Yeah because that's how unimportant the world sees Australia's leaders, I guess.
"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
After careful, deliberate consideration of who is best suited to win this campaign with me and fulfill the duties of vice president, I’m pleased to share I’ve made my decision:
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz will join our campaign as my running mate.
Tim is a relentless advocate for working families and a battle-tested leader who has cut taxes for working families, protected fundamental rights, and passed paid family and medical leave.
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Choosing Tim to be my running mate was not a decision I made lightly -- it was important to me to select a candidate with governing experience and with a proven track record of getting things done on behalf of their constituents. I know he will bring as much joy to our campaign as he will fight and grit.
Doug, Tim, Tim’s wife Gwen, and I are going to hit the road this week to campaign across the country. Our goal is simple: to meet with voters, introduce them to our new ticket, and remind everyone of what’s at stake in this election.
It means the world to me, to Tim, and to our families to have you in our corner.
Thank you and take care,
Kamala
Kamala Harris
Vice President of the United States
Just 91 days away from the November election, Democratic U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday held a rally in Pennsylvania to introduce her running mate and "the kind of vice president America deserves," Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
While blasting the policies embraced by former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), Harris stressed to a cheering crowd that she and Walz are not just running against the Republicans, but "our campaign, this campaign is a fight for the future."
"Since the day that I announced my candidacy, I set out to find a partner who can help build this brighter future, a leader who will help unite our nation and move us forward, a fighter for the middle class, a patriot who believes as I do in the extraordinary promise of America—a promise of freedom, opportunity, and justice not just for some but for all," she said. "So Pennsylvania, I'm here today because I found such a leader."
Harris took time to introduce Walz to the national audience—he is a political leader most Americans aren't familiar with, according to polling released Tuesday. Before becoming governor, the 60-year-old Nebraska native served in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Army National Guard, and as a high school social studies teacher, football coach, and gay-straight alliance faculty adviser.
Walz met his wife Gwen when they were teaching at the same school. As Republican policymakers across the United States have attacked reproductive freedom—including in vitro fertilization (IVF)—he has shared how fertility treatments enabled them to have their children, Hope and Gus. In Philadelphia, he recalled their efforts to grow their family and told those who try to limit reproductive healthcare, "Mind your own damn business!"
The vice presidential candidate also took aim at Trump—who he said "sows chaos and division"—and his criminal history. The Republican nominee was recently convicted in New York and faces dozens of charges for three ongoing cases, two of which stem from Trump's refusal to accept his 2020 loss to Democratic President Joe Biden and another related to classified materials.
"Donald Trump would damn sure take us backward—let's be clear about that. And don't believe him when he plays dumb" on Project 2025, Walz warned, referring to a Heritage Foundation-led initiative that includes a sweeping policy agenda for the next right-wing president.
"His running mate shares his dangerous and backward agenda for this country," Walz said. The governor expressed his enthusiasm for debating Vance and called out the senator for "trashing" where he came from in his memoir Hillbilly Elegy.
"These guys are creepy and yes, just weird as hell," Walz said, leaning into a now-widely embraced descriptor. "That's what you see."
Governor Walz has been a steadfast partner to Minnesota’s working families. He walked a day in the shoes of home care workers and made record investments in public education, including unemployment benefits for bus drivers, food service workers, paraeducators and others who do essential work supporting students. He paved the way for record contracts between his administration and health care workers, raising wages to as much as $22.50 an hour. Governor Walz has championed guaranteed family and medical leave for workers and middle-class tax breaks for Minnesotans. He supported janitors and nursing home workers l when they were on strike in March, and we were proud to see him join UAW workers on the picket line during last year’s strikes.
With Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, we have a team of proven fighters for women, fierce defenders of abortion rights, and accomplished leaders with a record of delivering for the people.
Tim Walz has a record of championing women, economic justice, racial justice, ending violence against women – and an equality agenda that’s long overdue.
The more voters hear about Tim Walz’s record and personal story, the more they will see the contrast between him and J.D. Vance.
With former President Donald Trump and Senator J.D. Vance, we have dangerous policies built on the radical Project 2025 agenda, designed to deliver mainly for themselves, and a campaign based on racist personal attacks and blatant hostility towards women.
Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are weird, dangerous, and out of control. Tim Walz, like Kamala Harris, will be ready on day one to lead.”
“The country’s educators and students have always been able to count on Vice President Kamala Harris. She has delivered once again for students, educators, and working families with the exceptional choice of Governor Tim Walz as her running mate.
