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- ‘Disappear the Democrat’ Backfires in Montana
The Democratic nominee for Montana’s open U.S. Senate seat, Alani Bankhead, has been telling everyone for months that there is no price anyone can pay to keep her name from appearing on the November ballot. “Why is it you are asking me a question I have been asked a thousand times?” she told me on Monday, when I tried to probe her commitment to the race. “There is nothing that is going to force me from the ticket unless God himself tells me to drop out.”The lack of divine intervention has challenged Democratic hopes for a big-sky Senate pickup. As it stands, Bankhead will likely split the state’s ever shrinking number of non-Republicans with an independent candidate, Seth Bodnar, who has raised more money and secured more support from senior party leaders who believe he will caucus with Democrats if he prevails. That all but ensures a win for the Republican candidate, Kurt Alme, which has set off a last-minute scramble to push Bankhead from the race before the August 10 deadline for locking the ballot. The state Democratic Party has been preparing for her to leave the race. A national Democratic polling firm, Global Strategy Group, circulated new polling yesterday arguing that she should drop out. And national Democrats have been calling her, seeking meetings. Bankhead told me that former Governor Steve Bullock, a Democrat who has not yet endorsed in the race, called her last week to ask if she would meet him for coffee. She said she did not respond. “It is a very strange process to be in this position where Alani feels more like the independent than the independent,” Jeri Bucy, her communications strategist, told me.Shannon O’Brien, the head of the state party, convened a meeting of its executive board last Thursday to discuss the possibility of leaving the Democratic line on the ballot empty if Bankhead does leave the race. State law says political parties “shall” appoint a replacement if the nominee bows out 85 or more days from an election. State Democratic party bylaws say that the party central committee “shall” call a meeting and “shall” vote on a replacement. The Montana secretary of state, a Republican, says the state party must follow those words and pick a replacement.But Jacquelyn Lopez, the general counsel for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, attended the meeting to argue that the party would likely win in court… [TheTopNews] Read More.3 weeks ago - Pete Buttigieg’s Case Against ‘Return to Normal’
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — When you fly into this summer destination, Up North in Michigan parlance, you arrive at the Cherry Capital Airport. Drive over to the shores of Grand Traverse Bay, and there's a flower bed designed to appear as three cherries hanging from a branch. And you want to take in a minor league baseball game? Well, you'll be going to see the "Pit Spitters" (the cherry logo is spitting out a baseball, not its own pit). So you'll be not at all surprised to learn that when I came to Traverse last week to chat with Pete Buttigieg for the latest episode of "On the Road," we indulged in the local delicacy. We hit the vaunted Moomers for some Cherries Moobilee — a decadent mix of cherries, chocolate and more cherries. It met the hype. That, of course, is the question hanging over Buttigieg himself: If he goes for a second Pete for President campaign — can he match the hype again? It is, Buttigieg suggested, not easy to capture lightning in a bottle twice. He'll never be a thirtysomething mayor who vaults from nowhere (no offense, Domers!) into contention. Experience, though, has its advantages. Running for president once and running a major federal agency, as he did at the Department of Transportation, has expanded his network, deepened friendships and opened his eyes to how politics works at the highest levels. That's part of his challenge, however. Buttigieg is a bit like a doctor able to diagnose himself. The last six years, combined with his native grasp and long study of the political game, present his obstacles in stark relief. One of those is whether his measured manner works in an era that rewards provocation. Buttigieg's bet seems to be that his dedication to a suite of structural reforms will elevate his candidacy — and that his party and the country crave two sorts of change. There's the substance he's promoting — expanding the Supreme Court, for example — but implicit is the break from bombast to a calm, articulate and multilingual Midwestern striver by way of Harvard and a Rhodes. It would be, to borrow the formulation of David Axelrod, one of Buttigieg's early mentors, the ultimate remedy-not-a-replica succession to Donald Trump. Whether that bet pays off is an open question — and one that shaped much of our conversation. We also discussed if he was… [TheTopNews] Read More.3 weeks ago - Domestic-Abuse Allegations in the Age of TrumpOnce