It's not just Trump; it's our obsession with personalities

Sam Smith – Most of the important and positive national legislation of the past century was the product of the Democratic Party. In part because politics has become, in the eyes of voters and reporters, the action of individuals rather than institutions. Donald Trump has been a prime beneficiary of this change even though he can’t even run for president in the next election and despite the fact that he has  been charged with an unprecedented number of serious offenses.

Television is a major participant in this shift from policies to personalities and as  result, for example, we find serious matters such as the cost of food and driving getting only a fraction of the attention they deserve. And decades of great liberal legislation is treated with near total indifference.

It’s time to revive the Democratic Party and its record as well as targeting not just Trump but the Republican Party that constantly bows to leaders like him.  Our problem is not just individuals but whole organizations and movements.

Workers

Robert Reich - This month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the labor participation rate — the percentage of people of working age who are working or actively looking for work — is now down to 61.5 percent. That’s 0.6 percentage points lower than it was at the first of the year.  In other words, the U.S. economy has lost 1 million workers since January.

Politics

Gavin Newsom - $100,000,000.  That is the amount of money Elon Musk plans to spend in order to help Republicans win in the midterm elections this November. That includes Michigan - where control of the House and Senate runs through Michigan — with what will be some of the closest and most expensive campaigns in the country.

Bloomberg - Michigan’s Senate primary on Aug. 4 is shaping up as the biggest test yet of whether the Democrats’ progressive wing can score a major victory in a presidential battleground heading into 2028, or whether longstanding weakness with Black voters will undercut its national ambitions. The contest pits Representative Haley Stevens, a moderate backed by much of the party establishment, against progressive Abdul El-Sayed, a former Detroit-area health official endorsed by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. A swing state won twice by Donald Trump but carried by Joe Biden in 2020, Michigan is a must-win for Democrats hoping to retake the Senate in November

Return of McCarthyism

The Guardian - There are many parallels between the first McCarthy era, roughly 1946 to 1956, and Trump’s campaign of political repression, his own updated McCarthyism.

Both regimes crafted a monster of quasi-facts and innuendo and fed it with fear: an enemy within, well-organized and financed, secretive and violent, allied with evil foreigners and bent on overthrowing capitalism, democracy and Christian morality. Both used flagrantly unconstitutional means to cleanse the nation of the spectral menace.

Each time, federal employees were targeted first. President Harry S Truman’s Federal Loyalty Program screened 5 million workers for communist affiliation; 2,700 lost their jobs, 12,000 resigned. Schools, unions and Hollywood fell in line; blacklists outlasted their makers. The Trump administration purged the federal agencies of his equivalent of the cold war communist, the “woke”. Applicants for civil service jobs were asked to identify their favorite administration policies and explain how they would advance them if hired. The federal employees’ union correctly called this request a “loyalty question”.

Then as now, law firms quailed, media companies capitulated, universities collaborated. Artists and performers – Zero Mostel, Jimmy Kimmel – were exiled from film and television. In the 1940s and 50s, the attorney general compiled lists of supposedly subversive organizations, which, along with communists and socialists, included groups from the National Negro League to the Nature Friends of America. Trump’s justice department is investigating progressive non-profits, including ActBlue, a chief funding source for Democratic candidates, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Open Society Foundations, funded by George Soros, best known for supporting democracy movements in the former Soviet Union.

Climate change

Climate change and its effects are possibly the most important story of our time

The Guardian - Global heating made hot, dry and windy weather at least 20 times more likely in Spain and twice as likely in France, experts from the World Weather Attribution (WWA) consortium calculated. The finding is the latest to pin the blame for the continent’s sweltering and deadly summer firmly on the heating caused by the burning of oil, gas and coal.

The intense heatwave at the end of June, which is estimated to have killed 20,000 people, could not have happened without the extra heat trapped by carbon pollution, a previous WWA study showed. Another found that the climate crisis-driven heat was “sucking soils dry” as extreme drought spread across Europe…

This year’s wildfires in western Europe have been made worse by a wet winter and spring, which boosted the growth of vegetation, which then dried out and provided fuel for the fires – so-called whiplash conditions. Global heating is making winters wetter and summers drier and hotter in Europe.

