Expel Racist Republican Rep. Clay Higgins from Congress!

Sunday Dose of Democracy:

VIDEO OF THE DAY: Prosecutor on Trump facing new charges
Legal expert Glenn Kirschner sits down with Brian Tyler Cohen to discuss how Trump's secret phone calls to Putin could come back to haunt him.

Take Action: Remove Judge Aileen Cannon from the bench!

Why the press is mad that Kamala Harris went on "Call Her Daddy"
Dan Pfeiffer, The Message Box: "The media — and Politico Playbook in particular — are fuming over the Harris-Walz media strategy. However, Kamala Harris is adapting to the changing media environment and strategically targeting the voters they need. Firstly, Kamala is trying to drive the larger, frequently metastasizing online conversation that shapes political discourse. She must be on offense at all times — say new things, be edgy enough to get attention, and dictate the terms. If she cedes ground to her opponent, she must end on defense. This could cause her campaign to take on water or, best case scenario, tread water while missing opportunities to put points on the board. In this media world, there is a never-ending, insatiable appetite for content. Either serve lunch or become the menu. The second element of this battle is trying to reach the 5-10% of voters who are either undecided or could change their minds. Here’s my periodic reminder that contrary to most media narratives, the majority of undecided voters are not choosing between Trump and Harris; they are choosing between voting and the couch. These voters are notoriously hard to reach. They rarely engage with politics or news. Interviews on traditional platforms like CNN and MSNBC reach almost no persuadable voters. They are internal conversations among political junkies who made their decision years ago. This is reality; and too many in the Beltway media are unwilling to grasp it."

GOP wages all-out attack on reading and our libraries
All across the country, Republican extremists are on the warpath against our libraries and against reading, purging bookshelves of books about Black history or books that dare to acknowledge that LGBTQ people exist. Their crusade has resulted in efforts to shut down libraries entirely and threats of physical violence, lawsuits and criminal charges against librarians. We can’t stand by and allow them to get away with policing what our children read. Will you add your name to pledge your support for American libraries and our kids’ right to read?

A pair of billionaire preachers built the most powerful political machine in Texas. That’s just the start.
Nearly a year before the March elections, ads began to appear in Rogers’ district castigating him not simply as a RINO but as a closet liberal who supported gun control and Shariah law. (Rogers was especially peeved by an ad that photoshopped his signature white cowboy hat onto a headshot of Joe Biden.) Some of the attacks originated from his challenger’s campaign, while others were sponsored by organizations with grassroots-sounding names, like Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, Texas Gun Rights and Texas Family Project. By the time voters headed to the polls, they could have been forgiven for thinking that Rogers had disappointed a suite of conservative groups. In reality, Rogers had disappointed two men: Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks, billionaires who have made their fortunes in the oil industry. Over the past decade, the pair have built the most powerful political machine in Texas — a network of think tanks, media organizations, political action committees and nonprofits that work in lock step to purge the Legislature of Republicans whose votes they can’t rely on. Cycle after cycle, their relentless maneuvering has pushed the statehouse so far to the right that consultants like to joke that Karl Rove couldn’t win a local race these days. Brandon Darby, the editor of Breitbart Texas, is one of several conservatives who has compared Dunn and Wilks to Russian oligarchs. 'They go into other communities and unseat people unwilling to do their bidding,' he says. 'You kiss the ring or you’re out.'"

Ta-Nehisi Coates is bucking the media’s Palestine consensus
Branko Marcetic, Jacobin: "Three years ago, Peter Beinart wrote that anti-Palestinian bigotry was so prevalent in establishment discourse that it went by without notice, and that if it was ever actually named and talked about, almost everyone with power and influence in American society would be guilty of it. It’s like oxygen in the air, around us all the time but something we almost never notice. The past year of watching how media and politicians talk about the war in Gaza has proven this true. Explicit calls for violence and even literal genocide (“We should kill them all,” Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee said earlier this year) against Palestinians go by with no comment, let alone condemnation. People lose jobs for simply expressing basic humanity toward and solidarity with Palestinians. Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian pundits are profiled and interrogated before media appearances, if they’re even allowed on. Disgusting racism is aimed at a prominent Palestinian figure, and instead of getting sympathy and apologies, she is slandered and defamed. The sometimes deliberate murder of Palestinian journalists with American weapons has been met with a collective yawn from a US press that screamed bloody murder over Donald Trump suspending a CNN anchor’s press pass. No one has even thought about so much as passing a resolution condemning Islamophobia in Congress.We’ve also seen it in the mushrooming media furor over Ta-Nehisi Coates’s recent book and accompanying press tour, specifically his appearance on CBS Mornings last week."

Trump shocks with horrifying promise of violence
Kamala Harris for President: In a recent rambling and incoherent speech, Donald Trump threatened to institute a "Purge"-like day of state-sanctioned violence if he returned to the White House — and that’s just the latest appalling promise from a would-be fascist dictator who has vowed to impose mass deportations, jail his political opponents, cripple our economy, and end democracy as we know it. Dose of Democracy is working with the Kamala Harris campaign to raise money and build the grassroots get-out-the-vote machine that we’ll need to defeat Trump in November. Will you make a donation to help elect Kamala Harris and stop Donald Trump once and for all?