poet’s work and the political class eating out of his hand.
Biden pulled out Heaney’s lines close to the end of an address that also won over conservative pundits and Fox News anchors – “an enormously effective speech”, said Chris Wallace – and left Donald Trump, for once, without response on Twitter. Biden quoted Heaney saying: “History says, Don’t hope / On this side of the grave. / But then, once in a lifetime / The longed-for tidal wave / Of justice can rise up / And hope and history rhyme.”
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New York governor Andrew Cuomo said the state will give voters a chance to correct missing signatures and other clerical errors so their absentee ballots can be counted in anticipation of a wave of mail-in voting for the November election.
Election officials are expecting an even bigger flood of mail-in votes in November than for the June primary, after which results were delayed for six weeks.
Cuomo said late Friday he’d sign yet temporarily tweak legislation that calls for notifying voters about such problems and provides for fixing them.
Under the version that passed the Legislature last month, the voter would have seven business days to file a form to fix the problem after a notice was mailed, in many situations.
The Associated Press has more from Portland, Oregon, where protesters against police brutality and structural racism clashed again with federal agents and law enforcement officers overnight. Such confrontations were the subject of a Trump tweet this morning, in which the president once again expressed his willingness to send in the national guard:
About 200 people marched to a police precinct station on yet another night of violence for Oregon’s largest city.
Demonstrators hurled bottles and rocks at officers and pointed lasers at them, damaging police cars and causing minor injuries for several officers, Portland police said.
Continue reading...Republican pundits accept success of Biden’s convention address as Trump’s bid to portray Democratic rival as radical leftist falls flat
Under pressure on the last day of the Democratic convention, Joe Biden “hit a home run” with an “enormously effective” speech that blew “a big hole” in Donald Trump’s efforts to paint him as a mentally faltering captive of his party’s left wing.
And that was to hear Fox News hosts Dana Perino and Chris Wallace tell it.
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Senator Tom Carper explained his cursing during the hearing with Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, which was caught on a hot mic and widely shared on Twitter.
“Those who know me know that there are few things that get me more fired up than protecting the Postal Service!” Carper said in a tweet.
Those who know me know that there are few things that get me more fired up than protecting the Postal Service!#DontMessWithUSPS
2020 mood pic.twitter.com/lKnf23W0jV
Brief Kanye update: Kanye West has not qualified to appear on the ballot in the swing state of Ohio, according to Ohio secretary of state Frank LaRose.
Kanye does not make the ballot in Ohio, according to Secretary LaRose pic.twitter.com/HWp3ORKkJM
Continue reading...A unique Democratic national convention gave countless memorable moments, from Kamala Harris's historic nomination as vice-president, to Michelle Obama's harsh words for Donald Trump. Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and former president Barack Obama echoed her words by giving scathing reviews of the Trump administration. Others who showed their support for Harris and Joe Biden's nomination included healthcare activist Ady Barkan, former US congresswoman and shooting survivor Gabby Giffords, comedian Sarah Cooper, actor Julia Louis-Dreyfus and singer Billie Eilish
Continue reading...Brayden Harrington, 13, spoke about how he met Joe Biden, who stuttered himself as a boy, and how the Democratic presidential nominee gave him confidence. 'He told me we were members of the same club: we stutter. It was really amazing to hear that someone like me became vice president,' Brayden said.
In the final night of the Democratic national convention, Biden outlined his plans to bring relief and solace to a country battered by the coronavirus pandemic as he accepted the nomination to challenge Donald Trump in the November election
Continue reading...Obama campaign veterans, Hillary Clinton, and Fox News personalities hail former vice-president’s convention appearance
Democrats have largely praised Joe Biden’s speech formally accepting the party nomination as a resounding success, while Republicans have begrudgingly conceded it went well.
Biden’s speech on Thursday capped off the Democratic national convention and was largely optimistic, laying out his vision for tackling several crises facing the country.
Continue reading...Analysis: The Democratic presidential nominee’s remarks resonated with decency, gravity and passion – if not many specifics
Joe Biden stood in a school gym in Iowa fumbling for a message, generating little electricity and looking his age. His rivals were drawing bigger crowds and beat him into fourth place in the caucuses. Political pundits declared him over the hill.
That was February. Now, in August, Biden resembles an ageing heavyweight boxer who got himself in shape, climbed back into the ring, and landed a knockout punch. His closing performance at the Democratic convention on Thursday night produced the finest speech of his career, a comeback for the ages more presidential than the current US president.
Continue reading...Joe Biden has vowed to unite America and lead the country to overcome “this season of darkness”, as he accepted the Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday evening, a long-sought moment that comes more than 30 years after he first ran for president
Biden will formally accept the Democratic nomination for president on the final night of the virtual convention
Continue reading...Harris spoke about structural racism, injustice in healthcare and being a ‘proud black woman’ – fresh words for the presidential stage
The first note that Kamala Harris sounded in her first speech as the Democrats’ official vice-presidential nominee was not about Donald Trump, or Joe Biden, or the crossroads to which the country has arrived.
Instead Harris began her acceptance speech at the party’s national convention Wednesday by looking backwards, to the black women activists who fought historically for the right to vote and then for “a seat at the table”.
Continue reading...Kamala Harris officially accepted her vice-presidential nomination on the third day of the Democratic national convention. Her husband, Douglas Emhoff, joined her on stage alongside Joe Biden and his wife, Jill. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Gabrielle Giffords were among the many figures who condemned Donald Trump's presidency and pledged their support for the Biden-Harris ticket
Former US congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords provided the most emotional moment of the third night of the Democratic national convention.
Giffords, who sustained brain damage after she was shot at an event with constituents in 2011, spoke during a segment on gun control. She said: 'Today, I struggle with speech but I have not lost my voice. America needs all of us to speak out, even when you have to fight to find the words.'
A spokesperson for Giffords said she spent 'countless hours' practising the speech, the longest she has delivered since the shooting
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