“Gov. Walz is known as the “Education Governor” because he has been an unwavering champion for public school students and educators, and an ally for working families and unions. As a high school teacher and NEA member Walz is committed to uplifting our public schools. He has a track record of getting things done to make people’s lives better. Walz successfully passed legislation providing free school meals to every Minnesota student, ensuring no child will have to learn on an empty stomach. He increased education spending by billions of dollars, raised teacher pay, enacted paid family and medical leave for all families, provided unemployment insurance to hourly school workers, and expanded the collective bargaining rights of Minnesotans. We know he will be a valued partner to both Vice President Harris as well as educators and parents, advocating every day, so our students have the resources they need to succeed.
“Educators are fired up and united to get out and elect the Harris-Walz ticket. We know we can count on a continued and real partnership to expand access to free school meals for students, invest in student mental health, ensure no educator has to carry the weight of crushing student debt, and do everything possible to keep our communities and schools safe.
"There is so much at stake in this election for our students and our country. Donald Trump is a convicted felon who only cares about himself. This is the same man who entrusted Betsy DeVos, the least qualified secretary of education in history, to attempt to dismantle our public schools. Trump’s extreme, unprecedented Project 2025 agenda would fundamentally alter the American government and jeopardize our children’s futures and give Trump unprecedented power over our daily lives. He wants to ban books, take learning opportunities away from students, make educators pay more in taxes than billionaires, and eliminate the U.S. Department of Education. Simply put, Donald Trump and JD Vance would be disastrous for the future of our country.
“The choice in this election couldn’t be more clear. The 3-million members of the NEA will show their power by turning out, volunteering and making their voices heard because we know that electing Kamala Harris and Tim Walz is the only way we can take America forward."“From his many years of service in Congress to his time as governor of Minnesota, Gov. Walz has fought for working families every step of the way. A former union educator, he’s enacted some of the most significant pro-worker reforms in our nation’s history.
“Gov. Walz has given more workers access to paid sick and family leave; he has made major strides in protecting workers’ health and safety on the job; he has improved standards for patients and workers at Minnesota’s nursing homes; he has strengthened union organizing and collective bargaining rights; he has expanded unemployment benefits and taken steps to protect workers from wage theft and other abuses.
“In addition, Gov. Walz understands the importance of mining and manufacturing to the economy of Minnesota and to the future of this country, and he will never stop fighting for workers across all industries.
“American workers deserve leaders who fight for them every day. For four years, we’ve been fortunate to have seen exactly that kind of leadership from President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. We have no doubt Tim Walz will continue that work to move our nation forward.”
“The labor movement stands united behind the Harris–Walz ticket, and we are ready to help lead the effort to defeat Donald Trump, JD Vance, and their anti-worker Project 2025 agenda in November.”
Two rights groups on Tuesday celebrated Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris' choice of running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, calling it the most pro-reproductive freedom ticket in history, while two other groups called on Democratic leaders to act boldly to establish new federal abortion protections.
Both Planned Parenthood Action Fund (PPAF) and Reproductive Freedom for All (RFA) applauded Walz's pro-choice record and called him a "champion" of reproductive rights.
The ACLU and Physicians for Reproductive Health (PRH) called for bolder action to secure abortion rights, with the ACLU pushing for a number of federal reforms, and PRH urging more fundamental protections for abortion and gender-affirming care that go beyond the standards once set by Roe v. Wade.
"Unfortunately, Roe v. Wade was never enough to ensure our communities obtained the care they needed," Dr. Jamila Perritt, PRH's president, said in a statement. "It was, in fact, barely a starting point."
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. We have this late, breaking news. CNN is reporting that Kamala Harris has selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to be her running mate.
We go right now to John Nichols, The Nation magazine’s national affairs correspondent, to respond to this breaking news and who Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is, the significance. It looked like it was down to him and the governor of Pennsylvania, Shapiro.
JOHN NICHOLS: Tim Walz is a longtime schoolteacher and a guy who was born in Nebraska, moved up to Minnesota, worked for many, many years as a teacher and a coach, served in the National Guard, and then, in 2006, decided to run for Congress. He got elected in a, actually, quite rural and Republican-leaning district. And he’s been in politics since then.
The thing to know about Walz, first and foremost, is he is the current governor of Minnesota and often seen as one of the two or three, perhaps the most progressive governor in the country. And so, with Kamala Harris choosing Tim Walz, she has recognized the need to have a progressive from the Midwest on her ticket. It’s a significant development and one that I think will be cheered on — and, in fact, is being cheered on in this immediate moment — by a lot of folks in labor, a lot of folks in economic and social and racial justice movements, because Walz has been quite a good friend to them.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about the candidates and what you think actually took place. There was Mark Kelly, the Arizona senator, the husband of Gabby Giffords, who was shot in the head in an assassination attempt in Tucson. He is an astronaut. He’s a Navy pilot. And also talk about Shapiro, the Pennsylvania governor, because part of the choice here — right, John? — part of the significance of this development is, as you have talked about, the campaigns that were run and what Kamala Harris was looking for, which says a lot about, if she were president, how she would govern.
