Today’s comic by Tom Tomorrow is Scenes from a convention:
What’s coming up on Sunday Kos …
- FLOTUS, slavery and Washington, by Denise Oliver Velez
- Barack Obama has fundamentally transformed how we understand our national identity. For the better, by Ian Reifowitz
- Donald Trump will always go too far, then keep going, by Mark Sumner
- Trump shows torture unpunished means torture repeated, by Jon Perr
- Black Lives Matter in public health, too, by Sher Watts Spooner
- Trump perfects the 'Gish Gallop,' leaving media overwhelmed in trying to correct his many whoppers, by DarkSyde
- The first lady gives a speech, by Susan Grigsby
- Retracing Cold War memories: Part Five, Berlin, by Mark E Andersen
• It’s Day 170 of the GOP’s obstinate refusal to hold a hearing on Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland: It’s Monday, August 1, and Day 170 since Justice Antonin Scalia died and Mitch McConnell decided no SCOTUS nominee would get any Senate attention: No meetings, no hearings, no votes. It's also Day 133 since President Obama named Merrick Garland to be Scalia's replacement. Help turn the Senate blue with your donation and get all branches of government working again.
• Khizr Khan’s blast at Trump makes pocket Constitution best seller on Amazon: It’s a 52-page version printed by the National Center for Constitutional Studies, which sells for $1. On Saturday, it was one of the Top 10 best-selling books on Amazon. The site produces an hourly list of its best sellers. The Constitution reached the Top 10 list after lawyer Khizr Khan, a Muslim whose U.S. Army captain son was killed serving in Iraq, flashed a pocket Constitution and offered to lend it to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a stunning speech at the Democratic National Convention.
• Marge persuades Homer to become a Democrat in “Simpsons” short.
• Rand Paul has more than $300,000 in unpaid bills from his presidential run: His delay in paying up is hurting some small businesses. According to the Lexington Herald-Leader, Rand Paul for President reported $301,108 in debts and $2,558 in cash on hand as of June 30 in its most recent Federal Election Commission filing. The campaign owes dozens of businesses and individuals for rent, insurance, telemarketing, phone and internet access, legal fees, consulting, facility and equipment rental and expense reimbursements promised to campaign workers. A campaign spokeswoman said Paul will pay off his campaign bills. He could do it right away by transferring money from his campaign for Senate re-election, for which he has raised $3.1 million.
• Colorado activists are using Pokémon Go to register voters:
The set-up goes like this. Because Pokémon Go forces its players to visit real-world locations to capture digital creatures and advance in the game, state Democratic staff and volunteers have staked out certain hotspots — known as Pokéstops or Pokémon training gyms — to find unregistered voters.
Given that Pokémon Go players, also called trainers, tend to skew younger, the approach has given Democrats a target-rich environment to find potential supporters. Campaign officials said they’ve registered dozens of voters, at least, in the first few weeks of the program and plan to keep doing it.
• Federal TVA won’t clean up coal ash pits because it’s too expensive: Officials at the federally owned Tennessee Valley Authority say they will cap 10 unlined coal ash pits at six power plants in Alabama and Tennessee. They will not clean up toxic residue, however. Tainted water could be the outcome. Coal ash is produced when coal is burned to generate electricity. It contains arsenic, lead, and mercury, known carcinogens. For decades, energy companies have been dumping coal ash for decades into ditches they filled with water. These ponds are prone to leaking, and since they are often near waterways, the leaks could mean drinking water became contaminated. The ponds went unregulated until 2014. Environmentalists oppose the approach TVA and private-sector operators are taking, arguing that digging out the pits and moving the coal ash to lined landfills prevents leaks.
• On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, Greg Dworkin returns with the first of the post-convention polling updates, plus a roundup of the latest “white working class resentment” theories. Republicans have no impulse control: Trump smears the Khans, and; NC just couldn’t wait to target black voters.
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