Dr Clair Barnes, a research associate at Imperial College London and part of the WWA study team, said: “We’ve seen repeatedly how climate change increases hot, dry, flammable conditions that are extremely conducive to wildfires.

“What’s unique about [the July fires in Spain and France] is that it’s still early in the season – and with another heatwave looming, these findings are extremely scary. What we’re seeing is a clear sign of the escalating impacts of [human-caused] warming.”….

The wildfires have released huge plumes of toxic smoke. Dr Augustin Colette, at the French National Institute for Industrial Environment and Risks, said: “The smoke increased particulate [pollution] peak levels up to 20 times above what is considered ‘fair air quality’, and extremely poor air quality was felt up to 400 km away from the fires.” About 1.5 million people a year are estimated to have their lives shortened by wildfire smoke.

….The UN’s climate chief, Simon Stiell, said: “These European megafires show how fast climate-driven extreme heat and dry landscapes can turn wildfires into devastating national disasters. “Humanity continuing to burn colossal amounts of coal, oil and gas is making these conditions more dangerous, and these megafires more deadly and destructive,” he said. “But the solutions are equally clear: all countries must move faster from fossil fuels to renewables and protect people from worsening climate impacts, from wildfires, to megastorms and floods, to droughts hitting food production.”

Blanche appears to given up sme Epstein material

Alternet  - President Donald Trump’s interim AG Todd Blanche appears to have given up the ghost on hiding information that could potentially out cohorts of convicted Jeffrey Epstein…. After months of stalling by the Trump administration and ignoring the letter of a new law demanding the release of the sex-trafficker’s files, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan demanded insight on Trump’s longtime friendship. Sullivan sided with former MS NOW show host Phang in her lawsuit demanding the Trump administration adhere to the Epstein Transparency Act.

….But instead, Blanche handed over the unredacted information to Sullivan to review, possibly for release to the public….

Trump's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein spans decades, with the two meeting in the 1980s at Mar-a-Lago and socializing frequently in New York and Palm Beach. Multiple women have described witnessing Trump and Epstein together at parties and events during the 1990s.  After Epstein's 2008 conviction, Trump publicly distanced himself, claiming he barely knew him.

Artificial intelligence booms in China

The Guardian - China is encouraging the deployment of AI at a scale unseen in the west. The technology is being rolled out at a staggering rate in an increasingly precarious labour market, and the Wuhan episode helped to highlight the social tensions it is causing.

Gig workers … are fearful about the impact of AI on their livelihoods, while recent incidents of white-collar workers being replaced by AI have also sparked a debate over whether workers should embrace the technology – or try to compete with it.

Addressing Shanghai’s World AI Conference in July, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, said that AI should be “an important driver for shared prosperity and common security”.

But that goal is being pursued amid an increasingly fragile labour market. As well as suffering from high levels of unemployment, China has seen tens of millions of workers drop out of formal employment into the gig economy. According to one thinktank, the number of people in flexible employment will rise to 320 million this year, up from 160 million in 2019. That is about 44% of China’s workforce.

Taxi drivers are one part of this huge cohort. Across the country, as previously heavyweight industries such as real estate and education have floundered, workers have turned to ride-hailing apps to make ends meet. But now the rollout of robotaxis, one of the most popular applications of AI that is already in use in China, is threatening their livelihoods.

 

The hazard of finding an old book in the house you just bought

Independent - A book has been returned to an Australian public library an estimated 150 years late after being found in a sealed fireplace during recent home renovations.

Antiquities of Athens, published in 1858, was returned to a library in the seaside town of Kiama last week after a local man discovered the text inside a tea crate, bricked into a disused fireplace.

“We’ve never had anything that old come back to us,” Kiama Library manager Michelle Hudson said.

“I follow lots of libraries on social media, and often you’ll get things that are maybe 30 or 40 years old when they’re cleaning out estates and stuff like that,” she added.