JOHN NICHOLS: It sure does. I think that’s a really good place to focus on this. Kamala Harris has been on kind of a whirlwind over the last six weeks, since Joe Biden’s very difficult debate performance on June 27th. And it’s only been a couple of weeks since she’s been the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. In a moment like that, you can go one of two ways. You can say, “Boy, everything’s so chaotic. I’ve got to lock in on something immediately and, you know, pick a candidate to run with me, and just tell everybody to get used to it.” Or you can — I think the much more confident route — say, “Look, we’ve got a little bit of time. Let’s open this up enough to hear the people who would like to have this role, and let them, effectively, conduct a virtual campaign.” That’s what she did.
And at the start of it, if you’ll go back, there were six or seven people on the list, mostly governors, maybe even some other folks who weren’t governors, obviously, Kelly from Arizona. And then, slowly but surely, the candidates kind of came forward. They understood the, if you will, dance that they were involved in. And so, they went on cable TV. They made appearances around the country. Some of them really campaigned aggressively, like Andy Beshear out of Kentucky, who went around the country and made appearances. Others were much more subtle, like Senator Kelly. But at the end of the day, everybody communicated what they wanted. They wanted to be in this position as the running mate.
And the interesting thing about Tim Walz was that he chose a route of doing a lot of cable and, frankly, going into the campaign mode — right? — almost acting as if he was the running mate already, going after Trump, going after Vance, in very effective ways in appearances. And I think that’s what we come down to here. The other candidates did it. Shapiro did it, unquestionably; Kelly, to some extent; and others. But Walz seemed to come through most effectively. And the thing that he did very early on was identify the Republicans — Trump and Vance and those folks — as “weird.” And the word took off. It actually got a resonance of its own. It wasn’t Walz necessarily who was the first to use it, but he became very identified with that, that sort of Midwestern kind of reaction to the Republicans, being aghast at them.
Now, I think that goes to the heart of your question, too, because you asked about the other candidates. Shapiro is a very effective speaker and somebody who’s very closely associated with Barack Obama. He also is from Pennsylvania. He is from an eastern state. Obviously, Kelly is from a western state. Harris herself is from California. And so, there’s this question, I think, that developed early on: Was Harris going to look at somebody who was from the middle of the country — right? — from where a lot of the battleground states are? Now, Pennsylvania is clearly a battleground state, but so, too, are Michigan, Wisconsin, to some extent, Minnesota, and a host of other states. And I think Walz communicated that he could be that candidate, that he could be very effective in that regard.
And then, the last stage of this campaign, if we look at it as such, was the point at which people started to step up and raise questions about individual candidates. There were questions about Kelly, the senator from Arizona, particularly regards labor, because he had not supported the PRO Act, which is an effort to make it easier to organize, and his failure to support that was noticed by a lot of people in labor and, frankly, progressive groupings. With Shapiro, there were a lot of things that came up, one of which was his very aggressive stance as regards student protests against U.S. policy on Gaza, and a lot of people that thought that he went to a more aggressive position of criticism than some other folks. But another thing that came up that was really strong was —
AMY GOODMAN: Comparing the Palestinian — pro-Palestinian protesters or the peace protesters to the KKK at one point.
JOHN NICHOLS: Yes. And that — I think that was not only off message, but also something that was noticed. People spoke about that and with great concern. But that wasn’t the only thing. There was also concern about the fact that Shapiro has been a supporter of or sympathetic to vouchers in education, and that’s a big-deal issue across a lot of these battleground states. And then there were a host of other concerns that came up.
And so, what ultimately happened, Amy, was that you had the candidates making their positive message — right? — their positive point for why they should be in, and then also some effort to point out what might be the liabilities, what might be the challenges, if you nominated one of these candidates. And at the end of the day, I think what happened was that Walz was very, very effective in his positive message, and very few people came forward and said, “Oh yeah, but he’s a bad guy in this, so there’s this thing we don’t like about him.”
And I think one of the really fascinating things was the extent to which people who had not been Walz backers early on came to him. And it was fascinating. I had people who had been very ardent backers of Kelly, that thought having a former astronaut on the ticket was a great thing; people who had been very ardent backers of Andy Beshear because Beshear had a very strong labor record; people who had been backers of Shapiro because he came from a very important swing state, Pennsylvania. And over time, especially in the last few days, you started to hear them saying, “You know, I really like this Tim Walz guy. I saw a video of him. I saw an old thing he did where he signed universal free lunch and breakfast for kids, all these different things.”
