politics

Trump has swerved military service five times - once by medical disqualification and then four more times for academic reasons

Donald Trump accepted a Purple Heart medal from a Vietnam War veteran, despite famously dodging military service himself.

The Republican presidential nominee has been branded “disrespectful” and “disgusting” for accepting the medal, given to him for his response to the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13.

...

Critics of Trump blasted the former president as "disrespectful" because the Purple Heart medal is given to service members who have greatly sacrificed themselves in war for the US military.

...

“This is such performative nonsense,” someone else said. “Someone needs to tell everyone there, especially Trump and Dwight, that’s not how it works. Only the US military can officially give someone a Purple Heart, and that person has to be in the military.”

🗳️ Register to vote: https://vote.gov/

Schiff’s remarks come days after President Joe Biden said he didn’t know whether the upcoming election would be “peaceful.”

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., on Sunday echoed President Joe Biden's remarks last week that the upcoming election would be "free and fair," but maybe not "peaceful."

"If it is close, if [former President] Donald Trump loses again, as I expect that he will, he will contest it," Schiff told moderator Kristen Welker on NBC News' "Meet the Press." "He has more reason to contest it than he did before, not because of any flaw in the election, but because Donald Trump believes, and perhaps with reason, that if he doesn't succeed at the ballot box, he may be going to jail. So he's going to challenge the results."

His comments follow remarks from Biden at the White House press briefing room on Friday, in which the president told reporters he was confident that the upcoming election "will be free and fair" but didn't know "whether it will be peaceful."

🗳️ Register to vote: https://vote.gov/

More than 1.4 million have already voted in the presidential election, as battleground state polls show no clear frontrunner

More than 1.4 million people have now voted in the presidential election, as Kamala Harris and Donald Trump continue to crisscross the country in the final stretch of a neck-and-neck campaign.

Their vice-presidential picks, JD Vance and Tim Walz, also faced off this week in the only vice-presidential debate of this cycle. But initial polls suggested voters saw the debate as a draw, without clear impact on the race.

Harris earned her highest national polling average since July, though the presidential race remains extremely close in battleground states, according to the Guardian’s poll tracker. Harris is leading in five of seven swing states, according to the Guardian’s average of high-quality state polls aggregated by the polling analysis platform 538 over the last 10 days. But overall, both candidates continue to have about even odds of winning.

🗳️ Register to vote! https://vote.gov/

Some non-political race rating have moved the race from solid R to likely R recently

Dems have started investing more in the race so that may change the direction further

Volunteer for Florida dems

Florida's voter registration deadline is on the earlier side in a few days on Monday. Make sure to register to vote! https://vote.gov/register

At least 13,395 people have been killed by law enforcement officers in the past 10 years nationally, according to one nonprofit that tracks data.

The organization Mapping Police Violence says that means about 7% of homicides between 2013 and last year can be attributed to law enforcement.

The first wave of states, with their deadlines tomorrow, are:

• Alaska
• Arizona
• Arkansas
• Florida
• Georgia
• Indiana
• Kentucky
• Louisiana
• Mississippi
• New Mexico
• Ohio
• Rhode Island
• South Carolina
• Tennessee
• Texas

Register here: https://www.vote.org/

Edit: Even if you already registered, check your registration. The bad people have been deleting anyone they can. Even if you're not in a swing state, vote. Find an activist group (check [email protected]) to join up with, in case something really bad happens. If you can, volunteer to help with the election.

Anything could happen this election.

Vote.

Toyota Motor Corp., will refocus DEI programs and halt sponsorship of LGBTQ events, citing “a highly politicized discussion” around corporate commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion.

The Japanese carmaker told employees it will also end participation in notable rankings by LGBTQ advocacy group the Human Rights Campaign and other corporate culture surveys. The company will “narrow our community activities to align with STEM education and workforce readiness,” it said in a memo Thursday to its 50,000 US employees and 1,500 dealers.

The note comes a week after anti-DEI activist Robby Starbuck started a social media campaign against the company, calling for customer boycotts because of its support for LGBTQ events and other initiatives. Toyota said at the time that the LGBTQ programs targeted were led by employee groups, not the company directly.

Tensions rose during a bipartisan forum this week after an audience question about discrimination reportedly led an Idaho state senator to angrily tell a Native American candidate to “go back where you came from.” 

Republican Sen. Dan Foreman left the event early after the outburst and later denied making any racist comments in a Facebook post. He did not respond to a voice message from The Associated Press seeking comment.

🗳️ Register to vote: https://vote.gov/

As the control of the Senate hangs in the balance, GOP candidates across the country are facing a similar problem: Troubling and bizarre past statements, both in-person and on social media, are coming back to haunt them. But in Minnesota, Royce White is an even more extreme case.

In a tweet from 2022 that has since resurfaced, White claims that “‘bad guys” won the second world war, saying, “The bad guys won in WWII. There were no ‘good guys’ in that war. The controlling interests had a jump ball. If you look closely, you see the link between liberalism and communism in the Allied forces.”

The Harris campaign is trying to transform women in battleground states into an organizing force who can drive their friends and family to the polls.