So much for the big reveal. When Republican delegates from across the country walked into the Fiserv Forum this morning, all the buzz was about the pending selection of Donald Trump’s running mate—an announcement they believed would come tonight, in prime time, a climactic conclusion to the first day of the GOP convention.
Judge Aileen Cannon, a Donald Trump appointee, has dismissed the criminal charges against the former president. On the merits, her opinion is a poor one, ignoring history and precedent. It will almost certainly be reversed on appeal. Even so, her actions will surely delay Trump’s trial and may even prevent it completely, should Trump return to power and dismiss the case before a verdict is reached. For these reasons alone, her decision is certainly notable.
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Donald Trump’s luck in the courts has turned.
Trump became the first former president to be convicted of a felony when a jury in Manhattan found him guilty of 34 counts in May. That followed decisive and costly losses in civil cases: Trump was fined more than half a billion dollars when courts found that he had defamed the writer E. Jean Carroll and committed financial fraud in his business.
For the past several years, American politics have heated to a rolling boil. Members of Congress have been shot, an intruder attacked the House speaker’s husband in their home with a hammer, and a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Political violence is not new.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, holds significance for today’s Republican Party, not only as the site of the 2024 Republican National Convention, but also as a bellwether for American conservatism, argues Dan Kaufman, author of The Fall of Wisconsin: The Conservative Conquest of a Progressive Bastion and the Future of American Politics.
In Milwaukee, Democracy Now! speaks with members of an unhoused encampment that’s been set up just minutes from the site of the Republican National Convention to protest policies that have exacerbated poverty and a housing crisis nationwide. The encampment is organized by the Poor People’s Army, which is also set to host a protest rally and march on the first day of the convention. Cheri Honkala, the national spokesperson for the Poor People’s Army, also joins us in Milwaukee.
In the aftermath of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, we speak to writer Jeff Sharlet, author of The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War. Sharlet says, “The Trump campaign and this kind of authoritarianism is driven by not just the use of violence, not just the invocation of violence, but a kind of reverence of violence, a redemption through violence.
The Israeli military carried out one of its deadliest attacks in weeks when it bombed al-Mawasi in Khan Younis — designated as a “safe zone” — killing at least 90 Palestinians and injuring hundreds more on Saturday. Israel claimed it was targeting Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, but the group denied that Deif had been hit.
Saturday’s assassination attempt of Donald Trump is widely viewed as the Secret Service’s biggest failure since 1981, when a gunman shot President Ronald Reagan just over two months into his first term. Reagan was hospitalized for nearly two weeks. Three other people were injured, including Reagan’s press secretary James Brady, who was shot in the head and left partially paralyzed.
The Federal Trade Commission investigation of DaVita and Fresenius Medical Care follows years of consolidation in the dialysis industry.
The FTC action would target often high costs by trying to curb rebates it says drug makers pay to steer patients to their brand name products.
Abortion opponents know they need to win hearts and minds. They’re using women’s stories to do so.
The shakeup, which has not been previously reported, comes as anti-abortion groups petition Trump, his campaign advisers and members of the RNC not to make significant changes to the party’s platform on abortion.
The 21-year-old President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief is credited with saving 25 million lives, but its budget is strained.
Though hiring remains strong, voters blame President Joe Biden for persistent high prices.
The president has a compelling antimonopoly record. But he doesn’t always lean into it. And voters don’t really know of it. The debate could change that.
Friday’s good jobs numbers may be a boost. But boosts haven’t yet materialized into political benefits.
We speak with reporter Oren Ziv of +972 Magazine, whose latest investigation details how Israeli forces in Gaza have been authorized to open fire on Palestinians virtually at will. Six soldiers who fought in Gaza describe a near-total absence of firing regulations, with soldiers shooting as they please, setting homes ablaze, leaving corpses to rot on the streets and more.
As the world watched Thursday night, President Biden held his first solo press conference this year, after hosting a NATO conference in which he accidentally referred to Ukrainian President Zelensky as Russian President Putin before quickly correcting himself. While speaking with reporters, Biden defended his record and vowed to “finish the job,” but at one point referred to Kamala Harris as “Vice President Trump.
Former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy discusses ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas, the ruling party in the Gaza Strip, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s continued hostility to compromise and the Biden administration’s ineffectual mediation. Contrary to its claims of brokering peace, the U.S. “will continue to send the weapons” Israel uses to devastate Gaza, unremittingly fueling an increasingly unpopular war, says Levy, who is now president of the U.S.
As calls mount for President Joe Biden to step down as the presumptive Democratic Party nominee over concerns surrounding his mental and physical capacity to lead, we host a debate between two longtime members of the Democratic Party: Wajahat Ali, who recently authored a column subtitled “Biden Is Very Old and Out of Touch, and Here’s Why You Should Vote for Him,” and Norman Solomon of RootsAction.org, which sponsors the Step Aside Joe campaign.
“Joe Biden sent the orders” was the first thing Representative Mike Collins of Georgia posted following the assassination attempt on Donald Trump yesterday. To clarify that he was not being hyperbolic, Collins followed up by saying that Biden should be charged with “inciting an assassination.
Donald Trump raises a fist. Blood streaks his face. The sky is high, blue, and empty except for an American flag caught in a hard wind. A Secret Service agent has her arms around his waist. The former president’s mouth is open, in the middle of a snarled shout. We know from video footage that he is yelling “Fight!,” that the crowd is chanting “USA!”
The photograph, by the Associated Press’s Evan Vucci, became immediately legendary.
When a madman hammered nearly to death the husband of then–House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Donald Trump jeered and mocked. One of Trump’s sons and other close Trump supporters avidly promoted false claims that Paul Pelosi had somehow brought the onslaught upon himself through a sexual misadventure.
After authorities apprehended a right-wing-extremist plot to abduct Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Trump belittled the threat at a rally. He disparaged Whitmer as a political enemy.
Election Day will mark nearly 20 years since my friend Dan Malcom was killed on a rooftop in Fallujah. Dan died trying to help my platoon. Friendly artillery had us pinned down on a roof. Hot shards of jagged shrapnel slapped against the side of our building. Dan had climbed into an exposed position to shift that artillery when a sniper’s bullet found him. He was 25 years old. When I finally came home from Iraq, I was 24, but I had as many dead friends as an 80-year-old.
Morning after we meet: a parade
in the street. Brass instruments blasting
gladly. Of the dozen we crack,
ten eggs hold double yolks.
When it rains, the town floods. Your dog
and your neighbors huddle at the window.
Suddenly: our dog, our neighbors.
Our basement, puddled.
Mouse poop like cartoon jewels
glittering inside the white shoe.
Millions of seeds arrow upward into green.
Your legs entwine mine in earthworm parody.
Inside each day, I can feel the round outline
of all the time in the world.
The FTC action would target often high costs by trying to curb rebates it says drug makers pay to steer patients to their brand name products.
Abortion opponents know they need to win hearts and minds. They’re using women’s stories to do so.
The shakeup, which has not been previously reported, comes as anti-abortion groups petition Trump, his campaign advisers and members of the RNC not to make significant changes to the party’s platform on abortion.
The 21-year-old President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief is credited with saving 25 million lives, but its budget is strained.