Top Items:
The Texas Tribune:
San Antonio postal union leader describes mass delays, says Postal Service hid backlogged mail from congressman — The union leader said tens of thousands of pieces of mail were carted away ahead of U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro's visit. The office's delays have been exacerbated by employees missing because of COVID-19 concerns.
Discussion:
POLITICUSUSA, The Federalist, Daily Kos, Snopes.com, The Hill and Bangor Daily News
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Heidi Przybyla / NBC News:
Mnuchin's role in postmaster's appointment becomes target — WASHINGTON — In the weeks before Republican donor Louis DeJoy was installed as postmaster general, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin held a series of one-on-one meetings with members of the Postal Service Board of Governors …
Discussion:
Reuters, Breitbart, The Hill, NBC Los Angeles, Washington Post and Rantt Media
Washington Post:
DeJoy Senate hearing: Postal Service will prioritize ballots over other mail, postmaster testifies
DeJoy Senate hearing: Postal Service will prioritize ballots over other mail, postmaster testifies
Discussion:
Mother Jones, The Guardian, Talking Points Memo, Just The News, The American Independent, IJR and TheGrio
Ari Berman / Mother Jones:
DeJoy Says USPS Won't Reinstall More Than 600 Removed Mail Sorting Machines
DeJoy Says USPS Won't Reinstall More Than 600 Removed Mail Sorting Machines
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo, Raw Story and New York Post
Jack Healy / New York Times:
The Chick's in the Mail? Rural America Faces New Worries With Postal Crisis
The Chick's in the Mail? Rural America Faces New Worries With Postal Crisis
Discussion:
Fortune
Cristina Marcos / The Hill:
Ex-Postal Service board member testifies Mnuchin tried to politicize agency
Ex-Postal Service board member testifies Mnuchin tried to politicize agency
Discussion:
Reuters, The Daily Beast, Politico, Washington Times and Slate
Washington Post:
‘Pure, unvarnished, courage’: A 13-year-old ‘regular kid’ with a stutter gave a must-watch Democratic convention speech — Twenty seconds into his speech to the Democratic National Convention on Thursday, Brayden Harrington started to stutter. — He knew he would — it was the reason …
Discussion:
The Week, The Guardian and Boston.com
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Kevin Stankiewicz / CNBC:
GOP pollster gives Biden high marks on speech — ‘challenges for Donald Trump are significant’ — “The Democrats are trying to make this a referendum on Donald Trump, not his policies, not the issues,” a longtime Republican pollster told CNBC on Friday. — “I do believe that Joe Biden is ahead …
Discussion:
The Cain Gang and Spectator USA
Washington Post:
Trump's reelection effort has officially spent more than $1 billion, a record sum at this point in the campaign
Trump's reelection effort has officially spent more than $1 billion, a record sum at this point in the campaign
John Hendrickson / The Atlantic:
Stuttering Through It — You could hear the stutter in Brayden's lungs, all those heavy inhalations …
Stuttering Through It — You could hear the stutter in Brayden's lungs, all those heavy inhalations …
Discussion:
The Moderate Voice, Mashable, Vox, Politico, Axios and Mother Jones
Matthew Choi / Politico:
Hillary Clinton offers Biden advice on battling Trump
Hillary Clinton offers Biden advice on battling Trump
Discussion:
NBC News, Associated Press, National Review, The Hill, Spectator USA, Forbes, The US Sun, Washington Post, POLITICUSUSA, Breitbart, Daily Kos and Rolling Stone
Juliegrace Brufke / The Hill:
GOP leader: ‘There is no place for QAnon in the Republican Party’ — House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has denounced the QAnon conspiracy theory, becoming the highest-ranking congressional Republican to publicly condemn the theory. — McCarthy said during an interview …
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New York Times:
The Republican Embrace of QAnon Goes Far Beyond Trump — As the president all but endorses the internet-driven conspiracy theory, it is shifting from the fringes of the internet to become an offline political movement. — Late last month, as the Texas Republican Party was shifting into campaign mode …
Discussion:
Daily Kos, Forbes, The Hill, The Diplomat, Vox, Washington Post, Raw Story and NBC News
Will Sommer / The Daily Beast:
Inside the Completely Nutso Universe of QAnon — An explainer for the conspiracy theory that's taking over the GOP. — The deranged QAnon conspiracy theory movement came close to a presidential endorsement this week when Donald Trump praised the group as “people that love our country,” …
Discussion:
The Bulwark, Axios and Right Wing Watch
Matthew Choi / Politico:
Pence denies hearing Trump embrace QAnon
Pence denies hearing Trump embrace QAnon
Discussion:
National Review, Raw Story, The Daily Caller, The Daily Beast and Mediaite
Matthew Continetti / Washington Free Beacon:
The Sleight-of-Hand Convention — Joe Biden delivered the best speech in a half-century political career on Thursday night. It was interesting to contrast his delivery with Kamala Harris's 24 hours earlier. Both the presidential and vice-presidential nominee spoke to an empty hall.