The late return fine would be about AU$28,000 (£14,600), allowing for inflation, Hudson said. That was calculated on the British three pence-a-week overdue fee that was printed on the inside cover of the book, along with a list of rules that applied when the library opened in 1872.

Polls

Feedly - Trump’s overall approval rating slumps to 34%, according to new CNN poll, as midterms testing Republican power loom. Three-quarters of Americans believe Donald Trump is not paying enough attention to the country’s most important problems, and two-thirds think he places himself above the needs of the US, according to a new poll. The CNN survey, conducted by market research company SSRS, comes less than 100 days before November’s midterm elections in which the president’s Republican party is widely expected to lose control of one or both chambers of Congress. 

This new Quinnipiac poll is one of the worst yet for Trump: approval at 32 percent, and support for Iran policy (28), foreign policy (34), handling of economy (34), and handling of immigration (40) at abysmal lows. He’s 17 points underwater on immigration. Also—57 percent of Democrats say they’re more motivated to vote than usual; corresponding number for Republicans, 39 percent.

The Hill - It’s no secret that both political parties are unpopular.  This is particularly true of Gen Z, which polls suggest feels like it is set to inherit a political system riddled with partisan hostility and congressional gridlock.

A report from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University found that 62 percent of adults aged 18-29 said that the design and structure of our nation’s government needs significant changes, no matter which party is elected. Additionally, 58 percent said the party they identify with needs to dramatically change.

The study’s conclusions pointed out that older generations have longer histories with politics (duh) and have lived through a mix of both steady and unstable leadership. They have been able to ground themselves in the political framework produced by prominent leaders, like former Presidents Reagan and Obama, the study cites. 

Gen Z, in contrast, grew up or continues to grow up through volatility with fewer frames of political reference, which makes it harder to feel anchored by today’s politicians and system overall.

At the same time, Gen Z is less likely to describe the opposing political party as “evil” or “less than human.” While 39 percent of Gen Z respondents said the opposing political party is “evil” or “less than human,” 44 percent of millennials aged 30-44 and 61 percent of baby boomers who are 65 years or older characterized their opposing political party negatively. 

But if Gen Z is less likely to see their political opponents as “evil,” they see more justification for political violence. Forty percent of Gen Zers said political violence is justified to some degree, compared with 30 percent of millennials and 11 percent of boomers.

Middle East

NY Times - Investigators believe a cyberattack this week on dozens of municipal water systems in Minnesota was probably the work of Iranian hackers, according to U.S. and state officials and others familiar with the matter, a potential act of aggression that comes at a precarious moment in the U.S. war against Iran.

Officials cautioned that they had not definitively determined who was responsible for the attack and that the preliminary assessment could change as the authorities collected more technical data.

They also warned that the hackers could be attempting to pose as Iran-based in an effort to ratchet up tensions between the two countries, though former intelligence officials said such a scenario was unlikely.

Local officials reported that the well and treatment plant in at least one city was temporarily offline on Monday, while other cities in the state had to use manual workarounds to cope with attempted attacks on automated operations.

1440 - Saudi Arabia confirmed yesterday it publicly joined the US' military campaign against Iran. The kingdom participated in a joint strike on Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, reportedly killing at least 20 combatants. In announcing the strikes, the kingdom's Ministry of Defense cited Iranian attacks on its oil industry: Saudi Arabia blames Iraqi militias for up to half of the nearly 1,000 drone strikes it has weathered since February. Earlier this week, drones and missiles struck Saudi Arabia's Abqaiq oil facility (see map). Although Riyadh had not openly participated in military offensive action until this week, US officials say the kingdom has secretly participated in US-led attacks in the past.

Todd Blanche

The Hill - President Trump on Thursday floated the possibility of temporarily pulling Todd Blanche’s nomination to serve as attorney general to circumvent the opposition of Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and then resubmitting Blanche’s name after Cornyn and Tillis leave Congress.https://freeportfunfacts.blogspot.com/

The new housing law

NY Times -   The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, the first major housing package to become law in decades — and passed with impressive bipartisan support — has the potential to put a real dent in the nation’s affordable housing shortage.

