‘A people-powered campaign.’ In her first rally as a 2024 presidential candidate, Kamala Harris contrasted her fundraising with that of Donald Trump—who she says “literally promised Big Oil companies … he would do their bidding for $1 billion in campaign donations.”
■ Her assertion that, as a former prosecutor, she knows “Donald Trump’s type” had a Milwaukee crowd chanting “Lock him up!”
■ Columnist Julia Gray: “I love watching the powerful White men of this country s**t themselves.”
■ Trump niece Mary L. Trump: “Donald is terrified.”
■ Republican Party leaders are urging members to avoid racist and sexist attacks on Harris …
■ … but CNN’s Oliver Darcy sees “the right-wing media machine … throwing everything but the kitchen sink.”
■ Off Message columnist Brian Beutler on Republican smears against Harris: “Some of them are harmless … but eventually one will snowball into a big problem.”
■ USA Today’s Rex Huppke: Harris “has ruined my anti-Biden merch business.”
■ Lightningwriter Charlie Madigan on election speculation: “I read this awful story from the Washington Post about Vice President Kamala Harris so you don’t have to!”
■ A virtual roll call could make her the party’s official nominee as early as next week.
■ Handbasket columnist Marisa Kabas: “Between her historical fundraising haul and rush of volunteers, the math is definitely mathing.”
Hi, Chicago. Shia Kapos at Politico Illinois Playbook looks at how all this is affecting next month’s Democratic National Convention …
■ … which NOTUS says “could be messier than many even dreamed” …
■ … especially with Texas threatening to send tens of thousands more migrants this way before then.
Pay him his money down. Trump, who’s demanded a refund for the cash his campaign spent running against President Biden, is asking the Federal Election Commission to keep funds raised for Biden’s campaign from flowing to Harris’ campaign.
■ Some of Trump’s allies are floating the possibility of suing to keep any Democrat other than Biden off the November presidential ballot.
■ PolitiFact: Election law experts say replacing Biden on the ticket is not illegal.
■ Rick Perlstein at The American Prospect found the “seeds of a conservative crack-up” at last week’s Republican convention in Milwaukee: “Wait until you see what happens when pro-life Republicans are shamed with the fact that the political party they thought was their ride-or-die ally was actually selling them out.”
■ The Onion: “Trump Vows To Unite Nation Against Common Enemy Of Other Americans.”
■ The Onion: “Trump Vows To Unite Nation Against Common Enemy Of Other Americans.”
■ Popular Information: “Arkansas has the worst voter registration rate. Republicans are pushing to make registration harder.”
■ Biden, newly COVID-free, addresses the nation tonight at 7 Chicago time.
■ Coconut-pilled traces its roots to The Matrix.
■ Brat is a nod to Charli XCX’s new album.
■ KHive alludes to Beyoncé’s fandom.
■ Childless cat lady is a callback to Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance’s 2021 mockery of Harris.
■ Satirist Andy Borowitz: “Nation’s Cats Lash Out at J.D. Vance in Million Meow March.”
■ Stephen Colbert breaks it all down this way. (Illustration: Microsoft’s Copilot AI.)
‘These officers did not have a plan B except pulling out their firearm and barking orders.’ The executive director of an independent organization focused on best police practices criticizes the cops who shot and killed a 36-year-old Springfield-area Black woman who’d called for their help dealing with a possible intruder.
■ The 30-year-old Sangamon County sheriff’s deputy who allegedly did it has been fired and indicted on murder charges.
■ Here’s the horrific bodycam video.
■ Vice President Harris says the crime makes the case for “the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a bill that I coauthored in the Senate.”
Forever f**ked. A peer-reviewed study published today finds an alarming increase in per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances—so-called forever chemicals—added to U.S. pesticide products and therefore into the food chain.
■ Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility’s science policy director: “I can think of no better way to poison people and the environment than to spray PFAS-laden pesticides on our crops and in our homes.”
Google’s sweet deal. 404 Media’s Emanuel Maiberg: “Google is now the only search engine that can surface results from Reddit, making one of the web’s most valuable repositories of user-generated content exclusive to the internet’s already dominant search engine.”
■ The Justice Department’s watchdog: Law enforcement agencies need to work more closely with tech firms to monitor foreign influence operations like Russia’s campaign to interfere in the 2016 presidential election—but they need to beware crossing the line into government censorship.
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