Discussion:
New York Post
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Ronald Brownstein / The Atlantic:
The Democratic Convention's Big Blind Spot
The Democratic Convention's Big Blind Spot
Discussion:
The Bulwark, Washington Post, Reuters, Fox News, Vanity Fair, Chicago Sun-Times, The Guardian, Boston.com, Newsbusters, Washington Times and Foreign Policy
Doina Chiacu / Reuters:
Pence leads Republican counterattack after Democrats savage Trump at convention
Pence leads Republican counterattack after Democrats savage Trump at convention
Discussion:
CNN, ABC News, Associated Press, Fox News, Brookings and The American Independent
Frank Bruni / New York Times:
With the Speech of His Life, Joe Biden Becomes the Man for This Moment
With the Speech of His Life, Joe Biden Becomes the Man for This Moment
Discussion:
The Guardian, Bloomberg, American Prospect, МИА, Al Jazeera, Rolling Stone, The US Sun, The Daily Beast, The Hill and WAVY-TV
Kevin Breuninger / CNBC:
Judge denies Trump's bid for a stay of subpoena in Manhattan DA's tax records case — A federal judge on Friday denied President's Donald Trump's bid to temporarily block a ruling allowing a subpoena for his tax returns and other financial records. — The ruling came a day after the …
Discussion:
Bloomberg, HillReporter.com, Raw Story, The Root, NPR, The US Sun and UPI
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Adam Klasfeld / courthousenews.com:
Judge Green-Lights Probe of Trump Tax Returns in NY
Dana Milbank / Washington Post:
Biden speaks from a place Trump doesn't know — the heart — President Trump has tried every dirty trick in the book — and a few new ones — to cast doubts about the workings of Joe Biden's brain. But Trump has been focusing on entirely the wrong organ. Biden's appeal is from the heart.
Discussion:
New Yorker, New York Times, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Townhall, Newsbusters and Raw Story
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Amanda Marcotte / Salon:
Joe Biden seizes the spotlight with a simple argument: Vote for me, I'm not a sociopath
Joe Biden seizes the spotlight with a simple argument: Vote for me, I'm not a sociopath
Discussion:
Breitbart and Vanity Fair
New York Times:
Facebook Braces Itself for Trump to Cast Doubt on Election Results — The world's biggest social network is working out what steps to take should President Trump use its platform to dispute the vote. — SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook spent years preparing to ward off any tampering on its site ahead of November's presidential election.
Discussion:
Reuters and Raw Story, more at Techmeme »
Fredreka Schouten / CNN:
Trump pledges to send ‘sheriffs’ and ‘law enforcement’ to polling places on Election Day, but it's not clear he can — Trump slams mail-in voting while signing his mail-in ballot — (CNN)President Donald Trump on Thursday said he would send law enforcement officials to polling locations …
Discussion:
The Hill, Raw Story, NBC News, Patterico's Pontifications, TheGrio, Washington Post, electionlawblog.org, Talking Points Memo, POLITICUSUSA and The Week
Ashley Parker / Washington Post:
The permanent outsider — President Trump has no idea how to run for reelection as an incumbent — At a White House signing ceremony this month, President Trump lamented the “deep-swamp things happening” in the nation's “deep state.” Speaking to workers at a Whirlpool plant in Ohio a few days later …
Discussion:
Raw Story
Joshua Green / Bloomberg:
The End of Steve Bannon—And Maybe Trump, Too — Steve Bannon's arrest on charges that he defrauded donors to a right-wing immigration group for $1 million marks the end of a political era—the era when a Trumpian admixture of economic populism and nativist immigration policy looked as if it could …
Discussion:
HuffPost, Balloon Juice, Raw Story, Townhall, New York Times and Columbia Journalism Review, more at Mediagazer »
Kate Bennett / CNN:
Robert Trump funeral to be held at White House Friday — Trump shares emotional post after his brother's death — (CNN)A funeral service for President Donald Trump's brother, Robert Trump, will be held Friday afternoon at the White House, a White House official told CNN.
Discussion:
ABC News, The Hill and The US Sun
Associated Press:
AP Exclusive: Barr ‘vehemently opposed’ to pardoning Snowden — WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General William Barr said he would be “vehemently opposed” to any attempt to pardon former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, after the president suggested he might consider it.
Discussion:
National Review, Axios and IJR
David Siders / Politico:
Biden is already forming a government. Here's what his Cabinet could look like. — Sherrod Brown, the progressive senator from Ohio, says he's talking with the Biden campaign about “where he needs to look and who he needs to look at” as he begins to form a potential administration.
Discussion:
Washington Post, Raw Story and New York Times
Washington Post:
‘Are you really going to impeach me?’: How the Ukraine bombshell unfolded over 48 hours and laid bare Trump's fixation with Biden — This article is adapted from “Trump on Trial” by Kevin Sullivan and Mary Jordan, which will be published Aug. 25 by Scribner.
Discussion:
Mediaite, The Moderate Voice, POLITICUSUSA and Political Wire
David Ignatius / Washington Post:
Hard evidence at last that shreds Trump's lies about a Russia ‘hoax’ — As Democrats accelerate their drive to defeat President Trump in November, they have a potent new weapon in a report by a Republican-led Senate committee that chronicles the “grave counterintelligence threat” …
Discussion:
Axios and The Moderate Voice
Ronald Inglehart / Foreign Affairs:
Giving Up on God … In the early years of the twenty-first century, religion seemed to be on the rise. The collapse of both communism and the Soviet Union had left an ideological vacuum that was being filled by Orthodox Christianity in Russia and other post-Soviet states.
Franklin Graham:
In watching some of the Democratic National Convention on television this week, it has been interesting to see the absence of God. I don't believe America's finest hours will be in front of us if we take God out of government and public life. It is God who set the standards we are to live by.