The good news is that if carried out as intended, the law will break through a lot of the regulatory sludge holding back the construction industry. It will create a mix of financing and building incentives that will help the nation close the supply gap that has contributed to rising rents and put homeownership out of reach for many people.

The bad news is that President Trump let the act become law without his signature, calling it “a yawn” — not a great sign that his administration will dedicate the considerable resources needed to put it into effect.

Most of that work will fall to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which has to establish an array of pilot programs, reports and other acts of rule-making and industry guidance the law calls for. After last year’s purge of agency staff members, however, HUD is down about 30 percent of its work force in many of its key offices.

 

Health

NY Times -  The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it intended to end a Biden-era program that for the past two years has helped tamp down the cost of monthly premiums for drug coverage for people on Medicare.

The decision means that millions of Americans 65 and older could face higher Medicare drug premiums next year, when the cost of living is already a major concern. That could be politically damaging for Republicans in the midterm elections. In the weeks leading up to November, Medicare beneficiaries could experience sticker shock while shopping for next year’s drug plan./

Voting

The Guardian -A new analysis of Black voters in the south indicates that Republican attempts to dilute their political power is driving them to the polls in larger numbers and shifting their counties further left.

After the supreme court effectively gutted section 2 of the Voting Rights Act protections in late April, Republican legislatures across the south rapidly pushed to disenfranchise Black voters by redrawing congressional maps. Louisiana, Florida, Tennessee and Alabama all immediately worked to pass new maps, while the Mississippi governor has said that he wants legislators to redraw maps before the upcoming midterm elections.

The analysis by VoteHub, a data-focused election organization, indicates that the efforts have only motivated Black voters in the 78 Black belt counties it tracked. All but one shifted left in partisan turnout compared with 2024. Further, majority-Black counties that voted after Louisiana v Callais, the landmark supreme court decision that triggered the Republican-led redistricting efforts, had a surge in voter participation.

The trend was clear earlier this year when Louisiana, South Carolina, Alabama and Georgia held primaries after the supreme court ruling. Louisiana, from which the Callais decision stemmed, disregarded votes that had already been cast until the state was able to redraw congressional maps, while nearby Alabama quickly split its majority-Black districts.

Todd Blanche

The Guadian -     Todd Blanche’s hopes of becoming US attorney general seemed to be in jeopardy on Wednesday after the Department of Justice did not provide written assurances to a key Republican senator that a $1.8bn slush fund was dead.  The US Senate judiciary committee postponed a vote scheduled for Thursday on whether to advance Blanche’s nomination.

“Chairman [Chuck] Grassley works to set President Trump’s nominees up for success in committee, not failure. Senators [John] Cornyn and [Thom] Tillis want written assurances from the Department of Justice regarding the Trump-IRS settlement,” a committee spokesperson said in a Wednesday statement. “Tomorrow’s markup is postponed as work continues to secure sufficient support in committee to favorably report Attorney General-nominee Todd Blanche, who is highly qualified for the job.”

Blanche, Trump’s former personal lawyer, is already serving as acting US attorney general. He needs the vote of every Republican on the Senate judiciary panel to advance his nomination to land the role on a permanent basis.

But a swing vote on the committee, John Cornyn of Texas, told reporters on Wednesday he would not support Blanche’s nomination until he received written confirmation that the fund was not moving ahead.

Cornyn also wants to clarify that a provision giving the president, his sons and related businesses blanket immunity from tax audits for all matters up until this year could not be applied to future matters, or to people who were not parties to the settlement.

“Maybe they think I’m just going to give up or, you know, go along, but they’re mistaken,” said Cornyn, a four-term Republican senator who lost a re-election bid earlier this year to a Trump-endorsed rival. “We actually sent them a red-line strikeout of what we need, and they just need to make a decision. And if they do, then we’ll proceed with the markup tomorrow.”

