Author: Reporter

Passing the baton: What comes next now that Joe Biden has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris

With President Joe Biden ending his reelection bid and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris, Democrats now must navigate a shift that is unprecedented this late in an election year. Democrats are set to hold their convention in Chicago on August 19 to 22. What was supposed to be a coronation for Biden now becomes an open contest in which nearly 4,700 delegates will be responsible for picking a new standard-bearer to challenge Republican Donald Trump in the fall. The path ahead is neither easy nor obvious, even with Biden endorsing Harris. There are unanswered questions about logistics, money, and...

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Joe Biden’s Legacy: Unprecedented accomplishments that never translated into political support

Sitting in the Oval Office behind the iconic Resolute desk in 2022, an animated President Joe Biden described the challenge of leading a psychologically traumatized nation. The United States had endured a life-altering pandemic. There was a jarring burst of inflation and now global conflict with Russia invading Ukraine, as well as the persistent threat to democracy he felt Donald Trump posed. How could President Biden possibly heal that collective trauma? “Be confident,” he said emphatically in an interview with The Associated Press. “Be confident. Because I am confident.” But in the ensuing two years, the confidence President Biden...

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One screen, two movies: Trump rally shooting triggers conflicting online conspiracy theories

A former president is wounded in a shooting, the gunman is quickly neutralized, and all of it is caught on camera. But for those who do not believe their eyes, that is just the start of the story. For some supporters of the convicted felon Donald Trump, the failure of the Secret Service to prevent the attempted assassination of the Republican former president points to a conspiracy orchestrated by Democratic President Joe Biden. For some of Trump’s critics, however, the details of the shooting do not add up. They wonder if Trump staged the whole thing. Two dueling conspiracy...

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FACT CHECK: Dispelling the false claims and conspiracy theories around the shooting of Trump

The assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, who is running for reelection, has fueled a range of false claims and conspiracy theories. Authorities continue to seek information about the 20-year-old shooter’s background and motive, how he obtained the AR-style rifle he fired at Trump, and security at the venue that failed to stop the shooting. Here is a look at the facts. Online posts falsely claim sharpshooter was told not to fire on suspect in Trump shooting CLAIM: A law enforcement sniper assigned to Trump’s rally on July 16 in Butler, Pennsylvania, said the head of the Secret...

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A tale of two Trumps: Bloated RNC acceptance speech pivoted so hard it gave America whiplash

From a media perspective, Donald Trump failed to stick the landing at the Republican convention that nominated him as its presidential candidate for a third time. His July 18 acceptance speech, which exceeded 90 minutes and stretched past midnight Eastern time into July 19, won him wide praise for its vivid recounting of his recent experience with gun violence yet switched gears into something resembling what most of his supporters see regularly on the campaign trail. “The ‘new’ Donald Trump soothed and silenced the nation for 28 minutes,” Axios’ Zachary Basu wrote on July 19. “Then the old Trump...

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A Red Hat circus: What to expect as Republicans gather in Milwaukee to nominate Trump again

For all the usual stagecraft, the Republican National Convention that opens on July 15 is different from Donald Trump’s previous nominating affairs. In 2016 and 2020, Trump’s criminal activities had yet to bring multiple felony convictions. He was the underdog heading into fall and faced criticism from within his own party. Among the list of egregious acts was causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans from his greedy mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, in addition to being an adjudicated rapist, Trump will accept the Republican nomination with his party in lockstep behind him and Democrats...

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