upon a time, it was practically de minimis for either political party to disavow a candidate facing allegations of domestic violence. But now is not that time.Which might help to explain why as the divorce of young MAGA royalty— Ohio Representative Max Miller and Emily Moreno, daughter of Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno—has morphed from a deeply personal family tragedy into a highly public political spectacle, Republicans have been reluctant to say that an alleged domestic abuser (especially one facing allegations from two women) is probably a poor choice to represent their party this November.I am referring, of course, to Miller, who Emily Moreno has accused of scalding her with hot water, holding a gun to her head, and throwing her against a wall—all allegations he has denied. (She also suggested that because of his history of violence against her, she couldn’t rule out that he had fractured their daughter’s collarbone, which he also denies.) But this is now a party whose leader has been accused of sexual misconduct by more than two dozen women; a party whose president was found liable in a civil trial for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll; a party whose chief once palled around with Jeffrey Epstein, the notorious convicted sex offender. And so perhaps only in President Trump’s Republican Party does believing all women—or even some women, some of the time—become politically fraught.[Read: The grim aftermath of the E. Jean Carroll verdict]Bernie Moreno declared yesterday that Miller should not serve in the House of Representatives, writing on X that the past two years have been “pure hell” for his family. “Max Miller needs serious psychological help,” Moreno wrote. “He is a danger to my daughter, and I hold my breath every minute he has custody of my granddaughter.” He concluded by saying that he owed it to his wife, “to Emily, and to my granddaughter to speak the truth now.”Moreno’s statement came after Miller appeared on a roughly 20-minute live stream that morning, in which he refused to drop out of his House race and explained that he strived to comport himself with “dignity” for the sake of his daughter—all while proceeding to publicly impugn his daughter’s mother.Initially, Moreno found himself on a tiny island of Republicans who believe that an alleged domestic abuser is not fit to serve in Congress. When Trump was asked on Air Force One yesterday if… [TheTopNews] Read More.3 weeks ago
- This Senator Has a Very Midwestern Plan to Save the Democrats
“I think that the Democrats could use a little education about the middle of the country,” Elissa Slotkin said. It was November 2025, a year after the Democrats lost a presidential election to Donald Trump for the second time, leaving the party rudderless, leaderless and seemingly without a plan. Now, the senator from Michigan had a message for her party. In the Midwestern suburb of Overland Park, Kansas, she walked out on stage in front of a massive American flag and threw out some red meat to a crowd of nearly 500: “A little education that there is something between New York and California — and, actually, the Midwest has a lot to teach our party, right, if you’re a Democrat.” She cut every bit the figure of a presidential candidate but led with a patter that made her sound more like a stand-up comic. “They call it my stand-up schtick,” she told me earlier this spring in one of our many conversations over the last year. Over much of that year, Slotkin has been on something of a Midwestern safari, visiting out-of-the-way locales and mining their voters for insights. In Kansas, she ticked through a “quick litmus test on how I know I’m in the Midwest.” Some of those items were more banal: You people understand the art of the tailgate, right? It is totally fine if someone hands you a beer at 10 in the morning as long as it’s gameday. … You understand sports rivalries with neighbors. … How you feel about Missouri is how we feel times 10 about Ohio in Michigan. … You’re from the Midwest if you have shopped at Bass Pro or Tractor Supply.… The routine usually kills, but not always. In Indianapolis in June, when she was speaking to roughly 2,000 Hoosier Democrats, she improvised some new material about Michigan geography, and how Michiganders “point to the hand to show you where we’re from. I understand, Indiana, you also do such a — a little bit of a palm situation? Do I have that right?” The crowd murmured. She did not, indeed, have it right. “Oh, jeez,” she said. Then there was Pittsburgh, where she traveled last October. “I pulled into a parking lot to do a canvas kickoff in Pittsburgh with Josh Shapiro, and it was all Ford F-150s backed into their parking spaces,” she told me. “And I'm like, ‘You guys… [TheTopNews] Read More.3 weeks ago - Trump’s Literal Gilded Age