And I think, to be very frank about it, at the end of the day, Kamala Harris saw that, as well, and over this period of time, she came to a conclusion that this was somebody she could run with, and also somebody who could contribute significantly to this campaign, because Walz has a very understated Midwestern style, and yet, at the end of the day, he has delivered some of the most devastating critiques of the Republicans and of Trump and of Vance.
And so, I think we saw a remarkable process take place over the last few weeks, and it has ended up with a ticket that was unexpected at the beginning, but very probably the strongest ticket that could have come out of this.
AMY GOODMAN: John, what isn’t talked about so much, if Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Vice President Kamala Harris become president and vice president, then the lieutenant governor of Minnesota, Peggy Flanagan, becomes governor, Minnesota’s 50th lieutenant governor, member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, currently the country’s highest-ranking Native woman elected to executive office. If you can talk about the significance of this?
JOHN NICHOLS: Well, you know, this became a big issue in considering all of the different possible contenders, because many of them were governors, and many of them had lieutenant governors. And one of the interesting things about the United States is that at this point the Democratic lieutenant governors across the country are one of the most impressive groups politically. They’re multiracial, multiethnic, many women, coming from all sorts of diverse and exciting backgrounds, frankly, people who really are kind of opening up a different politics. And so, there was a lot of talk about, you know, if somebody gets picked, then their lieutenant governor comes up.
Peggy Flanagan, out of Minnesota, has been a longtime active person in Minnesota. She’s been in politics. She was chosen to be the lieutenant governor candidate when Walz came up, because she was somebody who had risen to the statewide level and had a lot of support and interest in her politically. She is someone who comes from a background, an Indigenous background in Minnesota, and that’s a big deal, because Minnesota has a large number of Native peoples, as do many of the other battleground states. And so, Flanagan coming up is an interesting and exciting part of this development.
And here’s what’s really significant about it. She has been a real partner to Walz. They have been — they’ve worked very closely together. And so, her coming into the governorship at a point where Minnesota has a Legislature that is generally supportive of what the Democrats are doing, a Democratic Legislature, she’s going to herself be a high-profile governor very, very quickly, if indeed Walz becomes the vice president. And for Flanagan, I think — I’ve watched her, I’ve covered her over the years — she’s ready for this.
And so, we see this fascinating situation where so many things have happened, right? Joe Biden has stood down. Kamala Harris has stood up. Kamala Harris has selected Tim Walz. If Harris and Walz win, then Flanagan will become the governor of Minnesota, becoming one of the — becoming the first Native person to be governor of a state, also a woman, another woman leading a state, with a progressive Legislature. And so, when you put this whole scenario together, you realize that American politics is changing rapidly, and it’s happening in real time. And it all comes back to this amazing 2024 election cycle, which seemed just a few weeks ago to be so narrowly defined, right? It was going to be Biden versus Trump, and an awful lot of people were very disappointed by it. Now suddenly it’s opening up all over the place. Not only do we have a different ticket coming forward for the Democrats, you also have developments out in the states that are very significant, and Flanagan’s movement to the governorship is indeed very significant.
AMY GOODMAN: We will do, certainly, much more on this. There will be a big rally today. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s coverage. By the way, Democracy Now! will be broadcasting from the Democratic convention in Chicago, August 19th to 23rd. We will be expanding to two hours daily broadcast, as we did covering the Republican National Convention. You can tune in then and tell your friends and stations they can air Democracy Now!, the special expanded “War, Peace and the Presidency.” That does it for our show. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González, for another edition of Democracy Now!, grassroots, global news hour.
For the first time in recent years, a majority of Americans oppose sending U.S. troops to defend Israel if it comes under attack by its neighbors, according to a nationwide poll released Tuesday.
The survey by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found that 55 percent of Americans opposed sending U.S. troops to defend Israel if its neighbors attacked it, while 41 percent supported doing so. Republicans were more supportive of such a move, with 55 percent of them saying they favored sending troops, while 35 percent of Democrats and independents said the same.
The poll was conducted online from June 21 through July 1, before Haniyeh’s assassination and the subsequent Iranian threat, among a national sample of 1,056 American adults with an error margin of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points. The sample was drawn through Ipsos’s KnowledgePanel, an ongoing survey panel recruited through random sampling of U.S. households.
Gaza remains under assault. Day 306 of the assault in the wave that began in October. Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction. But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence." CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund." ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them." NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza." The slaughter continues. It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service. Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide." The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher. United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse." THE NATIONAL notes, "Gaza death toll rises to 39,677 with 91,645 wounded." Months ago, AP noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home." February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:
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Stupid and crooked Andy Ogles7 hours ago
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A winning ticket7 hours ago
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