It’s too soon for all the facts about France (more pieces on that here tomorrow, undoubtedly… no lack of empathy from me, but the pundits haven’t written their pieces yet). Follow NYT reporter @rcallamachi on twitter for the latest.
As for domestic politics, count on Trump and his allies to make things worse with calls for war and tests on U.S. Muslims that make terrorists rub their hands with satisfaction.
Guaranteed some hot take will be how it will help Trump when the opposite has been true for other tragedies. It’s a pundit reflex. They can’t help themselves.
The above tweet was well after the campaign leaked Gov Mike Pence’s name. We’ll find out today We won’t find out today because Trump postponed the announcement and/but what a mess. Was it leaked by a StopPencer? Trial balloon? Meant to calm the anti-Trump vote at the convention, then jettisoned?
Nothing says ‘tiny but steady hand’ like a smooth VP roll-out (even before what happened in France.)
New battleground polls this am from NBC/Marist:
Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump in four of the most diverse presidential battleground states, according to brand-new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist polls.
Clinton is ahead of Trump by eight points among registered voters in Colorado, 43 percent to 35 percent; a combined 21 percent say neither, other or are undecided.
In Florida, which decided the 2000 presidential election, she's up seven points, 44 percent to 37 percent; the rest are undecided or prefer someone else.
In North Carolina, a state Obama won in 2008 but lost in 2012, Clinton leads by six points, 44 percent to 38 percent.
And in Virginia, Clinton's advantage is nine points, 44 percent to 35 percent.
"With 66 electoral votes at stake in these four states, Donald Trump is playing catch-up against Hillary Clinton," says Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion.
NPR:
For their parts, [political scientists] Kopko and Devine only find one election where the vice presidential pick would have mattered geographically: 2000.
"It came down to New Hampshire in our analysis," Kopko said, pointing out that Al Gore had considered then-New Hampshire Gov. Jeanne Shaheen for his vice presidential nominee. "And that was the only Republican state in New England in the 2000 election. So had Gore carried New Hampshire, he would have had a majority in the Electoral College, and Florida would have been irrelevant."
Buzzfeed:
“Smoking Doesn’t Kill” And Other Great Old Op-Eds From Mike Pence
The Indiana governor who is at the center of the debate surrounding the recently signed Religious Freedom Restoration Act in his state wrote some interesting op-eds 15 years ago.
After the LGBT debacle in IN, easy to believe he’s a dimbulb.
Think Progress:
How Mike Pence’s Arrogance Handed The Christian Right A Staggering Defeat
The Indy Star reports that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump plans to name Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R), a man who once described himself as “a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order,” as his vice-presidential running mate. So you would expect religious conservatives to be over the moon. They aren’t:
...And then, just days after he signed the original legislation, Pence caved! The “fix” Pence signed did not completely neuter the state’s RFRA law, but it did provide that the law does not authorize businesses “to refuse to offer or provide services, facilities, use of public accommodation, goods, employment, or housing to any member or members of the general public” on the basis of a list of protected traits that includes “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.”
It was a staggering defeat for social conservatives who were struggling to gain a beachhead against the growing recognition that LGBT people are human beings entitled to the same civil rights as anyone else. Indiana is a red state. Pence is an extraordinarily conservative governor. Indeed, as a member of Congress, Pence led the Republican Study Committee, a large group of conservative lawmakers whose leader functioned as a spokesperson for the House of Representatives’ right-wing during much of Pence’s tenure in the House.
WaPo:
So, Mike Pence has been a huge supporter of the thing Donald Trump says is terrible for America
Pence was told to be a free trader, so he was. And that’s the dominant theme. He does what he is told to.
A reminder of why not Chris Christie from WNYC:
One of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's closest friends and long-time mentors pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday in connection with a sprawling scandal that has engulfed the Christie Administration.
David Samson, 76, Christie’s former appointee as chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, was charged with one felony count of bribery for demanding United Airlines executives create a special flight route to his vacation home in exchange for favorable treatment from the agency, which operates Newark Liberty International Airport.
AP:
On the eve of the summer's political conventions, at which the general election campaign officially begins, the latest AP-GfK findings underscore the deep sense of unease that is sharpening the political divide in America and shaping an already nasty race for president.
So much so that notable numbers of Americans even hold negative views about the candidate they want to win: 14 percent of both Trump's and Clinton's supporters say they're backing a candidate they don't like.
CNN:
Iran nuclear deal at anniversary not the rallying cry GOP sought
But in the intervening months, the issue has largely dropped off the political agenda. While GOP presumptive nominee Donald Trump regularly rails against the deal on the campaign trail, international challenges like global terror, China and Russia have gotten more attention and had a greater impact on the political environment.
Criticism of the deal has "toned down quite a bit from the period of congressional review last summer," noted Robert Einhorn, a former State Department adviser involved in negotiating the deal.
Ryan Grim:
Top leaders from more or less every tech company you can think of ― Google, Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, Slack, TaskRabbit, Flickr, Instacart and dozens more ― have organized an open letter condemning Donald Trump’s candidacy for president, a remarkable intervention from an industry that is known to lean liberal, but has been reluctant to engage aggressively with electoral politics.
The letter, which was published on The Huffington Post blog, makes clear that the tech titans ― 145 in total ― are speaking in their personal capacity and not for the companies they represent, but the message it sends is clear.
Its core warning is that Trump’s brand of xenophobia and nativism, far from making America great again, will in fact hamstring its innovative capacity and undermine its potential greatness.
Some of the most successful technology companies, such as Google, have founders who are immigrants. Their native country’s loss is America’s gain.
WaPo:
To reduce suicides, look at guns
Limiting gun access could cut the suicide rate by over a third.
Rice U:
“Job losses due to automation and robotics are often overlooked in discussions about the unexpected rise of outside political candidates like Trump and Bernie Sanders,” said Vardi, Rice’s Karen Ostrum George Distinguished Service Professor of Computational Engineering and director of Rice’s Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology. “Manufacturing output in the U.S. today is at an all-time high despite the fact that manufacturing employment has fallen for more than 30 years and is currently around 1948 levels. U.S. factories are not disappearing; they simply aren’t employing human workers.
“While manufacturing is the most striking example, there is considerable evidence that automation is transforming other sectors of the labor market, and there’s increasing evidence that this leads to economic stratification, the decline of the middle class and the subsequent undercurrent of misery that is driving support for Trump,” Vardi said.
Robots are also threatening the “cornered killer with a gun” jobs market (ZDNet):
Dallas Police's killer robot sparks debate
For the first time in US history, police used a robot to kill a suspect. While this particular situation may have been justified, it still raises important questions about the ethical implications of lethal robots in law enforcement and other institutions.