When you approach the freshly gilded twin statues near the Lincoln Memorial, there is no mistaking that they are gold. Very, very gold. Distractingly gold—or, more precisely, covered in 23.75-karat gold leaf costing $5.1 million. The 19-foot statues, called The Arts of War, were once easy to miss but now look a bit like oversized children’s trophies, especially next to the classical and austere Lincoln Memorial. Seeing them is as if, on the walk between Arlington National Cemetery and the National Mall, you’d suddenly stumbled upon a P. F. Chang’s.This is how President Trump is approaching his redecoration of Washington: glitzy and gaudy, even if out of place. He has already splashed gold all around the White House, but these statues are the most prominent symbols of Washington’s new gilded age. As the scaffolding around the statues came down this week, marking one of the few completions of a Trump-ordered renovation project, the president giddily posted photos on social media—and tourists, commuters, cyclists, and runners paused to take photos of their own of the capital’s latest can-you-believe-it attraction.Trump has worn his love of gold like a blinging billboard. Mar-a-Lago’s ballroom is inspired by Versailles, and he has proudly bragged of golden bathrooms, golden airplane-seatbelt buckles, and a gold-infused penthouse suite. The Oval Office now looks like a Middle Eastern bazaar crossed with an opulent Cracker Barrel. Thick, gold frames line the walls; gold vases and ice buckets adorn the fireplace mantle; gold stars form a circle on the ceiling; and gold appliqués fill any gaps. (Trump insists that these are real gold, and not painted flourishes from Home Depot.) Last year, he exempted gold bullion from his reciprocal tariffs, and he named his special visa program for wealthy foreigners the Trump Gold Card. He has taken his personally designed presidential challenge coin (which is golden) and glued it to the center of the Oval Office door, at about eye level. The coasters are gold, the curtains are gold, and guests know to come bearing gifts of gold. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt (left) and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles sit in the Oval Office on February 2. (Alex Wong / Getty) When FIFA President Gianni Infantino awarded Trump the first FIFA Peace Prize, it was a golden orb of a trophy. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook presented the president with a 24-karat-gold base to hold a glass… [TheTopNews] Read More.3 weeks ago - Anger Over Data Centers Is Fueling a New Political Movement
MEMPHIS, Tennessee — When Justin Pearson sits at his desk, he looks at a polluted orange sky. It’s the backdrop of a haunting painting that hangs opposite an American flag in his home office. In the foreground, a figure wears a gas mask while reading the Bible and sitting on a stack of books that include George Orwell’s 1984 and W.E.B. Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk. The painting tells the unseen story of this South Memphis neighborhood, with its windy roads dotted by modest, mostly one-story homes: Westwood is sandwiched between two of what have been Memphis’ biggest polluters, both of which are owned by the richest man in the world. A 10-minute drive to the northwest is Elon Musk’s Colossus 1 data center. A 15 minute drive to the southeast is Colossus 2 and the army of 69 methane gas turbines located just over the state line in Mississippi that currently power the supercomputing hub — most without any of the pollution controls typically required by federal rules. Multiple environmental groups who are now suing xAI have estimated that the machines could emit more than 2,500 tons of smog-forming pollution annually into an area that already leads Tennessee in rates of emergency room visitsfor asthma. Generative artificial intelligence wasn’t even widely publicly available back in 2021 when Pearson bought the painting. At the time, he was a community organizer hot off his first victory rallying locals against a crude oil pipeline that threatened to bisect Memphis’ underground drinking water source. The painting reminded him of what had been at stake in that fight, and how Black American history and the Good Book are balms for every struggle. Now a Democratic representative to the state legislature campaigning to represent Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District, Pearson says he fears the dystopian future of the painting “isn’t as far off as it seemed.” “AI is controlled by people,” Pearson tells POLITICO Magazine, sitting in his home office in July. “Data centers are built by people. And those people and how they exist and operate in the world are a threat to humanity.”XAI’s Memphis-area data centers are two of thousands that have been built across the country in just the past few years in support of the nation’s burgeoning artificial intelligence industry. Four of the nation’s biggest technology companies are projected to spend some $670 billion this year alone building more facilities.… [TheTopNews] Read More.3 weeks ago
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