Economy

Bloomberg - The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 1,100 points after the Federal Reserve voted to hold interest rates steady amid economic uncertainty from the Iran war. Wednesday was the Dow’s worst decline since April 2025, when Trump unveiled his “Liberation Day” tariffs.

NY Times -   The American economy slowed in the second quarter of the year, expanding at an annual rate of 1.5 percent as the war with Iran upended prices, supply chains and energy markets.

Oil prices have receded from their peaks in the spring. But damage in the form of higher prices for gasoline and other petroleum-based products is still hitting households and businesses. Because G.D.P. is adjusted for inflation, these rising costs dampened the growth reflected in the data.

ICE

NY Times -   The Trump administration has begun arresting foreign citizens with expired visas, including spouses of Americans, at U.S. airports. The arrests, at check-in counters and arrival gates, have taken place in at least 15 airports in recent weeks, and footage of the encounters has flooded social media.

The effort appears to be an expansion of an arrangement between T.S.A. and ICE, which began by targeting people with deportation orders. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants and visitors overstay visas each year, including many in a legal gray area who have active applications to stay in the country and have been issued work permits.

Such individuals were not prioritized for deportation in the past unless they had committed crimes, and they were rarely detained while waiting for visa extensions or green cards. But that has changed under President Trump, whose administration views all visa overstays as illegal.

The Intercept - Federal judges in Texas have sentenced 16 so-called antifa activists to a combined 560+ years in prison in a case stemming from a July 4 protest last year outside ICE’s Prairieland Detention Center.

Word

Joe Biden - "Netanyahu pushed me for war with Iran. I shut it down. Called him a war criminal and threw him out of office. He sold it to Trump. The rest is history."

Ranked choice voting

Fair Vote - Since July 14, city officials in Honolulu; Irvine, CA; and Longmont, CO all voted to put ranked choice voting (RCV) on the ballot this November. Honolulu is Hawaii’s capital, and home to nearly 70% of the state’s population. Irvine is home to over 300,000 people, and Longmont is one of our nation's fastest-growing cities. Together, these cities are home to 1.4 million Americans who could soon have better elections with ranked choice voting. 

 

Polls

Gallup -  Americans' approval of the job the U.S. Supreme Court is doing has fallen to a record low of 33%, driven by a steep drop in Republicans’ backing of the court since last year. The prior low approval rating was 39% measured a year ago.

Recessions

Of the 11 recessions since 1945, 10 have been caused by Republican Administrations… @thescoop.bsky.social

ICE

The Intercept - Federal judges in Texas have sentenced 16 so-called antifa activists to a combined 560+ years in prison in a case stemming from a July 4 protest last year outside ICE’s Prairieland Detention Center.

Health

The Guardian - Donald Trump is pushing the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, a longtime vaccine opponent, to be more aggressive on cutting vaccines in the US, according to reporting from the Wall Street Journal. Kennedy recently cut the routine childhood immunization schedule in an unprecedented move.

Trump has a long record of anti-vaccine statements. As senior leaders have downplayed the safety and importance of vaccines, measles in the US has surged to its highest rate in 30 years, and there has been a rise in deaths from whooping cough, flu and tetanus in recent years.

NBC News - Dr. Anthony Fauci declined to answer senators’ questions at a hearing on the origins of Covid and the government’s handling of the pandemic, saying he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right to avoid the possibility that Republicans could try to use his testimony to prosecute him for perjury.  Fauci accused Chairman Rand Paul, R-Ky., of having an “unhinged obsession” with him and wanting him put “behind bars.”

Axios - Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said the hearing is part of a "campaign against science" that "has made this country less safe." "If there are valid scientific questions about the origins of this pandemic ... they should certainly be addressed, but not in a show trial, not as part of a continuing vendetta against a single individual." More

What's News  -The Trump administration plans to end a subsidy program that helped hold down premiums for Medicare prescription plans, known as Part D, after 2026.The move could leave many encouraged insurers to raise rates, knowing the government would pick up the extra cost, according to a Trump administration official. He said that other policies that help hold down Part seniors facing higher rates for their prescription coverage next year. The extra subsidies D costs remain in place and that seniors should be able to find lower premiums if they switch plans. Healthcare affordability is expected to be a focus in the midterm elections.

