Reading

One of the central tenets of writing is that you should always “write what you know.” In the words of acclaimed author P. D. James: “All experience, whether it is painful or whether it is happy, is somehow stored up and sooner or later it’s used.” And I truly adhere to this philosophy. Our pasts are our fuel. Our memories are our ammunition. And our own unique life story is the thread from which we sew the tapestry of human creation.

That’s why, whenever I’m writing, I always make it a point of pride to draw from the rich wellspring of my lived experiences and write exclusively about the terrible relationships I have had with women who look like my mother.

Everyone has a story to tell. And my story is one where I keep dating emotionally distant brunettes who used to dance in college.

Over the weekend Donald Trump whined that the Harris campaign was treating him like the incumbent and it’s totally not fair: The fact is that they are framing some of the campaign as a referendum on Trump. And why wouldn’t they? He’s running on the lies about the alleged halcyon days when America was great (2017 -2019) and she’s running on “a new way forward” and “we’re not going back.” If he doesn’t want to be seen as the incumbent maybe he should stop pretending he is one. From the moment Trump glumly flew off to Mar-a-lago on January 20, 2021 he’s been acting like a president in exile. He’s been running a shadow government, with GOP officials rushing to get his permission before they take any action and everyone clamoring for his dispensation in their election campaigns .One of the most obvious examples of his power with the GOP was his thumbs down on the painfully negotiated bipartisan border bill. He didn’t even pretend that it had anything to do with the policy, he just didn’t want Biden to be able to run on it as one of his accomplishments.

As I write this, Putin is bombing Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, and the price of crude oil has gone up three percent. Both are good reasons for the UK to make the move to homegrown renewables — something the last government ignored, and Labour has rightly put front and centre of its energy policy with the […]

There are 245 key Russian facilities Ukraine could strike today. It has the capabilities, but not the permission. Why deny them?

Good news for Democrats if registrants turn out There is more than vibes to demonstrate that Kamala Harris leading the Democrats’ ticket has changed the dynamic of the presidential contest. There is data. Tom Bonier summarizes voter registration changes since the changeover. Young Black women are leading the way, seeing their registration almost triple, relative to the same point in 2020. Young Hispanic women aren’t far behind, with a 150% increase in registration. Black women overall have almost doubled their registration numbers from 2020. These changes are, unsurprisingly, substantially to the benefit of Democrats. Democratic registration has increased by over 50%, as compared to only 7% for Republicans. These new registrants are modeled as +20 pts Dem, as compared to +6 during the same week in 2020. What’s “wild,” Bonier adds, is that this voter registration spike “even surpasses the post-Dobbs surge.” Democrats stand to benefit in swing states like Georgia and North Carolina with their large populations of Black voters.

This fall marks Tommy Tate’s twentieth year as a crossing guard for the city of Washington, DC.

The political press has doubled down on horse-race coverage of the election, overlooking the threat Trump poses to democracy.

The post Why the Media Won’t Report the Truth About Trump appeared first on The Intercept.

Well over a thousand people ‘denied a vote’ due to issues with mandatory photo ID rules in the capital

Just reading between the lines here USA Today: Democratic vice-presidential nominee and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz appeared on the popular social media account “SubwayTakes” Monday, marking the latest moment in the social media battle defining the 2024 presidential race. In the video Walz discusses the value of well-kept gutters, regional hardware stores and the Minnesota delicacy that is the Juicy Lucy style hamburger. The account features host Kareem Rahma interviewing people and asking for “hot takes” on subways, primarily in New York City. The account has over 484,000 followers on Tik Tok.

Doctor Who: Death in the Stars is the debut murder mystery novel written by Bonnie Langford (w/ Jacqueline Rayner) and featuring Mel Bush.

“The good news keeps coming for Vice President Harris. She has now not only made up ground in public polls in the swing states in her campaign for president, but has now actually taken narrow leads in three critical states that would put her at just enough electoral votes to win the White House, according to polling averages.” — NPR

I have one job, which is to convince Americans that Kamala Harris is a lying, Antifa-loving child trafficker who drinks baby blood. I thought it would be easy, but it’s not going very well. Harris keeps rising in the polls, and my Trumpworld bosses are getting more erratic by the day, which, you know, is really saying something.

I’ve tried everything: whispers, hashtags, and a prime-time ad on the Tucker Carlson Network. But no matter how craftily I disseminate the Kamala libel, and no matter how many Republicans parrot the talking points, nothing seems to work.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has warned the British people that the October Budget is going to be ‘painful’. He has once again blamed the Conservative Party for reckless economic mismanagement, which has left a £22 billion black hole in the nation’s finances. It is undoubtedly true that successive Conservative governments managed the UK economy particularly […]

(Originally drafted for a conference at Frankfurt in 2018 to mark the 40th anniversary of Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence. I’ve done a bit of editing of my conference script and added a few footnotes etc, but it isn’t necessarily produced to the scholarly standards one might require of a journal article.) In […]

Elon Musk’s relationship with X is a commercial and political disaster. He badly needs an off-ramp

Explained: Where ceasefire talks are at right now, what's slowing them down, and what needs to happen to force an agreement

Harris’ nomination locks in another Boomer presidency. This single generation — those born in the nineteen years between 1946 and 1964 — is guaranteed another presidency. 36 consecutive years, not counting the Biden Interregnum (he’s technically too old). Despite being a Boomer, you may have noticed that she’s the young, exciting candidate. Yes, the generational […]

Vania Esady and Stephen Burgess A summary measure for UK households’ resilience High levels of household debt have been shown to amplify recessions. For example, in the global financial crisis (GFC), UK households with more debt tended to cut back their spending disproportionately, amplifying aggregate demand effects and potentially making the recession worse. High levels … Continue reading A summary measure for UK households’ resilience →