Climate

NPR - The water quality in Iowa has become so concerning that it could affect the November midterm election for governor. Iowa has the second-highest cancer rate in the U.S., according to the latest report from the Iowa Cancer Registry — and rates continue to rise. Discussions about how the state's water quality may be contributing to cancer rates have become a political talking point. Both gubernatorial candidates, Democrat Rob Sand and Republican Zach Lahn, say more needs to be done to improve the state’s water. They have largely focused on voluntary and incentivized measures to improve water quality, but some farmers say these approaches are insufficient. While farmers are not endorsing either candidate in the race, they have agreed to meet with both Sand and Lahn to discuss the problem.

Middle East

NPR -  Fighting between the U.S. and Iran resumed after Iran launched missiles at U.S. forces in the Middle East yesterday, just before 6 p.m. ET, according to U.S. Central Command. The U.S. intercepted all missiles. U.S. and Saudi forces responded with attacks on Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, marking a rare show of force from Saudi Arabia in this conflict. The escalation in violence happened on the same day President Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Ukrainian leader Zelenskyy at the White House. Netanyahu wanted to use his meeting with the president to mend the U.S. and Israel's rocky relationship.

Five months into a war Israel and the U.S. launched together, both sides face conflicting priorities, NPR's Franco Ordoñez tells Up First. Israel wants to continue fighting to address security threats from Iran and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel does not want Trump to sign any agreement that would hinder its ability to defend itself, Ordoñez says. Trump supports maintaining Israel's security, but seeks a swift end to an unpopular war. He also wants to open the Strait of Hormuz and tackle rising gas prices. Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution tells Ordoñez that Trump and Netanyahu have a cooperative relationship, complicated by the fact that neither side knows how to end the conflict.

An admiral helps Hegseth in his political moves

NY Times - Adm. Daryl Caudle saw an opening to land the Navy’s top job last year, and he seized it. Before Pete Hegseth had even been sworn in as defense secretary, Admiral Caudle, then the head of a major Navy training command, offered to help Mr. Hegseth prepare for his politically contentious Senate confirmation hearing, according to current and former defense officials.

The outreach was a breach of military ethics, the officials said. Senior military officers are supposed to avoid any hint of partisan bias or political activity.

Nothing came of the offer. But soon after Mr. Hegseth took office, he fired the first woman to lead the Navy: Admiral Caudle’s boss. Days later, a senior officer on Admiral Caudle’s staff contacted Mr. Hegseth’s team in another breach of protocol. His pitch: Mr. Hegseth should choose Admiral Caudle to be the next chief of naval operations, the current and former officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive personnel matters.

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Via ajresister

Biden vs. Trump

Via Jeff

Health

 Time -  Measles is an old scourge that’s rapidly re-emerging as a new one. According to numbers released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on July 24, there have been 2,318 cases of measles reported nationwide so far in this year, already exceeding the 2,289 cases reported in all of 2025. The current figure is the highest incidence of measles in 35 years, a record set back in 1991 when there were 9,643 U.S. cases.

California rejects nearly 150,000 ballots

Huffington Post-   Data compiled by the California secretary of state's office shows nearly 150,000 mail-in ballots were rejected from the state's June primary, accounting for 1.73% of all the state's mail-in ballots.  A majority of them (93,479) were rejected for arriving too late, with voting experts telling the Associated Press that changes at the U.S. Postal Service — specifically, changes that affect when ballots are postmarked — are likely to blame.

"Ballots rejected due to lateness are caused primarily to being postmarked too late to count, not because they arrived too late to count," Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, told the AP.

An additional 44,000 ballots were rejected because the voter's signature didn't match what county officials had on file, 8,300 had no signature, and in 743 cases the voter had already cast a ballot in-person. A 2025 Brookings Institution study found mail voting fraud is exceedingly rare, accounting for about four cases out of every 10 million mail-in votes.